Thursday, September 11, 2003
Was Jesus racist?
Sunday's lessons included the story of Jesus healing the Syrophoenician woman's daughter from Mark 7. You will remember that at first, Jesus refuses on the spurious grounds that 'it is wrong to take the children's food and give it to the dogs.' The woman persists and responds that 'even the dogs eat the crumbs from under the children's table.'
This story has provoked much discussion about Jesus the Jew and his attitude to Gentiles - and women.
On Sunday, I attempted to weave a re-working of this story into a fictional, but nontheless true, story of an asylum seeker in East Manchester. It was a strange experience writing not just as a woman, but as two contrasting women and I am aware that I was not entirely successful. Nevertheless the address seemed to ring a bell, especially in the afternoon when Clare and I read the address together in two contrasting voices.
***
I know I should have done what I did, but I was desperate. And I was angry. No, that is too mild, I wasn’t angry, I was wild, furious, fit to burst. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he care?
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me tell you my story.
I live with my parents in the little house where I was born. My husband was a fisherman, a beautiful, strong man who worked for my cousin on one of the boats which left Tyre every night and returned in the morning. He was always the quiet one, almost distant, but always gentle with me. And faithful too, not like some of them. He came home every morning, and when he had slept, I would take him his meal and we would… but you don’t need to know that. What you need to know is that we were happy. Or at least, I was happy and I thought he was happy. No, I know that he was happy. We were happy. Not special. Not especially happy, not blissful, but quietly, comfortably happy. Together.
We had our moments, of course, like the day when the boat didn’t come back with the others. I was out of my mind with worry, but it turned out that they hadn’t caught anything, so they’d decided to go off down the coast to find a market to buy some food before they came home. My mind, of course, convinced me of the worst. Eaten by a sea monster, or at very least swept overboard by a great wave, lost to the goddess who hovers menacingly over every sailor. I ran down to the dock to wait for him, to look out to sea, to ask the others if they had any news. I was frantic, running up and down the dock, stopping anyone and everyone asking whether they had seen them. It was almost lunchtime before I finally saw the tiny sail in the distance. I tried to hide my fear as he stepped ashore, but I was so frightened, so tense that the moment his arms surrounded me I started to tremble involuntarily as tears poured down my face.
I loved him.
I loved him so much and I had almost lost him.
I hope you will forgive my bad English. I am only one and half years in your country and my English is not yet idiomatic. I come to England from my homeland, Albania in 2001, I think in April. My father, he was the chief of our village and head of the Communist Party. He worked the land, while mother and I stayed home and prepared the meal. We were never hungry, as the village was planted with much wheat, and my mother kept a few chickens which gave us eggs to eat. As the head of the party, father was always the first to receive his share of the profit, so he was able to buy the best in the market. Every night he would go to meetings, every day he would be in the fields and in between he would drink with the comrades of our collective. Albanian wine is good. Albanian wine is very red like blood and very strong. My father and the other comrades would drink much Albanian wine.
Before the revolution.
Before the revolution—I can hardly remember that time. I was only child, really. I know nothing of politics or the city. In our village we had a school and 15 kilometres away there was a clinic where a doctor visited every other week. Life was good because the Party told us it was good. Everything was simple because the party told us what to do. I remember one year the Party told us that there was too much wheat and that we had to grow potatoes. My cousin protested that our land was not good for potatoes and that they did not know how to grow potatoes. That night some men came to visit him and he never protested again even though the potato crop failed and we were all very hungry that year.
Then the revolution came. I was twelve.
At first we were untouched by revolution. We heard rumours that there were big marches in Tirana, but I had never been to the city, so we just carried on with our life on the farm. Then one day in February, when it was very cold and there was snow on the ground my father made us all sit and listen to the wireless. There were riots and we listened as the statue of Comrade Hoxha was being toppled over by the students and intellectuals who were leading the revolution.
I remember father looked worried and I heard him muttering to mother in the corner of the room. He took his party card out of the drawer in the kitchen where he kept it with his other important papers and threw it on fire.
“No more Communist.” he said. “No more Communist.”
Then one day, my period was late and I knew immediately that I was pregnant. We had been married for two years, so the time was right. I was elated and scared. I didn’t know if I was ready to be a mother, but at last I was going to give him the son he wanted.
At first, I was very sick, so he couldn’t come near me and then, as my belly grew, he didn’t seem to want to.
Instead of staying home with me, he began to go out drinking in the afternoon, coming home in time to go to work, smelling of the tavern. One day when he came home, he would not look me in the eye, and I knew, I just knew he had been with someone else. I looked down at my swollen belly, swollen with his son and when he had gone I collapsed onto the floor and wept all night.
My mother was there when the baby came. My mother and the wise woman. He was at sea and returned home to find me asleep cradling her in my arms while mother swept the house. He tried to pretend to be pleased. I woke as he took her out of my arms and cuddled her, but I could tell that he was disappointed. A girl. A beautiful baby girl. A burden who would have to be found a husband. A dowry. A girl who would never help him to bring home the fish. A girl who would make him a laughing stock at the tavern.
He tried to love her. Her tried to lover her and me, but I knew that I had let him down.
She was only a few weeks old when we began to notice that something was wrong. As she slept sometimes, I saw her head shaking gently.
They called it her demon because there was no other word for it. Sometimes she would just close her eyes and leave us for a few minutes. At other times she would fall to the floor shaking and rocking. When it was really bad, she would moan and scream as her body shook uncontrollably.
They called it her demon and everyone kept out of her way, shunned my little girl as she grew up. I think they were all frightened of her. He was. He didn’t know what to do when she began her fits. If he was asleep he would pretend not to wake up. If he was awake, he would call me, then go outside.
But the real way he coped was by spending more and more time in the tavern, and less and less time at home. When he did come home, I could smell her.
And one day, he didn’t come home.
They came one night when we were all in bed.
The violent knocking woke the whole house. The dog was barking in the yard and the muffled voices of the mob shattered the peace of my sleeping. I heard father going to the door and an argument breaking out.
“No more communist!” I heard him shouting, “No more communist!” Many voices shouting. Father cries out. Father shouts, then the voices move away. A car door slams and they take father away.
The next morning mother went to the next village. I must stay and look for the chickens. She visited the prefecture of police. Have they taken father? Is he arrested? They say no, he is not there. Where can he be, she asks? Best not to ask, they tell her. Best not to ask.
She comes home late without him.
It is three weeks before we see him. He is thin and pale of face when he arrives back at our farm. His face is grey with beard and dirt, but it is his eyes which have changed. Even when he has shaved, his eyes are sad. Not just tired, but sad. The life has gone out of them. There is no fire in his eyes.
He goes out into the fields, but none of the men will talk to him. None will look him in the eye. He was the head of the collective, but now he is nobody because a statue has been pulled down in Tirana. I do not understand.
It happens again and again. I lose count of how many times father disappears and comes back. Each time he comes back looking worse. Because he is not working, we do not receive a share of the village crops. Then they decide that there will be no more collective farm. Each family will take a piece of the land for itself. But not my family. Father is not allowed to own land. He must pay for his crimes with manual labour. He is to be the farmhand for anyone who will pay him.
But they will not pay him.
For he is poison. He is tainted, so they will not talk to him. There is no work, so there is no food. I am hungry. Our life in the village is finished. There is no food, there is no land, there is no family, no friends. Eventually, father decides that we must leave. He packs his important papers into a small satchel, and we put our clothes into a suitcase. From the stone jar in the kitchen, he takes the last of our money and buys three tickets to the big city where no one will know us. No one will know that he was once the proud head of a village. Here, he can be a nobody and there will be work, there will be food.
My mother came to stay, to help me look after her, but when it became clear that he was not coming back, she took me back to my father’s house. He wasn’t exactly pleased to see us, but he is a good man, so while mother made up my bed, he went back to my house and brought the cradle for the baby back into his house.
Father found work in a factory, and we were able to rent a room above a butcher’s shop. It smelled of meat all the time and we could not afford to buy the meat which tormented us every day. There were so many smells in the city and so much noise. So many people all living so close together. Mother and I stayed in our room all day, while father, who was the proud head of our village, went to the factory to stand next to his machine every day. I did not understand what he was doing. He had a machine that put a screw into a hole on the side of a piece of metal. It did not make sense. Each week, he would bring home his money and give half of it to my mother to buy food. He kept one coin each week to buy tobacco, and the rest he put into a bag under the mattress.
There were always sorcerers coming to the village. Fire eaters, conjurers, magicians. With lots of noise and fanfare, they would perform their tricks with flowing ribbons great acclaim. Other, quieter holy men came, performing miracles, making speeches in the market place. They were all charlatans, of course. Nobody really believed in their powers, but we always went to see them because they made us laugh! And we would give them some food to eat before they moved on to the next village.
But one day, a healer came who seemed to be different. Instead of heading for the market place to drum up trade, he went into a house where there were only women. What on earth was he doing? No man should go into a woman’s house? Who was this stranger? I set off to find out, and it soon became obvious that everyone else had the same idea. Apparently his name was Jesus ben Joseph. A Jew from Nazareth in Galilee. He had been driven out of his own town, but had performed many miracles in Capernaum and all the coastlands. He tried to hide in the dark of the house, but the crowd pushed in on him, so he began to talk with them. I saw him holding a little child and something in me made me think he was different.
Mother tried to teach me. She would find books on the market, selling each one as we finished it. Week after week, father put half the money in his bag until one day he came home and announced that we were leaving. “It is all arranged” he said. He gave half our money to man in a suit who we met in the tavern by the port. He lead us to a container on the dockside and opened the padlock on the end. In the darkness inside the container, we saw that there were not machine parts as the container said, rather we were met by many pairs of eyes.
The journey lasted for days.
We were in the dark with nothing to eat or drink. I know that we went by ship, then I think the container was loaded onto a train. But it might have been a lorry. Every night the doors of the container were opened so we could breath. Sometimes he gave us bread to eat and a bottle of water. Sometimes there was nothing. Then one day he opened the doors and it was not dark.
“We are here,” he said. “When the men in uniforms come you must say, “I claim asylum”.”
“Master,” I said respectfully, “my daughter is sick. They say she has a demon and she is taken with fits. You have the power of healing. Will you visit her, heal her? She has done nothing wrong, she is only a child. My husband has abandoned us and I am desperate. Master, please. Heal her?”
But the words of the Jewish healer slapped me down again. "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
“I claim asylum!” I cried as the men in blue uniforms clamped their handcuffs around my wrists.
I did not understand the man’s angry response, but I knew he was hurting me. He shouted and shouted. I thought it might be English, but I could not understand. I did not know where I was. I just kept repeating what the man had told me to say. “I claim asylum. I claim asylum.” The men in uniforms cuffed us and lead us to a van which took us to a prison. We were made to sit in a room for many hours wearing handcuffs. I did not understand why we had to wear the handcuffs. I am not a criminal. My father is a farmer. We sat in the room for many hours until eventually I was pushed into a little room with no window where a bored man sat with a woman. He started to ask me questions which I did not understand, which she translated for me. Where did I come from? How had I got there? Who was the man who had brought us to England? How much had we paid him? Even when she translated the questions, I did not understand them. I did not know the answers.
Something inside me snapped.
I had been pushed around for so long, treated as a nobody, and now this Jewish snob was calling me a dog, no calling my beautiful baby a dog! Let the children be fed first. Is my baby not a child? I wanted to spit on him. I hated him. How could he… ? Let the children be fed first. The arrogance.
Humiliated, I started to turn away. When something made me turn back.
“Yes,” I stammered, nervously, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!” There was an audible hush. Such sarcasm from my lips. How did I dare to reply to the holy man in this way? The food is not just for the children. It is for all of us. Who is he to say that I am a dog? What makes the Jews think that they are so much better than the rest of us? My daughter, my beautiful daughter is sick, but he won’t heal her because she is not Jewish. I hated him. “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted it. The others were clearly shocked at my boldness, and I felt a hundred eyes staring at me. He was silent and I was tempted to run. But I needed to retain my dignity, so instead I turned away slowly, trying to show him all the distain and contempt I felt for him.
We were moved to a camp with many other refugees. They came from many places and I have never heard so many different languages. I could not understand why we were being kept in a prison. Some of the other prisoners were much worse off than us. Some of the Africans still had the scars on their bodies. There were many children and some people came into the camp to try to teach us. It was not easy because we spoke so many languages, but little by little I learn some English.
After many weeks, they call us into an office and told us that we were to go to Manchester. I did not know where Manchester was, but they put us onto a train and gave us a paper with the address we were to go to on it.
On the train I see a newspaper. Asylum seeker numbers halved said the headline. A man called Blunkett was very happy that not so many people like me are coming to this country.
What was I doing here? Why wasn’t I back at home on the farm?
“Wait—“ he called “For saying that, the demon has left your daughter.”
No apology, as such. But you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. “For saying that the demon has left your daughter!” I could have wept. I think I probably did weep. She was cured. And I was vindicated. I was right and he was wrong. The great healer was wrong. I fell at his feet and thanked him, before rushing home to find her, my baby.
I do not want to be here. I do not understand why I am here, but I know that you do not want me to be here. Why do you hate me?
This story has provoked much discussion about Jesus the Jew and his attitude to Gentiles - and women.
On Sunday, I attempted to weave a re-working of this story into a fictional, but nontheless true, story of an asylum seeker in East Manchester. It was a strange experience writing not just as a woman, but as two contrasting women and I am aware that I was not entirely successful. Nevertheless the address seemed to ring a bell, especially in the afternoon when Clare and I read the address together in two contrasting voices.
***
I know I should have done what I did, but I was desperate. And I was angry. No, that is too mild, I wasn’t angry, I was wild, furious, fit to burst. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he care?
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me tell you my story.
I live with my parents in the little house where I was born. My husband was a fisherman, a beautiful, strong man who worked for my cousin on one of the boats which left Tyre every night and returned in the morning. He was always the quiet one, almost distant, but always gentle with me. And faithful too, not like some of them. He came home every morning, and when he had slept, I would take him his meal and we would… but you don’t need to know that. What you need to know is that we were happy. Or at least, I was happy and I thought he was happy. No, I know that he was happy. We were happy. Not special. Not especially happy, not blissful, but quietly, comfortably happy. Together.
We had our moments, of course, like the day when the boat didn’t come back with the others. I was out of my mind with worry, but it turned out that they hadn’t caught anything, so they’d decided to go off down the coast to find a market to buy some food before they came home. My mind, of course, convinced me of the worst. Eaten by a sea monster, or at very least swept overboard by a great wave, lost to the goddess who hovers menacingly over every sailor. I ran down to the dock to wait for him, to look out to sea, to ask the others if they had any news. I was frantic, running up and down the dock, stopping anyone and everyone asking whether they had seen them. It was almost lunchtime before I finally saw the tiny sail in the distance. I tried to hide my fear as he stepped ashore, but I was so frightened, so tense that the moment his arms surrounded me I started to tremble involuntarily as tears poured down my face.
I loved him.
I loved him so much and I had almost lost him.
I hope you will forgive my bad English. I am only one and half years in your country and my English is not yet idiomatic. I come to England from my homeland, Albania in 2001, I think in April. My father, he was the chief of our village and head of the Communist Party. He worked the land, while mother and I stayed home and prepared the meal. We were never hungry, as the village was planted with much wheat, and my mother kept a few chickens which gave us eggs to eat. As the head of the party, father was always the first to receive his share of the profit, so he was able to buy the best in the market. Every night he would go to meetings, every day he would be in the fields and in between he would drink with the comrades of our collective. Albanian wine is good. Albanian wine is very red like blood and very strong. My father and the other comrades would drink much Albanian wine.
Before the revolution.
Before the revolution—I can hardly remember that time. I was only child, really. I know nothing of politics or the city. In our village we had a school and 15 kilometres away there was a clinic where a doctor visited every other week. Life was good because the Party told us it was good. Everything was simple because the party told us what to do. I remember one year the Party told us that there was too much wheat and that we had to grow potatoes. My cousin protested that our land was not good for potatoes and that they did not know how to grow potatoes. That night some men came to visit him and he never protested again even though the potato crop failed and we were all very hungry that year.
Then the revolution came. I was twelve.
At first we were untouched by revolution. We heard rumours that there were big marches in Tirana, but I had never been to the city, so we just carried on with our life on the farm. Then one day in February, when it was very cold and there was snow on the ground my father made us all sit and listen to the wireless. There were riots and we listened as the statue of Comrade Hoxha was being toppled over by the students and intellectuals who were leading the revolution.
I remember father looked worried and I heard him muttering to mother in the corner of the room. He took his party card out of the drawer in the kitchen where he kept it with his other important papers and threw it on fire.
“No more Communist.” he said. “No more Communist.”
Then one day, my period was late and I knew immediately that I was pregnant. We had been married for two years, so the time was right. I was elated and scared. I didn’t know if I was ready to be a mother, but at last I was going to give him the son he wanted.
At first, I was very sick, so he couldn’t come near me and then, as my belly grew, he didn’t seem to want to.
Instead of staying home with me, he began to go out drinking in the afternoon, coming home in time to go to work, smelling of the tavern. One day when he came home, he would not look me in the eye, and I knew, I just knew he had been with someone else. I looked down at my swollen belly, swollen with his son and when he had gone I collapsed onto the floor and wept all night.
My mother was there when the baby came. My mother and the wise woman. He was at sea and returned home to find me asleep cradling her in my arms while mother swept the house. He tried to pretend to be pleased. I woke as he took her out of my arms and cuddled her, but I could tell that he was disappointed. A girl. A beautiful baby girl. A burden who would have to be found a husband. A dowry. A girl who would never help him to bring home the fish. A girl who would make him a laughing stock at the tavern.
He tried to love her. Her tried to lover her and me, but I knew that I had let him down.
She was only a few weeks old when we began to notice that something was wrong. As she slept sometimes, I saw her head shaking gently.
They called it her demon because there was no other word for it. Sometimes she would just close her eyes and leave us for a few minutes. At other times she would fall to the floor shaking and rocking. When it was really bad, she would moan and scream as her body shook uncontrollably.
They called it her demon and everyone kept out of her way, shunned my little girl as she grew up. I think they were all frightened of her. He was. He didn’t know what to do when she began her fits. If he was asleep he would pretend not to wake up. If he was awake, he would call me, then go outside.
But the real way he coped was by spending more and more time in the tavern, and less and less time at home. When he did come home, I could smell her.
And one day, he didn’t come home.
They came one night when we were all in bed.
The violent knocking woke the whole house. The dog was barking in the yard and the muffled voices of the mob shattered the peace of my sleeping. I heard father going to the door and an argument breaking out.
“No more communist!” I heard him shouting, “No more communist!” Many voices shouting. Father cries out. Father shouts, then the voices move away. A car door slams and they take father away.
The next morning mother went to the next village. I must stay and look for the chickens. She visited the prefecture of police. Have they taken father? Is he arrested? They say no, he is not there. Where can he be, she asks? Best not to ask, they tell her. Best not to ask.
She comes home late without him.
It is three weeks before we see him. He is thin and pale of face when he arrives back at our farm. His face is grey with beard and dirt, but it is his eyes which have changed. Even when he has shaved, his eyes are sad. Not just tired, but sad. The life has gone out of them. There is no fire in his eyes.
He goes out into the fields, but none of the men will talk to him. None will look him in the eye. He was the head of the collective, but now he is nobody because a statue has been pulled down in Tirana. I do not understand.
It happens again and again. I lose count of how many times father disappears and comes back. Each time he comes back looking worse. Because he is not working, we do not receive a share of the village crops. Then they decide that there will be no more collective farm. Each family will take a piece of the land for itself. But not my family. Father is not allowed to own land. He must pay for his crimes with manual labour. He is to be the farmhand for anyone who will pay him.
But they will not pay him.
For he is poison. He is tainted, so they will not talk to him. There is no work, so there is no food. I am hungry. Our life in the village is finished. There is no food, there is no land, there is no family, no friends. Eventually, father decides that we must leave. He packs his important papers into a small satchel, and we put our clothes into a suitcase. From the stone jar in the kitchen, he takes the last of our money and buys three tickets to the big city where no one will know us. No one will know that he was once the proud head of a village. Here, he can be a nobody and there will be work, there will be food.
My mother came to stay, to help me look after her, but when it became clear that he was not coming back, she took me back to my father’s house. He wasn’t exactly pleased to see us, but he is a good man, so while mother made up my bed, he went back to my house and brought the cradle for the baby back into his house.
Father found work in a factory, and we were able to rent a room above a butcher’s shop. It smelled of meat all the time and we could not afford to buy the meat which tormented us every day. There were so many smells in the city and so much noise. So many people all living so close together. Mother and I stayed in our room all day, while father, who was the proud head of our village, went to the factory to stand next to his machine every day. I did not understand what he was doing. He had a machine that put a screw into a hole on the side of a piece of metal. It did not make sense. Each week, he would bring home his money and give half of it to my mother to buy food. He kept one coin each week to buy tobacco, and the rest he put into a bag under the mattress.
There were always sorcerers coming to the village. Fire eaters, conjurers, magicians. With lots of noise and fanfare, they would perform their tricks with flowing ribbons great acclaim. Other, quieter holy men came, performing miracles, making speeches in the market place. They were all charlatans, of course. Nobody really believed in their powers, but we always went to see them because they made us laugh! And we would give them some food to eat before they moved on to the next village.
But one day, a healer came who seemed to be different. Instead of heading for the market place to drum up trade, he went into a house where there were only women. What on earth was he doing? No man should go into a woman’s house? Who was this stranger? I set off to find out, and it soon became obvious that everyone else had the same idea. Apparently his name was Jesus ben Joseph. A Jew from Nazareth in Galilee. He had been driven out of his own town, but had performed many miracles in Capernaum and all the coastlands. He tried to hide in the dark of the house, but the crowd pushed in on him, so he began to talk with them. I saw him holding a little child and something in me made me think he was different.
Mother tried to teach me. She would find books on the market, selling each one as we finished it. Week after week, father put half the money in his bag until one day he came home and announced that we were leaving. “It is all arranged” he said. He gave half our money to man in a suit who we met in the tavern by the port. He lead us to a container on the dockside and opened the padlock on the end. In the darkness inside the container, we saw that there were not machine parts as the container said, rather we were met by many pairs of eyes.
The journey lasted for days.
We were in the dark with nothing to eat or drink. I know that we went by ship, then I think the container was loaded onto a train. But it might have been a lorry. Every night the doors of the container were opened so we could breath. Sometimes he gave us bread to eat and a bottle of water. Sometimes there was nothing. Then one day he opened the doors and it was not dark.
“We are here,” he said. “When the men in uniforms come you must say, “I claim asylum”.”
“Master,” I said respectfully, “my daughter is sick. They say she has a demon and she is taken with fits. You have the power of healing. Will you visit her, heal her? She has done nothing wrong, she is only a child. My husband has abandoned us and I am desperate. Master, please. Heal her?”
But the words of the Jewish healer slapped me down again. "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
“I claim asylum!” I cried as the men in blue uniforms clamped their handcuffs around my wrists.
I did not understand the man’s angry response, but I knew he was hurting me. He shouted and shouted. I thought it might be English, but I could not understand. I did not know where I was. I just kept repeating what the man had told me to say. “I claim asylum. I claim asylum.” The men in uniforms cuffed us and lead us to a van which took us to a prison. We were made to sit in a room for many hours wearing handcuffs. I did not understand why we had to wear the handcuffs. I am not a criminal. My father is a farmer. We sat in the room for many hours until eventually I was pushed into a little room with no window where a bored man sat with a woman. He started to ask me questions which I did not understand, which she translated for me. Where did I come from? How had I got there? Who was the man who had brought us to England? How much had we paid him? Even when she translated the questions, I did not understand them. I did not know the answers.
Something inside me snapped.
I had been pushed around for so long, treated as a nobody, and now this Jewish snob was calling me a dog, no calling my beautiful baby a dog! Let the children be fed first. Is my baby not a child? I wanted to spit on him. I hated him. How could he… ? Let the children be fed first. The arrogance.
Humiliated, I started to turn away. When something made me turn back.
“Yes,” I stammered, nervously, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!” There was an audible hush. Such sarcasm from my lips. How did I dare to reply to the holy man in this way? The food is not just for the children. It is for all of us. Who is he to say that I am a dog? What makes the Jews think that they are so much better than the rest of us? My daughter, my beautiful daughter is sick, but he won’t heal her because she is not Jewish. I hated him. “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted it. The others were clearly shocked at my boldness, and I felt a hundred eyes staring at me. He was silent and I was tempted to run. But I needed to retain my dignity, so instead I turned away slowly, trying to show him all the distain and contempt I felt for him.
We were moved to a camp with many other refugees. They came from many places and I have never heard so many different languages. I could not understand why we were being kept in a prison. Some of the other prisoners were much worse off than us. Some of the Africans still had the scars on their bodies. There were many children and some people came into the camp to try to teach us. It was not easy because we spoke so many languages, but little by little I learn some English.
After many weeks, they call us into an office and told us that we were to go to Manchester. I did not know where Manchester was, but they put us onto a train and gave us a paper with the address we were to go to on it.
On the train I see a newspaper. Asylum seeker numbers halved said the headline. A man called Blunkett was very happy that not so many people like me are coming to this country.
What was I doing here? Why wasn’t I back at home on the farm?
“Wait—“ he called “For saying that, the demon has left your daughter.”
No apology, as such. But you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. “For saying that the demon has left your daughter!” I could have wept. I think I probably did weep. She was cured. And I was vindicated. I was right and he was wrong. The great healer was wrong. I fell at his feet and thanked him, before rushing home to find her, my baby.
I do not want to be here. I do not understand why I am here, but I know that you do not want me to be here. Why do you hate me?
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Apology
Just in case anyone has been checking in with the Openshaw Connection recently, you will have realised that we haven't been posting anything recently!
It has been a very busy summer - firstly with much-needed holidays, then with writing a paper together with our friend/ colleague, Mary Cotes for the Baptist Theological Consultation. We called it Old Socks and Communion Wine, and together we explored, through stories from our various contexts, the inclusive, all-embracing nature of communion.
I can't post the paper up here at present because we need to check copyright details, but when it is available, we will link to it.
The final excuse for not posting is the fact that my desk, quite literally, has a pile of papers 60cm deep on it - and that is after I have spent most of today tidying it!
Tim
It has been a very busy summer - firstly with much-needed holidays, then with writing a paper together with our friend/ colleague, Mary Cotes for the Baptist Theological Consultation. We called it Old Socks and Communion Wine, and together we explored, through stories from our various contexts, the inclusive, all-embracing nature of communion.
I can't post the paper up here at present because we need to check copyright details, but when it is available, we will link to it.
The final excuse for not posting is the fact that my desk, quite literally, has a pile of papers 60cm deep on it - and that is after I have spent most of today tidying it!
Tim
Monday, July 14, 2003
Temptation
I feel the need to blog this because I am sitting in my £200 per night hotel room in London, connected to this miraculous technology we call the internet all courtesy of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
I put on my suit
I go to meetings
I plant seeds.
As I sit here, sipping my brandy from the minibar - at £5 per glass! - I cannot help but reflect that I rather like putting on my suit and going to meetings.
But what seeds am I planting here in London? Is there any point to my being here? Is there any gospel in what I am doing? Probably not - but it is a rather pleasant break from the stress of East Manchester.
All I must remember is that I put on my suit. I am not my suit. My suit is not me.
I put on my suit
I go to meetings
I plant seeds.
As I sit here, sipping my brandy from the minibar - at £5 per glass! - I cannot help but reflect that I rather like putting on my suit and going to meetings.
But what seeds am I planting here in London? Is there any point to my being here? Is there any gospel in what I am doing? Probably not - but it is a rather pleasant break from the stress of East Manchester.
All I must remember is that I put on my suit. I am not my suit. My suit is not me.
Sunday, July 06, 2003
Incarnation?
Fundamental to our view of what the church is, is the fact that the church is part of our community. Not necessarily the heart of our community, but a part of it.
We have often spoken of the decline of the neighbourhood and used metaphors such as crucifixion. Homeowners who bought their properties for £30,000 are now forced to sell for as little as £2,000. 40% of residents move each year. Crime rates are over double the national average and so on and so on. We can play the statistics all day long. Suffice it to say that our ward is the 22nd most deprived in the country and our neighbourhood is the most deprived area of the ward.
If the church is to incarnate the love of Christ in that community, then it would be foolish to expect us to be spared the kind of decline and suffering that the rest of the community undergoes. Christ entered into human suffering throught the crucifixion. The church is called to embody that life-giving love by sharing in the suffering of its community.
All of which is very easy to say and write with a theological hat on. It becomes a bit more problematic when it is made real.
This afternoon the Regen have organised a Fun Day on the playing field of the high school. Our church is a bite out of that field and, for various reasons, because we cannot use the school itself, the church is being used as a base for the volunteers. We agreed that chairs and tables could be stored in the schoolroom and that Portaloos could be put in the carpark. We made it clear that none of this stuff was covered by our insurance and that it was very likely that the portaloos in particular would become a target for the local vandals.
Which, of course, they did.
What we didn't count on was that David, our church secretary, despite our assurances that he didn't need to do anything or worry about anything, felt honour bound to 'guard' the portaloos. So he has spent the weekend chasing gangs of youths away from the church carpark, and when the toilets were smashed up, sees it both as a personal failure and a personal attack.
Round at Andy and Clare's last night watching videos, we received a very distressed phone call. David was at church, desperately worried about these @*$%^! toilets in the carpark. Not just worried, but seriously, distractedly and potentially clinically worried.
15 minutes of reassurance later, he did agree to go home, but I am left disappointed and angry that what is supposed to be a celebration of the re-birth of our community has already cost a dear friend so much.
We have often spoken of the decline of the neighbourhood and used metaphors such as crucifixion. Homeowners who bought their properties for £30,000 are now forced to sell for as little as £2,000. 40% of residents move each year. Crime rates are over double the national average and so on and so on. We can play the statistics all day long. Suffice it to say that our ward is the 22nd most deprived in the country and our neighbourhood is the most deprived area of the ward.
If the church is to incarnate the love of Christ in that community, then it would be foolish to expect us to be spared the kind of decline and suffering that the rest of the community undergoes. Christ entered into human suffering throught the crucifixion. The church is called to embody that life-giving love by sharing in the suffering of its community.
All of which is very easy to say and write with a theological hat on. It becomes a bit more problematic when it is made real.
This afternoon the Regen have organised a Fun Day on the playing field of the high school. Our church is a bite out of that field and, for various reasons, because we cannot use the school itself, the church is being used as a base for the volunteers. We agreed that chairs and tables could be stored in the schoolroom and that Portaloos could be put in the carpark. We made it clear that none of this stuff was covered by our insurance and that it was very likely that the portaloos in particular would become a target for the local vandals.
Which, of course, they did.
What we didn't count on was that David, our church secretary, despite our assurances that he didn't need to do anything or worry about anything, felt honour bound to 'guard' the portaloos. So he has spent the weekend chasing gangs of youths away from the church carpark, and when the toilets were smashed up, sees it both as a personal failure and a personal attack.
Round at Andy and Clare's last night watching videos, we received a very distressed phone call. David was at church, desperately worried about these @*$%^! toilets in the carpark. Not just worried, but seriously, distractedly and potentially clinically worried.
15 minutes of reassurance later, he did agree to go home, but I am left disappointed and angry that what is supposed to be a celebration of the re-birth of our community has already cost a dear friend so much.
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Urban Creation Story - Job 38
Music = typical Native American music from Canada – contemporary audience
combines rhythms of the earth, wind, earth, birdsong – the sounds of nature with the heartbeat of the drum and the haunting sound of the human voice. Paints a picture of harmony and balance.
It is the kind of picture painted in the book of Job in this great creation story that runs alongside, and in many ways counter to the creation stories of 1 and 2 Genesis. Here, rather than humanity being marked out as having dominion over the earth, God reminds humanity of their insignificance in the greater scheme of things.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”
What follows over the next couple of chapters is a great creation liturgy, a love song to the earth that goes into incredible detail. God knows creation inside out. Creation is vast and intricate, created out of the wisdom of God, out of the very being of God. Yes humanity is woven into it but only as part of a bigger picture.
5 years ago now on a trip to Canada where I visited several Native American communities, I was struck by how Native American art seemed to be able to root human identity in the very depth of the earth. Natural images occurred time and time again – very occasionally humans were portrayed. But I also learned of the environmental destruction that was happening on many Native American lands.
Hesquiaht harbour – camping to the sound of the chain saws – clear cut hillside. The ideal picture I had of Native American communities living in harmony with the earth was being destroyed
Land claims issues
Heartbeat of the Earth – pictures of mountainsides crying, tree stumps bleeding
Course at Native Ministries Summer School in Vancouver called caring for the earth – looked at Native American origin or creation stories – each nation or band have their own stories and see their own family history as rooted in these origin myths. For me the course centred around the privilege of hearing elder Bert McKay’s telling of some of the Nisga’a origin myths in the context of also learning about the logging and over fishing that was happening on the Nisga’a territory. The course then placed these stories alongside some of the less known biblical creation stories such as this one from Job and Proverbs 8.
We were then challenged to think of our own origin stories and how these roots us in the land, how these root our identity in the earth.
Here I struggled – I have lived my whole life in the city, in an urban environment quite far removed from nature, the earth. Yes I love visiting the countryside and especially the mountains, but how do we identify with the land when we live in the city? What stories do we have? At the time on the course in Canada I struggled in my journal to answer these questions by combining Celtic art with the biblical creation stories – but came to the conclusion that this didn’t really work – I may be married to a Scott but I am not Celtic – at least I have no idea where my ancestors come from.
= something I have struggled with – in the city we have no ready made stories or myths that identify us with earth, with the nature of our urban landscapes. So I began to attempt to write some stories of my own as a way of theologically reflecting on our landscape and our place within creation.
So this morning I’m going to tell one of these stories – one that is about dreaming of a creation that is honoured and celebrated in the context of an urban environment. It is set here in Openshaw, though the story is about dreams and visions of the future so the Openshaw I am describing may look a little, or maybe very different from where we are now. This story is about dreaming, envisioning heaven here on earth, an earth restored to reflect God’s shalom. The story is called:
Learning from Earth’s Children: A Story of Dreams
The school door burst open, Children pouring out into the Tree-lined Playground. Zoë, whose Name translates “Life” and Adam, meaning “from the earth”, ran laughing over to the walking bus. Zoë carefully laid her mask made out of recycled rubbish and her bag into the wheeled cart and joined hands with the other Children who were waiting for the walking bus to escort them home. Adam joined them, his mind still on his class’ weekly visit to the WildLife garden to observe the pond Life. The youngest three Children climbed inside the cart and sat in the seats at the front. It had been raining earlier so the bus’ cover was up; the Children dressed appropriately in waterproofs and welly boots.
“Everybody here?” a voice called from the front of the line? Each Child looked for their partner who they had a responsibility to look out for. The twins smiled at each other – yes everyone was here. They set off through the streets – it would be a long walk as each Child was dropped of at different destinations around the community. Zoë and Adam didn’t mind, there was always plenty to see and many people to greet as the walking bus wound its way around the streets.
First they passed the market with its stalls of seasonal fresh produce brought in from farms just outside the city. They passed right by Adam’s favourite stand selling fairly traded foods and Crafts from small co-operatives around the world. It was a real treat when Dad visited this stand with its exotic delicacies such as rich velvety chocolate, ripe bananas and beautiful Handcrafted objects. Last birthday, he had been given a carved wooden box from the stall and kept his most treasured collection of bits and pieces, hidden inside.
Next they passed the refurbishing workshop where Zoë liked to stop and watch the adults at work mending and repairing all sorts of household objects from washing machines, to computers, from cookers to Children's toys. Shelves of salvaged parts covered the walls of the large workshop. All manner of bits and pieces covered the work benches as people stood around drinking tea and puzzling over the latest challenge that presented itself.
Next came the Taylor’s shop and the bike centre with all sorts of recycled bikes in all shapes and sizes for sale or loan. The twins enjoyed cycling along the specially designed routes that radiated and criss-crossed through the city. Sometimes they rode into the city centre to see the museums, art galleries and theatres, visit the parks or learn more about the local government. At other times they rode with their parents out to the countryside to learn more about farming, to watch the Wild Animals or to join in with environmental projects.
Next the walking bus stopped outside the Community library to drop off Children wanting to borrow books, music, art equipment or toys. It was a real treasure inside, full of objects for loan covering just about everything you could need – baby equipment, DIY tools and garden equipment to name a few.
Next door was the travel centre where you could find out the best way to get somewhere by tram, train or electric autobus or failing that, arrange to car share. They also arranged house swapping holidays or vacations swapping skills in return for board and lodging. Occasionally, they arranged international travel for people to learn more about other Cultures and other ecological habitats or for people from all over the world to be Welcomed by this local Community to tell their Stories and share their Wisdom and insights.
The bus clattered on along the streets, passing people sitting outside, Children playing, people tending their small patches of garden. The Sky was beginning to look very dark. Since global warming, Rainfall had been a lot higher and they had witnessed many spectacular, but devastating Storms. They splashed through the puddles that were now filling up again with the pitter-patter of Raindrops falling from the heavy Skies. No one minded, they’d soon get warm once they reached their Homes.
The line of Children was now down to five with two Children still sat at the front of the bus looking cosy and dry. Zoë and Adam squelched their way across the muddy paths of the allotments admiring the rows of Vegetables and Fruits not yet ready for picking. Sunflowers were just opening to reveal their bright yellow halos nodding in the Wind.
At last they reached the end of their street, passed the Artists’ studios and the skill-share centre where people traded and swapped their skills and Experience with others in the Community and sometimes travelled to swap skills with other Communities or even on occasion, other countries. Their street was a designated play street where no buses or cars were allowed to enter, only bikes, walking buses and pedestrians. Next they passed the Community IT centre and the laundry where they could see Dad chatting away while waiting for the washing to finish. Mum was away just now, learning campaigning and Community shaping skills from one of the inner-city’s twin Communities in South Africa. In exchange, a group was due to arrive next month to Live as part of their Community and share of their Wisdom and Stories for a few weeks.
At last Zoë and Adam reached their neighbour’s house at the end of the terrace. Most of the front yards and chairs in the street were empty, glistening with Raindrops. But now the Sun was coming out, Children began emerging from doorways resuming their games, people began to chat over low walls or to dry chairs off and sit reading their papers or doing the crossword puzzle.
Oscar, who was Named after a Salvadoran priest and martyr, was already sat outside in the street when the walking bus rolled up. Zoë and Adam waved goodbye and sat down to share the drinks and cake that Oscar had prepared for them. Oscar was a Community leader, chosen for many years of Experience and Wisdom. His role was now one of teaching and Story-telling in the Community. More Children joined them and when they were all ready, Oscar brought out a big Scrapbook bulging with clippings and pictures.
Zoë and Adam looked at each other in excitement, they loved hearing Stories about the Community’s past, especially if there were pictures to look at and photographs of their parents and grandparents when they were small. Oscar’s eyes lit up as he opened the book at a picture of a great Oak Tree that stood on the edge of what the Children recognised as the Community allotments just up from the Community square. The Children were puzzled; no Trees as big as that grew around here - only out in the countryside. There were many Trees of course a few decades old, but in the picture, the Tree looked as if it had stood for a couple of centuries.
Oscar looked sad as he showed them another faded picture of a middle aged, dark skinned man. The picture was of Joel, a smiling, friendly looking man, standing over a fork and turning over the Soil of a Vegetable patch. Oscar waited until the photo had been passed around the circle before he began his Story. Joel was an ordinary man, living several decades ago in a poor, run down, inner-city Community. “Do you mean this Community as it was many years ago?” a voice piped up. Oscar nodded slowly and continued his Story.
Joel was unemployed, meaning he didn’t work for one of the big companies or industries but worked hard at spending time with people and tending his allotment. It was his Pride and Joy especially at Harvest time when he shared out Earth’s produce among the most needy in the Community. Many people used to stop by the allotments for a chat with Joel, recognising him as a man of Wisdom and Dreams. He particularly loved the old Oak Tree that stood just outside the allotments, he used to talk to it and sit underneath it to eat his packed lunches and drink his steaming tea.
From time to time, people came and vandalised the allotments, writing slogans against Joel onto the sheds and greenhouses. Sometimes his crops were pulled up and Sunflowers trampled to the ground. Always Joel cleaned up the mess and started again, determined not to let others ruin his Dreams and the precious patch of Earth he tended.
One day people with tractors and chain-saws, wearing hard hats and identity badges came and fenced off the Tree ready to cut it down, saying it was in the way of the plans for a new, bigger shopping and leisure centre. Joel sat down next to the trunk of the Tree and refused to budge. The tractors and chain saws were taken away and Joel set to organising local residents groups to join in and Protest. To do so, he had to leave the Tree to attend meetings and a consultation day in the city hall. When he returned, the Tree had already been felled and lay chopped into pieces on the ground. Joel died of a heart attack there, where the Tree lay, their two bodies lying side by side at the edge of the allotment.
The residents buried Joel by the stump of the old Oak Tree, as he had no family to claim him. The shopping centre never went ahead, the plans blocked by the rising Protest from the Community inspired by Joel’s Story. Instead the residents groups continued to meet and Dream of a better future for their Community. They planted new Trees and turned the waste ground at the edge of the allotments into a WildLife area with a Pond and places to sit and watch the changing Seasons and the WildLife that gradually inhabited the area. Where the Tree stood and on the ground where Joel was buried, the Community plant Sunflowers every year to mark the beginning of Spring.
“So who is coming to the street festival next week to help plant the Sunflowers?” Oscar asked with a strangely sad smile, his eyes glistening as he listened to the chorus of questions and excited murmurings from the group of Children.
combines rhythms of the earth, wind, earth, birdsong – the sounds of nature with the heartbeat of the drum and the haunting sound of the human voice. Paints a picture of harmony and balance.
It is the kind of picture painted in the book of Job in this great creation story that runs alongside, and in many ways counter to the creation stories of 1 and 2 Genesis. Here, rather than humanity being marked out as having dominion over the earth, God reminds humanity of their insignificance in the greater scheme of things.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”
What follows over the next couple of chapters is a great creation liturgy, a love song to the earth that goes into incredible detail. God knows creation inside out. Creation is vast and intricate, created out of the wisdom of God, out of the very being of God. Yes humanity is woven into it but only as part of a bigger picture.
5 years ago now on a trip to Canada where I visited several Native American communities, I was struck by how Native American art seemed to be able to root human identity in the very depth of the earth. Natural images occurred time and time again – very occasionally humans were portrayed. But I also learned of the environmental destruction that was happening on many Native American lands.
Hesquiaht harbour – camping to the sound of the chain saws – clear cut hillside. The ideal picture I had of Native American communities living in harmony with the earth was being destroyed
Land claims issues
Heartbeat of the Earth – pictures of mountainsides crying, tree stumps bleeding
Course at Native Ministries Summer School in Vancouver called caring for the earth – looked at Native American origin or creation stories – each nation or band have their own stories and see their own family history as rooted in these origin myths. For me the course centred around the privilege of hearing elder Bert McKay’s telling of some of the Nisga’a origin myths in the context of also learning about the logging and over fishing that was happening on the Nisga’a territory. The course then placed these stories alongside some of the less known biblical creation stories such as this one from Job and Proverbs 8.
We were then challenged to think of our own origin stories and how these roots us in the land, how these root our identity in the earth.
Here I struggled – I have lived my whole life in the city, in an urban environment quite far removed from nature, the earth. Yes I love visiting the countryside and especially the mountains, but how do we identify with the land when we live in the city? What stories do we have? At the time on the course in Canada I struggled in my journal to answer these questions by combining Celtic art with the biblical creation stories – but came to the conclusion that this didn’t really work – I may be married to a Scott but I am not Celtic – at least I have no idea where my ancestors come from.
= something I have struggled with – in the city we have no ready made stories or myths that identify us with earth, with the nature of our urban landscapes. So I began to attempt to write some stories of my own as a way of theologically reflecting on our landscape and our place within creation.
So this morning I’m going to tell one of these stories – one that is about dreaming of a creation that is honoured and celebrated in the context of an urban environment. It is set here in Openshaw, though the story is about dreams and visions of the future so the Openshaw I am describing may look a little, or maybe very different from where we are now. This story is about dreaming, envisioning heaven here on earth, an earth restored to reflect God’s shalom. The story is called:
Learning from Earth’s Children: A Story of Dreams
The school door burst open, Children pouring out into the Tree-lined Playground. Zoë, whose Name translates “Life” and Adam, meaning “from the earth”, ran laughing over to the walking bus. Zoë carefully laid her mask made out of recycled rubbish and her bag into the wheeled cart and joined hands with the other Children who were waiting for the walking bus to escort them home. Adam joined them, his mind still on his class’ weekly visit to the WildLife garden to observe the pond Life. The youngest three Children climbed inside the cart and sat in the seats at the front. It had been raining earlier so the bus’ cover was up; the Children dressed appropriately in waterproofs and welly boots.
“Everybody here?” a voice called from the front of the line? Each Child looked for their partner who they had a responsibility to look out for. The twins smiled at each other – yes everyone was here. They set off through the streets – it would be a long walk as each Child was dropped of at different destinations around the community. Zoë and Adam didn’t mind, there was always plenty to see and many people to greet as the walking bus wound its way around the streets.
First they passed the market with its stalls of seasonal fresh produce brought in from farms just outside the city. They passed right by Adam’s favourite stand selling fairly traded foods and Crafts from small co-operatives around the world. It was a real treat when Dad visited this stand with its exotic delicacies such as rich velvety chocolate, ripe bananas and beautiful Handcrafted objects. Last birthday, he had been given a carved wooden box from the stall and kept his most treasured collection of bits and pieces, hidden inside.
Next they passed the refurbishing workshop where Zoë liked to stop and watch the adults at work mending and repairing all sorts of household objects from washing machines, to computers, from cookers to Children's toys. Shelves of salvaged parts covered the walls of the large workshop. All manner of bits and pieces covered the work benches as people stood around drinking tea and puzzling over the latest challenge that presented itself.
Next came the Taylor’s shop and the bike centre with all sorts of recycled bikes in all shapes and sizes for sale or loan. The twins enjoyed cycling along the specially designed routes that radiated and criss-crossed through the city. Sometimes they rode into the city centre to see the museums, art galleries and theatres, visit the parks or learn more about the local government. At other times they rode with their parents out to the countryside to learn more about farming, to watch the Wild Animals or to join in with environmental projects.
Next the walking bus stopped outside the Community library to drop off Children wanting to borrow books, music, art equipment or toys. It was a real treasure inside, full of objects for loan covering just about everything you could need – baby equipment, DIY tools and garden equipment to name a few.
Next door was the travel centre where you could find out the best way to get somewhere by tram, train or electric autobus or failing that, arrange to car share. They also arranged house swapping holidays or vacations swapping skills in return for board and lodging. Occasionally, they arranged international travel for people to learn more about other Cultures and other ecological habitats or for people from all over the world to be Welcomed by this local Community to tell their Stories and share their Wisdom and insights.
The bus clattered on along the streets, passing people sitting outside, Children playing, people tending their small patches of garden. The Sky was beginning to look very dark. Since global warming, Rainfall had been a lot higher and they had witnessed many spectacular, but devastating Storms. They splashed through the puddles that were now filling up again with the pitter-patter of Raindrops falling from the heavy Skies. No one minded, they’d soon get warm once they reached their Homes.
The line of Children was now down to five with two Children still sat at the front of the bus looking cosy and dry. Zoë and Adam squelched their way across the muddy paths of the allotments admiring the rows of Vegetables and Fruits not yet ready for picking. Sunflowers were just opening to reveal their bright yellow halos nodding in the Wind.
At last they reached the end of their street, passed the Artists’ studios and the skill-share centre where people traded and swapped their skills and Experience with others in the Community and sometimes travelled to swap skills with other Communities or even on occasion, other countries. Their street was a designated play street where no buses or cars were allowed to enter, only bikes, walking buses and pedestrians. Next they passed the Community IT centre and the laundry where they could see Dad chatting away while waiting for the washing to finish. Mum was away just now, learning campaigning and Community shaping skills from one of the inner-city’s twin Communities in South Africa. In exchange, a group was due to arrive next month to Live as part of their Community and share of their Wisdom and Stories for a few weeks.
At last Zoë and Adam reached their neighbour’s house at the end of the terrace. Most of the front yards and chairs in the street were empty, glistening with Raindrops. But now the Sun was coming out, Children began emerging from doorways resuming their games, people began to chat over low walls or to dry chairs off and sit reading their papers or doing the crossword puzzle.
Oscar, who was Named after a Salvadoran priest and martyr, was already sat outside in the street when the walking bus rolled up. Zoë and Adam waved goodbye and sat down to share the drinks and cake that Oscar had prepared for them. Oscar was a Community leader, chosen for many years of Experience and Wisdom. His role was now one of teaching and Story-telling in the Community. More Children joined them and when they were all ready, Oscar brought out a big Scrapbook bulging with clippings and pictures.
Zoë and Adam looked at each other in excitement, they loved hearing Stories about the Community’s past, especially if there were pictures to look at and photographs of their parents and grandparents when they were small. Oscar’s eyes lit up as he opened the book at a picture of a great Oak Tree that stood on the edge of what the Children recognised as the Community allotments just up from the Community square. The Children were puzzled; no Trees as big as that grew around here - only out in the countryside. There were many Trees of course a few decades old, but in the picture, the Tree looked as if it had stood for a couple of centuries.
Oscar looked sad as he showed them another faded picture of a middle aged, dark skinned man. The picture was of Joel, a smiling, friendly looking man, standing over a fork and turning over the Soil of a Vegetable patch. Oscar waited until the photo had been passed around the circle before he began his Story. Joel was an ordinary man, living several decades ago in a poor, run down, inner-city Community. “Do you mean this Community as it was many years ago?” a voice piped up. Oscar nodded slowly and continued his Story.
Joel was unemployed, meaning he didn’t work for one of the big companies or industries but worked hard at spending time with people and tending his allotment. It was his Pride and Joy especially at Harvest time when he shared out Earth’s produce among the most needy in the Community. Many people used to stop by the allotments for a chat with Joel, recognising him as a man of Wisdom and Dreams. He particularly loved the old Oak Tree that stood just outside the allotments, he used to talk to it and sit underneath it to eat his packed lunches and drink his steaming tea.
From time to time, people came and vandalised the allotments, writing slogans against Joel onto the sheds and greenhouses. Sometimes his crops were pulled up and Sunflowers trampled to the ground. Always Joel cleaned up the mess and started again, determined not to let others ruin his Dreams and the precious patch of Earth he tended.
One day people with tractors and chain-saws, wearing hard hats and identity badges came and fenced off the Tree ready to cut it down, saying it was in the way of the plans for a new, bigger shopping and leisure centre. Joel sat down next to the trunk of the Tree and refused to budge. The tractors and chain saws were taken away and Joel set to organising local residents groups to join in and Protest. To do so, he had to leave the Tree to attend meetings and a consultation day in the city hall. When he returned, the Tree had already been felled and lay chopped into pieces on the ground. Joel died of a heart attack there, where the Tree lay, their two bodies lying side by side at the edge of the allotment.
The residents buried Joel by the stump of the old Oak Tree, as he had no family to claim him. The shopping centre never went ahead, the plans blocked by the rising Protest from the Community inspired by Joel’s Story. Instead the residents groups continued to meet and Dream of a better future for their Community. They planted new Trees and turned the waste ground at the edge of the allotments into a WildLife area with a Pond and places to sit and watch the changing Seasons and the WildLife that gradually inhabited the area. Where the Tree stood and on the ground where Joel was buried, the Community plant Sunflowers every year to mark the beginning of Spring.
“So who is coming to the street festival next week to help plant the Sunflowers?” Oscar asked with a strangely sad smile, his eyes glistening as he listened to the chorus of questions and excited murmurings from the group of Children.
Breaking Boundaries
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend of mine as she recovered from surgery in St. Mary’s hospital. She was surrounded by cards, flowers and teddy bears from various family friends and colleagues so I happened to comment that it looked as if she’d been inundated with visitors.
Yes, she commented, but its very noticeable that as soon as you are on a gynaecological ward only women tend to visit. Maybe my male friends are too embarrassed to see me.
Even her consultant, she confided, hadn’t been able to look her in the eye when discussing her surgery with her.
And we laughed.
But there was a serious, more painful side to our laughter.
My friend is facing several months of further treatment and needs a huge amount of support. But its not something we tend to talk about in polite society. We don’t like to discuss what we call “women’s problems” let alone talk openly about an illness such as cancer.
There are certain taboos, certain subjects we’d prefer not to deal with, to brush under that carpet.
But where does that leave my friend? – facing the unknown, fearful and isolated in a society where late night chat shows reveal the erotic intimacies of peoples lives but where we cannot talk about our bodies, illness or even the possibility of death.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
When I first looked up the lectionary readings for today my initial reaction was groan. What on earth do I do with a story about a miraculous raising from the dead of a little girl and a woman with severe, crippling gynaecological problems?
So I started to look around on the web and in commentaries for some ideas. But what struck me was there failure to speak to me of the real issues these stories raise.
One spoke of the importance of Jairus’ and the bleeding woman’s faith. It is their faith that Jesus responds to, their faith that is open to the miracles of healing.
Another spoke of the witnessing of the event by the three disciples in contrast to their sleeping during the transfiguration – so what?
Another, supposedly liberationist interpretation suggests the message of the stories lie in the welcoming of Jesus by Jairus, a synagogue official. In other words it is the leaving behind of traditional religion, the reforming of the institution that leads to liberation and healing.
But where are the central characters in this story?
Where are the young girl and the bleeding women?
Who are they?
They are the nameless ones, the ones we do not speak of?
Because we do not speak of death, particularly of a child.
Because we do not speak of women’s problems.
This is a church, not a doctor’s surgery.
We ask how people are and expect them to reply by following the rules.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
Such taboos were even more prevalent in 1st century Palestine than they are today. We laugh at the idea that women can be ritually unclean, that to touch a woman at a certain time in her cycle can render the one who touches unclean, that women are to be excluded from religious observances and thus from religious offices. We laugh, but how many of remnants of these taboos live on in silences, in that of which we dare not speak.
Of course in some societies the taboos work in a different way. In some societies a taboo is not a prohibition but the marking out of something as sacred. In many Native American cultures a woman goes into the sacredness of the sweat lodge at a certain point in her cycle. Because it is then that she is seen as being closest to the earth, closest to the Great Spirit. It is then that she is marked out and revered for her wisdom. And so women become elders, become leaders of their people.
Jesus by touching both the body of the girl and the bleeding women cuts across the taboos of bleeding and death. It must have taken Jesus a lot of guts to break these taboos and by doing so make himself ritually unclean.
For it is the cutting across the taboos, the breaking of barriers that brings healing.
Jesus touches where touch is not allowed.
Jesus reaches out where rejection would have been more acceptable.
Jesus speaks where to have walked the other way would have better fulfilled the religious laws.
And in touching, reaching out, speaking – healing is found.
Healing is found by the breaking of rules,
by the upsetting of religious respectability.
Healing is found in a very human,
very divine response to another’s pain,
in the most basic of human senses – touch.
But lest we get carried away and put Jesus too high on that pedestal lets just think a little more about his actions.
Jesus responds to a request from a high ranking official at the temple. To have responded in this way, while making Jesus ritually unclean for a while, would have improved his relationship with the religious leaders. It is to Jesus’ advantage to respond.
The bleeding woman is very different. She is an outcast. one with no status, one who apparently has no male relatives to protect her.
But Jesus doesn’t reach out to her, doesn’t offer healing to her. She just steps right out of the crowd and has the guts to touch Jesus.
Not only does Jesus cut across the taboos and break the barriers, the bleeding woman, rather than displaying the submissive behaviour deemed appropriate for a woman, reaches out and dares to initiate contact.
It is she who touches Jesus, she who initiates her own healing, she who takes it (not for anyone else) but for herself.
The credit to Jesus is given not because he offered healing, or reached out to the woman, but because he affirmed her claiming of healing for herself, he affirmed her breaking out of the suffering, submissive role. In our culture women are traditionally seen as passive and selfish if they take for themselves.
But here it is the woman who brought about her own healing, the woman who showed faith in herself – she touches Jesus – Jesus doesn’t rebuke her but says Good on you.
So this story cuts right across our gender stereotypes – Jesus is there to be taken from. The woman is the one who does the taking.
And it is in this challenging of stereotypes and breaking of taboos that this story has the potential to liberate, to cut through the silences, to break through the isolation and pain.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
So is this story reclaimable as more than a supernatural healing story that denies our human experiences of death and illness?
And if so, how can we relate this story of the breaking of taboos to our own lives?
What would it be like if the silence of our present day taboos were broken ?
What are the possibilities for wholeness that we deny ourselves because we dare not break taboos?
This story speaks to us not by calling us to faith in a miracle that cannot happen but as a way of empowering us to have faith in ourselves as the key to our wholeness.
In this story of the bleeding woman God is not portrayed as the cruel God who heals or not according to the strength of someone’s faith. Here God is understood rather differently from the God of the Old Testament who heals or not according to divine will. Here, it seems God is not in control, not the one who initiates healing but the one who responds. God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, or in control. Rather, here it is the woman who knows the path to her own healing, the woman who breaks the taboos, the woman who takes from God.
Rather God is portrayed as the Good Friday God, the God seen incarnate in Jesus who hangs on a cross, who bleeds, who dies. This is not the triumphal almighty, all powerful God, but the crucified God, the God who suffers, the God who dies. In this story we see a God, not as the divine initiator but as the one to whom things happen. Here God is not in control.
And it is precisely at this point, in the out-of-controlness that God identifies with us. That God connects with us in what we fear the most.
Why do we fear illness, why do we fear death? Because of their unknowability, because they are out of our control.
It is here that God connects with us in our deepest fear, in our deepest need.
It is here that God cuts through the pain and isolation of our deepest taboos.
And if it is God who is able to break these barriers, then it is the church who is called to model the interactions of our story, the church who are called to speak out for others, to reach out where others will not, to touch those society deems untouchable, to build communities of healing and of hope.
But we are also called to face the truth. And the truth about our churches are that they are often a very long way from the breaking of boundaries, the liberating of taboos.
Too often we are the ones who find the taboos hardest to break, the silences hardest to speak into. Too often, when faced with an opportunity to bring healing and hope we shut the doors.
And when we cannot shut the doors of our closets we air our conflicting opinions destructively and divisively in public and threaten to tear ourselves apart.
Why do the public not look to us for healing and hope? Maybe it is because sometimes we are too caught up in our religious rules and doctrines to take the acceptance and healing that God freely offers us.
Yesterday, at Mersey Street, was one of those wonderful occasions when you know that you’re breaking the rules, breaking the conventions but by doing so know you are celebrating the presence of the kingdom of God.
Yesterday, for the first time in 7 years we had a wedding at Mersey Street, he wedding of a couple in their late 40s surrounded by their children and grandchildren. It was the most unusual, down to earth, chaotic wedding I have ever been to, where no one was really sure what the conventions were so we made them up, but it was also one of the most wonderful, authentic weddings I’ve ever witnessed.
This was the bride’s 4th wedding – her track record should have warned us to steer clear– what you may ask possessed us as a church to agree to marry someone 3 times divorced, a couple who have already been living together for some years?
Because, this was the time to break the rules. This was the moment for the kingdom of God to be celebrated in their love for one another, their love which was too important to trust to a registry office, their love which wanted to be blessed by God, their love which gave them the courage to ask for a church wedding when all conventions should have warned them against it.
They had the courage to risk making fools of themselves and in doing so allowed us at Mersey Street to join in the celebrations of God’s kingdom. Here we took the love, acceptance and forgiveness offered by God and in doing so became alive, understood what it was to become fully human.
Because in becoming more fully human maybe we could begin to speak of resurrection hope to those who feel they are living in a Good Friday world.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
Are we ready to take God’s offer of healing and forgiveness?
Are we willing to break the boundaries and live resurrection hope in our Good Friday world?
Are we ready to reach out and become a place of healing and wholeness for our broken community?
“Christ’s is the world in which we move,
Christ’s are the folk we’re summoned to love,
Christ’s is the voice which calls us to care,
And Christ is the one who meets us here.
To the lost Christ shows his face,
To the unloved he gives his embrace,
To those who cry in pain of disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.”
© Iona, 1989, Love from below, 66-7.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend of mine as she recovered from surgery in St. Mary’s hospital. She was surrounded by cards, flowers and teddy bears from various family friends and colleagues so I happened to comment that it looked as if she’d been inundated with visitors.
Yes, she commented, but its very noticeable that as soon as you are on a gynaecological ward only women tend to visit. Maybe my male friends are too embarrassed to see me.
Even her consultant, she confided, hadn’t been able to look her in the eye when discussing her surgery with her.
And we laughed.
But there was a serious, more painful side to our laughter.
My friend is facing several months of further treatment and needs a huge amount of support. But its not something we tend to talk about in polite society. We don’t like to discuss what we call “women’s problems” let alone talk openly about an illness such as cancer.
There are certain taboos, certain subjects we’d prefer not to deal with, to brush under that carpet.
But where does that leave my friend? – facing the unknown, fearful and isolated in a society where late night chat shows reveal the erotic intimacies of peoples lives but where we cannot talk about our bodies, illness or even the possibility of death.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
When I first looked up the lectionary readings for today my initial reaction was groan. What on earth do I do with a story about a miraculous raising from the dead of a little girl and a woman with severe, crippling gynaecological problems?
So I started to look around on the web and in commentaries for some ideas. But what struck me was there failure to speak to me of the real issues these stories raise.
One spoke of the importance of Jairus’ and the bleeding woman’s faith. It is their faith that Jesus responds to, their faith that is open to the miracles of healing.
Another spoke of the witnessing of the event by the three disciples in contrast to their sleeping during the transfiguration – so what?
Another, supposedly liberationist interpretation suggests the message of the stories lie in the welcoming of Jesus by Jairus, a synagogue official. In other words it is the leaving behind of traditional religion, the reforming of the institution that leads to liberation and healing.
But where are the central characters in this story?
Where are the young girl and the bleeding women?
Who are they?
They are the nameless ones, the ones we do not speak of?
Because we do not speak of death, particularly of a child.
Because we do not speak of women’s problems.
This is a church, not a doctor’s surgery.
We ask how people are and expect them to reply by following the rules.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
Such taboos were even more prevalent in 1st century Palestine than they are today. We laugh at the idea that women can be ritually unclean, that to touch a woman at a certain time in her cycle can render the one who touches unclean, that women are to be excluded from religious observances and thus from religious offices. We laugh, but how many of remnants of these taboos live on in silences, in that of which we dare not speak.
Of course in some societies the taboos work in a different way. In some societies a taboo is not a prohibition but the marking out of something as sacred. In many Native American cultures a woman goes into the sacredness of the sweat lodge at a certain point in her cycle. Because it is then that she is seen as being closest to the earth, closest to the Great Spirit. It is then that she is marked out and revered for her wisdom. And so women become elders, become leaders of their people.
Jesus by touching both the body of the girl and the bleeding women cuts across the taboos of bleeding and death. It must have taken Jesus a lot of guts to break these taboos and by doing so make himself ritually unclean.
For it is the cutting across the taboos, the breaking of barriers that brings healing.
Jesus touches where touch is not allowed.
Jesus reaches out where rejection would have been more acceptable.
Jesus speaks where to have walked the other way would have better fulfilled the religious laws.
And in touching, reaching out, speaking – healing is found.
Healing is found by the breaking of rules,
by the upsetting of religious respectability.
Healing is found in a very human,
very divine response to another’s pain,
in the most basic of human senses – touch.
But lest we get carried away and put Jesus too high on that pedestal lets just think a little more about his actions.
Jesus responds to a request from a high ranking official at the temple. To have responded in this way, while making Jesus ritually unclean for a while, would have improved his relationship with the religious leaders. It is to Jesus’ advantage to respond.
The bleeding woman is very different. She is an outcast. one with no status, one who apparently has no male relatives to protect her.
But Jesus doesn’t reach out to her, doesn’t offer healing to her. She just steps right out of the crowd and has the guts to touch Jesus.
Not only does Jesus cut across the taboos and break the barriers, the bleeding woman, rather than displaying the submissive behaviour deemed appropriate for a woman, reaches out and dares to initiate contact.
It is she who touches Jesus, she who initiates her own healing, she who takes it (not for anyone else) but for herself.
The credit to Jesus is given not because he offered healing, or reached out to the woman, but because he affirmed her claiming of healing for herself, he affirmed her breaking out of the suffering, submissive role. In our culture women are traditionally seen as passive and selfish if they take for themselves.
But here it is the woman who brought about her own healing, the woman who showed faith in herself – she touches Jesus – Jesus doesn’t rebuke her but says Good on you.
So this story cuts right across our gender stereotypes – Jesus is there to be taken from. The woman is the one who does the taking.
And it is in this challenging of stereotypes and breaking of taboos that this story has the potential to liberate, to cut through the silences, to break through the isolation and pain.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
So is this story reclaimable as more than a supernatural healing story that denies our human experiences of death and illness?
And if so, how can we relate this story of the breaking of taboos to our own lives?
What would it be like if the silence of our present day taboos were broken ?
What are the possibilities for wholeness that we deny ourselves because we dare not break taboos?
This story speaks to us not by calling us to faith in a miracle that cannot happen but as a way of empowering us to have faith in ourselves as the key to our wholeness.
In this story of the bleeding woman God is not portrayed as the cruel God who heals or not according to the strength of someone’s faith. Here God is understood rather differently from the God of the Old Testament who heals or not according to divine will. Here, it seems God is not in control, not the one who initiates healing but the one who responds. God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, or in control. Rather, here it is the woman who knows the path to her own healing, the woman who breaks the taboos, the woman who takes from God.
Rather God is portrayed as the Good Friday God, the God seen incarnate in Jesus who hangs on a cross, who bleeds, who dies. This is not the triumphal almighty, all powerful God, but the crucified God, the God who suffers, the God who dies. In this story we see a God, not as the divine initiator but as the one to whom things happen. Here God is not in control.
And it is precisely at this point, in the out-of-controlness that God identifies with us. That God connects with us in what we fear the most.
Why do we fear illness, why do we fear death? Because of their unknowability, because they are out of our control.
It is here that God connects with us in our deepest fear, in our deepest need.
It is here that God cuts through the pain and isolation of our deepest taboos.
And if it is God who is able to break these barriers, then it is the church who is called to model the interactions of our story, the church who are called to speak out for others, to reach out where others will not, to touch those society deems untouchable, to build communities of healing and of hope.
But we are also called to face the truth. And the truth about our churches are that they are often a very long way from the breaking of boundaries, the liberating of taboos.
Too often we are the ones who find the taboos hardest to break, the silences hardest to speak into. Too often, when faced with an opportunity to bring healing and hope we shut the doors.
And when we cannot shut the doors of our closets we air our conflicting opinions destructively and divisively in public and threaten to tear ourselves apart.
Why do the public not look to us for healing and hope? Maybe it is because sometimes we are too caught up in our religious rules and doctrines to take the acceptance and healing that God freely offers us.
Yesterday, at Mersey Street, was one of those wonderful occasions when you know that you’re breaking the rules, breaking the conventions but by doing so know you are celebrating the presence of the kingdom of God.
Yesterday, for the first time in 7 years we had a wedding at Mersey Street, he wedding of a couple in their late 40s surrounded by their children and grandchildren. It was the most unusual, down to earth, chaotic wedding I have ever been to, where no one was really sure what the conventions were so we made them up, but it was also one of the most wonderful, authentic weddings I’ve ever witnessed.
This was the bride’s 4th wedding – her track record should have warned us to steer clear– what you may ask possessed us as a church to agree to marry someone 3 times divorced, a couple who have already been living together for some years?
Because, this was the time to break the rules. This was the moment for the kingdom of God to be celebrated in their love for one another, their love which was too important to trust to a registry office, their love which wanted to be blessed by God, their love which gave them the courage to ask for a church wedding when all conventions should have warned them against it.
They had the courage to risk making fools of themselves and in doing so allowed us at Mersey Street to join in the celebrations of God’s kingdom. Here we took the love, acceptance and forgiveness offered by God and in doing so became alive, understood what it was to become fully human.
Because in becoming more fully human maybe we could begin to speak of resurrection hope to those who feel they are living in a Good Friday world.
There are some things we do not talk about.
There are some things of which we dare not speak.
Taboos, we say, exist for a reason,
taboos keep order in society,
taboos keep us from facing our violence and our vulnerability,
taboos keep us from facing our ignorance and our fears
but taboos silence those who most need to speak,
taboos isolate those who most need people around them,
taboos allow us to hide, rather than face the truth.
Are we ready to take God’s offer of healing and forgiveness?
Are we willing to break the boundaries and live resurrection hope in our Good Friday world?
Are we ready to reach out and become a place of healing and wholeness for our broken community?
“Christ’s is the world in which we move,
Christ’s are the folk we’re summoned to love,
Christ’s is the voice which calls us to care,
And Christ is the one who meets us here.
To the lost Christ shows his face,
To the unloved he gives his embrace,
To those who cry in pain of disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.”
© Iona, 1989, Love from below, 66-7.
At last!
At last I've managed to log in and so can post up a couple of the sermons Tim has been talking about - better late than never.
Sunday, June 29, 2003
A Touching Place
There can't be too many wedding ceremonies that end with the declaration of marriage and the immortal words, "You many now snog!"
Rob and Janet's wedding was the first wedding at Mersey Street for seven years. Janet had been married three times before, but she had been with Rob for eight years and there was no doubt that not only was their relationship steady, but that they both took extremely seriously the vows they were asking us to help them make.
I didn't hesitate for a moment in agreeing that they could be married in church. Here was a family who had been through some appalling times recently. One daughter's partner had committed suicide last year. Rob himself, having had twenty three operations before he was four, had had another series of operations to help him walk without a stick. Financially, times have been hard, but they still wanted to make their relationship official in God's presence.
They came down the aisle to Wagner's wedding march. They left the church to Wagner's wedding march played by Queen on the electric guitar. At one point the matron of honour, more used to jeans than a silver dress, actually jumped over one of the chairs chasing one of the smaller children. The young ones felt free to come and go during the service and to go out to play in our playpit. Janet got tongue tied and struggled with her vows, which had to be repeated several times. All in all it was one of the most chaotic - but above all authentic - weddings I have ever attended.
Rob and Janet might just be the last couple to marry in our church. We have plans to move out within the next couple of years. People in Openshaw tend not to marry nowadays. It's an expensive business, but above all, folk don't trust the church and don't see that it has any relevence in their lives.
Clare's brilliant sermon this week was based on Mark 5, the story of the haemorraging woman. Hopefully, this week she will get round to posting her sermon, but its theme was breaking taboos. It really felt that in marrying Rob and Janet, we were breaking some of the taboos which keep the church aloof from the lives of the people all around us. Reaching out and touching where they need.
Rob and Janet's wedding was the first wedding at Mersey Street for seven years. Janet had been married three times before, but she had been with Rob for eight years and there was no doubt that not only was their relationship steady, but that they both took extremely seriously the vows they were asking us to help them make.
I didn't hesitate for a moment in agreeing that they could be married in church. Here was a family who had been through some appalling times recently. One daughter's partner had committed suicide last year. Rob himself, having had twenty three operations before he was four, had had another series of operations to help him walk without a stick. Financially, times have been hard, but they still wanted to make their relationship official in God's presence.
They came down the aisle to Wagner's wedding march. They left the church to Wagner's wedding march played by Queen on the electric guitar. At one point the matron of honour, more used to jeans than a silver dress, actually jumped over one of the chairs chasing one of the smaller children. The young ones felt free to come and go during the service and to go out to play in our playpit. Janet got tongue tied and struggled with her vows, which had to be repeated several times. All in all it was one of the most chaotic - but above all authentic - weddings I have ever attended.
Rob and Janet might just be the last couple to marry in our church. We have plans to move out within the next couple of years. People in Openshaw tend not to marry nowadays. It's an expensive business, but above all, folk don't trust the church and don't see that it has any relevence in their lives.
Clare's brilliant sermon this week was based on Mark 5, the story of the haemorraging woman. Hopefully, this week she will get round to posting her sermon, but its theme was breaking taboos. It really felt that in marrying Rob and Janet, we were breaking some of the taboos which keep the church aloof from the lives of the people all around us. Reaching out and touching where they need.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Adverts
Hmm
This blog is kindly hosted by Blogger.com for free. In return, they place discrete adverts at the top of the page which are designed to persuade you to buy stuff.
They seem to have a clever programme that searches the content of the blog and makes the adverts relevant to the blog. For a few days, they were advertising hotels in Manchester.
Today, I notice that we are advertising theological bookshops. A worthy cause indeed :-)
However, in view of my blog about the Trinity below, I do think it is slightly ironic that one of the advertisers, under the heading of "The Trinity & the Bible" offers to 'Let the Bible Explain the doctrine of the trinity'
If you are following this blog, then you will already begin to discern that we are far more concerned with 'exploring the questions' than we are with expounding the answers. So, if you want answers, then I suggest you follow the link to www.glasgowkelvin.org.uk If like us, you are more concerned with the questions, then stick with The Openshaw Connection!
