Giving us the slip..

Giving us the slip -  a poem about Jesus

Jesus,  you come into this world and
continually give us the slip….
You crop up in Bethlehem
a place of no importance, when they were looking for you at the palace;
and even in a place of no importance, you found a place of lesser importance
in a cave, an animals’ shelter;
next we see you in old Cairo
when Herod’s soldiers are chasing you around Israel;
and then , years later, you had the cheek to give your parents the slip
in the Temple,  causing them the hell of a lot of worry….
and when they tracked you down,  it wasn’t playing games
with your mates,
but teaching old men new ways of understanding.
By now you are living in Nazareth, the place where no good
things come from;
And then, and then,
you turn up to surprise your cousin John
by confessing the sins that you didn’t have at the river Jordan
and before he can catch hold of the lamb of God
you are off again, taking half of his disciples with you….
and again after your teaching on  the mountainside
you slipped away from the crowd, undetected;
and in the storm on the lake you slipped away into sleep
and had to be roused by your desperate followers.

When the crowds searched for you, to make you King,
they could not find you,  though you were close at hand
and when Judas sought to understand you
you escaped the limits of his understanding.

And us other disciples too, you were much too elusive for us
teaching about about the need to die in order for new life to be born;
and then in your last days in Jerusalem,
we look for you in the Temple –  after all it belongs to you -
but you are not there, some say you went out to a garden
but we find only Peter and his friends sleeping;
and then suddenly you are arrested,  hauled before Pilate
and yet you escape from him into silence,  to his great amazement;
but then on the Cross you spoke…… seven words we treasure….
because love demanded them,
and finally, no, you did not give death the slip,
as some had forecast, and some still allege,
no, you took death as a draught, draining the chalice
bravely for us all, it was only afterwards that you gave Death the slip
in a way he had not foreseen but your Father had willed,
first treading down the locks and bars of his kingdom,
then dragging the ones you set free back up to the light,
the Easter light we celebrate and share with all whom you have ransomed
with your blood.

And then you are with us again, but we cannot hold you,
Mary reached out in the garden, when you dropped your
gardener disguise,  but you slipped away with a word of love;
and then those two on the road to Emmaus,  how you lifted their
hearts with words of scripture, until you broke the bread at supper
and slipped away,  leaving them with the broken bread
and the treasure of your life outpoured.

And after so many years we reach out for you again,
hoping to find you through prayer;
we kneel down and try to pray very hard
and make you present to us;
sending our earnest prayers up to heaven,
but no use,  so after a while we give up,
you have given us the slip again,
no prayers can bring you down
yes we will give up;
we get up to go,
and suddenly there you are kneeling just where we
were kneeling a minute before
ready to wash our feet
knowing its a rather shocking thing to do,
full of laughter
and teasing us with joy.

 

Three Magic Moments in Holy Week

A few weeks ago, before the clocks changed for Spring, I arrived at my daughter’s house one evening to babysit.  I stepped into the dark porch, and was startled by a strange noise from a box on top of the fridge.  A beady orange eye stared down at me, and another nervous ‘cluck’ told me it was the black and white speckled bantum.  Her five feathered companions had been killed in a night-raid by a fox, and she needed a high, safe place to recover from the trauma.
And recover she did! In Holy week, she produced an egg.  My granddaughter watched her lay it; she ran in from the garden, clutching it carefully in her hot hand, and placed it, still warm, into my open palm saying ‘Nanny, Dotty’s  alright again!  She’s laid an egg and you can have it!’

On Easter Saturday, we went to visit my Mum in the Care Home with cards and daffodils.  She is nearly 95, and suffering from dementia, but she’s always full of praise. She sleeps a lot now.  She was in the big sitting room when we arrived, snoozing in her chair.  I woke her gently and she opened her eyes and smiled and told me I was SO beautiful! It made me cry.
Whenever I ask how she is, she always says ‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you,’ and never complains.  When it’s time for us to leave, and she feels a bit sad, she sings! Usually, it’s ‘For the beauty of the earth,’ but today, perhaps because she held a card in her hand, she sang ‘Away in a manger.’ The old lady beside her joined in, then, one by one, everyone stopped staring at the television and started singing! Even their visitors joined in; the girl pushing the tea trolley joined in; two staff in the kitchen stopped washing up, and leaned through the hatch in delight as the song echoed down the corridor where the very sick patients lay in their beds.  Everyone knew the words;
‘Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay close by me for ever, and love me I pray.  Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and fit us for Heaven, to live with thee there.’

On Easter Sunday, the service was in the Village Hall in Upchurch.  The car park was full to overflowing.  Crowds of people were arriving, greeting each other.  Smiling children wished me ‘Happy Easter!’ and gave me a service sheet.  The Hall was full of whole families.  It’s good to see three generations worshipping together.  Four young men, ranged in age between teens and thirties, were baptised by immersion in a pool on the lawn.  They spoke about the changes God had made in their lives since He filled them with the Holy Spirit.  We took bread and wine together, Fathers with babies, mothers and children standing or kneeling together beside Great Grandma in her wheelchair.  ‘This is my body, given for you…’  We sang ‘Glorious’ and ‘Jesus Christ is Risen Today’, and children decked a life- sized cross with daffodils. There was joy in the Village Hall that day, and outside, all the birds were singing.

St Mary Magdalene

Song of Solomon 3.1-4: the compulsion of love: “ when I met my true love I seized him and would not let him go”
2 Corinthians 5.14-17: in Christ we do not judge others by worldly standards…
John 20.1-2, 11-18: Mary at the tomb in the garden….

This Sunday the dedication of Stockbury to St. Mary Magdalene provides us in The Six with the opportunity to share in her commemoration.  If you haven’t been up there, this is also a chance to see a most beautiful church in an unspoiled setting, and to reflect on the fact that the lovely church is still standing while the stern Norman castle which accompanied it is now only some rings in the ground. The Patronal Festival is being marked by a Songs of Praise service at 6pm.

Well now, to begin with Mary at the tomb in the garden. The garden is not just a happy accident, it is crucial to the story. For scripture grows out of a garden and returns to a garden – from Eden to Paradise – and in this garden we find nature’s gardener, Christ, in joyous disguise, but then revealed to the great joy of Mary.  So great was her joy, that not surprisingly she wanted to touch and cling to the figure in front of her. But this, she is told by Jesus, is not possible. To cling to him would be to anchor him to the earth, while he is on his way to the heavenly realm and nothing, no human affections even, can hold him back. But he is returning home not just for his own sake but for ours as well, to the God who is both his and ours,  and he returns so that we may know him in a new way and for all time through the presence in our lives of the Holy Spirit.

A lot of soppy stuff has been written – and filmed – about Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  It tells us much more about the age in which we live, and the predilections of the writers, than about either Jesus or Mary. But what we do know from the pages of scripture is that Mary came to the tomb of Jesus full of pain and distress, and yet she became the first witness of the Resurrection, and was sent to tell the other disciples the good news. There is a Greek word which means to send – “apostello”  – from which we get our word “apostle.” Jesus appointed Mary the apostle to the apostles; the messenger to those who were to bear the message into the nations of the world. And would they believe her ? She certainly excited their wonder and curiosity, but not yet their faith. (After all, we have to remember that in Jewish law, a woman was not accounted a competent witness – something which surely Jesus overturned by sending Mary with the greatest message of all time.)

Now to a further look at Mary herself – who was she, and what do we really know about her? We know actually very little about Mary; she may have been from a village named Magdala on the western shore of the sea of Galilee.  St. Luke tells us that she was the woman from whom Jesus cast out “seven demons” (Luke 8.2).   Some modern writers suggest that these “demons“  were various diseases or ailments, but it is much more likely that earlier writers were correct, and that “seven demons” means that her life was some kind of a human disaster,  waiting to be reclaimed by the love of the Lord. The number “seven” in the Bible indicates completeness,  so meaning in Mary’s case that she was completely off the rails,  morally and spiritually, and this may have had physical results as well. She was what we might call “the worst possible case.” What we can be sure of, is that her love for Jesus was in the measure of the afflictions from which she was delivered -  she loved him with all her heart and soul. Remember Jesus said that those who are forgiven little, love little.

Mary was forgiven so much, her healing was so complete and miraculous; no wonder she stood at the Cross, no wonder she stood bereft outside the tomb.There we see Mary standing, full of grief and love; she is also a witness to us of those who are outcasts in our own society; do we write them off ? Do we fail completely to recognise their humanity, their potential for being transformed ?  Is a jail sentence the end of the story in the scope of our moral judgment ? That is why St. Paul tells us, in our reading from Corinthians, not to judge others by worldly standards.  It is very easy to elevate ourselves by diminishing others, but that is not the Christian way, the way of the foot-washing Lord.

And so to our first reading, from the most erotic book in the Bible, the Song of Songs. This is a book which can be read at a number of different levels: erotic love poetry, the quest of the human for completion, fulfilment; the spiritual love affair between the human soul and its divine maker. Without getting into all this, the passage which has been chosen reminds us of the natural desire for possession which is a part of love. There is nothing wrong with that; it is a part of being human. But when we transpose love to a different level, that of the love between us humans and Christ our redeemer, love is transposed into a new key which is no longer that of possession but of freedom and self-giving. The greatest love is that which seeks no reward, and that is the proof, ultimately, that we are in the presence of the kind of love that leads St. John to tell us “God is Love.” Perhaps we can see this love at work in St. Paul as well, who would rather be cast aside from God’s presence than see his fellow kinsmen the Jews excluded from God’s salvation. But sometimes we see it too, nearer to home, in the love with which those dear to each other may care for the suffering one right to the end of a life which has a long final chapter of disability and often confusion.

Mary Magdalene and Art

Wait for it …. some of the worst Christian art is focused on Mary Magdalene,  because her story is one which allows the artistic imagination to run riot. Now appreciation of art is a very subjective thing, nevertheless, I will share with you what -  so far -  I have come up with as the “worst” and “the best” representations of Mary.

The worst: http://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/Saint-Mary-Magdalen-Renounces-All-Pleasures-of-Life-Posters_i2573995_.htm

The best : Donatello, 15th century http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy
/florence/duomomuseo/magdalene.html

And – up at Stockbury, in her church, in the Lady Chapel there is a special artwork depicting scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene, which add up to the form of the Cross. This was painted by a modern Dutch artist from the Dominican order, and Revd Margaret Mascall had the imagination to see this work completed and installed.

A Prayer

Lord Jesus, in your love you redeemed Mary and called her to newness of life; as we remember her story, fill our hearts with compassion for those who do not know you, but whose lives may still be changed by your message.  Help us to play our part in making you known.  Amen