Tag: jesus

And it happens to be International Women’s Day …

TonyLeave a comment

In the congregation where I celebrated the Eucharist and preached this morning were two distinguished public figures and writers whom I didn’t know by sight. And whom I won’t name, for security reasons. On leaving they thanked me for my ‘brilliant’ sermon. When the churchwarden told me who they were…! That may not have been the, but it was certainly one of the high points of my ministry.

And here’s the sermon:

Living Water


We tend to take water for granted, don’t we? (In spite of the present state of Thames Water.) We turn on the tap, and water flows freely. We don’t expect to have to walk down to the end of town and fill buckets at a well, to carry home water to drink or cook with, or wash. And yet in Jesus’ time, that was the way it was done. Water — an essential of life, and a refreshment and pleasure not only to people living in arid climates — was a hard-won thing, something to be treasured and not taken for granted.

We heard in John 4.5-26 how Jesus passed through Samaria on his way from Galilee to Judaea. Samaria was roughly the area of what had been the ancient northern kingdom of Israel. It was conquered by Assyria in the 8th century B.C., and its people taken into exile. The King of Assyria then brought people from Babylon to resettle the land, and subsequently sent one of the priests who had been taken into exile, to teach these settlers the ways of the God of Israel. (Improbable? But you can read about it in 2 Kings 17.) So by the time of Jesus, the Samaritans were a mixed race (Israelite, Babylon etc), not pure-blood Jews, holding to a form of Judaism, mostly only the Torah, and of course not the ‘proper, orthodox’ Judaism of the Jerusalem Temple and authorities.

So in this setting, Jesus sat down beside Jacob’s well at noon and met this woman. It’s a great story, and one we’re so familiar with that we forget just how strange and transgressive were the things it describes. Jesus, a devout Jew, talking to a woman, a foreigner, a heretic, who furthermore had a probably disreputable personal history. This is the kind of thing, John is telling us, that the incarnate Son of God does.

And it’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t begin by denouncing the woman, or preaching to her, or telling her he’s going to save her. He asks her to do something for him, to give him something. Putting her in a position of equality or even superiority. And that allows her to be curious (Why is he, a Jew, talking to a woman, a Samaritan?) It begins the kind of conversation which happens quite often in John, where people at first don’t understand what Jesus is saying, or seem to be talking at cross purposes, until Jesus finally explains it to them and helps them to understand what he means, what he is offering, who he is.
“If you knew the gift that God is able to give, and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” And when this arouses her interest and she asks how it’s possible: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” Again: how can this be? But it has certainly got the woman interested: if she could have water like that, it would save her this daily, several-times-daily, labour of fetching water from the well.

But then it’s as if Jesus goes off at a tangent, asking her to go and bring her husband. Well, we know that’s a sore point for her, and apparently Jesus knows all about it too (how?). So she changes the subject: to religion. For religion to seem like a ‘safe’ subject, the issue of her marriage must have been a very sore point. But, Let’s talk about the differences between what we Samaritans and you Jews believe. About where and how to worship God. Here is where Jesus becomes quite dogmatic. He tells her that the Samaritans don’t know what they’re worshiping, but the Jews do, because salvation is from the Jews. They worship God in spirit and in truth, and that’s how all people must worship God.

This woman is quite a feisty character, I think she’s actually pushing back at Jesus’ telling her the Samaritans don’t know what they’re worshiping, when she says I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). You see, we do believe in a coming Messiah and Saviour, just as you Jews do. And this gives Jesus the opportunity for the self-revelation that makes all the difference. Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you.

The I AM sayings are one of the characteristic, key points of John’s Gospel: Bread of Life, Light of the World, Good Shepherd, Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And I AM is the Name of God, revealed to Moses at the burning bush, when he asked God what is your name? And God replied I AM who I AM.

When Jesus says I am he, the one who is speaking to you, it’s a claim, in effect, that he himself is God in bodily human form, yes, standing there talking to her. And offering her, as he is uniquely able to, this gift of the water of life, living water, gushing up to eternal life

We are bound to connect this with what we read later in John’s Gospel, when Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, and on the last day of the feast he stood up and cried out (this is John’s way of saying listen up, this saying is really important, it’s meant for everyone’s ears): “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” And John adds: Now he said this about the Spirit which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The ‘living water’ that Jesus promises is the Holy Spirit: God’s life, God’s very being, within everyone who believes. How could we imagine, or wish for, any greater thing? For this is not a promise of a few drops, but it speaks of God’s superabundant generosity: rivers of living water, gushing up to eternal life.

Lent is a time for reflecting on our spiritual health, seeking to know God better and deepen our relationship with God. What better way to do this, than to be sure we are asking for all the abundance that God desires to give us, receiving it with thankful hearts, and living in that abundance day by day?

Here we are, Lord Jesus. We come to you, we believe. Give us, we pray, that living water of the Holy Spirit which is your gift to your people. We receive it with joy, and thanks be to you, God, for your inexpressible gift!

Seeking a more biblical Church

TonyLeave a comment

When I was on retreat at Mucknell Abbey at the beginning of December, Fr Stuart Burns recommended a book I hadn’t heard of before: David F. Ford’s The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary. It promises to be an excellent read, touching on many of the themes I now realise I need to pursue about John’s Gospel. Ford urges that the Church and the world need a new ‘Johannine Renaissance’, rediscovering, or more deeply discovering, Who Jesus is, and Why Jesus Now? 

Among so many passages I want to reflect on and remember, today I made a note of this:

“The Psalms are the part of the Bible that probably is most fully part of Christian (and Jewish) personal and community prayer and worship, most committed to memory, most set to music, most important in shaping the imagination. They take up into poetry and worship leading themes of Israel’s Scriptures and the main elements of its faith and practice — creation, patriarchs, the exodus, the law, prophecy, wisdom. Both Jesus and John were, clearly, steeped in the psalms, and continually reading the psalms in conversation with the Gospels deepens understanding and nourishes fuller faith, further following, and richer worship.”

Yes! And I wonder, then, why the Psalms are so routinely omitted from much (I’m tempted to say, most) of contemporary worship? Dare I say, especially in ‘Evangelical’ churches? In the days when I used to think it was the Evangelical wing of the Church that I felt most at home in, I firmly believed it was the Bible, and its authority, which were the features that attracted me. Since that time I’ve come to believe that, in fact, the major weakness of ‘Evangelical’ churches is that they are so unbiblical. Instead of proclaiming what the Bible says, they are more likely to proclaim what the preacher, or their favourite church leader, says the Bible says. They’ll hammer home the parts that say what they want the Bible to say, while ignoring the parts of the Bible which contradict their favourite message. 

David Ford’s commentary is honest about the apparent contradictions and different viewpoints, for example in the ways the Bible has often been used to preach a ‘supersessionist’ message, and contempt for Judaism. The remedy is to stay with that question of Who Jesus is, until we fully understand what it means that Jesus shows us, and leads us into relationship with, a God who is for all people, and for all creation.

Man of the Borderlands

TonyLeave a comment

One of the things I do remember about that St Albans diocesan clergy conference in 1971, was one of the small discussion groups I was part of. One of the chapters in the book of preparatory reading, included the thought that, in order to engage with contemporary culture, Christians would need to be ‘people of the borderlands’, as Jesus was. Bridging the gap between people who were usually considered to be ‘in’, and those who were considered to be ‘out’.

I was taken with this idea. So much so that in between sessions I was inspired to write a poem about it. Not only that, but also to share that poem in the small group session. (I now think that was a bit bold, maybe presumptuous, for a brand new curate. But maybe I was too young to know better.) The poem:

God’s Debatable Lands

We all are people who fight shy of borders:
we want to life safe, deep in black, or white;
are creatures of light or darkness, fearing twilight.
Look how we build up fences against marauders,
miles, miles of wire that shout mankind’s disorders
in empty lands. There Love cannot alight —
it is a frightened bird flung into flight,
a beaten madman cringing from his warders.

Loving our brittle refuge better than God,
we shun his country, the Debatable Lands.
— But then, by brambly ways we never trod
there comes to us, with broken, bleeding hands
which hold out risk, and healing — not a rod —
our Jesus, Christ, the Man of the Borderlands.

You’ll notice, maybe, that it’s a sonnet. Malcolm Guite writes more of them. And better.

Christmas – And whose Church is it, anyway?

TonyLeave a comment
Christmas crib at St Nicholas, Marston

It’s that time of year again. When all the working clergy (God bless ’em. Who’d want to be one of them, just now1 ?) are planning for the annual influx of Christmas worshippers, and trying to think of different events and services to draw them in. Here’s my advice, guys: don’t bother with all those wizard wheezes for new and innovative and ‘relevant’ services. People will come anyway. They prefer the traditional, the tried and trusted, the things they remember and are used to from the last time they came, and the time before that, and every time they’ve ever come at Christmas. Listen, that’s what they come for.

It’s because Christmas is magic, miraculous. Even for the rest-of-the-year-round practical atheist or convinced agnostic, there is something about Christmas, the traditional so-familiar readings and hymns, that draws them again and again. And for some reason they tolerate all the extra stuff that the working clergy (God bless ’em) try to include in the services. Sermons (ugh) that are clearly meant to convert them into ‘real Christians’ who will come during the rest of the year. Activities. Film clips on the big screen. Sharing their thoughts with the people sitting round them.

It’s almost as if the clergy who plan such events don’t trust God, or the tradition. Trust them, brothers and sisters! The familiar readings really are the Word of God – so let them do their work. The traditional carols were written by people who were steeped in that Word: that’s why they work so powerfully. Let them do their work too: they don’t need endless commentary, and contemporary references laid on with a trowel.

Most important of all, please please please don’t refer to the extra worshippers who come at Christmas as ‘visitors’ or ‘guests’. If they are parishioners, it is their church. Calling them visitors or guests is already telling them they don’t belong; and I reckon part of the message of Christmas is that this is for everyone; that in God’s eyes, everyone belongs; that the angels at Bethlehem announced ‘good tidings, of great joy, which shall be to all people’. In the same way, don’t thank them for coming. They’re not doing you a favour, and that’s not what they came for. They came, for whatever mysterious, miraculous reasons, to meet with God. And they will meet with God, as long as there isn’t too much of you getting in their way.

And who knows? If you don’t stand in the way of other people in the Christmas services, maybe God will meet with you there, too. I’m certainly praying just that for all worship planners and leaders, and for all those who come to worship with you, this Christmas. In their church.

  1. Actually, it’s one of the best vocations in the whole world. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. But I’m still happy to be out of it, and no longer to have the responsibility and all the pressures and demands laid on the working clergy. God bless ’em. ↩︎

Coming ‘Home’

TonyLeave a comment

So, I’ve been away. For quite a time – it’s coming up towards two years since my last post. The truth is, I’ve been on a Journey. A Pilgrimage, maybe, towards some holy destination. Or a Quest, to seek and find my True Self.

In my last post, I wrote about a part of that spiritual journey I had been on since retiring back in 2016. It’s a mistake to suppose that, if you’ve been a Christian for 45 years and a vicar for 37 of them, you have somehow ‘arrived’. At certainty, or a place where you no longer have any progress to make, or something. Pretty much the opposite of the case. I’m sure I’m not the only retired vicar who finds themselves

a) relieved beyond measure that they’re no longer responsible for running a parish, filling in all the returns required by the Bureaucracy, keeping up to date with the law regarding marriages, burials and what have you

b) but also, asking themselves, What was that all about? I know it’s impossible for people in many professions to measure how successful they’ve been, but: Did I actually achieve anything? Was it worth all the hard work and soul-searching? Do I really believe all the things I used to preach to others, or at least, thought I ought to preach? Was it all even true?

So yes: some time around the start of the Pandemic, I had been disturbed by reports of growing antisemitism in many European countries, including the UK. I started reading about the history of antisemitism, and especially the role of the Church, and many of its most famous preachers and theologians (St John Chrysostom, Martin Luther, et al.) in promoting and institutionalizing this hatred of Jews and Judaism. Soon I was wanting to learn about what it was that they hated: Did I even know very much about Judaism.

To cut a long story short, I fell in love with the faith I was reading about. The contribution that Judaism and its adherents have made to the world is beyond reckoning, far greater than you would expect from a people who number probably less than 0.25% of the world’s population. I thought that Christianity grew out of, or at least alongside, the Rabbinic Judaism we know nowadays. Yet I found that many of the articles of Christian faith which I found most difficult and unpalatable were simply not there in Judaism. Like Original Sin. The need for blood sacrifice to turn away God’s anger so that He will not punish us for our sins. The need for people to ‘believe in and accept Jesus Christ’ in order to be ‘saved’. Because God incomprehensibly chose to create a human race of which the vast majority are destined for everlasting punishment if they don’t believe the right things about Him. The dualism of ‘Spirit Good, Matter Bad’. The Patriarchy and suppression of women’s voices and contribution.

You could say (as I did), “I don’t like Christianity very much.”

As well as reading a lot about Judaism, I also started using Jewish prayers for my daily prayer. And I loved them! There’s so much less of the whinging and grovelling that Christian prayers sometimes feel like, trying to curry favour from a mean and ungenerous Deity. The standard mode of Jewish prayer is Thanksgiving, in the form of blessing God 100 (or more) times a day. Blessing God for everything. The prayers frequently take the form of

  • Blessing and praising God because He does X
  • Asking God to do X
  • Thanking God for doing X.

For a time, I even contemplated converting to Judaism. I spoke to a rabbi about it, and she said “You can’t.” (I think that, like the Benedictines, they deliberately don’t consider wannabe converts until the fifth time of asking, because it takes five attempts to prove they are serious.)

The great thing about that episode of ‘not liking Christianity very much’ was that I never stopped believing in God. In fact, I came to believe in and love God even more, as I learned to thank God more and more, in and for all things. And came to suspect that He often doesn’t like Christianity very much at the moment. And I’m immensely grateful for this time of wilderness wandering, when I was not entirely sure about who I was, or where, or where I was meant to be and meant to be heading.

And then, Someone apparently decided it was time for me to come ‘Home’, or at least somewhere approximating to it. Alison wanted to go to a week’s conference at Lee Abbey – a place that’s hard to get to without a car. So my services as chauffeur were required. I hadn’t been to Lee Abbey for years, and was glad for the incentive to go again. So we both went to a conference entitled ‘The Call of the Wild: The Feel of the Holy’, on the themes of Pilgrimage, holy journeys and places, and the Celtic Christian tradition, led by Michael Mitton and Russ Parker. They are great friends and a great team; their talks are much more like witnessing a dialogue between two men who know each other well, have abundant wisdom, and above all enjoy each others’ company and their subject.

I found the ‘worship’ hard going. There were lots of ‘worship songs’ which as far as I’m concerned were anything but. But the talks, the walks around the Lee Abbey grounds, and the opportunities to talk and pray together at the seashore, among the trees, and on the hilltops, were times of real blessing. Russ recommended to me a book on theories of the Atonement, which for all that it was weighty, was very readable and helpful. By Fleming Rutledge, it’s called The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ.

I thought I’d give Christianity, especially of the Celtic variety, another chance. This was how, about six weeks later, I found myself driving Alison to Swanwick for the Annual Gathering of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, which is “a dispersed, ecumenical body drawing inspiration from the lives of the Celtic saints.” Getting excited about it as a ‘place’ that offers refuge and encouragement to people like me who feel disillusioned with much of what we see in the contemporary Church, and applying to become an ‘Explorer’, as they call wannabe members of the community.

So yes, it feels like coming ‘home’. And it feels like taking some tentative steps away from the spiritual home I’ve known, though not really away, but let’s say, forward, on new adventures of life and faith.

Watch this space, then…