Today’s News in limerick form, #2

“The manner in which Jesus died
was brutal, it can’t be denied.
To Gentiles it’s foolish -
to Sussex folk, ghoulish.
So… let’s not preach Christ crucified.”

Actually, this news needs a bit more comment. I mean, I can understand – sort of – the nervousness of the church concerned that their sculpture of the crucified Christ might be just so stark that it puts people off, and their impulse that an empty cross might direct people more towards resurrection hope. Part of me is sympathetic to the concern not to “put people off” by having such a “scary” sculpture in the equivalent of the shop window.

But… well, part of me says no, if we are to recognise the depth of God’s love for us then we must allow it to confront us in the fulness of Good Friday’s agony.

The first time I visited Rome and the Vatican was as a teenager. I don’t remember much about the visit, but I do recall the one piece of artwork that struck me more deeply and immediately than any other, from the busts to the Sistine ceiling. It was a small and simple desktop crucifix – wrought iron I think, certainly not gold or silver – upon which the figure of Christ was seen not hanging serenely but jutting his chest forward in agony.

I’d go so far as to say that the image was formative for me. I was strongly reminded of it years later in ministerial training, when I encountered some very similar renditions in the set of images “The Christ We Share”.

An image of Jesus on the cross may well be unpleasant. It may well send shivers down the spine – indeed it surely should. But where will such an image testify more strongly to the truth it depicts: at a church, or in a museum?

Wish list

I’ve never really had the combination of time plus inclination to set up an online wishlist. But if I did, it would have just one item.

This one.

$416 – that’s 240 quid! For the entire Dogmatics? Astonishing! Would probably cost nearly as much again just to ship it, but hey, it’s the Dogmatics… [drool]

[Hat-tip to Ben]

Eucharistic sufficiency

Nothing quite so profound as the post title might suggest – I was just quite intrigued yesterday evening by the fact that, for the second communion service in a row and notwithstanding a bigger-than-usual evening congregation, the stewards had prepared beforehand exactly the right number of little glasses.

There’s a theological reflection in there somewhere…

“To the ends of the earth, not to the end of our tethers”

Simon Barrow of Ekklesia writes on the missiological aspect of the current strife in the Anglican Communion. We’ve been here before, he says – as early as the first century CE and the angst between Peter and Paul, between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians:

What does all this have to teach us today? Well, it might suggest to us that Jerusalem isn’t always right – or wrong! It might make us ponder the idea that if we take the Bible seriously, then scriptural precedent… should not become an obstacle to the Good News and to God’s gracious work among those we may have come to think of as unclean or unworthy. The mission of Acts is to the ends of the earth, not to the end of our tethers.

Fissiparity

Surely it’s only a matter of time before some biblical archaeologist somewhere uncovers a fragment of parchment with a textual variant for Matthew 18:20…

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there is schism in the midst of them.

Suggest a sermon topic

So I’ve agreed to take part in a series of midweek lunchtime services elsewhere in the Circuit next month. The series theme: ‘Questions we don’t often hear in sermons’.

I gather that my colleagues have already snapped up the opportunity to explain whether God swears, why God won’t help us win the lottery, and whether there are slugs in heaven.

Since they’ve chosen all the obvious topics, what burning question do you think I should preach on? Suggestions welcome!

Update: In the absence of any better suggestions (well, any suggestions actually), I’m going to go with “Would Jesus watch Big Brother?”

Clerical dress

Well I’ve never seen a bishop’s mitre that looks like this before.

I can see how the chin-strap might come in handy, but I wonder whether it’s just a little too Jean-Paul Gaultier for the Church of England.

Full story here.

Thoughts on Change and Reform

I don’t do “change”.

But not because I’m living in the past, or tied to tradition, or blinkered, or a coward. I don’t do “change” because “change” inherently makes claims about my initiative, my ingenuity.

I don’t even do “reform”.

But not because I’m convinced my way is right, or confident I already have all the answers, or stubborn, or unimaginative. I don’t do “reform” because “reform” inherently makes claims about past ways being incorrigibly wrong ways.

I am reformed. Because God has claimed my past, my present, and my future. I rejoice in the wonders the Father has wrought in my history and the history of my forebears; I watch and listen for the movement of the Holy Spirit today; I seek to place my trust in Christ who leads me onward towards things I don’t yet know.

I am reformed; and by God’s grace I’m not through with being reformed. I am a member of the Body of Christ, the ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.

Thanks be to God for such profligate grace and mercy.