Thankfully the experience of ‘Lockdown’ is now a memory, but it has left scars on the lives and landscape of us all. Many town centres have lost their big stores as we have turned into internet shoppers. Many meetings are now online, many city centre bars and restaurants have lost their customers who are now working from home and many churches now have virtual worship services.All of these changes pose a question about the ways in which we relate to each other. The human creature has evolved as a social animal, we need each other to be ourselves, but new technologies have constantly changed the way in which we do that. How does the Church respond to these challenges?What does it mean to be the Church of Jesus Christ?This is not a new question, in fact in every generation new challenges, technologies, and sadly abuses have raised the issue of the role of the Church in mediating our relationship with God.The Reformation in Northern Europe was such a response. In part it was a response to the challenge of scientific discoveries, in part to the development of new print technologies, and in part to the perceived abuses within the Catholic church.The Counter Reformation in the Catholic world was not just an attempt to counter the Protestant critics but to renew from within the medieval practices of the Catholic church.Emerging out of this movement there was, in Spain, an emphasis on the mystical and spiritual relationship that each worshipper should seek to develop with Christ.Traditionally the Church had acted as ‘Door Keeper’ to God, granting access through the ‘Means of Grace’ and the ‘Acts of Penance’ but the new ‘Mystics’ talked about a ‘Conversion’ experience through which the faithful could come to God in their own right.Instead of the ‘Sacrament of Penance’ as a public act of ‘Reconciliation’ with the Church, there was a change of emphasis to private confession and personal experience. The image of the Church as an Ark carrying all to God was replaced by the image of the soul as a pilgrim on his path to heaven.The Mystic writers and poets of the Spanish Catholic Church were at the forefront of this renewal of faith and practice and the painter ‘El Greco’, in the words of one commentator, ‘became the vital visual representation of Spanish mysticism, reflecting its religious spirit in his paintings’.The Purification of the Temple 1605El Greco was himself a ‘Mystic’ sitting in a darkened room as he conceived his works of art, so that the ‘Inner light’ might illuminate him.His depiction of the ‘Purification of the Temple’ should be understood in the light of this new ‘Mystical’ understanding of the Church.Here each figure seems to carry its own light within, or reflect the light that emanates from Jesus. Anatomically each figure has become ‘Otherworldy’ as if somehow ‘On fire’! It is a work not of reality but of imagination and intuition, described by contemporaries as ‘Mad’, ‘Strange’, ‘Odd’ but by others as ‘Original’. Along with El Greco’s otherworldly paintings it was an image that was to influence, hundreds of years later, the Romantic and Impressionist painters.‘Destroy this Temple, and In three days I will raise it up’ John 2:19The Temple was for the Jews the place where heaven and earth met. It was where God spoke to his people and one day would come to meet with His people. Jesus was about to redefine ‘The Temple’Jesus had come to the Temple courtyards where the sacrificial animals were sold to the worshippers, but the coin they needed was not that which they normally bought and sold their goods. The Temple coin did not bear the idolatrous image of Caesar and had to be used in the Temple precincts.The exchange of Roman for Temple coins provided the Temple authorities with a considerable income and financed the many priests and Temple officials necessary to run the business of thousands of daily sacrifices.Jesus now brought this business to a halt, threatening the functioning of the Temple itself, no wonder then that he caused outrage! His offence was not so much that he turned over the tables of the traders but that he struck at the heart of the Temple’s business model! A Business model that we might call‘Marketplace’ economics.The buying and selling of access to God or the exclusion of the poor from worship because they cannot afford to pay, is an abuse of the free gift of God’ grace, his forgiveness, his love.The prophetic words of Jesus to destroy the Temple will indeed bring the whole business of access to God through the sacrifice of an animal to an end. In El Greco’s painting we see two carved images, one of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden and the other of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice. They help to explain for us the significance of Christ’s words.He will now provide the sacrifice for all, and through his death and resurrection grant access to God to all, without cost.The Temple of his Body. Does Jesus then make the Church necessary? A few days after the events in the Temple he meets with a Samaritan woman who asks him whether it is the Jewish temple or the Samaritan Temple where God meets with his people. The response suggests that it is not the place where we meet with God that matters, but how we meet with God.‘The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’John 4:23The new Temple, (the Church), is the ‘Body of Christ’, and as the ‘Mystics’ taught us we all have access to it through the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth. As such the reality of the Church is not the bureaucracy that organises it, or the money that finances it, nor as many demanded the signs and miracles that claim to authenticate it, but the love that brought it into being in the first place.Through service and sacrifice the Church is to make known the love of God and the wisdom of God. As Paul says, in his letter to the Corintians, this seems like foolishness. The wisdom of God is indeed foolishness to the world.As we leave this building this morning we do not cease to be the Church. We are the Church at home, at work and to all who we meet along the way. God has chosen us, called us, to make his love and wisdom known to the world. It might seem like a foolish plan, but then God’s wisdom is made known through foolishness and his love made known in weakness. We can have confidence that God can and does use us to be His presence, His power, and His love in the world. We are the place where heaven meets earth.‘But to those who God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.For the foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength’.1 Corinthians 1:25Rev Simon BrignallWe continue to pray for Clare Claper and her family.Next week's Mothering Day service will be a celebration of our Mums and Grandmas in St John the Baptist Church, Coln.
The DealersIt’s often forgotten that the artists we know and love owe their prominence not just to their talent but to the art dealers who spotted that talent and promoted their art. Monet once remarked that had not the great champion of the Impressionists, Paul Durant-Ruel, promoted their art they all would have starved.Not all the art dealers were as scrupulous as Durant-Ruel. Gaugin was among the artists who fell prey to Ambroise Vollard’s business acumen. In 1895 the dealer refused to buy Gaugin’s paintings of Tahiti, enraging the artist. Then Vollard went on to buy up major works by Gaugin that were on the market at record breaking prices. Having effectively made the Post Impressionist famous, Vollard sent the artist a modest stipend when he made sales of Gaugin’s art – a small price to pay, considering the money the Paris gallery was raking in.Ambroise Volllard, however is credited with ‘discovering’ Picasso, Cezanne, Rouault and many others. Picasso, whose 1910 portrait of the dealer is one of the most famous images of him, once said that “The most beautiful woman who ever lived never had her portrait painted, drawn or engraved any more often than Vollard.Peter the deal makerWe can understand Peter's attempt to promote Jesus in much the same way. In effect he was offering to manage the ‘Jesus campaign’. When Jesus speaks of suffering and rejection, and death he suggests a better way of saving mankind!“Get behind me Satan” Mark 8:33. There's no doubt that Peter thought he was putting into words a common-sense counsel of prudence, but he has blurted out what Satan has been whispering to Jesus all along.Jesus has on every occasion sent Satan away. Here he turns his back definitively on not just the shallow suggestion of Peter, but the diabolical idea that Satan could have any part in the salvation of mankind.Yet we are Sometimes presented with the gospel story as if it was a deal done with Satan for the lives of mankind! The idea goes something like this:Man has sinned so comes under the judgement of God’s holy will that demands justice and righteousness.Satan demands that mankind is delivered into eternal condemnation and everlasting death but God in His love for mankind sees a way to save sinful mankind.Jesus' holy life makes him the perfect sacrifice for sin and in offering his life for the sake of mankind he satisfies the demands of justice and righteousness.Sounds good doesn’t it, but it cannot be a true account of Christ’s offering and sacrificial death for so many reasons.God doesn’t strike deals with Satan.Satan is the one who is always on the attack, always eager to undermine the work of God, always ready to lead people into sin and guilt so there will be more to accuse them of. Jesus turns his back on Satan, just as he turns his back on Peter so that he can see into the loving face of His Father God. In deed we see into the heart of God Himself in this exchange for ‘God is love’.On the cross the condemnation and the weight of sin and guilt enters into the very Godhead himself. Jesus takes the full weight of sin and evil so that people can be free from Satan’s accusations and given life in all its fullness.The cross is the means by which Jesus will rescue mankind but we must not turn this good news into the ‘Death cult’ of Islamic extremists who preach salvation by martyrdom. Any suggestion that sacrifice is a payment for something will obscure the true meaning of the sacrifice of Christ. Christ gives himself as a gift of love not a payment for salvation.Jesus' challenge to ‘Take up our cross daily’ cannot, then possibly mean seeking martyrdom each day.It is instead a challenge to service, meaning to live as Christ did each day in offering our lives to others in obedience to God’s holy will. So whether we understand Jesus’ words ‘Get behind me Satan as being addressed to Peter, or Satan himself, Peter’s common sense suggestions exactly coincide with the satanic suggestion that Jesus should compromise God’s saving love, a love in which God in Jesus is the sacrifice.As Jesus turned his face to Jerusalem and all that would await him there, he once more heard those words of divine affirmation. “This is my Son whom I love”. We too will know that loving presence as we pick up our cross and follow him.A prayer for peace in the Holy land.O God of all justice and peace we cry out to you in the midst of the pain and traumaof violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land.Be with those who need you in these days of suffering; we pray for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians and for all people of the land.While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace,we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples.Guide us into your kingdom where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children for, to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father.In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Rev. Simon Brignall
This week, due to the shifting date of Easter, we had a strange combination of dates, St Valentine’s day and Ash Wednesday. Whether you were into sackcloth and ashes or chocolates and roses the combination is a timely reminder that Lent is more about love than fasting.St Valentine is remembered as the patron saint of romantic love, but his story is more about justice and mercy. He was executed under the rule of the emperor Claudius for defying orders to conscrip young men into the Roman army, which at this time was very overstretched.The church at this point in history, the third century, was strictly pacifist. One way to escape military conscription was to get married, as newly wed young men were excused military conscription for a year. St Valentine would secretly marry young couples to help them avoid the ‘call up’To remind these couples of their vows and of God’s love St Valentine is said to cut out parchment hearts as a keepsake, and as they say, ‘The rest is history’.Our reading from Isaiah also brings together the theme of love and mercy. He reminds us that the true fast is:‘to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free?Marriage and CommunityThe love and care of our neighbours, especially those who are particularly vulnerable is amongst the purposes set out in the preface to the marriage service which states that‘Marriage…enriches society and strengthens community’As we welcome the lovely couples who are getting married here in the CHQ parish it is good to remind ourselves that the joy of their union is the foundation not only of family life but also of community life.Van Gogh and the Roulin FamilyI have chosen this week a painting by Van Gogh of the couple who took him in when he was living in Arles, and was at his most vulnerable, Monsieur and Madame Roulin and their family. Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin met and became good friends and drinking companions. Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates on many occasions; while Roulin was not the most attractive man, van Gogh found him to be "such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful." Roulin saw van Gogh through the good and the most difficult times, corresponding with his brother, Theo following his rift with Gauguin and being at his side during and following the hospital stay in Arles. If love is the glue that holds together family life and enriches and strengthens community life, then, chocolate has an important part to play too! If you read the book or saw the film ‘Chocolat’ you’ll know what I mean! Let me run briefly through the story. ChocolatJoanne Harris, the author, tells the story Vianne Rocher, who arrives in a French village and sets up a Chocolaterie, a chocolate shop situated across the square from the austere medieval-style church. Much to the dismay of the priest and the mayor, she arrives at the beginning of Lent, when they are urging their community to repent and to fast. Somehow this seems to bring out the worst in everyone and the cracks in relationships are starting to show. In contrast, Vianne and her daughter set about their chocolatière's craft with great enthusiasm and love, cleaning and painting the little shop and creating delicacies never before seen in the village. One by one, Vianne welcomes the reluctant but curious villagers into her shop, gives them chocolate and hears their life's stories, their problems, their pain. And gradually, gently, as the story unfolds, she encourages them to make changes in their lives, to rebuild relationships or move on from broken ones. She welcomes those others reject and treats them with the same love and respect. And the more the church condemns her lack of restraint or respect for the church's teachings, the more people are drawn to her and to one another. The grumpy grandmother gets to know her grandson and appreciates his talent for drawing, the elderly man after decades musters up the courage to date his childhood sweetheart. The young woman escapes from her violent, drunken husband and a little girl makes new friends. A married couple rekindle romance, travellers are met with a smile and music and dancing are heard on the edge of the village. Isn't this what the God of love is about: the healing of relationships, the blossoming of love, the helping out of friends in need of a home, the welcoming of outcasts and foreigners, the quashing of prejudice and discrimination? Isn't this what a celebration of Valentine's Day should be about – our demonstrating God's love for each person that says very clearly, 'You are worth it!' A prayer for peace in the Holy land.O God of all justice and peace we cry out to you in the midst of the pain and traumaof violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land.Be with those who need you in these days of suffering; we pray for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians and for all people of the land.While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace,we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples.Guide us into your kingdom where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children for, to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father.In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Rev Simon BrignallI am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
Teachers in Primary school have a special compliment for their class when they are quiet and attentive. ‘Good listening’, I suppose this passage, although it tells us of the transfiguration of Jesus, is actually about listening.We will never have the experience of the three disciples who Jesus took to the top of this mountain, by tradition, said to be Mount Tabor, but we are told by Mark that this experience was not about what they saw but about what they heard and by implication he is telling us that we, as disciples, can experience the same ‘Revelation’ by listening.We are in the final week before Lent and the readings from Christmas up until now have all been about the revelation of who Jesus truly is. The Magi, Simeon and Anna, John the Baptist, and last week, John the apostle speaks to us about the true identity of Jesus as revealed through the stars, and the order of the cosmos, (Logos), through signs of bread and wine, through the prophetic voice of John the Baptist and even a tormented man in need of release from a demonic power.The reading today brings these revelations to a climax as the disciples are privileged to see Jesus in all his glory, a glimpse into the future, and yet, as I said, it’s not really about what they saw but what they heard that is significant for us.Seeing is not believingWhen we say: “Oh, I see”, we usually mean, “I understand”. To understand is to see below the surface to what is not obvious, to make sense of something that is opaque. May I illustrate with a painting hidden below two centuries of varnish.The art historian and conservationist Philip Mould has uncovered the hidden face of ‘the ‘Woman in red’ painted in 1618, in doing so he has made sense of a fine portrait that could have been mistaken for junk. Indeed some of the most celebrated lost paintings have been discovered in auction room sales, or attic lofts where they have been mistaken for junk until uncovered by someone who recognised the real thing.The conservationist has to believe before he sees, only then can the true nature of the painting be revealed. I suppose you could also say that the true believer doesn’t need to see at all because the true nature is is always hidden in humble dress, as in George Herbert’s poem, ‘Teach me my God and King in all things thee to see’ Such is the nature of the Transfiguration, it is the revealing of the real nature of Jesus, the humble carpenter who is Christ the King.Hidden gloryJesus could not have been clearer about the direction his ministry would take him. Shortly before this mountain top experience of his glory he tells his disciples that:“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected” Mark 8: 31.His message is clear but we know that the disciples were not listening!As we reverently approach this holy moment when Jesus reveals what is to come we must not forget that his path to glory passed through Calvary. Today we are not only given a glimpse of glory but a solemn word from God:“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him” Mark 9: 7.A Place apart: ‘A high mountain where they were all alone’ Mark 9:2.How then can we enter into the experience of the disciples, how can we become good listeners?Before the disciples could hear him they had to be quiet. The noise of the crowds, the demands of a busy life, even the excitement of their ministry all made the disciples deaf to the words of Jesus. Only when they were alone with Jesus and in silence could they hear him clearly.Whether it is in the quiet of a church building or in a quiet moment during our day we too can enter into the experience of the disciples. Our lives are not to be dictated by business but transformed by his presence with us. Leaving behind the business of life to be alone is one of the hardest disciplines of the Christian life but essential to hearing the voice of the Master.Moses and Elijah: Alongside Jesus appeared Moses and Elijah, the greatest teacher of God’s Law and the greatest of the prophets. Luke tells us they spoke about his ‘Exodus’, meaning both his journey to freedom but also his suffering and death. That great event in Israel’s story had defined the disciples’ life and shaped their culture but now someone greater than Moses and Elijah is here and they are to ‘see’ the Exodus with new eyes.To listen to him, then, means to read the Bible backwards. Now the ‘Exodus’ is to be interpreted in the light of Jesus' journey through the desolation of Good Friday, and the triumph of Easter Sunday. As we read the Old Testament Scriptures then, we ‘see’ a foreshadowing of the Easter story, we understand them in the light of Jesus teaching about his death and resurrection – His Exodus.Jesus alone: The experience of the Transfiguration ended as it had begun, alone with Jesus. The vision faded, the voice was heard no more, and they faced another crisis of faith as they descended the mountain back into the crowds, but Jesus remained.Jesus remained with them because they now know how to listen. The scriptures now spoke to them and his resurrected presence taught them how to live their own ‘New life’ . They too would pass through trial and temptation but they would always have the voice of Jesus to guide them.The transformation they had witnessed was a foretaste of what was to come, a promise of his presence with them always, not as they knew him now but dwelling within them by his Spirit and guiding them through the scriptures to ‘all truth’ John 16:13As we leave the quiet of the church, as we rise from our prayers and enter into the business of life, we carry with us the Spirit of Jesus. It is tempting to think that such a wonderful experience would free us from failure and faithlessness forever, clearly this was not the experience of the disciples. They remained the same fallible human being they were before. We can take comfort from the fact that they were not in any way special. What can be said of them can be said of us too:‘They had been with Jesus’ Acts 4:13.Please continue to pray for Clare Caper and her full return to health.A prayer for peace in the Holy landO God of all justice and peacewe cry out to you in the midst of the pain and traumaof violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land.Be with those who need you in these days of suffering;we pray for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians and for all people of the land.While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace,we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples.Guide us into your kingdom where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children for, to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father.Rev. Simon BrignallI am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
