Traditions

Well, there were no apparent objections to my previous proposal that we have some Lenten meditations on the theme of lament so that's just what we're going to do.

This is something that Sarah and I are keen on. There is no demand on anyone to be involved or attend anything, but we're going to do it anyway and if you'd like to be part of these evenings of meditation and reflection then you're very, very welcome.

We'll do them every Sunday evening during Lent (dates below), with the exception of this Wednesday, 21 February, Ash Wednesday, for which I'm going to upload to the website in advance a short meditation for you to download if you want to, to do in your own space, in your own time.

Each evening will start at 8.30pm and we will aim for it to be over by 9.30 pm.

So, the dates and themes for each meditation are:

Wednesday 21 February, Ash Wednesday
The Hidden Face of God
The lost language of lament
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 25 February
Human Tears are Older Than the Rain
Loving Kindness, Presence and Lament in the Garden of Eden
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 4 March
How Long, O Lord?
Songs, poems and Psalms of lament
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 11 March
We Have Become Orphans
Deserted, forgotten, suffering: Lamentations of loss
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 18 March
To a Broken God
Jesus Wept
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 25 March
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
The Death of God, the Death of Dreams
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 1 April
My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?
The God-Forsaken God
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

Sunday 8 April, Easter Sunday
Come Lift Up Your Sorrows
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep
[UPDATED] Meditation notes now available for download. Click the link above to go to the download page.

This coming sunday, Sunday 8 April, is Easter sunday. It is the crest of the Christian calendar, the high point of Christian faith, as we remember and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is also the last of our lenten meditations on lament.

Last night's lament was a journey through the seven last words of Jesus on the cross, with the small group of women and men who remained with him, who took him from the cross to the tomb, and who returned after the sabbath to anoint his body only to find it gone. And we joined together to return to the Lord with our wounds, because he is wounded to.

‘Come, let us return to the Lord;
   for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
   he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
   on the third day he will raise us up,
   that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
   his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
   like the spring rains that water the earth.’
      Hosea 6:1-3

This sunday's lament is called 'Come Lift Up Your Sorrows: Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice, Weep With Those Who Weep.' During this meditation we will be celebrating the Meal, the Lord's Supper, communion, the eucharist, in the manner that the Anabaptist martyr (and my personal hero) Balthasar Hubmaier offered, which includes a liturgy called The Pledge of Love.

Well, Estelle's thanksgiving was a fabulous affair. We ended up with around 65-70 people stuffed into our house, and I was beginning to wonder at one point why on earth we'd thought having it in our house was a good idea. But the space did seem to absorb all the people and having so many created a lovely buzz.

Estelle was well and truly blessed by all and sundry, the kids had a wild time jumping on the bouncy castle (in November...?!) and the spread of food was astonishing.

Anyway, the point of this entry is to post the short liturgy that we wrote for the occasion. I thought that there may be some who would like to read it(again, if you were there and carelessly discarded your copy!), so if that's you then you can download it from this page.

This weekend we're having a thanksgiving ceremony for our youngest daughter, Estelle.

She's almost 2 and we should have done it ages ago, but you know how it is - first you're just surviving the onslaught of a new baby, coming to terms with having 3 children instead of 2, next thing you know they're crawling, then walking, then talking, then borrowing the car keys and going out on dates. Before you know it the music is just too damn loud and all you crave is your slippers and some peace and quiet to read the paper.

So, in summary, she's nearly 2 and we're only just getting ourselves in gear to have a thanksgiving celebration for her. How fortunate she is to have such together parents.

So, why are we giving thanks for Estelle?

Well, yesterday we had our first pilgrimage walk. If you've no idea what I'm talking about you might like to read more about what we were up to.

In the end we left the starting point at around 11.30, and it took us about 2 hours to walk to the priory ruins at Much Wenlock. The children all did amazing walking (though some are way too big to be in back packs still!), and we had plenty of stops for prayers and snacks along the way. The journey was beautiful, through cider orchards and woods, over a stream, through several fields and finally through the village of Much Wenlock.

Wenlock Priory was dedicated to St Milburga, the first Abbess of the original Anglo Saxon monastery who was later canonised because she was said to be able to talk with birds. Consequently, the focus of our walk was our place in and as part of nature, divine creation, mother earth. And we used the famous prayer of St Francis of Assisi, the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, as the liturgical centre of our ceremony in the priory. I've uploaded our version of the Canticle to this page, which you can download at your whim.

This was our essential thought for the walk:

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society
--Saint Francis

Leo Tolstoy, pictured late in life

For my next Advanced Workshop essay I've got to critique the following quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

 
Apparently Gandhi's spiritual revolution was set in motion when he read The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (you can also read The Kingdom of God is Within You online). So, I started reading it last night, to try to understand some of the sources of Gandhi's radical approach.

I was blown away!

I can see how it inspired Gandhi now, and I only read two chapters!

It's taken a while to get to this last installment in my review of Anabaptist approaches to church, but here it is. Sorry folks. We have so far looked at being a hermeneutic community and being a eucharistic community and being a missional community. The fourth theme is about being a peaceful community.

The modern descendants of the 16th Century Anabaptists, the Mennonites, the Bruderhof, the Amish and the like, have historically been called the peace churches, particularly for their rejection of violence, their advocacy of nonresistance and their general peacemaking and pacifist perspective. Indeed, the 4 peace activists currently held hostage in Iraq are there with Christian Peacemaker Teams, which was initiated in 1984 by Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers with broad ecumenical participation, with a goal to to devote the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war. But what was it that gave birth to this heritage? And how valid is this perception of the Anabaptist tradition?

Following on the theme of Anabaptist approaches to church, the second key aspect of the Anabaptist perspective on community is that symbolised in the Eucharist.

Christians of all traditions practice regularly something variously referred to as the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, Communion, the Meal, the Mass, and so on. As most people who have some experience of Christianity will know, it consists of wine and bread, which are meant to represent the body and blood of Jesus and remember his death by crucifixion. Christians eat and drink these elements together, and all of the Christian traditions have different shades of meaning for the Eucharist.

Significantly, for Anabaptists the Lord's Supper returned to being a meal: in particular, a memorial meal for believers remembering the sacrifice of Jesus in which the bread is just bread and the wine, just wine, and not a re-creation of Jesus's death done by priests on behalf of sinners. It is a remebrance and a 'showing forth' of his death until his return.

To the Anabaptists, the Lord’s Supper was a highly significant feast. They were persecuted by both the Catholics and Protestants for the challenges they levelled at them both. In the context of persecution, celebrating the Lord's Supper together was a powerful symbol of common commitment. By sharing the bread and the cup, members were signifying their willingness to give their lives for one another. In the sixteenth century this was not taken lightly. Anabaptist prisoners were almost always tortured and asked to give the names of their fellow church members. In our post-modern world, this is a counter-cultural challenge of selflessness that subverts the pervasive power of individualism. The symbolism of the eucharistic ritual unlocks the beauty of community.

Just for the sake of completeness, this is the latest development in the letter from the Primates of the Anglican Global South to Rowan Williams...

Primates disown open letter to Archbishop of Canterbury - An open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury written by some Anglican Primates from the Southern Hemisphere, widely interpreted as an attack on Dr Rowan Williams’ leadership, has been disowned by two of those described as its signatories. [Ekklesia News]

This may be of interest after yesterday's item...

Anglican Primates deny attack on Archbishop of Canterbury - The Global South Anglican website which published a letter from 14 primates responding to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s contribution at a recent church summit in Egypt has explicitly denied widespread press reports that the communique is an assault on Dr Rowan Williams. [Ekklesia News]

The Global South Primates' letter can be read online at the Global South Anglican website: Global South Primates response to Archbishop Rowan Williams.