Rebel Rev encourages questions in an assembly with a difference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq2UJWNbsUQ

Some inspiration for my LGBTI friends and supporters

Love one another - Simples!

A few words from Rebel Rev on Maundy Thursday which for Christians is the days before Good Friday. 

Many years ago something awful happened to me after I'd been to the Maundy Thursday service. I poignantly feel the raw emotions out poured in our Easter story. The reading set for tonight is John 13: 1-17, 31b-35. If you are not familiar google it or check out your bible. My experiences in life have shown me how awful human beings can be and also how amazing they can be. That is why I will always stand up for love and always encourage everyone else to follow that amzing new commandment given by Jesus that we should "Love one another" I hope you have a blessed Holy Week. The following is a short reflection on that passage from John that I shall deliver tonight in our Eucharist.

May my words be in the name of the living God creating redeeming and sustaining. Amen

Wendy and I went to the Cathedral for the Chrism Mass today. Something we haven’t done together for years. It was really nice and +Christopher preached very well. One of the things he said about the gospel reading for that service was that it was like an episode of Come Dine With Me. Well I think our reading this week are more like an episode of East Enders. We have betrayal and denial by two of Jesus closest mates. We have some strange and extravagant behaviour at a dinner party. We have the dark night of the soul where Jesus doubts that he has the strength to face what is coming his way and the fight in the garden when a soldier is badly hurt. Actually it sounds like one of my family parties.

We have loneliness, abandonment, treachery, humiliation, tiredness, brutality, hopelessness, stoicism, bravery, forgiveness, compassion, wisdom. The list of words that express the feelings that went on during the events around our Holy Week stories are endless, just like the list of experiences we have and the feelings that accompany them. That’s why I love being a Christian because I know that my God intimately understands all the trials and tribulations that have befallen me. God doesn’t just understand them God has lived through them in the human life Of Jesus. Ain’t that good that we can talk to God about anything and know that God gets it?

This gospel passage is special to me. It was the first ever reading I was given and asked to write a sermon on. Jeffrey John had set us this exercise during my New Testament studies and I felt a bit weird about doing it. I still couldn’t see myself standing up in front of people and preaching at that point in time. Anyway I enjoyed the exercise I was really surprised that I got the highest mark in the class for my exegetical sermon. As a result Jeffrey made me read out my assignment to the rest of the class. Oh my days! I can still remember saying to him “You want me to do what!” I did it with shaky legs and a shaky voice. 

I needn’t have worried but I just hadn’t updated my image of myself at that point. I re-read that sermon in preparation for tonight and I have a few copies if you’d like one. In a nutshell I was talking about Jesus knowing he was soon to die and yet doing this very beautiful thing for his followers in washing their feet. In that act I can imagine Jesus having a special word with each person and leaving them some words of comfort as a parting gift like people often do with their loved ones when they have a terminal illness. I still think that now all these years on but I’d like to develop that a bit further. Terminally ill people know their brokenness. They know their wounds, they know their frailties and yet so many continue to sacrificially give of themselves to those around them. 

Brokenness is an important word to the Maundy Thursday liturgy. It’s when we remember the Passover meal and the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all have the words about the broken bread and Jesus saying “do this in remembrance of me.” That’s why we see it as the institution of Holy Communion. We have been learning with Wendy about John’s gospel being different and John gives us the theology so in John’s gospel we have no details about the meal because for John, Jesus is the Passover meal, he is what is to be broken.

I was reading something earlier that said Maundy came from the same route as mandate. I’m not sure how accurate that is but I like it because tonight we are given a mandate. We are told very clearly remember me, love one another and then Jesus gives us this great example of how to do it.

The whole of human endeavour is outpoured in our Holy Week stories. Our job is to remember the mandate. Simples!

So let’s read that gospel again and really listen to the mandate and think about what character or characters we are or have been and why. Where are you at tonight and if Jesus was washing your feet what would he say to you? We can share these experiences with each other after we listen to the passage.

Reading and discussion

And so I say again the whole of human endeavour is outpoured in our Holy Week stories. Our job is to remember the mandate. Simples! Amen

Let them know we are Christians by our love

This was the sermon I preached the week before I was asked to comment on the Equal Marriage Legislation that was to come into law in England. May be I listened to myself and it is behind the rest of the radio and TV interviews. Maybe it was still in my mind when I asked ++Justin the question that has led to such controvosy in the Anglican Communion. As it was an important part of my thinking process at that time I thought I'd share it via my blog. 

May my words be in the name of the living God, creating, redeeming and sustaining. Amen.

Thank you for inviting me to your beautiful church and what rich readings I have to preach on today. In some respects that gospel reading shouldn’t be there because by the rules of the time Jesus and the unnamed Samaritan woman shouldn’t have had a conversation. Not only did they have a good old natter, they chatted about theological topics. The woman obviously knew her scripture.
To me the woman is an interesting character. It would have been customary for women to travel together and collect the water early in the morning before the heat of the day was upon them. As there was no Facebook or texting, this was important community time when they could touch base with each other and support and uphold each other in life’s ups and downs. 

Our woman is out and about in the heat of the noonday sun. She is alone. She is shunned by her community. She has had it hard. There have been 5 previous husbands. We don’t know whether they are dead or have divorced her. It is clear, and just from that little bit of knowledge, we can tell she has had it tough. She is with a 6^th man and is not married to him. It would be easy to fall into judging her and thinking she is a shady character because of all these men in her life and then living in ‘sin’. We have to remember the culture though. Women had to pay a dowry to get married. It could be that after 5 husbands there was nothing left. We just don’t know and I think it’s important not to get dragged in to being judgmental.

Another bit of background information for you is the reason behind the animosity between the Jewish and Samaritan cultures. The Jews and Samaritans are actually related people. Both are Hebrews. The Samaritans are from the old northern kingdom of Israel, while the Jews are from the old southern kingdom of Judah. To cut a long story short, the Samaritans inter-married with non-Jewish people and lost much of their ethnic identity, while the Jews maintained theirs and kept separate. Each group ended up with their own temple, the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Jews on Mount Zion. And so it is a really strange choice that Jesus makes to travel through what he would’ve known was Samaritan territory. That he strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan and a lone woman is even stranger and is breaching lots of taboos

I think you could take this gospel reading off in a number of directions but to me its essence is about difference, compassion acceptance and forgiveness. Should be a piece of cake to us all these 1000’s of years later but it’s not that easy is it? All that forgiveness business is really challenging. As you know I work at St Augustine Academy. I don’t know if you can remember back to the emotional challenges of your teenage years but I am often called upon to mediate in disputes with the kids. They get very hurt and upset when they don’t feel accepted by their peers. Friendship issues can be very challenging at that age. We have a way of dealing with some of these challenges by using a restorative justice approach. This concentrates on the wrongdoer explaining what they were thinking and feeling at the time the incident happened and how they think and feel differently once they realise who has been impacted by their actions and in what way they have hurt someone. Then it’s their job to put it right. The young people come up with their own punishments which are often far more difficult than had it been left to a traditional model of staff sorting it out. It has a huge and beneficial impact on all who are involved. The key component is the wrong doer has to acknowledge the harm they have done.

A friend and neighbour of mine was murdered a few years ago. Life is sometimes not easy! And forgiveness is not an easy gift to give! Yet, for our own health, it is a necessity. Yet I also have to acknowledge I have a stumbling block over the word forgiveness. I don’t like the fact that Christians sometimes abuse the gift of forgiveness and sometimes people are forced into a position of forgiveness with the person in the wrong having never acknowledged any wrong doing. In order to get over that stumbling block I’d like us this morning to interchange the words forgiveness and reconciliation. It’s like when you change the word should to could it can be totally transforming. I should pray more becomes I could pray more. So when I’m talking about forgiveness I also want you to hear reconcile and reconciliation.

Ever since I can remember the world has been faced with great outbursts of hatred, bitterness, and anger; and various groups, countries and individuals have caused enormous harm to others. And what really gets me is that often these actions are done “in the name of God.” But our God is not a God of hatred. Our God is a God of unending and unconditional love. Jesus shows that by crossing the cultural divide with the Samaritan woman. He holds no animosity towards her because of her race or her ‘sinful’ state.
    
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is one of my hero’s He used to also be the chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is where restorative justice approaches came from. He says this, “to forgive is a process that does not exclude hate and anger. These emotions are all part of being human.” He continues, “You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things; the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.” This great Anglican humanitarian and spiritual pioneer reminds us of our responsibilities. Tutu stresses that, “When I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred.” 

You know until we find in ourselves the capacity to forgive and reconcile, and the ability to celebrate our differences and see our sameness, we continue to be linked to the cause of our anger and our unforgiving harsh emotions. Only as we reconcile/forgive/accept/love are we able to move on and become the person that God has called us to be.

There was a young woman interviewed on television not long after one of the London bombings. She survived the bomb on the tube, and miraculously escaped with only bruises and the psychological scars that such an event would leave. She was asked by a reporter could she forgive those who caused the bombing? She answered, “I would hope that I could, but I don’t know who to forgive. Until I am able to see the face of such hatred, I do not know how deep I must dig in my spirit to find forgiveness.” 

Another woman who was a Non Stipendairy Priest stopped her role as a cleric because her daughter was killed in the same wave of bombing. She said how could she prech about forgivemness if she couldnt practice it herself.

Hatred comes in many forms; tragedies like 9/11, the suicide bombings in Palestine and Israel, Muslims killing Muslims, young gangs doing harm to other young people with guns and knives. Russia and the Ukraine and the Crimea. On it goes. It’s also important that we remember the awful crimes that are committed because someone is different just by virtue of their birth like Steven Lawrence.
I’m talking about big things, yet acts requiring forgiveness are often much more personal to most of us than what I’ve been talking about. Incidents of simple human frailties challenge each of us often on a daily basis:

• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness in painful family relationships.
• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness with an employer or a difficult boss. 
• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness with a friend who’s not been there for us.
• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness for the teacher who may have judged us wrongly.
• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness when in conflict with your husband/wife/partner
• The need to find reconciliation or forgiveness when “the church” turns against what we believe

Fortunately God is in the reconciliation and forgiveness business! God sent God’s only Son to save us from getting caught up in the mess of the world and drowning in our petty differences. Jesus gives us a prime example of how to live in love. Week after week our gospel readings show him living happily and contentedly with the people the rest of society shunned.

We need to follow Jesus example and move on from things. We need to be reconciled. It will not be easy, but God is there to help. We can do this by simply offering that person who is driving us nuts up to God. That’s always a good starting point. When we forgive and move into reconciliation we make a choice that heals.

We may never forget the hurt we have experienced, but we can choose to move on. Time does heal memories. Time can dull the vividness of the hurt and so the memory will fade. We must never let the person who hurt us, own us. A quote puts it like this “bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”

My father was alcoholic. How did I move on from an abusive father who never acknowledged any wrong doing? I do it and have done it because that is the only way I can be free. I refuse to be bound by the things of the past. I can be reconciled without condoning the awful things that were done to me. None of us should ever excuse the atrocities which we experience or that happen in the world. We don’t accept what’s happened to us but we can change the way we react to it. What has helped me is knowing that God loves me utterly with such love that at times it overwhelms me. God shows that love to each and everyone of us through our friends, our families and neighbours and by our church communities. We are the channels of God’s love and healing power in the world. 

What can you do today with all that love that is available to you? Is there someone you need to forgive or be reconciled to? Is there a group of people you are suspicious of like the Jews and Samaritans were? Do you hold hostility in your heart about certain issues? Is there someone you need to say sorry too? Why not go for it and let these things go remembering that Jesus has already shown you the way so you won’t be on your own.
Amen

Rebel Rev lives up to her name

It’s with a mixture of emotions that I write this blog. I am happy that I am me and able to vocalise what many feel but are too afraid to say. I am sad and I am angry. What has led me to such a place?

It’s been a strange week. I was on a course and minding my own business when I had a call from BBC Radio Kent. They asked if I was prepared to make a comment about the Equal Marriage Bill that was coming into being that weekend. Many same sex couples were getting married at midnight Fri/Sat. Of course I was happy to make my views known. I made it clear that it was incomprehensible to me that I could bless an inanimate object, I could bless an animal, I could even bless a tank going off to war if asked but I couldn’t bless the union of a loving same sex couple. I think this is outrageous and not in keeping with my reading of the bible.

Just the previous Sunday we had the gospel reading that gives us the story of Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well. This is the longest conversation recorded in the Gospels. In every aspect of it, Jesus is pushing boundaries and crossing cultural divides. He doesn’t condemn the woman and debates theology with her. He breaks many taboos of the day. Isn’t that something to emulate?

After my interview on the breakfast show I was then contacted by BBC Southeast and asked if I would do an interview for the news. I of course did this too. Any opportunity to push for change has to be taken. Any opportunity to challenge oppression and marginalisation has to be taken. Any opportunity to point out the inconsistency with the God of love and the church’s position has to be taken. I was also asked to do an interview for a local paper. All of the presenters and journalists I spoke to thought my position refreshing and there needs to be more priests like me. My stock answer to this is there are more priests like me. The problem is it’s often the anti voice that shouts the loudest. I’m also very aware that many of my colleagues who may agree with me are afraid of speaking out in case they lose their jobs.

Over the course of the next week I was reminded of my duty to uphold the churches current teachings. I also had people refuse to meet me because of my outspokenness. What a shame. Their loss, but I respect their right to a different opinion.

Next I discovered that Archbishop Justin Welby would be taking calls on LBC with one of my favourite presenters James O’Brien. I emailed them a question and was invited to ring in and ask the question. I was slightly worried about the timing as I was taking a service in church for most of the phone in. I managed to get out just in time and asked the Archbishop the last question of the show. In a nutshell I was asking why, as priests, we couldn’t bless same sex couples and use our own conscience like happened when the remarriage of divorcees came about in church. This could be the case while we waited for a synodical process to go through that could change the rules to allow equal marriage in church.

I was shocked and saddened by Justin’s response. Much has been publicised and blogged about Justin’s answer by theologians and people far and wide in the Anglican Communion. As the person who asked the question and a bog standard priest in the Church of England I feel extremely let down by my institution and the Archbishop. He said that we couldn’t move forward with a more liberal agenda in the UK without it having a devastating effect on people in Africa. He told a story about standing at a mass grave and had been told the people were killed because of the liberal changes in America. That’s like wondering why a woman in a violent relationship who is murdered didn’t leave, instead of asking the murderer why he killed her. Violence always needs to be condemned. The Archbishop didn’t do this. Murder and homophobia are the issues, not liberalism in the UK. Can you imagine what would have happened if Gandhi had given in to the violence and not challenged the marginalisation and oppression at the salt mines? How different would the world be if Wilberforce wasn’t listened to because the slaves might have been further abused? What would have happened if the civil rights movement hadn’t progressed because people were scared of the violence of the KKK? Women are killed and maimed today because they are being educated. Just ask Malala. Does that mean we shouldn’t educate girls? Apartheid was atrocious in its outpouring of violence. Should we not have campaigned because more black people would have been killed? What Justin said put the power in the hands of the oppressors and those who wield violence.

Let’s be clear, it’s not only Africa that kills people because of homophobia. I live in London, a very cosmopolitan city, yet my neighbour was killed in a homophobic attack. I had a friend who took his own life because he couldn’t cope with coming to terms with his sexuality in the face of homophobia from his family, friends and church. There are many people hurt and trapped by homophobia and a lack of acceptance in the UK.

 If God is love, we should be free to express that and surround all people with love. It is wrong to withhold God’s blessing from anyone who is living in loving, faithful and committed relationships. I didn’t set out this week to start a potential international incident or bring the Anglican Communion into disrepute. I have read blogs from priest in America who are very upset by Justin’s response. They are wondering why the finger is being pointed at them for violence in Africa. I didn’t set out to challenge the institution. I did, however, set out to stand up for love and condemn oppression and marginalisation. The Archbishop really missed the mark by not condemning the violence and hatred in Africa.

I really hope that in a small way people may see little chinks of light and love when they see that there are ordinary priests working to make a change to unjust rules. The Archbishop recently said that his reading of the bible commands him to be outspoken. Well I read that bible as well and am proud to have a hoodie that says “Jesus was a rebel too”. Those of you reading this that don’t go to church, please don’t judge God by the actions of Christian’s or the institution. I hope always to stand up for love and I can’t see the wrong in that.