Salt in the dung

^{Matthew 5:13-20}

1 Cor 2:19

  ^(O) "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
   nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has^(P) prepared^(Q) for those who love him"—

Jesus, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount starts in the courtyard of a house, and then goes inside.  Jewish homes were built as a single room in a U shape around a courtyard. The courtyard would contain the “earth”, which was an outdoor earthen oven, a millstone for grinding, a dung heap, chicken and cattle. The earthen oven would be fuelled by dung and this was mixed with salt to help it burn. In the same passage in Luke, it says that salt which has lost its saltiness is “fit neither for the earth, nor the dunghill, men throw it away”

It is an interesting analogy – that somehow we are meant to be the catalyst that keeps the flame alive, and we are meant to be found in the dung, the messiness of our society and of life. I wonder if this is how you see yourselves?

We then go into the house, which was lit with an oil lamp that was put on a stand and as there was only one room it lit the whole house. At night time it was extinguished by placing a bushel basket over it and leaving it there, so that the house didn’t get filled with smoke and fumes just before retiring to bed.

Jesus is asking us whether we are like the light on the lampstand or whether we are like the extinguished lamp with the bushel basket. Darkness to the hearers of this parable was not just the absence of light – darkness had a life of its own, it was sinister.

I want to think about light and darkness in this sermon, and the encouragement of those words from Corinthians:

^O) "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
   nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has^(P) prepared^(Q) for those who love him"—

I want to think about how we can remain salty, stay as a catalyst, keep the flame burning and generally stop being smothered by the bushel basket.

So if we think about darkness, a darkness that is active and not simply a lack of light, what is that darkness for you? For me it is fear every time.

My major fear has been inadequacy, that if I was found out, I wouldn’t be lovable. I regularly read a commentary on the rule of Benedict and in the section in humility the author, Joan Chittistler considers that all people secretly think they are inferior to others which is why we cling so tightly to our achievements, our degrees and so on.

Certainly, for me, the only thing that could silence the voice that said I wasn’t good enough was by being the best. Each year at university I had to come out top. I got the top first and the prize for best project, somehow a first in itself couldn’t satisfy my desperate inadequacy, it had to be the top one.

I was truly dreadful at receiving criticism too. I can remember occasions where someone in authority has criticised me, and rather than listen and evaluate their opinions, I have been desperately hurt. Hopefully, that is better now.

I think a closely related fear is the fear of being rejected, and I can trace rather painful threads back to my childhood.

I don’t know whether any of these fears resonate with you – whether you can recognise fears that have dogged you all your life?

So how on earth do we get over these fears? I guess the first thing is we get a friend to challenge us. I have a friend who is permanently afraid of ‘them’. So I say 'who are "they" exactly?', and 'what are "they" going to say to you or do to you?' Another thing is ‘what is the worst thing that can happen?’

Encouragement is good too – I was very discouraged recently and my bishop said that he thought I was perfectly able to do this or that. I walked out so much taller. Of course it helped that the Bishop told me.

I think the key is that we need to expose our fears – to bring them into the light, with someone we trust – hopefully someone who won’t collude with us, but challenge us and encourage us.

Do we really want to be fearful, or do we want to be salt and light? Do we want to be a catalyst for change, do we want to bring light? I am hoping the answer is no, so let us unshackle ourselves from the darkness and remember that God loves us:

^O) "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
   nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has^(P) prepared^(Q) for those who love him"—

The Bible tells us ‘do not be afraid’ more than a hundred times, and more than any other commandment.

We are told that those who walk in darkness have seen a great light and asked the question ‘if God is for us then who can be against us?’

So let us throw off our bushel baskets, find ways to admit and overcome our fears and start shining as lights in our dark world, or to use another metaphor let us be salt in amongst the dung. Amen

Remembrance Sunday Sermon

I have recently made friends with someone who has memory problems. Her mind is sharp, but her memory is terrible, so she will ask me over and over again the same questions – what day is it, what is your name? It is a disability, she can no longer look after herself and she needs to live in a home. It is a stark metaphor to me as to why we need to remember.

Memory serves an important purpose – it keeps us safe – as children we burn ourselves and remember not to do it again. We rely on those who do remember to warn us about dangers. Those in our communities those who can remember the most as a result of their age and often harsh experiences have wisdom and we would do well to listen to them.

Many of us here have been touched by war and by conflicts. In my family the war is never far away because my dad was injured in the war and has no hearing in one ear and limited hearing in the other. It has dogged him all his life, and in later life he has suffered panic attacks. He never mentions the war. He would rather not remember. Also, my Granddad on my mum’s side was injured in the first world war and died when he got home, leaving my gran widowed with two small children. She remarried a cruel man and the agony went on. She was emotionally absent. I think she wanted to forget too. My uncle served in Asia, was captured by the Japanese and returned home almost dead with stories of extreme cruelty. My mum’s cousin was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Stallag. Add your stories to my stories and we have a lot of pain and suffering to remember, and a lot of ordinary men and women who had hopes and dreams and families and promising lives that were cut short, broken, lost.

Today we remember those who have fallen in all the wars and conflicts, and remember those who have been lost recently. We kneel before God and ask for it to be different. We ask for peace in our world, but we also ask ourselves what we can do differently.

I listened to a talk by a man called Giles Fraser who said that after the Civil War in England, after Catholics and Protestants had burned each other to death over whether the bread and wine were the actual body and blood of Christ, after everyone had become sick of the smell of burning flesh and the fear of reprisals, we declared a peace treaty. The Church of England is the peace treaty. The Book of Common Prayer was carefully worded such that you could believe all manner of theology, but ultimately we all kneel at the same altar and worship God together. Is it really worth killing each other about these things? In the end, the answer was no, and polite dinner rules were brought in whereby no one talked about religion, politics or sex. The capacity to disagree whilst still respecting the other is desperately needed in our world.

The other thing that is desperately needed is equality. Those groups who become radicalised have often been oppressed and marginalised for years. If we don’t want to send our young men and women to war, then working for equality and tolerance in our families, in our villages, in our country and in our world is a very good place to start.

So let us take a moment to remember, remember how dreadful war is, remember those who made and make huge sacrifices for us, and think about how we can work to promote tolerance and equality in our world.

Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah

Luke 4:14

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

 ¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
 ¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
    ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."^[e]

 ²⁰Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, ²¹and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

 ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

 ²³Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "

 ²⁴"I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 

Jesus wasn’t a carpenter. I don’t think so. When I hear people say that he was, I am intrigued – why do they think that? Yes I know his dad was a carpenter, but I think Jesus was a rabbi.

You see, the Jewish people sent their children to school. At the age of six they sent their boys and perhaps their girls to learn the Torah. They would memorise the Torah – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy…. all off by heart. At the age of 10 the best ones would stay on at school, those who had managed this feat. However, most would go off and learn their father’s trade at that point. I think Jesus was still at school aged 12, because we learn about his visit to the Temple, when he was left behind, and how amazed the rabbis were amazed at his questions and his understanding. Presumably he was asking them about the scriptures.

Those that stayed would go on to memorise the rest of the Hebrew scriptures – Genesis all the way through Malachi, off by heart. They would stay at school until they were fourteen or fifteen, and then most would go and learn their father’s trade. However, the very best, who had accomplished this would carry on with their learning. I can’t imagine it was many, a tiny percentage.

These few would go and find a rabbi and become a disciple – I disciple doesn’t just want to know what the rabbi know he want to be like the rabbi is. Now the rabbis had different understandings of the scriptures, different interpretations, and that rabbi’s teachings were known as that rabbi’s ‘yoke’. So if you wanted to follow a particular rabbi, you wanted to take on that particular ‘yoke’. So, aged fifteen a boy would find a rabbi and go for an interview. He would be grilled, and at this point most would fail, however, if they were really impressive, then the rabbi would say ‘come and follow me’. And then the kid would leave his family and his village and his friends. Each rabbi would travel, and go from town to town, teaching the scriptures, followed by his disciples. By the end of the day the disciples would be covered in whatever the rabbis would have stepped in. And so there was a saying ‘may you covered in the dust of your rabbi’.

The rabbis were the most respected people, and hence if you had a child in your village who had managed to be so learned and find a rabbi, how would you feel? Pretty good. Your village would be on the map, your villagers aren’t stupid, they are clever. And I believe this is what happened to Jesus. He was the best of the best of the best. He left Nazareth aged fifteen, he was a disciple until he was thirty, which is the age at which they were expected to find their own disciples. This passage is set after he is baptised and before he has called the disciples. He comes home at the end of his training, when he no longer has to be in the dust of his rabbi.

Now Nazareth was a very small place and quite remote – everyone would know everyone and probably be related to everyone. I can imagine that this was the first rabbi they had ever had. They were proud of him. They heard reports that he had preached amazingly in the synagogues in the area. They probably hadn’t seen him since he was fifteen. They were all loving seeing him – wow hasn’t he grown? Doesn’t he speak graciously?

And then Jesus says something that at first seems paranoid, he says ‘no prophet will be accepted in his home town’. He then preached a sermon. He has read a scripture that is radically inclusive, inclusive of the poor, the oppressed, the blind, the prisoners. And then if you read on in the scriptures he tells them that God loves the foreigners, the outsiders, the Gentiles as much if not more than them.

And their reaction? They dragged him out of the synagogue, out to the edge of the cliff that their village was built on with the intention of throwing him over. He escaped. Wow – overreaction or what???

And so.. the moral of the story is that Jesus started his manifesto proclaiming inclusivity and healing, he wanted to embrace the outcasts, the criminals, the poor, the oppressed, the people who are different to those who were in the synagogue. He then illustrated this by saying that God loved foreigners and demonstrated this in history, and it made people mad and want to kill him.

This could sum up Jesus’ ministry all the way through. He said God loved the unlovable and that made people so uncomfortable that they wanted to kill him.

So the first thing to note is that the trick is to be like Jesus and not like the ones who hate. Who makes us uncomfortable? I noticed a couple of groups this week, one was some people who argue that selling sex for money is good, and the other was a group of who say that women shouldn’t be vicars, and have a strong desire to outline exactly what is proper for a woman to do. Both times I had an emotional revulsion that is different to just disagreeing. I wanted to shut them up rather than engaging, or agreeing to differ. It is those revulsions that tear our world apart, not disagreement, which can be generous and constructive. I needed to repent of those feelings, to recognise them for what they were and not justify them.

At the moment, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is in India, and in a that sermon he preached he said:

"Sometimes we have listened to our own unconverted hearts and used the church of God for our own ends, welcoming people like us and rejecting those who make us uncomfortable. And when any of those things happens, the Church begins to fall apart. The wounds in the Body get wider and deeper, and we find ourselves giving great energy to justifying our decision not to be together. As we stop listening to one another, we stop listening to Christ. Whether this happens in the name of nationality or tradition or pride of achievement or purity of teaching, the effect is the same tragedy."

So having decided that we are not going to be on the side that is revolted by people, but be will be on the side that includes people, what does that mean to us? Well I think it is Good News for two reasons:

The first reason is that we are included. We are the foreigners, the Gentiles that Jesus is talking about. It is us that he loves and us to whom the Day of the Lord’s Favour has been announced. We are the ones who are released, healed, given sight to. For so many people there is the fear that if others knew what we were really like they would reject us, the fear deep down that we are unworthy, the reality that we can be nasty and we are ashamed. We can be oppressed by these fears, in prison if you like. Jesus wants to set us free. He knows what we are like and includes us anyway.

The second reason that it is good news is that we have a job to do, and it is a great job. It is to make the entire world a better place. It is to go round freeing captives, healing the blind, helping the poor. We are to be Jesus’s disciples, covered in his dust, completely dedicated to the mission he has given us, wearing the Yoke of his teachings and enabling all to be included. Of course some people won’t like it, and it will make them very cross. But I can’t think of a better way of living my life than this.

Harvest Festival

Sending out the Seventy-two

Luke 10:1-20

He isn’t a very good boy scout, is he? Jesus. ‘Always be prepared’.. no sandwiches, no handbag, no purse, no wallet, no mobile phone, no spare underpants, no toothbrush..

Just for a minute, can you try something. Bring your keys, your bags, purses and wallets and mobile phones here.. to me. Ok. Now imagine how you would feel if I sent you out now. What would you feel without this stuff.. just going on a journey  in the clothes you are standing in, and a staff. How would you feel?

Vulnerable.

That is exactly the state that the disciples were in when Jesus sent them out to do their first bit of ministry.. When I first came to minister here, I had the Bishop, I had a bunch of robes, I had a liturgy to practise, I knew what was going to happen and hide behind my training, my status, my garb.. a far cry from the disciples first ministry.

So why? Is Jesus some sort of sadist that likes making his disciples feel naked and exposed for no reason?  I believe it is because we cannot minister from strength, but only from weakness, and that challenge is for all of us because all of us are called to ministry.

When we are weak and vulnerable, without our defences, without being one up, only then are we in a place where we can truly share the love of Christ, and when we receive from others we are in a place to give to others.

When I separated from my husband, I thought it would be entirely negative in terms of ministry. But within days many people who had also experienced divorce spoke to me, they ministered to me, I found, in my place of weakness that I had a new connection with others, I found I suddenly understood much better those who had experienced the loss of a partner, either through death or divorce. I knew loneliness in a new way and felt empathy with the housebound, I knew so many people in a deeper way.. weakness and ministry, they go together.

I think weakness and vulnerability connects us with God in a new way. The prodigal son, when he returned empty handed gained a new understanding of the love of his heavenly Father. And Jesus made himself vulnerable in a similar way to the prodigal son, he left his father and spent all he had, returning broken and empty, perhaps desolate ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

And yet through the weakness and vulnerability of the cross, Jesus ministers to us, so in some small way, the leaving behind of these bags and wallets represents the requirement on us to minister from weakness.

If this isn’t bad enough, the passage tells us that perhaps in our places of greatest vulnerability, where we are known, we will be rejected.

It was interesting for me in my career, I started off in management, and if people disagreed with me, that was fine, I didn’t take it personally. Then I became a lecturer, and somehow, in teaching, I found I gave a lot more of myself, I felt a great deal more vulnerable and if someone disagreed with me, or disliked my style, it felt much more like they were rejecting me. Finally, in this job, where I share what is most precious to me, the things of most worth and most sacred, I find I am more vulnerable still, and rejection is more difficult again. And that is what we are all faced with as we go out from here, that to minister we are sharing the places of greatest vulnerability.

An Anglican friend told me recently about his experience of going to a Catholic mass and not receiving communion, saying words like ‘Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed’  Then not partaking, being excluded from the representation of fellowship with God. I feel this rejection more keenly than I expected when people reject the ministry of ordained women. Suddenly, what I hold most precious feels rejected, tarnished, worthless.

The temptation, when we meet the sort of rejection Jesus did in this story is to clam up, to retreat into our shell, to nurse our wound and to promise to ourselves that we are never doing that again. I think this is to be avoided. Jesus tells us to shake the dust off our feet, in other words, get over it, move on, keep ministering, don’t let the so-and-sos get you down, or as a friend put it ‘nil carborundum illegitimi’

The good news is that I believe that we don’t minister alone. God calls us to do ministry together, as God is Trinity and the three persons act together, so the Body of Christ has many members and we act together.. Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs.. Paul goes on missionary journeys with others.. I believe we are called to work together.. and I think that helps us stay on track when we are afraid to be vulnerable and when we get rejected.

So may I commission you to go out and minister to others, to share with others your faith using the words of St Teresa of Avila..

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

Amen

Inspirational video

Thanks to Jan Williams

oops

Post Script on Codependency

I posted an article on Church Culture and Codepencency on Lesley's Blog a few days ago. Today I found this bit of advice here via the Mad Priest and the Teabag Infusion:

I keep small paper from my counselor as a reminder to keep a realistic outlook on life.

I am posting it in hope that it might be freeing to some of you.

I am Responsible for:

* how I treat myself

* how I treat others

I am Not Responsible for:

* how others treat me

* how others treat others

* how others treat themselves

If we all kept this in mind there would be no codependency.