One addressed to “the boys”

Way back last year (13th December, to be precise) Rachel Held Evans wrote a post on her blog entitled “…your daughters will prophesy”. One comment on that post started a train of thought that has been haunting me ever since. The comment was this:

“someday when Christ asks me to account for how I used my gifts, “the boys wouldn’t let me” will not be an acceptable answer.”

Now both Rachel and her commentator are living in an American church culture in which the issue of women in church leadership and ministry is a hotly, some might say ferociously, debated issue.  Many big-name pastors (whom I shall not name here) appear to have big theological objections to the whole idea that women might have something to contribute to this area. As a former opponent of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England, I know the arguments advanced for this point of view, and they have resurfaced in the current debates about women in the epsicopate in the Church of England.

My train of thought, sparked by the comment on Rachel’s blog, was this: suppose, just suppose, that those of us in leadership are accountable not just for how we use our own gifts and talents, but also for how the other gifts and talents that God has given his church are deployed. As I look around me I see many women who have undoubted gifts for pastoral ministry, teaching, evangelism and countless other things, including leadership within our churches. Some of these are using their gifting and are being used well and encouraged by their churches. But others most definitely are not. And before someone else says it, this does apply to many men too! We are not always good at using and developing people, full stop, but in the case of men we don’t tend to make such a theological song and dance about it (unless of course they are gay or transexual – but that is another discussion).

Rachel’s commentator understood that “the boys wouldn’t let me” was not an acceptable defence for her letting her own God-given gifts go to waste. To those who oppose the idea of women in church leadership, especially male leaders, I want to ask: will it be acceptable for women’s gifts to be buried in the ground, unused?

In the parable of the talents/pounds (Matthew 25:14ff.//Luke 19:11ff.) those servants who step out boldly, who take the risks, reap the reward not only for themselves but for their master, too. The one who buries the talent they have been given acts out of fear, and ends up losing even what they have. I believe that churches and leaders who ignore the gifts and people we have been given are, ultimately, working against God’s Kingdom.

And, boys: “but they were women,” will also not be an acceptable reply.

St. Paul and the poor

Today the Church commemorates and celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul. It is one of those feast days that even made it into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a festival of major importance.

For many Christians, this feast focusses on Paul’s experience of Christ while travelling on the Damascus Road. We talk colloquially about a “Damascus Road experience” to mean a sudden and instantaneous change of heart and mind. But although Luke’s account in the Acts of the Apostles certainly gives the impression of such a change of heart, the story that Paul himself tells in the Epistle to the Galatians tells a somewhat different story – one of an extended period of re-evaluation in Arabia before his reemergence on the public scene. Like Jesus’ childhood, biblically this is Paul’s “hidden time,” and I want to suggest that, notwithstanding the dramatic story with which we are familiar, it is this more extended process that is the real “conversion of Paul.” It is what brings about the real change in Paul’s lifestyle and thinking. The Damascus Road experience is simply the trigger for the whole process.

This is, of course, slightly at odds with the thinking of some evangelical Christians who view “instantaneous conversion” as the norm and view any other type as either invalid or somehow inferior. (Fr. David Cloake writes a heartfelt piece about this here).

Paul’s account in Galatians goes on to describe two meetings he had with some of the apostles in Jerusalem. The first appears to have been to establish his credentials and a relationship with them, the second, some fourteen years later, to seek their blessing on his mission to the Gentiles. In both instances things seem to go well and the blessing is given, though subject to a caveat which is rather overlooked in some circles today:

They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do. (Galatians 2:10 NRSV)

Sometimes I hear some Christians say that the Church is not called to address poverty and social issues but to “preach the gospel.” For some evangelical Christians “remembering the poor” smacks of the “social gospel”, a phrase which is pejoratively associated with “liberal Christianity” in those circles. However, it appears from the New Testament that Paul, like Jesus and the other apostles, was concerned with not only the spiritual but also the material condition of those at the bottom of the social heap, those on the margins of society. The Jerusalem church, as shown in the early chapters of Acts, seems to have contained more than its share of widows and orphans, who were supported by the rest of the church’s members. And although nether Luke nor Paul seem to make much of a deal about it, it is clear from this verse that this same concern existed among the churches with which Paul was associated.

This is an aspect of the Gospel which I believe is something of a litmus test for the health of the Church in its teaching and praxis. It has been embraced by Catholic, Orthodox, Liberal and Evangelical alike, but has always needed those of strong minds to recall the Church to its mandate. St. Francis’ views were controversial within the church of his day, and St. Ignatius of Loyola’s in his. Wilberforce and Shaftesbury equally faced down opposition. However, it is not simply the holding of the views that is the really controversial bit.

The really controversial bit, the bit that gets people talking and stirs up the opposition, is actually living it out in practice.

 

Christian unity? Oh, that…

So, as of yesterday, we are in an octave (eight days) of prayer for Christian Unity. It may be me, or where I live and minister, but it is my perception that this is treated as of rather less significance than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Maybe we feel that much of the ecumenical work has already been done, or that the results of several decades of effort has yielded so little in the way of visible progress towards unity. Or perhaps we have so broadened our definition of unity that we no longer feel it there is anything to work and pray towards. How high a profile does this Week of Prayer have among your local churches?

Christian Unity is often thought of as something to left to the enthusiasts. Christians brought up in earlier generations often have a clear sense of denominational identity that sees members of other denominations as, indeed, “other”. Younger Christians may wonder what all the fuss is about – after all we are “all one in Christ” – aren’t we? We attend the nearest church that provides a reasonable fit for our theological and cultural expectations (not necessarily in that order). The institutional governance side of church is irrelevant – right?

Well, I think that these issues are NOT irrelevant. Our relationships with one another are of supreme importance, but they are not limited simply to our private, inter-personal relationships. Our institutions are (or should be)  there to help us relate to one another in a Christ-like way, but they can be (and sometimes are) used to exclude and set boundary markers that are unhelpful.

I think that my sabbatical experiences have made me more eager to work and pray for our Christian Unity than ever before. I was “emotionally ambushed” a number of times, and a couple of these related to our unity in Christ. On one occasion it was hearing sung the words of the hymn “Let us build a house” that did it.

On another occasion we were with an English-speaking RC congregation in Rome where the priest encouraged the congregation to pray for some Anglican-RC consultations taking place that week, at the end of which an NZ Anglican bishop would preach at Evening Prayer the following Sunday. Both experiences left me longing for a Church where we are able to share real unity and fellowship in spite of theological diversity.

But this applies not only to inter-church, inter-denominational relations, but within our denominations as well. We have a tendency to bandy around various labels – liberal, conservative, evangelical, catholic, charismatic etc. – which are intended to pigeonhole people. (And doesn’t it save us having to think about what we/they might actually believe and have to teach us when we are fighting our corner)! Eric Kyte has a “rambling thought” about Churchmanship and labels at The Elves Are Heading West.

The author of John’s Gospel tells us,

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:14 NRSV – emphasis mine)

Perhaps in our concern for truth we could all show a little more grace and humility. It is John’s Gospel also which records for us Jesus’ own heartfelt desire for unity among his followers. So let’s make it our prayer too.

Heavenly Father,
You have called us in the body of your Son Jesus Christ
to continue his work of reconciliation
and reveal you to the world;
forgive us the sins which tear us apart;
give us courage to overcome our fears
and to seek that unity which is your gift and your will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Creativity and Holy Innocents

The creativity part of this post is simply an observation. While I was on retreat during my sabbatical I found time and energy to produce a number of poems as well as several drawings and paintings. I have never considered myself to be a poet or and artist and I never do these things except when I am on retreat. Yet a retreat gives time for reflection and to allow the creative process time to develop and mature. My day to day life, I conclude, does not give these opportunities, but this is something I am determined to address over the coming weeks and months. It is too enjoyable and satisfying (even with my poor technique) to allow to wither.

One of the poems I wrote concerned the dream Joseph had, warning of Herod’s impending genocide. As we commemorate the Holy Innocents, I thought I’d share it:

Joseph’s Dream

In my dream I hear
the clatter of hobnails on a stoney street
muted in the moonlight, so as not to stir to premature alarm,
and purposeful, feet that know
exactly where they are going,
what their orders are and what to do.

And in my dream I hear
a signal, and at that signal and on every door
a loud knock followed swiftly by
the splintering wood, loud raucous shouts –
no two second wait for legal niceties –
drowning the dazed, confused mumble
of those awoken by this 3 a.m. alarm.

And in my dream I feel and smell
the shock and fear of those roused early from their beds
to clash and clang of ringing steel.
I almost hear the rushing thoughts,
the “why me?” questions; “what have I got to hide?”
I feel the roughness of the soldier’s hands,
the strength and hardness of his boot.

And in my dream I see
the little streams of blood trickling
from a hundred doorways where
just yesterday a young child cried or screamed
or played or took a first step, said a word.
The streams collecting in the path outside,
the bodies left, of no more consequence
than tomorrow’s lunch.

And in my dream I feel
the pain and anguish of those bereft –
fathers and mothers, whose joys and hopes
lie dashed against the pillars of their homes.
I hear the wailing of a thousand tongues
and voices raised in grief:
Rachel weeping for her children.

And in my dream I see
a tyrant satisfied that now the threat
to undermine his power is allayed –
until tomorrow when some new plot
to seize his power may be uncovered,
feeding the paranoid frenzy once again.
No peace for the ruthless.

And from my dream, once woken,
this I know: the time has come for us to move
far, far away. No time to lose.
Tonight, the three of us will meet at edge of town
and, like our descendants, flee
to far-off foreign safety for a while –
until I dream again.

Holy Innocents is the dark side of Christmas – certainly not “for the children.” The Word becomes incarnate in a violent, politically motivated world like ours – a world where the suffering and death of thousands and millions is accepted without a murmur by the powerful as “collateral damage” to protect their interests. It is a stark reminder of what humanity is capable when it feels threatened.

Finally, here is a carol which is rarely sung in most churches over Christmas – the Coventry Carol in a setting by Kenneth Leighton sung by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge (nearly as good as the rendition given by our diocesan clergy choir last Tuesday).

Joseph

A few days ago Pete Banks (aka the banksyboy brief) posted a link to a fabulous track by The Killers – Joseph, Better You Than Me. Rather than embed the link here, I encourage you to go to Pete’s blog and have a listen via the link.

As I said, I think it is a fabulous track, and it reminded me of a meditation I did during the Spiritual Exercises on my recent sabbatical. Joseph is a somewhat neglected figure in the Nativity story. We focus a lot on Mary, the mother of Jesus, and on her obedience, and while Joseph gets his honourable mentions in Matthew’s Gospel his role in the story is often overlooked when we tell it at Christmas. Joseph takes responsibility for many of the major decisions – he carries through with the planned marriage in the face of local gossip and scandal; he takes care of Mary and the baby in difficult circumstances in Bethlehem, perhaps facing the questions of his extended family since they come from there; he takes the decision to seek refuge in a foreign country (Egypt) when their lives are threatened by Herod, and then to return to Nazareth when the situation allows. All this for a child that isn’t his!

Let’s spare a special thought for Joseph this Christmas.

More reflections on Jesuits

As mentioned in my previous post, I have recently spent eight weeks in the company of Jesuits, both on retreat and on pilgrimage. In many ways – and perhaps not too surprisingly – it has been a bit of a revelation. Hearing familiar stories from “the other side” can be quite an eye-opening and mind-broadening experience. How so?

Coming from an English Protestant background, I was aware of the historic Protestant view of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. This view saw Jesuits as being the Pope’s shock troops, dedicated to undermining the Protestant Reformation in England and Wales and seeking to return its population to the true fold of the (Roman) Catholic church. In an age which saw any Catholic as a threat to national cohesion (there were penal laws against Catholics), Jesuits were seen as the worst threat. Many of the priests who sought shelter in the homes of landed Catholic families (many of which had priestholes to hide them from the authorities) were Jesuits, born to English Catholic families and educated on the Continent before returning to minister in secret.

The thing is, that while many Protestants were martyred in England under the reign of Mary, so, later under Elizabeth, James and the Commonwealth, were many Catholics. On one day during my retreat we commemorated the “Welsh Martyrs”, Welsh Jesuits who had suffered being hung, drawn and quartered for their faith and ministry. We were reminded that meeting as we did several centuries earlier would have been a huge risk for all concerned (and what would have been the position of an Anglican priest caught in this company, I wondered?). I found that hearing the story from “the other side” was disquieting and very challenging. How much baggage do we actually carry from the communities that form us? What are the negatives we unconsciously absorb and project onto others?

The Jesuit priests I met during my eight weeks were all very humble, spiritual men. They all seemed to have a real desire to follow the path of Jesus and to be concerned with practical care of the most vulnerable in society and with issues of social justice. The same is true of their female religious counterparts, and of other, non-Jesuit, priests and religious I met. I feel privileged to have been able to spend time with them and look forward to continuing my ecumenical connection with them.

Eight weeks with the Jesuits

Well, Tree is back in the Forest again. Some of you knew, and some guessed, that I have been taking a three month sabbatical leave. Technically this ends tomorrow and I return to parish duties on Thursday morning. My apologies go to those who were alarmed by the cryptic nature of my previous post – I just don’t like advertising my absence over the interweb.

So what have I been up to? Well, 40 days were spent at St. Beuno’s (pronounced “Byno’s”) Spirituality Centre in North Wales. This is a former Jesuit seminary whose big claim to fame is that the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins studied there while training to become a Jesuit. Today St. Beuno’s runs retreats and courses following the principles of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). I will say some more about Ignatius and Jesuits in another post. St. Beuno’s also featured in the 2010 BBC series The Big Silence, as a result of which its shorter retreats (6 and 8-day) have been over-subscribed this year.

During my forty days I spent thirty days in silence doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. These are a series of prayers and meditations based on the life of Christ and can be quite an intense experience. The other days were spent at the beginning with an introduction to various ways of praying and at the end reflecting and processing the experience of the exercises. There were 28 of us following this Institute, mainly Catholic priests and religious (nuns) but also a handful of lay people and Anglican priests (plus a Lutheran pastor). We were also a very international group, with members from the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Africa, Ireland, Peru and Latvia, and we shared many very interesting conversations during the times we were not in silence.

The other two weeks were spent with a group organised by St. Beuno’s on a pilgrimage following in the steps of St. Ignatius through Spain and on to Rome (sadly, we did not include Paris or the Holy Land in our itinerary!). The group included 14 of us from the Exercises, but we were joined by others, many of whom had made the Exercises on another occasion.

The pilgrimage began with four nights in Loyola in the Basque Region where Ignatius was born and grew up, taking in the castle at Javier near Pamplona where another great Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, grew up. We then moved on to Manresa where Ignatius wrote the Exercises in a cave. During our stay here we visited Barcelona. For me, the highlight of this day was nothing to do with Ignatius but came in the form of a visit to Gaudi’s amazing Sagrada Familia basilica. I had seen it on TV and photographs, but entering the building was a simply stunning experience which film and photos just cannot convey. It is simply a stupendous and magnificent space.

Our final four nights were spent in Rome where we had the chance to visit many of the places associated with St. Ignatius during the later phases of his life, including a visit to the rooms next to the Gesu church where he spent his final days.

I look forward to sharing more reflections on these experiences over the next few days and weeks. A lot has been happening – including some significant events in the outside world while we were isolated in silence. I rather suspect, too, that the parish will absorb a lot of time as I catch up with what has been going on there. In the meantime, it is good to be back.

Hasta Luego

For reasons which I shall explain at a later date, Tree will be silent in the blogosphere for several weeks. I intend to resume some kind of service after this time. Like others, I may need to re-evaluate the time balance between blogging and other aspects of life. Nevertheless, I look forward to remaking our acquaintance and friendships soon.

A Day at the Racecourse – #gb11

 

Until this year I had never been to Greenbelt; this in spite of having several friends who went in its early years, and a number of more recent festival-going (indeed festival-organising) friends.

However, the opportunity to meet a few of the people who comment here, and on whose blogs I comment, was too great to resist. And so Saturday morning 27th August dawned bright, and Mrs Tree and I whisked down the A46 to glorious Cheltenham for the day. Even with a breakfast stop near Alcester, we made it into the racecourse in time to catch Brian McLaren about 5 minutes into what turned out to be a very interesting take on the Israel/Palestine conflict. As an American with an evangelical(ish) background, it was clear that he is used to dealing with a Christian Zionist line, which he critiqued heavily. This drew forth a fair bit of applause from his audience – though I rather feel that the British church, outside a particular sub-set of evangelicalism, is much less Zionist than its American counterpart. Rather less enthusiastic support was shown for his plea not to give uncritical support for the Palestinian cause. The subsequent Q&A session was limited by the mass movement of people towards the Rob Bell talk on mainstage.

I may blog about that another time, as I will about the talk by Phyllis Tickle I heard.

While the talks were all very interesting, the highlight of the day was the opportunity to meet people. Some of these I already knew from Real Life, others only from encounters on blogs and email exchanges. Among the former were friends from theological college and couple of friends from Liverpool who were helping out with the Messy Church events. But I am now also able to put real voices and faces to @RevdLesley of Lesley’s Blog and her husband Alan, to @Artsyhonker (Kathryn Rose) ,to @Gurdur (Tim Skellett) the administrator of The Heathen Hub and author of the Stranger in an Even Stranger Land blog. I also met Anita (of Dreaming Beneath the Spires) and husband Roy, plus Savi Hensman of Ekklesia.

with Gurdur (Tim Skellett)

L to R Anita, Alan & Lesley Crawley, Tim Skellett (Gurdur)

The day was a wonderful one. The weather was mostly kind, with only a couple of show, and a fair bit of warm sunshine to compensate. Although the day left me quite tired for my 8 a.m. Communion service the following morning I wouldn’t have missed it – some challenging talks and wonderful people

I’m already pencilling in the dates for a longer visit in next year’s diary.

A huge thank you to ITV4

Back in the days before Freeview, the spur for us to buy an On Digital receiver for our TV was Channel 4 dropping their coverage of the Tour de france. over the years I, along with the rest of the Tree family, had become increasingly drawn into the famous cycle race. And the only way of being able to follow the race was to watch Eurosport. A few years later, ITV4 came to the rescue, and subsequent years have seen July booked as TdF month.

However, the good folk at ITV have not left it at that. As well as increasing and improving coverage of the Tour of Britain, this year we have been treated to daily live and highlight coverage of one of the other Grand Tours – La Vuelta a Espana. Whilst it is clear that far fewer resources have been directed at this coverage that at the bigger cousin across the border, it has been delightful to follow – especially as the British Sky team have been running second and third in the race with Bradley Wiggins and the, to me hitherto, unrecognised Chris Froome. Like this year’s TdF, the final stages have been wonderfully exciting, with mere seconds splitting the top two riders. I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s final stage in Madrid.

So a huge thank you to the team at ITV4 for their commitment in promoting a sport which has a growing following in this country. With the Tour of Britain also beginning tomorrow, it is going to be a great end to the season. Thanks, and keep it up for next year.