Thought for the Day: Church says “no” – A faith of hypocrisy and judgement or hope and joy?

Last year I was interviewed for a podcast on how young people view faith. I had been invited to share my experience and wisdom. In the end, though, it was a humbling experience as it was me who ended up learning from the two young interviewers and being inspired by them. At one point they explained that young people today, who are so often missing from our church pews and seats, are tired of being chastised about what they do and what they believe. As they described this to me, I couldn’t help but picture the receptionist in Little Britain, the BBC comedy from a number of years back, banging at her laptop keys and then looking up and announcing glibly: “computer says no”. Is this how our faith is seen by people today? Are we seen as surly, judgmental hypocrites, announcing to the world that: “church says no”?

If so, this is a huge challenge to us as Christians, and it is so different from the Jesus we read about in the gospels. The woman accused of adultery didn’t feel judged by Jesus, neither did the children running up to him, nor the woman who washed his feet with perfume, nor the unscrupulous tax collector. Quite the opposite. They felt loved, accepted, and welcomed, whatever their flaws.

In fact, it was often the disciples in the background who were sniping and criticising those approaching Jesus. And so we need to ask who we are more like today? The Jesus who asserted “let the children come to me” or the disciples who frowned and complained at the noisy youngsters? The Jesus who asserted “let whoever is without sin cast the first stone” or the uptight, judgmental people who grabbed the nearest rocks? The Jesus who sat and ate with broken people or the religious leaders who viewed those on the margins of their society as unclean and beyond redemption?

Jesus has gifted us a liberating and compassionate faith of hope, centred on a God of love. Yet we Christians are sometimes drawn into criticising, belittling, and condemning. When we do, it can incarcerate us in our own self-righteousness and leave others with deep wounds. In secular terms, it could be said that our faith needs a good PR job, as our life-transforming, love-centred way of living can sometimes be viewed as merely a backward, hypocritical superstition. But people of faith don’t look to spin doctors for salvation. Instead, we just have to continue to live out, as best we can, the revolutionary way of the person who said “yes” to radical love, compassion, and welcome.

The Socio-Political Challenge of the Lord’s Prayer

I have been sharing a number of theological papers that I have written. This is a copy of an article I wrote for Cambria Nostra, a publication that engaged with society’s relationship with culture, politics, history, and religion.

In recent years, the number of those people who define themselves as Christian has fallen dramatically in the UK. To a generation brought up on social media and globalization, the Christian faith seems like an archaic quirk from a long-forgotten age, with little, if anything, to contribute to the big societal questions of our time. Not that churches always help – all too often they are torn apart by certain doctrinal or ethical issues that leave non-church-attenders bewildered or even amused. As a result, Christians are sometimes accused of being unworldly, sometimes even anti-worldly.

Yet those of us who are working on the coalface of Christian ministry, with communities that are groaning for restoration and renewal, know a different story. We know all too well how hope, compassion, and transformation can flow from spiritual beliefs. The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, now known as “The Lord’s Prayer”, is a manifesto of the hope that the Christian faith can offer. It is not a prayer that allows Christians to hide away in churches or to remain passively on our knees, but is a rallying call for us to reach out to others. It demands that Christians stand alongside the poor, defend the defenceless, liberate the persecuted, offer justice to the oppressed, campaign for environmental issues, and speak for those with no voice.

The fact that Russell Brand’s book Revolution dedicated a whole chapter to this radical, revolutionary prayer, shows something of how this prayer can also speak powerfully to those who do not define themselves as “Christian”. All of us, from an early age, are sold a particular worldview. We are taught and told how we should act and what we should value. In the contemporary world, this is often a worldview that glorifies the individual, places wealth and prosperity as the ultimate attainment, and views competition and success as defining our very being. We are led, often in subtle ways, to the lie that greed is absolutely necessary for so-called “progress”, that inequality is essential for the flourishing of society, and that “survival of the fittest” is not simply a scientific truth, but a way-of-life that defines our species.

The Lord’s Prayer challenges us to re-evaluate this prevailing worldview – a worldview that champions wealth, consumerism, and materialism. “No one can serve two masters”, Jesus asserts in the verses following the Lord’s Prayer, “either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). Yet, we have been conditioned from the cradle to believe that we are helpless to change the huge inequality between poor and rich in society, as it is the natural order of things. We are told that our own meagre efforts to care for the environment will do nothing in the large scheme of things. We are told that we can placate ourselves by becoming happy and fulfilled through obtaining more money in our banks, owning more objects, upsizing to bigger houses, or becoming more successful and popular. The Lord’s Prayer explodes this myth, allowing an open and realistic confrontation of the real and pressing issues of our time – poverty, welfare cuts, economic debt, political corruption, asylum seekers, international aid, inequality, peace and reconciliation, sexual harassment and abuse, economic greed, ethically-blind business, and climate change.

In John Carpenter’s cult classic film They Live [1988], the protagonist discovers a pair of magical sunglasses that allow him to view “reality”. By wearing the glasses, propaganda and lies are revealed all around. Instead of advertisements, billboards suddenly spell “buy” or “obey”. Instead of the usual pictures on money, “this is our God” is printed on the notes. Like these sunglasses, the Lord’s Prayer can help open our eyes to the falsehoods that have been propagated since we were young. It can help clear the fog of modern living to reveal reality and truth. This is what the Christian faith can gift to our society – ways of helping us recognise the reality of existence and ways of inspiring us to transform situations. This is the radical call of Christ, who speaks to all of us, whether we are Christian or not, in the same way as he spoke to those around him – urging us to shed our complacency and hypocrisy, and to live out compassion and justice in our daily lives.

Those who do not define themselves as “religious” will see from the Lord’s Prayer that spirituality does not simply bring comfort, ease, and security to those with faith. Prayer is not about personal and private satisfaction. Ultimately, that would lead us to a tame and arid apathy obsessed with personal, petty concerns. As Homer Simpson philosophises in The Simpsons: “What’s the point of going out – we’re just going to wind up back here anyway”.

The revolution of Christ, as shown in the Lord’s Prayer and in the life of Jesus himself, instead calls for an outward-looking and radical way of living, which champions resurrection, hope, love and compassion for all. It calls for individuals to live out communal lives focused on the plight of the other. It calls for us to reach out to others, however different they are to us, as brothers and sisters (“Our Father in heaven”), to reflect God’s nature by standing alongside the marginalised and oppressed (“hallowed be your name”), to usher in a society of justice and compassion (“your kingdom come”), to fight poverty and inequality (“give us today our daily bread”), to model truth and reconciliation (“as we forgive those who sin against us”), to recognise and transform our inclination to egotism and self-interest (“lead us not into temptation”), and to oppose powers of corruption and greed (“for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours”). As such, the Lord’s Prayer is as contemporary and relevant as it was two thousand years ago. “This prayer cries out for justice, bread, forgiveness and deliverance;” concludes theologian Tom Wright, “if anyone thinks those are irrelevant in today’s world, let them read the newspaper and think again”.

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours

now and for ever. Amen.

My book Living the Prayer: The Everyday Challenge of the Lord’s Prayer (BRF, Abingdon 2017) further explores the radical and revolutionary socio-political challenge of the Lord’s Prayer. Available from Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Prayer-Everyday-Challenge-Lords/dp/0857466232/ ) and all other good booksellers.

Thought for the Day at Easter

Octopuses are fascinating creatures. They are just about as weird as it gets. They have three hearts, a brain in each arm, and blue-green blood, and they can squeeze their bodies through a hole as small as their own eyeball. In fact, researchers tell us the octopus DNA is the closest thing they can get to studying alien DNA. Yet octopuses are still highly intelligent, and scientists believe they may help them prove that animals possess some kind of consciousness.

While each of God’s creatures are precious in themselves and full of God’s glory, one thing is certain, the consciousness of animals is very different from our own. Take the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. She would’ve been tied up after the triumphant entry and would’ve been quite happy to stand there for hours on end, waiting for the next person to jump on her back. But if you tie me up outside my local church and leave me to stand for many boring hours, I know I’d act very differently!

After all, we humans have been gifted this amazing, developed consciousness – a profound awareness. We are thinking beings, who can even think about ourselves thinking. Thought, consciousness, awareness – they are all amazing things. While it is mind blowing that we are living on a planet that is hurtling through space, travelling around the sun at 67,000 mph, it is even more astonishing that we know we are living on a planet that hurtling through space, travelling around for sun at 67,000 mph!

Consciousness, though, is also our curse. Our thoughts and awareness can hold us captive. Worry, anxiety, grief, pain, and suffering can keep us chained. All of us struggle personally in one way or another. And then we turn on the news and we see others facing simply terrible situations, whether through war, illness, disability, natural disaster, or grief. There is no sugar coating any of this – life can be harsh and exhausting, and our minds can very easily descend into despair.

But this incredible thing called consciousness also holds the key to the prison in which our minds can become incarcerated. Our consciousness can certainly be a curse, but it can also be an amazing blessing that God has gifted to us. Today, more than any other day, that fact is brought wonderfully home to us. It is Easter Sunday, a day of hope, a day of joy, a day of resurrection, a day of new life. Today we are offered a reassurance and a life-affirming hope that no octopus can ever grasp or comprehend.

God can, though, open the minds, hearts, and lives of us “thinking humans” to this mind-blowing event. And, by doing so, we are offered liberation from the chains of our daily concerns. Our burdened minds are freed to recognise God’s presence in our often-turbulent lives. We open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to truly appreciate the small moments of joy breaking into our lives each day – new life moments – Easter moments. These are moments when sunshine breaks through the darkness we are facing. These are moments when God’s light dazzles us in unexpected ways, sometimes even in our ordinary, mundane events – an uplifting stroll in the countryside, a meal with your family, a walk with your pet dog, laughter shared with a friend, an act of kindness, a supportive word, a simple smile. Sometimes, as we face the storms of this broken world, it’s not easy to rewire our minds away from worry, anxiety, and pain. But, carried by God’s strength, we Christians are able to attest that this wonderful gift of life is beautiful.

Holy Week, culminating in Jesus’s crucifixion, affirms the reality of suffering and reassures us that God knows what it’s like when we are facing the storms of life. He knows pain, he knows loss, he knows tears.  Easter Sunday, though, affirms the reality of hope and reassures us that the grave is not the end of the journey, that there is a kingdom all around us that will last forever, and that the light of that kingdom will break through whatever darkness we are facing.

Miracles: What are they and do they happen?

I have been sharing a number of theological papers that I have written. This is a copy of my notes for a discussion that I took part in recently on the award-winning BBC radio programme ‘All Things Considered’.

What is a miracle?

The real difficulty in considering the possibility of miracles occurring is the difficulty of defining precisely what they are. The philosopher David Hume famously defined miracles as an event that breaks the laws of nature. But more things are possible and more things occur than our present understanding of the regularities of nature allows. After all, our experience of the laws of nature are regularly being revised. Developments in quantum physics, for example, have brought this sharply to mind. Quantum physics is showing scientists a world that is more unusual, indeterminate, and organic. It has even been argued that quantum physics is revealing a world that is more spiritual than we previously realised.

So, instead of breaking the laws of nature, perhaps we could define a miracle as something remarkable or spectacular. Some liberal theologians, such as Marcus Borg, actually refuse to use the word miracles and simply talk about “the spectacular”. Borg rejects supernatural interventions by God who is “out there” and instead talks about the God at the heart of spectacular in the world. The problem with that, though, is that there are many occurrences that we wouldn’t define as miracles, but they are still remarkable and spectacular – the birth of a child, medical procedures (like radiotherapy), and the sun rising up each morning.

So, defining what is a miracle is not as simple as it may first appear, and philosophers, theologians, and biblical scholars have long recognised the complexity of that seemingly basic question.

What about the miracles in the Bible?

The biblical world was a time when accounts of the remarkable and miraculous were far more common than they are today and many things that would have been considered miracles in the past may no longer seen that way today. But we certainly can’t dismiss or explain away the numerous miracles in the Bible by asserting that fact.

A number of the Old Testament miracles hold their own particular problems and difficulties in that they call into question God’s own character. For example, in the book of Exodus the great miracle known as the parting of the Red Sea– why would God perform a miracle that meant the drowning hundreds of Egyptian people? In response to such miracles, some theologians talk about “divine consistency”, a phrase made famous by Jean Dominic Crossan. Divine consistency affirms that we can only accept miracles if it is consistent with God’s loving nature.

In the New Testament, the gospels record 37 miracles of Jesus. Of these, 28 of them are miracles of healing, with God making people whole in mind and body. These miracles flow from Jesus’s compassion and love. Many theologians, whether liberal or more traditional, have little problem accepting that Jesus performed paranormal healings. He was certainly known as a great healer and exorcist, and so his healing cannot simply be explained in psychosomatic terms. But nine miracles involved Jesus has power over nature. So, what about walking on the water? Or silencing the storm? Or multiplying loaves and fish? Or changing water into the wine? It is not as easy to decide on the historicity of these miracles.

Some theologians would suggest that the miracle stories are metaphorical or symbolic. Even Jesus himself, of course, would have recognised that his miraculous deeds were symbolic – John’s gospel even refers to miracles as “signs”. In other words, there is deep meaning in the stories of Jesus’s miracles. So, the water into wine at the beginning of his ministry is symbolic of the new life he brings, while the calming of the storm is symbolic of God’s power over the waters of chaos and how he can calm the storms of our lives. The reality is, though, that we don’t know whether the nature miracles are literal or purely symbolic – or indeed a combination of both. What we do know, though, is that God’s power was recognised as present in Jesus in remarkable ways and God’s presence was identified in both his words and actions.

What about the miracles of St David, the Patron Saint of Wales?

St David lived in the sixth century, but most of the stories of his life or taken from Buchedd Dewi, written by Rhygafarch in the 11th century. So, that’s over 500 years after David’s death. It would be as if I was writing a history of Henry VIII with nothing but word-of-mouth and a few dusty documents found in a Cathedral archive. Many modern historians believe Rhygafarch exaggerated many of his stories, as he was trying to argue for some independence for the Welsh church.

The best known miracle of St David was when he was preaching in the middle of a crowd in the village of Llandewi Brefi. The ground beneath his feet rose up as he preached, allowing everyone to hear him, and a white dove flew down onto his shoulder. Perhaps this may have happened exactly as it was recorded, but perhaps people 1500 years ago simply had a very different way of describing things. Perhaps they were so inspired by this saintly man’s words that those present were saying things like “and it was as if the ground rose up beneath him and his words touched my soul and it was as if God settled on this man like a white dove”. Over the centuries that may have become “the ground did rise up beneath him and a white dove did land on his shoulder”. Either way, such descriptions are actually saying are that David was an inspirational and spiritual man, whether the miracle happened literally or not, and so our belief in the historicity of the miracle shouldn’t take away from what this remarkable man represents to us as Christians today or, indeed, as a nation.

Do miracles still occur?

The question of whether miracles still occur today brings us back to the question of what a miracle actually is. The theologian Keith Ward offers a useful definition of a miracle: “an extraordinary manifestation of spiritual power”. The reality is that unusual and extraordinary occurrences do happen in our world and there are sometimes no scientific explanation for those. If, as Christians, we believe in the Holy Spirit, then it follows that the Spirit can exert some influence on the world. After all, God is a personal reality to Christians and so he manifests himself in unique and distinctly personal ways.

So, Keith Ward suggests that we don’t view the universe as a machine, but rather we view it more like a body. Bodies, after all, do have reliable regularities, but we can also make decisions to do things and thus bodies are subject to personal action. Following this reasoning, the universe also has rigid definite laws, but, for reasons often unknown to us, God’s personal actions break into our world in some way or other. In other words, spectacular and extraordinary events can occur and, when they do, there are times when we may have to revise our understanding of the laws of nature. Miracles, then, could be seen as redefinitions of the laws of nature, rather than transgressions of it.

Is it possible or desirable to prove miracles?

I’ve always loved mystery. As a child I was obsessed with a book I had which detailed great unsolved mysteries such as the Loch Ness monster, the Bermuda triangle, the yeti, and UFOs. When I was a child, I thought like a child, but when I grew up, I left the mystery of conspiracy theories behind. I’m now more interested in the general mystery and miracle of life. In the breath-taking world in which we live we understand some things so well, but other things completely elude us. I’m not talking about the God of the gaps, as Fredrich Nietzche put it, where God is inserted wherever we don’t understand things. I’m talking about something far more spectacular and mysterious than that – questions of existence, wonder, sacrifice, truth, beauty, and love. And, however we define miracles, it is here where the miraculous resides – the spectacular, the extraordinary, the spiritual. As such, proving miracles is less important than welcoming the great mystery of life and showing openness and gratitude for how God’s power works in the everyday and ultimately transforms lives.

How do you respond to those who doubt miracles?

From a theological point of view, Christians do not regard God as a controlling, dictatorial superbeing, who makes arbitrary decisions about when and where not to intervene in our affairs. But neither do we hold that he is detached from humankind or dispassionate about our suffering. Rather, he is involved with the world and is able to transform it powerfully.

How God transforms the world, though, is a question that theologians have discussed for many centuries. For me, God transforms the world subtly – he leads, coaxes, inspires, persuades, and cajoles. This means his miracles happen every day in all sorts of ways. It’s not always huge spectacular things – sometimes it’s simply a smile or a kind word that lifts someone’s heart and sometimes it’s that deep sense of hope and peace that breaks into our troubled lives. As Jewish theologian Harold Kushner put it: “God’s job is not to make sick people healthy – that’s the doctor’s job. God’s job is to make sick people brave”.

And so God is not some dictator or superman who imposes his will from outside the world, but God is already in the world, inhabiting every atom of the universe, interacting into mingling with the laws and patterns of nature.

What about when people pray for miracles that don’t occur?

In the film Lourdes [2009], a wheelchair-bound young woman experiences a magnificent healing at Lourdes, a place famous for its miracles. She worships God and celebrates with joy. The problem is that all the other people with disabilities who are on the same pilgrimage question why this happened to her and not them. This starts to cause all kinds of difficulties and arguments within the group. Why did my miracle not occur? Why did her miracle occur because she’s clearly less pious and devout than I am?

At the centre of the Christian response to this is the great unknown. When we face the great unknown, then we have to really think about what we do know. Do we know God is in a healing miracle? Not for certain, but with God all things are possible, so possibly. Do we know God is in the suffering? Absolutely. After all, miracles aren’t God’s superpower. Love is God’s superpower. God’s love is far more powerful for transformation than random supernatural interventions. I’ve seen evidence of God’s love completely transforming people, events, and circumstances. That, in itself, could be seen as miraculous.

And so I have an open mind about supernatural, unexplained events, and I have an open mind about God’s involvement in those happenings. But what I do know that I have seen the miraculous happen in people’s lives through love, compassion, care, justice, peace, and hope. God is fully immersed in this world and, because we know he knows what it’s like to suffer on the cross, he’s also fully immersed in our pains and suffering. He breathes hope, life, and light into the most awful and traumatic situations. As one of my favourite sayings puts it: “sometimes God calms the storm, sometimes God calms the sailor”.

Thought for the Day: Priorities and Ministry

This is a version of a sermon I gave at a conference for ministry in the Church in Wales, where we were looking forward with hope and creative vision to the future.

There is so much wonderful Christian ministry taking place in communities across Wales. Yet the workers in the field are few and resources are limited, so continuing to bring God’s light, life, and love to people and places across Wales requires difficult decisions – we have to ensure our prioritising is intentional, considered, and wise. The pandemic lockdowns led so many of us to realign previously-skewed priorities, as we zoomed isolated loved ones and embraced a new-found appreciation of the beauty of the outdoors. In a similar way, the rapidly-changing Wales of today is challenging us to realign our concerns and priorities and to reconsider what ministry and service entails.

According to business leader Stephen Covey, it is not hard work, good luck, or shrewd human relations that primarily leads to success. Rather, the one denominator that successful people share is prioritising well. As German philosopher Goethe put it: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least”. But most clergy will tell you how living that out is no easy task – after all, it’s so difficult to decipher what matters most and what matters least. From my own recent parish experience, I know all too well that the stresses of service and the strains of selecting what needs to be prioritised can wear clerics down. Recently, I watched a video of the sermon by someone who was stepping down as vicar in his church because of the huge strain ministry was exerting on his, and his family’s, wellbeing. At the beginning of the sermon, as he stood in the pulpit, he rolled up the sleeves of his cassock and starts to juggle more and more apples to illustrate the difficulty of juggling duties and expectations. Once the apples had fallen and were rolling around the aisles, he related his sermon to the difficult decision he’d made to stop juggling all the demands of service and to prioritise wellbeing.

Prioritising is certainly at the heart of contemporary ministry and mission. We are facing challenges that exceed those of previous generations – an increasingly secular society, fewer vocations, expensive upkeep of church buildings, a marked difference in generational viewpoints, social and economic injustice, political polarisation, and cultural divisions. And the reality is that we don’t have the time, resource, or energy to do everything we want to do. This urgent challenge of working out priorities, though, is not a new challenge. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah chastising his fellow Judeans for their skewed priorities (cf. Jeremiah 7:21-28). The people of Judah were confronted with war, destruction, and exile. Jeremiah holds up a mirror to his compatriots and tells them: “you’re getting your priorities all wrong”. He says that their sacrifices and worship mean nothing if their lives don’t reflect the fact that they are God’s people. He urges them to realign their priorities away from greed, idolatry, and false prophets and to turn towards obedience to God’s commandments.

In fact, the call to prioritise obedience comes up again and again in the Old Testament and invariably it’s related directly to God’s commandments. There’s certainly something there we can take into our own lives and ministries. Our call is to take all the duties and passions that we juggle in our daily lives – to take our hearts that are burning for justice and compassion, to take our enthusiasm for sharing the good news of Jesus’s life, to take our need to look after our own mental well-being, to take our need for cherishing the life-giving tonic of friends and family, to take our desires and hopes and needs – and to consider them in light of that call to obey his commands. And, as Christians, Jesus was unequivocal about what those commands were. All the commandments are summed up in loving God and loving neighbour – caru Duw a charu cymydog. And so all our priorities need to be assessed in light of those two directives. Never before have two commands been so simple and straightforward. Never before have two commands been so demanding and difficult.

When I was a curate, I remember confidently reading Jesus’s words at a service at a care home: ‘The greatest commandment is love God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul; and the second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself’.  Without warning, an elderly woman at the back of the room suddenly shouted: ‘I don’t love my neighbour’. I was left speechless. I looked at the care assistants, they looked at me.  But the moment of silence gave the woman the opportunity to add: ‘and, listen ’ere vicar, if you knew her, you wouldn’t love her either’.

Those words from the elderly resident have remained etched on my heart long after she has departed this earth – listen ’ere vicar, if you knew her, you wouldn’t love her either – they have forcefully brought home to me how onerous and ominous is the seemingly simple command to love. Easy to preach, difficult to live. After all, the commands to love God and love neighbour are not some fanciful, sweetly-saccharin idealistic objectives. They are the foundations of all we do. Jeremiah and his contemporaries had 613 commandments to ensure purity and justice. The Welsh Government has the 56-page Future Generations Act to ensure all public decisions are made in light of social, cultural, environmental and economic well-being. But we Christians simply have four words. Love God – Love Neighbour. These commands are the heartbeat of our ministry, our mission, and our faith.

So that’s the challenge that hovers over all our mission and ministry. How do these new priorities that we need to decide upon in the coming months and years align with the commands to love God and love neighbour? They are the touchstone, the yardstick, of all our service. They are what reassure us that we build on rock and not sand; they are what guarantee us that we are with him and not against him. So, whether we are considering our dioceses, our churches, our personal ministries, our families, our own well-being, there are only two priorities that must underpin and sustain us. All other priorities are simply building blocks to construct on those firm foundations – caru Duw, caru cymydog – love God, love neighbour.

The Christian View of Suffering (Ministry Blog Series – 8)

I have been sharing a number of theological papers on ministry that I have written. This paper was given during the pandemic at an international seminar organised by Canadian global think tank ‘Alternative Perspectives on Global Challenges’. Academics from different faiths were invited to present their faith’s perspective on suffering.

Christianity has always taken suffering seriously. In the Jewish scriptures, the Christian Old Testament, the history of Israel is one of struggle and pain, from the tribulations of the patriarchs, through to slavery in Egypt and exile in Babylon. The wisdom tradition of the Old Testament voices questions of justice in this context, as it ponders our daily struggles in relation to an omnipotent God. The desolation of a good person, for example, is the principal theme of the book of Job – if God is all-powerful, then why doesn’t he end the suffering of this faithful person? The psalmist, on the other hand, describes the silence of God in times of human challenge and difficulty.

In the New Testament, Jesus shows himself to be sensitive to the groans of a hurting world, as he offers healing and solidarity to the outcast and the oppressed. The anguish of Gethsemane and the blood and pain of Calvary then place suffering at the centre of the Christian faith. Mel Gibson’s controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ shockingly brings home to us the gruesome agonies of the Good Friday story. Another film, Martin Scorsese’s 1988 adaptation of Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ, suggests, quite plausibly, that Jesus, who, we are told in the letter to the Hebrews (4:15), was tempted like us in every way, would have faced one final temptation – the temptation to resist the tortured death on the cross. So, one of Jesus’s great victories was in accepting the agony of the crucifixion and in overcoming the temptation to become a Messiah without suffering.

This, consequently, has always given Christians courage to take up their own crosses, as Jesus himself put it (Matthew 16:24), and accept their own suffering. Not that suffering should be celebrated or perversely enjoyed. Nor is suffering some test from God. It’s clear from the New Testament and from many centuries of Christian theological writing that, for Christians, God does not use suffering to punish, mock, belittle, or impart some sort of message to his people. The Christian faith does, though, teach that God meets people in their afflictions, bringing profound meaning, light, and hope at the most unlikely times.

St Paul, not a stranger to suffering, described his own personal torment as his ‘thorn in the flesh’, and he suggested to the church in Corinth that those who are strongest are those who find meaning in the apparent meaninglessness of affliction. He wrote these words: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take [my suffering] away from me; but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”.  For when you are weak, then you are strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). For the Christian, then, it is through discovering the presence of God’s love in suffering that renewed strength, hope, and meaning is discovered.

And so, from a Christian perspective, God is not an executioner or a tyrant. But neither is he a mere spectator, looking on as his children succumb to despair and disaster. Rather, as the Old Testament shows, God shares the pains of His beloved sons and daughters, as he suffers alongside the persecuted, imprisoned, and victimised. As Isaiah 63:9 tells us: ‘in all their distress, He too was distressed’.

In the New Testament, though, God not only shares our misery, but also dwells within our suffering, helping to redeem and transform it. In the words of theologian Jurgen Moltmann, ”the crucified God” takes on the role of the “suffering, poor, defenceless Christ”. Some early Christian groups claimed Jesus had escaped the crucifixion, but these ideas were quickly denounced as heretical. It’s paramount for Christians that Jesus himself experienced the rejection, torture, and pain of crucifixion and death. Through this fact, God is shown to be no stranger to suffering, and he continues to stand with those who take up their own crosses and encounter their own crucifixions. This, then, underlies the paradox that many Christians recount – that when they are stripped bare, when they touch the bottom of the abyss, when they experience death while living, it is then they encounter God in a vivid way and grow closer to him.

The former Dean of Westminster Abbey, Michael Mayne, while dying of throat cancer, wrote that God was, in a very real way, dwelling in the midst of his painful battle. He wrote: “The darkness will not overwhelm us and do us harm. Yes, I find God in the evil of my cancer. Not that he sent it, but that he is found in it and through it”. Mayne even refers to his terrible journey to the grave as God’s “dark glory”.

The great paradox for Christians is that the very real presence of God in suffering stands as a comforting reassurance. Yet, the practical reality is that, even to people of faith, God can seem distant, sometimes even absent, during our times of affliction. Christ’s impassioned cry from the cross, taken from Psalm 22, encapsulates the pain and frustration that can be felt: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!”

Despite this, Christian tradition has always pointed to ways where we can actively search out and recognise God’s voice in our suffering. From John Cassian and the desert fathers, through Meister Eckhardt, Julian of Norwich, and St John of the Cross, through to Thomas Merton and Rowan Williams, the teaching is the same: that God does not want people to suffer, but, when they do, he can meet people in their affliction. As philosopher Simone Weil suggested, the Christian faith offers “no supernatural remedy for suffering”, but it does strive for “a supernatural use for it”. Like the risen Jesus, Christians believe they will always bear the scars of their suffering, the nail-marks of their own crucifixions, but they believe they can still emerge from their darkness transformed and redeemed. Followers of Jesus do not take up crosses of meaninglessness, but, rather, they learn to affirm life by equating their own suffering with the cross and its promise of resurrection.

The sixteenth-century metaphysical poet John Donne wrote that his periods of sharpest suffering were the times when his spiritual life developed most. A great picture, after all, has shades, shadows, and dark corners, alongside the bright colours and light. By recognising this fact, while pain holds the potential to dehumanise and destroy, Christians have to hold on to the truth that it can also be transformed and redeemed. It is, therefore, the way we approach our dark times that brings light to our lives. As the Jewish holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl put it, employing Christian imagery: “The way in which a person accepts their fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which they take up their cross, gives them ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to their life”.

Thought for the Day: We are Family

In the style of my Lent Book Opening our Lives and Advent Book Real God in the Real World, I will be sharing occasional “thoughts for the day” on various subjects on this blog. Hope you enjoy.

Recently, I visited the ancient monument of Stonehenge for the first time. It is tempting to think we have nothing to do with the Neolithic Stone Age people who erected this huge stone circle, as we message friends on smart phones, catch up with world news on TV screens, and eat exotic foods shipped from faraway places. But, in reality, our emotions and feelings, along with the challenges that we face, are not unique to us in the twenty-first century. As I stood on that Wiltshire plain, with countless tourists who had travelled from different corners of the world, I felt there was a deep connection between the primitive, ancient people who erected these sacred stones and us modern, ethnically-diverse pilgrims who were standing with our backs to the monument taking selfies. All division and differences seemed to melt away. It didn’t matter that the Neolithic people with their seemingly-primitive ways lacked modern education and technological know-how, just as it didn’t matter that the tourists had different skin complexions and were speaking different languages. Rather, something drew me to recognising a connection between all people, past and present, spanning different eras and different parts of the world. It is that same oneness with others that I feel as I approach the altar each week during the communion service.

Yet, with increasing tensions and divisions in today’s world, our common humanity is too often ignored and overlooked. Academics talk about the neo-tribalism of recent years. We are told that communities are breaking down, with fewer and fewer people knowing their neighbours, fewer people joining clubs and societies, and church attendance dropping sharply. On top of that, people, it seems, are becoming more focused on what separates us than what we have in common and so are banding into new tribes that are far more antagonistic to others than they have been in the past. Rather than local, inclusive communities, we are organising ourselves into new “in groups” and “out groups”. This is neo-tribalism – there’s “us” and “them”, and, of course, we are always right and they are always wrong, whether it’s atheism and belief, Labour and Conservative, Republican and Democrat, Leave and Remain, or pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine. As our natural longing for belonging has lessened in our local communities, these new polarised groupings have become toxic and destructive as we look down on those who look, dress, think, or behave differently from us.

For Christians, though, our faith is a sharp reminder that all these divisions are human constructs that mean very little in the light of God’s eternal kingdom. While we can celebrate our differences in his kingdom, it is ultimately a kingdom of unity, parity, and equality. This is one of the powerfully beautiful things about the meal that Jesus left us. When we walk up to receive communion, we are challenged to remember that we are all loved and equal – we have one Father and we are brothers and sisters under one kingship.

Some of those at the altar rail with us may be our close friends, but others may well irritate or annoy us. Some may have similar interests and attitudes to us, but others will be very different characters. Some will have overflowing bank accounts, but others will be having sleepless nights about the cost-of-living crisis. Some will be single, some will have partners, some will be married, some will be widowed. Some will be young, some will be old, some will have different colour complexion to ours, some will have a different sexuality. Some will have conflicting political views to ours, others will have never voted. Some will thrive in the company of people, but others will be desperate to get home for some peace and quiet. Some will be fit and healthy, but others will be battling with pain daily. Some will have a naturally joyful disposition, but others will be struggling simply to force a smile.

The altar is a reminder that, in God’s kingdom, every single person is both loved and equal, however wonderfully diverse and different we are from each other. This has huge implications on how we view ourselves, how we extend God’s love to the people we meet each day, and how we care for the world around us. Everything we say and do should reflect the wonderful fact that we are one family. We are one.

The Topsy-Turvy Revolution of Christmas

I preached for the final time at Christ Church, Roath Park, Cardiff on Christmas Day 2022. My sermon attempted to connect with those of different ages, including children, and those on different stages of their Christian journey. Our Reader, Eleanor Williams, acted as Angel Gabriel during the sermon (wearing angel wings and halo!) and she did so with her usual humour and charm. After the service, a number of people asked for a copy of the sermon, so I include it here on my blog.

Someone asked me recently about the favourite book I’d ever been given as a Christmas present. It’s a classic novel, highly cultured and deeply theological, about a man who lives an upside-down, back-to-front life. He even takes this as far as walking backwards, wearing his hat the wrong way, and carrying his walking stick from the bottom up. Written by the celebrated author Roger Hargreaves, who was far too often overlooked for the Nobel Prize for literature, the book is called Mr Topsy Turvy!

I was given this book when I was six years old, and, in my mind, there are similarities between this classic from the children’s Mr Men series and the book that really has changed my life. The Bible, after all, is a story of a topsy-turvy, upside-down, downside-up, inside-out, outside-in God. Nowhere is this more strikingly clear than at the outset of the New Testament, when the gospels start with the birth of Jesus that we celebrate today. This topsy-turvy narrative lays the foundation for the wonderful, life-giving faith that we now live out over 2000 years later. We get so used to hearing the message of Christmas year-after-year that we can sometimes forget how subversive and revolutionary our faith really is. Just imagine the conversation between God and the Angel Gabriel around nine months before Jesus’s birth.

God must have said to Angel Gabriel that things weren’t going too great on earth. There were so few people who were listening to his topsy-turvy, subversive message of love, kindness, and hope. And so he informs the Angel Gabriel that he’s considering sending his son down to teach, and show through his own life, this revolutionary way of living.

Angel Gabriel: “Great idea, Mr God – so, my suggestion would be to wait about 2000 years when television will be invented and TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter will really be able to help your PR campaign go down swimmingly”.

But God is determined that the birth of his son happens immediately, in the first century, because people needed a new saviour and fresh hope as soon as possible. This was the first topsy-turvy decision.

Angel Gabriel: “Ok, sounds a bit strange, but I’ll go with it… So, I see the Romans are pretty powerful at the moment. So let’s get your son born in that wonderful city Rome – the sparking capital of the world”.

But God wasn’t interested in the kind of power that Rome represented. Instead, Jesus was to be born in a small, middle-eastern country that was mired in turmoil and problems.

Angel Gabriel: “Ok, Israel, hmmm… strange choice, but it sort of makes sense as your son will be coming to your chosen people, God, to save them and to give them great hope”.

But God has other plans. He wants to break through the tribalism of the world then and of the world now. He wants to give the peculiar message that we are all loved by him, we are all important to him. Jesus may have been born as a first-century Jewish man, but his message of love and peace and hope and joy is for all people and all times.

Angel Gabriel: “Yes, you’re inspiring me now, God – I can get down with that message… so let’s get your son born in one of the wonderful palaces of Jerusalem – maybe to a King or a great warrior or a talented politician”.

But God wants Jesus, right from the very beginning, to topple our ideas of wealth and power – he was going to be born in a manger, amongst the dirty animals to a young unknown girl.

Angel Gabriel: “Right, I’m starting to see where this is going… but we definitely need to ensure your son’s teaching inspires followers who are important people, wealthy people, influential people… we’ve got to ensure his message continues for ever”.

But God’s vision of the future was different – his son was coming to proclaim good news for the marginalised, the criticised, the belittled, the scorned, the poor, the vulnerable, the grieving, the imprisoned, the depressed, the hurting, the anxious, the disabled, the sick, the lonely. Jesus’s topsy turvy message would be: “the first will be last and the last will be first”.

Angel Gabriel: “Sounds all a bit crazy to me, God… but, at the very least, you should have your son to either die a hero’s death or not to die at all and just live forever in his kingdom, ruling in glorious majesty”.

But God has one last twist in his plan. Jesus will die the horrible and painful death of a criminal, hung up a cross. And then he will come back three days later to rule in a different kind of kingdom – the kingdom of love and peace in the hearts of each and every one of us, if only we choose to embrace and live out his topsy-turvy message. 

Angel Gabriel: “Right, I give up – why don’t you just do what you want God – but don’t come running to me when your upside-down, topsy-turvy, downside-up, subverted, revolutionary, inside-out, outside-in world comes crashing down on you!”

But there are no guarantees that if we follow Jesus our lives won’t come crashing down – there are no guarantees that our lives will be trouble free. But today, Christmas Day, is a reminder that, while our topsy-turvy God may not be promising us an easy life, he is promising us, his disciples, the strength to live out his revolution. When we walk out of this building today and when we welcome in the new year, the baby in a manger should inspire us to turn our broken world upside-down – to ensure that the lonely have company, that the sick are visited, that those imprisoned by addiction are set free, that those experiencing prejudice and hatred are shown love and compassion, that those facing discrimination because of their race, gender, or sexuality are liberated from oppression, that those who are depressed or anxious see silver linings in their clouds, that those who can’t afford food on their tables or heating in their houses do not go to bed hungry or cold, that those who feel the heart wrenching despair of grief do not feel alone and abandoned, and that those who can’t even force a smile on Christmas Day know they are loved and infinitely valued. This is the faith of the crying, helpless baby in a manger. This is the topsy-turvy revolution we follow.

Thought for the Day: The Beatles, the Beatitudes, and the God of the Unexpected

In the style of my Lent Book Opening our Lives and Advent Book Real God in the Real World, I will be sharing occasional “thoughts for the day” on various subjects on this blog. Hope you enjoy.

Recently, Peter Jackson, most famous as director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, edited footage of the three weeks in 1969 when the Beatles recorded their final album. It’s a marathon of a documentary, almost 9 hours long, but it’s also fascinating. It reveals how the creativity of the Beatles was fuelled by marmalade on toast and it shows how, in their final months as a band, the sometimes-fractious relationships between the Fab Four inspired them to compose some of their most timeless tunes, including “Let it Be” and “Get Back”. Their plan was to end the three weeks by performing in an ancient auditorium in Tripoli. Eventually, though, they simply decide to climb up to the rooftop of their studio in London and play a concert to the astounded people walking past.

As the police desperately try to gain access to the rooftop to put a stop to the concert, the filmmakers interview people on the streets below. Some are unhappy at the music blasting out, while others are excited by the final time the Beatles would ever perform in public. The interviewers then come to an ageing vicar. We might expect him to side with the greying businessmen condemning the loud music. Refreshingly, though, he doesn’t play into the stereotype of the grumpy Christian bemoaning noisy youths. Instead, he looks up to the roof, smiles warmly, and says that rarely do people get anything for free and how wonderful it was that the young people were enjoying it so much!

As I watched that joyful, unpredictable vicar, I was reminded somewhat of the God that he was following. The Bible reveals to us that our God is the God of the unexpected. Jesus’s teaching reveals a God who topples our predictions and confounds our expectations. In particular, he doesn’t side with the people who we think might deserve it. Instead, he embraces the people that our society believes should be side-lined or ignored. This God of ours brings the people on the edges of life to the centre stage – all the lonely people, as the Beatles put it, but also the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the grieving, the depressed, the anxious, the struggling, the lowly, the gentle, the marginalised, the powerless, the hated, the outsider, and the unwanted.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus astonishingly refers to these people as “blessed” (Luke 6:20-26) – or even “happy” as the Greek word used (makarios) can be translated. In God’s eyes, it is the struggling people on the edges of our society who are blessed and happy. This sharply contradicts how our world seems to work – where the rich, the capable, the successful, the powerful, and the famous are glorified, while others are viewed as expendable consumers, to sell things to or to be discarded as unprofitable or useless.

The Beatles famously sang that “all you need is love”. Whatever they meant by that, our faith reminds us that Christian love is something radically different from saccharin-sweet Valentine’s Day love. God’s love destroys the dominant worldview and ushers in a strange kingdom that has dramatic implications on our lives. It demands that we ask ourselves some searching questions. Who do we glorify in our world? Who do we demonise? How do we view certain people and groups? Are we truly living out our upside-down, downside-up, topsy-turvy, flipped-around faith? Or are we simply standing around, like the predictable people in the Beatles documentary, complaining about the noise and looking down with disdain on those who are not like us? And are we too quickly slipping into our comfort zones and descending into the stereotype of how we think a “normal” Christian should behave and react?

One thing is clear – there’s nothing normal about our faith, and neither is there anything comfortable, snug, or predictable. Instead, Jesus introduces us to the God of the unexpected and, by doing so, he rips up and tears apart all the world teaches about human nature. In our faith is a radical, revolutionary call to sacrifice, love, and compassion. Through our faith, and with our help, God can and will transform our broken world.

Hope – A Christmas Reflection

The recent movie A Boy Called Christmas tells the magical story of how the young St Nicholas met Blitzen and the elves and became the Santa Claus we all know and love. At the start of the film, the King of Finland, played by Jim Broadbent, speaks to his subjects about the dark times they are living in. He says these words: “We all know times are hard. I mean really, really, really hard. I can’t remember the last time I smiled. Can you? What is there to smile about? We’re all miserable. We’re all missing something. And I think we know what that is… Hope. We all need hope.”

After the past few years, many of us can relate to those words. We live in times of turmoil – fractious political uncertainty, heart-breaking environmental damage, toxic ideological divisions, desperate asylum seekers, and, of course, an unforgiving pandemic. In his latest book, the New York Times bestselling author Mark Manson suggests that we all need hope to survive “the way a fish needs water” and, without a hope of a brighter, better future, “we spiritually die”. And he suggests that one of the essential things to build and maintain hope is a sense of control. In other words, if we lose a sense of control over our lives, we lose hope.

How many of us have felt in control of our lives over the past 18 months? Very few, I imagine. But what the pandemic has actually done is taught us a timeless truth about control. It’s taught us that the narrative of self-control is a lie – none of us have any real control over virtually anything! Our health, our jobs, our partners, our children, our weather – none of us have control over them!

Christmas, though, is a time when we’re reminded that, for all our lack of control, hope still lives on. This season opens our eyes to the small glimmers of promise all around us, twinkling like the tree lights in our living rooms. In the Christmas story, the angels announce to the shepherds the coming of a great hope – a Saviour who’ll usher in a new world. No doubt the shepherds were expecting to be told that this hope was to be found in a capital city or in a great palace, in the guise of a charismatic politician or a famous world leader. Instead, the hope entered our world in a helpless baby in a dirty manger in a grubby stable, born to two nobodies surrounded by braying animals, in a small seemingly unimportant town.

Despite the lack of hope in that scene, though, we know that somebody was in control. And, of course, in our own hopelessness, however bad things get, however dark it seems, however stormy the seas, we know that somebody is in control. That is why the light shines in the darkness. And it all started with that first Christmas morning. As the opening words of one Christmas song puts it: “A ray of hope flickers in the sky, A tiny star lights up way up high”.

That star in the night sky pointed to a Christ child who came to us in poverty and weakness, in a seemingly dull, unimaginative scene. But this is the beginning of the glorious colourful nativity that fills our lives and delights our hearts each Christmas, this is the dawn of a new hope. This is the reassurance that, if we lay down our desperation for control, the one who is in control will open our eyes, our ears, our hearts to moments of hope in small things in seemingly unimportant places.

So, yes, when we are reaching out to others through foodbanks or medicines or vaccines or education or charities or environmental care, this is God’s hope in action. But hope is also birthed in our smaller, seemingly insignificant actions – when we’re taking the time to help a neighbour, when we’re reassuring a friend with kind and uplifting words, when we make a phone call to someone who is lonely or struggling, when we speak out for justice for those who are desperate or marginalised, and when we practice kindness and compassion and patience. This is when God’s light is breaking through all around us, reassuring us, in the words of Maggie Smith in that film A Boy Called Christmas: “the darkest night will end, the sun will rise, and Christmas mornings will come again, when anything and everything can happen”.

To watch a recording of this reflection: https://youtu.be/reEAQMEd9D0