29 June 2018

And there was a woman – 29 June 2018


In the gospel lesson for next Sunday[1], Mark tells us about a woman in the crowd around Jesus.  But Jesus is in a hurry to get on his way elsewhere.  The woman is not named.  Mark says she had been haemorrhaging for 12 years: She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  Her condition had made her ritually and socially unclean – not to mention anaemic and exhausted.  She had run out of money and she had run out of options.  I think it is important to note that she was not acting from what we might call intelligent faith – she was not seeking to encounter Jesus -- she came up behind him, it says, in the despairing hope that his clothes might somehow transmit his healing power.

In all three synoptic gospels we learn that she immediately felt healed.  It is not explained how she would know that – it was intuitive.  Moreover, Jesus sensed that he had been touched.  The woman then told him what she was doing, and in all three gospels Jesus responds: Your faith has made you well, go in peace.  It is not claimed that Jesus healed her.  Jesus didn’t assume that, and neither should we… unless we want to believe that he could heal without knowing or intending to, or that even his clothes carried healing properties.

Your faith has made you well… “Your faith…?”  What she had was desperation over her long-term condition, a need however not to bother or be a nuisance to Jesus, but simply to touch his clothes secretly and anonymously.  While we might be critical, Jesus sees this at another level.  He knows immediately that something subliminal has happened, and he is quite ready to pause on his rush to the home of Jairus’s dying daughter, and to give this woman time and attention.  This is the healing situation – Jesus gives us his attention, and we respond… it may well be that we are at the end of our tether otherwise.  We don’t know, of course, precisely the extent of this woman’s “healing”, but we do know that she is now on a new path.  She is not now merely a helpless victim of disease and circumstance.  She has a way forward.  That is why Jesus says, your faith has made you well, go in peace.

Faith, as we repeatedly say, is never something we are graciously offering to God, but rather a gift that we receive, the prosaic ability, it may be, simply to take the next step, put one foot in front of the other… rather than remaining stuck in memories, living in permanent victimhood, insisting that God and the universe understand how poorly they have treated you.  Jesus enables that step.  It is not about everything coming right, so much as seeing a path to walk, a door opening, a trail to follow in company with him.  Yes, the woman’s understanding was elemental, if that… more like superstition.  But she took the step, Jesus knew she had, he turned to her and told her she could go on in peace.



[1] Mark 5:21-43

22 June 2018

Being afraid – 22 June 2018


On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”  And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41)

Let’s agree firstly that there are plenty of situations in life, in which it is proper to be afraid – it is appropriate, necessary, and not at all to be condemned.  Fear is not in itself wrong.  It is reasonable to be afraid of sudden danger, or of serious pain, or of being disastrously misunderstood, or of great calamity…and so on.  The disciples in a boat on the lake in a violent storm, with the boat getting swamped, were understandably afraid… perhaps of drowning, certainly of feeling helpless in the situation.  We are equipped with the capacity for fear, partly because it may help us escape or take some necessary action.

Yet Jesus says to them: Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?  Something of a put-down…  Well, the worst thing we can do with this story is to iron it out into a literal record of events.  It is not that, it never was.  It bristles with image and symbolism intended to help us at another level than facts.  The story invites us to understand that crossing to the other side with Jesus, as it were, (Let’s go across to the other side, he said), is unlikely to resemble a quiet scenic romantic drift down the Mahurangi River from Warkworth.  If you think life with Jesus should be blissful, peaceful, joyous, and you will be shielded from harm, you are in for a surprise.  The other side, pictured in this story, is where the crowd is not – they left the crowd behind, it says.  They have left their comfort zone, but Jesus is there with them.  Life with Jesus differs radically from life with the crowd, and the transition from here to there may be rocky as we learn change, new ways with a new heart… as we learn grown-up faith.

The life of faith starts and nourishes a process, in which fear, what we are afraid of, comes to be under review.  Typically we discover these shifts in watching the ways we react.  The fear of what others might think of us, for instance, which can cripple some people, is one day not an issue – or perhaps has changed into a reasonable concern for how we are affecting other people.  But more importantly, it’s the shedding of the fear of God – that is to say, the God who is out to get us if we don’t shape up, the God who zaps people.  We learn to embrace the God Jesus called Father, with reverence, reticence and love.  The fear of death undergoes change… in Paul’s words, its sting is drawn.   It is that the universe is no longer revolving around Me, the Ego, the demanding paramount Self.  I am learning in stillness and silence to yield place to God.  Perhaps you would like an apt quotation from the Gospel of Thomas:  Jesus said, “The seeker should not stop until he finds.  When he does find, he will be disturbed.  After having been disturbed, he will be astonished.”

15 June 2018

Say your mantra – 15 June 2018


Let me quote from Stillpoint, the newsletter of the NZ Community for Christian Meditation:  You sit to meditate and begin saying the mantra... Then immediately you remember you should have taken the car to the garage. And is my next appointment at three or four? Should I do the washing today or tomorrow? Wasn’t that dinner guest’s dress a beautiful colour last night? Hang on. I should be saying the mantra. Am I saying it properly? Is this really getting me anywhere? I wonder if you know when enlightenment happens. What is enlightenment? Where is God? Is God really in this? Am I wasting time? Is there a better way of doing it? Where’s the mantra gone now? Come on, back to it. How much longer is this going to last? Did I set the alarm properly? I’ll take a quick look. A cup of coffee would be nice, if I’ve got time. This will be better when I go to a proper retreat. It will be lovely to be just quiet and away. Then I’ll be able to meditate well. Should I go for the full week I have off or keep a few days free for a holiday as well?  Say your mantra. You’re wasting precious time. Why does my side hurt after meals? My father died of cancer. I am going to start a low fat diet tomorrow. There are special products now at the supermarket for that. Did I get the new supermarket credit card? There are so many things to remember. Jesus said one thing is necessary. I wonder what it is. The alarm will go off any second now. Let’s say the mantra from now till then. Oh I forgot to call so-and-so…

For most of us the whole idea of a mantra seems strange, even alien.  I think there are two things to say about that.  First, the repeating of a word or phrase in Christian prayer is a tradition that can be traced back to the very early centuries of Christian spirituality – and indeed is pivotal in Orthodox Christianity to this day.  Secondly, if a spiritual practice in Buddhism, for instance, is found to be helpful, why would we shun it because it’s “Buddhist”?  Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths were teachers who made a point of learning from Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam, in order to better practise the faith of Christ.  Indeed, John Main first learned what came to be Christian Meditation from a Hindu swami in Malaysia.  For most of us, I imagine, I hope, this kind of issue ceased to be a problem years ago.

In fact we honour the distractions.  They are not our enemy.  They echo our normal busy, often noisy lives.  But during the time of prayer, having recognised them, we let them go, see them float on past.  We are choosing for this time not to live in memory, or in what may happen later – we are choosing the present moment - and in it, as best we can, we keep this little space clear.  The mantra gently summons us back to that place.  For many, as time goes by, it becomes a resonance and a reminder in all of life, not only at the times of prayer. 

Something I read quite recently -- I have forgotten what – led me to pay some attention to the Hebrew word shekinah.  It’s from a verb which really means simply to settle, to sit down and be still – not too different from the abide of John’s Gospel.  In Judaism shekinah had also a special meaning – it referred to the divine presence in the innermost part of the Temple, the Holy of Holies.  It’s a feminine noun, moreover.  In a more homely way, Jews thought the shekinah settled under the canopy to bless the couple at a Jewish wedding.  And if you have ever been to dinner in a Jewish home on Sabbath Eve, and watched the mother of the family light the Sabbath candles… well there too, they say, is the skekinah… what T S Eliot called Light Invisible.  It’s a lovely image, and it is a way to think about the space we have in prayer and the repetition of the mantra.

08 June 2018

The earthly tent – 8 June 2018


This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.  For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. [II Corinthians 4:17 – 5:1]

That is part of the epistle reading for next Sunday.  I knew I was troubled by (M’s) point last week… a woman he knew, now in a wheelchair and helpless.  The question was:  How can Paul describe this as this slight momentary affliction…?  or claim, her inner nature is being renewed day by day…?  I imagine, each member of our group can think of someone to whom the same questions apply, or once did.  Neither should we sidestep any of this.  Both in Paul’s time and ours, there are forms of mindless affliction which defy our high ideals and our need to understand and to relieve suffering.

Paul is writing to the Corinthians as though they are all fit and well.  Nevertheless, he reminds them, the earthly tent we live in (will be) destroyed.  Well now, I am not quite so ready to be dismissive of the earthly tent we live in.  It may look increasingly subject to gravity, and bits fall off, but it is an amazing apparatus, a gift from God.  I want to say to Paul, if we have, as he says, a heavenly home not made with hands… well, neither was this earthly tent made with hands.  We received it as a gift.  For some it has always been a problematic gift.  However, for any of us leading a contemplative life, with contemplative prayer, we are indeed being renewed day by day.  That is the point, and I think that is what Paul meant. 

We are all bewildered these days by the prevalence of dementia in its various forms, and I am remembering that this most painfully affects families represented here in our group.  The earthly tent gets afflicted by terrible damage to the consciousness, brain damage, while other parts of us keep functioning robustly.  Dementia is one issue among others that bring a sadness and a helplessness which it seems God cannot relieve.  If I lose my wits, it scarcely matters what’s left, one would think.  So it is indeed hard to see a divine purpose or a merciful love in any of that, and I think we need to learn stillness and silence, and how to do what’s necessary. 

Paul becomes more helpful in other places, where he writes, for instance:

Now we see in a mirror, dimly… Now I know only in part – then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.[1]  The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words…  Nothing shall separate us from the love of God…[2] 





[1] I Corinthians 13:12
[2] Romans 8:26ff

01 June 2018

Clay jars – 1 June 2018


But we have this treasure in clay jars… (II Corinthians 4:7)

The King James Version says earthen vessels, slightly more dignified.  These were in Greek the ostrakinoi skeuē, the commonest, cheapest, clay pots used for storing grain mainly – liquids, I am not sure.  It’s from ostrakinoi we get the English “ostracise” – the ancient Athenian democracy had a useful procedure which might well be reinstated here… once a year the people could vote on which prominent public nuisance they wanted expelled from the city for 10 years… and you voted on shards of ostrakinoi, potsherds, pieces of exactly these broken clay pots which were lying all around. 

Well then, according to Paul, God entrusts this treasure -- God’s love and truth, justice and mercy -- to us, so we are holding it, as it were, in these common clay jars of our bodies and our minds, our thoughts, our behaviour and our relationships.  All are fallible, all are fragile, all are in some ways broken, abused, exploited…  We scarcely need to be reminded how vulnerable our bodies are.  Yet they are heroic. In no way is Paul wanting to denigrate our bodies, but simply to point out how shaky they can be, sliding down the path of entropy, monitored dutifully by your GP.  I came across a curious poem by a minor English poet rejoicing in the name Cosmo Monkhouse.  In 1901 Cosmo realised he was dying, and he wrote a poem to his body:  So we must part, my body, you and I…  Two lines read:

And now, with all your faults, ‘twere hard to find

A slave more willing or a friend more true.

But it’s not our bodies only.  The common clay pot to which God entrusts love and truth is also our hearts and minds, and all we make of the world around us, and how we affect other people.  You have only to look at the church to realise what a dog’s breakfast we can make in some quarters of simplicity and a gospel of love and mercy – or listen to the NZ Parliament debating amendments to their opening prayer. 

The gospel, God’s truth in Jesus, is incarnated in us, for better, for worse.  I think it was Julian of Norwich who said, In us he is perfectly at home.[1]  In John’s Gospel we find, he abides in us.[2]  Paul writes also: Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.[3]  The point of our prayer, and more broadly of any contemplative life, is that we make space, daily and hourly, in all our imperfection, and amid the detritus of our failures, for the gentle, humble Spirit of the Risen Christ, making all things new.





[1] I cannot reference this quotation, but it’s there somewhere in A Book of Showings.  Indeed, this mutual abiding is a major theme for Julian.
[2] John 15:4ff
[3] II Corinthians 4:16