Peace! Have you still no faith?

Preached at Trinity URC and MCC North London, both in Camden Town, 21st June 2009

Job 38:1-11

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

"Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?"

Mark 4:35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

***

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks, I bring greetings from MCC Austin, TX, the Office of Formation and Leadership development, 19 MCC churches represented at REVM and of course MCCBE, Clinton Crawshaw and Leon Huton. It always does me good to visit churches in our communion and see just what MCC is capable of; what strength, joy, faith and fellowship we can share with one another.

These few verses in Mark have all the tension and drama of a major Hollywood blockbuster condensed into a few short verses. We see Jesus, the big-time celebrity, climbing into his chauffeur-driven vehicle to escape the crowds (well, it’s a fishing boat, but bear with me). Then, horror of horrors, a crisis begins. The storm clouds gather, the others in the boat begin to look worried. We know they are experienced sailors, fishermen even. They know these waters; their livelihoods depend on their ability to successfully cross a lake in any conditions, but they are clearly worried. Rain is pelting down from all sides, they are caught in the most terrible winds, and they can see waves crashing down on all sides. The tension builds as the little wooden fishing boat containing out hero and his underdog companions is thrown across the waters. It is dark, we can barely make them out, and the soundtrack is full of dramatic chords in the strings and violent percussion. The audience is on the edge of their seats, but something is wrong. In the middle of all that violence, and drama and chaos, we realise we haven’t seen Jesus for a while. Where is he? Has he fallen out unnoticed? What is going on? Then one of the disciples moves to the front of the boat. Jesus is lying, motionless. Surely something has happened to him? How could he fail to be woken up by all the commotion? One of the disciples – we don’t know who but I think the smart money is on Peter – wakes him, desperate for some help. “Master,” he says, “do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus’ response is puzzling. He is little more than irritated at the response. In something of an anticlimax, we get a small gesture, a word of peace and a rebuke (“Have you still no faith?”) and the water is calm.

So, Hollywood would be disappointed. Imagine the re-write if that was how The Perfect Storm, Titanic or the Poseidon Adventure had been drafted! You see the director, wince “well, it’s good, Mark, but it’s lacking that punch. You ruin the tension, it’s over too quickly. Can’t you kill off a minor character in the early parts of the storm? One of those saints no one knows the name of, or one of the brothers, just to build up the tension? Then give Jesus some doubt. Some really scary doubt, like he doesn’t know if he can do it and then all of a sudden – BAM! Do you see what I’m saying?”

Thankfully, God doesn’t write Hollywood disaster movies. No one died, because Jesus was with them, and the hand of God was on their voyage. When they set out, they should have know that whatever happened they would be safe. They should have known when the storm started that they could rely on God to get them to the other side. And to an extent they did, but they are only human. Just like the rest of us, they eventually panicked and woke Jesus up. They knew God would keep them safe, but seeing Jesus asleep made them doubt. They thought that they would not be saved unless he woke up and perform a miracle. Jesus knew that this was why they woke him up, and I wonder, to whom did he say, “Peace! Be calm!” According to Mark, it was directed at the sea, but he didn’t need to speak to the see. He could silence the sea by lifting a finger, winking an eye, or just willing it silently. Jesus always speaks as he performs his miracles, and I think that’s because He is speaking words that the spectators need to hear. Speaking to the sea is not what calmed it, but I bet those words had an impact on the disciples. “Peace!” – stop panicking. Stop crying. “Be still!” Stop trying to control the boat. Stop trying to use your own power to keep you safe. God is in control.

Then, once they were calmed down, he asks the big question. “Have you still no faith?” After all they have seen Jesus do, after they left their homes and their livelihoods to follow him, have they still not enough faith to trust him with their lives? It sounds very familiar. Many of us in this room have chosen to lay down our lives and follow Jesus. We may have lost family, friends, even relationships and jobs, to follow Him. Or we may have been fortunate enough to lose nothing but the odd Sunday night, but we profess that we are ready to follow Him. We willingly give up our hearts and souls, we are ready to seek him and to give everything we have. But in my experience we all hold something back.

I am reminded of something that was said to me a few weeks ago by a much wiser person. David Mullatt, who was working with the Office of Formation and Leadership Devpt. on REVM, gave this advice; “It is much easier to be a pastor than to be a Christian”.

It is much easier to be a minister – and we are all ministers, in MCC we believe firmly in the priesthood of all believers – than it is to be a Christian. It is easy to find the words to say to someone when they are distressed, to pray with someone who needs it, than to calm our own spirit, to ask for prayer from someone else, and to spend time alone with God. But although we are called to demonstrate our faith in public it is by living it and not by big gestures and “look-at-me” Christianity. When we make it look like we are giving our all in public, what are we holding back in private?

I struggled for many years with depression. It still comes and goes, but for a long time after I became a Christian I held that depression back from God. I used to think that it represented a failure, and was something that had been given to me as a punishment for being gay. My church didn’t particularly do anything to dissuade me of that belief and it persisted. The longer it went on the more I held back from God. I would ask for prayer about it in public, but when I prayed on my own I persisted in neglecting it. There was a sort of pride in it, my depression was my Cross to Bear, and I let myself be so defined by it that I didn’t see a way that I could carry on living without it.

Eventually, I began to realise that it wasn’t necessary to hide behind an illness in order to be myself. I realised that people didn’t spend time with me because they felt sorry for me, but because they actually liked me. I began to realise that God wasn’t punishing me, and I started to let go. It was the most liberating thing that I have ever done. It was as though I heard God say to me, “Have you still no faith?” Do you think, after all I have done for you, that I can’t lift this burden? Do you honestly believe that just because I seem to be asleep on a cushion I am ignorant of your plight? Did I not tell you I would never leave you? Peace! Be still!”

In the first reading, we heard God say the same thing to Job. I don’t know about you, but I struggle reading the story of Job, so I’ll try to unpick it a little. Job is the central figure in one of the OT books known as the “wisdom books”. Like the Psalms, Proverbs and the Song of Songs, Job is full of allegory and discussion of the nature of God. The book opens with a discussion between God and Satan. I need to make one thing clear, here. Satan in the OT is not a little red man with a pointed tail and horns. He is, in Hebrew, called ha’ satan, which means The Accuser. At the beginning of the story, we hear that Job is an honest, God-fearing man who is good to his family and servants. However, as the narration goes on, Job loses everything. First his children, his servants and his property, and then his health. Throughout the whole ordeal, he continues not just to resign himself to God’s will but to give himself to God gladly and to praise God’s name. After a while, he starts getting visits from friends and from members of his community. Fine, upstanding people whom we would call pillars of the community come to offer comfort. God doesn’t get it wrong, they say. You must have sinned, or maybe your children did. Someone is being punished. Call on God to forgive you and make it right.

After a long time, what must have felt like a lifetime of agony to Job, God decides to answer his prayer. But the answer, as we heard tonight, sounds cryptic and critical to human ears. Listen to the opening of God’s response again; this time in translation from The Message;

Why do you confuse the issue? Why do you talk without knowing what you're talking about?

Pull yourself together! Up on your feet! Stand tall! I have some questions for you, and I want some straight answers. Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much! Who decided on its size? Certainly you'll know that! Who came up with the blueprints and measurements? How was its foundation poured, and who set the cornerstone, while the morning stars sang in chorus and all the angels shouted praise? And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb? That was me!

Can’t you hear what is being said to Job here? God says, “You might think this is important, but sweetheart this is nothing. I created you. I created the heavens and the earth. And you have no idea what your place in that is, do you? You don’t know how I did it or what you mean to me. That sounds to me an awful lot like what Jesus was saying to his disciples. “Peace! Be still! Have you still no faith?”

No one is denying that Job was fearful of his life. It was all he had left to lose. And the disciples were terrified, they genuinely believed that they were in mortal peril. But what, in reality, does that mean in the great scheme of God’s plan? If we profess with our hearts, minds and bodies that we will stand alongside God in Heaven forever – however you imagine and interpret that – then does it really matter if we lose our lives in this world? There is nothing wrong with being scared, but when that happens the important thing is to look back at God. If you think that all you can see is Jesus asleep, don’t think that means God is ignorant of your plight. Since Pentecost, we have one thing that the disciples didn’t yet have, and that Job could not have imagined. We have an advocate in the form of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and guides us. Now it is we who can channel the power of God and say to the storm around us, whether it is a literal storm, an illness, a difficult relationship with friends, with Church or with a partner, “Peace! Be still! I have faith!” We can find it in us to get over anything we are faced with. We can also bless those around us with the peace that surpasses all understanding in Jesus Christ and help them to see that there is no storm in this life that is greater than the power of God.

Amen.

A new blog

So my last attempt at posting here regularlarly was a colossal fail. I have some notes from holidays and things that I may upload and backdate for my own amusement, but otherwise please excuse the 2-year gap!

Things are tremendously exciting at the moment; I am about to go away to the United Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches' Readiness to Enter Vocational Ministry conference (that's MCC REVM to those in the know). I'm very nervous, it could be the start of a wonderful journey.

So I thought I would use this space for general musings of a thoughtful nature. As you do. My work at a student union has given me lots of food for thought over the year about everything from the importance of the welfare state to the frustrating nature of the free press(!), and it's a wonderful self-indulgence to have a bit of webspace to muse aloud into the ether.

So, if you are so inclined, please indulge me in that.

Giving it all up for You

Sunday, 1st March 2009 (First Sunday in Lent). Trinity United Reform Church, Camden Town, and Metropolitan Community Church of North London.

Mark 1:9-15

The Baptism of Jesus

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

The Temptation of Jesus

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

***

As many of you will know, we have just entered the season of Lent. This is characterised in our culture with people giving things up, you've probably heard it at your places of work or study

"Well, yes, I'm giving up chocolate of course"
"Ooooh, no I can't have a biscuit. It's Lent."

And so on and so forth. Lent has become a byword for having a second crack at the resolutions you failed in New Year. And there is certainly some value in that. But what we are reading in the gospel tonight is one of the most significant incidents in Jesus' life from the early part of Mark's gospel. Mark as a gospel-writer has a very bleak outlook; he spends much of his work focussing on the period we call the Passion - that is, the death of Jesus. Some theologians even believe that Mark did not originally include an account of the resurrection. Mark's Jesus, whom we get an insight into here, is introspective and troubled. In just one verse, we hear of a young man perhaps not yet 30 years old being tested in a way that feels so outside our own experience. "He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him." In the wilderness - in some accounts, fasting - living with the wild beasts and keeping Satan at bay. The same story in Matthew's gospel tells us that Satan tested Jesus by challenging him, when hungry, to change rocks into bread and offering him the whole world in exchange for one act of worship. And how many times in our own lives do we feel that we would give up what we hold dear for "an easy life" or a quick fix?

What I find most striking about Jesus' temptation is that it was so well disguised as a test of faith. "Jump off this building," says Satan, "and God will save you". It could so easily sound like an opportunity to show Satan up. To show the awesomeness of God's power - that in Her grace He would save you. Two fingers to Satan, then, when God has shown Her power. But of course we know that train of thought is dangerous. And yet how often do we fall into that very trap ourselves? We let the world tell us what God wants, and what God can do. Those of us who do not identify as straight have heard the world telling us that we shouldn't be LGBT, that we can't be a queer people of God, but we don't hear that in our hearts. We wish God would cure us because that's what the world wants, and when it doesn't happen we get scared and run from God. That is our wilderness, one of many that we inevitably encounter in our lives.

For each of us, these wilderness experiences will be different, and will recur in different ways throughout our lives. Coming out a relationship and having to learn to be yourself again, when you have created your sense of self alongside someone else for many years, forces you to bring your relationship with Christ back into focus and into your life although the world tells you that God has let you down, and that maybe the breakdown of your relationship shows that your lifestyle is hollow and transient. Satan is whispering, "Deny yourself in the name of God – if you loved Her you’d do it" and it is so hard to be strong enough to know that message is not coming from God who loves you as He made you, in Her image. When you have overcome, that in turn equips you to minister to other people and teach them the wonderful joy of relationship with Christ. When you leave a job, and don't know what to do next, it is too easy to wish for wealth and to focus your prayer on material things in life. In these times we can become selfish in our fear and greedy out of the experience of counting pennies. When we have learned the reality, that God will provide what we need and that we must always give to those less well off than ourselves, we always have a widow's mite to give, only then do we understand how to teach others to be generous and live for the sake of the riches of the spirit.

So how do we recreate a wilderness in our own lives during the season of Lent? Do we even come close to understanding the reality of Christ's experience? When we give something up for Lent are we ever truly exposing ourselves to the same sort of temptation? In some ways, yes, I think we are. A clearly thought out Lenten resolution is one that brings us to an understanding of how we are in the world. If we sacrifice the things of the world that take up our thoughts, our time and our devotion, we have more time to think about God, to reflect on Jesus and to consider the sacrifice He eventually made for us. As we approach the time of Jesus' sacrifice, our period of Lenten sacrifice and penitence is coming to an end. We can approach Palm Sunday, and even Easter Saturday with real joy and gratitude as we see our hope fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus and we learn to appreciate anew the things we took for granted before Lent. We need wilderness to learn how to be a people of faith in a world that is real, scary and hard. As Christians we do not believe that God makes life easy. We know that to journey with Christ we need to wait in the wilderness, to walk the via dolorosa and to be ready to give up everything.

When we prepare to give everything up we also need to be prepared for the temptation that will inevitably be part of that. In many traditions, temptation is an inherent part of sacrifice. In Islam, during Ramadan, worshippers often take time to sit and socialise with friends who are eating during daylight. The idea is that this brings home the reality of their sacrifice by reminding them of what they have given up. If we were able to give up the things that we value, without feeling temptation to return to them or without any sense of loss, there is also no achievement. God demands that we be prepared to give up everything for Her. We should be prepared to say, with the disciples, that nothing is more important to us than our covenant with God. Neither relationships, nor work, nor materials. If we feel God calling us to lay something down, that is when the true challenge comes. But with that challenge comes enormous blessing. I was watching a documentary the other day, Around the World in 80 Faiths, in which an Ethiopian coptic priest was discussing the nature of faith in times of need. During this discussion, he said the following;

However little we eat, we are not hungry because we have faith. We can work without food, because we feed on Christ's holy spirit.

During Lent, when we use sacrifice to devote ourselves back to God, we are preparing for a day when we, too, may rely on the holy spirit to nourish us in times of need. So, whatever you do this Lent, make it count. Use these forty days to launch your ministry into the world. Live the Gospel, be God's hands and mouthpiece on Earth and praise Him daily for the blessings that allow you to do so. May God bless you and keep you as we go into this wonderful season.

A love that dare not speak its name?

Sunday, 2nd November 2008 at the Metropolitan Community Church of North London

Matthew 23:1-12

Jesus Denounces Scribes and Pharisees

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

***

"I’ll admit that when I saw tonight’s reading my first thought was one of academic panic. This is my first time preaching and I approached the lectionary with caution like one of my old academic handbooks, or an unseen exam paper, terrified that the set text would be that passage that I forgot to revise. I graduated from UCL a month ago, and was quite happily resting on my degree and thought myself quite the academic.

They say that pride comes before a fall, and as soon as I opened my Bible at tonight’s gospel reading my face fell. What could I say that was interesting about yet another rant about the Pharisees? Where was all the witty banter I’d imagined delivering effortlessly? I was immediately downcast and convinced that I’d over-estimated my own abilities, and that I should just give up then and there.

In the midst of all this, a wise friend of mine asked me why I hadn’t prayed about it. I didn’t have the answer so I mumbled something about “oh, it’s fine, I’ll go away and read it in Greek and something will come to me”. That academic pride again. So I filed away the reading and got on with my day job.

So I let it be for a week or so, then one day I realised what I was doing. In my haste to get it right, I was doing exactly what Jesus was warning his disciples not to do. I was so scared that I would get it wrong, that I would seem stupid, that I completely missed the point. And how often do we do that?

Whilst I was thinking this, a friend in my office caught my attention to show me a newspaper article. It was October 6^th, forty years to the day after MCC was founded, and the Rev. Peter Mullan of Cornhill was plastered all over the papers having announced on his blog that gay men should have health warnings tattooed on them. This brought home to me a feeling that there is more to being humble before God than simply not exalting ourselves, and that is that we have to learn to exalt God, and dare to speak the name of Jesus in public.

It upsets me when bigoted people like Rev. Mullan can get their message all over the tabloids, when LGBTQ people and our allies have to fight for our right to reply. And, when that reply comes, it all too often slams religion and claims that in order to have faith one must be homophobic. This leaves us feeling that we are too queer for other Christians, and too Christian for the LGBT community. It won’t do, and we have to learn to tackle it.

There is a problem here of learning to recognise “head-thinking” and “heart-thinking”. I don’t think people who condemn the LGBT community with such vehemence do very much “heart-thinking”. In my own experience, when I joined a so-called evangelical church near my home town at the age of 15, I very quickly found myself torn between two conflicting realities. The world of church was, apparently, very straight-forward. The leaders told us how we could behave to honour God, and we prayed constantly about it, for ourselves, for each other, and for our families. There was something very comforting about thinking that I had a strict moral code to adhere to – which, initially, did not conflict with the principles on which I was brought up – and also this wonderful feeling that we could be forgiven when all didn’t go according to plan.

The problems started to come later – you may have noticed that I no longer hang out in the evangelical anglican community. I knew by the time I started going to church that there was something about queer about me, but I realised very quickly that this was not a good thing. As soon as I told a friend at church, I was pushed to telling the youth workers. I was a bit taken aback by their attitudes. Maybe I was naïve, but I’d read so many conflicting discussions on queer theology, and I was well aware that there was a debate. I expected that this would be acknowledged and that I could work through the difficulties I was having to reach, alongside the leaders, a clear decision on what direction my life was taking. However, what I came across was an impenetrable wall of dogma. There was no way, I was told, that you can be gay. You just think you are, because you’re fifteen and you have hormones all over the place. And if you were, you would not be welcome in the Dominion of God so you’d better get it out of your system now. I was shocked. It was the first time I came across such a close-minded attitude first hand.

Of course, in fairness, I was never asked to leave St. James’, and people continued to be friendly. It was probably my most solid support throughout my late teens, but it was destructive. But with 5 years’ hindsight I can see something now that I couldn’t as a teenager. What I can see now is that the theology employed to criticise the queer community comes from a place of fear, where it is easier to close of the heart and think purely from the head. In many people this will manifest as it did in my old church, where people did their best to continue to support me – so long as I left my sexuality at the door. But sometimes this can go one further, when people are so scared that if they open their hearts up to the LGBT community that they will have to sacrifice God, that they close themselves off enough to convince themselves that we are somehow a force for evil in the world. I hope it is pure head-thinking; I can’t understand it any other way, and I cannot believe this comes from the heart.

And I do believe that it is the head-thinking of these people had has made us so desperate to justify our faith that we cloak it in terms of theology. We’ve been so hurt by evangelical churches that we allow Christian Voice to be the only people speaking the name of God at events such as Gay Sunday at the Zoo, where they condemned the “depravity” of the “homosexual” visitors in offensive pamphlets handed out in Regent’s Park. We have been so hurt by people calling themselves evangelists, people who claim to speak the Good News with love, that we are too scared to emulate them and so we stay quiet.

I’m not trying to condemn this fear; it’s perfectly natural to me. I’m scared to be associated with the evangelical movement, scared of being tarred with the brush of their homophobia, and mostly scared to be thought weird. I need to take a leap of faith, to say with St. Paul that we are not ashamed of the gospel, and to tell people – as Jesus does in our reading tonight – that we have one Parent, one Leader, and one Teacher and that is God. Not only that, but that God is perfect, and God loves us.

Nor must we preach this message – as others do – in a way that diminishes our family in God. I may disagree with Christian Voice, and I may worry about the dangerous impact that they have on our community, but on some things we should be united. We should be able to stand, side by side, and say that whatever our differences may be we stand together, as one in the sight of Jesus. We are loved by God, we love God, and we should share a desire to let as many people know their place in the family of God. Instead of worrying that we’ll be treated with revulsion for telling people they are loved we should hold our heads up high and know that we are speaking the truth with the highest authority. Instead of letting the bigots take centre stage, we must reclaim evangelism and be at the forefront of letting our queer family know how cherished they are. Because, as people like Christian Voice and Rev. Mullan show all too clearly, if we don’t I don’t know who will.

Amen."

Yellow Hostel, Rome

OK, so I finally have free internet but there's a queue andI feel slightly guilty being online for ages so I'll keep it brief.

I'm well, I've seen some fun stuff and I hate Italian public transport. Works brilliantly (and very cheaply) in Rome but you're fucked outside. Took 5 hours to get to Tivoli - not entirely through my own incomptence!

And what is with having S.P.Q.R. on everything?! It stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus. Yes, Latin geeks, the Senate and the Roman People. It would be like having "The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire" on our taxis!

All in all, impressed and happy. Glad to have free internet but not impressed that it's so busy and stuff here; I was staying in the smaller seaside resort of Ostia, which is altogether quieter and more pleasant at night. I had 6 beds in my room all for little me! I'm sharing with boys here (shock! horror!) but they seem like nice boys....

Anyway, should dash. Tired beyond belief and need to find my own food for brekkie tomorrow.

Miss you all!

Wilkommen, bienvenus, welcome!

So I'm jumping on the blog bandwagon. Happens to the best of us!


Decided this would be a good way to keep in touch in this day of networking and (mostly my) uselessness.



I'm not going to waffle on much now, I have a bed that's calling me and a flight to catch at midday tomorrow so it's a fairly early start.



Keep an eye out for news from Italy between now and July. And wish me luck!



God bless.