love – Page 3 – Holy Adventures

Ouch, Jesus!

As I said at the start of the service this morning, I am speaking at an event in our grounds this Thursday, arranged by Fremantle Council, about my work in India to help combat modern slavery. I can’t think of a single thing more important than ending the buying and selling of humans. It is that thing that I will never stop working for – the thing I would go to prison for, if I thought it would help – the thing I might even die for. And I won’t talk much about my adventures in India, or the stories of the precious women and children I met there, because I want you to come on Thursday night, but I can’t help being reminded of those people and their plight, when I hear this morning’s first reading.

Today we only get the ‘happily-ever-after’ bit, but Joseph’s full story is one of favouritism, bad parenting, jealousy, murder attempts, human trafficking, lies, false imprisonment and eventual redemption – God sent me here to preserve life, Joseph tells his slave trading brothers. Or, as one of my favourite bible verses later says, what you intended for harm, God intended for good. And Joseph kissed his brothers and wept with them, and they talked together.

Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, faked his death, separated him from his beloved dad, he was tricked, imprisoned, forgotten about and then, when they are reunited, Joseph kissed them, wept with them, and talked with them. It’s almost like he heard Jesus’ teaching from today’s gospel reading, some 6 or 7 centuries before he said them.

Loving his enemies, doing good to those who had hated him, blessing those who had cursed him, freely giving to them, choosing not to judge but to forgive. And Jesus tells us to do likewise. It doesn’t make for easy listening, does it?

At best it sounds like an impossibly hard task, good but almost entirely unattainable. At worst it sounds like allowing others to abuse us, walk all over us, a real wet response. But I don’t think either sound like the Jesus I believe in.

And as I reflected on that, so I remembered the first visit to the brothels, while I was in Mumbai – full of imprisoned and trafficked women, like Joseph, and full of those who were buying and selling them – like Joseph’s brothers.

I kept a journal while I was there and one particular day I wrote this…

I’ll never forget stepping into the first brothel and seeing the women; a diverse mix of young and old, loud and silent, laughing and staring, fully clothed and almost naked. Instantly I loved these women. Instantly I could see they are children of God and that God’s image is clearly stamped on them; they weren’t the dirty, cheap, slur on society they are often painted as…

And then I saw the men. And I despised them.

They made me want to scream: How dare you touch these beautiful women and think you can buy them? How dare you mar the image of the creator in these precious children?

Then the challenge from God began.

“They are my children too” God said.
“They are made in My image too”
“My image is marred in them, but it is not destroyed”
“They are my children and I love them”

Last Thursday I shook hands with the first pimp I have ever knowingly met. I looked at him – he was small and polite. He asked me my name, in English. I told him my name, in Hindi, and asked him his. Kasim.

…And all I kept thinking was “you buy and sell women and children for sex”.

And God kept saying to me “can you see Jesus in Kasim?”.

And the truth is, to my shame, I couldn’t, but maybe this is what Jesus means when he says love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Do not judge. Forgive…

Love them because they are also beloved of God

Do good because everyone deserves that, even those we think don’t

Bless, pray, give, forgive.

Not because we are better but because everyone is our equal, everyone is made in the image of God and bears God’s image in their very soul. And because doing these things is good for us and God always wants what is good.

Withholding blessings, prayer, and refusing to forgive is bad for our hearts, souls and bodies and how can we hope others will encounter the gift of love God has for all people if we refuse to love, or if we set conditions on who or how much?

Jesus calls us to such a high standard of living, not as a to-do list for God to love us, but so we might live more freely, just exactly as we are created to. And that others might too.

We work through the deep and difficult work of forgiveness so we are released from carrying and holding resentments that hold us captive.

We strive to love our enemies because otherwise we are poisoned and drawn into a life of harming others.

We do good to those who hate us, not to encourage behaviours of hate, but because we are committed to counteracting them.

And these responses are God-given because they change us. They reorient us. They place us right back into the truths of who we are: God’s beloved children…just like our enemies.

Ultimately these acts, which may seem defeatist and disempowering, centre us in a powerful place of knowing who we are, and who God is. When we act in these ways, these counterintuitive ways to how the world works, we claim truths about God, ourselves, and how God calls us to respond towards others.

We love because we are loved

We love others because they are also loved

That’s really it

How tough it is, what a life’s work it is, but the alternative doesn’t bear considering.

In the Kingdom of God, the alternative doesn’t even exist. Amen.

Jesus’ 4-word Sermon

Mark 12: 28-34

If feedback from congregation members was, in any way, a measure of the ‘success’ of a sermon I could reliably inform you that my two ‘best ones’ so far were the first one, where I told you I only have one sermon – many of you have asked me about that statement – and the other was the one where I mentioned Bunnings – largely because of my terribly British pronunciation of it, and your inherent love of the place!

Anyways…if it were true that there really is only one sermon, then Jesus seems to be the true modeller of that theory. And today’s gospel reading really boils down all his teaching, all his life, into just four very simple words:

LOVE GOD

LOVE OTHERS

And that is it. Jesus’ message and life’s work, in 4 words – Love God, love others.

I seriously considered just saying those 4 words today and then sitting down, and if there is anywhere in the world where I could legitimately do that, it is almost certainly here, and some of you are almost certainly longing for me to do exactly that, but I want to say a few more things before we take time to sit and reflect.

Love God. Love others. The 4 most important words in all scripture.

Imagine if those 4 words were the measure by which we made every decision, every choice, every single deed. Does this thing demonstrate I love God? Does this choice enable me to love others more? How can my time be used better in the quest of love? That is how it is supposed to be. It’s not a golden aspiration or aim we can never reach. It’s the plan! The greatest of all commandments. It is possible. Everything we do, don’t do, spend, give, take, everything we even are is intended to be for love of God and others.

So, the question is not, should we love God or could we love God. The only question is how. How Lord, how can we love you and love others well. Better.

In the four short Sundays we’ve been together we have already had some great examples of what loving God and others looks like. We explored the need to lay down all we have, even our very lives if we need to, and come to God hungry and expectant, willing to place ourselves in the very hands of God that we might, as that gorgeous Methodist Covenant Prayer says ‘be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you….’ Last week we considered how we might love God by throwing ourselves upon God’s mercy….and love others by extending that same mercy to them.

Jesus preaches throughout scripture but the message is always the same:

Love God, love others.

Yesterday I went along to the diocesan training on keeping children safe from sexual abuse. Many of you have been on the course, I know. It was shocking and deeply concerning and the church has a long way to go until all God’s children are safe within her walls but, do you know, one of the things that really shocked me, (particularly as I was thinking about this morning’s reading) was when the trainer shared words from scripture about forgiveness. She seemed to be saying we should forgive those who abuse children and extend love to them. And then she said, ‘but only the ones who are repentant’.

But I don’t think that is what Jesus says in his 4-word sermon.

You see, love is a gift from God; a fruit of the Spirit. It is the very source and essence of who God is – not just something t we somehow muster up. Friends, loving like Christ is life giving, life threatening. But there are no caveats; it is not ours to arbitrate or ration. Like mercy, it is a gift we are given, in abundance, not to keep, but always to pass on – whether or not we think the recipient deserves it. And when we love we become more and more like the Creator. More and more like the One we seek to love.

Love God. Love Others.

And our most perfect example is found in Christ. And how does Christ Jesus love?

He Loves, outrageously and indiscriminately. He Loves, even when the world tells us to hate. Or even, especially when the world tells us to hate.

Jesus loved his disciples with everything he had and everything he was and everything he did. He loved them when they were loveable and when they were utterly unlovable. He loved through healing, feeding the hungry and welcoming the outcasts. He loved the sinners and the untouchables. He loved through touch, hospitality and welcome. He loved all people; Jews and Gentiles, men, women and children, those who were sick, paralysed, possessed with demons. He even loved the dead…and loved them back to life. He loved and loved and loved, in every thought, word and deed…and then commands us to do the same.

Giving our lives over to love is crazy and bold and all-consuming and life altering and Jesus said it over and over. It was his one and only sermon!

And in these pages of scripture He is speaking to us as individuals, and to the church as a whole; this is our commandment. This is how we should behave to the person next to us and how the church should be behaving to the world. This is what we should be known for.

Love God and Love Others, Jesus says. Love Extravagantly and unconditionally. Love in every thought, word and deed, and continue to keep on choosing to do so, even when it hurts, even when we don’t want to, even when we aren’t thanked or noticed, even when we aren’t loved back. Love more abundantly, more outrageously, more like Christ.

Jesus’ teachings are simple. Easy to understand, but world-changing if we take them seriously. If we are serious about joining and remaining in this Jesus movement, it will take us to the very edge of ourselves. It will cost us everything and give us back even more. All through this crazy revolution of love.

You know, sometimes I’d really like to just say 4 words as a sermon, and then sit down. Maybe I should.

Love God. Love Others.

Amen.

Loving Fiercely… 🧡

When I thought about writing a blog in quarantine, my plan was to document the work of St Aidan’s Kitchen, the (more than) Soup Kitchen that was set up in August 2017 in my church in Hartlepool. I had been meaning to write some of the stories for a long time but hadn’t got around to it. I had ideas to write a book, ‘Tales from St Aidan’s Kitchen’, and thought a blog might be a good start but each day, when I’ve sat down to write, the things that have come to me have rarely been about that place or time and those stories just didn’t come. Until today.

Back in 2013 I was working in India with women and girls who had been trafficked and enslaved in the sex industry. I had no idea what I was doing but I couldn’t think of anything more important in the world than trying to end slavery, so off I went. While I was there, I met the most amazing and beautiful, strong, and broken women and girls. Everywhere I went I kept hearing this echo from God, ‘when you tell these people’s stories, make sure their names are safe in your mouth’. Over and over God said it, and I didn’t know what it meant, but I am reminded of that now, as I begin to share the stories of some of my friends from St Aidan’s Kitchen. And I entrust their stories to you and ask that their names* would be safe in your mouth too if you share them.

So, I can only ever begin with Samantha.

Samantha first came to The Kitchen in October 2017. She was cold and dirty, shivering in the pew, and had been sleeping on a car park for the last few nights. She had walked to Hartlepool from Middlesbrough and worn her shoes through. She was escaping a violent relationship and was sporting a real shiner of a black eye; a group of men she didn’t know had attacked her the night before with a vodka bottle and told her that her boyfriend knew where she was and was coming to find her. She was terrified and kept one eye on the door the whole time.

Samantha was wearing every item of clothing she had, and she carried her whole life in one carrier bag, including every single certificate she had ever been awarded. We gave her a bag of food, a bowl of warm soapy water, a clean towel and a hug and she shook as she cried. She told me she had been using the public toilets at the train station to wash her face and had been washing her feet in the marina. In the Northeast of England, in October. She taught me that giving homeless people baked beans was a rubbish idea – not because she couldn’t heat them (she didn’t care about that), but because she didn’t next know when she would find a clean toilet and didn’t want to be caught short… She taught me things every time I saw her.

By the end of that morning, we’d found her a place in a hostel and within a fortnight she had a home that we furnished for her. Sam was kind and generous and beaming with gratitude. She was encountering grace and unconditional acceptance, and for a couple of months she really flourished. In the December, I baptised her and the next day she was confirmed by the bishop. She knew the love and acceptance of God, and the welcome of the church. Together, we loved Sam well, and she grew as a result – not physically, of course; she remained just a tiny dot, a little over 5 foot and probably 7 stone, wet through.

My interactions with her made me, I hope, a better priest and a more loving person. She took our time and our attention. She would call late at night, anxious and upset, and would stay on the phone until her battery died. She was at everything that happened at church. She joined in with all the liturgy and hymn singing (whether she knew it or not!) – loudly – not always at the right times, and she found her way into the hearts of many of us. It was easy to love Samantha. Actually, not easy. It wasn’t easy, it was bloody hard work, but it was simple, and it was costly – in time and money and many other ways.

Samantha wasn’t a drug addict, although many would’ve thought she was. She was a drinker, and her alcohol addiction had cost her her children, previous homes and relationships, jobs, friends. It had cost her everything, several times over, but she was doing well with us. She wasn’t drinking, she had new friends and a support network, and she was truly flourishing, in body, mind and spirit.

And then, the day before Christmas Eve, Samantha disappeared. She simply vanished, and 6 weeks later she was dead. The police told me she had died of a heroin overdose, which I just couldn’t believe. Had I been so dumb as to take her at her word when she told me how much she hated drugs and would never touch them (God knows I had no idea when others at the Kitchen were lying to me, not for a long time!!)?? Was I that stupid? That bloody naïve?

When we went into her house, everything we had given to her had been sold or stolen. It was a ransacked mess. And it was hard to not feel like she’d taken our love and our kindness and traded it in for addiction. It was hard to not feel like the love she had experienced in our church family had been thrown away; that she’d swapped all that love for chaos and drugs.

Over the next few painful months, the truth began to unfold. Samantha’s violent boyfriend had indeed found her, just as he had promised. He had somehow won her back, moved into her house, and she had begun drinking again. He was (maybe still is) a drug user and regularly injected smack. This man had encouraged Samantha to try heroin. In court he told the judge that she wasn’t keen but eventually gave in, and he injected Sam with his own dose – the dose of a seasoned drug user who is 6ft+ and 16 stone – and Samantha died straight away, on the very first time**.

Her body was wrecked, and the funeral was delayed and delayed while autopsies and police investigations and court procedures happened. Eventually, three months later, I got to lay Sam to rest, while her mum (who had loved her forever but not seen her in years) and son (who she said had been murdered) looked on – one screaming the most guttural cries I’ve ever heard, and the other pale faced and wide-eyed, white with shock.

I went and anointed Sam just before her funeral and I was angry. I was angry with her and angry with God; I was angry with her boyfriend and at the system and at myself for not having saved her. But I was also so thankful to Sam. She taught me about the vulnerability of relationships, and what it means to truly love fiercely, without boundaries and restrictions. That love, my love, and the love of all those who encountered Sam, had been taken, enjoyed; it had really nourished her and done all kinds of healing, but it had ended up sold and discarded. And that is a risk we take. Every. Single. Time.

Loving fiercely is costly. It is uncomfortable, challenging, dangerous even, but it is holy. And isn’t that our quest? Don’t we aim for holiness?

If extravagant love could have saved Sam, I expect she would be changing the world right now. She lit up at the mention of Jesus and children and whenever she was cleaning! And she made some truly horrendous choices in her life that cost her it all in the end. But I feel privileged to have known her, even for such a short time. I feel changed and moulded and reshaped by every single one of my encounters with Samantha and I will never, not ever, regret what we did for her and what we gave her, and I would do it all over again, and again, and again (indeed, I have). Because that is the love of Christ, and that is what we are called to.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ ^{Matt 25:40}

* Many of the names will be changed, some will be theirs.

** incidentally, he was found guilty of Samantha’s death and was sentenced to only 20 months in prison. Twenty months…