Proper 14 for the Cathedral Eucharist 8th August 2021 "I am the bread of life"

 I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”

When I was a student I had a good friend named Jack. He was extremely tall (particularly when standing next to my 5’4”) and carried not an ounce of surplus weight. He was a great cook and a famous host, but the meals I remember him by most clearly were those I never actually got to eat. You see, Jack was generous with his invitations to afternoon tea, and his rooms were only a short walk from one of Cambridge’s better bakers. When he was expecting guests, Jack would set forth to Tyler’s, on a mission to buy bread for the tea-party. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion the smell of the new bread, and its fresh-baked warmth proved too hard to resist, and he would arrive back in his rooms with only the stub end of the loaf, having consumed the rest on the walk between bakery and college. Legend has it that on one occasion at least, he visited the bakery 3 times before actually making it home with an untouched loaf. Bread from Tylers was pretty wonderful, but for someone Jack’s size, one loaf was only a short-term solution.

I often think of Jack as I break the bread at the Eucharist.
Of course, we generally use wafers, and sometimes people complain sadly that they bear no resemblance to real bread at all. Perhaps that’s a good thing. There’s no room for confusion. We’re not eating a “proper meal” together, but taking part in something quite different, whose value lies far beyond any standard nutritional benefit. The fragment of unleavened wafer we receive becomes something much greater than itself, for it is here that we are offered Christ, in all the fullness of his risen life.

In our gospel this morning, John sets out to demonstrate that Jesus is the One for whom Israel was waiting, and to do this he aligns Jesus with Moses...To understand his technique, we need to remember that for the Jews, the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) provided a constant frame of reference. The contents of these books were not abstract concepts for the Jew - these were living words, pregnant with layers of meaning, and each new generation of Jews felt themselves living in the story in some way.
And so John has Jesus evoke memories of the defining period in Jewish history, the Exodus from Egypt, and recall God’s provision of manna, “bread from heaven”.
This was the freedom food, which enabled God’s people to travel onwards to the place they had been promised.
The food which sustained them, and made it possible for them to live as a people on the move, following wherever God lead them.
But, though this food seemed miraculous, it had to be consumed on the day it appeared, or it rotted and became worthless.
The Israelites were not allowed to build up supplies in case of crisis. They just had to trust God’s provision, day after day after day.

Now Jesus compares himself with that bread…in terms guaranteed to have any observant Jew sitting bolt upright on the edge of this seat
I am the bread of life.
I AM is the name God gives himself when he meets Moses, at the burning bush
Say I AM has sent you.
And so Jesus identifies himself with God and urges the crowd
“Stop looking only to your physical needs!
Your ancestors ate manna but died!
You who ate when I fed the 5000 will die in time!
But belief in me is ‘food’ that leads to eternal life.”

Jesus, the bread which now comes down from heaven sustains those who eat for ever.
This is no less the food of pilgrimage, no less a food provided directly by God,- indeed this food represents God’s very life, available to be absorbed by all God’s people.
Jesus is offering himself to his disciples…whoever eats me…
Imagine the impact of that, with Jesus himself standing beside you, on a hot day in Palestine, as the crowds press around, murmuring in doubt or disapproval.
A living, breathing man inviting you to eat him.
Shocking, unthinkable words.
Frightening, unwelcome words – in the same way as those words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper
“This is my body…this is my blood...”

John wrote several decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, as part of a community that would have regularly celebrated the Lord’s supper together. For them, as for us, Jesus’ imagery - eating flesh and drinking blood - had come to life in a new way as the church shared the meal Jesus instituted.
So it is, week by week, when we gather and make Eucharist.
We bring ourselves, just as we are, broken, flawed, hungry for love and reassurance.
We bring the mess and muddle of our lives and lay them with our gifts upon the altar.
And as the bread and wine are consecrated and transformed, as Christ becomes truly present in those ordinary things made holy by the power of the Spirit, so we find ourselves joined with Christ and with one another.

There is a story* told about a Eucharist that took place in prison camp – where rations were low, and morale lower.
Neither bread nor wine was available but the longing for Christ, the prayers of the faithful and the words of the priest together made this a true Communion.
Listen
It was Easter in the camp. There was not a single cup.
No bread or wine. The non-Christians said, "We will help you; we will talk quietly so you can meet for worship." Too dense a silence would have drawn the guards' attention as surely as the lone voice of the preacher. "We have no bread, nor water to use instead of wine," the preacher told them, "but we will act as though we had."

"This meal in which we take part," he said, "reminds us of the prison, the torture, the death, and final victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bread is the body that he gave for humanity. The fact that we have none represents very well the lack of bread in the hunger of so many millions of human beings…but in Christ all our hungers are satisfied. The wine, which we don't have today, is his blood and represents our dream of a united humanity, of a just society, the hope of the kingdom to come...."

He broke the bread and held out his empty hand to the first person on the right, and placed it over his open hand, and the same with the others: "Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me." All of them raised hands to mouths, receiving the body of Christ in silence. The communion of empty hand..."

Was Christ present there? Need we really ask that question?

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”
Hear Christ speak these words to you as you make your way to the Communion rail.
In that tiny fragment of bread, we receive Jesus himself, all we will ever need to sustain us on our pilgrimage.
Bread is the traditional staff of life, but the life that this bread represents is everlasting.
It is the life of God himself…and we are invited to share it.

Thanks be to God!

Lammas Day sermon at Holy Trinity Coventry, Proper 13 B 1st August 2021

It’s always a pleasure to join you here at Holy Trinity – and one of the things that I specially love it to imagine the pews filled with all those who have worshipped here across many years. The thought of the citizens of Coventry gathering before the Reformation, Sunday by Sunday to hear Mass...and to celebrate the many Church festivals and Saints days that gave the year its shape and structure delights me, so it’s a rather wonderful that we are here together on 1st August..

Lammas Day - the day of the “Loaf Mass”. What? You may cry. Has Kathryn finally lost the plot? What IS she talking about? Isn’t Lammas inherently pagan? No – not a bit of it. Actually, Lammas tide has impeccable Christian credentials. It is the festival of thanksgiving to God for the start of the harvest, where corn and bread are offered as symbols of gratitude. It’s name comes from the Old English word for ‘loaf’, hlaf, which is followed by ‘mass’, the Eucharist, at which bread is broken and shared before we are sent out, strengthened for service in God’s world. After a year that has featured periodic shortages of particular foods, exacerbated by the panic buying that seems irresistible to some, we are perhaps more aware that we have been for a while about the sources of our food, and our dependence on those who produce it. Food is not an optional extra, but something we all need to sustain our life – and to pause and give thanks should surely be part of our daily practice – even though we may not bring that gratitude into our worship as often as we should.

The writer David Adam invites us to

Be gentle when you touch bread. Let it not lie uncared for—unwanted
So often bread is taken for granted. There is so much beauty in bread
Beauty of sun and soil, beauty of honest toil
Winds and rain have caressed it, Christ often blessed it
Be gentle when you touch bread.

So – bread is a gift in itself, but also a symbol of so much more and it’s rather wonderful that our readings today are part of those summer weeks in which the Lectionary invites us to think repeatedly about bread..

Today we focus first on God’s daily provision for God’s people on their wilderness journey, the solid, physical evidence that God remained absolutely invested in their wellbeing “...in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, then you shall know that I am the Lord your God”. When you’ve embarked on a journey into the unknown in obedience to God’s call, it’s more than reassuring to have reminders that God really IS part of this. We, who have so much, are far less able to spot the blessings poured upon us. Our eyes are blinded by the surfeit of good things we can enjoy, and so we lack the readiness to give thanks that we recognise in the Israelites in the desert (even if that gratitude turns out to be short-lived) and in those who surelye filled this church in centuries past to celebrate the Loaf Mass on Lammas day. But, you know, being attentive to God’s gifts is a skill worth cultivating. That may seem too obvious to be worth mentioning - but you might be surprised at how easy it is to slip into complacency and the kind of pernicious egotism that assumes that everything we have is “Because I’m worth it”. Note that the manna fell from heaven not because of who the wandering Israelites were, but because of who GOD is...a God of generosity, who, then as now, delights to bless, to overwhelm us with God’s grace, the undeserved free gifts that are quite simply part of God’s nature.

So – be alert. And be thankful.

But there is more. Our gospel, too, reminds us of how God’s gift of bread is a sign of God’s commitment to humanity...but now we are in a different world, the bread no longer simply a matter of milled flour to sustain us day by day. Jesus is beginning to explain to the crowds that they need other gifts – other nourishment – in order to really live. It sounds like a simple journey. Forget about your material needs...focus on the food that will last for ever...by recognising the truth that stands before you in the person of Jesus, Son of Man and Gift of God. But the crowds need something concrete to focus on. They are drawn back into their history – into the recognition of God’s goodness played out in the lives of their ancestors in the wilderness – and they want more of the same. If we’re supposed to believe in you – how can we know that your claims are true. What do you bring to the table as evidence that you come from God. And the answer comes, loud and clear – It’s not about what I am doing. It’s about who I AM.

That moment which makes clear how Jesus emerges from and perfects God’s covenant with Moses. Not simply “I AM has sent me...” but now, explicitly, “I AM”.

Astounding. Earth shaking. An itinerant rabbi proclaiming himself the great I AM...the one who’s name is so holy it cannot be pronounced. A human being announcing that he, HE, is the one who has come from heaven to give life to the world. Next week we will hear Jesus expanding on that theme, to the amazement and disquiet of his hearers. Next week, I’m confident that my preaching will dive deeper into the mystery of God’s life offered to us here at the altar week by week in a fragment of bread…for truly, as we break and share the bread of Eucharist – thanksgiving – we encounter the reality of God’s presence transforming us from the inside out, and experience the reality that is our life in God.

But today, Lammas day, I want to return once more to the role of ordinary, daily bread as a powerful sacramental sign of God’s care for our bodies as well as for our souls. Let me end with a pair of stories...which entwine together around this theme. Are you sitting comfortably?

I used to go on retreat to Llan, a wonderful place in the Shropshire hills, miles from anywhere. The set up there was geared around an individual retreatant, cooking for themselves from supplies bought in by the hosts. One year when I arrived, there was a lovely loaf of new bread from the local bakery waiting wrapped in the bread bin, and a slice of that with some local honey made a blissful breakfast. It was just as good with "Gold and herbs" cheese and salad at lunch time, but though I was making inroads on the loaf there was still plenty left the following morning, when A. announced that G was baking, and there would be home-made bread in time for lunch. I protested that I really didn't need it. The shop loaf was very tasty, and I had quite enough for the whole of my stay.
My host smiled but said nothing, and just before lunchtime, as I sat on the terrace in the sunshine he appeared bearing half a loaf of steaming white bread, straight from the oven.
It was, of course, delicious and I appreciated it hugely for itself, but also for the reminder of God's joy in giving more than we can either desire or deserve...a reminder that I, who sometimes hesitate to ask, absolutely needed to hear. That week I was gently practising Ignatian spirituality, encouraged by an American book called, intriguingly, Sleeping with Bread.
The story behind the title is a joy. Listen.

During the bombing raids of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, "Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow."

As the orphans found tangible comfort and reassurance through holding the bread, so the process of looking back each day and noticing the times of consolation and desolation, the moments for which I'm most grateful or most regretful, makes it easier to attend to God's presence and work in my life. That might be so for you as well. For me, at Llan that week, bread was very much part of the story. Ordinary, every day but infused with a generosity that far outstripped my needs or my desires.

Why not use it, this Lammas tide, to help you focus your own gratitude for God’s gifts lavished upon you, grace on grace, to the glory of his name.

Son of Thunder - a sermon for the Feast of St James for "Welcome to Sunday" 25th July 2021

Among those many stories of Jesus that we love to hear, there are literally no examples of Jesus helpless with laughter. We know that he wept. We know he got angry. But we never ever hear that he laughed. This might, of course, be because we human beings often add a measure of unkindness to our jokes...or because he was never surprised by anything...or simply because the four evangelists didn’t think that tales of the Messiah sharing a joke with his friends would help them to win souls for God’s kingdom. I am not sure that's altogether right - but there we are.

But – we do know that he teased those same friends gently from time to time….particularly in his choice of nicknames for them. There’s Peter more rocky than rock-like – yet nonetheless capable of providing a firm foundation on which to build the Church...and then James and John Boanergese … the sons of thunder. Two men intent on making a noise – on being noticed – even when they were frankly missing the point and rather out of their depth.

So here they are – approaching Jesus. along with their mother, with a special request: to be marked out as particular favourites, with the best seats in the house when Jesus comes into his kingdom. They really should have known better. Perhaps you've read that Christian bestseller, "The Shack". I didn't love all of it, but I absolutely have to applaud the way that the author presents God, in each of her conversations with humanity, as reminding each individual 

“You are my particular favourite”.

I guess Jesus was like that with his friends – but that wasn’t enough for the lads.                      Or their mum (but then, I recognise that pushy mother syndrome lurking in myself too – so I can’t be too cross with Mrs Zebedee) Much like the spiritual toddlers they were, they wanted recognition. "Jesus! Over here! Pick MEEEEE"…and Jesus wanted them to face up to this as he asked them

“What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s a question he asks again and again.

He asked it of those coming for healing.

He asks it of us too - as we come with our different needs.

"What do you want me to do for you? What are the deepest desires of your heart?"

Think for a moment. What would you say if you heard him ask you that question?

I suspect that actually our deepest yearnings are pretty much universal. Aside from superficial desires, we all long to matter – to make an impact on our journey through life – to know ourselves accepted and beloved for who we are. And God wants that s for us too – but he wants it for us in ways that are good for us, and good for the world. We’re not just here to make a noise – to be notable because of the fuss we make. We can stop jumping up and down and yelling to make God notice us...or practising attention-seeking behaviour ...worrying that if we don't we will be somehow overlooked. 

We don’t NEED to be children of thunder for God to attend to us.

God sees us and God loves us... 

God sees and loves you.

YOU absolutely and incontrovertibly matter to God – so let us try to abandon attention-seeking behaviour and relax into that truth.

And then we can listen, as God calls us to do great things, in sharing that love, in serving others, in building the kingdom in this time and this place, exactly where we are planted.

We can see in James and John’s desire to sit beside Jesus in his glory, how our deeper, spiritual, genuine, yearnings get tangled up with the ambitions of the world. And that’s kind of reassuring really, specially if, like me, you find yourself sometimes doing the right thing for the wrong reason. I know I like to be liked. Human approval matters more than it should...so I'm glad that we can see the disciples as, quite honestly, a pretty ropey bunch, as liable to fall over their own feet and create waves of chaos as to radiate the love, joy and peace that are the gifts of the Spirit.

But for all that, God works in them and through them…

James and John gradually get the message…as they watch Jesus live it out.

Though they have no idea what lies ahead when they eagerly protest that they CAN share their,  Lord’s experiences and drink his cup, as they see him washing their feet, as they run and hide to avoid the way of the cross, they begin to understand what he has been talking about all along.  "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give himself as a ransom for many"

Then they meet their risen Lord and in due time are transformed by the coming of the Spirit, empowered to make a big noise for Christ, in proclaiming the Kingdom.

And so today we celebrate the feast of James the Great.                                                                         Not James the self-seeking.                                                                                                                                  Not James the mother’s boy.

James the Great – apostle and inspiration.

And we think of the thousand upon thousand pilgrims who make their Camino, journeying across Europe to pray at his shrine. Let us travel with them in our hearts and minds, prepared to answer the question that our Lord still asks of each of us

“What do you want me to do for you?” and to answer honestly, knowing our own frailty, of course, but knowing too the reality of his surpassing love.

Who'd be a prophet? Trinity 6 B, 11th July 2021 Coventry Cathedral

 If you could choose anyone from the Bible to invite to dinner – apart from Jesus – I wonder whom you might pick.

I suspect that very few of us would choose John the Baptist.

He is such an uncomfortable character - “Right but repulsive” as Sellars and Yeatman might have put it – and we don’t as a rule welcome the voice of challenge that he exemplifies.

Even when he was drawing the crowds on the banks of the Jordan, he wasn’t known for his winsome, beguiling approach

Addressing them as “You generation of vipers” is, you have to admit, an INTERESTING way to get your hearers on board

John the Baptist is a disrupter, a disturber of the peace – and on the whole we don’t warm to that kind of character, even if he isn’t attacking us directly.

Small wonder, then, that he is short of friends at court.

John has spoken openly against the marriage of Herod to his brother’s wife Herodias, and this had made him very unpopular with the lady concerned. I suspect that this might be because she knew in her heart that her relationship with the King was irregular...You may have noticed in yourself a tendency to particularly dislike those whose words confirm your own secret feeling that maybe you’re not getting things as right as you pretend.

When someone else confirms the rumblings of conscience, it’s really hard to ignore – and hard to enjoy their company while you’re still ignoring their words

 So, here at the centre of the national life, John is making waves – and as his imprisonment is not enough to silence him, Herodias seeks another way.Her husband, caring more for his image than for doing the right thing, is putty in her hands. After all, his kingdom is built upon power and wealth and he can’t afford to show any weakness, whatever good sense the Baptizer seems to be talking. No U turns here. To change his mind, to withdraw his expansive after-dinner offer to Salome, would mean losing face – and that’s something that leaders struggle to do.

 So Herodias has her way

 Horrible.

 But surely not very relevant to us today.

Blocking a dissenting voice on social media or refusing to engage in difficult conversations is a world away from silencing anyone for good.

What on EARTH has this passage to say to us, the peaceable, respectable congregation of the Cathedral Church of St Michael, Coventry?

 While we might recognise that we are not above reproach (“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” remember) we are probably not struggling with the kind of monumental disquiet that Herod and Herodias are experiencing. Or so you might suppose.

As a quick reality-check, it’s always worth asking God to help you consider  just whose kingdom you’re busy building...

(Of course, if you ARE being battered by your conscience, listen to it – and perhaps take your concern to one of your priests so that together we can listen to God and seek God’s healing and forgiveness)

And yet – and yet – there is SO MUCH that we should be challenged by in Church and world alike, so many things that should give rise to every bit as much scandal as the immoral marriage of Herod and Herodias.

Things that diminish our humanity, if we allow ourselves to let them slide as “just the way things are.

Things we – you and I – need to challenge.

 If we do not identify as Herod OR Herodias, then perhaps we are called to be John.

Prophets do not always foretell the future.

More often they speak truth to power...standing on the edge of society, from where they have better view of all that is going on, both good and bad.

What’s the view like from where you are?

I wonder if you have noticed anything in the past week that might need challenging?

A change in legislation that could make it illegal for anyone to rescue a boatload of asylum seekers drowning in the Channel perhaps, or a decision to cut the UK Aid budget by £4.1 billion...A growing tendency to value people in terms of their productivity…The gradual disappearance of integrity in public life...The removal of the £20 top up to Universal Credit…or a decision by the House of Bishops of the Church of England to ignore the recommendations of its own commission, that each diocese should appoint a racial justice officer because they couldn’t afford them – though there are still funds for church plants ...

Those are among the things that have given me pause, at least. You might well be fired by other causes for concern, and look at things from a completely different viewpoint.

That’s fine....but the point is, that there will be times – and this may be one of them – when you and I need to speak.

It can be hard to find the courage to lend our voices to those who are often silenced by the structures of society – but, be comforted, I don’t think it’s likely to cost us our heads.

John the Baptist’s role was to point the way to the Kingdom.

That’s our role, too, as Christ’s Church – and we sell the gospel short if we do not strive to show its values in our life together and in our interactions with  wider society too.

 I’m sorry.

I know this isn’t easy but it feels like one of those inconvenient truths we have to confront now and then.

I did say that John the Baptist was an uncomfortable companion, and if we take on his mantle we may not find ourselves universally beloved.

We may, though, find ourselves closer to Jesus, who tends to be found among the victims when power is abused, who loved, and still loves, to spend time among the marginalised, the defenceless, those of little economic value at all.

If all of this fills you with a degree of panic, you might like to pray with me now, that we may have the courage to speak truth to power, to be advocates of the Kingdom values of justice and mercy, to set our sights always above all on Christ

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Attributed — Sir Francis Drake — 1577

"The sea is so vast and my boat so small"

We have been privileged, over the past few weeks, to host a very special exhibition, a flotilla of tiny golden boats sailing on the altar in the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane.

Entitled "Do the little things"  it is the work of Jake Lever, who art has a quiet power that has engaged visitors in other cathedrals than ours. About this work his website says

 Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things.’  St David 589 AD

Through the pandemic, Jake turned to making tiny golden boats, sending them to people he cared about as a kind of silent, wordless communication, heart to heart. These small gestures - ‘little things’ - have started to form a web stretching far and wide, a visual expression of our universal human need for belonging and connection. 

I love this concept and was thrilled to be able to include my son and his fiancee in the web, as they announced their engagement when I couldn't be with them to share hugs and celebrations. A tiny golden boat symbolises all I want for their lives - calm sea and prosperous voyage .

There was a wonderful serendipity which brought the boats to Coventry the same weekend as the Lampedusa Cross made from the timber of a wrecked refugee boat, a reminder of all those for whom the Breton fisherman's prayer

"O God be good to me. The sea is so vast and my boat so small"

is not a metaphor at all but a cry from deep need and pressing reality.

But I had not really engaged with the significance of their presence there in Gethsemane til Thursday, when I took my turn in the SCP annual journey through the octave of Corpus Christi, "Adorate". I had signed myself, and the Cathedral, up for an hour of Eucharistic devotion, and found myself placing my tiny chapel monstrance on the altar among the tiny boats.

And they spoke to one another. 

Oh, how they spoke to one another!

Of the loving web of connection that binds humanity to God, despite all that we might do to sever the links.

Of the fragility of the Incarnation - Christ launched in vulnerability into our world, travelling in a body subject to time and decay and to all the anger of unloving humanity.

Of the fragility of the Sacrament - the life of God offered to us, week in week out in a fragment of bread 

After a year when that wonderful Sacrament has not been available to everyone, when we have perhaps found ourselves forced to deal with Eucharistic absence, it felt incredibly special to be consciously focussed on presence instead...on the reality of Christ's love revealed in microcosm there on the altar.

The hour I spent was truly balm for the soul - and I found myself reflecting on the fact that we all travel though life, however fragile our vessels, on the boundless ocean of God's love. Cathedral life ebbed and flowed about me, a handful of visitors came in, some to take pictures, others to pray, and through it all that golden threat anchored me and I knew, and I know, that it extends across space and time, and leads us safely home.

Sweet Sacrament of rest,
ark from the ocean's roar,
within thy shelter blest
soon may we reach the shore;

Wait and see - a sermon for Ascension Day at Coventry Cathedral (with grateful thanks for the kick-start from Charlotte Cheshire)

This week in and around the Cathedral, I’ve been hugely conscious that all sorts of projects that had been months, or years in the planning, were coming to fruition.

The work is nearly accomplished in St Michael’s AvenueThe long-anticipated interpretation materials are in place, ready for our first visitors when we re-open on Monday. Even the new shop fittings are here being assembled

While there’s still a little while before the Pavilion will be finished and ready to receive guests, at least some works are all but complete, and we can begin to have a sense of how things may be once all is accomplished – for the moment, til the next wave of good ideas breaks! It all feels very hopeful and purposeful and I’m so relieved – because while I love change, I’m just not great at waiting.

This is perhaps yet another reason why it’s good that I wasn’t there with the disciples on that mountain in Galilee. I think I might have made a scene.

I was in school earlier in the week, looking at some of the RE that the KS1 children had been doing. It included plotting the disciples’ emotions from Good Friday to Pentecost as a graph…and as you might imagine, most of the lines looked like a roller coaster viewed side on. The downward plunge of Good Friday, the elated rise on Easter day, followed by a period of steady happiness for those 40 days when Jesus might turn up at any moment – then the sickening drop as that rag taggle community realised that Jesus was going again – without giving any clue as to when he’d be back.

What were they to make of that – and of his instruction to wait…?

To wait for something dramatic – without knowing what it might be.

So very hard for them. Yet more change, loss and uncertainty

Jesus has been with them, in all the wonder of his risen body.

He has gathered them and taken them on a country walk, blessed them – and that’s it.

He has gone.

These verses about the ascension are so short, just a tiny section of the gospels yet here in those brief words is a moment when the disciples teeter on the edge of transformation.

With no Jesus present to teach them, they turn from disciples, pupils, to apostles, those who are sent, just like that…though of course we get a better view of their transformation than they did themselves

To start with all they know is that they’ve been sent home. Home to wait.

You can imagine the conversation on the road.

Why can’t we be clothed with power from on high today?

Why didn’t Jesus do it before he left?

In fact, why has Jesus gone?

Where has he gone?

There are far more questions than answers.

But in the meantime, all they can do is hurry up and wait

They feel his loss deeply.

This is not a change that they would have chosen. Whatever small glimmer of hope there might be at the back of their minds, this feels very much like another bereavement.

Change, loss, waiting.

So much part of the fabric of our pandemic experience.

And in truth, everything has changed.

We won’t, we can’t, go back to how we were before. Whatever course our public life takes in the months ahead, I can’t imagine that any of us will take things as calmly for granted as I know I used to do. Even if I don’t articulate it, I know there will be an unspoken “God willing” incorporated into any and every plan. I’m different. We’re different.

So now we are waiting, to with no certainty about the outcome

We are gradually emerging from the long winter of lockdown, frustration and fear - into what? We hope for a slow and steady recovery as our economy, business, jobs and even church, pick up steam?

Or will the waiting bring more pain as organisations that have limped along for ages finally recognise that they can’t continue and businesses, organisations and even churches close down?

Will they be missed? What will their absence mean?

We wait and we pray but we do not yet know.

It’s striking how often a liminal, in between place like this is the place of growth. There are so many examples in Scripture. – though we can be tempted to skip from high point to high point, fast forwarding through the long road between.

The Exodus for example: Let my people go! Plagues, Red Sea, columns of fire, ten commandments, promised land – ta da! That process took forty years and there was an awful lot of walking, sand, walking, sand, camping, sand and more walking in between those amazing moments as God’s people learned what it meant for them to bear that title. Or another wilderness experience, as Jesus grew in understanding of his own ministry, away from it all, in an in between place. Or what about the Bible itself – Old Testament, New Testament – in between just two pages in the book we know today ,was a gap of four hundred years of silence, of waiting, of not knowing what would happen next…whether and how God might speak, and more opportunities for learning and for growth.

So what of us?

It’s quite a long time since Jesus left his friends on that Galilean mountainside. Events haven’t turned out exactly as they might have expected. No matter how often they lifted their eyes to heaven, there has been no sign of Jesus returning as they saw him go. And we’re still waiting – and we still don’t know what God is up to…but do you know, that’s actually quite OK.

If I’ve learned nothing else, I think I may finally have grasped that ours is a God of surprises, who continues to demonstrate that the end is never the end, that there are always new and wider perspectives, spaces in which we can be changed and grow.

You see, Ascension Day ultimately reminds us that God’s timing is not ours, that we cannot control the path to our future, nor poke and prod it to reveal itself to suit our impatient longing.

So we wait and we pray, for our loved ones, our communities and ourselves. Over this next ten days we are always encouraged to pray, with Christians across the world “Thy Kingdom Come” and ask the Holy Spirit will fall afresh on our communities, our churches and our lives.

Let’s do that together – for who knows what sort of flame may be lit when God’s people watch, wait and pray.

Perhaps, it might even take us, the family of Coventry Cathedral, on a whole new journey that we never expected.

Remember, by no means all change is loss.

How do we need to grow?

What might the Spirit have in store for us?

We’ll have to wait and see. Amen.

Easter 6 2021 Abide in my love

 

As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.

 

Aside from funerals and football matches, you don’t come across the word “abide” very often today.

I’ve uttered it more when reading the Bible in worship – particularly JWohn’s gospel – than in any other context – and in the first 11 verses of chapter 15 it appears no less than 11 times.

Well- yippy doodle doo, you might be thinking. So what?

If the NRSV chose an archaic word, why should that worry us.

Can’t we just go with “remain” - as some other translations do – and press on to the tricky stuff about love.

We will in a minute, I promise – but I’d like, if I may, to detain us for a moment first

 

You see, that verb, “abide” is all about staying put, making yourself at home – which, of course, we are all VERY practised at after the past year. We have abided in our homes, our places of safety – and will have found them more or less attractive. We have had a chance to think about what kind of space we inhabit and as a result we may have changed things round, redecorated or disposed of things that no longer seem to have a place in our lives, maybe made plans to move altogether .

We may have done a bit of reorganising of our inner spaces too, discovering what we value and what we can discard from that landscape as well.

Though the City of Culture tag line is “Coventry Moves”, for the past year we’ve been more still than for centuries. There’s hope that we may even have learned from the experience even if we feel we’ve fallen a long way short of the Desert Fathers...who famously adopted the teaching of Abba Moses of Scetis, who told a would be disciple who had travelled miles to learn from him

 

'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’"

 

I’m writing this on the feast of Julian of Norwich – an anchoress, anchored not only in her tiny cell in St Julian’s Church but also, even more firmly, in God’s love. She had surely learned the meaning of abiding, her own brush with death not only concentrating the mind wonderfully but opening her up to that amazing series of revelations of divine love that have lost none of their power in the intervening centuries. You see – I promised we would get to the difficult love stuff in time

 

Abide in my love, says Jesus. Make your home here, with my love as the foundation, my love the walls that offer shelter from life’s storms, my love the place of hospitality into which you may invite others.

This is my commandment – that you love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.

That’s where all that abiding gets you – and we can’t pretend it’s not challenging.

 

If we have responded to that invitation to abide,  seriously intent on loving one another as Jesus has loved us – well, we know how well that ended for him, don’t we.

It may simply seem too hard…Abiding is fine...Me and Jesus in a happy huddle. Fabulous.

But unfortunately, not what he has in mind.

Love one another.

No helpful boundaries suggested – love those who voted the way you did...love those whose taste in worship music matches your own...those whom you see as a blessing to the world…

Love one another.

Oh help

That, of course, was the problem addressed in the Acts reading – which is the end of the story of Peter and Cornelius, in which Peter is taught to open the flaps of the tent in which he is abiding to make room for others. Peter has been absolutely certain who he is called to love and relate to – then along comes the Holy Spirit and shatters his world view just like that. That’s simply what she does...pushing us to cross our self-created boundaries, inviting us not just to be rooted, but to GROW...

Here’s the difference between abiding in God’s love and hanging on to our own, limited, human version. Left to ourselves, we seek safety among our own kind...create systems to determine who is in and who is out, shrink our borders, include fewer people – but that’s not how Jesus loves at all.

.He embodies God’s desire to include all – When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw ALL people to myself – and invites us to recognise the limits of our own vision, and to learn from others – people with different politics, different cultures, - people we might not actually like that much.

God’s love makes room – and so must ours. Jesus doesn’t just issue commandments – new or otherwise. He calls us friends – makes outsiders insiders as he invites us to sit down at his table with EVERYONE else, to eat and discuss his great plan for the world with those who are, perhaps unexpectedly, sitting beside us

Rowan Williams puts it rather well

To obey the new commandment of love is to stay put: to stay with the people God has given us to love, to nurture and be nurtured by, to challenge and be challenged by

He doesn’t add, though he might have done, “like it or not”

We are to invite them into our tent, these people God gives us to love – to make a space there for love to abide, and for us to abide in love. This will probably involve a bit of humilty….a recognition that as limited beings, loving an unlimited God, we need to learn from one another, so that together we can harmonise with many voices that same theme: love God, and love one another.

Remember, Jesus has no favourites...Jews and Gentiles, Desert Fathers and Medieval mystics, Archbishops and Deputy Head Choristers – all are loved equally and totally. Jesus laid down his life for his friends – including each of us

By grace, we are all beloved...Let us ask for the grace we need, so that we may truly abide in love and bear love’s fruit in a loveless world.

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