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.

don’t call me good

I see dead people. Ok, mostly just their coffins, but I hear about a lot of dead people. And one thing I have learned is that anyone can be presented as someone who was lovely, and who loved everyone. Time and again I hear of people who would ‘do anything for anyone’, when really I think probably what they would actually do is anything for people they knew; anything for people they liked; anything for people they lived near; anything for people who were easy to get on with; anything for people when it doesn’t really cost a great deal. 

Like all of us, really. 

Image from www.asbojesus.wordpress.com

The love Jesus talks about in John 15 is greater, deeper, bolder than simply being good. We can all be good. Many people tell me they are good people. Mostly when the vicar they’ve never met comes round and they feel uncomfortable about not having set foot in church their daughter was ‘done’ in 1957. I am not interested in people being good. I have no time for good. It’s all very well, but it has no frame of reference, no benchmark except itself.

What I am interested in, and what Jesus is talking about, is love. Love that is more than a feeling or an emotion, more than something that wells up inside like when you’re watching a movie and the soundtrack swells and the slow-motion close-ups go out of focus and the world feels like an X-Factor backstory. Love, true love, involves cost, and a cost that doesn’t expect anything back in return. And to understand why, we need to look at Jesus. 

Jesus talks about love a bit like it is a river. Every river has a source, and for Jesus the source of love is the Father, that is, God. I have loved you, as my Father loved me. The Father loves, and his love is poured out into Jesus. So, Jesus loves. But he doesn’t do it all himself. He says remain faithful to me and obey my command that you love each other. The Father loves Jesus, Jesus loves us, and we in turn love each other. Love each other, as I have loved you.

My command is not to follow rules but to love. A love that begins and ends in self-giving, cost and sacrifice.  

Image from www.asbojesus.wordpress.com

So let’s not try to be good. Let’s try to be love. And not a blurry weepy weak and soppy love but love that stands up for the outcast, the untouchable and love that looks beyond me and my family and my club and my street, a love that isn’t just for the easy to love, the kind, the nearby, those who love us back, but a love that keeps on loving because it is a love that comes from Jesus, that comes from the Father.

With that love we can change the world. With that love we are changing the world. 

cut off

When one of the older ladies shouted out ‘castrated man’ from the back row during my sermon, I got the feeling it was something she has wanted to do for ages. Thankfully it wasn’t her opinion of the vicar or a new feature from the liturgical commission, but an answer to the question ‘what is a eunuch?’ The eunuch story is one of my favourite passages. 

From a sanitised, wholesome and avoiding-awkward-rawness-of-life perspective, it’s inconvenient for church. If only it was the Ethiopian nobleman, or the Ethiopian king, or even the Ethiopian farmer. But no, it is the Ethiopian eunuch. The story of a castrated man. Why do we need to know that? It seems a little unfair that of the sparse details we are told about this man, this is the one we know. Maybe some of us can identify with being known only by our origin and our disabilities, where we are from and the way we look.

I had to be careful with pictures for this one

We are not told why this man was a eunuch. Castration was sometimes done to slaves as a punishment, to subjugate them, or to make them ‘safe’ so they could faithfully attend to the King’s women. Royalty could also promote them without fear of them producing children who might try to usurp the throne. Eunuchs were mocked, ridiculed and despised as sexless and pointless. This particular eunuch had risen in the ranks of his queen, become treasurer; but was still known by his willy. Or lack thereof. 

So why was this black African from what would have an exotic foreign land – actually modern-day Sudan – doing worshiping the God of the Jews in Jerusalem? He was probably a Jewish convert, or had been a born a Jew. He had come all this way, and when he got to the Temple, he would only have been allowed into the outer courts. The man was excluded from the covenant community, alienated from God’s household – and unable to produce a household of his own. Pretty desperate and lonely situation. 

 So we meet this man, on his way home, reading aloud from Isaiah. And he was reading this section:

 “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him… nothing in his appearance that we should desire him… he was despised and rejected by men…” (Isaiah 53)

 This man understood what it meant to despised, rejected.

Philip did not regard it as bad luck or socially dangerous to be seen talking with him. Instead, he saw how easy it would be for the eunuch to feel like a lamb with it wool cut off, humiliated. 

What would we do at this point? If we met someone who felt rejected by the community, cut off from society, seen as without usefulness or purpose?

Philip told him about Jesus. He told him that Jesus was despised, rejected, led like a lamb to the slaughter; the Jesus death was on behalf of us all. And that Jesus was raised up, exalted, resurrected, glorified. Shame replaced by honour. Rejection by glory. That we might all be welcomed into the family of God. 

It is an odd family, a family full of everyone, the ordinary and the oddballs. The poor, the disabled, the rejected; the wealthy, healthy and accepted. An odd family, but a wonderful family. Into this family the eunuch was introduced. He was so excited, he was baptised, there and then. Because for him this meant that the centuries-old divide that kept him out was gone. The man was in the covenant community, the family of God.

For what it’s worth, church is a family. We are a place where you will not (should not?!) be known by your origins or your disability, your looks or your circumstances. Being in God’s family means being a child of God, adopted and loved and chosen. 

 I wonder if the Ethiopian eunuch read on from Isaiah 53. If he did, he would have read this in Isaiah 56:

3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, 

        “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.”
        And let not any eunuch complain,
        “I am only a dry tree.” 

4 For this is what the LORD says:
       “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
       who choose what pleases me
       and hold fast to my covenant- 

5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
       a memorial and a name
       better than sons and daughters;
       I will give them an everlasting name
       that will not be cut off. [pun intended]

This is the gospel. This is why it is good news. When people who are on the edge of the covenant community, who are excluded from society, in any of its various forms, discover the welcome of God. My hope is that the eunuch would find such a welcome in our covenant communities. That our politeness and religiosity and piety and genuine desire for holiness would not be the knife that cuts people off and marks them forever as being outside. 

No-one is a dry tree here. 

empty

 The building we call church is empty because the church are living the incarnation in the world. The building we call church is empty because the church are living the resurrection in the world. 

The cross you see is empty because Jesus was the incarnation in the world. The cross you see is empty because Jesus is bringing the resurrection into the world.  Today and every day. 

Thine be the glory, risen conquering Son.
Endless is the victory, thou o’er death has won.

suffocating the resurrection

Paul says the cross of Christ is a stumbling block. He is right. I’ll tell you why.

Because the cross is so… historical. I have no sympathy for people who see it as metaphorical. Clearly the New Testament writers and the early church took it as fact. To write it off as metaphor would be convenient. There’s something attractive about an esoteric mystery religion surrounding a tragic, self-sacrificing mystical prophet. But those nails put a stop to that. Nails bashed into history. History with a face and a date. And a claim to be alive.

But being historical, it’s embarrassingly anomalous. What, he… came back to life? You’re telling me that sounds normal? Oh, ok. 

So what does it mean? This is where it does get mysterious. Jesus was god and man – both. He died. He was raised. By… God. Who had died. Well, sort of… And through this he forgives sins. Because he’s the Passover lamb. He’s a Jewish sacrifice. And the Jewish high priest. He’s what?

The resurrection is really hard. It’s a stumbling block to intellect, to rationality, to wanting to appear like you’ve still got your head screwed on. The cross and the resurrection together make earthy and real what could otherwise be – and sadly, often is – a floaty-mystery religion.

The resurrection is like a splinter in your palm that keeps you uncomfortable. Like a stone in your shoe as you walk down the catwalk of sanity. The resurrection provokes and irritates.

The gloom of Good Friday and Easter Saturday I can understand. We can all identify with pain, loss and hopelessness. But the celebration of Easter Sunday? The hope of Resurrection Day? Well, hopelessness can be real forever, lived in forever, without much effort. But hope? Hope is intentional. Hope always risks being dashed. Living with hope – just hope – is exhausting, as a deliberate , intentional and daily choice in a world of crescendoing hopelessness.

In the Hunger Games, President Snow, in charge of subjugating and oppressing his people, says he cannot let his people have hope:

President Snow: Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, alot is dangerous. This fact is fine, as long as it’s contained.
Seneca Crane: So…
President Snow: So, contain it.

The reason he doesn’t want the people to have hope is because hope is dangerous. Hope drives out fear. And he wants people to be afraid. God doesn’t want us to be afraid. God’s hope, rooted in God’s love, drives out fear.

And we’re back to the resurrection. Hope was contained for 2 days. Hope was dashed for what seemed like it would be a lifetime. Fear was most definitely in control. And then…   

Still a stumbling block. Sometimes I struggle to believe it. But it has not lost its power. Because if it really is true… it changes everything. 

The resurrection – counter-cultural, anti-rational, rooted in history and bursting with hope. If only we could let him breathe outside the tomb. 

to the unknown god

I wonder when you last prayed? Was it this morning, that the alarm clock wouldn’t go off, or when you realised you hadn’t done the right homework and would be in even more trouble? Was it a few days ago when you nearly got hit by a car crossing the road in the split-second of blind panic you shoot a prayer like an arrow ‘just in case’ there’s a power up there listening. I take a lot of funerals as part of my job, and most of the people in those families are not church-goers or religious but they believe in God when someone dies. They pray then. 

A couple of weeks ago the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba had a heart attack on the pitch, and the response from his team mates and thousands of supporters was what…? To simply wish him well. To write a card? To send him good vibes? To read his star sign to see if it mentions recovering from a heart attack? To tell his family all the bad things religion has done? Or… was it to pray? 

His whole team came out in t-shirts saying ‘pray for Muamba’. Which is fantastic and demonstrates that the doo doo hits the fan we know – we know! – there is something out there, someone out there, someone who might just be able to help. It’s an instinct we have, it’s a connection we have with out creator that even if we have forgotten about, our souls haven’t. 

So when we pray, who do we pray to? A nameless face, a ball of gas, a statue, an idea? Maybe we are praying to a mystery, maybe we are praying to whoever you want God to be? 

I think not. 

I believe that I know who the God is that we pray to. I believe that God isn’t nameless and faceless, that God doesn’t hide away behind the clouds. That God in’t just for certain people at a certain time. And that God isn’t reserved for those who ‘feel’ the spiritual or like to have a fuzzy feeling and say [Darth Vader voice] *The force is strong with you..*.

And I believe God is here.  

My faith is rooted in actual historical events. I believe that the God we pray to in emergencies is revealed to us through Jesus, who is present here by his Holy Spirit. I believe that the man Jesus was actually God, that he actually gave us a face and a name. I believe that God so loved the world – that is, you and me and this earth – that he came to earth as one of us to show us, to be present with us. I believe that he so wants to be in relationship with us that instead of staying far way and hoping one day we’ll discover him for ourselves he came looking for us. 

You see, there is this dividing wall between us and God, it’s what prevents us from being in a relationship with him. God is a God of love and goodness and compassion and every time we don’t live like that, like he does, and all the time we don’t recognise him as God, it’s like a new brick in the wall. Jesus came to break down that dividing wall between us and God. And not just to break it down, but at the same time to transform us so that we might be able to approach God and be in relationship with him. 

Because all that bad stuff we do when we don’t live lives of love and goodness and worship sticks to us like charcoal, makes us dirty. And God is clean, like Morgan Freeman in a white suit in Bruce Almighty. So he makes us clean. When we trust in him, when we follow him, Jesus makes us clean. When he embraces us. We don’t have to be clean before God will embrace us. That is so important. Morgan Freeman’s suit takes on our dirt. We don’t have to be good, fine, sorted, religious to be embraced by God. In fact, it’s because I’m not good, sorted and religious I know I need Jesus. 

That is what happened that first Easter. Jesus took all the bad stuff – we call it sin – on himself, so that we might be holy and be in relationship with God. Paid the price to free the slave. That’s me. You.

This is the God I believe in. A God who came to be with us, who searched us out; a God who answers prayer, who isn’t a nameless and faceless force; a God who is Jesus, who came to break down the wall that divides us and God so that we might live as we were meant to live, in relationship with God who made us and loves us. A God who is personal. A God who shows us love. Love that is real and true and deep, not a love that goes up and down on a tide of emotion like a teenage crush or tugs at the heart strings like the backstories on X Factor. Love, unconditional and unfailing love. 

That is the God I believe in. This is the God to whom we pray. He’s called Jesus, and he is here right now by his Holy Spirit. Do you want to know him? 

hip hop hooray / isaiah 53

Life is a little too full at the moment for the usual blog-based thinks, so here is something I came across you might (or might not) like. Anyone doing Isaiah 53 at church this week? Consider showing this instead of your usual reading… follow the text here.

Why not practice in front of the mirror. You know you want to. 

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! 

the weakness in [christmas] love

Have I been good enough?

Have I been good enough this year? To receive some presents? I wonder what scale I will use to decide. Maybe comparing myself to others. That usually works well in my favour. I’m no Mother Teresa but I’m no Kim Jong Il either… therefore I am good.

Have I been good enough?

Sometimes to make sure we have been good enough to receive good things we draw up charts and lists. Most of these are good things, or at least they start off that way. We might think of the 10 commandments or the law of the land. I haven’t broken any laws, so I’ve been good. Maybe a little speeding, the odd tax dodge and a Blackberry from the back of a lorry but apart from that I’ve been good.

Have I been good enough?

If that is the question we believe that God is asking us – and for many it will be – then can I reassure you that he is not.  God is not interested in whether or not you have been good. What?!? But surely being a Christian is the same as being a good person, isn’t it? Aren’t Christians goody-goodies? Isn’t that what the 10 commandments are all about?

The Christmas story shows us year after tinsel-covered year that God is not interested in whether we are good. Which is lucky because although we might feel we have ‘kept the 10 commandments’, which a lot of people tell me they do because they haven’t killed anyone or been jealous of their neighbours ass we all fall down at the very first one.

When God came into the world taking the form of a human being, demeaning himself and coming down to our fragile, human level, God was saying the rules and the laws are not working and though I love it when you live well and do good the most important thing is not that you are good but that you are love.

Have I been good enough?

To receive from God? You think you need to be good to receive?

If you are carrying guilt that it has been a bad year and you think you haven’t been good enough to receive from God, then think again. The story of Jesus birth and of his life show us that God consistently surprises and gives to people who least expect it and who represent what the world sees as ‘bad people’ – shepherds, tax collectors, prostitutes, unclean people.

It is not too late to receive from God, to turn ourselves to face him and to receive from him.

If you are carrying pride that it has been a good year and that you have done pretty well, so should expect to receive from God some sort of reward, then think again. The story of Jesus life and birth show us that God consistently surprises people who call themselves ‘good’ and humbles them – King Herod, the Pharisees, the religious scholars, the rich.

It is not too late though to humble ourselves and receive from God, to turn ourselves to face him and to receive from him.

John’s gospel talks of Jesus as being the light that gives life,  a light that changes us because it shines into our darkest places and transforms them from darkness to light, whether our greatest darkness is pride or addiction or self-loathing or apathy or fear or abuse or doubt… Christmas is a time to remember God broke into our world in a surprising and reckless way  not that we might be good but that we might love and be loved.

The sting in the tail is that it is much easier to be good than it is to give and receive love, especially God’s love. Which is why so many of us default to trying to be good, instead of allowing ourselves to be loved. Allowing ourselves to be loved is perhaps the hardest thing of all.  That love transforms us and turns us into the best you and me we can be, but it is not a quick fix and it is not easy. But it is worth it.

The weakness in love is it’s greatest strength.

May we be people of the light, people who love and know love, who give and receive love that comes from God the Father revealed in Jesus Christ and living on through the Holy Spirit, people who turn and face God and receive openly from him; may we be people who truly and openly pray O come to us, Abide with us, our Lord Immanuel.

…

**this is an edited version of my Christmas Eve Midnight Communion talk**

movember manoeverings

I do many things, mostly where people can see me, so the decision to grow a something akin to desert tundra on my face was not an easy one. With my hair colour and complexion, facial hair was always to be an unlikely companion, but just for the month of Movember I (and the relevant house-hold authorities) have made an exception.

As a way of raising awareness of and money for cancer charities, it’s genius, as I actually have to do less in my daily grooming session. Which is not an inconsiderable amount of time saved. I may even say the Daily Office. (*vicar joke*) 

So, forgive me for using my blog as a tool to publicise this, and feel free to ignore it as much as you would ignore a charity mugger with a dodgy beard. I know I do. If I raise £200 I will even shave off the edges and the under-carriage to leave the official Movember moustache. Now there‘s a terrifying thought.

Here is my Movember page – click here to find out more, and/or to donate. Cancer charities have a special place in my heart, and I am doing this primarily to raise awareness, not cash. Thank you.

ps. Yes , it makes me look well rough. help me.