Category: theology

when we gather

wonderfulexchange14 Comments

During my first year of studying theology, a lecturer asked us to make a list of all the things that we thought must happen in the context of the eucharist. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics — all were invited to make their list, and compare notes. I should confess: I forgot the sermon. I didn’t choose not to include it. I just forgot. And before you get your hopes up: I would not forget it now.

But I find myself thinking about the question again in a new context. This time it is not ‘what must happen for a eucharist’ but ‘what should happen when Christians gather on a Sunday?’

Now ideally, those questions would be one and the same. The eucharist is at the heart of Anglican practice and theology, and I wish that we could assume that every Anglican congregation could gather for the eucharist each sabbath day. But we can’t. Continue reading “when we gather” →

a better quot.

wonderfulexchange4 Comments

Now you see, if I had kept reading last night instead of stopping to blog, I could have offered you this instead:

… there is no point arguing with a watertight argument, since those who produce such arguments are, by definition, the sort of people whose first reaction when challenged by something different is to see it as a threat, and to circle the wagons.  It is only when the Indians ride on by without paying them any attention that they may be drawn out of their circle and nudged by a timorous curiosity into the free flow of grace.  And if they don’t come out, judging an invitation to play to be a threat to their goodness, well, that’s God’s problem, not ours, and they are well in God’s hands.

James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment 

jonah

wonderfulexchange1 Comment

For reasons that I would not like to examine too closely, Jonah has always been my favourite prophet.   It is a book to read while sulking.   A space to wait till God’s laughter becomes my own.

And I haven’t been reading it lately (before you all jump to conclusions).  But I have been reading James Alison’s Faith Beyond Resentment, which made me think again about that great whale.  Alison says this, of Jonah’s fish-failed drowning:

Jonah had thought he was plunging to his death.  There must have been something of relief in his descent.  At last it was all over.  But it was not.  Unknown to him, while he thought he had engineered his death, setting it up so as to avoid finding himself in the presence of the Lord, God had a different idea.  His plan was to tag along while Jonah would not allow himself to be reached, and then, when he had plunged into the deep, to hold him in being while he was devoured by all that tumultuous fear, hatred, and darkness which had glowered beneath the surface of his faith.  The great fish is nothing other than God holding Jonah in being in the midst of the darkness and fear…
I imagine the great fish to have been transparent, so that Jonah was not aware for a good part of those three days and nights that he was anything other than being lost, utterly swept away by forces whose swirling he had always dreaded.  He could see and feel the darkness, and yet not be aware that, in the midst of that, he was being stitched together, reached, held at a depth which he had been unable to imagine.

The wisdom of pastoral counseling and spiritual direction has always been to stay with the darkness, not to flee.   But Alison has now given me an image to hold onto — a whale shaped space in which to wait, and to encourage others to wait, for God.

Faith Beyond Resentment is the most interesting bit of theology I’ve read in a long time.   I keep reading thinking, ‘this is all so obvious, so true.  Why have I never heard it said this way before?’

sabbath

wonderfulexchange17 Comments

I have been thinking a lot about rest this week. Or rather (in the face of a lost Sunday off) lack of rest, and how far we have come from the command ‘keep the sabbath day holy’.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I think many people in our (British) culture had good reason for rebelling against the Sabbath — against the memories of oppressive Sundays that were marked by the command ‘thou shalt not have fun’. But somehow, as we let go of the restrictions, we also let go of the freedom to do nothing. To make space for conversation and long walks. To cease work without guilt or censure.

But of course, true sabbath takes planning. I blogged last week about Naomi Alderman’s Disobedience. There is a wonderful chapter in which she describes the race against the sabbath clock — trying to get the meal ready and the house prepared, all soon enough to sneak off to Camden to do something secret before sun sets and orthodoxy descends.

On the face of it, the sabbath clock is oppressive. There is a certain madness in counting down the minutes — chicken ready, candles lit, urn switched on… REST. But there is also grace in learning to be disciplined with time, to master it before it masters us.

One of the congregational challenges for The Growing Season has been to spend ten minutes a day in silence. I know many people find it hard to know what to do with silence and ten minutes can feel like forever, but I thought that in these congregations of mostly retired people, it should be possible. But a number of people have told me they just couldn’t manage. Too hard. Not enough time.

Ten minutes a day just wasn’t possible.

So I am thinking about sabbath. How do we teach it? How do we plan for it? How do we do it?

If you’re willing to share ideas, I’d love to know what works for you and how you make it happen.