John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Promises, promises: or just empty words?

... that man of promise is Jesus. For us, Jesus is the source of all that is just and right. For us, Jesus is the one who brings salvation and keeps us safe. How vital this knowledge is in the world we live in today. A world continuing to promise itself that we are civilised and progressive whilst terror inflicts itself into ordinary people’s lives as never before.  A world promising that endless consumption is the way forward while the forests of Indonesia burn and the waters of Pakistan rise, and the icecaps of Greenland melt. It’s a world we recognise as being very much like the world Jesus described to his disciples in Luke 21.25-36, a world where ‘People … faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens [seem to] be shaken.’

- from my talk for Advent Sunday, Promises, promises: or just empty words? 

There is another way altogether

In this dark and fearful time we’re living through, we're thankful today to have reached the feast of Christ the King. For the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven which Jesus brought into the world encourages us that - despite what the world aggressively tells us - there is another way altogether. Christ the king teaches and shows us that in a world of violence there is a way of peace; that in a world of fear there is a way of love; that in a world of scapegoating and mistrust there is a way of community. That way, we celebrate today.

Our service has the same structure as usual but the words we will be using are based entirely on Jesus' teachings about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, in the hope that they may help direct us on the way as we go out from here, back into that world, re-envisioned.

- my introduction to worship this morning. Two downloads here for you, should you find them helpful: A Kingdom Communion (for the feast of Christ the King), and A Kingdom Liturgy (for everyday use).

James Bond, ISIS, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 - Spectre - version)

Poignant that the funeral mass for René Girard - the great theorist who taught us so much about violence and the sacred - took place on the same day as Europe reeled with the shock of the terror attacks on Paris. The synchronicity is unsurprising, given the ongoing activities of ISIS and Boko Haram, and (sometimes retaliatory) state-sponsored violence throughout the globe. Rene's legacy is a great body of insight and understanding of how we are all tied into (what Walter Wink coined) the myth of redemptive violence - and how the gospel radically liberates us from it. Girard became a convert when he saw these liberating realities revealed in the scriptures; and his insights continue to shine in a troubled word. In recognition of all this I've re-titled my talk from yesterday, an old favourite reworked for these times: James Bond, ISIS, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 - Spectre - version).

James Bond, Jesus, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 - Spectre - version)

... Eventually Ray and Vi got to meet all three of the young men convicted of killing their son. Ray said: “When we met all three offenders and told them what it was like for us, and the things we went through and are still going through, and told them about the ripple effect and how it affected everyone from our family to the community, it made them realise the amount of people that were affected by their actions.

“Then to hear them say sorry made us both feel like a ton of coal was taken off our back. We felt free for the first time because we got all we ever wanted. We got answers to our questions and the truth. Now we hope we can leave those questions in the past and move on into the future.” 

Restorative justice as a sign of the kingdom vs. the myth of redemptive violence - from my talk today James Bond, Jesus, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 - Spectre - version). Quote, in Prisons Week, from the Restorative Justice Council - Ray and Vi’s story.

 

What did they bring back from the war? (The Jonah version)

One of our greatest contemporary prophets, the philosopher René Girard, who died this week, once wrote, 

"Violence is a slavery; it imposes upon people a false conception of God as well as everything else. This is why is is a closed kingdom. To escape from violence would mean to escape from this kingdom to enter another kingdom that most of us cannot even imagine: the kingdom of love which is also the kingdom of the true God, this father of Jesus of whom the prisoners of violence don't have the slightest idea".

- from What did they bring back from the war? (The Jonah version), my Remembrance Sunday talk.

 

My All Saints Day roll of honour

 

On this All Saints Day we recall all those ghosts saints and souls we hold in blessed memory:

 

We recall those first signs of our first human ancestors,

200,000 years ago, in what we now call the Rift Valley, Kenya;

the Mesolithic People, the first ‘Britons’ in a land

we would recognise, after the last Ice Age, 11,000 years ago:

 

We recall Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac, about 4,000 years ago, of 2000 BC,

journeying into the unknown, with just Trust in a Hunch;

and beginning the Story of Faith that is the Bible;

to become Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and

the Renaissance, the Human, Social and the Political Sciences:

 

We recall Naomi and Ruth, Isaiah and the ‘discovery’ of  YAHWEH

by the powerless people of Israel:

John The Baptist and all the Prophets,

who spoke God’s truth no matter the cost:

We recall Mary, full of grace, called to be the singer of the song

of the poor, and the mother of the lord of the dance:

We recall the Men of the Disciples, who came to understand

WHAT HE HAD DONE FOR THEM;

for the Women, the first to ‘UNDERSTAND’:

 

We recall George, Anthony and Margaret of Antioch

and all who embraced THE DRAGON:

We recall Columba, Cuthbert, and the Venerable Bede of Jarrow

for guarding the sacredness of these Celtic British Lands:

We recall John of the Cross and the ‘Cloud of Unknowing”,

and all those who dared to show the dark face of God:

 

We recall Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons;

Llywelyn of the Welsh, Robin Hood, Rob Roy MacGregor; King Edward The Confessor,

And all those who become the stuff of legend and myth:

We recall all the risk-takers, peacemakers and martyrs of our own time:

among them Abraham Lincoln, Mary Secole, Mahatma Ghandi, Dag Hammarskjöld:

 

We recall all those prophets and ‘saints’ of the Church across the ages;

Augustine; Ignatius; Francis; Thomas Aquinas;

Søren Kierkegaard, Meister Eckhart, Pope John the twenty-third,

Michael Ramsey, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Temple, Mother Teresa, Brother Roger of Taizé;

William Wilberforce, George McLeod of Iona, Martin Luther King Jr, Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela.

 

We recall all poets and prophets, writers and singers, scientists, philosophers and artists 

whose works have inspired us: William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, J.R.R.Tolkien, 

Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky; Charles Darwin, John and Charles Wesley;

We recall Thomas Tallis, Leonardo da Vinci; Ludwig Von Beethoven, Jean Sibelius;

Glen Miller, Lennon and McCartney, Johnny Cash; Bono, the Edge and Mark E. Smith;

R.S.Thomas; T.S.Eliot, Roger McGough and Stewart Henderson; 

Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and Spike Milligan.

We recall our sporting heroes of different eras and codes; Harvey-Kendall-Ball; 

We celebrate all who gave heart to us by giving their heart.

 

We recall all the heroes, holy ones, saints, and souls

remembered by us alone, or God alone : the saints of our own lives 

who invested teaching, friendship and trust in us;

We recall all those of our own minds and hearts,

who were of us, and informed our spirit for our way.

 

- this Roll of Honour prefixed my All Saints Day services today; based on a wonderful original by Robert Gallagher, November 2015