Parish of St Helen Witton Northwich Cheshire

March 2010 - O Lord: What, When and Why?

I‘ve been sitting at my computer for ages trying to write this month’s letter - it’s now Sunday evening of Magazine deadline day. I've just finished Evensong and having spoken with Frank, who is rather keen to have all the articles for publication today, as he has to meet with Rachel and Paul Clarke (our new Magazine editors) to compile this month’s magazine, I am only just finding the words to put on the page.

No pressure then !!!!

The reason is that I’ve a bit of writer’s block, well more than that really, more of a message block. What bit of pearly wisdom do you need to hear this month? Which biblical gem will speak to you in just the right way? And I realised that I’ve never asked you. Not in the whole two and a half years that I have been writing in this magazine have I ever asked the people, “What it is that you want to know about God?”

But there’s a problem: A while ago, while on holiday, I visited a place of worship of another faith and was introduced to one of the young enthusiastic leaders who, knowing I was a priest, began to criticise the Christian faith. “None of it makes sense, look at the Trinity – the Christian God is three people and yet one person – How can that work, it is ridiculous!” We talked, we laughed and we bantered a bit more.

But perhaps I should have said, as my brother did when I told him of my experience, “Who wants a God that even I can fully understand? I want a God who is so massive that I will never get to the bottom of his mighty and unfathomable ways.” The trouble is that I want to know all I can about God, we all have questions:

“Why does that person I love have cancer?”
“Why did I not get into the school I wanted?”
“Why are my kids going off the rails?”
“Why am I going off the rails?”
“Why did that happen?”
“Why did that not get fixed?”

All those questions about life, in the end, find themselves stacking up in God’s hands. Like the child who asks “Why?” to every answer so we eventually have nowhere to go but to God and ask...

“Why God? I don’t understand you, I don’t get it? I thought you were like this or that. I thought you were just, but the bible talks of hell, I thought you were powerful but the bible tells of your death on the cross, I thought you brought freedom but you have so many rules?”

To make matters worse we have, from somewhere, picked up the idea that we should never turn to God and ask “Why?”. It seems to be that we feel it would be impertinent or pathetic to cry out “Why ME?!” or “Where are you God?!” or even “What do you think you’re playing at, Lord?” What is it that you want to know about God? What should I have addressed in this letter that might have tried to play some part in answering your questions?

From the 13th Chapter of 1 Corinthians...

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I must warn you, though, I know so few of the answers myself. What I understand of God is just a poor reflection as in a mirror. At times it frustrates me that I cannot get a crystal clear image of Him and at times it makes me weep as I need to understand “WHY?!” And so I maintain my scrutiny of the image before me, I polish the mirror, I ask “What’s this bit?” as I peer into the poor reflection. It was St. Paul who wrote these words and with them he is encouraging us to ask and explore and develop our understanding about God and not to be satisfied with the small amount we think we know. He knows that God is too magnificent and too awesome to comprehend in this lifetime but that should not mean that we do not do everything we can to further develop our relationship and our understanding of God.

“In the end,” says St. Paul, “all will be made clear when we meet God face to face.” If we have asked our questions and listened and responded to His answers with love and acceptance deep in our hearts then that meeting will be like the lifting of a bridal veil or the uncovering of a masterpiece. There we will see God in all His glory and the parts of our understanding that were always fuzzy or dimly lit will sharpen and brighten.

Until then we keep asking, “Who are you, Lord? Why this way, Lord? When will you, Lord? What’s next, Lord?”

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

February 2010 - Where is GOD is the midst of all this?

The tragic events of recent days in Haiti have affected each of us, be it the saddening and disturbing images on our television screens, or perhaps a relative or friend caught up in the devastation. Understandably perhaps, many commentators have voiced concerns, raised arguments and have asked many searching questions, perhaps the most difficult for some is “If there is a God, where is He is the midst of all this?” A good friend of mine, who is both a scientist and priest has written...

There are several theologies of suffering embedded in the Old Testament, the most common of which is that suffering is punishment from God for human sinfulness. This is the theme, for instance of the Book of Job, where Job’s friends blame his predicament on some secret sin. It is still frequently encountered today. Some years ago the controversial cleric David Jenkins was consecrated Bishop in York Minster and a short time later part of the Minster was destroyed by fire. Some Christians held that this was divine punishment inflicted on the Church of England for promoting such a man to a position of leadership. Again when Princess Diana was killed in 1997, some Christians again claimed it was punishment for her lifestyle and each time a volcano erupts someone somewhere claims it to be punishment. In 1980, for instance, the Mount St Helens eruption in the USA was in the view of one radio evangelist, the punishment for consumption of strong liquor. There are many others which could be cited.

Such a theology of suffering as divine punishment is problematic. Indeed, it is in fact fundamentally flawed. If God kills sinful people by means of the Mount St Helens eruptions, or partially destroys York Minster, or has a hand in the death of a young princess and mother, why did he not intervene to protect the innocent in the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia and in many other places and situations. Is such a capricious God morally acceptable and worthy of worship?

If the books of the Hebrew Bible are placed in date order, rather than in the order they appear in our pew bibles, then a new theology of suffering can be seen to be emerging. This is expressed in the so called “servant songs” of Isaiah where the servant figure, who for Christians is often equated with the future Messiah is described as a “man of suffering” who is “acquainted with grief”. This idea of a suffering God is even more clearly drawn in some of the later books contained in the Apocrypha. It is, however, the life and teaching of Jesus that gives the lie to God being a figure of punitive violence. On two separate occasions Jesus upbraids the disciples for expressing such a mistaken understanding of God’s action in the world.

“Those eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” The disciples ask, “I tell you no! Jesus replies (Luke 13:4) “As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Neither this man nor his parents sinned said Jesus (John 9:1-3).

It is not only in Christ’s teaching that the idea of punishment is refuted, but the crucifixion is also central to any Christian understanding of human suffering. Working in the shadow of the Holocaust and within the context of the collective guilt of the German people for the Nazi regime, the theologian Jurgen Moltmann argues that the cross is the Christian answer to suffering . In his book “The Crucified God” Moltmann argues - in what to my mind is the most significant theological book published in the last 50 years – that when Christ in utter desolation cries out “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, this represents the supreme moment of God’s identification with the human condition. This is God’s son on the Cross, we too are his children, God does not will suffering, but shares in it, as any loving parent would share the suffering of a child. Although we will never fully understand why a child dies, why there was no divine intervention to prevent the Holocaust and why so many die in disasters, we can have absolute assurance that God shares in our suffering, grief, illness and despair. As we know that this is not God’s last word on the issue, for we can look forward to the light and eternal life promised by the Resurrection.

I ask you to reflect on two passages of Scripture that we often read at funerals. St Paul writing to the Romans states... “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present , nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. God loves us in our suffering”.

From St John “Jesus said, I am the Resurrection, and I am the Life”. This is our hope for the future.

Natural disasters – like that in Haiti—occur through the operation of geological processes, though even here human sinfulness in the form of poor living standards has a hand in many catastrophes in countries of the so called third world. There is clear corporate sinfulness in disparities between rich and poor at the global scale and this is reflected in disaster losses. The people who died in Haiti were vulnerable because they were poor and lived in unsuitable housing. As the theologian Dorethee Solle has pointed out, original sin involves the sin of passive association with the forces that produce riches and safety for the few and degradation, hazard, death and misery for the majority. This argument however, does not account for those who would have suffered even if the finest measures of hazard mitigation had been in place. After all, people still die in small numbers when an earthquake occurs in California or Japan.

Without earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, however, no life on Earth would be possible. Life on Earth developed simultaneously with the geological evolution of the Planet. For instance the original atmosphere was produced by de-gassing from volcanoes, but excess sulphur and carbon were removed, respectively through the operation of global plates and storage within water, carbonaceous rocks and other reservoirs.

Physical laws control the universe and it may well be that the Earth is the best possible world it is possible to create. Perhaps in this regard God is as vulnerable as we are ourselves? Perhaps the First World War poet, Geoffrey Studdart-Kennedy was correct when he observed: “The sorrows of God must be hard to bear if he really has love in his heart. For the hardest part in the world to play, must surely be God’s part”.

This is the answer to undeserved suffering.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

Janurary 2010 - Epiphany: “Return Another Way”

On January 6th the church keeps the feast of the Epiphany, although this year many churches (including St Helen) will keep the feast on 3rd January 2010. It is the coming of the wise men to pay homage to the infant Jesus. Indeed no nativity play is complete without three Kings coming to visit the baby Jesus, usually with tea towels and dressing gowns for authenticity although you may have read in the press that last year, parents ditched the traditional tea towels and dressing gowns for “designer” costumes!!!

The story of the three Wise Men, or Magi, is told in Matthew Chapter 2:1-12»». The story is well known. They see a star, telling of the birth of the King of the Jews. They follow the star, first to Jerusalem, where they seek the new born King at Herod’s palace, but are directed on to Bethlehem where the star stops to show them where Jesus is. They are overjoyed, worship Jesus and present Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Over the centuries, this basic narrative became enriched by several traditions. Tertullion first referred to them as kings in the second century and this became general in the sixth century, being linked to Psalm 72:10-11 which says, The Kings of Tarshish and distant shores will bring tribute to him; the Kings of Sheba and Seba will present Him gifts. All Kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him.

While Matthew gives no number, Origen in the third century said there were three, probably because they had three gifts; and this too became general. By the sixth century, they had been given names: Caspar, Melchior and Balthaser. By the Middle Ages they had become venerated as Saints and their alleged relics were brought from Constantinople first to Milan and then to Cologne. A shrine to them can still be seen in the magnificent Cathedral of Cologne. The Magi adoring Christ has always been one of the most popular subjects for religious art, St. Helen's East end window (left top)
The Epiphany (indeed part of the East Window at St Helen shows the Epiphany) the earliest depiction being a second century fresco in the catacombs in Rome.

But Epiphany is more than just a picturesque story, these gifts have significance, Gold showing Christ as King, Frankincense showing Christ as Priest and Myrrh showing Christ as Sacrifice. Even more important is that they show that the birth of Christ is good news to Gentiles as well as Jews, that Christ has come to all people of every nation.

As we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, let us remember that the Magi, returned home another way (New English Bible). It has been suggested that “Another Way” may not simply be by a different route, but changed, transformed by their encounter and experience. My prayer for each of us, this Epiphany is that as we celebrate and engage afresh in the wonder of this story, we too may return “Another Way”.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm