John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Red-letter living in the time of Trump

My Dear Wormwood,

Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure that the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work, 

Uncle Screwtape

- this and lots about Red Letter Christians, in my talk at tonight's West Camel Methodist Covenant Service (shared by us Anglicans), Red-Letter living in the time of Trump.

Lifting up the child

... Is it time for us to put away the fears held by recent generations of adults, fears of paying attention to children lest we be accused of some form of deviancy? Is it time for us to assert that, in God’s eyes, in Jesus’ teaching, the deviant is the one who avoids or excludes children, the deviant is the one who in the name of protecting children, isolates them from the rest of society?

Is it time instead for us - sensitively, with openness and accountability certainly, but most of all lovingly - to go out of our way to lift our young ones high? To place our hopes in them and to work with them to help to make their future as bright as it can be? I would say so, because that would be to follow the way of Jesus. And the example of Simeon and Anna.

So in our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our homes and families with good listening, positive encouragement, practical help.

In our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our community with positive words, acts of kindness, trusting and open attitudes to those we meet.

We read in polls that young people in the UK are concerned, more than anything else, about good, well-paid jobs, about protecting human rights, about well-funded public services and good quality educational opportunities for all. 

It may be that we can help - by offering to share with a younger person some skills or knowledge we have which will help them in their work or their education, caring because Jesus cares for them. 

It may be that we can help - by supporting initiatives for good employment practices in business, for sustained public health services, for affordable education, for the protection of those human rights which are the concern of young people, campaigning and wielding what influence we have alongside young people, so their voices are heard and their concerns lifted high in the public agenda.

It may not always be easy, lifting up the young, in an unequal society heavily weighted towards the older powerful ones, in a fearful society divided by identity - race, creed, sexuality and age. Just as in Simeon’s time when he saw that Jesus’ campaign to ‘lift up the lowly’, in his mother’s words, would involve bringing others down and because of that would create opposition and end up in tragedy. 

But if we are to be true to his words - if we are to follow in his ways - this must be part of who we are. ...

- from my sermon today on 'intergenerational equity'. Yes, quoting Ann Morisy, and inspired by an image of Simeon holding high the baby Jesus in the temple: Lifting up the child.

Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb

For Speakeasy, I've been reading a review copy of Keith Giles' Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb. Here's what I think.... 

As someone who has long asserted there can be no splits between faith and politics, I found the first few chapters of Jesus Untangled difficult reading, for Keith Giles appears to be suggesting that Christians should absolutely separate ourselves from political life and action. He comes close to this but eventually his deeper message sinks in: he's not advocating that Christians should retreat from the hard realities of living in a pagan empire, he’s not promoting non-involvement in programmes and protests for change. But rather he is addressing what Jesus himself always addressees: the question of what is in our heart - what is our deepest motivation for our actions in the world. Is it our desire for political influence or our desire to follow Christ? This is challenging at the deepest level - whether to a Christian ‘social activist’ or to anyone daring to vote or wave a flag whilst also claiming to be following Christ.

Being British I come at this material from a different perspective, which is that of belonging to a Church which is still structurally welded to the State (and which continues to studiously avoid any serious debates about disestablishment). But Keith Giles's revelations about the ineffectiveness of US politics to achieve the work of God's kingdom, bring UK parallels to mind (one recent example from the centre-left here: the absolute failure of the Tony Blair New Labour government in its stated intention to end child poverty).

This book shakes me into re-evaluating what I desire most: to entirely follow Jesus (a self-sacrificial path) or to align to secular political ways in the hope that’s being Christ-like enough. Its dualism is actually necessary: that is if you really believe the One who said, “You cannot serve two masters”. Its shortcoming is that there’s little here about how such an all-out, absolutely all-for-Jesus political engagement looks today, in practice - examples of people living this way now. So I’m looking forward to a sequel which I hope does just that.

Strange Fruit: The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world

It's about a lynching: today's talk Strange Fruit: The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world links the Billie Holiday song which Rebecca Ferguson was not allowed to sing at Trump's Inauguration, with "The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world".....

Their gifts revealed their wisdom: the wise men’s new ways of seeing

Question for those of us who think we know all there is to know about God and kings and life and death: are we open enough to hear what people from outside our worldview have to say? Believing that God might just be using them to open our eyes to whole new ways of seeing?

Statement for those who do not regard themselves as having yet arrived, but like these wise travellers as being still on a journey of discovery - the baby Jesus is ready to welcome you, the adult Jesus is longing to walk with you, as you go on your way.

- the conclusion of my talk today, with a nod towards John Berger, Their gifts revealed their wisdom: the wise men’s new ways of seeing.

 

Resolved to remember, and acting on that remembrance: a New Year’s call to Social Liturgy

Nick Spencer suggests that while Christians are involved in the liturgy of worship, the songs and creeds and familiar prayers of church, we are also involved in what he calls a “social liturgy”.

We not only resolve to respond to the goodness of God in our public worship, we also resolve to respond to the goodness of God through our public charitable activity. Thus, Mr Spencer writes, our social liturgy is just “another way of worshipping God in public”.

Our church liturgy comes when we resolve to attend services and give our hearts and voices back to God in remembrance of his goodness to us.

Our social liturgy comes when we resolve to give not just our church attendence, not just our money, but our time, and our talents, too, back to God, in remembrance of all that the Lord has done for us.

Look at the amount of Christians involved in social liturgy, and Christianity in the UK today looks to be in good health. 

And so, may this be our resolution, a good one which we can repeat daily and which can become habit-forming. To live out a social liturgy where we are in 2017.

- drawing on the Theos report, Doing Good: A Future for Christianity in the 21st Century, in my talk Resolved to remember, and acting on that remembrance: a New Year’s call to Social Liturgy.