John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

The ambiguity of the Ascension

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 29 May 2022

Remember when Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed’?
Well, Ascension Day, which fell this week, is a good time for us to celebrate that we are among these blessed ones, who have not seen Jesus, but who believe.
Our physical vision of Jesus is clouded, just as it became clouded for his followers on that day he left them for heaven. 
But our spiritual vision of Jesus is as clear as our hearts are clear when we worship; it is as sure as those ‘Amen’s we say when we make our prayers in faith.
The significance of the Ascension is that the Human One who was available to his friends and followers on earth, is now available to all people, everywhere, by the power of his Holy Spirit.
The ambiguity of the Ascension is that whilst Jesus has left earth to be with his Father, he is at the same time now everywhere present on earth and closer to us than we can even imagine.
Some say that Jesus is everywhere present on earth because he has entered the collective unconscious as one of our mythical archetypes alongside Mother Earth or the Devil. Some, like the writer Tom Holland, say that  even as belief in God fades across the West, our societies are so soaked in his influence that we still take for granted things that Jesus taught us: like it being nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering and to assume that every human life is of equal value.
All of these understandings of the presence of Jesus in our world are valid; however for the blessed ones, who have not seen Jesus, but who believe, there is something far more immediate, far more personal: the gift of the Holy Spirit which gives us power to witness to his presence in our daily lives, he who, in the words of a famous ascension hymn, is: "The joy of all who dwell above, the joy of all below; to whom he manifests his love and grants his name to know".

 

Shalom, this Hebrew 'hello'

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 22 May 2022

In a time of war, we're greeted with the image of the risen Christ standing before his petrified disciples saying "Peace be with you!" This Hebrew 'hello' goes way beyond a mere greeting and carries a wealth of meanings in the Bible, far more even than an absence of violence. Rather, it signifies the wholeness and well-being of a restored community, of a people and their environment shaped in right-relation to their God. 
Shalom, the main word for peace in the Hebrew scriptures is related to salaam in Arabic and shlomo in Aramaic, Jesus' language. All translate as wholeness and integrity, especially in relationships.
So, 'Peace be with you!' really means, 'Wholeness and health be with you!' Thus God's peace invites us to participate in the process of becoming whole and making whole.
As I'll be saying in church on Sunday, I now leave you with these words: 
Shalom aleichem: Peace be upon you. Aleichem shalom: Upon you be peace.

Prophets plant seeds

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 15 May 2022

Linger for a moment with the (above) statement by Christian Aid that 'For the first time in a generation, global poverty is rising'. We can see how that looks when we place the stories of Zimbabwean Jessica Mwedzi alongside those of people we know using our local foodbanks, and of today's news reports that two in five people in the UK are buying less food because of the rapid rise in the cost of living. As we understand that hunger here in our villages and towns is caused by changes in government economic policies and business trade practices, we likewise realise that Jessica's family's hunger is also the consequence of deliberate decisions made by powerful people outside their community over the years, which have increased inequality and contributed to the literally burning issue - global heating - which affects us all.

Whilst there is still a big overall wealth gap between Zimbabwean people and ourselves (inviting our charitable giving), this Christian Aid Week there may just be more of a sense that we are all in this together; and that whilst people like Jessica will benefit from our charity, people like us could learn from her, in the way she has applied herself to using what small resources she has (drought-resistant seeds) to produce a harvest of valuable food for her family. Self-sufficient growing is not new, of course - our local Sustainability Group have long been exploring it, and it was widely practiced in the UK within living memory - but it's increasingly part of conversations here, and in  towns and cities and across the world. You may have practical wisdom to share with your neighbours about this from years of practice - or you may be looking to learn.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in a situation where his people had been devastated by imperial attacks, followed by famine and deadly pestilence sweeping thought the land. His book is an 'honest and raw expression of a national crisis, which affected individuals in very concrete ways'* He expresses the people's traumas having been' uprooted and torn down, destroyed and overthrown' - but then introduces to them the idea that it is time to 'build and to plant' (Jeremiah 1).

Trying to think of how to 'change the world' for the better for both Jesica and ourselves may overwhelm us. But digging a plot, planting some seeds, yielding a modest crop. It's not only a practical way to respond to our present crises, but it's a prophetic one also.

* Juliana Claassens, 'An Infinite Present' in Jione Havea (ed), Doing Theology in the New Normal: Global Perspectives, p.266-7.