Glimpses of Gold

This article does not try to pretend that COVID was anything less than abhorrent. People got sick and died. There are those whose health (physical and mental) can never be the same again. People are still being diagnosed and finishing up in ICU to say nothing of the scars of our healthcare workers and those who support them after a long shift or double shift.

But, as is often the case, we learnt lessons of gold in all the manure. We understood again the interdependence of each other and harshly … that you don’t get family back. These are imperative lessons.

And for this little priest guy? My writing skills were stretched and continue to be stretched. I was and am challenged to put the word out there. For a while, the words on a screen or in ink were all I had to offer you.

I need to be honest and say that a goodly proportion of my efforts are duds. Those who can produce sparkling and flawless scribblings week after tedious week are very few. But every so often there will be an unexpected comment from the most unlikely. A gentle word of encouragement. The cheeky question on Facebook or even that standard thumbs-up symbol of ‘like’. The consistent manufacture of words is one of the challenges that COVID smacked me with and it has had a flow-on effect on those who read my words.

If you have persisted here then well done …and Thank you! You may like to reflect on the person you are now, compared to the person you were pre-pandemic. What has changed for you? For the better… for the worse? Are you stronger… more vulnerable… or maybe both? What are your glimpses of gold?

Bishop Stephen writes

This is how he had come to see it –. That God had spent everything to try and create community with his beloved; with us; – through covenants, through prophets – everything except himself. And now, when all was exhausted except for the love from which this world was made there was only one way left: to communicate love in the only language that human beings really understand, the language of human life. And it was in his life and in his death that this new covenant would be spoken.

And now it was no longer about what he said. Nor could it simply be the signs and wonder he performed. Now it was just about what he did:

God was, at last, making good his promise to Abraham. A lamb for the slaughter was being provided. All he had to do now was be that slaughtered lamb whose shed blood saves. And as his forebears had painted the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintels of their doors to ward off approaching death, so his blood poured out on the lintel of this wood –this door between life and death – would save.

This last sacrifice would really be the end of all of that. But now, carrying himself into the inner sanctum, he saw it clearly: it would no longer be necessary for priests to go into the temple year by year to plead to God on humanity’s behalf. There would be no more barriers protecting God’s presence and keeping us out. No more systems deciding who has favour with God and who does not. This blood will be shed for all. It will be the end of it.

He carries to the cross every person and every person’s death. For now, every person’s death will be the only entrance qualification required. There won’t be any other rules. There will be only him: nailed down and lifted up and shining a light through the darkness of death to a banquet where the least and the lost are ushered to the finest seats. And with this, he carried all the wild and lovely hopes of God. He carried the possibility of a new temple, a new covenant and a new relationship. And beyond death, and beyond the rest that is beyond death, he saw a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth. It was as if he were carrying a great table into the banqueting room itself. And now placing chairs around the table. Chair after chair, place after place. A vast multitude of places and everyone knew. There was no anonymity here. Each was separate – a set place for everyone – and each was connected; round and round the table they would sit, each honoured, each reaching out to serve. Can you conceive it? Every person carried, and every person’s death? His heart would break from it. Our minds will reel from it. Our common sense will deny it, but while there is a scrap of possibility that I might find a bit more love in my own feeble heart then surely his heart, fashioned by the heart of God, still beating, can accommodate.

And he carried a new commandment, a new commandment that could be seen in that reciprocity of love that grew around the table – we should love one another with the same love that we see in him. We should expand the dimensions of our hearts. We should let them be filled.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…

For he had also planted a table on earth: one that will abide until through the portal of death we take our place at that other table in the new creation. A table where feet are washed and where hearts are fed. A place of receiving; a place to learn from. Yes, Peter had been there. And so had Judas. They had received the bread. Their feet had been washed. Their hearts would be expanded.

Love one another as I have loved you…

Love your enemies as yourself…

Pray for those who persecute you…

If they are thirsty give them something to drink…

If someone asks for your coat give your cloak as well…

If they force you to walk one mile, walk a second mile as well…

This was what he was walking now: the second mile of love. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Like a lamb led to the slaughter…

Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, he did not open his mouth …

He carried the determination that this new commandment should be lived out, demonstrated, here in his dying, no matter how difficult. This was the moment of disclosure, where the risky enterprise of tenacious love would stand or fall. All God’s hopes and all God’s purposes were poured into these hours of passion. This was the place where hate would spend itself. There was no fallback position; no Plan B. So, he forgave those whose dismal duty it was to bang home the nails; and he looked with mercy upon those who spat and scoffed and struck out. Not because it was a duty laid upon him, but because he carried in his heart the ways of love. There was no other way.

He carried his followers’ disappointments.

They thought he was going to be a different sort of king.

Heaven knows, he had tried. He had tried to etch eternity into the stubborn humanity of those who followed him, but now nearly all of them have abandoned him. Through eyes smarting with grief and narrowed by pain, he looks out to see who will listen to the truth that is revealed in his death and there is hardly anyone there: just John, faithful, beloved John. He is still standing. He can also see his mother. She is bent over in grief, her body shaking with tears. Now and then her eyes reach upwards, searching out his gaze. He looks at her. But for once he cannot tell what she is thinking.

Several other women are also there. They seem better equipped to deal with pain than the men. They comfort each other. They hold him in their gaze and he is comforted. His gaze holds them in return. They stand under the cross and they find understanding. Perhaps this is the only way.

His disciples have gone. The shepherd has been struck and the sheep have scattered. Even Peter: pig-headed, big-hearted, bird-brained Peter. He had seen who Jesus was, but he had still got it wrong.

And, no, at that time, he didn’t know when, and, yes, he was still struggling to know why, but he also carried the knowledge that he was somehow to be the fulfilment of all God had longed to do through Israel.

That he was a second Adam revealing a new humanity.

That he was a second Moses revealing a new covenant.

And he shuddered with the memory of all the struggle, the torment and the raging against God that had led to this most scandalous and blasphemous conclusion being the truth: that God was in him, and that his purpose was the purpose of God. And how, when you can’t fully understand it yourself, are you supposed to tell it to others? Stories and riddles and signs seemed to be the only way. You couldn’t persuade people to believe it. You had to wait till the penny dropped. And it was achingly slow.

They were only prepared to go so far. They followed him when he was rebuking the religious leaders for their hypocrisy and cant. They followed him when he fed the multitudes. They followed him when it seemed to them he was a conquering leader. They followed him because they believed he was the Messiah. But they stopped following when they found out what a Messiah really is.

Then they fled. Like a sudden change in the weather, when the promise of a bright day is overtaken by thunderclouds and rain, they were gone. And Peter himself, who had promised that if everyone else deserted he would stand firm, had crumbled, like a house built on sand. He even denied he had ever known him.

And Jesus carried with him the knowledge of that moment: looking into Peter’s eyes and seeing the betrayal. And sharing bread with Judas and knowing what he was about to do. And now, almost alone, almost accomplished, wondering: will they ever get it?

He had broken bread with them the night before and given them a way of seeing what the bloody horror of this dying meant, but they are not here to see it; not here to make the connections.

They wanted a different sort of Messiah. He had confounded them, and now they were embarrassed by him and so they had left him. They were somewhere in the shadows. They were nursing their disappointment. Carrying it like a trophy. Complaining about how deceived they had been. Soon they would forget. Or else start saying it was better this way. In years to come, when they were fat and fifty, they would lean back in their chairs and smile at the foolishness of youth.

And this was a terrible thing to carry. The thought of it made him wince and retch. He carried the terrible possibility that it was all in vain. That he could walk at their side forever and never be recognized, never be known; that endless bread would be broken and wine poured out, but incomprehensively as if it were just food. They would go back to how things were. They would forget. They would airbrush out these crazy years, and, clinging to their portentous hopes of empire and power, look out for the next Messiah to deliver them a kingdom of their own.

And then a more terrible thought – something to be carried that drops like a dead weight in the heart – perhaps he had got it wrong? Perhaps he was not just carrying their vanity, but his own? Perhaps that is all he is carrying – just vanity, foolishness and the unerring certainty of his impending death.

But there is one more indignity to carry. The crowd hear the ‘Eli’ of his cry to God and thinks he is saying, Elijah... And they say to one another, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah. Let us see whether Elijah will come and get him down.’

He carries with him the knowledge that even in this moment of utter desolation he is misunderstood. We just don’t get it.

 Of lawns and edges.

I’ve just been out to admire my handiwork. The lawns are all neatly mown and the edges crisply trimmed. It’s a great look and a smug feeling. I feel virtuous and maybe even a little proud, for to do both of these jobs properly takes me about 2 hours.

Of course, there is a line of logic that asks “Why do I bother?” The lawns are only going to grow again and the edges will invariably become unruly and disobedient.

It’s the same logic that folk throw at those who come to worship and use the sacrament of reconciliation. ‘You know you're only going to muck up again, so why are you even bothering? It’s hypocritical to say one thing and then go out and do the opposite.’

Part of the whole Sunday gig is owning up to the past and resolving to try to do better. I know of no one who warms the pews on Sunday who claims to be perfect. Yet all have fronted up to acknowledge their ick and refreshed their verve to raise the bar. Not to turn up, face up and admit the junk would be worse.

And just for a little while, maybe only for a very quick time, we are shiny once again. We are manicured and trimmed according to how the Master wants us to be.  Not the way we would like to be. Often there's a big difference. We do this right thing because it's the right thing.

So I will continue to trim and mow, not just for the good sense of self-satisfaction, but because it is the right thing. And just for a while my little patch is enhanced by my energy and not disfigured by my sloth.

During January we gather up last year's palm crosses and we torch them. The result of this safely contained mini fire is the ashes for the Ash Wednesday services. You know the little black smudge on the forehead business.

So the folk had kindly returned their faded 2022 palm crosses with the aid of an accelerant... Whoomph! There I was watching the flames transform the palm crosses into ash.

There is always something cathartic about watching this fire work its magic... gazing upon last year's palm crosses being transformed into ash.

For one thing, there is that primeval fascination with flame. You can’t actually measure or hold a flame but there is something alluring about it. For gazillions of years, folk have gathered around a fire, forming friendships, being seduced by that ethereal thing that they cannot explain. Later we would learn that these flames could cook things and the last remnants of this fine and noble custom are what we call in modern lingo, ‘Ye olde Barby”.

But there is a deeper significance with the cindering of the palm crosses. It’s about putting last year behind us, acknowledging that it happened, but also letting go of its crosses, junk and regrets. Letting the passing of time work its therapy like the flame works its healing. What happened in 2022 is gone now, irretrievable. Like the ashes, you can’t gather it up and hold it any more. It’s changed and that is how it should be. Time to move on with fresh resolve and besmirch our foreheads with the ash of the past. A sign of our willingness to look forward to the Lent of 2023.

We smudge the shape of the cross on our forehead ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’. Ashes to ashes…

He carried a seamless robe.

It was a thing of delicate beauty and of great craftsmanship, robust and at the same time light, woven in one piece from top to bottom; like the robe, a high priest would wear as he went about his duties.

Like everything else, it would be taken from him.

Freshly made, it billowed from the loom as it was released, and completed. The freshness and the newness of it made you want to bury yourself in its folds. Or else just put it on. The fingers that spun it, the hands that made it, held together in satisfaction of a job well done. Things crafted have a lasting value: but one that is easily squandered. Mass production leaves little space for the tiny detail that makes this thing this and that thing that. Or it is just plain compromised by cheap labour and the lust to possess everything.

Laundered and hung out to dry it drifted in the breeze like a flag.

But there was no breeze that day. The air seemed to hang in the sky like a great, leaden weight; like the yellowing clouds of smog that stain our own cities. Somewhere a fire was crackling. Dogs barked. Children cried out in fear or stared in bemused amazement.

His sweat and blood stained the cloth. It clung to him, and where he had been lashed, the fibres of the material stuck to the congealing wounds.

Around the hem, where the stitching was plain to see, the material was starting to fray. Something was unravelling, becoming undone.

And on another day, in another crowd, one would reach out to touch this hem. Not to admire its beauty, or measure the quality of the cloth, but to come as close as one could to touching the man; to feel his pulse and know the energy of his life. And even in a crowd, with hundreds jostling around him, clamouring for attention, he would cry out, ‘Who touched me?’, as if this were something obvious. But he could tell. He could be pressed in on every side and still discern each touch. You see, there are no crowds for him, only people, each one a thing of beauty, each one delicately and un-repeatedly distinct. He sees each face, knows each name, feels each touch and knows its meaning.

What do you want me to do for you …

Unless I wash you, you have no share with me …

Soon there will be rough hands upon him, uncomprehending and uncaring. No one dies with their clothes on. And if it wasn’t so lovely they would have torn it off him, as though they were raping him, but it was too costly, too comely. So suddenly they were gentle. This thing could make them a few pounds, keep them warm, spruce them up, or give them something to brag about. They rolled it carefully over his head. They gave this robe a dignity that they did not give to him, for he was a thing despised and a thing rejected. It stung as the cloth pulled against the wounds, and then they held it to themselves smiling, triumphant. And he was left naked. And now they did not look away. They exposed him. They smirked at him and they held him to the beam of the cross ready to secure him.

And when he was nailed there, and when he had been lifted up, and when the final cycle of the struggle towards dying had commenced they crouched at the foot of the cross and spun their dice, gambling to see which one of them would have it, this seamless robe, this last uncovering.

And he carried the seamless purposes of God: that was what he was carrying at this moment, though exhaustion and terror and the raw, uncomplicated torment of dying meant that he did not need to know he was carrying it, he just had to do it. He had arrived at a point where there were no choices left, except the one to utter words of gentle forgiveness to those who ducked and dealt, for they too were being woven into the tapestry of God’s story. A seamless purpose: his birth, his life, the slow unfolding of vocation, the chill awakening of his baptism, the pleading in the garden for another way, and now this, his dying, all part of an unfolding hope and glory that was present in the heart of God before the world was made. Now planted in his heart, turning slowly towards completion, the hour of reckoning, and as the strange eclipsing darkness gathers, the beckoning of a new dawn, a new heaven and a new earth. God’s work of redeeming is planted in our hearts. Those words of forgiveness are spoken to us. Father forgive them, they don’t know what they do.

All those things we never said.

There is a book called “All those things we never said.” The basic plot is this

Days before her wedding, Julia Walsh is blindsided twice: once by the sudden death of her estranged father…and again when he appears on her doorstep after his funeral, ready to make amends, right his past mistakes, and prevent her from making new ones.

Surprised, to say the least, Julia reluctantly agrees to a spontaneous road trip with her father to make up for lost time. They have 6 days and 6 days only. An astonishing secret is revealed from the past and their trip becomes a whirlwind journey of rediscovery. We learn that even the smallest gestures we take for granted have the power to change us forever.

The book sounds great!

But it raises some pretty obvious questions.

What if we had just six days to spend with the deceased person we were estranged from? What would you say to them and what do you think they might say to you?

Or… what if you had an opportunity to encounter the person who you are estranged from but who in fact has not died, is perfectly fit and healthy, and unexpectedly turned up on your doorstep. Would you slam the door in their face? Yell mightily or…

What are the things you wish you had said and what is it that you might have listened to? The blurb from the book hints that little things that have slipped our attention and gone unnoticed might actually be the largest, most profound, life-changing events in our life.

Looking back over the years, or even just last week… What might I have missed? How might I change someone’s life and fill our nemesis and ourselves with fresh hope for the future?

Bishop Stephen Cotterell

The soldiers’ logic had a brutal simplicity. A cruel, schoolboy logic. He said he was a king, so dress him up as one. A purple robe. Some twisted thorn. A makeshift crown. The barbed wire of the bush. Harvest it gingerly. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Stack him up. Salute him. Stretch him. Strike him. Scratch him. Scar him. Skewer him. Scoff and mock him. And afterwards smiling at each other, wink and reminisce. A cracking good joke.

They made him a kind of pantomime king. Something to laugh at. Something to scorn. They bowed before him and grinning they worshipped him. Then they beat him.

They had their way with him. They made fun of him in the way that bullies easily do when there is someone defenceless in their midst. Someone who won’t fight back. Someone who’s a bit different. Someone who makes claims that are easy to mock. His silence convicts him.

They wanted him sorted. They wanted him to be put in his place. But they didn’t know where his place was. ‘Not of this world’ they had heard him say. Well, this was one dreamer they would haul back down to earth. They would reel him in. What had his dreams achieved? Just more trouble for them.

The crowds were always bad at this time of year, stirred into a ferment of religious excitement and anticipation. He had made matters worse. Did he expect them just to leave? The mighty Roman Empire to roll over? What sort of revolution could this dreamer roll? They could crush him so easily! He was a grasshopper under their feet. They would stamp him out.

And where were his followers? Abandoned him, every one of them. A king, indeed! They would show him. They would do him honour. They would make him a crown. And dressing Jesus as a king was such a wonderfully good joke that, like all good jokes, like every piece of well-honed gossip, it soon had legs. It travelled down the corridors of Roman power from soldier to soldier, even to the ears of Pilate. ‘Are you a king?’ he enquires with a smile. And when he leads him out before the people: ‘Here is your King!’

The crowds spit back their curt reply. Laughing. Sneering. We have no King but Caesar.

Pilate then issues instructions for a sign to be put above the cross saying ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’. And so that everyone can get the joke, he decrees that it must be written in three languages – Hebrew, Greek and Latin. All the world can now enjoy the joke.

But then the joke reaches the ears of the High Priest. And he isn’t laughing. Jesus’ silence never quite speaks to him of a broken man; rather he is disturbed by his silence, confronted by his presence: it is almost as if he is judging them. ‘Don’t put King of the Jews’, he intervenes, ‘but this man said he was King of the Jews.’ So they stare each other out. These two big men. These occupying forces: are one of the present and one of the past, but neither has the future in control. But it is too late. It has been uttered. ‘What I have written, I have written,’ retorts Pilate.

When I am lifted up from the earth …

He is a king: a piercing beam of light for all the world: the very one that all Israel has been hoping for, waiting for; the one to whom all their scriptures and their prophets point. All the troubled searching of this nomadic nation, their deepest longings and the keenest insights of their brightest minds, have come down to this man and been refined into this moment. But they don’t see it.

They laugh out loud instead. Even those who have caught a glimpse of who he is are now cowering in fear, hanging onto their own lives and reputations, getting ready to go back to how it was before him.

There is a further twist: those he has come to save now hurry to get a better view of his dying, sneering at his stupidity. What sort of a king is this?

Even as he hangs there, the life draining out of him, the taunts come thick and fast. ‘He saved others, but he cannot save himself!’ Even one of the criminals crucified with him joins in the fun: ‘Save yourself, and us as well,’ he scoffs. And in his heart, though no longer on his lips, he carries the words that will get him through the next few hours. ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’

The thorns press harder. Blood pumps from the punctured skin, oozes, clots in the heat and the sweat, and flows again. He is faint. His hands are shaking. He slips and falls again. Out of reach. Utterly alone.

The Godhead which is fully alive in Jesus, the crucified, is poured into the lap of uncomprehending humanity. These are the truths the thorns reveal. All our deaths and all our sorrows and all our failures are nailed to this tree. This is our half of the cross. We die with him because he chose to die with us. He carries a crown that all can wear, and the cross itself is our way to travel.

The darkness beckons. The flies buzz around his face. Still, the crowds taunt: ‘Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross so that we may see and believe.’ But how could he come down? The cross that he carries is his throne. He is reigning from the tree.

The things he carried Lent 1 - the cross  26/2/23

They handed it to him like it was nothing. Like it could be thrown away; like they were going to throw him away, this thing of terrible beauty.

He held the rough wood in his hands; gripped it, felt its shape, tested its weight, imagined the plane upon it, the axe striking the base of the trunk, the weight of the leaves upon the branches fluttering in the air of a spring day, breathing their last, gasping, falling, crashing down. He saw it dragged away, cut open, dissected, and used.

And now a grim vocation: to be the place where death is distributed.

He shouldered the weight. It could carry him and it could crush him. He felt its roughness against his rawness. The splinters that pushed into his flesh anticipated the nails that were to follow. It was the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, this wood he carried.

It was half a cross. He didn’t carry the whole thing, though that was how it would usually be remembered. But nobody ever got him right. And he always evaded those who clung too tightly. Just the crosspiece which his hands would be nailed to: he carried it. And he knew that when he reached the place of execution a stake would be ready, and the beam attached to it; and his hands nailed to it – actually his wrists, in-between the bones, so that the flesh wouldn’t tear, and he could hang there longer. He would be hoisted up. It would make a cross, and then his feet would be nailed in place.

It was about five feet in length – the height of a small person. It weighed about five stone – as much as a bag of cement. And he was already battered and broken from being flogged. And the crowd that had welcomed him days earlier now bayed for blood. And the pallor and expectancy of death were already upon him.

He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave …

He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death …

Perching with the full weight of your body on a square nail driven through the middle bones of your feet brings intolerable pain. The victim soon lets his knees sag and is once more hanging from the wrists, and so the cycle repeats itself, over and over again. Death comes slowly.

As he carried this weight through the streets Jesus knew what was in store for him.

We imagine him, stumbling through the narrow, crowded alleys of Jerusalem on a hot, humid Friday afternoon: we sense the frenzied animation of the crowd; we see the spiteful excitement etched into the faces of those who shout and jeer; we feel their spittle on our face; we see their hands waving, their fingers jabbing; we smell the rank odour of blood and sweat; we feel the weight of the cross pressing us down; and then we hear the blood lust of the crowd boil over. We know in our hearts how easy it is to run with the crowd, and we know how we would have responded. With horror, we see it is our hands upon him; our fingers pointing; our voices jeering.

And then we see him fall – as if in slow motion – tumbling, stumbling, reaching out for a support that has been taken away, vanquished: his hands sliding in the dust, straining for purchase; the beam itself crashing down, the crowd laughing, the soldiers who accompany him pointing, heaving him to his feet, bidding him continue.

And suddenly it seems to mean nothing. Another useless dreamer. Here he is, one more man going to his death, silent before his accusers, stoical in his suffering, useless to stem the flow of hatred and revenge that consumes the human heart. After the defeat of the Spartacus uprising in 71 BC, 6,500 rebellious slaves were crucified. Their crosses lined the Appian Way from Cappadocia to Rome. Their names are forgotten, as in the end all names are forgotten. But the carpenter’s son from Nazareth – this man stumbling to this death – he is remembered. And of all the things we remember about his life and teaching, it is this event – his dying – that we remember most. And the means of his death – the cross – we remember it. Why? Is it because this man is not just a man – not less than a man, but God contained within what it is to be a man? And is his suffering and his dying not just one more notch carved in the endless torment of human misery, but God sharing it, God involved in the world he made, God stretched out on this fearful piece of wood?

When I am lifted up …

He carries the cross, and he treads a path of suffering, step by painful step, that is the suffering of the world. He carries the battered woundedness of everyone who has been trapped and convicted by the foul depravity of all the awfulness we do to each other. He can taste its breath. He can feel its hands upon him. But he carries something else. A light flickering within him that will not be snuffed out. Not when the soldiers mock him; not when he is stripped and beaten; not when they drive in the nails; not when he hangs there ridiculed, forsaken, defeated. He carries half a cross; that half which is God’s determination to plumb the depths of that dark river that is the human heart. But the other half is entirely something else: something that also needs to be nailed down and joined up. He carries the purposes of God. They will be shaped into a cross

I get to hear a lot of eulogies. Long ones, short ones, poorly worded but effective ones, and even sometimes, ones that go on for far too long. The record is forty-five minutes.

Perhaps the most potent are those who say what they miss. Anything from a cuddle to chocolate cake, to the whiff of passing perfume.

The eulogies are always compelling because I have never known the deceased for as long as the person speaking. So it’s good to do a little bit of ‘catchup’ and find out about the person that I have known for a relatively short space of time.

It’s also intriguing to see the pictorial display. This person was young once! They were wrinkle-less and youthful. They were a teenager, a follower of fashion, played sports and went to primary school. Why is this a surprise?

But what about my eulogy? My Father died suddenly and so I made a few notes that might help somebody say something about me. It’s my funeral, right? I might as well have some input as to what will be said. How successful I am is anyone’s guess.

But afterwards, when the last sandwich has been scoffed, the last cup put back on the shelf and the last tear wiped away… what will the eulogy really mean? What will become of those neatly typed pieces of A4 bits of paper?

One there is who will speak authentically about my life. His words will really matter. What those words will be is a matter of great conjecture. How they will be spoken I think I already know. They will be spoken as only a wise, compassionate and discerning Father can. But then perhaps He and I won’t need words. His loving look will say it all.

A reflection for Sunday 19th of February.

I began writing this on Tuesday 24th of January. The news was not good that morning. It was especially grim for the people of Los Angeles in general and the people of Monterey Park in particular.

A man allegedly shot 11 people in a dance club. He then went to another ballroom where one of the patrons wrestled the gun away from him and called the police. The assailant was later found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, dead.

No winners here. Not the gunman, the victims or the victims’ families. It was all very gruesome and awash with blood and tears.

Today’s gospel also seems very difficult to swallow and it would seem ludicrous to those who were close to the events in Los Angeles.

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven;

Is Jesus condoning the events in Los Angeles? Is he contradicting the Old Testament? You know the bit …You shall do no murder and … an eye for an eye and so on…No! The Master's teachings do not contradict the law. Jesus announces he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it (Matt. 5:17) which means, to bring to completion, to accomplish the law with His very life and death. So Jesus isn’t so much telling the disciples that what they learned in the synagogue is incorrect, but rather that it was incomplete.

But these sayings of Jesus do seem absurd. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and offer the other cheek to get slapped as well.

What are we to make of this? It screams against every fibre of our hearts and souls.

Some starting points.

We are right to deplore the murder of others and we should call out this action as wrong. It does not matter if it takes the high public profile, very visible and over-reported story on our screens, or whether it is the unhidden scourge of domestic violence.

We are all made in the image of God. A life is - a life is - a life and it is infinitely precious in God's eyes.

This is not the first time someone has taken another life. The ickiness had begun as far back as Cain and Able But our Lord did something quite bizarre, startling and loving from the cross.

“Father Forgive”.

There was an echo of this with the people in Coventry when their cathedral was bombed in the second world war. A rough charred cross was plucked from the ruins and imprinted on it were the same two words “Father Forgive”. It became a focal point for worshippers in their new cathedral.

And remember the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he said this, he fell asleep.

So layered over the top of these incredulous and sombre actions, is the call to love and forgiveness. This may take a long time and may never be complete on this side of the grave, but it is what we strive for.

For as long as someone is always loathed, they must always linger as an object of hate and the thought of them can eat away at us like cancer. However, when we pray for them, no matter how grudgingly or reluctantly, we open ourselves to the possibility that one day we might begin to see them the way God sees them.

God’s love and forgiveness are limitless. That’s what’s so great about Him and that’s what makes Him God. Ultimately… in eternity…the judgement of others is simply not our call. We should be busy enough just doing the hard yards to get ourselves right with God.

Some good things can come out of tragedy. I have no doubt that there would have been countless messages of love, support and encouragement that went out to the families of those who lost loved ones. And think of the actions and heroism of the man who wrestled the gun away from the assailant. These things do not erase the pain. It does not bring back their loved ones, but it does layer over the top of their grief, the reassurance that there is another side to our humanity. We are better than the atrocities that are splashed about on our screens with recklessness and unthinking abandon for those who might be suffering. There is a far more noble and dignified component to being human. Great love is often expressed, meets and can conquer great evil and ultimately love will always win.

You have heard it said… but … I say this to you…

I gleefully reached two separate milestones at the end of 2022. First, I accomplished 50 ‘park runs’ which entitles me to a swanky red T-shirt telling the world that I have in fact accomplished 50 park runs.

The other milestone was that the Christmass of 2022 was my fourth with you in this parish.

It all seems to have gone so very quickly. A lot of the time nothing much seems to have been happening but then everything has been happening.

Many of these park runs and Christmases were not much different than the last one. My times at Park run have actually got slower if the truth be told. It all just seems to be a matter of showing up, giving it your best shot, getting on with it and staying the course.

The same with Christmass. It’s a biggish sort of run with 5 parish centres to cover and a goodly number of kilometres to drive.

Is this what faithfulness is really all about? Faithfulness is not often glamorous, shiny and sexy. Faithfulness is about making the conscious and deliberate effort to show up; especially when you don’t want to and the church is cold and it's raining all over the park run track.

Or in the case of the faithful dear old couple who consistently choose to sit down together at night even though they have had a gigantic fight throughout the day. The couple who choose to say ‘I am sorry’ and maybe even smooch and make up.

It’s about choosing to ‘be in the community’ even when that community irks us, irritates us, disappoints us and gives us the screaming willies.

So here’s to the Parkruns and the Christmas that have flickered by and been… and here’s to the ones that are still to come.