The Dance of the Trinity

Today I preached my last sermon at my home church before moving from North London to Kidderminster in a fortnight. It was an incredibly emotional experience, much more than I expected. The last time I was in that church as a preacher was almost exactly a year ago when I went to finish my training by doing a full-time year of study at Cambridge.

This is the very first totally thematic sermon I've ever done. I very rarely deviate from the lectionary, but it seemed appropriate today. Paul Fiddes' concept of the Trinity meets Miroslav Volf's concept of embrace; add a bit of St. John's Christology and shake thorougly until mixed.

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Texts: Esther 2: 17-23 and John 17:17-23


In 1990, a playwright named John Guare wrote a play entitled Six Degrees of Separation. The play was based on the idea that any two strangers in the world are separated from each other by an average of six other relationships. So, if I wanted a personal introduction to George W. Bush, in theory, I should know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows George W. Bush.

This theory is absolute true. Something like it was first proposed in 1929 in a short story called Chains.

Then in the 1950s, an American sociologist attempted to solve what he called ‘the small world problem’ by measuring the ‘degrees of separation’ between two people. He randomly selected people in the mid-West to send packages to a stranger located in Massachusetts. The senders knew the recipient's name, occupation, and general location. They were instructed to send the package to a person they knew on a first-name basis who they thought was most likely, out of all their friends, to know the target personally. That person would do the same, and so on, until the package was delivered to its target recipient. The sociologist actually thought that there would be hundreds of intermediaries between the two strangers. But, in fact, the usual number of intermediaries was between five and seven.

The experiment was repeated using email and the internet in 2001. Using the internet allowed many more people to participate in the experiment, but again, the average number of intermediaries was six.

It is indeed a small world.

Who we are, what we do and how we treat others is important, because our lives affect the lives of those around us.

In this morning’s Old Testament reading, Esther’s well-placed relationship with King Xerxes put her in a position to plead with him that her people be spared. Elsewhere in the story, her uncle Mordecai reminds her to think of the fate of her people and not to be complacent simply because she herself is resident in the King’s house.

For good or for evil, our lives as human beings are intertwined. As Christians, we would expect that our lives would not only be intertwined with other people but also – in some way – with the life of God.

I think that this is what Jesus is saying and praying in this morning’s Gospel reading Jesus talks about how his own life is caught up in the life of the Father. Earlier in this same discourse, Jesus talks about how the Spirit is in the Father and the Son and will be sent to the disciples – and to the church – after Jesus’ departure from this world. This is an image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit relating to each other in movements of love – or as one theologian has put it – in a dance of love.

There are dynamic relationships between the persons of the Trinity, expressing Divine love – a love so vigorous and dynamic that it does and must pour itself out into the world. And I think that Jesus is saying here that the glory of God’s self-giving love is poured out to the church so that the church can be the bearer of God and of God’s love in the world. In some very limited sense, when we are Spirit-filled, the church gets to participate in the very life of God

Of course, we have had a relationship with each other. All of you and I. In speaking with someone after the evening service a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that you all ought to know what you have meant for me on my journey to becoming a minister. Because I honestly don’t think I would have even started on this journey to ministry if I hadn’t ended up here at xxxxxxx.

I really do believe that God brought me here in order to open up the pathway for me to studying for the ministry. When I came to xxxxxxx, I found that I was quickly able to be myself. People were open and courteous, and sensitive and caring. For me, the thing that I think that xxxxxxx does really well is care for and about people. And that was obvious as a new-comer.

You welcomed me, and as I joined activities I didn’t feel like I was stepping on anyone’s toes by joining without knowing hundreds of unwritten rules. For me, what I found at xxxxxxx was an attitude of openness that I particularly needed. You let me ask my difficult questions without getting too upset with me. You supported me – as did xxxxx and the rest of the circuit – in becoming first a Local Preacher and then in applying for Foundation Training.

For me, having the opportunity to become a Local Preacher before applying for Foundation Training was important. It was a step along the way and allowed me to test my call. What if God was calling me to be a Local Preacher but not to be a minister? Again, God’s hand seemed to be in the situation by putting me in the place where I needed to be.
For five years we worshipped together, talked together, prayed together and cared about each other. Your openness had a healing and encouraging effect on my life and I hope that I was able to encourage some of you in some way too.

I think that openness is an important part of the Christian community and that it’s an important part of living out God’s love.

If you think about the image of the church universal participating in the community of the Trinity, I don’t think that there can really be a community without openness. In order for the church to invite others to participate in its life in the Triune God, openness is necessary. It is simply not possible to be closed in on ourselves and to expect to invite others into our dance with God.

To show an open heart and mind to others is to say: ‘It is not enough for us to be alone. We need to be in relationship with you.’ This is true for the church’s relationship with God and it’s true with the church’s relationship to individuals outside the church. Our openness invites others into our community life.

And just as God holds out his hand to us and then stands waiting for our response, so too are we called to wait. I don’t mean that the church waits passively for something to happen because it has failed to issue an invitation to the world around it in the first place. I mean that, having issued the invitation, the church waits without overwhelming those we have invited. We’ve invited them because we are besotted with our communion-dance with the Trinity and we want to share this marvellous miracle with others. We don’t pull them into our building by force because we need more people to fill the pews.

When our invited guests join the dance, they join the dance floor and interact with us and we with them – we’re in now in relationship. Our community is going to be changed in some way. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be a genuine relationship. We enter each other’s space, each other’s life. We remain ourselves but the other person’s style of dancing is going to have an effect on the way we dance. Ultimately, of course, the church looks to the dance of the Trinity and prays that God will teach us his perfect way of dancing.

And finally, of course, every genuine relationship on this earth means that there will be an ending. Some dances end because God calls that particular community to dance a different dance. Some endings come because God calls people to dance elsewhere. Other endings come because God calls the person home to dance with the Trinity in the New Creation. But one way or another, genuine relationships between human beings must end. Genuine love risks everything.

And so we are here together this morning as a community of believers, worshipping God as we come before this communion table to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Here we come together to proclaim our unity with all who confess Jesus Christ as Lord

Here we come together as the church to meet our Saviour and our brother who charged us to do this in memory of him

Here we participate in some small way in God’s dance of life.

May the blessing of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - be with us all. Amen

Interrupted by Life

I confess that I am a product of my upbringing and my experience. After more than twenty years working in 'industry', I'm very 'production-oriented'. I must 'do'. I must 'be productive'.

I am trying to learn another way but it's surprisingly difficult. Old dog and new tricks, as they say.

The article Interrupted by Life hits the spot. It's exactly the sort of thing I need to keep reading and reminding myself about. Life is not primarily about what we do; it's about how we relate to God and to God's children and creation.

Everyone's Poster Boy?

I hope I can write a coherent post without naming this person. The reason I'm not naming him is that I feel it could be viewed as "damning with false flattery" when it's absolutely not my intention to do that whatsoever.

In fact, this post is not about him at all. At least not about him as a person. I think it's about him as a symbol, though.

Everyone loves him. Heck, I love him, I really do. The man is an incredibly gifted Christian scholar and he's incredibly gifted at communicating his ideas to the proverbial person in the street or the proverbial person in the pew. And he's opened up new worlds of understanding to me as - I'm quite sure - he has done for many others. There is no "but" that follows this paragraph; unqualified admiration chez PamBG - long may he live, long may he publish, long may he open up new theological insights to the Church.

What I've noticed, though, in my trawls through blogdom is that there are lots of people who are waving various theological flags in the Christian theology wars who seem to want to claim him for their very own poster-boy.

This makes me wonder again about the utility of these theology-wars. My gut instinct is that if factions who hell-bent on denigrating each other (and I'm not just talking about the h-topic) all want to claim him as a theologian who really understands where they are at, maybe just maybe we're not actually as far apart as we like to make out? Maybe just maybe our own theological necessities are actually nit-picking rather than necessary.

What is it about the human psyche that makes us think that we can only be good in the light of the other guy being bad?

Be Careful What you Preach

They say that every preacher has a handful of sermons. I hope that I have more than a handful, but I know that "peace" and "unconditional forgiveness" are two of the topics I tend to bang on about. I happen to think that there is something holy about being able to agree to disagree and that there is something holy about being able to forgive.

So now, I'm caught by my own words. I can't go into much detail at all but I have spent a goodly number of hours in the last 24 being quite seriously angry. Being a passionate sort of person, I think I need to let my feelings die down a bit. I can't see past them at the moment. I don't want to hurt anyone else, but if I could get my way, I'd dearly love to feel heard even though I know that ain't gonna happen.

So I guess the first part of the journey is to calm down and remind myself of the truly important things in life. I am alive and healthy; I have a husband who I adore who is alive and healthy and good friends. I am trying to serve God to the best of my ability. Those are the important things and they'll have to do for now.

Improvisational Music with Jesus

Believer Blog has a post on Making Improvisational Music With Jesus which explores the concept of "Falling in Love with Jesus". Quite similar to my concept of falling in love with God but much more artisitically expressed!

Too Too Funny!

Need a laugh?

I suggest Angry Alien.

Thirty-second parodies of your favourite films enacted by animated bunnies.

Facetious? Moi?

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

May I also add that I am awed by the fact that your car is as wide as the road and I'm impressed by the grid-lock that that creates. I really do believe that your one child's physical safety would be at risk if you owned a Ford Fiesta. So, you are welcome on the narrow side-roads of London anytime!

New Head of BBC Religion and Ethics

Today's issue of The Methodist Recorder reports that Michael Wakelin has been appointed Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC. The BBC's Press Release can be found here.

Wakelin, a Methodist Local Preacher, has been the series producer of BBC's Songs of Praise for the last five years. He replaces Alan Bookbinder - a self-proclaimed 'open-hearted agnostic' - who stepped down from the position in March 2006.

Women's Service in the New Covenant

On Wednesday, I had the privilege of hearing Mimi Haddad speak on Galatians 3:28: Women's Service in the New Covenant & Bible Translation. Mimi is the President of Christians for Biblical Equality.

Mimi's a really gifted speaker and, as an historian, she offered some very interesting perspectives on Paul and the early church. She has a talent for being able to explain quite complicated subject matter in every-day language.

And now a confession. I've been on CBE's email list for about five years. A few weeks ago, I probably would have ignored the email, but recent blogging about how the bible does not permit women to hold leadership roles in the church woke me up to this issue again. After the seminar, I had a chance to speak briefly with Mimi and I promised her I would join CBE; so if you're reading, Mimi, my subscription has already been sent.

If you have a chance to hear Mimi speak, go. She's an interesting and engaging speaker. And I have the feeling that she's used to audiences that are a bit more hostile than me and thirty Salvation Army officers of the 'female persuasion'.

Faith and Creeds

Over at Faith and Theology, Kim Fabricius quotes Roman Catholic spiritual director Herbert McCabe on the subject of “faith” and “creeds”. I confess to not having heard of McCabe before although I very much like this quotation.

Someone recently remarked on a discussion group that they felt they could no longer be a Christian because they couldn’t recite the creed and believe every word 100%. This is the answer I would like to give to anyone who thinks along such lines.

Preaching Peace

For those of you who are familiar with the Preaching Peace website, they have also now started a blog at: Preaching Peace.Blogs.

While I'm writing about the general subject area, other helpful websites of the same genre include: Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary and the James Alison website.

Convent blogger

...um, well sort of.

Debi Ireland, one of the women featured in the BBC's programme, The Convent, has just begun blogging over on http://majikbunnie.blogspot.com/.

Welcome to blog-world, Debi.

'Women are a turn-off'

There is an interesting side-bar article by Christine Miles in today's issue of The Church Times (link here) entitled: 'Women are a Turn Off'. In other words, many men view the church as being a pervasively female-dominated culture, even though most church leaders are still men.

There are too many mother and toddlers' groups, too many children's groups and too many women's groups. The songs we sing are subjective and declare our feelings about Jesus as our lover. (I have to admit that some of the 'Jesus is my boyfriend' songs really make me want to gag too.)

According to this article, many men are motivated by money, sex and power and they think that they are going to find life's answers in these things rather than in church.

Men apparently don't want feelings in church, they are apparently more likely to relate to objective truth, declaring who God is. They want the church to support and enable them in their work-place and to support and enable them to have friendships outside the church. The article links to the The Christian Viewpoint for Men website.

I have a lot of questions about the viewpoints that this article highlights from The Christian Viewpoint for Men; as a woman, I'm in no position to dispute their findings and some of them ring true to me. I'm also reminded of a conversation on Ship of Fools by a young man in his 20s who said many similar things.

A big question that it raises for me, however, is how far does the church go to accommodate some of these 'needs'?

'How to apply Christian principles in the workplace' sounds like something we should definitely do for men and women; applied theology at it's best.

Enabling people to have friendships outside church seems right too although I remain confused exactly how the church 'makes' this happen.

But 'motivation by money, power, and sex'? OK, I accept that a lot of non-church going men buy that they can find the meaning of life in these things, but I don't see how Christianity can pander to that philosophy without being untrue to itself.

And 'objective truth declaring who God is' - I'm not sure what that means? If it means 'theology my way or the theology highway' well, then again I have a problem with that. If it means more theology in church than we have now, bring it on!

Blessing Civil Partnerships?

Blessing Civil Partnerships? - Why I do not think that the theology of homosexual acts is a Gospel issue

I am going to attempt to briefly set out why I do not think that a person's theology of homosexual acts is a 'Gospel issue' from the point of view of British Methodist theology. In order to be brief, I will not be able to fully expand every point; otherwise, I would write an essay rather than a short article.

The Gospel Message - As Kim Fabricus so pithily articulated it in Ten Propositions on Preaching - is 'You are forgiven and therefore now free to repent'. That's about it. Accepting God's forgiveness and repenting results in what John Wesley would have called 'New Birth'.

I think that Methodist theology makes it very clear that the fact of God's forgiveness comes from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and not from human repentance. The idea that God's forgiveness comes first and draws out our repentance is made quite clear in Methodist theology in Wesley's affirmation of both prevenient grace and his affirmation of original sin. I'd argue that if you don't believe in prevenient grace or you don't believe that humanity has an 'inborn capacity for sinning' then you are not being faithful to Methodist theology.

I want to assert that:

1) The holy use of sex is a discipleship issue, not a Gospel issue.
2) Justice is a discipleship issue, not a Gospel issue.

1) The holy use of sex is a discipleship issue, not a Gospel issue.
Whatever you think 'a holy use of sex' is, I would argue that sexual maturity is a discipleship issue. If we do not agree on what a holy use of sex is, does God withdraw his offer of salvation from those who are incorrect?

I have heard some say, 'But at least we all agree, for instance, that murder is a sin.' OK. We might all agree that gluttony is a sin but how fat can a person get before it becomes a 'Gospel issue'? Do we really all agree that being fat is a sin? Does God withdraw his offer of salvation from people who think it's OK to be fat? If we think that this issue is not so clear-cut and that there is room for different opinions, might that not be the same for our debate with respect to the holy use of sex? Particularly since British Methodism has agreed as a body that promiscuity and adultery are sinful.

2) Justice is a discipleship issue, not a Gospel issue.
In forgiving us before we repent, God treats us better than we deserve to be treated. In thankfulness for this grace, we are called upon not only to be 'just', but also to be gracious in the same way that God has been gracious to us. However, again, this is a discipleship issue, not a Gospel Issue.

Working for Social Justice is the necessary response of the Christian who has recognised God's fogiveness; if we think that it's not necessary to work for Social Justice, we risk having missed the whole glorious point of God's free offer of forgiveness. The importance of social justice is as core to Methodism as is spiritual 'New Birth'. But Social Justice is not the Gospel message any more than sexual holiness is the Gospel message.

I think that we need to be theologically clear on these two points. When we begin to confuse either personal morality or social justice with the 'salvation' or 'justificiation' that we are freely and undeservedly given by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we turn the Gospel into the work of human hands rather than the work of Jesus Christ. To be blunt, we are committing idolatry. We are proclaiming salvation by works rather than salvation by grace.

The Gospel message is 'God forgives you, therefore you are free to repent'.

Personal morality is not the Gospel. Social Justice is not the Gospel.

Once we are clear on these issues, it is my opinion that we have a theological basis for being able to live together in disagreement. I would also argue that being willing to live together in disagreement is not a 'fudge'; rather it is agreeing to 'love our neighbour as ourself' in the knowledge that 'God first loved us.' There are many people with strong opinions on both sides of the issue who know what a difficult challenge this is.

Cartoon Illustrations for Sunday

I can't draw a stick-figure to save my life and that is only a very slight exaggeration.

I asked my very talented husband to draw me some line-drawings for the children on Sunday (these are 3 to 5 year olds).

If you go to http://www.garrud.co.uk/ and click on 'Church Cartoons' you will find the drawings of Jairus, his daughter, the women with the hemorrhages and Jesus.

If these are helpful to you, feel free to down-load them.

What's Wrong with The Great Commandment?

I stand accused of believing that we are commanded to love God and love our neighbour. Those commandents of which Jesus said 'On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' (Matthew 22:40, KJV)

These very negative sentiments about The Great Commandment are sentiments that I have heard quite a few times before.

whatever goes, just Love God and love each other and you will be ok

And I'd like to know what is wrong with The Great Commandment? Why does believing that The Great Commandment is at the core of the Christian message imply 'whatever goes' or 'anything goes'?

Why do people diss The Great Commandment? Why do people think that behaving with Christ-like love is easy?

Gender Justice Committee

A link to the British Methodist Church's Gender Justice Committee website.

Service with a Smile

You know you're dealing with the owner of the shop when the fact that you are buying a lot of items for 20p elicits a smile rather than an exasperated sigh.

So, thank you to the lovely proprietor at All Saints Pastoral Centre Bookshop in London Colney where they carry an extensive variety of bookmarks/prayer cards for 20p as well as folded greeting cards / prayer cards with beautiful illustrations by Sr. Mary Stephen CRSS for 95p. The greeting cards are really useful for notes of thanks and encouragement, so I bought six of those too!

(Sr. Mary Stephen designed the illustration that The Methodist Church of Great Britain has used for it's year of prayer, Pray Without Ceasing.)

(No, the bookshop does not give me royalties! It's just nice to be able to give credit where credit is due.)

Lord, Help me Overcome My Strengths

There seems to be a lot of painful stuff going around blogworld and email list world at the moment about women in the ordained ministry and women as preachers. A male minister in a mainstream denomination that ordains women repeating sexist mals mots about women preachers being comparable to dogs walking on two hind-legs (you know the quotation). On a mailing list (with a public feed, so I'm not breaking confidences) an FiF priest chides a woman who waited for decades to enter the ordained ministry for not having patience. (!) Then, of course, we have those who believe in male headship who are now calling themselves 'complimentarians' which sounds much more reasonable.

Lord, thank you for the reminder that, as a woman minister, I will always be on the margin whether I want to be or not.

Thank you that, as a woman, I will never feel entitled to ordained ministry - something that no-one should ever feel entitled to.

Give me the charity to pray for those who dislike my ministry because of my chromosomes; give me the charity to love them when I find it difficult (like now!)

Give me the grace to minister to all people - of both genders - who feel rejected and disempowered by the establishment, especially the established church.

Lord, thank you for the reminder that no-one properly ministers in their strength, but only in your Spirit. Help me to overcome my strengths. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Joke - Raising Children

Once upon a time there was a mummy balloon, a daddy balloon and a baby balloon.

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, there was a fierce thunderstorm. Baby balloon had never seen a thunderstom before and she was very frightened, so she tried to crawl into her parents' bed so that they could keep her safe.

Urgh. There wasn't quite enough room. Then she thought, 'If I just let a teeny bit of air out of mummy, maybe there will be enough room for me to snuggle here in the bed.' So baby balloon let a teeny bit of air out of mummy.

Urgh. There still wasn't quite enough room. Baby balloon thought 'If I just let a teeny bit of air out of daddy, maybe there will be enough room for me to snuggle here in the bed.' So baby balloon let a teeny bit of air out of daddy.

Urgh. There still wasn't quite enough room. Baby balloon thought 'Maybe if I let a teeny bit of air out of myself, there will be enough room for me to snuggle here in the bed.' So baby balloon let a teeny bit of air out of herself.

The next day, mummy and daddy were very, very cross with baby balloon. Mummy sat her down and said:
'You let me down,
You let your father down,
But most important of all, you let yourself down.'