The Clergy of the Kingston Episcopal area and the Recently translated Bishop of Kingston, Peter Price have spent Four of the last Five days in Conference. The conference only takes place every 10 years and we were left in no doubt that we were expected to attend. The Title of the conference was ‘Faith Paul in Athens, an exercise in bridge building! Works’. This being a play on words and the Title of the Book written by the Star Speaker Jim Wallace.
We were concerned with preaching the Gospel in a way which communicates itself to today’s world. And I mean today’s world. I thought I lived in Today’s world. I realized during the course of the Conference that I live very firmly in yesterday’s world. Today’s world and tomorrow’s world are not places where Chrisitanity as we know it has much of a chance of survival. The conference encouraged us to re asses who we are as a Church and re examine what we are trying to communicate and to whom we are trying to communicate. In may ways it was it was a challenging experience. It was certainly tiring. When they have you captive from Breakfast until Bed time there is no escape, but we worked hard and I think all of us benefited from the experience.
In some ways I found myself strangely depressed. So much which is inspirational just brings you up against how inadequate we are as a Church and how the kind of commitment required to really make a difference to our Community just isn’t forthcoming in Western Culture in the 21st Century and yet it is Western culture in the 21st Century that so badly needs a Spiritual dimension to its materialistic life. It is here that the connections need to be made. Connections with culture. A culture which is experiencing the inevitable consequences of everything being a commodity to be bought or sold ...even us. Bridges need to be built like bridges have never been built before. Bridges between different Faith Communities. Bridges between people within the same community. Bridges between Church Community and secular community.
I pondered all of this and I realized that many people in Saint Mark’s don’t know the names of the people who sit week by week in the Pew in front of them. How could we become a vehicle for building the kind of Bridges which our fragmented world so badly needs? What could we offer to make Christianity credible to a Generation yet to come? I became strangely depressed. We seem to have done so much as a Church. Built so much. Brought so much about and yet we don’t really know each other. After a lot of prayer I realized that something has to be done. Bridges need to be built .
Building bridges is hard work. The process inevitably results in confronting the ever-present bridge toll (or troll, if you remember the old children's story about the "three billy goats gruff.") We can almost hear the voices in our heads: "It'll take time and money to get this thing started;" or "It isn't worth it;" or "They won't listen;" or "A lot of wasted effort!" But this kind of bridge building is well worth it and it isn't wasted effort. And it isn't only the business of Priests, but that of parishioners as well. Christians are all, or should all be, disciples. Bearing witness and spreading the Word is the business of every Christian, and finding bridges between the teaching of the Bible and the outside culture is necessary to aid that process.
In the reading from Acts that we have heard this morning, St. Paul gives us a good example of the productive process of bridge building. He finds himself in the rather hostile environment of Athens. It is a university city and there are many people there to challenge his words. He is clearly an alien among them. He is not one of them. There is actually a 10th century illumination that shows Paul being mocked by his audience. The name the people call him, after he begins to speak, is often translated as, " babbler." But in fact the Greek word of derision was really closer to the old English expression, "cocksparrow," meaning a person who picks up scraps of what he finds around him much as a male sparrow picks up the odds and ends of straw and twigs he finds to build a nest for his mate. And it is clear that St. Paul was doing just that. He had not come to speak about the well-formulated philosophy of the Athenians. In fact, he was picking up what he could, struggling to give body to his ideas, and in doing so, he was indeed making use of the materials he found around him, of what was at hand.
Although St. Paul was "speaking in prose," his was truly a poet's craft. Paul is preaching on the Areopagus ("Hill ofAres" = 'Mars Hill')in Athens, the intellectual capital of the world. All around him are the temples of dozens of gods--for the Greeks, there were many, and they were a separate race of beings from humankind. Paul tried there on Mars Hill--a hilltop dedicated to thegods of war, as is The Pentagon in Washington, or the MOD buildings, dedicated to the military/industrial/political triune god--Paul tried to stand up and tell them about another way of doing the Divine, one they had not heard of nor recognized. He says,
And just as there was little of the Sophist's philosophy with which Paul could identify, there were also few elements of Greek religion or Greek poetry with which he could feel comfortable. But in speaking to the Athenians he did not choose to denounce or ridicule their beliefs or values. He did not attempt to criticize Greek philosophy or Greek poetry. Rather he confronted the people of Athens with elements of their culture and religion with which he could form a bridge. How did he do this? He mentioned a famous Greek inscription "to an unknown god" and he cited two Greek poems, one by Epimenides and one by Aratus of Soli. From these points in their culture he formed a bridge in order to develop the image of God he was trying to convey to them.
There may be much to dislike in the culture that surrounds us. It is true there is often more interest in the latest Lifestyle mag than there is in any serious engagement with the world in which we inhabit. That is until that world starts to fly air liners into sky scrapers. Often the imagery in some modern Poetry and fiction seems to meander through the materialistic Shopping Centres of our Brains , bereft of any transcendence. No one is won through denunciation or dismissal. Just as Jesus formed a bridge between life in him and in God, we must learn to form bridges to the secular culture that surrounds us.
It is often said that the Bible is irrelevant to today's people. How can a book so filled with universal imagery be called irrelevant? Rather, it is made irrelevant by those who burn all the bridges between the culture and the words of the Bible. This is done more often by blame and denunciation. Ironically, then, those called to preach the Word are hindering its being spread by their exclusionary attitude towards the culture that surrounds them. The blamed simply withdraw, protective of what is theirs, cutting themselves off from God himself. There are, of course, materials for this kind of bridge building everywhere
In an age in which the Bible is under fire, poetry might serve as a good place to build a helpful bridge from the Bible to the surrounding culture. The materials for such bridge building are everywhere around us. We need only to stop and pick some of them up and set to work. By doing this, we are doing our part to help others forge a link to the Kingdom of God.
The way in which we have come to separate ourselves from God and from each other, so that we think of ourselves as objects, as things, in relation to the world we live in, is all wrong. Jesus teaches us that we are to God as new life in the Womb, as living foetuses in God's belly. We are subjects, actors, not audiences or objects in the drama of Creation. That is what is meant when we say we are made in God's image. Want to see what God looks like? Paul says don't think that God will look like something made of gold or silver, or something made of stone, or something you can wear or walk or sit on, or something in the art or imagination of humankind, something you can fashion with your skills. You want to know what God looks like? Look into the face and heart and mind of your neighbor. ‘You know the Spirit of truth because it abides in you and is with you.’
This religion of Jesus, means that you and I are his branches, that we are the grapes of his cluster, and the religion of Paul, that we are God's god’s and goddesses standing in the middle of a world full of rummage sale gods and goddesses of gold and silver-- well, then, everything depends on what we politically and socially do about it, doesn't it?
If we are to pray for peace in the world--the "Shalomization", the "Salaam-nization" the "Solemnization" of the universe we live in, we are expected by God to have an answer to our own prayers, act when we pray for justice. We are to pray and act for the kind of society where no one is hungry and no one is homeless and no one uncared for in sickness, and no one has the means to murder or maim. God empowers those who are called to godding, and uses us to answer our prayers. If your life is connected to mine, and my words abides in you, then 'ask whatever you will and it shall be done.' "In this way," Jesus declares, "the Father Mother God of all of us is glorified." This is our coming to fruition.
And in this way, Jesus says, you prove to be my disciples. We too often think of ourselves as petitioners only in our prayers, and submit lists for someone else--God--to act upon. We need to take another look at the church's prayer lists, and see that they are addressed to ourselves, in our ministry of godding, in the God who enables us with grace. This is our task for the months ahead. In smaller groups perhaps we can learn to see God in eachother and find ways of how we can better encourage other people to do so. The Old Christianity of Piety and division of respectability and comfort has had its day. What will take its place? Faith Works…we shall see….Amen.
SERMON 5TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER (YEAR A) – CYNTHIA JACKSON – ST. MARK'S WIMBLEDON
"Jesus to Thomas, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14 verse 6).
These are probably two of the most helpful yet contentious and difficult sentences in the the Gospels . The second sentence "No one comes to the Father except through me" has caused much argument and discussion amongst Christians of different points of view. It is also threatening to people of other faith communities. That is the trouble when verses of the Bible are used to make a particular point and taken out of context of the time and place they were written and the people for whom the words were intended.
What is certain is that some Christians believe that the only way to God is through belief in Jesus Christ and we could call them exclusive Christians. On the other hand there is the view that other Christians hold, and I belong to that group, that people of faiths other than Christianity can know God without accepting a belief in Jesus Christ`s divinity. This is the inclusive view.
This does not diminish the fact that Jesus Christ was divine and became human and lived on earth as a human being. Nor does it diminish the call of the Gospel to bring all people to know God and ultimately accept Jesus Christ as divine.
This is a topical issue for the Anglican Communion as recently 38 top Bishops of the Anglican Communion, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have produced a Statement on the Doctrine of God. This was re-printed in the Church Times of the 19th April. I find myself in disagreement with part of one of the statements “Our God is an incarnate God”. There are two sentences that concern me:
"All claims to knowledge of God must be brought to Christ to be tested. Through Christ alone we have access to the Father".
This seems to me to be an example of the exclusive view of our relationship with God. What is meant by these sentences? Are we saying that other faiths are not authentic and if people do not know Christ they can have no knowledge of God? If we take these two sentences in this statement of faith at face value it appears that we are undervaluing ancient faiths and many people who have a deep understanding of God and the working of God in their lives.
Is this a good way of getting people of different faiths to understand one another better?
So what do we understand by the words "Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
“The doctrine of the Incarnation affirms that the eternal Son of God took flesh from His human mother and that the historical Christ is both fully God and fully man.”
(This is a quote from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church). So as Jesus is truly God and truly man , if we know God we know Jesus, and if we know Jesus we know God. We may do that consciously as a Christian and acknowledge Jesus Our Lord and Saviour, or not.
Kenneth Grayston, in his book "The Gospel of John", suggests that
"The way means way to God. Hence truth and life are further explanations of the way. Truth is a newly available way to God by belief in his Agent.” (That Agent is Jesus).
“ Life is the inherent quality that the Son possesses by gift of the Father. Involvement with Jesus is the way to God. Once we are thus involved there is no further journey from Jesus to God, but only a journey with Jesus the truth and life of God. Hence no one comes to the Father except by me".
Graystone also suggests that this statement can
(a) be directed against those in the community who wish to leave Jesus and approach God directly by the Spirit and
(b) if there is access to God by other religions - and that is implied by the use of Jewish and Agnostic convictions - then they come to the Father by Jesus as the Logos which is set out for us in the first chapter of St. John`s Gospel, verse 1,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
and in John 1.14
"And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father`s son, full of grace and truth."
This seems to be a more inclusive way of looking at my text. These are not easy concepts to grasp or understand and I am struggling with them as I speak to you. But I think that we need to work out where we stand living in the multi-cultural and multifaith society that we do.
However what I am certain about is that we all need guidance and direction in our lives to help us on this way to God ,and in our understanding of God. If we are learning a new skill we need an expert to teach us. If we are studying a language or a subject that is unfamiliar to us again we need guidance of an expert. The Christian faith and Christian Pilgrimage is like that. I was reminded of this recently when I was on the island of Iona off the north west coast of Scotland.
It is a tradition on that island that a pilgrimage around the island is organised from the Abbey Church. Although it is a small island you can get lost . When I was there some of the ground was extremely boggy and quite unsafe . Therefore we needed a guide, someone who knew the way, who could point to us to the right path. It wasn't always the straightest route that was the safest. It was tempting to take a short cut and place our feet on the bright clumps of grass only to find ourselves sinking down into bog. Often the longer route was the safest. I was fortunate because a lady from Yorkshire, with whom I was walking, was very knowledgeable about what was grass and what was moss and so I followed her in safety.
Jesus Christ is that guide on our Christian pilgrimage of life. Jesus, God and man is that link between earth and heaven. At the beginning of the Gospel passage for today we are told that Jesus goes ahead to prepare a place for us. That is the whole purpose of our spiritual journey. Our time here on earth is preparing us for our heavenly home. Exactly what that home will be like we do not know . If the word home for us here on earth means warmth, love , security and happiness that will be multiplied a thousandfold when we are in heaven. If the word home here on earth for us means lack of love insecurity and unhappiness , our experience of a heavenly home will be a complete transformation of our experience here on earth.
Does this mean that only those who have Jesus as their guide will go to heaven.? I do not think so as how could a loving God exclude millions of people from his presence when he had created them in his image.
So in conclusion Jesus is still the highest revelation of God who ever came to earth. Jesus points the way to God for us. Jesus shows us the way to live, the way to love . Without the knowledge of Jesus our life would be like trying to find our way on a boggy or stony path without a guide. It is easy to sink into of the mire or trip over a boulder.
Amen
Rev. Cynthia Jackson, 27.4.2002
FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A Sermon for that Day
Gospel: John. 10. 1-10
We have new gates. The have bars. You can see through them into the Galustian Gardens. They replace old wooden gates which had barbed wire on them. They hid what was behind them and were, if truth be known, never very inviting. On Wednesday, Peter Price, the Bishop of Bath and Wells will bless these gates in the hope that they will be a ‘way in’ to much refreshment and enjoyment
Many types of gates and doors dot the town center all around us. These gates and doors convey to us a lot of information, if we pay attention to them and really take notice. Some gates are to keep people out, and others are to keep them in. And some are so old they aren't doing much good any more. Some gates are welcoming, others formidable. Some invite us to buy, or to drink. Some to keep us away if we wre not the right type. Some of the Shops in Knightsbridge won,t let you in if you don’t carry a large enough credit rating! So much of all this depends on our perspective, doesn't it?
The gates and the check points in and around the West Bank and Gaza strip right now are intimidating things. To pass through may mean trouble, violence or even death. West Bank settlers live behind gates to fences which surround their communities and yet another generation ends up hating those who are on the outside or on the inside. Depending on your locality and therefore your perspective.
If we live in a gated community, we welcome the protection that it affords us; but if we are incarcerated, the gate keeps us from freedom, it prevents us from sharing in what those on the inside have. If we are small in stature, or young in age, even a traditional, welcoming, white painted picket fence may seem like a terrible threat to us. But, if we are spry and in good shape, or have good long legs, leaping over a 3 ft chain link gate doesn't really give us much of a challenge Now the word gate is described in the dictionary as, "a moveable structure that controls the entrance and exit" -- but it doesn't say to what or where.
Today, the writer of John offers us the name of the Gate to the Divine Kingdom. Jesus is the name of that gate. One Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, God incarnate. And it depends on our perspective whether or not we see this gate as formidable or welcoming. The writers of the Gospels saw this gate as the only entrance to the Kingdom. And the writer of John is no exception; he particularly wants us to see, not only that Jesus is the gate, but also that Jesus is the one who will lead us, go before us into the Divine Kingdom-the "Good Shepherd."
Now a shepherd is such a pastoral image. (A play on words here, isn't there? Pastor, congregation-shepherd, sheep.) For those early Christians, pastures were relevant everyday sights, the means of many for keeping their families fed. For many, shepherding was a family tradition. In parts of the middle East and on the Welsh hills it still is.This allegory was more easily understood then, than it is for us today, unless we are farm families. But gates are still abundant, no matter what the type of society it is in which we live.
What gates do you enter and exit in your life, both real ones and allegorical ones? And who are the gatekeepers? Do you see them as compassionate and Christ-like; or as robbers and thieves? What do those gatekeepers offer you? Is it worth the price to enter? A lot depends on how much we want to enter, doesn't it? It is amazing, the price many of us are willing to pay to get our strokes, our affection, our earthly rewards, our fulfillment for here and now. It's the NOW GENERATION isn't it? "I want to feel good NOW -- and I'll pay the price to enter through that gate, no matter the cost."
‘A shepherd in Scotland was asked if ‘a sheep would ever respond to the voice of a stranger.’ Only if it were sick’, answered the Shepherd, ‘a sick sheep will follow anyone.’
So many bad decisions are made because of our sickness, because of our need to conform and feel we belong…somewhere, our lack of judgment, our desire for instant results and quick fix gratifications. Our needing it NOW!
It may surprise you to learn that the Divine Kingdom is also NOW -- a joy filled life in Christ can also be NOW, your strokes and need for affection can happen NOW-not in some far off distant future-but TODAY, HERE AND NOW. THIS IS A REALITY! Not that it's a bed of roses, that it's utopia, that it's nirvana. No, but it is, in fact, the Divine Kingdom which is real and filled with true Divine Love and it's yours to enter, as you will. The only stipulation is to use the gate. That means to participate in your faith and your Church. To worship and to learn how to be a part of a Community which needs you as much as you need it. It means putting our trust in the message of Pain transformed and not pain avoided. The refusal of instant results and gratification in favour of the longer more considered view. It means being more concerned for the people who are not you and those who are not in your immediate circle because they all belong in the sheepfold too, just because they are God’s children and therefore your brothers and sisters.
It's easy -- and it's hard. Oh yes, for some of us this is a very, very hard step to take. But when you are willing to pay the price, to pray for the strength to share and be an active part of a praying and supportive community giving and taking in equal measure, you will be rewarded with a love that passes all understanding. This love is both divine and human. Both now and still to come. A present return on your investment and a future one. The mutual love which is possible is so complete that all your woes and trials and tribulations can be walked through with strength and courage, and you will know the divine support and the human support all around you.
Of course you have to come through the gate and so many of us spend our lives at the gate negotiaiting with the gate keeper as to the price of our entry. Entry of course is free, and that’s what many of us find so difficult. We are so accustomed to having to pay for everything.
So Come in join the flock, those who know the voice of their gatekeeper; come, enter by the front door, for his arms are stretched wide open for you. You won’t find instant answers or instant solutions to your problems or those of the world but you will have more hope of glimpsing that peace of heart and mind which we all seek. There are lots of gates and lots of messages and lots and lots of gate keepers. Christ’s sheepfold does not always appear to be the most attractive at first but I am certain it has more than a long term future. So….Baaaaamen.
Chris Eyden – 21/4/02
THE EMMAUS ROAD
A sermon for the third Sunday of Easter 2002
Saint Mark’s Church Wimbledon
What those two disciples left behind in Jerusalem was the funeral pyre of all for which they had longed and hoped. Within the walls of the holy city, everything in which they had invested their trust had been crushed before their eyes. Jesus had meant to them not just leader, teacher, rabbi, but he who was to have saved Israel, fulfilled all the promises of God. In his presence they had savoured the anticipation of their heart’s desire, and now he lay dead; killed not by an unfortunate accident, but by law and due process: by their own people; rejected in the name of the God whom he had revealed to them. To understand this level of bereavement is impossible for the human spirit to encapsulate and their journey has about it something of a flight from reality, a flight from the past, from the grave of their hopes. Emmaus, in a sense becomes not a place to go with a purpose, but a symbol of the meaningless wandering, just in order to get away from their grief. Which of course they cannot because they carry it with them wherever they go.
They carry it because they cannot stop talking about it. Any if us who have been bereaved need continually to talk, let out the sorrow and the anger, and the sheer dulling pain of grief, and so we go over past events time and time again, sifting, recalling, trying to understand. This is in itself good and important because remaining in companionship, sharing the experience and listening with respect in the face of the incomprehensible is vital, and can be the beginning of faith. The friends of Job seem to be starting so well when they visit him after he has been struck down by all his afflictions. First they c0me simply and sit with him, in silence for three whole days, and then they listen as he pours out his heart in anger and grief. The trouble is that then they open their mouths and start to answer him back like the pious Godfearers that they are, and it is there that the communication ends: their words are a world away from his experience, and they lose him. The trouble with Christians listening is often that we can’t encapsulate people’s grief in the face of what we feel should be an ultimately optimistic faith. We are, after all, are we not, a resurrection people? And therefore should we not be offering resurrection? Not until we have gone to hell with them and back. Not until we have truly listened and tried to understand. Not until we have accompanied them first to see what it is like on the road of bereavement. The Emmaus road. It is perhaps our words that matter least and our presence most.
So it is that the unknown companion asks them the question: what are you talking about as you walk along? So often we suspect that questions asked in the Bible are rhetorical or hypothetical: not really seeking an answer, but only a device to preface a declaration or commandment or piece of advice. Here however, the question is an invitation to talk, and talk they do, their sense of isolation and bewilderment coming first: “are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” First and foremost, we find it difficult not to expect that everyone should understand and share our grief, so utterly does it absorb us. Jesus invites them to go on, he who has understood and experienced all these things himself, because in the same way that they make this short and yet significant journey away from Jerusalem late in that afternoon, they must also rehearse the life changing events so that they can then move on to where they need to be. The flood of narrative that follows is that rehearsal, and although it ends with the hope and mystery of the massage of the women, they cannot yet see it, in the same way that they cannot yet see Jesus, their eyes are too blinded with tears to see angels or their risen Lord.
And then Jesus seems to rebuke them, and lots of us don’t like that bit of the story because it doesn’t seem nice or kind to treat the bereaved like that. But forget who they are, what promises they have made and hopes harboured. And we forget who he is, and what his presence means. And we also forget the centrality of what it is that he is saying. Everything they have believed and held dear has now to be re-interpreted in the light of redemption: suffering as been pushed to the extreme. The servant son has made himself transparent to the love of the father, and that has unlocked the tomb, that has opened the wellspring of resurrection. The disciples have to understand not that Jesus death proved him or God wrong, but that it was because of and through his death that the victory has been won. Unless they understand and proclaim this, there can be no future for them or for the faith. The disciples cannot remain in the tomb of their grief, they must emerge into a new birth, and that in itself is painful. Their hearts burn within them, there is the wonderful promise of dawn even when they cannot yet realise why. It cannot be until the most primeval, intimate and essential moment that their blinding scales of grief can fall away. As they sit down to share a meal. This is probably how we first learnt to be human, by sharing what we had gathered or captured. It is the place and time at which the most heroic and the most dreadful things have been done. Because when we sit down to eat together we become vulnerable to each other. We exchange food and drink, we communicate, listen, learn, fall in love, give gifts. It is a time of risk also: we could poison each other, betray each other in word or by look or gesture. Jesus has known all that when he gave them a meal by which to remember him, and it is in recreating that meal that at last they see him, and in that glimpse they have of him, their lives begin again.
If this church, our life together can be anything to reflect what Jesus calls us to, it must be like that Emmaus story: a story of companionship on a road, whatever road: a road of joy or grief; a story of listening: to each other, and even more importantly to those who come through our doors; a story of hope when we help people reinterpret what they have experienced in the light of a resurrection that they might experience through us, within our community in their own lives or relationships, and lastly the story of a common meal, re-created here each week and through the week, in each others homes, in hostels and palaces, on battlefields and in hospitals, in glory and in simplicity: bread in which Jesus shows himself to us as never dead, wine in which he shows his outpouring love. A foretaste of the banquet of heaven, a moment when our hearts are set on fire to see him before us, and like those disciples, all our ways will turn back again from Emmaus, back to Jerusalem, back to where life begins again: the places of conflict and encounter in which we will once more walk and in which we will proclaim him risen.
Chris Eyden
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Sermon preached by Rev. Cynthia Jackson, Second Sunday of Easter, 6th April 2002
"Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out and put your hand in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.
(John 20 verses 27 and 28)
To be Real; to Experience Reality or to Experience Virtual Reality
Today it is sometimes hard for us to know what is real and what is not. We can watch archaeological programmes on the television as the programme makers create ancient cities before our eyes. They build up ruins to become complete buildings and even put people in the scenes -- but we know they are not real -- only virtual reality.
We search for real experiences, second-hand experiences are not good enough. They were not good enough for the disciples on that first Easter Day as they gathered fearfully behind locked doors. Then in John`s Gospel we are told that Jesus appears and says to the disciples, "Peace Be with you".
The disciples look at Jesus` wounded hands and side and rejoice when they realise that it is Jesus -- the Lord. Jesus who was dead is miraculously alive
But we know that Thomas was not with them and because he had not seen Jesus for himself, seen the marks of the nails, or touched them or put his hand in Jesus` side he would not believe.
Thomas could not believe that Jesus was Real. He had not faith in Jesus` Resurrected Reality. Second-hand reality was not enough.
We may feel that today as we struggle with the concept of Jesus` Resurrection. Is the resurrected Jesus real for us today? If so, how is Jesus real for us today? Or is it all unreality. For me it is to do with God's overwhelming love for the world he made, for the people he created.
I'd like to share a very simple story with you about being Real and about Love. After the intensity of Holy Week and Easter it may help to think about the simple yet profound message of being made Real.
The Story of the "Velveteen Rabbit" by Marjorie Williams was published in 1922. (Click book cover to see / buy the book on Amazon)
"There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and punchy, as a rabbit should be; he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink satin. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the boy`s stocking, with a spread of holy between his paws, the effect which charming.
There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and the clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite at the best of all. For at least two hours for the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, those are great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.
For a long time he lived in a toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paints, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out of date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between Them All the Poor Little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind him at all was the Skin Horse.
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery then any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by and by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" Asked the Rabbit one-day, when they were lying side-by-side near the nursery fender before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just play with, but REALLY loves you then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" Asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When You Are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "all bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happened to people who break it easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are Real ?" Said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy`s Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him…………..”
To find out the end of the story you will have to read the book for yourself!
So what is the point of the story? It is that to become Real, the Velveteen Rabbit had to LET HIMSELF BE LOVED UNTIL IT HURT and it did not happen quickly it took a long time.
This week we have seen a demonstration of LOVE following the death of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. She took on a life of dedication and surfaced when her husband became King George VI . She was by his side during the dark years of the Second World War. She gave out LOVE to people and received LOVE back. And I suppose it is in recognition of that that thousands of people have converged on Westminster to pay their respects and file past the Queen Mother's coffin in Westminster Hall.
But the LOVE that God has for us is even deeper , God loves us until it hurts.
God loves us human beings, created in God's image, that God came to Birth in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Was the Personification of Real Love. True reality.
Jesus gave up his life and died on the Cross for us. By doing that he became a greater Reality -- the RESURRECTED Christ.
So Deep, Committed Love, is true reality . But can only be achieved at a cost .
Thomas would not accept that Reality -- the Real Jesus Christ Resurrected until he had seen him for himself.
Then Thomas said "My Lord and My God".
We are all called to believe in the resurrected Jesus, for we are people of the RESURRECTION. How precisely the resurrection happened is a mystery, how Jesus appeared in different places is also a mystery.
But what we do know is that the power of the Resurrected Christ is with us today. That overwhelming power of LOVE. We are strengthened by Christ as he is made present in this Sacrament of Holy Communion.
We Are Renewed by His Power of Love so that we may say of Jesus -- like Thomas -- "My Lord and My God."
And having believed share that belief with other people.
The gospel reading ended with these words:
THAT LIFE IS RESURRECTION LIVING.
It is that new life that supports and sustains us when all around us is in darkness, when we see the brutality of many of the situations in the world on our television news or in our newspapers. It is that new life that tells us this world does not need to be like this. Men and women CAN live together in peace.
But to do that we cannot look back - we have to have the courage to step out into the unknown and walk in faith. We have to follow Christ, and live Christlike lives. Yes we will experience times of crucifixion each in our own way ,but also we can experience RESURRECTION LIVING.
WE HAVE TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY TO JESUS, LIKE THOMAS, "MY LORD AND MY GOD"
AMEN
Cynthia Jackson
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Easter
The Season of Lent, the observance of Holy Week and the Festival of Easter join the Church’s Year with the cycle of the planet, Lent being Anglo-Saxon for Spring when the earth warms and things begin to grow after a cold, hard Winter; Holy Week, so intrinsically linked to Passover and the phases of the moon. The Festival of Easter heralding the impending Summer and the final victory over the death of all things rings in the beginning of Summer.
The Circles of Life and the Cycles of Nature are encapsulated and re-visited in the cultic which surrounds the season. Don’t let the word ‘cultic’ and its Satanic resonances disturb you. Most liturgy is cultic. It is the re-enactment of an event or series of events in the past which give people identity, help them to understand their present predicament and inform their future. This was certainly the case in Jewish Temple worship and the use of the Psalms and it is true also of the Christian Eucharist. We gather together in the name of Jesus who gives us our identity, we remember events in His life, principally His death and resurrection, we break bread and take wine which links us with our Hebrew ancestry and our Christian future. We feed on word and sacrament and communicate both with God and each other. We are sent out from the re-enactment to serve in the world as people who know that death and death-dealing has ultimately been conquered. All of this is cultic.
Think then – either forwards or backwards- to the cultic events of Holy Week and Easter. The triumphal entry, the pinnacle of optimism tinged with fear and anticipation. The hero’s last meal. The Commandment to love and to serve and to wash each other’s feet. The agony of the inevitable. The betrayal at the hands of a friend, so touchingly executed with a kiss. The trial of goodness at the hands of dubious politicians, small men with large egos. The taunts of the religious fundamentalist and the Temple opportunist. The barrack room gesture of the Roman guards who crown all which they do not understand with the thorn of rejection. Then the end of the sad hero’s life, accompanied by the taunts of the fickle who once made him famous. All this executed not with the finality of a bullet or a rope or a lethal injecton, but by the long and lingering death afforded by hanging on nails which fix Him to wood. The death of His Mission, the death of His Message was clear for all to see and those who wished him gone for ever made sure there was plenty of time for His suffering and humiliation to make good spectator sport.
The worship and observance which we offer remembers stories which cover only a single week in chronological time, once 2,000 or so years ago; but their re-enactment, their cultic value, inform us in our own present predicaments. The ‘God Man’ and his dying represents all death over all time. His suffering, all suffering. His humiliation, all humiliation. The destruction of His goodness is the destruction of all goodness. So – when the Body is taken down and the stone of finality rolled over any future hope, it represents the present predicament, of our world, of our communities and of our lives as individuals. BUT just as we enter into a death like his, often simply by being human, so do we enter his resurrection. Or, as the tomb burst open, a new Life, the same but changed, changed and yet the same, burst forth, as the chick pecks its way through the hard shell of the egg and in that bright light which no-one seems to recognise immediately, the silent atomic roar of the triumph of Life exposes the Universe in which God reigns supreme. The universe as it really is.
So here all the 11th Septembers are consumed. All the hatred and the holocausts are transformed. All the fighting and injustice that is and was and shall be will not win in the end. The process was begun when He burst forth out of death. It continues with us – first, conquering not only our death but our temptation to deal in death, to stand silent in the face of injustice, to remain inactive in the midst of spite, anger and greed. To collude with unkindness and mainly - to do nothing. We are compelled to live as the Resurrection People that we are. Not to crucify ourselves or others. What point is there in death dealing when death doesn’t win? Such a waste of time, don’t you think?
As Christians who gather or have gathered to re-enact the great events of Holy Week and Easter, we have a responsibility to live the rest of our lives dealing in Life.
The process is not a quick fix. Sometimes resurrection only comes after painful crucifixion, but the message of Easter is ‘pain transformed’, it is not and can never be ‘pain avoided’. This is so in our personal lives, in our psyches, in our communities, in our financial and political dealings. Avoidance leads only to more pain. One thing Jesus did not do on the Cross was to avoid pain, but whatever trials we have to bear and whatever pains we have to suffer, we can do it in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, whether that life is metaphysical or the transformation of our present predicament. Ultimately, goodness will win in the end. That is the message of Easter. LIVE IT.
Chris Eyden
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