A woman’s story (Part 5) Re-commissioned

John 20:15-18

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

“There are two important days in a woman’s life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why“ 

When Women Were Birds, Terry Tempest Williams

Women have always known

how to multi-task

How to do a hundred things

on the way

And there are times, in the melee

when we lose sight

of the one thing

that is ours to do

Often, we rely heavily

on our sources

of comfort 

and affirmation

for sometimes those 

are in short supply

Mary Magdalene

encountering the risen Christ at the tomb

knew she was being re-commissioned

and must leave the love she knew

to embrace the future

that was promised

Learning when to hold on

and when to let go

Discerning what is ours to do

is the work of every woman

who continues to carry

the seed of new life today.

Still the Risen Christ meets us

and tenderly shows us the way.

Do not hold on

Discover the one thing

that is yours to do

and do it

as only you can

with the love and courage

and strength you possess 

Commissioned

to live into Resurrection

A woman’s story (Part 4) Idle Tales

Luke 24:1-11

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou

The story of women 

is one of being discounted

disbelieved

disregarded

spoken over

mansplained

That’s how women learn 

to practice subversion

conserving our energy

and our passion

for co creating a better future

for co creating 

love

and justice

and beauty

changing the world

one subversive act at a time.

I sometimes wonder whether

if women hadn’t been excluded

from board rooms

and corridors of power

they would have opted out anyway

intent on making a better world

instead of endlessly talking about it

How often the “idle tales”

turn out

to be the best news of all

told in the breathless excitement

of women who have glimpsed

a brave new world.

A woman’s story (Part 3) Mary Magdalene

On the Feast day of Mary Magdalene

Mark 16:9-10

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

It is said that Mary 

was a woman possessed.

A woman whom Jesus delivered.

I’ve long wondered

whether those demons

with which Mary was possessed

were those traits that threatened 

to smash the patriarchal culture.

Things like

Love

Passion

Persistence

Loyalty

Fierceness

Curiosity

Intuition 

Perhaps Jesus didn’t so much deliver her

Perhaps he encouraged her

to live into her calling

as a disciple

And in so doing

her demons

were exercised

rather than exorcised.

And we who seek

to smash the patriarchy today, 

We whose work is to continue

in the line of Mary Magdalene

dismantling glass ceilings

shard by tiny shard

cut and bleeding as we go

are also labelled as possessed

and bear that label with pride

knowing that the Risen Christ

assuages our demons

encouraging us

to love

to be passionate

to be persistent

to be loyal

to be fierce

to remain curious

(Curiosity prevents us from judging)

and to use our intuition

as those called today

to stay by the cross

to watch over the empty tomb

and with all that we have

to proclaim resurrection.

A woman’s story (Part 2)

1 Kings 19:11-13

Elijah Meets God at Horeb

 “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

“Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper”  

When Women Were Birds: Terry Tempest Williams

Each time I preside at table

I bear the weight

of countless generations of women

who persisted

so that I might hold up bread

and break it

no longer whispering

but confidently speaking

words of institution

words of inclusion

words of grace 

“Broken for you“

Women who were subversive

Women who were creative

Women whose persistence

subversion

and creativity

made space

quietly disrupting

a narrow, one track

patriarchal vision

with infinite possibility

Women who, in the midst of darkness

kindled light

and in the grip of adversity

fostered resilience

As I take my place

at the table 

these women

crowd in with me

lending their weight

to the words

no longer whispered

but spoken

in clear and ringing tones

Their weight is a feather weight

without burden

except that of compulsion

to continue to make space

for women

whose whisper

is still emerging

or for women

whose language

is still constrained

by millennia of noise

that still threatens

to drown out

the emergence

of a woman’s whisper.

A woman’s story (Part 1)

“Her absence became her presence”  When Women Were Birds: Terry Tempest Williams

The pages of history are littered

with men telling the stories

of women they barely knew

far less understood

They fill in the blanks

and rub out the mystery

and concoct a fiction

they may earnestly believe

but that bears little semblance of truth.

Scripture too

bears all the marks

of redactors 

whose bodies could not know

the cycle of nature

the passion and beauty

the promise and the scars

the strength and sacrifice

the complexity

and compulsion

of womanly wiles

And it would be

much too dangerous

to give power

to the absence

in a similar way

that it was once purported

that pockets in a woman’s dress

would lead to sedition 

So the spaces

are not allowed to be

for fear they will grow

into a story untamed

beyond control 

of the raconteurs  

with agendas to be met

and pages to be filled.

And the stories

of absent women

are moulded

and chiselled

made safe

for the sharing.

Until a new generation emerges

to break open the moulds

and allow absence

to be presence

once more.

One for the road

Luke 24:30-35

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

On the road the Risen Christ

broke open the scriptures

and made the hearts of the disciples

burn within

At table the Risen Christ

broke and blessed bread 

and propelled the feet of the disciples

to go and feed others

The word

Always convicting 

The bread of life

Always compelling

Until it’s not

When our hunger cannot be fed

and our thirst cannot be quenched

When we cannot

taste and see 

that the Lord is good

how then shall we be nourished?

How then will we be sent?

In our pandemic fasting

what is it

that causes us to recognise

the Risen Christ

in the midst of all our questions

making our hearts burn

and in the ordinary things

making himself known

still sending us

still compelling us

as much as ever

to believe in Resurrection

and to share hope

and joy

with others?

May our sacramental hunger

sharpen our senses

to all the other ways

that the Risen Christ is present

and amplify our awareness

of how we might serve

and be served

in the life of the world

where hunger is real

and where we are called

beyond our altars

to know Christ

in the brokenness 

of the world.

Default or promise?

As many of our faith communities are considering how best to safely gather for in person worship, I’m pondering what it means “to go back”.

Isaiah 58:6-7

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Going back...

What does that entail

Is it a regression?

back to old habits

and comforting practices

Is it a retreat?

back to safe spaces

and familiar patterns

Is it a withdrawal?

back to sanctuaries

where we can hide

safely entrenched

behind defensive walls

built up over generations

Going back...

A comforting default

Or moving forward?

a buzz phrase much maligned

Moving forward

with God

into the future

that God is revealing

Discerning the places

where God lives

and walks

and invites us to be partners

listening and connecting

learning and discovering

who we are called to be

in the wake of a pandemic

with the potential

for deploying the reset function

that is already in progress

Moving forward into the promise

of the unknown

where the rules of engagement

are still being worked out

where we cannot rely 

on the old paths that we know

but on the one

who makes all things new.

Default or promise?

Which will it be?

Rewilding church

Matthew 13:14-15

With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,

and you will indeed look, but never perceive.

For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes;

so that they might not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and understand with their heart and turn—

and I would heal them.’

Information overload

and so little discernment of truth

2020 vision

clouded by normalising the abhorrent

It seems we’d rather live with lament

than live with protest

Focusing on loss

relieves us of being a blessing

Accepting the awful

absolves us of working for change

The seeds of restlessness

sown in anger

have been domesticated

trapped within the hothouses

of our churches

released gently

in superficial platitudes

neatly contained

to prevent giving offence

Buried deep

not so that life will blossom

but so that the darkness

will arrest change

and slow down reaction

And as we, who have been given much

remain silent

the invasive march

of shallow sown policies

rampage into all of life

trampling and subduing

tender shoots 

of truth

and justice

and love

and kindness

cutting off the breath

of voices that speak dissent

pervading and naturalising

what is anathema

Rewild us, O God

Open our eyes to see

and our ears to hear

and our lips to speak

and our hands to do

the work to which you call

Dismantle our collusion 

that tacitly accepts systems

that benefit some and diminish others

Rekindle our dreams 

of realising commonweal *

Awaken our courage

to challenge authority

to protest

to subvert the policies

of the rich and the powerful

to resist the normalising of injustice

Rewild our hope 

that your ways of peace will prevail

against violence and oppression 

Make us persistent

in calling out evil

and in working with compassion

alongside all who suffer

So may your church once more

sow seeds of dissent

and propagate shoots of opposition

that blossom into actions

that transform lives

in the garden economy of God.

Rewild us, O God.

(*Commonweal: the well-being of a whole community)

Harnessing the rage

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Rage seems an apposite response 

to pandemic

It’s palpable in the air

Seething not so gently

just under the surface

If only we could harness 

the energy of rage

allowing it to carry us onward

into that “new normal”

Harnessing the energy

to raise up “the least of these”

Harnessing the energy

to continue to honour

our “unskilled workers”

who became our heroes.

Harnessing the energy

to properly fund our NHS

and our social care

Harnessing the energy

to keep our streets

free of  the homeless

by providing adequate resources

Harnessing the energy 

to care for refugees and migrants

by treating them as brothers and sisters

who merit compassion

Harnessing the energy

to refuse to be governed

by out of touch

beyond reach politicians

Harnessing the energy

to put our faith into practice

by shaking up our ancient creeds

infusing them

with transformative covenants

of justice and love

that spill out of closed buildings

and flow like lava 

through our neighbourhoods

gathering the energy of rage

to usher in

the radical kingdom of God.

Do not go quietly

into the new normal.

Rage, rage

against all that diminishes

the breath

of the Spirit of God

And may our rage 

be pregnant with potential

for the healing of all Creation.