A Sermon for Aboriginal Sunday

Jonah 3:1-10 Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Mark 1:14-20

Much of today’s liturgy has been provided by Common Grace. They describe themselves as a movement of individuals, churches and communities pursuing Jesus and justice for the flourishing of all people and creation… with a focus on listening deeply to our first nations people. Their material states that the first biblical text ever recited on these lands we now call Australia was by the chaplain of the first fleet, Revd Richard Johnson, in February 1788.

The passage he read was Psalm 116 verse 12, “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?” And a monument stands on Gadigal land, at Sydney Cove, on the shores of Botany Bay, in memory of his sermon.

Just a week before that sermon, Captain Arthur Phillip, sailed into the bay with eleven shiploads of convicts, to establish a penal colony, hoist the British flag, and claim the lands on behalf of the British Empire, marking the disruption and dispossession of First Nations history and cultural connections to their lands, language and heritage.

This day and date confront and remind First Nations Peoples about their loss and their ongoing suffering and trauma as they continue to struggle for justice, dignity and basic human rights.

We are centuries into, and centuries away from, making true reparation for the shockwaves that were sent through the ground and the communities in those actions.

One of the aboriginal elders, when speaking about the site of that first recorded sermon, powerfully states, ‘The first time I came to this place…all of a sudden, I started listening from the floor up, from my feet up. [and] I could hear it screaming and I could hear within my spirit, the voices of Ancestors who have not received peace from justice and right relationship. I could feel them coming all the way through and I could hear them through my feet…’

And it all began at the water’s edge.

And this morning’s gospel passage is also at the water’s edge, on the shores of the sea of Galilee.

‘As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James and his brother John. Immediately he called them; and they left their boat and followed him’.

And all week I’ve not been able to get away from the fact that both events – the domination of this land, and the beginning of the Jesus movement – both began at the water’s edge.

I am not comparing the two. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that Jesus calling his disciples was anything like the claiming and stealing of this land. There are no comparisons, and it would be naïve and crass to make one. And yet, the water’s edge is a significant place, isn’t it. And Jesus chose to walk there to find his first disciples.

The water’s edge is one of those liminal places – one where the veil between earth and heaven is thinner. Where it is clearer to see the glory of God. Where beauty is crisper and creation more alive. The water’s edge is a place of invitation and permission. And where do we see that more clearly than in the invitation of Jesus in his call to the first disciples.

They almost certainly didn’t know him (although his reputation may have started to spread), but there must have been something in his manner and his voice that was completely compelling, because they immediately left their boats and their trade and their family and friends and followed him. And it kept happening.

And what I am left thinking about that is the significance of the waters edge.

How it can be used as a place of welcome or a place of attack.

A place of invitation or a place of domination.

How it can be used to call or disperse others.

When the first fleets arrived at the water’s edge it set off a series of events that changed history and showed humanity at its worst – a greedy, grabbing, disruptive and destructive force. Christ’s footsteps along the waterside set off an entirely different series of events that changed the world for good – a revolution of love and grace, healing and wholeness – yes, still a total disruption of all that had gone before – nothing would ever be the same again – but it was a fulfilment, a completeness.

And we have a choice about what our life will count for too.

We have the privilege here to also get our feet wet. We have the chance to go to the shoreline and reflect on these two completely conflicting events. We can put our feet in the water’s edge and choose whether the mark we make on this world will be good or bad, greed or grace, healing or destruction.

At the water’s edge – looking out at vast expanses of sea and sky – it is easy to feel completely insignificant, tiny, like a blip in time and space. And we are that, of course we are. Merely beloved stardust. But we also have a unique opportunity, individually and collectively, to be a force for good, a force for holiness and love, and yes even to change the course of history forever. If the captain of the first fleet could change this country then so could we. Particularly if we doing it at the invitation of the One who walks by the waters edge and still says ‘follow me’.

‘Follow me’, comes Christ’s call of invitation. And we can still choose to leave everything behind and follow him. Imagine what we can still achieve, by leaving and following, or continuing to do so. Go and put your feet in the water and started listening from your feet up to that call. What will you say?

Common Grace has a question for us, so my last word in theirs, and they say this… ‘is the church willing to even begin, and then continue to be the example of love and truth that this gospel of Jesus is?’

Are we?

Amen.

Come and See

1 Sam 3:1-10 Psalm 139:1-5,12-18 1 Cor 6:12-20 John 1:43-51

Are you the sort of person who needs to see something in the flesh before you go ahead and invest… Despite my capacity to be click-happy with internet shopping, resulting in things arriving that look nothing like they did in the picture, really I am someone who needs to see it first before I know if it is for me. When I had to choose a college to train for ordination I visited more than half of the institutions, until I just knew where I should go.

When I was offered my curacy parish, I didn’t say yes until I had been to the town and the churches and had literally touched the stones walls. I didn’t say yes until I had stood underneath the enormous statue of Christ on the reredos and whispered ‘I would like to serve you here’ and got the sense God agreed it could work out.

And then I moved to the other side of the world, and there was no chance to ‘come and see’ at all, because, well, covid. How was I supposed to know what this place felt like if I couldn’t come and see? How did I know if I would sense the spirit about her business if I didn’t take my shoes off and connect with the ground?

Sometimes God is just incredibly faithful and makes everything work out, without us being able to see at all. We just hear the call and we go, like Philip. Not because we are good, but because the God who calls us is. And sometimes we really do want to come and see. Sometimes we won’t commit to something without seeing and touching and tasting and engaging all our senses. Like Nathanael.

And then there are also times when the reputation of the place goes before it; Can anything good come out of Nazareth??

Now I am not saying our reputation here goes before us. I’m not saying people would say ‘can anything good come out of Beaconsfield?’ At all. But, when I first arrived and was new to the diocese I would meet my new colleagues across the diocese and even before I got to the end of my name they would say ‘oh you’re the one from St Paul’s Beaconsfield…… how is it???’ in that deeply inquisitive, kind of way.

And I would say, even back at the beginning, and more so now…it is great. It is a great place with amazing people. And I mean it. And oftentimes I also say ‘you should come and see!’ and I kept thinking about that this week when reading this dialogue between Philip and Nathanael.

And what it made me think is you have to be pretty careful making blanket invitations like that, because people might come. They might come and like it and stay and fit in and add to our growing tapestry of family life here. And they might come and not like it and they might say mean things about the stuff we hold dear. Or they might come and really like what they see and they might stay and they might not be like us. And they might sit in your seat and their children might make a mess and a noise – or they might. And they might move in with all their worldly possessions and set up home in our favourite bit of the grounds and they might be hideously inconvenient. We might invite people to come and see and they might have ideas for improving things – which means changing how things happen around here – and we said come and see but we didn’t mention change. And yet, we still keep extending our invitation, don’t we, because we want this to be a place where everyone is welcome.

Extending an invitation – meaning it – and going with the flow with whoever the spirit blows in – is risky. Don’t mistake me – there isn’t an alternative. Its what we must do, but we can also recognise the cost of this kind of radical hospitality.

But the other thing I have been thinking about this story is, it’s all well and good inviting people to come and see, but the more important consideration is what do we want people to see when they come.

And I can think of several things I want people to see; I want them to see a warm and friendly welcome, a happy and real bunch of people who like being community together. I want them to see a place that is simply stunning, well-loved and where love seeps out of the walls and up from the ground. Those things are important, but I guess the local AA meeting or the bowls team or book club might want those too.

Of course, the thing we want people to come and see isn’t a thing at all. We want people to come and see the Christ and meet the Divine and encounter that unending grace and mercy and that deep deep unquenchable unfailing love. And they might do that through our community and our grounds and our welcome, but it is so much more than that.

When we invite people to come and see, we invite them also to take and eat and take and drink. We invite people to leave behind the things, the resentments, the darkness they’ve been dragging around with them for decades and we invite them into the freedom of confession and forgiveness. We invite them to come and see the one who is higher than themselves, greater than their biggest fear, deeper than their deepest doubts, the one who formed their inward parts; and knit them together in their mother’s womb.

And we invite them to say yes.

Our invitation is not to a place or a service, it is to an encounter with life and love and truth and goodness. It is an invitation to belong, just as they are, and not to stay that way but to be changed and moulded and remade. And it is the same invitation for us.

We already came here. We have already seen.

And yet that unconditional welcome and invitation and call continues to be extended to us too.

Jesus still says follow me. Will you come and see? Amen.

The Magnificat of 2023

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 The Magnificat Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1: 26-38

Back in July, while I was in England, my dad asked my family ‘if you were a contestant on mastermind, what would your specialist subject be?’. And we thought long and hard about our answer. His was episodes of the dare-I-say dated crime drama Columbo, and the races of one specific horse of the 1970s. But mine would be the life and works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And, if I can peel your thoughts away from what your mastermind specialist subject would be, let’s consider Jesus’ mum.

In place of our psalm today we read those glorious words of Mary’s song of social justice, the Magnificat. My favourite Magnificat-fact is until as recently as 1986 it was against the law in at least two countries for it to be recited, in public. In Guatemala and India, the government banned this passage because they recognised its power and they feared that if the poor or oppressed heard it, there might be an uprising, a revolution. Mary’s prophetic view of this world is not just a system that is a bit better than the old one. It is a brand-new creation, and it makes the old order unrecognisable.

This wide-eyed girl said a defiant yes to a new world order and agreed to fulfil her part in it and I want to do the same. I want to be that radical, that defiant, that obedient. But do you know what I only just realised this week?

As much as I love Mary, as much as her words are indelibly inked on my skin, as much as her YES has got me into all kinds of holy trouble and led me to this, I’ve often kept her as that teenage mum. Apart from an occasional moment or two, she’s mostly been singing the Magnificat or birthing in the stable. But this week, I read this poem and it has woken something up in me so I wanted to share with you these words from the writer Katie Baker.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards.

I listen calmly while the angel brings me news that will shake my life beyond all measure.

I accept what has been ordained for me.

I am young and dressed in blue.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards.

Despite travelling almost 100 miles on a donkey across a desert and giving birth in a stable, I am still immaculately clean and tidy, cradling my infant son, unperturbed by my surroundings.

I am still young and dressed in blue.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards, welcoming shepherds from the nearby fields and strangers from afar; a person who treats such events as if they happened every day, calmly pondering on them in my heart.

I am still young and dressed in blue

But is this really me?

Do you have any picture of me beyond that of Christmas cards?

Where is your picture of me in the temple, as Simeon tells me how a sword would pierce my soul?

The angel brought greetings and told me not to be afraid, so I am calm on your Christmas cards; but do you never see the terror in my eyes as I hear Simeon’s haunting words and I do fear what is to come?

Maybe you do have a picture of me 12 years later – but have I aged in your eyes?

Am I calm and serene, frantically searching for my son, lost on return from the temple?

He was calm – but not I.

I was frantic.

Do you have a picture of me 30 years after your first picture of me?

Am I still dressed in blue?

Are there lines on my face?

Is my hair now grey?

Do you see me at the wedding feast, recognising deep within that his time was coming and he would soon be no longer mine?

Do you see me hurt by his rejection when he declared that all the world was his mother and his brother and his sister.

I knew that he had a greater purpose – but do not imagine that there was no pain for me in this. How I aged in those three years.

But am I still young in your picture?

Was I not grey-haired as I stood at the foot of the cross?

Do you know what it takes to watch your son being crucified?

Some parents still do.

As they pierced his side, my soul, too, was pierced.

Do you have a picture of me – in tears, distraught at the anguish of my son?

Or am I still the Mary of your Christmas cards?

They laid him in a tomb – it seemed so final – it seemed I had lost him for ever.

Where was the angel now to tell me not to be afraid?

My fellow countrywomen kept vigil; I was not alone in mourning.

But you who know what happened next, do you let me grieve for the end I thought he’d reached?

You know the end – you know the triumph of his resurrection, the Kingdom without end – and knowing this affects your picture of me.

I remain always young and dressed in blue, calm and serene, humble and willing – never allowed to show fear, hurt, anger, pain and grief.

For many I remain the Mary of Christmas cards.

If I am to be called blessed, please remember all I stand for.

As you receive your cards this Christmas, please look at me and remember that this is just the beginning.

Isn’t that wonderful?

The Mary of my knowledge was wild eyed, brave hearted, defiant and rebellious – a real revolutionary – but I had kept her young. By doing that I had denied Blessed Mary of burying her child. She knew that pain. And when he ascended he left again. I denied her of that too. She is so much more than we might have space for in our minds.

So before we dash headlong into Christmas Eve, before we celebrate her in carols and candlelight let’s just pause and consider the lifelong love of this earthly Mother, chosen for great things, and fully human.

And may we be inspired by that wild teen to whisper our own yes to God’s call, for the rest of our lives, not just for this snapshot, or this chapter. May our own yes be as bold as Mary’s and as lifelong. And might it even be as wild. Amen.

A road to Emmaus

Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Ps 116:1-4, 12-19 1 Peter 1:13-25 Luke 24:13-35

I have spent so much time with these disciples on this road this week! I have walked with them and listened to them and wondered about them. They have been with me as I’ve worked and as I swam. They’ve been with me when I laid awake in the night and when I slept. And, as is sometimes the case, the more time I spent with them, the less I understand their story. I began the week going ‘oh the road to Emmaus! I love this one!’ and have reached Sunday going ‘I don’t think I get it!’

So, we join them on the first Easter Sunday, and these two disciples are going to Emmaus, a village seven miles from Jerusalem, and they’re talking about all the things that have happened. And as they are walking, Jesus himself came near and went with them. They don’t know it is him, because ‘their eyes were kept from recognising him’ and he asks them what they are talking about. They stood still, looking sad, and can’t understand how this man doesn’t know what’s been happening these past few days.

And then they say the saddest three words of the human heart – ‘we had hoped’, they say. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped that what he taught us was true. We had hoped this was the new way and the beginning of life. We had hoped for so much but now he’s dead and we are disappointed and sad. We had hope, but now it is gone.

And the women have told us he is alive, but we went to see, and saw nothing. And the unknown traveller calls them foolish and slow of heart and takes them on a guided tour of scripture. From the exodus, through the prophets, he interprets what had happened, to them. And they feel something, but they don’t know what. And still they don’t understand.

And I have more questions than answers.

I wonder, why were their eyes kept from recognising him?! And what did the risen Jesus look like?

Mary didn’t recognise him – she thought he was the gardener. But then he spoke her name, and she knew him, so his voice must have been familiar. Thomas knew it was him as soon as he saw him – he said he needed to put his finger in the holes and his hands in his side, but as soon as he saw him, he knew.

But these disciples don’t recognise him even though he walked with them – with holes in his hands and feet – and spoke with them. They didn’t recognise what he looked like, nor what he sounded like. Why couldn’t they tell it was him?!

And then they reach Emmaus and Jesus goes to walk on ahead, but they ask him to stay, so he went into the house. And I imagine they are still chatting and still looking at him – do they not notice the marks in his hands? Do they really not know who this stranger is? But they feel something in their hearts; something other than the deep weight of grief that has been theirs all week. There’s something else there; what is it?

And they prepare the dinner.

They bake bread – that takes time – the flour and the water and the kneading and the baking of it and all this time they still don’t know who he is. Really?!

And then, they sit down to eat, and their scripture-teaching visitor takes this freshly baked bread in his scar-marked hands, and he blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. And suddenly it is as if their eyes are opened, and they recognise him… and THEN HE VANISHES!! He was there and then he isn’t, and their response is to say to each other ‘I thought something was up’, or rather, ‘I thought my heart was burning while he was talking to us’. Well, I’ll say!!

And they get up and run the 7 miles back to where their other friends are and tell them they met this man on the road who turned out to be Jesus and they know it because of the breaking of the bread.

And again, I have more questions than answers.

How did they not know who he was? How did they not hear his voice and recognise him, or see his hands and feet and not ask? What did he look like? What did he sound like? Did grief really blind them to that extent? Wasn’t it obvious before the breaking of the bread?

And then I realised how foolish I am and how slow of heart – just like those disciples.

How often is it that we encounter the risen Lord and have no idea either? How often are we given a glorious gift from the creator…but fail to notice? Isn’t it a foundational belief of our faith that God is with us always, until the end of time, and yet we might walk with God for days or weeks at a time and never even realise it?

And isn’t that why we gather here together, around this holy meal, around the breaking of the bread, so that we remember? Because how foolish we all are, how slow of heart humanity is! We need all of our senses to be engaged in order that we might have a fighting chance of hearing or seeing or receiving the message of love that God is communicating to us over and over, all of the time.

Sometimes, like Mary on that first dawn, we might hear our Lord’s voice and know it.

Sometimes, we might be sat in our room and be aware of the presence of God with us. But those times are rare, really. And that is why we have the gift of this bread and wine, which becomes for us the very presence of the risen Lord, because sometimes we need to see and touch and smell and hold and eat. It is real and tangible and present, so that we can recognise the one we are trying to follow, trying to know and love, but are often blind and deaf to.

So, as pilgrims on the road, we don’t always know or notice that Christ is right beside us. As fellow travellers who meet together here, we don’t always believe the testimony of others. Sometimes we need our own encounter, something that makes our hearts burn within us, something more than explanation of scripture, something more than words. So God gave us the mass.

Take and eat, God said, this is my body – drink this, it is my blood.

Every time that we do this, may we pause long enough to feel our hearts burn within us. May we know we have encountered the risen Christ – that this gospel message is true – and, every time, like these Emmaus pilgirms, may we get up from here and go and tell others: Jesus is Risen and he has been made known to me in the breaking of the bread. Come and see. Alleluia.

Amen.

When we give up and go back to fishing…

You might remember, a few weeks ago, I spoke about the installations at Cottesloe Beach and the hanging metal one that, from one direction displayed the word YES as the wind moved the dangling pieces in the sun, and then, as you walked past and looked back it somehow showed the word NO. Incidentally it won the top award for the sculptures by the sea this year, but the point was that sometimes we see things differently, as if for the first time. And it keeps on happening. Last week, even as I was reading the gospel reading in the service, I noticed something for the first time. And this week it’s happening again with this morning’s passage.

So, a short time has passed since the first Easter and the disciples are in a real spin. They’ve walked the last 3 years with Jesus. They’d heard and responded to His call to ‘follow Me’. They were there. They saw him heal and preach. They’d been given the Eucharist and had their feet washed. They’d walked in Gethsemane, and they had fled. And then Jesus died, and they had to face their grief, recognise their failings, recognise that He had not abandoned them but that they had, in fact, abandoned Him. And, even as they were wrestling with all that, He defeated death and appeared to them, despite the tomb being sealed and the doors being locked. And He kept on doing it.

And then Peter says, ‘I’m going fishing’ and some of the other disciples say, we’re coming.

And the point of this passage is often the redemption of Peter – you know, Jesus asks him 3 times ‘do you love me’ and 3 times tells him… ‘feed my sheep’ and this covers over for the 3 denials of Peter and that is great. It’s true and redemptive

But here’s the thing that has struck me. Listen to this… ‘I’m going fishing’.

Peter and his friends have had the most incredible, life changing, utterly transformational 3 years. They will surely never be the same again, surely. And yet, in their grief it seems that all is lost and what’s the point and those three words of Peter sum up his absolute despair; screw this, I’m going fishing. Really, what is the point? All is lost. I am lost. Total defeat. Can you hear that?

So off they go, and they land up, 80 miles away on the sea of Tiberias, in a boat, catching nothing. And then – would you believe it, even though they’ve gone all that way – Jesus pops up again. They don’t recognise it’s Him, but He tells them to cast their nets on the other side and they bring in this huge catch of fish. They haul the net ashore and share in a breakfast BBQ of bread and fish, with the risen Lord. Jesus even brings his own fish for them because its already there waiting when they reach the shore. Amazing!

And, unlike ever before, I’m feeling the potential awkwardness of that breakfast… oh, don’t get me wrong, they’ve already encountered Jesus twice before and it’s been fine – peace be with you, receive the holy spirit, as I was sent so I am sending you – but now, they’ve gone back to fishing. Peter has given up on who he was – Jesus is even calling him Simon – the person he once was, back before everything had got so great – back before he became the rock upon which the whole church would be built. It just feels like one of those awful, awkward meals where there is tension all around. Can you feel that?

And when they finished breakfast Jesus said to Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Ouch.

Simon – yep, remember who you once were.

Son of John – remember where you came from.

Do you love me?

And then there is this beautiful and bittersweet exchange where Jesus asks and asks and asks again and Simon responds and asserts and affirms and the gospel writer says, ‘Peter felt hurt’. Jesus addresses Simon, and Peter felt hurt. Wow. I want to sit with the complexity and depth of that too. It’s just all so poignant and deep and reassuring and unsettling. Can you sense that?

And then Jesus says, follow me.

Follow me. Jesus had said that, right at the beginning, right at the water’s edge when they had been there fishing, three years before. And hadn’t they gotten up, left their nets ‘straight away’ and followed him – not knowing what it would mean or what it would entail but doing it anyways – and now he’s asking again. Follow me…except, this time they all know exactly what this invitation includes – heck, Peter even knows what kind of death he’s going to face.

And it seems like this is something so significant. It’s like, the first time they heard the call they blindly followed – all gung ho and all in – yeah this sounds fun, let’s go! But now, now they are asked again – it’s like a second conversion.

And, as always, as it was for them, so it is for us, friends.

At our baptism, we, or our parents, heard that first call – follow me – and we did it, blindly. And then, somewhere along the way, we hear the call again. And again. And each time we have the choice. And how often do we also revert back to who we used to be and what we used to do? How often do we go back to whatever our equivalent of ‘going fishing’ is? How often do we need Jesus to come and find us and meet us at the place we’ve run to? Do you recognise that?

I think this story is so tender – almost painfully so – because it is our story and it is brutally familiar. And today, as every day, we have this invitation again. Follow me, Jesus says. Even unto death.

Hear him ask. What will your response be?

Amen.

Food and Faith

Yesterday I got a message from my mum that said, ‘About your blogs. In some of the early ones there are some cliff hangers…….. Do you need to reread and pick ‘em out and address them?’. Well, I didn’t know I was writing cliff hangers! 🤣 and I’m sorry if you’ve lost sleep wondering if/when I’ll get around to addressing them*, but I did as my mama told me (I’m good like that 😉) and I thought I would write something about my love of food and faith, particularly the combination of the two…

Food in quarantine began well (if you like rice, which I do), but it seems to be on a sharp downwards trajectory. The last two nights I’ve had to call reception and chase my evening meal because they’ve forgotten me. One night I had a vegetable that was cold and hard and soaked in oil (and looked far from vegan, in a kind of rude way!) and I have no idea what it was. Lunch today was some kind of vegan sushi roll but, even after I removed the cellophane wrapper, I’m not sure the wrap was entirely edible. And I, like many members of society, have a real Hanger problem.

Needless to say, food has been on my mind quite a lot!

And I’ve also been reading this great book, Signs of Life, by Rick Fabian (founding co-Rector of St Gregory’s of Nyssa Church, San Francisco). In the first chapter he talks about an ‘open welcoming table’, meaning everyone is welcome to come and receive their mass, regardless of the point they are at in their faith journey (not dependent on baptism, confirmation, or even any kind of professions of faith). He describes the altar at SGN, and the two inscriptions on it. As you enter the church you can see the first inscription, which reads ‘This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them’…a version of Luke 15; a dismissive statement by the Pharisees and teachers of the law, intended as an insult or slur, but beautifully transformed here into an amazing message of welcome. And then, on the other side, facing the font, it reads, ‘Did not the Lord share the table of tax collectors and harlots? So then – do not distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. All must be equal in your eyes to love and to serve’, a quote from Isaac of Ninevah. Here, all are welcome, and you are also welcome to baptism, at whatever point in your journey that is fitting for you. A wonderful, inclusive, follower-led, God-breathed, holy welcome.

This ‘open welcoming table’ hasn’t always been part of my experience, my worship style, or even my theology. I can quote all the scriptures that say people should wait to receive the body and blood of our Lord. And yet, none of them make sense to me anymore. We can’t wait until we understand fully, or are worthy, or we will die waiting. And, for me, how it is at the altar is how it should also be at the dinner table, and vice versa.

Something happens in the mass that unites those who are present. Something happens at a dinner table that does the same. I’m sure that’s why Jesus spent so much time eating together with people. And what Jesus does, so we should too. A quick google search reliably informs me that food is mentioned 90 times in the gospels alone and eating is mentioned 109. It’s big business!

Eating together provides a shared experience, breaks down boundaries, disarms conflict, allows people to cook and serve and share and chat. Eating is also a basic human right and should be equally available to all people, all the time. And it’s also SO MUCH FUN!

Jesus could have commanded his disciples to do anything in remembrance of him. Every time you watch a sunrise; every time you get dressed; every time you walk on the street; but he didn’t. What did he say? Every time you eat this and drink this, remember me.

These musings about the connection between the altar and the dinner table, the mass and our meals, this open table welcome and those who are hungry each day; this lot has shaped me as a person, as a follower of Jesus, as a priest and as an advocate for those who are poorest. It has led me to transform a grade-II listed building into, not just a church, but also a Kitchen and a café that is free. It has made food more important in my life, not less and each of these musings have led to action, actions that have brought me face to face with poverty and injustice and the beauty of humanity and the harshness of addiction and some awful smells and some wonderful humans.

My musings about food and faith have given me sleepless nights, early mornings, so much joy, huge amounts of laughter, floods of tears, a more authentic expression of faith (I hope) and a church with coffee stains on the pews and marks on the floor. They have taken me on the radio and TV and to San Francisco and Hartlepool, and the more I think and the more I learn, the more I am convinced that something *extra* happens when Jesus-folk gather around any kind of table and invite others to join them too, so I will keep doing it, always. Partly because it’s one of the few things I am absolutely convinced about with my faith, partly because it accidentally turns out to be a pretty good model for evangelism, partly because it is loads of fun, and mostly because Jesus seemed to think it was a good idea in 1^st century Palestine and doesn’t seem to have changed his mind since.

So, as one of my all-time favourite writers said, (rest in power, precious Rachel Held-Evans):

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more”.

Alleluia! All you have to do is come hungry…or hangry even! Let’s eat! 😋

*if you’ve been left with any other ‘cliff hangers’ drop me a line and I’ll do my best to address them! 💛