John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

This great absence - on the outbreak of the First World War

They are not here.

And we, we are the Others

Who walk by ourselves unquestioned in the sun

Which shines for us and only for us.

For They are not here.

And are made known to us in this great absence

That lies upon us and is between us

- Edwin Muir's 'The Absent' opened our Lights Out service of Remembrance, Prayer and Penitence on the Centenary of the Outbreak of the First World War, last Monday. You can download a pdf of the event script, in its entirety, here.

 

The Trojan Horse and the weeds and the wheat: how can we oppose evil without being made evil ourselves?

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to Birmingham Education Authority, tasked with sowing good seed among the children of the city; but while everybody went about their business, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat; their scheme - to spread extremist Islamic views in the city’s schools - they called Operation Trojan Horse. One day the alleged scheme came to light. And the people of Birmingham protested, saying, ‘We expect our schools to promote ‘British values’ of tolerance and fairness; how, then, did these extremists infiltrate them?’ The government answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The Prime Minister reinforced his commitment to assert ‘British values’ with a ‘muscular’ approach against ‘preachers of hate’. But others warned of the dangers of a witch-hunt, of upsetting the delicate balance of Birmingham’s racial ecology, of the dangers of trying to get rid of extremism by adopting extremist ways oneself. And if anyone had asked him Jesus would have repeated what he first said all those years before, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest’.

One of the most pressing questions facing the world today is, How can we oppose evil without creating new evils and being made evil ourselves? This is the question provoked by the parable of the weeds and the wheat. ...

 - from my talk today, The Trojan Horse and the Weeds and the Wheat - how can we oppose evil without being made evil ourselves? The 'pressing question' is Walter Wink's, from Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. This seminal book has underpinned my theology for the past 20 years or more; I was redirected to it again by Paul Neuchterlein’s Reflections and Questions on today’s reading in his Girardian Lectionary, Year A, Proper 11a.

Thank you for Nick Beattie

Nick Beattie has passed away and I am so grateful to have known him, and to be certain in the hope of seeing him again in glory. Ours was one of those special and unusual friendships which curates enjoy, especially those sorts of curates like me, at the time I was in Wavertree, who find a kindred spirit in a person of very different upbringing and profession. Nick was an educator at the highest level, a gifted researcher and writer who also gave his energy and considerable skill to the humbler task of communicating the gospel of the peaceable Christ to small groups and congregations in our modest (if occasionally aspirational) Liverpool suburb.

I loved getting creative with Nick, in conversations buzzing with ideas which led to adventures like sculpture-interpretation walks around central Liverpool, mosque and synogogue visits for parishioners, evening explorations in theology and the arts for groups of Readers, and even at one point me starting a PhD with Nick's support as academic referee.

When I think of Nick I remember most his enthusiasm for life, for people, for conversation, manifested most of all in his frequent, warm smiles. His faith was open, generous and embracing of all that affirms human flourishing across boundaries, the sort of faith which thrills me. I felt honoured to be a guest at his 70th birthday celebrations and it was there that I realised the other central aspect of Nick's life and motivation - his and Margaret's generous nurture of a large family, each having flown the nest and with their wings spread across the world, with international marriages and bilingual children, but continuing to be close to Nick the keen traveller, the skilled linguist and most of all the loving patron of youth.

In his later years Nick wrote two excellent studies of Holy Trinity - Transformation: the remodelling and extension of Holy Trinity Church, Wavertree, Liverpool, 1911, which The Victorian Society (Liverpool Branch) accurately described as 'a vivid account', and the more recent Holy Trinity Church and the First World War, which embraces the wartime career of the rector Canon Mitchell and a study of the Memorial in Holy Trinity churchyard whose erection he championed and which the Bishop of Liverpool dedicated on 11 November 1920. Both studies are meticulously researched and full of human interest, drawing on Nick's skill in getting under the surface of dry meeting minutes and parish magazine reports, to bring out the character of those involved.

Typical of Nick's pedagogical approach, the first of these books was launched as an 'excursion' around the area and when he introduced the WWI study to The Wavertree Society earlier this year it was in the form of 'a visit, not just a passive talk. We'll visit the graves of the Rector who inaugurated the first public war memorial on Merseyside, of his main artistic adviser (Sir Charles Reilly) and a few post-1918 graves of servicemen which obey the strict instructions of the Imperial War Graves Commission ... I can promise plenty of questions, perhaps rather fewer answers...' That last sentence is Nick in essence - keep all lines of enquiry open, be winningly modest, raise a gentle smile.

The Prodigal Sower

... the part about wrath is our earthly way of telling the story because there's something else very important to unlearn - that is, the way we are constantly trying to decide who's in and who's out. Now, this parable seems to divide up people into groups of who's in and who's out. There are three kinds of soil, representing three kinds of people, who resist and reject God's word as bearing fruit in them. They all reject the word. Our temptation is to assume that we are the good soil - but are we? 

- from my talk today, Matthew 13 - The Prodigal Sower (actually one of Paul Neuchterlein's, slightly altered. A great teacher and inspiration.)

On becoming unburdened

You may know that joke about the graffiti on the wall of a university toilet. It consists of three quotations:

'To be is to do' - Socrates. 

'To do is to be' - Jean-Paul Sartre.

'Do be do be do' - Frank Sinatra.

Well, I think we could add to that list, that tongue-twister of a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans today, where he says:

'I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ... I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.'

Now as we smile at the contortions Paul is putting himself through here, to describe his inner turmoil, we may also sympathise with him, very keenly.

'I do not understand my own actions,' Paul says. 'For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ... I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do'.

I can’t help myself, Paul seem to be saying. I want to live a virtuous, Godly life. I know what I should be doing to make that happen. But I always seem to end up doing the opposite instead. ...

- from my talk today, On becoming unburdened.