The resurrection is not, in the memorable words of a former Bishop of Durham, just a conjuring trick with bones; although most people in the church live as if it were. Most people in the church live as if the resurrection was just Jesus’s neat escape from a perilous situation. The walls are closing in, the baddies are coming, the werewolf is at the door— how will our hero escape. Tune in next week for the next exciting installment of “Jesus Christ: Hero of Jerusalem” — (oh, don’t bother, he managed to escape danger by being resurrected— sorry, bit of a let down— we’ll make sure the scriptwriters come up with a more satisfying, more believable cliff-hanger next episode). Continue Reading »

The Gambling Act (2005) came into force in September last year, and today we are seeing one of its more overt results. For the first time betting shops in England and Wales are allowed to open for business on Good Friday. Even though there is no horse-racing taking place today (the main business for betting shops in the UK), even so, customers of this “modern leisure industry” will be able to bet on forthcoming events, today’s football matches, horse-racing abroad and use the gambling machines in the shops. All in all, a triumph for a modern, go-ahead industry. Oh, and did I mention, how “modern” gambling is today?

The emphasis on modernity was unsubtly rammed home by a speaker for Ladbrokes in an interview on Radio 4 this morning. When asked about religious objections to Good Friday opening, the speaker generously allowed everybody the right to their opinions, but such moralising has no place in a (yes, you guessed it) modern go-ahead leisure industry.

I am grateful to Mr Ladbroke for his generous nod towards a multi-moral society, but I think he’s wrong. Not in wanting his shops to be open on Good Friday, no. I don’t have a problem with gambling on Good Friday. My disagreement with him is his assertion that this is a modern go-ahead industry.

I think that betting shops should be open on Good Friday. I think it is the one day of the year on which gambling should be forced to happen. I think that gambling and Good Friday are inextricably linked. After all, what does John record happening at the foot of the cross, as the crucified Jesus begins his slow agonising descent into suffocation and death?

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,
‘They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.’
And that is what the soldiers did. (John 19:23-25)

For hundreds of years, when Christians wanted to meditate on the passion of Jesus they would use depictions of the instruments of the passion: the cross, the nails, the whip, the crown of thorns, and, yes, the dice used by the Roman soldiers in gambling for the dying man’s clothes.

Gambling and Good Friday go together, and have always gone together. For those of use who don’t gamble, for those of us who will be attending church rather than the bookie’s today, it is good to remember that the Lamentation of Jeremiah means as much today as it did in the prophet’s own times:

Does it mean nothing to you, all ye who pass by?

The world of Star Wars was profoundly influenced by Buddhism, and in no greater way than its treatment of anger. For Christians, as we begin the commemoration of Holy Week, this version of anger is far removed from what we see in the biblical witness and in the last week of Jesus’s life.

3MT : The Dark Side and Righteous Anger [ 5:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (241)

Continue Reading »

For those of us who might be preparing Good Friday sermons or Holy Week school assemblies, I have prepared this (with uncertain copyright, but I’m asserting fair use!)

Continue Reading »

A scandal and a stumbling block is the crucifixion, a “strange way” of getting things done. As we enter Holy Week, Christians need to recover a sense of the utter strangeness of what God has achieved in Christ. A Welsh poet and a French troublemaker can help us with that.

3MT : Strange Ways and Simone Weil [ 5:27 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (217)

Continue Reading »

Consider these questions. (You don’t have to write an essay, but just think through what your answers might be.)

• Pilate asked Jesus ‘what is truth?’ What answer would Jesus give if Pilate asked him ‘what is peace?’ What answer would you give? Pilate?

Read through Matthew 5:9-10 (either alone or as a group). As you read, look at the notes you made when you read the Beatitudes during the first week:

• !! for that which makes you think;
• those things you agree with, or approve of;
• those things you find difficult to believe or understand;
• ?? those things which require you to go a little bit further.

Read this story of the Desert Fathers:

• There were three friends who were eager workers, and one of them chose to devote himself to making peace between people who were fighting, in accordance with ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. The second chose to visit the sick. The third went off to live in tranquillity in the desert. The first toiled away at the quarrels of men, but could not resolve them all, and so, in discouragement, went to the one who was looking after the sick, and he found him flagging too, not succeeding in fulfilling the commandment. So the two of them agreed to go and visit the one who was living in the desert. They told him their difficulties and asked him to tell them what he had been able to do. He was silent for a time, then he poured water into a bowl and said to them, ‘Look at the water.’ It was all turbulent. A little later he told them to look at it again, and see how the water had settled down. When they looked at it, they saw their own faces as in a mirror. Then he said to them, ‘In the same way a man who is living in the midst of men does not see his own sins because of all the disturbance, but if he becomes tranquil, especially in the desert, then he can see his own shortcomings.’ (Retold by Simon Tugwell)

Can you answer these questions?

• Why is peacemaking so important to God?
• What do you make of the story of the Desert Fathers? Whose part would you take?
• How and where could you ‘make peace’?
• Look at Jesus’s ‘cleansing the temple’ in Matthew 21:10-16. Is Jesus a peacemaker here?

Read this passage:

• Persecution is an embarrassment to Western Christians; or rather, the lack of it is. There is so much in the scriptures that prepares the disciples for a rough ride, for suffering and pain in this world, that when it does not happen we are thrown by the experience. Are we simply not worth persecuting, we wonder? (Robert Warren, Living Well, 1988))

• Are we worth persecuting?
• How do we discern when hostility is ‘persecution’ and when it is deserved censure?
• What one thing might God be calling you to do that goes against the flow?
• How can we respond to the sufferings of persecuted Christians elsewhere in the world?

Vangelis : A Way – from the album ‘Heaven and Hell’ (1975); Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (b.1943)

Vangelis, most famous in this country for his score for Chariots of Fire, is a Greek-born electronic and classical composer. Although recently working in an orchestral medium, his early characteristic albums consist of elaborately recorded layers of keyboards, treated synthesisers and “soundscapes” that, with a finely developed sense of melody and mood, work supremely well with applied visuals: hence his popularity with film makers. A Way is the final movement from his early concept album, Heaven and Hell (released in 1975) which resolves the conflict and turmoil of the earlier themes.

What music would you normally choose to listen to for a peaceful time? What other art forms bring you or others peace?

Vangelis : A Way – ‘Heaven and Hell’ (1975) [ 3:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (153)

Forty eight hours ago I was tagged¹. Forty eight hours ago I had no idea what “tagging” was or how it worked. So, sophisticated bloggers gather round and snigger as I get this meme thing wrong:

Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List these rules.
Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.

Reasons:

1. “hello world”: no more than the ego-centric attempt to find reassurance that I actually exist as a sentient being outside and beyond the roles allotted to me by job and social status.
2. “hello brain”: it’s an external forum by which I am obliged to think and to articulate something more demanding than “three ways to be a better Christian” and “how do we increase our volunteer numbers? (hmm. note to self: two possible future blog entries)
3. “hello God”: this is what I am thinking, Lord, and this is how I am trying to make sense of your calling of me. Tom Merton had a typewriter in a cabin in the woods. I have WordPress.

So I tag Dave, who’s got far too much on for this sort of thing; Doug who deals with much more elevated ideas than this sort of thing; and Kathryn, who is probably going to have to give up this sort of thing.

(There: did I get it right?)

1. and he wants a beer as well! [↩]

Arvo Pärt’s organ piece Annum per Annum has something to say to those who are always looking for the next new thing in the life of the Church.

3MT : Doing the old things well [ 5:16 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (221)

Annum per Annum : David Goode (organ) [ 8:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (112)

Continue Reading »

Consider these questions. (You don’t have to write an essay, but just think through what your answers might be.)

• How do you like to be treated? Do you treat others in the same way?

Read through Matthew 5:7-8 (either alone or as a group). As you read, look at the notes you made when you read the Beatitudes during the first week:

• !! for that which makes you think;
• those things you agree with, or approve of;
• those things you find difficult to believe or understand;
• ?? those things which require you to go a little bit further.

A note to help you:
For most modern readers ‘heart’ is the symbolic source of our emotions, and so “pure in heart” is to do with having the right feelings. In the ancient world ‘heart’ more often stood for ‘the inner person’, your mind and your will. “The heart is a symbol of what we are in ourselves, of the source of all our reactions and aspirations. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’ will mean something like ‘Blessed are those who have a pure source of life in them.’ (Simon Tugwell).
Can you answer these questions?

• Is pure the same as ‘nice’?
• What is the connection between purity of heart and seeing clearly?
• Is it naïve to see the best and the possible in people and situations?
• Simon Tugwell has given his definition of ‘purity of heart’. What is yours?
• What do you think of Shakespeare’s famous passage on mercy?

The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest,
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Portia, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV Scene I

• Does showing mercy encourage people to take advantage of you?
• How and where have you experienced mercy?
• Should governments demonstrate mercy? How?
• Twice, in Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7, Jesus quotes Hosea’s cry that God desires ‘mercy not sacrifice’. Why is this so important to Jesus?

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Charlotte Margiono, Barbara Bonney, Thomas Hampson, Anton Scharinger; Nicholas Harnoncourt (cond) : “Contessa, perdonno” (Finale) – The Marriage of Figaro (1786); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, (1756-1791)

The Marriage of Figaro was a controversial choice for Mozart to turn into an opera. The play upon which is was based, by the French playwright Beaumarchais, had caused rioting when it was performed in Paris after being banned for six years by Louis XIV: the king had uttered the prophetic warning: “For this play not to be a danger, the Bastille would have to be torn down first”. Five years after the play’s first performance in Paris that is exactly what happened. The play was also banned in Vienna, where the brother of Louis’s wife (Marie Antoinette) was Emperor, but the Emperor was persuaded by Mozart (and his librettist, da Ponte) that the vicious satire which characterised Beaumarchais’s play would be removed.

The first performance of The Marriage of Figaro was vividly recreated in Peter Schaffar’s play Amadeus, later filmed by Milos Forman. In it Mozart’s great rival Salieri is portrayed as the only person able to realise the genius of the opera, that God is speaking to the world through the music of Mozart. This is what Salieri says of the final scene of The Marriage of Figaro (our music clip):

The fourth [act] was astounding. l saw a woman disguised in her maid’s clothes, hear her husband speak the first tender words he’d offered her in years. Simply because he thinks she is someone else. l heard the music of true forgiveness filling the theatre conferring on all who sat there perfect absolution. God was singing through this little man to all the world. Unstoppable.

What is sung

Has any other piece of music ever moved you to see God at work through its composer?