Out of the Shadows: Women's Voices

 

I've decided that I need to start blogging again - I was really taken aback to discover that my last post on here was over a year old! So to begin with I'm going to post a few pieces I've written over the last year or so that never made it here.

First up, here's a piece that sadly never made it into print at all. I was asked to write the Foreword for this fabulous book, but it somehow ended up being missed out of the print edition. But here it is!

 

 

Women’s voices need and deserve to be heard. The ‘Women’s Voices’ conferences that Liz Shercliff has convened for the past ten years have been a shining example of how this can be done well, and the first ‘Out of the Shadows’ volume bottled some of that hard-earned wisdom. So it’s wonderful to welcome and commend this second volume, which focuses our attention on women in the Biblical narratives who have been hiding – or been hidden - even deeper in the shadows of the text, and of our Christian consciousness.

Many of the women in these pages have names that will be unfamiliar to all but the most avid Bible readers. Many are omitted from the lectionary altogether, or find themselves mentioned only in passing in stories which mainstream Christian preaching traditions have seen as men’s stories in which they are only walk-on characters. Others, though, are women whose stories are given significant air time in the Bible, whose words and actions form a substantial contribution to the overarching narrative and developing history of Israel, and yet who have been relegated to the margins in the choices that have been made over time about who is important, and which stories should be given precedence.

Many of these stories involve women whose moral or ethical status is ambiguous. There’s a theme that emerges throughout this book that these women are hard to categorise – heroine or villain? Victim or perpetrator? The old tropes of women being categorised as either Madonna or whore strongly persist in the discomfort that Shercliff and Bruce diagnose as we confront these ambiguities. One of the many often unnamed and unperceived aspects of male privilege is the much greater degree of freedom that society grants to men to be morally ambiguous. There is, therefore, a sense of daring courage in Bruce and Shercliff’s insistence on allowing these women to reclaim their audacious freedom to remain ambiguous. They don’t need to have their reputations whitewashed to deserve to have their voices heard.

That’s not the only uncomfortable truth that this book confronts. Many of these stories show women being used, abused, objectified, violated, bought and sold. There are stories of rape, of trauma, of women doing what they have to do to survive in a world where the odds are stacked against them. Perhaps part of the reason these stories are less well known is that we shy away from confronting the reality that these experiences all too often remain part of women’s lives today. In the specimen sermons offered here, Shercliff and Bruce model what it can look like to take these stories seriously as holding up a mirror to our own society. These aren’t just experiences that women had long ago ‘in Biblical times’ – here they are brought into stark dialogue with the realities of modern women’s experiences, through UN statistics, international reports, or the #Me Too movement. Whilst the need for careful handling and content warnings in discussing some of these topics is made clear, it is also made clear that to ignore these realities is to implicitly tell our congregations that they don’t matter. This book forces us to confront the realities of what it is to live in a world and a church shaped by generations of patriarchal rule, and offers us hope in the long-term task of resisting and seeking to reshape it.

In addition to all this, Out of the Shadows is also a practical handbook on the art and craft of preaching. Each sample sermon is followed by short, incisive notes on the rhetorical devices and techniques used by the preacher, which combine to give a masterclass in homiletical techniques. Reading this book will challenge and improve the reader’s preaching on any text, not just these women’s stories that this book brings out of the shadows. In these pages Bruce and Shercliff model for us how to interrogate a difficult text, bring it into dialogue with contemporary experience, and take a congregation from ‘you what?’ to ‘oh, wow!’.

Candlemas sermon

Sermon preached at Liverpool Parish Church on 28 Jan 2024

'Refiner's Fire, Launderer's Soap'

Readings: Malachi 3:1-5 and Luke 2:22-40

Let me start by taking us back to those two very arresting images in our first reading from Malachi -  that the coming Messiah will be like refiner’s fire and like fuller’s, or launderer’s, soap. The book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament as we have received it, written perhaps 400 or 500 years before the birth of Jesus. It’s a short book, just 2-3 pages of our Bibles, and it has a unique structure. Malachi takes the form of six short arguments between God and the people. In each of its six sections, a statement is made, which is immediately questioned, and then a brief argument develops the theme.

We need to go back to the final verses of chapter 2 for the set up to today’s first reading. ‘You have tired God out with your talk,’ says the prophet. ‘But you ask, ‘how have we tired him?’ By saying ‘The Lord Almighty thinks all evildoers are good; in fact, he likes them?’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God who is supposed to be just?’

They’re eternal questions of the human condition, aren’t they. Just last week at Open Table I was asked by a fairly new Christian how it was possible to sustain faith in God when every time you turn on the TV we see horror and destruction and cruelty on a scale its hard for us to comprehend. ‘Where is the God who is supposed to be just?’ indeed. These are the age-old questions of why bad things happen to good people; and conversely, why bad people too often seem to have a great life.

Doesn’t God care about justice? That’s the nub of it. And Malachi’s argument, with the typical dramatic overstatement of the prophetic genre, is - be careful what you wish for. God will indeed come in judgement, God cares passionately and deeply about justice – but this isn’t about some of us watching on smugly while the politicians and punters that we are furious with get their comeuppance. The imagery of refining fire, of strong laundry soap, invite us to deeply examine what within us, within our own hearts and within our own  most cherished structures and families and institutions, is part of the problem. God cares wildly, passionately about justice – like fire. God cares deeply, humbly and doggedly about justice – like someone scrubbing stains out of the washing.

We have a lot of hymns developing the imagery of God as the refiner’s fire. It’s clearly an attractive, if violent, image – God’s justice burning through all that is wrong in the world, once and for all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a hymn or poem reflecting on the other image Malachi gives us for God’s judgement – a launderer doggedly scrubbing away. Maybe that sounds a bit too much like hard work. It doesn’t have the glamour or the drama of fire. But it certainly rings a lot more true to my experience of trying to work for justice in the church.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt drew a distinction between two different types of work in the human experience – what she called ‘work’ and ‘labour’. What we tend to think of as ‘work’ is productive. You spend time at work and you have something to show for it at the end of the day. Maybe you’ve made a beautiful piece of pottery, written 500 words of your novel, or made 300 widgets on your production line. This sort of productive workt is what so many of our modern ideas of economic worth are based on.

What Arendt calls ‘labour’, on the other hand, is much harder to measure. You work just as hard, but there’s rarely anything to show for it, or not for long. Doing the washing is a good example. You get clean sheets and smalls at the end of the day, but they instantly go back into the cycle of being worn and dirtied again. Labour needs doing again and again – cooking a meal, washing up, weeding the garden, maintaining relationships. We might add much of what it takes to be church into this category. In a moment we’re going to be licensing Jenny as your Assistant Priest – and Jenny is someone who knows well both from her day job managing social work and from her ministry here, that the work of accomplishing justice, of building the kingdom, is slow, often behind the scenes, and very hard to measure success in.

I love the fact that Malachi uses a pair of images which cover both sides of this for God’s redeeming work of judgement. A refiner’s fire, a burning furnace; we can imagine a master craftsman looking with satisfaction at the end of the day at the piece of beautiful precious metal that the day’s work has produced. And a launderer’s soap; we can imagine a washerwoman standing up at the end of a long day putting a red, soap-roughened hand to her creaking back, and hanging out the washing – pleased that it is clean ready for another day’s use, but knowing it will all need doing again next washday.

Its something of this dogged determination that we see in both Simeon and Anna in today’s gospel. There’s such a dramatic symbolism in the meeting of the very old and the very young. Picture the tiny, plump hand of the 40 day old baby, an exact miniature down to its almost impossibly minute fingernails, held in the gnarled, wrinkled hand, with paper-thin skin, of an 84 year old. It’s an arresting visual image of the meeting of the old and the new, the passing on of the baton from one generation to the next. These faithful old people have given a lifetime of service to God. Simeon has heard God’s spirit send him to the Temple that day, while Anna dwells in the Temple night and day. And here, in the Temple, they meet with what we will come to know, later on, as the new temple that is the body of Christ.

It's such a beautiful image of the holding together of continuity and change  - on a natural, human, generational level, an encounter between a young couple and their baby with two old people who pass on their blessing to the new generation.

It’s important to resist the generations of Christian rhetoric that speak too glibly of the passing on of the baton from Jewish temple religion to the new covenant in Christ. This story of Jesus’ presentation gives us a much more nuanced picture. Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna present us with a sample of what it was like to be a first century observant Jew; loving the temple, finding joy and fulfilment in living out the practices and traditions of the law, a law and set of beliefs and practices which form them together as a community and remind them of their part in God’s covenant of grace. Jesus’s life and teaching grows naturally from this soil and these roots, as he grows. When the gospels later tell us of Jesus’s often sharp critiques of injustice, of practices neglected or misdirected, he is speaking, like Malachi, from within and to a tradition that he is part of. Simeon and Anna recognise and bless Jesus from within their long lives of faithful, dogged commitment to God. They anticipate that with him, the story and the work will go on.

Malachi’s sharp questions don’t simply go away because of what we now know Jesus has done for us. The work of the gospel, the good news of the scriptures, isn’t a quick fix – its not something we can count, and measure, and sit back satisfied that justice has now been done, salvation achieved – tick. Just rarely, just occasionally, will we have the satisfaction of a job completed, a task finished, in this life of faith. I think that’s why Simeon’s song has echoed down the ages as one of the church’s favourite texts to sing – that sense of completion, of satisfaction, of a life’s work well done is something that strikes a chord deep within us.

 We long for that sort of job satisfaction. But even when one lifetime closes, others begin. Even when one person’s work is done, others take up the baton. The work of building the kingdom of God is not factory work, or even artisan work – its much more like domestic labour. Do justice today – knowing it will need doing all over again tomorrow. Like the wrinkled hand of a great-grandparent cradling their great-grandchild, like a washerwoman doing the laundry – the work of the world lies ahead of us.

So may all of us, whatever our age, stage or life circumstances - be blessed with the patience, the perseverance, and the dogged determination of Simeon and Anna, as you do your part in the work of God’s kingdom– today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.

Amen.

Synod speech November 23

 This is the speech I gave at General Synod on the debate on Prayers of Love and Faith. I was opposing an amendment to the main motion which sought to enshrine ‘firm provision’ for those opposed, in terms which sounded likely to be similar to the arrangements for women bishops. So it is quite specific!

I oppose this amendment on three grounds: from my experience of the women bishops debates and the operation of the five guiding principles in practice, from the experience of our ecumenical colleagues, and from our historical ecclesiology.

And I’m baffled by 3 things so far in this debate.like Simon  I’m baffled by my more protestant colleagues seeming to argue for a theology of salvation by works. Like Amanda I’m baffled by more Biblically focused colleagues seeming so willing to take their fellow believers to court. And I’m baffled by all this talk of canons seeming to set aside Canon A8, Of Schisms.

Because it’s not as if there has ever been a time when the Church of England was not divided. We were designed to be a church that would hold together deeply, even violently opposed theologies, in peace, for the common good.

That’s why Our ecclesiology is not founded on confessional statements beyond the creeds, but on a radical commitment to the people of a particular place - a parish, a diocese, a country - ALL the people. Whatever their religious or ethical views.

This is the radical vision of the parish that I want to save.

Those of us who sat through the women bishops debates will know first hand how often and how clearly this synod rejected any suggestion of structural differentiation, of a third province or so on. 

I’m afraid I’m increasingly of the view that those who were disappointed by that are still fighting that battle on this front instead - indeed, that the real end game, for some, is to cynically use this issue to achieve  major change in our Ecclesiology by the back door.

(As an unscripted aside I then added something like - we have heard a lot about transparency in this debate. Can I suggest that if you want to change our ecclesiology that should be brought to this synod as Article 7 or 8 business, not pushed through as some sort of back room prisoner exchange.)

 I have seen this happening already, I’m afraid, as a member of the House of Bishops Standing commission on the 5 guiding principles. Resolutions are, sadly, in some places being used to pick a theologically acceptable bishop, and declare UDI  from everyone else - very much not the original intention.

This summer I was one of ten Anglican delegates to a Roman Catholic consultation on synodality. My fellow Delegates from the Baptist, Methodist, quaker, URC, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches all used this issue of same sex blessings in reflecting on their own synodical processes. And I heard from all of them, repeatedly, that the one thing they knew was that they weren’t going to do what we had done over women bishops. They told me they had learned from our mistake in enshrining the sort of thing the Bishop of Durham is now asking for in our structures. 

THEY were baffled that we might not learn from it ourselves.

Our structure for holding together is the gift of our parish system. Our unity is based on geography, it will not be achieved by further distinguishing our divisions. 

I beg you to resist this amendment, and to support the main motion.

Thank you.

Sermon on my collation as Archdeacon of Liverpool

 On Saturday I was collated as Archdeacon of Liverpool. This is the sermon I preached: the readings were Deuteronomy 6:1-6 and the Magnificat.

The one question everyone has been asking me since my appointment was announced has been – what actually is an Archdeacon? It’s a good question, and one that I had myself when I first took on the acting role back in January.  What I’ve discovered in the last few months is that its not surprising that the role of archdeacon is a bit of a mystery, as so much of what we do is behind the scenes.  It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that when we’re doing our job well, you’d hardly know anyone was doing it. There’s a lot of law, a lot of paperwork, a lot of HR processes and procedures, and a lot of meetings. I can see some of you glazing over already!

But there’s a much sharper-edged version of that question that I’ve also been asked repeatedly these last few months. More than one person has said to me something along these lines – that they love who Jesus is and what he stood for, but they’re not at all convinced by the church as an institution. [‘Not at all convinced’ might be a euphemism]. How can I possibly, the question goes, be comfortable becoming so closely identified with the institutional church in a role like this? Is it a compromise too far?

Again, it’s a good question. When I first began exploring Christianity at university, what started it all off was the Magnificat, those words from Luke’s gospel that we’ve just heard sung – and by the way, let me say a huge thank you to the girls’ choir for being willing to come back from their summer break a week early to sing for us today.

I can still remember standing in a pew hearing the words of the Magnificat for what seemed like the first time and thinking – wow. Is that really what Christians believe? I had no idea. It would be too much to say I became a Christian at that point – that took another couple of years – but I can clearly identify hearing the Magnificat on that early October day 31 years ago as the start of my calling.

The Magnificat opened my eyes to the cutting edge of Christianity. Mary sings of a God who invites us to join with him in turning the social order upside down – and it blew me away. So at the heart of my sense of calling is this revolutionary, radical, manifesto for change.

Mary proclaims these words just after she’s had the encounter with the angel Gabriel which begins the incarnation. Luke’s gospel tells us that soon after that, she went with haste to a small Judean town in the hill country, to visit some elderly relatives. Perhaps she was running away from gossip and censure; perhaps she was just taking some time out to process what had just happened. Perhaps she knew that Elizabeth and Zechariah had had their own miraculous encounter with God just a few months before, leading to Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and thought that this older couple might be the only ones who would understand her experience.

Elizabeth was a few months further along than Mary, and when Mary arrived at their house Elizabeth felt her child leap in her womb – a movement she interpreted as being a leap for joy at the presence of the embryonic Jesus within Mary. Elizabeth’s exclamation of this made her the first person in the world to recognise and acclaim Jesus as the Messiah, and the first person to honour the young Mary as the mother of God.

And its in response to Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, Elizabeth’s joyful and welcoming affirmation of her calling to work with God, that Mary proclaims these words.

Because neither the child growing within her, nor the astonishing spiritual experience that she has just had, are simply for her own personal spiritual enjoyment – they will change the world. Mary sings of a God who has already been changing the world, who has repeatedly challenged the status quo through the recorded history of Israel, and who is doing it again now, and who invites us afresh, in every generation, to join with him in the continual work of bringing new things to birth.

The incarnation is at the heart of my faith. Jesus holds together in his person being both fully divine and fully human – not half and half, not a weird hybrid, but the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity united in a fully holistic being and identity.

One of the things that I love about the Bible, and about our faith more generally, is the way in which they hold together in this incarnational way the sublime – our highest aspirations, the vision of a changed world, the supreme holiness of God – with an unflinching realism and pragmatism about the messiness and details of real human lives.

Which takes me to our reading from Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy is perhaps better known for its long lists of laws and regulations than for aspirational sayings. There are laws and decrees about everything from what to do if your neighbour moves the boundary stone between your land, or if your ox gores someone, to the importance of fair weights and measures. One moment God has made a covenant with his people, the highest calling – the next, the reality of the fact that people will fail to live up that calling is being acknowledged.  But here in chapter 6 we have this:

‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord is our God... You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.’

They’re words that are perhaps more familiar to us from the gospels. They form the introduction to perhaps the best loved story in the Bible, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and they’re quoted in three of the four gospels, each time with the addition of a second phrase – ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’

In adding that second phrase Jesus isn’t contradicting or altering what Deuteronomy says. What he’s doing is effectively summarising all the detail of the laws that make up the second part of Deuteronomy, into a more general principle. That loving God with all your heart, mind and strength isn’t just a nice theological idea; it’s something needs to be worked out, fleshed out, in all the details of day to day life. The specific details of how to live in a nomadic society that Deuteronomy gives were centuries out of date even by Jesus’ time. But the principle that Jesus summarises as ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, is that our religious beliefs aren’t just a matter of personal spirituality. They should influence the whole of how we conduct our common life.

The overarching purpose of the laws in Deuteronomy is to ensure that that application of our faith to everyday life is done fairly. So that - as the Magnificat puts it - the poor and meek don’t get a rawer deal than the rich and mighty. Our context might have changed radically from then, but the danger of the rich and powerful manipulating things in their own interests is as relevant today as it ever was.

As I’ve reflected on this role over the last few months, a role which can often seem quite legalistic and process-heavy, it seems to me that this is at the heart of answering that question of what is an Archdeacon. It’s a role which operates in the often uncomfortable space between, on the one hand, our vision of the holiness of God and our aspirational calling to change the world– and on the other hand, the mundane, pragmatic details of the mess and complexities of everyday life. It’s a role that involves trying to change the world, whilst at the same time trying to make sure that things keep running smoothly before we get there.

And it seems to me that this poses a challenge to every one of us. So many of us want to see a different world; but we are often in danger of being swamped by how impossible the task seems. The challenge is to be willing to live in this space and tension between our high ideals, and having to deal the reality we see around us.

The fact that we find this uncomfortable doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. Jesus declared blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice. Blessed are those who are willing to experience the discomfort of longing for a world, and yes a church, that is not yet here, and working to bring it to birth in the midst of our present reality.

So I’ll end with this Franciscan blessing:

May God bless us with discomfort

At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships

So that we may live from deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger

At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of God’s creations

So that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears

To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,

So that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and

To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with just enough foolishness

To believe that we can make a difference in the world.

Amen.