kicked in the privates

After hearing and reading Michael Gove‘s comments about the dominance of the privately educated in pretty much every aspect of public life (from the Cabinet to Olympic medal winners to comedians) it caused a little recurring demon to unravel its wings within me. My dad always used to call me an inverted snob, being as I am as middle-class as they come (in the Purley sense, not the Kate Middleton sense) but never really liked that and pretended not to be. My university never had a ‘t’ in it, for example.   

I’ve always been hyper-sensitive to the dominance of the wealthy elite. And now I am in church leadership it seems even more prevalent. I go to clergy gatherings and the demon roars. From the (stereotype alert) evangelicals in their chinos (before they were trendy) and brown loafers to the (anglo-)catholics in their black suits and shiny shoes, from the New Wine obsession with v-necks casually slung over shoulders to the Walsingham set counting vestment stitches and comparing organ voluntary favourites, we in the C of E are awash with the privately educated.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with being privately educated. After all, if your parents choose to inflict their principles on you, you can’t be blamed, and you must do your best to fight the system, regain a sense of community, ethics and discard the knowledge that you have a right to succeed (*tongue in cheek*). There is of course nothing inherently wrong with a mixed-economy education system, especially when everyone pays for the state system whether or not they use it. 

But my thinking is this: why does it seem that so many clergy are from the private system? When I originally tweeted about this, other questions came up: what about Bishops, surely the percentage of those privately educated is huge. Why is this? For me, there is something about being in church hierarchy which means you begin to get obsessed with things ‘ordinary people’ are disconnected from: vestments, golf, literature, yourselves, and other privately educated people. Like Bishops.

I could of course be very wrong. And this could all be irrelevant. I have no figures to back up my thinking. And the thing about Jesus is that he uses all sorts to lead his people, regardless of background, and even despite their background. From the most annoying private school churn-out to the salt-of-the-earth rough diamond with no social graces, and even the left-leaning middle-class university-educated  mocha-drinking inverted snob like me.

Thank God. 

There’s just something worrying about it. It does matter. Doesn’t it? 

There, I’ve kicked the demon in the privates and it’s back in its box. 

I began thinking about this because of blogs by Jon Kuhrt and Sarah Mullally.

time for plan b

Pop music at the moment is so anaemic, there may be a few good tunes but considering the economic and political situation we are in, where are the protest songs? The dominance of blandness, mass-market acceptability and the chance of being covered on the X-Factor means they are largely absent from the radio.

Well, finally maybe we have one. It’s not pretty, and it may not be right, but isn’t it time for political class-system rant? It’s the undercover genius of rapper Plan B, watch and see what you think.

Stick at it even if its not usually your thing. He was interviewed today on the Today programme on Radio 4 if that helps you justify a cheeky bit of hip hop. Full lyrics available here if you want to sing along. Turn up the volume as well. Protest songs should never be quiet. 

This link is a bit temperamental so here’s Plan b’s myspace to watch there.

or on Jools Holland here

an inconvenient love of women

Thursday 8th March 2012 is International Women’s Day. According to Christian Aid 70% of the world’s poor are women. It is good that this falls in Lent because it must act as a call to action. Why? 

The primary action at the beginning of Lent for Anglicans is the imposition of ashes. The ashes represent all that is broken and lost in the world, the burnt cross of the execution stake. Because they are smeared and spread on our foreheads, imposed on the most viewed part of us, smudged across our make-up, spoiling our fringe, and sometimes forgotten about until someone says ‘when did you last wash?’

God always wants to remind us to do decent service, not to do a decent service. Not to fast whilst we are still slagging off our wives; not to put our feet up whilst the women do the work; not to worship whilst we are spending money other families need more; not to pray in public lest we forget to clothe the naked.

This can be imposition for us. So easily we – and I include me – slip into the kingdom of comfort, feel we’ve done our time in the kingdom of pain. We become desensitised, we get compassion-fatigue or whatever else we call it. We forget to be human and humane and close our eyes to the suffering of all – including women - around us. To remember is an imposition. To be reminded is an inconvenience.

Well, says God, allow me to impose. Allow me to inconvenience you. Because any sort of faith that doesn’t have at its heart God’s care for the exiled, the pained, the tortured, the bereaved and the hurting is no faith I recognise. Any faith that speaks of caring for the poor as if that is a hobby and not a lifestyle is not a faith I recognise. Any faith that doesn’t welcome and truly welcome the strange and the stranger and the strangest is not a faith I recognise. Any faith that turns a blind eye to abuse of women in all its forms is not a faith I recognise. Any faith that denigrates instead of celebrates women is not a faith I recognise. 

Allow me to impose, says God. Because I get religion-fatigue. I can’t be bothered any more. Your religion interests me; I would love to study it sometime. But now, please, for goodness sake get back to basics, strip it down and see what you really need. I think you’ll find it’s me.

I am the poor. You have clothes. And I am naked.  

…

Whilst you are here, why not check out this campaign from the Home Office called This is Abuse.

…

This is an edited version of religion-fatigue and the imposition of haberdashery that I wrote back in 2010. I re-read and thought I’d share it again… 

why i still believe we can change the world

I was talking to someone yesterday about changing the world. Changing the world is something that  I believe we are called to do; or at least, it is a consequence of doing what we are called to do. Which is to follow Jesus.

When we follow Jesus, the world changes. Not all at once. Because the world isn’t a big mass of ‘all at once’, but is made of up people in families and communities. So, as we change, so our world changes. Like a virus, but a good one.

Is it still called a virus if it’s good? 

The conversation began about being angry. My friend was angry about the situations adults can create for kids. Grrrr. It is enough to make you angry. But what do you do with that anger? Suppress it, ignore it, release it on the running track? Or do you allow your anger to show you your passion; and do you turn your passion into action.

If homelessness makes you angry, you’ve found you passion for the poor. If the treatment of people with mental health problem makes you angry, you’ve found your passion for the marginalised. If football makes you angry you need to get out more.

And so on. 

But what’s the point? I can’t change the world. I am just me. Better to live my life, to be calm, to keep quiet. And if necessary, channel the anger into my running. Or my music. Or whatever. 

But who does that benefit? Just me. Not the world. In this conversation I realised that I still believe we can change the world. Which is not a doe-eyed optimism that if we all stand in front of Bambi we’ll save her. But that being the change we want to see in the world (Ghandi said that, I wish it was Jesus) is a theological imperative. That means we absolutely have to. Because if God cares for me and wants to turn my life around then he cares for everyone. We are not meant to be saved and gather dust like an old piece of furniture. 

If we follow Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to grow fruit in us then we cannot be blind to the world around us. We cannot give more than God has already given. We cannot sit on our laurels (what are they?) and complain it’s too big a problem. 

And I don’t believe this is a specialist branch of the Jesus movement called ‘activist Christianity’ which can be opted out of, any more than repentance or grace or being slightly fed up with Church can be opted out of. 

So I do believe that we can change the world. Not on our own. The ‘we’ very much begins with God, revealed in Jesus and present by the Spirit. Present in us, whom he called his body. Of course it is a stupid idea and of course I don’t REALLY believe that me, I, Kevin Lewis, can change the world. On my own. But together we can. One starfish at a time.

Do I always feel it? No. Do I always want to be a part of it? No. Is it frustrating? Yes. Do I see changes? Yes.

Sometimes.

Mostly importantly, is it true? Yes.  

an evident suitability for loneliness

Cold. It’s so cold. My walls have become a prison, Bargain Hunt my torture.

This house is my home. It has all my things in in. Things I have collected. They all have my memories in them. But this is house has an evident suitability for loneliness. Because there is just me here. 

I am old. I am cold.

There are people everywhere. I can see them, through the nets, past the little hedge, on the pavement. Hello, I say in my underused voice.

Hello, I say back, pretending to be them.

I can hear them, through the walls, children next door, across the street, wrapped up warm and snug. Hello, I think, remembering days when I wrapped myself against the chill and didn’t feel the cold in every bone and muscle and the pain of the long and lonely walk to tea-for-one in the kitchen that it’s too cold to keep tidy.

I long for the thaw. Then I shall be free. Slow, but free from my once-comfortable prison of long and lonely days.

I know you are all busy. I know you are cold too. But please remember me. And say hello back when you walk past. 

…

This post was prompted when I read the line I used in the title in the book Midwinter Sacrifice, which has nothing to do with the loneliness of old people, but it was such an evocative phrase and it gave me this idea. Such is the connection of thoughts and ideas. If it encourages one person to visit an older person, it was worth writing… 

slave waver

there was no apple

When the writers of the Bible talk about people in being in slavery to sin it all seems a bit, well, harsh. Slavery? How many of us would say we are enslaved to sin? The language calls to mind images of the devil binding us in chains or possessing us in some scary poltergeisty sort of way. We may prefer to think that we flirt with sin, we may clothe ourselves occasionally, because actually it is just a bit of fun. Isn’t sin more fun anyway? Better to be in slavery to sin that befriended by boredom? Read here about evil and sin actually being pretty dull and banal and boring.

I  had 2 conversations with people a while back that went something like this.

Conversation1:

Me: Why did you assault my friend?
Person a: I had to defend my family.
Me: Perhaps that wasn’t the best way to react?
Person a: I can’t help it, it is how my family always react. It is in my genes. It is just the way I am.

Conversation 2:

Person b: why did you grass on my son?
Me: Because he was doing something dangerous and illegal.
Person b: We don‘t grass on estates. You want to be careful doing things like that round here.

My point is that neither of those men would say they are enslaved to sin; I would not say that to them either! But their reactions as grown men to situations around them come from a position of slavery. To the gene pool, to the domination system, to ‘the way things are’, the way that oppresses freely because that is how life is. I don’t say that as a value judgement on them. I honestly think they think they have no choice. They have seen no other way that works. As I wrote following the Faithworks Conference, that is exactly the kind of slavery that Jesus came to free us from.

It does not need to be that way. Our character need not be defined by our genes, our family and our upbringing, though they will always be part of who we are. Our character can be defined by the Holy Spirit living in us. The system of domination and fear that we live in and support by living in it does not need to define us. We can be defined by the kingdom of God not the kingdom of fear.

I pray for slave waver in our community. Where anger is replaced by patience, fear by love, fists by feasts. When teenagers talk about something other than sex and slagging each other and don’t need to get a rush from being (nearly) nicked; when men can  be real men instead of being something they think they ought to be and women can be themselves without fear of being judged or taken for granted or simply ignored.

My deepest longing is that this slave waver happens because people meet Jesus and by his Holy Spirit they are transformed and sanctified and other wonderfully big words and maybe I even mentioned being saved but… but… I kinda just want it to happen anyway whether or not they discover Jesus. Through our influence or through nothing to do with us. If slaves waver and the world gets better and looks more like the kingdom, I’m not so worried about why…

forgive us our debts

Maybe the national debt crisis isn’t affecting you directly. I am pleased for you. There are so many for whom it is tragic. The latest figures from Credit Action are pretty startling. Here are some high (low?)lights: 

• Average household debt in the UK (excluding mortgages) was £7,948 in December. This is down from a revised £7,972 in November.
• Average household debt in the UK (including mortgages) was £55,823 in December. This is up from a revised £55,818 in November.
• The average amount owed per UK adult (including mortgages) was £29,547 in December. This was around 122% of average earnings.
• 331 people are declared insolvent or bankrupt every day (based on Q3 2011 trends). This is equivalent to 1 person every 60 seconds during each working day.
• Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 8,652 new debt problems every working day during the year ending September 2011.
• 193 mortgage possession claims are issued and 153 mortgage possession orders are made every day

A lot of this is our fault. We make bad decisions. We are coerced into thinking that we need need need all these things that we can’t afford, and are tempted to borrow borrow borrow so that we can have have have. But sometimes we just have rotten luck and are made redundant. Sometimes life just goes belly-up. I have made more referrals to the Sutton Foodbank in the last 3 months than in the previous 2 years out together. 

So if this isn’t affecting you, spare a generous thought for those it is. And think about how you could help. And if it is affecting you, do something about it TODAY! Contact Christians Against Poverty or search DirectGov here, but do not not not go to a payday loan company. Please! 

frustransformation

They say most preachers only have one sermon. You just hope it’s a good one as you’re gonna hear it week in week out. I think mine has changed over the years but at the moment it is about transformation. That when we invite God into our lives that is part of the great transformation of God’s creation, the reconciliation of all things to God, and the beginning of us living in the way God intended. Basically the kingdom coming. Transformation. With him, in him, by him, for him.

I've got a new sermon! Have you? No not really.

The trouble with a transformation message is that it can sound like triumphalism, or that terrible false promise that if you turn to God all your problems will go away. You will be ‘healed’, which I think means being turned into a squeaky clean smiley and annoying person, of the type we all wish we had more of only so we can fill the spaces in the rotas.

Transformation is very different from triumphalism; being in a relationship with God is very far from a self-help life-improving life-style choice, though of course the complication comes from the fact that hopefully our lives do change for the better. Now, I am sure that some people will be able to point to lives that have been totally transformed. And healed. Hooray! But the gritty and annoying reality is that for most of us, transformation is a bit more incremental. Small steps. No steps. Backward steps?

How do you keep believing that God is and will and wants to transform us and our communities when he doesn’t seem to do very much. Now we are getting somewhere. Because then we start to look.

We ask ourselves, am I dismissing the small changes in people (that are actually massive in their context) because we want to see changes we can write books about and impress people with our stories? Am I dismissing a new openness from someone previously closed to God’s message; am I dismissing the value of being a part of the church community to those with fledgeling faith but lonely hearts; am I mistaking transformation for ticking the boxes of quantitative, measurable change?

It is true that sometimes I get disheartened. Call it transformation-frustration. Or frustransformation, if you will.  Don’t get me wrong – not because I don’t think God is doing amazing things. But because I want more! I don’t want a sort of ‘transformation-lite’, in which a few people feel a bit better and the congregation grows a bit because we’re all lovely. No!

I want to see this community and this church changing in a big way – I want to see depression banished, alcoholism defeated, domestic situations calmer, husbands coming to faith.

I want to see tired old ladies glowing with the Spirit, I want to see men who have never grown up suddenly realising their responsibilities and their potential; I want to see young people smiling and laughing and confident in who they are without needing drugs or sex the thrill of being annoying to get them through.

I want to see the ill healed (and not just made comfortable), I want to see debts got rid off and I want to see people really and actually and everyday believing and knowing that they are treasured and loved by their creator God. And that that informs how we all live and speak. That we may all do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

There’s me and my one sermon again.

So, God. In the words of Coldplay, this is a comma not a full stop, so where’s your answer?

shrinking your camel

A turn of the page couldn’t reveal two more different approaches to the good news. I was reading the latest edition of Christianity Magazine and p18 had an article about the so-called Machine Gun Preacher, a hard-core Christian who uses machine guns to rescue stolen African children in Uganda/Sudan in the name of Jesus, and is the subject of a recent film of that name. Controversial, obviously.

The previous page had a simple interview with an ‘ordinary’ person with an even more controversial theology yet one that slips under the radar of respectability.

The interview was with the top man in RK Capital Management LLP, which runs one of the biggest industrial metals hedge funds in the world. He is known as Mr Copper because of the fund’s significant role in the copper market. He attends St Helen’s Bishopsgate. All fine so far.

© 2011 Thomas Lekfeldt/Moment/Redux

It is well-known that conditions in Zambian copper mines are not good; many are run by Chinese-state companies that routinely flout labour laws, according to Human Rights Watch. So he was asked whether, as one of the biggest buyers of copper in the world, he could influence conditions of workers in the mines in a country where copper is 75% of the country’s exports and 2/3 of Government revenue. Surely the workers would be pleased to have a Jesus-following Bible-believing man of influence on their side?

No.

He washed his hands of any responsibility for their working conditions, saying that if he were to do anything, it would be to import “God-fearing gospel-believing ministers into Zambia, because once hearts are changed, improvements are made.”

Unless it means him, of course. Has his heart been changed, so improvements can be made?

Perhaps even more distressing was the fact he made claim to Jesus’ encounter with the Rich Young Ruler as a way of reconciling his wealth and inaction. Somehow he came to the conclusion that money is neutral.  He has completely missed the point. This is an extremely wealthy man who makes his money, in part, gambling on the future of copper mined in extremely dangerous circumstances. Were people like him to have a direct encounter with Jesus in the manner of the rich young ruler, I do not think they would get away with claiming their wealth was neutral and their hands clean.

There is a problem with City of London ghetto theology that justifies turning blind eyes, washing of hands and hiding behind claims to “preach gospel” before improving living conditions for copper slaves . I’m sure we can guess which one the workers would call good news. “Thinking of the cross at the beginning of the day”, as he says he does, makes no difference to their lives. Few can influence copper mines. When you are one of the few who can, yet hide behind “the gospel” as an excuse for inaction, the Jesus movement  is in a sorry place.

Money is not neutral. Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  This is a challenge to little me, but surely a massive challenge to to Mr Copper and the many who work in the City and think like that: shrink your camel.

Because that needle is gonna hurt.

the b word

When you ask a vicar how they are, chances are they will reply ‘busy’. I have always tried to avoid answering this question with that word, either by cocking my head to one side and earnestly saying “it’s not about me; how are you?”, by playing to the (always hilarious) joke that I only work one day a week and saying “pretty free til next Sunday actually, it’s an easy life this one”, or by saying “crap actually, can we talk about it” simply because it is a hobby of mine to create awkward silences and hold them for as long as possible. Usually we call it prayer.

However at this time I am actually very busy, what with my co-vicar being on maternity leave and 20,000 hungry parishioners (as opposed to Parisiens) needing souls cured, booklets photocopied and the heating switched on and off according to the whims of Mother Nature. So, because despite my magical (sorry, miraculous) powers I cannot squeeze any more time out of the day, and because I will not sacrifice my family or my sanity on the altar of ‘doing everything’, I have decided there must be cuts.

So here are 7 things I will no longer be doing:

1. I will no longer read commentaries whilst preparing sermons. Live text on BBC Sport is finally to be considered a distraction and I will switch it off.
2. Updating my Facebook status will no longer be considered a spiritual discipline. If God wants to know what I am up to, he can email me, which I will leave marked as unread until I have time to respond.
3. I will no longer keep my office tidy. Jesus came into a messy world to redeem it, so I will wait for him to do the same to my office.
4. Whilst I can see the benefit of reading the Bible, there is never anything new in it and it is awfully long. I will stick to whatever Scriptures I can find on bookmarks, posters and other people’s Facebook pages, as they are presumably the most important ones.
5. I shall no longer prepare services. It seems a lot of work to do essentially the same thing every week. Following the example of the X-Factor and Strictly, we will use the same script every week, manipulate the odd drama and throw someone out according to votes cast in the offering bags.
6. Instead of feeling guilty about not having planned things that are coming up (like Christmas, or tomorrow’s assembly), I will make it a deliberate policy not to plan anything until the day on which it happens. After all, it’s God’s reputation on the line so it’s up to him to step in with last-minute inspiration, and he ought to be able to operate the photocopier by now.
7. We will no longer hire out the church hall in an organized way, but simply leave it open as a ‘community space’. This way we don’t have to worry about keys or rent, we just let the Big Society sort it out for themselves. This is called empowering the community. In fact, we will no longer lock away the church tea and coffee. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

With these changes in place, I am hoping that I will no longer find myself scrabbling for euphemisms for the b word, and will be able once again to the play on the Playstation during the day. Sorry, pray station.