Fire (Ashes) and Dragons

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus! (for tomorrow)


It is also the beginning of the great feast of Lent, as our sisters and brothers from the Orthodox Easter call it, as well as sometimes 'the Lenten Spring'. For some of us in the Christian west, we get so plugged in to giving things up, particularly things that we like in a spirit of discipline and self-denial, that we miss out on the fact that Lent could be the beginning of new life or at least the opportunity to create space for new perspectives.

Like many others, I will mark people with the sign of the cross with the word: remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return: turn away from your sin, and be faithful to Christ.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return are words that embrace both our mortality as well as our connectedness with the created order. We are dusty people. The marking with the cross in ash confirms our frailty, and the fact that the ash is created from the palm crosses blessed in the midst of celebrating the euphoria of Jesus entering Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) points towards the closeness of dustiness and glory.

Ash is created by fire giving this year a link to the ddraig goch (red dragon) the symbol of Wales (I know tenuous, but probably not as tenuous as some of the links made in some of my sermons). St David called those who believed in Christ because of him to be faithful in the little things.

Lent is a good time to begin such faithfulness.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from your sin and be faithful to Christ.

Radical Christian Inclusion: What could it mean?

Radical Christian Inclusion must follow the example of Jesus, which would mean welcome and embrace. Jesus seems to have gone places other religious leaders would not have done. This was quite offensive to many. The type of inclusion Jesus offered was not without judgement and a call to repentance at times. Inclusion is in danger of becoming a 'humpty dumpty' sort of word, meaning whatsoever the writer, reader and hearer believe it to be. There will be perils within this eventually.

NT scholars from a variety of traditions would concur that Jesus of Nazareth embraced those he perhaps should not have done, and welcomed those who some within positions of power would not have done. There would though have been challenge as well as embrace, for example changes in life-style were expected. The story of the woman caught in adultery is a case in point (How I wish her partner had been caught too, but c'est la vie). Jesus puts her accusers on the spot, forcing them one by one to admit their own frailties and vulnerabilities, and while ensuring the woman is free, asks her to preserve that freedom, by sinning no more.

Rowan Williams puts it thus: We welcome people into the Church, we say: 'You can come in, and that decision will change you.' We don't say: 'Come in and we ask no questions.' I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions. The boundaries are determined by what it means to be loyal to Jesus Christ. That means to display in all things the mind of Christ. 

Paul is always saying this in his letters: Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics; that is why fidelity is important in marriage. You reflect the loyalty of God in Christ. It also concerns the international arena. Christians will always have reconciliation as a priority and refuse to retaliate. By no means everything is negotiable for me. I would not be happy if someone said: Let us discuss the divinity of Christ. That to me seems so constituent of what the Church is."

There are two related dangers faced with the notion of inclusion at present. First, all the discussion revolves around sexuality and same sex relationships, leaving sometimes the impression that it would only be gay and lesbian people who might be challenged about their lifestyles. How much do we challenge the lifestyles of those who come and join our communities. Indeed in my own context, how much do I challenge the lifestyles of those who break bread with me week by week. Inclusion could mean simply at present; welcome and embrace without a call to discipleship. I am over-egging the pudding, at least I hope I am, but if I survey some of the congregations I have attended, and certainly the one in which I grew up in, the lives of regular communicants seemed barely indistinguishable from those who were members of the Working Men's Club or the Labour Party (I am sure other parties did similar good deeds, but in the socialist republic of South Yorkshire, Tories were hard to find). Christians could be in danger of losing their distinctiveness, or as Jesus might well have put it, in peril of losing their saltiness.

The second is that we ignore how inclusive we are at times. At our best, in a bumbling sort of way, Christian communities already include, especially Parish Churches that are not flagships of one particular tradition or another. In Churches I have served and worshipped in, Evangelicals have worshipped alongside Catholics, people of different cultures, races, economic backgrounds and educational abilities, as well as people who defined themselves as gay, same sex attracted, and heterosexual. In fact there have at times, even been young people :-). It would be extraordinarily insulting in one sense to say to those communities that they were not already inclusive.

Inclusion in the context of the current debate is one that is becoming narrowly defined. We might find in the years that lie ahead that it becomes a term that is devoid of meaning or is limited to one.

The little gem found in Galatians 3:28-29, which may have been declared over Christians as they were baptised points to an explosive inclusivity, but also one that demanded that each disciple's identity was framed firstly not in terms of race, class (sic) or gender, but in Christ Jesus. For the Christian, that is our radical identity; that we are found in Christ. That is radical inclusion.

Sermon for Candlemas 2017

What a fantastic reading from the gospel this morning. Luke is a master story-teller – every phrase appears to be pregnant with meaning. Each character is part of the story that brings to an end of Christmas-Epiphany season. Indeed each one of us is part of that self-same story.

I have been on Ynys Mon just a comparatively short time. I would love to suggest a strap line for the now defunct Tourist Information Centre: Visit Anglesey: the land of the skies, sea, sand and saints. The story of our Island is rooted in the story of faith, and as a church we are woven into its landscape.

This is not just a nice neat phrase – but the reality of our Anglican identity and theology of the incarnation.

-          Mary and Joseph bring their first born to the Temple to be set aside for God

o   Town folk from the North going to the big city

o   New parents

o   Struggling to come to terms with what God had asked them to do

-          Mary comes to be purified

o   An ancient tradition that sits oddly with our 21^st Century ears

§  Reminder of how some of our traditions sit oddly with those around us

-          They are fulfilling the law of God

o   Jesus circumcised on the 8^th day

o   The first born son was to be offered to God

o   The mother purified

o   Mary and Joseph were good Jews who honoured the covenants that God had established with his people.

-          The fact that they offer two pigeons testifies to the fact that they did not have lots of money, but what they did have, they gave sacrificially

-          Simeon and Anna waiting for the consolation of Israel and the redemption of Jerusalem respectively

o   They were older Jews

o   They had waited a long time

o   They had kept the flame of faith alive, like so many of our saints who worship alongside us today

-          Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna – different generations steeped in the spiritual heritage of their religious tradition

-          In the watching and waiting, the two prophets can see what is before them in the forty day old baby placed into the worn hands of the priest for blessing. This is the Lord’s Christ – Messiah – Anointed One

-          Their seeing demands a response and moves them to a new place

o   Simeon

§  Master, despostes –

§  Dismissal

§  Seen your salvation – God contracted to a span

§  But salvation was not going to be achieved with a glorious overthrow of the might of Rome

§  Light to the Gentiles

§  Glory to the people of Israel

§  Whispers of redemption/ sibrwd o adbrynu

§  As Mary and Joseph begin to marvel about what is being said about their son, there is a warning albeit following a priestly blessing

§  It will be achieved at some cost

o   Anna

§  Faithful

§  Watching and worshipping

§  Widow

§  Tells to all who will listen... telling is an important part of Luke’s ministry

-          They went home and waited..

Each facet of Luke’s gospel narrative asks that we digest it and take it in, each sentence seemingly precise.

Watching and waiting and sharing and telling and of course where possible tying in with worshipping God, growing the church and loving the world, which are not just a good strap line but intrinsic to our very DNA as churches and Christian communities.

Watching and waiting have a bad press sometimes. We are not generally good at waiting. There is a sense that we can be in a hurry. We live in the world of the instant, where being asked to be still is contrary to how we would wish to live: at the traffic lights that always seem to be at red for a millennium and a half when we are running late.  But it would be a mistake to believe that waiting is merely a passive activity. It is far from that. It requires us to do something: to be watchful. It is an activity that requires our full attention.

Pan yn siarad ag arweinwyr AW mewn cyfarfod ddiweddar, dywedodd yr Archddiacon bod gwylwyr...y rhai sy'n gallu dirnad beth sy'n digwydd..yn un o brif alwadau'r gweinidogaeth heddiw. Rwyf eisiau bod yn Anglicanaidd; a chytuno ag anghytuno a fo ar yr yn pryd.

The Archdeacon when speaking to MA leaders at a recent gathering said that being watchers... those who discern what is happening... was one of the primary functions of priestly ministry today. I want to be Anglican; and agree and disagree with him at the same time. It should it be essential for each and every one of us.

Simeon and Anna are watchers as well as prophets

To wait is to watch.

Don’t believe me? Listen to car horn behind you when you wait without watching at the traffic light.

What are we called to watch?

We called to keep a look out at what is happening and if necessary speak out...

We called to be rooted, like Simeon and Anna, in our tradition and be conversant with salvation history – but also be challenged to change

-          We live in a world that increasingly knows little of traditional Christianity

o   We live in a world with a wonderful appetite for spiritual truth

-          We live in a world where absolutes no longer hold sway

o   We live in a world where living out what you believe is important

-          We live in a world where our language and the language of those who not come to church appear at odds

o   We have countless opportunities to be bilingual

And yet as well as to be watchers... we need like Simeon and Anna to be people who share and tell the story of God and our own stories within it – we are not all evangelists of course, although more of us are than we think.

We need simply to get on with it.

I am ail iaith: doing theology one step behind

I have been doing some thinking - yes, me (probably for something formal). It is around the notion of ail iaith (Eng: second language). I am proud of my stuttering attempts to learn Welsh and immerse myself in another culture, which is distinct from Sheffield, the city which I grew up in and love more the older I get - the older bit is more poignant this year.

When you are ail iaith - operating in a second language or in a different culture, you are naturally one step behind. This is obvious in conversations, when your vocabulary is stretched or you are (still) translating into your mother tongue and then back again in order to communicate competently, if hesitantly, in a second language. At the beginning, you are restricted, very restricted, as you realise that a toddler has more command of the language than you do, and you find your thoughts that are detailed in one language 'contracted into a span' in your second. ('contracted to a span' is from Wesley’s hymn Let heaven and earth combine, which is a song about the incarnation. I wonder in what sense the incarnation is stuttering.... ducking to hide thunderbolts). In what sense is incarnational theology one pace behind?

Of course being ail iaith might be obvious with language, but for me, I see myself speaking a different language in other areas too. I am passionate about theology making sense in urban areas, particularly white working class ones. It is a moot point whether Holyhead is urban or not, but its estates meet many of the indexes of deprivation that might be found in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Sheffield. Yet I do not speak the first languages of working class areas any more. I did. But my lived experience is three decades ago, although I have lived on estates since then as a student, professional and priest, but always in the knowledge that I could escape if I so wished. Indeed in many ways, learning to speak articulately and relevantly in such a place is harder than learning the iaith nefoed (language of heaven, Welsh). For in urban areas, I can slip with effortless ease into thinking that I do not need to learn, assuming that my three decades old experiences are normative. When you work in your second language you are not in standard mode.

This is also the case for me when engaging with black, feminist, womanist or gay theologies. I am ail iaith. It is an uncomfortable place, but in the uncomfortability there is vulnerability.

What would an ail iaith theology look or feel like? It would be provisional and partial. The practitioner would always be working as seeing through a glass darkly. Arguably, all practical theologians do this all the time, and yet there is a danger that we assume that our way of being is dominant. Certainly a white, heterosexual educated middle class male can feel that with some degree of ease.

And lest we think that ail iaith are always deemed to be outside, those we might think are inside are also ail iaith. In the context of Wales, people born in the country can be second language in terms of their command of Welsh. English and Welsh speakers can assume that their identity within the nation is normative.

Finally, for now one pace behind can be seen as negative, but it might the very thing that creates the moment in which we can think clearly about what is happening.

The vulnerability of being like a child again can open doors to new experiences. More later... perhaps.... gobeithio.

A Homily for the Transfiguration

Do you like Jigsaw puzzles? My sister does. At one stage, it seemed the more pieces the better… 1000, 5000… and she would sit patiently – I know difficult to believe we share the same genes (let the hearer understand) – until the task was completed.

Birthdays and Christmas presents were sorted as each year I would make the challenge harder. You know that I would.

And then adjacent to the jigsaw corner, I saw as wasgij. The picture on the box is a clue to picture that would be created.

It seems to me that is what the Transfiguration is like. It is a bit like a wasgij. When we understand what is happening. It points us to the possibility of discovering what Jesus is like.

Our Gospel writers were master story tellers. Like any story teller they write with a purpose. Matthew is no exception to this. Matthew’s aim was to ensure that his hearers were aware that Jesus was the fulfilment of all that had been foretold and forth told by the prophets and as a teacher they were hearing about someone who surpassed Moses the lawgiver.

This reading takes place 6 days after Peter has declared that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. The confession was immediately followed by Jesus beginning to teach his friends that he was to suffer and die, and in which he made the connection between himself and the one like a son of man spoken about in Daniel and Ezekiel, a figure whom many Jews would have been familiar with as the whispers of redemption had been heard down the centuries. Then Peter had been outraged by the idea of a suffering messiah, and Jesus had rebuked him calling this disciple, the satan, the one who opposes.

And now, Jesus and three of his disciples go up a high mountain together. Deliberately written to remind his hearers that the law had been given in such a place, Jesus is transfigured before them. Whilst it is tempting for some preachers to make us smile by comparing his radiant garments as Persil white (there are of course other washing powders available). This misses what Matthew is alluding to. When we come to Matthew, we are all ail iaith (second language) trying to learn his language. Like all learners, we stumble at times, keep going and give up (at the same time).

Matthew has Jesus’ clothes dazzle and his face shine like the sun. His hearers would have gleaned that the Evangelist was describing divinity.

Moses and Elijah are then said to be alongside Jesus talking with him. We can be tempted to see in these figures the fulfilment of the law and the prophets, but yet there is also a strong tradition in Judaism that neither of these figures tasted death, with our Evangelist pointing perhaps to the fact that Jesus too would not do so.

Peter then stumbles again. He is coming to terms with a new situation. He is struggling to put into words who Jesus is. He has one picture in front of him of what the Messiah is to be and he is being pointed to another. It is tempting to think that he wants to stay on the mountain enveloped as he was in a positive spiritual experience. Not many of us like to move out of cosy places.

Peter offers to build a booth each for Jesus, Elijah and Moses. For Matthew’s hearers, there is the echo of the festival of booths (tabernacles) which celebrated God dwelling amongst the people. Here of course before Peter’s eyes was Jesus, God in human form. Clues all around him, yet struggling to see what was going on before his eyes. How often is my discipleship exactly the same?

And while this generous offer was being made, the equivalent of a divine command to shut up is given. The cloud, note again its brightness, surrounds them and the voice of affirmation and command is given. This is my son, whom I love – echoes of the baptism; listen to him.

And then they are left alone with Jesus, as they have thrown themselves to the ground.

The transfiguration reveals to them who Jesus is.

The transfiguration also marks another staging post in their own transformation as disciples.

For encounters with God bring about change in ourselves

As we prepare to enter the holy season of Lent, we prepare ourselves not for works of self-sacrifice, important though they are, but to worship God. In that worship we might be changed.

We are changed first by the encounter with Jesus – and we continue to learn who he was and allow him to touch us and whisper, do not be afraid.

There are times when we are afraid

Afraid because of what is going on around us

Afraid because of what God might seem to be saying

In all this we asked simply to be with Jesus, and in this being with him, work alongside him to change our church and our world.

Let us pray.

there was a morning, there was an evening: three years

Where did that go? Three years (22 February) as Vicar of Bro Cybi.

There is much I miss about Bartley Green and Birmingham. People mostly. Cultural Diversity.

There is much I love about Bro Cybi and Ynys Mon. People mostly. Getting to grips with a language and landscape with which I am unfamiliar.

There are similarities obviously. People mostly. Differences too. People are people wherever you go. That will always be true. Ministry is similar. It is really, although the Church in Wales is different to the Church of England. One is disestablished, and appears to like to hold closely to the vestiges of establishment. The other is established and large parts of it are uncomfortable with the fact.

I love the fact that Wales is held together by relationships. That the fact that someone went to school with someone else's grandparents can enable things to get done - or prevent something from being done. Then again, I find myself asking where does where someone comes from or not have a bearing on whether a job can be done or not.

I like the fact that I am living on the edge, although an outer estate in Birmingham is also on the edge. I enjoy the fact that I am a foreigner in an alien land. Being English is sometimes a little problematic, and rightly so. It does, I think, mean I have to minister, live and breath differently. I am a guest, even I think liturgically, which means that I would not presume to preside, except in an understated way.

Some of the things I do are the same: ministry at life events, schools. I have swapped St Michael's School for Ysgol Cybi. I love the synod arrangements of the Diocese, which make for more meaningful relationships that a deanery, although I miss the wise leadership of the Area Dean of Edgbaston at times :-). I love Messy Church and the messiness of Church.

I love being forced to think outside of the box. The Church in Wales is one generation away from extinction. The Church of England perhaps one and a half with a few shekels more of money. It means that we need to reach out and engage in mission.

Here I am an Evangelist - and I am slowly beginning to work out what that means.

I was called homophobic; in retrospect I was

Many moons ago when I was a fairly new incumbent, the Church of England was discussing same sex relationships, someone who has become a friend, and has probably long since forgotten this, called me out for homophobia.

You see I was treading the fine line that I could offer the best pastoral care to Gay Christians whilst holding firmly to what still might be considered a conservative evangelical position that there should never ever be a change to church teaching about marriage and sexuality. Sometimes my care was exemplary, and sometimes fell short of what the demands of the ordinal intended.

I remember that it was a biting exchange, which I resisted. I used the phrase, some of my best closest friends are gay, which actually even then was quite true. Human friendships are very complex, and and they bore with me with great grace and probably a good deal of prayer, and I probably in the moment forget about their sexuality. On the one hand, that could be thought of blotting out who they were, but on other it is exactly how life is lived in the real world all the time; breathing, living, loving and stuff, all without a particular label.

However, the conversation ended with Keith in his own unique way saying, that if I had spoken of an individual in the way I just had purely on the grounds of race, then I would quite rightly be called racist, therefore he could only conclude I was homophobic.

I am ashamed to say; he was right. I was. 

That does not mean everyone who held or holds to the position I used to should be called thus. Humans are complex. 

I just had to admit that I was... and that realisation, shocking though it was, brought about change and realisation that I was far better than how I had been labelled and that position was not healthy for me and those around me, who I delighted and still delight to call friends.

In all our debating, wherever it is, let us remember each other's humanity and move from exclusion to embrace.