visualtheology

brand new website and refresh of visualtheology blog

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 15:05:00 +0000

I am pleased to announce that after an interregnum due to work commitments I am now in a position to begin blogging again. Please visit my new website, visualtheology.uk, for all my new content, which will shortly include videos on YouTube too.

Love and peace, David

urged to engage and compelled to welcome

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 11:01:00 +0000

As City of Culture 2017 Hull is proud of its cosmopolitan heritage. In the first week of January this fact was celebrated for all the world to see in a stunning video display projected onto The Deep. Surnames from Scotland, Wales and Ireland started a progression which moved through Eastern Europe and out to Syria, Iraq and Iran. This culminated in people from all parts of the globe shown holding hands and joining together in a demonstration of solidarity and togetherness. Ours is a city of welcome and hope, the home of William Wilberforce and the movement to abolish slavery and a place of asylum and refuge today.

St Paul projects a similarly thrilling image onto the new church at Corinth. The gist of what he wants to communicate maps out a powerfully engaged identity of welcome and hope too. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 his radical enthusiasm energises these new Christians to be a grass-roots movement that will subvert and challenge all that divides and separates us as those made in God’s image. In a few short phrases Paul portrays it like this:

For the love of Christ urges us on So there is no standing still, staying where we are, remaining as we are. Christ’s love is not passive or abstract: it is personal, purposeful and active. Because God loves us so much God will not leave us as we are. We are urged to engage with all within ourselves that is not right, and with everything between us that needs to be transformed. Why?

because we are convinced that one has died for all The gospel is inclusive and generous and no one is excluded. All are welcome. The imperative of mission compels us to reach out and engage with all those whom God loves. And we can do this because

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view There are no barriers to this engagement; God’s love transforms how we see one another because God’s transforming love is for everyone. The borders of God’s love are always open and we are compelled to act accordingly.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! As Paul projects this astonishing image on the church at Corinth we are led to an inevitable conclusion: wherever Christians are, new creation is present. As the love of Christ urges us on transformation is realised within and between us in a continuum of continuing creation. The image projected out from the church in Corinth onto its community is of God recreating life as Christians are urged to engage and compelled to welcome in a never-ending piece of divine performance art.

The following image shows a particularly ingenious and engaging piece of performance art that was also part of the opening creative celebrations for Hull City of Culture 2017. Hull is the centre of the UK static and touring caravan industry and the installation in an empty shop on Whitefriargate took a video presentation of the history of caravanning as its starting point. A section of a caravan was put inside the space so that the video was visible through its window. Two women sat at the dining table and ate fish and chips, whilst outside the shop the passers by looked in at the live performance of the story.

Paul is encouraging the new Christians in Corinth to perform their guiding gospel narrative in ways that are equally visible and persuasive to the inhabitants of their city. They are to bring the story alive and make it real. Urged to engage and compelled to welcome, Christ’s church projects an image onto the world that has the power to overcome all that is fuelled by bigotry, ignorance and hatred. There is a new creation that is unstoppable. We are called to perform it.

transfiguration: empowered by the big picture

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:08:00 +0000

The small inner-city mission church where this artwork was created is a sanctuary for those life leaves behind, forgets, mistreats, abuses and neglects. It doesn’t resemble traditional church. Here chaotic lives meet the presence of God and the messiness and loveliness of the Kingdom is authentically present, just as it was around Jesus. Sense is made, meaning glimpsed and hope grasped in fleeting moments of grace. Put together and seen as the big picture love shimmers through and the scraps of all that is rough, muddled, raw and hard about life becomes something that is so beautiful to see. In the collage headline moments from the bible, especially significant events in the life and death of Jesus, are cut up and inserted into the jumble of bits and pieces. This evokes a powerful sense of solidarity. The Word is made real in the confusion, shame and heartbreak of real lives. How we see ourselves is transfigured.

When Jesus took his friends to the mountain top I wonder what his prayer was for them? Might it have been that from that vantage point they would at last grasp the big picture? That from the summit all the pieces of their journey with him would finally fit together and make profound religious sense? The story of the Transfiguration is the story of Peter, James and John. Just like the artwork it is told from the perspective of those who experience Jesus. Up there the pieces fit together and their faith tradition and their personal testimony coinhere. They sort of get who Jesus is and how his ministry fits into the purpose of God which is at the centre of their inherited belief.

And then they are brought back to earth. The big picture is dissolved into the disordered chaos of its constituent parts.The crowd presses in. The voices shout and scream. In the full torment of his episodic suffering a little boy is put before Jesus.

The photograph of two electrical transformers attempts to express the wonder of what happens next. Our everyday use of household electric appliances depends upon transformers. They might not look awesome, yet without them we simply would not be able to harness the stupendously powerful supply from the grid for domestic purposes. The Biblical narratives tell us of the wild creative energy of God which surges within and throughout human history. We see how God’s creative presence is transformed through the lives of the faithful into the work and witness of the Kingdom of Love. This is what Peter, James and John rediscover up on the mountain top. They see how God’s wild energy transformed the history of God’s people through the leadership and faith of Moses and Elijah.They are gifted the insight that the same is happening now through the wildly transformative ministry of Jesus. Which begs the question, posed sharply at the foot of the mountain in the person of the little boy - and what of them?

The answer they discover and which we are challenged to own for ourselves is this: in order to transform and be transformed we need to connect with this wonderfully wild Spirit and open ourselves utterly to God’s presence in Jesus. Then, as God’s energy surges through us, we turn it into acts of loving kindness that empower others with grace.

Its so simple, so domestic, yet such transformation is awesome to behold. The collage is the most eloquent testimony to its truth today. Especially where the need is greatest. Just like it was then.

Thrown away, discarded and trampled down.

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 15:27:00 +0000

From close to this circular hole in a substantial plate of rusted steel frames a very particular view of the sky and predetermines what we will be able to see and, equally importantly perhaps, what we don’t see. We have no choice here, for the metal precludes a more panoramic and expansive sight, limiting us to this narrow portal through which we must necessarily look if we wish to see what lies beyond. Our perception is therefore curtailed and controlled. What is out of sight is kept out of mind.

With each day that passes the world we live in seems to be getting harsher, more mean-spirited and unkind. In the name of economic competence a plague of austerity has enveloped Europe. Like a modern-day Black Death, right across the Continent, from Greece to the UK, this politically driven scourge is leaving misery and hopelessness inexorably in its wake. Those who decide are not those who suffer; those who choose are not those who are distressed by the consequences of those choices; those in power are not the ones who have to endure the repercussions of their policies. Social scapegoating, the manipulative engendering of fear and suspicion, and xenophobia all play their part in seeking to sever the ties that bind us.

A very deliberate framing of the arguments is at work. The political and economic portal through which we are told we have no choice other than to look through is restrictive, exclusive and deeply partial. The massive steel plated vested interests which constitute the predominant neoliberal dogma and ideology deliberately seek to exclude alternative ways of seeing and block out anything which threatens to undermine their continued pre-eminence.

This is precisely the narrow, self-interested, exclusive worldview that God is always taking a cutting torch to, because God always promises to tear down and destroy the barriers that separate us, diminish us and exploit us.

There is a terrible disconnect at the heart of our politics and it is preposterous to imagine that God is relaxed about that. The poor and disadvantaged are paying the price of the Global Banking Crisis, not those who caused it. Migrants are fleeing from Africa and risking their lives to seek a better life in Europe, yet are being blamed for their plight, which is not of their making. Empathy it seems, is in very short supply. The framing that is being imposed upon us discourages empathy and is inimical to it. It is that of the powerful who are discarding notions of the common good in favour of the good of an elite who dominate the lives of the many.

To anyone familiar with Scripture this sounds all too familiar. The cutting torch of God’s inbreaking Kingdom flames into life from the underside of history as the white-hot word of life which subverts hegemony with the love that liberates the oppressed. The photograph of the discarded drinks can, trampled into the ground, expresses the reality of society into which the prophets so often spoke and at the margins of which Jesus, God’s incarnate cutting torch, was born, taught, inspired, challenged and healed in God’s name. What would otherwise be kept out of sight and out of mind is seen, heard and taken to heart.

A line in Isaiah 41 provides a shatteringly unsettling counterpoint to what we see unfolding all around us.

God chooses us, loves us and would not throw us away. God’s love is equally for each and for all. This is the tie of grace which binds us each to the other as God’s beloved. This is the guiding truth which frames our view of the world as Christians. This is the unstoppable intention which surges through the life of Jesus as he puts it into practice. This is the cutting torch which sears through the cold steel of discrimination, stereotyping and victimisation.

When people are thrown away, discarded and trampled down we are the ones who feel the pain rippling through the very fabric of creation as the heart of God is agonised and anguished by their suffering. And we are the ones whose vocation is to do something about it, because as Christians we are never disconnected: it is always our business.

Our lives are meant to make sense and are to be framed within the ‘threeness' of God’s Kingdom: we triangulate our identity and live out our faith with reference to God, others and ourselves. For Jesus this was the crux of his teaching. Loving God, neighbour and self produces an equilateral triangle of interest which is spacious and inclusive, in stark contrast to the narrow line of self-interested individualism where number one comes first and foremost.

It is the ethical and moral imperatives of this threeness which put God’s cutting torch into our hands, because no one should be thrown away, discarded or trampled down.

Basking in the light of resurrection

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 07:17:00 +0000

In the wonderfully warm sunshine of a Spring afternoon this chap is making the most of the opportunity to simply sit outside and enjoy the experience. His summer attire is the clue that this is one of the very first days of the year when the temperature has made this possible. Eyes closed, he is luxuriating in the warmth of the suns rays on his skin. Passing by with my camera I could not resist the candid shot.

When Jesus says to his friends ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12) I would like to think that he has a similar experience in mind, a truth which goes far deeper than the obvious meaning of light as that which enlightens our path.

Sunshine provides light and warmth, both being essential for the growth of plants and hence for our survival. To say that Jesus is the light of the world is to embrace a metaphor that includes the life-giving warmth that sunshine brings too, not just the illumination. Surely Jesus wants us to bask in the experience of being loved unconditionally by God, to feel it warming us through and through and bringing us peace and contentment, hope and encouragement, every bit as much as he wants us to see clearly enough to follow in his path?

Experiencing the presence of the risen Jesus energised the disciples in just this manner. In the light of his love their sense of direction was clear and purposeful, and in the warmth of his love their inner lives were transformed: both head and heart were radiant in this springtime miracle.

Shards of humanity, towering divinity

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 09:54:00 +0000

It’s not often that I get to London, so I took my camera with me when I went to a meeting at Methodist Church House on the Wednesday of Holy Week. Fortunately there was time enough to take the Underground to London Bridge Station, south of the river, and simply walk and see what took my attention. All around, right across the city, it looked as though tall cranes had formed a breeding population which was thriving in an environment conducive to their success. Everywhere apartment and office blocks were rising up, like plants seeking the light, determined to ‘live high’. It seemed to me to be the very definition of hubris, exemplified par excellence by The Shard itself, towering over me in an 'Icarus meets the Tower of Babel' kind of way.

In the midst of this I walked into the precinct of Southwark Cathedral and photographed their rough man-sized wooden cross. In its setting against the backdrop of both the Cathedral and The Shard it looks so small and insignificant. Indeed, most people were walking right past without giving it a cursory glance. But crouching down at the foot of the cross, looking up with the sun out of shot behind the upright, the comparison becomes very subversive because the cross now looks immense, as though stretching out to embrace everything in view.

Far from representing the last remaining shards of divinity in our public consciousness, as dwarfed by the towering presence of humanity, this cross puts into perspective and frames the shards of our humanity against the towering divinity which Easter makes plain. This irresistible urge to rise up and live high - achievable only by the wealthy few - is trounced by the rough wooden cross which alone speaks hope into all that is wrong at the ground level of our being where life is tough, hurtful and full of sorrow.

To know the presence of the risen Christ meeting us there enables us to 'live high’ in ways which confound the ‘wisdom of the cranes’.

Scarborough Diving Belle: a reflection for Easter

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 07:37:00 +0000

The Scarborough Diving Belle

Now there is no going back,

the decision is made
and mind and body enact her irrevocable choice:
rotating forward with deliberate intention
her centre of gravity shifts,
her toes lighten -
and in a fleeting instant
their grip is released,
the tipping point is past
and gravity’s unseen pull
invites her to surrender herself fully to the dive.

Head held high,

eyes raised upwards and focussed beyond the far horizon,
bathed in brilliant sunlight
and warmed by its unconditional caress,
her arms are flung out wide;
a discipled poise that speaks
entirely of trust,
of grace welcomed
and embodied,
a Call heard
and owned as her own.

In this decisive moment

she is suspended between heaven and earth,
Christ-like,
her ego weightless,
freely, lovingly, utterly, completely and totally
one with the divine love
that bids her plunge
way down, deep down; always down
into the depths
and far below the surface
of all that is unresolved
yet never unloved
by the One who waits there for her.

This reflection was written for the Connexion Magazine, April 2015

We fence in the power of resurrection at our peril

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 09:17:00 +0000

On Hawthorn Avenue in Hull the wonderful display of pink and white blossom signifies the resplendent nature of the arrival of Springtime and in so doing vividly portrays the message at the heart of Easter too. When I took the photograph it was the opposition of the railings and the blossom that caught my attention. Why? Because the irrepressible and reliable biological facts of bud and blossom emerging in response to sunshine and warmth lead our imaginations to the central truths of Holy Week: it is the nature of God’s love to gift life vibrantly and abundantly and no amount of evil, wickedness and folly can stop this happening. Not even death can constrain the presence of God’s love to bring light, warmth and love to those who need it, confounding the blossom-hating cruelty and oppression of those who would fence-in such truths and deny others the right to flourish, solely in order to maintain their own advantage and promulgate their hegemony.

Easter testifies to the uselessness of our political and theological fences to control, exclude, prohibit and constrain that which God is determined to do amongst us. The blossom of God’s love will burst forth regardless. It appears right through, over, above and beyond the fences we erect in our minds and in our common life.

But the church prefers fences. It likes bounded spaces and neatness, order and predictability. Innovation, risk and experiment for the sake of the gospel frightens the fence-keepers and railing erectors. All too quickly we lose sight of who God raised us up to be and why. The fencing becomes more important than the blossom.

When this happens the church locks itself into decline. Evolution relies upon the existence of outliers, mutations and variety in order for populations to have the best chance of adapting to changing circumstances and thereby maintaining the viability of the species. Species which cant adapt and evolve go extinct. Why should the church ignore the processes of nature?

Just around the corner from Hawthorn Avenue is St Nectan Close. Here I discovered a sad icon of what happens when the church tries to fence in the power of resurrection. The boarded-up house acts as a visual warning of the fate that awaits us when we fail to embrace the priority of blossom and bud and seek to fence off the difficult, challenging and sacrificial nature of what God demands of us when Jesus calls us to follow him to the Cross.

American Dreamers: exploring the pioneering Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 10:59:00 +0000

Neil Hadlock's sculpture at Hull Marina is a poignant and powerful reflection on the American Dream. He has depicted a family from Northern Europe who have just disembarked from a ship onto the quayside in Hull. They pause, before continuing their journey the mile or so to Paragon Station to go by train to Liverpool and then by ship to America. The father looks purposeful, the mother is warmly caring and the toddler daughter inquisitive. Behind them, but unseen in this view, their young son appears to be poking a crab with a stick!

Purposeful, caring and inquisitive: it is these aspects of the sculpture which seem to me to delve right into the heart of the pioneering spirit and which speak into the journey the church has embarked upon in our time.

God's dreamers are setting out for a new land of hope and promise too. We are well aware of the risks involved, of the cost of leaving behind so much that has nurtured and shaped us, and of journeying with a pioneering spirit. Like the pioneers in the sculpture, we too feel compelled to travel, to pursue the dream and to make this new land our own in the company of like-minded dreamers.

So I am struck by the pose of the father. He is purposeful, resolute, realistic. He is prepared for what might lie ahead. His face portrays a real determination to succeed. He is alert too, watchful; his hand lies protectively on his wife's shoulder

She is focussed on her little daughter. Her face is warm and loving, her whole care is for the wellbeing of her child, expressed in the cradling and encouraging way in which her hands are ready to catch the child should she stumble. The mother is gently providing the safe space in which she can explore her new surroundings for herself.

The child herself is looking ahead with an expression of wide-eyed wonderment. She is taking a few hesitant steps, her arms outstretched to find balance, so that she can satisfy the inquisitiveness which bubbles up within her.

Purposeful, caring and inquisitive: in these 'American Dreamers' the artist has opened up for us a vision of the pioneering spirit in three of its key qualities. In this single sculpture our contemporary journey as church unfolds before our eyes.

Imagining the Lectionary: facing up, lifting up and looking up (Lent 4B)

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 10:20:00 +0000

And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. Numbers 21:8

In the wilderness Moses is directed by God to confront the people with the very thing of which they are most afraid. The bronze snake becomes for them the symbol of their own failure and faithlessness and is totemic of their inability to extricate themselves from their predicament. In this fashion the people are made to face up to their fear and anxiety in the most direct way imaginable.

It is an inspired moment of leadership.

Carrying on as though nothing is wrong will get them nowhere nor will getting themselves locked into a cycle of naming and blaming; this is futile. The tipping point occurs when Moses makes them face up to this bitter fact and lift it up to God.

Only then can the situation be transformed. The symbolic act of lifting up the bronze snake is a dramatic statement of faith in God. Through this facing up to the truth of everything that threatens them and lifting it all up to God, the whole dilemma is entrusted to God and all their hopes are pinned on God.

Now their fortunes are truly looking up. The power of God’s loving presence to transform is liberated amongst them through their risk-taking faith in the one in whom they can face up to anything. Lifting their future up to God they discover the authentic wonder of a people whose attitude is one of looking up in hope and expectation.

'Facing up, lifting up and looking up' are key facets of leadership in today’s church.

The dredger in the photograph is seen working in the River Humber, close in to the shoreline at Hull. What resonated with me regarding leadership was the way in which it was taking what was hidden below the surface, down in the depths, and lifting it up out of the water and bringing it into plain view. What was causing a problem in this place was being faced up to, lifted up and removed very deliberately. The wonder is that once filled with the sediment the dregder can take it elsewhere and through its bottom opening doors deposit it right where it is needed and can be used for good. That is a true transformation.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:14-17

Our leadership is grounded in the truth that God loves us so much that God will not leave us as we are but rather that God yearns for us to become what we can truly be. Such love does not condemn us for all that is wrong, rendering us fearful and incapable of facing up to the truth; quite the opposite is the case. God wants us to flourish, and in Jesus the depth of that divine commitment is expressed in and through the love which enables us to face up our fears and self-loathing and lift them up to God confident that God wants to set us free not punish us.

In Jesus our lives are looking up.

So in a church which is beset by so many difficulties I believe that God is calling us to face up to them, lift them up prayerfully and faithfully to God, and to trust in God that the risks God asks us to take in consequence will lead to our looking up in wonder.

Auschwitz 70: the nothingness, emptiness and blackness is always present

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:48:00 +0000

Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity (Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial)

In idyllic surroundings a young couple sit together on the grass enjoying the waterfalls and the bright summer sunshine with their little daughter. Its a picture which conveys love, contentment and wellbeing: a snapshot of the safe, secure 'freedom to be' which so many of us take for granted each and every day.

The 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army reminds us of the fragility of this vision. The poignant monochrome photographs of family after family after family just like this one stare out at us from the pages of the Holocaust; people like us who disembarked from the transports onto the infamous Ramp at Auschwitz to be selected for death or living hell. Hundreds of thousands of women, men and children, each no different to these three pictured by the waterfall, made that final walk towards the gas chambers.

The spectre of genocide rent our conception of civilization asunder. That the deaths-head aryan ideology of Nazi anti-semitism was implemented on an industrial scale with the sole purpose of exterminating an entire people from the face of Europe remains a tragedy and a crime too great ever to fully comprehend. The Holocaust is an act so vile, so wicked and so monstrous as to defy language. It is like a Black Hole in our collective psyche; it remorselessly consumes light, love, hope and beauty.

It is when we come face to face with even a tiny number of the six million faces of the Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust, and look into their eyes, that we begin to grasp the human cost, because inevitably we recognise that their family photographs are just like the ones we take today. Standing in front of a Star of David comprised of individual photographs of 651 of the 30,000 inhabitants of the Bendzin Ghetto in Poland, and knowing the terrible fate that awaited them, one can only stand speechless and weep.

The spectre of genocide has haunted the world in the 70 years since Auschwitz was liberated. The genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, and the murderous ideological intent of groups like Boko Haram and Isis today, demonstrate that the nothingness, emptiness and blackness of such evil is always present.

The Bible begins with an acknowledgement which it is all too easy to gloss over in our anticipation of the the light, order and meaning which follow: “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness” (Genesis 1:2) When light comes the darkness remains and its enduring presence is recognised. When humanity evolves all is not well or right either. What if that second verse is not an incidental prelude but crucially and poignantly points to a fundamental characteristic at the heart of things and one manifest in human experience? What if the role of The Holy Spirit is to continually and ceaselessly ‘brood’ over this situation and call us to be light-bringers within the nothingness, emptiness and blackness of life?

Then the "cry of despair and a warning to humanity” that we remember on this particular anniversary becomes a contemporary and continual imperative for us now, because the spectre of the evil which separates us from each other and which willfully undermines parity of esteem and equality is never far away. Whenever politically divisive labels are applied to those deemed to be different and our fears are manipulated so as to distance us from them (and you will find this pernicious tendency exhibited each and every day if you care to look for it) our society moves towards the nothingness, emptiness and blackness from which God always stands over, against and apart.

The snapshots we take of those we love invite us to ponder how different the future might be for all of us if together we neglect to brood over the nothingness, emptiness and blackness and seek to bring enlightenment.

Terms of service: Listening, expecting and responding (Epiphany 2B)

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 16:35:00 +0000

Photographed through the window of a railway carriage and seen reflected on the shiny partition in the small galley area, a member of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway onboard train crew is finishing the drying up following a run of their Pullman Dining Service. What caught my attention was the printed set of instructions, clearly visible to me but meant for the staff: ‘Keep your voices down!”, Keep opinions to yourself!” and “Remember our guests!”; each one emphasised by the imperative of an exclamation mark. In the best traditions of 'at seat service’ and with a nod and a wink to The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Monsieur Gustave, the note gets its point across with a crisply fastidious authority. This is not for discussion. The guests come first and the staff are there to serve them as unobtrusively and attentively as possible.

The note sets the ethos of the working space. It is a curiously counter-cultural directive in our “my voice must be heard and my opinions matter first” age. Dialling all that down in our minds enables other voices to be heard. Authentic listening lets us respond to needs other than our own with the care and attention that they deserve. In the context of serving others the first priority is to be clear that the first priority is not us. That is for elsewhere at another time.

When this isn’t so the space in which others are meant to be served becomes conflicted, confused and competitive. When we read that the Word of God was rare and visions not widespread in the time of the Priest and Judge Eli I can’t help but wonder whether we are not meant to conclude that the cause was self-inflicted in a religious space whose ethos had gone awry. Eli is by now elderly and tired. Issues within his own family are signposted in the text as clues to a pervasive malaise which had distracted attention from God and supplanted the requirement to serve others. This is the background to God taking an alternative initiative through the boy Samuel.

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread….Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” (1 Samuel 3:1, 10-11)

It is easy to be judgemental when we read a text that is itself fiercely judgemental. God has finished with Eli, that much is made plain. But a revisionist might want to take a more empathetic stance than does the text, and with some justification. The story can be heard from the perspective of a far less coldly brutal theological determinism and still be faithful to understandings of God that are equally valid in the Old Testament. For example the “you got it wrong, I will punish you and you deserve what’s coming” strand of interpretation can be placed alongside the heart-rending lamentations and confessions within the Psalms and the prophetic writings. Eli must surely know that he has screwed up; he is simply incapable of doing anything about it, and perhaps there is a note of resigned relief when he says of the judgement God will bring upon him and his family "It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

If Eli cannot expect better from God, it is a flawed message that emanates from the religious institution he leads, because everyone is flawed and grace alone is the safe space from within which we can address and face up to our failings. The note to staff in the photograph needs to be read within an ethos that affirms and values the employees and wants to bring the best out of them.

This balance of clear expectations of behaviour (disciples are to embrace wholeheartedly God’s Kingdom framework of freedom and dignity for all) and an unconditional commitment to the salvation of the individual (disciples will know life in all its fullness) is what marks Jesus out as different. Knowing his disciples is to love them more, not less. Jesus sees with empathy and purpose.

Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” (John 1:48)

The terms of service Jesus demands are no different to those within which Eli was supposed to work: listen prayerfully and carefully to the world around you, expect that God will call you to intervene and be ready and willing to respond when God does. Then your ears will tingle with excitement.

Advent: the tipping point

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 09:12:00 +0000

The tipping point at which an idea is birthed from the imagination and becomes a tangible and touchable physical reality is central to all entrepreneurial endeavour. It is the moment when courage and self-belief outweighs risk and caution and the point of no return is passed. Whatever the product may be, the entrepreneur will now singlemindedly do all in their power to make it a success in the marketplace. In most cases they have staked everything on this one innovation which to them is utterly compelling and all consuming.

It is this tipping point which the image seeks to capture and express. As the sacred narratives and promises of Advent make so clear, all the love that is the divine imagination of God is self-expressed in a singularity of unimaginable potential, at once both thrillingly potent and utterly vulnerable. The gravity of grace draws us towards the crossing of a divine event horizon into a new universe of possibility: the Word becomes flesh.

Our flesh. Our humanity. Our living and our dying. The immeasurable grace of God takes breath in our being. Our flesh, with every conceivable connotation which that brings, is hallowed by divine intention. The fears of young minds and the suffering bodies of age are revealed as the manger spaces where divine love births human hope. God does not repudiate our flesh and our being: God embraces it all with the transformative desire of sheer grace.

The birth of Jesus is the ultimate tipping point in our understanding of the mystery that is God. The ancient promises and stories of God which inspired such a dogged and hopeful imagination amongst God’s people become a tangible and touchable physical reality. The Word became flesh and lived among us: who are we that we should matter so much to God?

Every time we are inspired by God to gestate the new life of a missional opportunity in which we can give practical expression to God’s love amongst those who most need it, and that idea is birthed from our imagination and becomes a tangible and touchable physical reality in the world around us, the Word is made flesh. Such annunciation is the entrepreneurial tipping point of our discipleship. In God’s time this pregnancy of faith and hope gives birth to all that God’s Word of love longs to bring to life among us.

Crossing the point of no return and staking everything on our salvation is what God does as the Word becomes flesh. The birth of Jesus is the tipping point in our understanding of just how utterly compelling and all consuming is the birth of the Kingdom of God. Dare we have the faith and take the courage to cross that divine event horizon in the singularity that is our own unique life and let the Word bring us alive in love?

This is the question that Christmas poses. Rather than asking “did it happen?” and “is it true?” in the abstract we might ponder instead this deeper question whose answer can only ever be discovered as a truth incarnate in the warmed heart our own flesh.

Advent: Tears and darkness are not the last word

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 21:08:00 +0000

If the signwriting manifestly belongs to another age, the qualities it denotes seem timelessly desirable. If the opportunity presented itself which of us would not be enticed by the prospect of making enduring alterations in our lives and of being rejuvenated? Even if the shop seems old fashioned and the window has been broken those two words might well be enough to grab the attention of our inquiring minds and leave us wanting to know more. Have we stumbled upon something marvellous that will change our lives, and substantially so? Is this place the answer to our prayers? (In fact this particular window belongs to Princes Denture Repair Service in Hull, so our interest might well be very short lived indeed!)

But staying with the thought for a moment, isn’t this eye catching use of language exactly what we encounter throughout Advent? Words, phrases and texts catch our attention because they resonate deeply with us, whether we are people of faith or not. We recognise within the holy language of this season that which speaks to the very core of our being: the ancient and abiding promises of alteration and rejuvenation are offered clearly and accessibly on their own merits, hanging visibly like breath in the freezing air of a winter’s night. They tantalise in their simplicity and accessible imagery, beguiling us with a feather-light grace freed from religious dead weight and dogma. Take these three examples:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2)
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world (John 1:9)
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy (Psalm 126:5)

These simple sentences connect with our needs, open up the prospect of an alternative outcome and convey hope. In their straightforwardness they allow us to be receptive to fresh possibilities. Advent sows the seeds of our encountering God for ourselves in ways that might just alter and rejuvenate us.

And that can only begin beneath the surface of our personhood, in the hidden soil of our own secret self. In this respect the flower pot in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is meant to contain Moss is a subtly wonderful piece of art. 'My Own Secret Self’ begs the question of growth occurring beneath the surface, out of sight, in the soil of our soul. Advent speaks directly to our own secret self, and it does so in the enchanting language of love, because we are God’s beloved.

Tears and darkness are not the last word; the light of this truth is.

Advent: anointed with the power that disempowers the powerful and empowers the powerless

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:45:00 +0000

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton)

I took this sequence of photographs of the Dutch artist Folkert de Jong’s site-specific exhibit 'Holy Land' at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield where, with Alexandra Bircken’s ‘Eskalation’, it forms part of the 'Conflict and Collisions: New Contemporary Sculpture’ programme. It is a work which blends the meanings of land and power with the mechanisms of violence. Three suits of Henry VIII’s armour were digitally scanned and 3D printed in polystyrene and modern weapons were cast to provide the artist with the foundation upon which he has constructed this provocative sculptural essay.

The first photograph reminds me of the fate of John the Baptist. The head of the victim dominates the scene, conveying a subversive truth which cannot be eliminated or expunged. It evokes too the fate of all too many who have dared to call power to account or voice an alternative worldview to that of the dominant hegemony. Sophie Scholl, Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King paid with their lives; Aung-San-Suu-Kyi, Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai have risked theirs, and all in the cause of freedom.

In the background broods the dominant and demanding armour-clad figure of the brutaliser, the victimiser, the persecutor and the tyrant. This alpha male aggressor demands a place in history. The armour gives the game away and the ridiculous codpiece reveals how pathetically ridiculous and status-obsessed the individual within really is. Solidarity is the last thing suggested by this ludicrous metalwork.

Combine this with Lord Acton’s famous aphorism and we find ourselves inhabiting the Advent world of the vanquished, the fearful and the powerless into which prophets spoke and Jesus was born. As the Bible makes clear this was an existence utterly at odds with the cossetted fantasy world of the elite minority in which victory, conquest and empire were pearls of great price to be grasped at all costs. Then as now, ordinary women, men and children were of no consequence in these games of thrones: except to God, to whom we are always lovingly front and centre. God anoints to liberate, not subjugate. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so God raises up prophets to be sparkling pinpoints of sacred light in this bleak, black corrupted and corrupting darkness.

Egyptian, Assyrrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman Empires each exerted their imperial influence across the land we call Holy, whilst its own rulers all too easily learned the truth of Lord Acton’s word’s the hard way. God’s oppressed and persecuted people, so often rendered powerless and vulnerable in the face of such might, clung to their identity as beloved of God and longed for freedom, because they believed that above all else God anoints with the power that is meant to disempower the powerful and empower the powerless.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn (Isaiah 61:1-2)

To all who are oppressed, or held captive and imprisoned, or burdened with debt, to all whose hearts are broken and whose lives are shattered by grief, God speaks words of promise. To all those who oppress, all who hold captive and imprison, all who burden with debt, all who break hearts and take life, God serves notice.

In Advent we reconnect with the revolutionary nature of God’s words and actions which erupt from the underside of history.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)

On every count this display of incarnate power is as far removed from the royal suit of armour as it is possible to get. As Henry VIII grew older the falsehood of his ‘anointing’ became ever more apparent, whereas the validity of that of John the Baptist and Jesus by God became ever more clearly substantiated. They were anointed with the power that disempowers the powerful and empowers the powerless; an incorruptible power that transforms the underside of history from within.

This is the power and the promise which takes hold of us in Advent.

Advent: when the ladder climbing stops we are ready to gather around the manger

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 18:39:00 +0000

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God (Isaiah 40:1)

Alexandra Bircken’s site-specific installation Deflated Bodies in the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield, forms part of her Eskalation 2014 exhibition. As Curator Eleanor Clayton says: "Five ladders run up the gallery walls, spanning eight metres to reach the sunlight spilling down from an unseen source. On the ladders are multiple figures, male and female, made of cloth sewn to real-person specifications and covered in black latex. The work is theatrical, presenting a scene that longs for a narrative.”

For me, transfixed and awe-struck by the raw power of this extraordinary piece of art, Advent is that narrative. The deflated figures and the ladders which beguile them express so immediately, so vividly and so accessibly the whole panorama of human folly, frailty and failure which the Advent texts speak out of and into with such clarity and conviction.

Take the following image as a starting point and ponder all those points of connection with the texts at the heart of Advent. Reflect on the heartfelt truth that it portrays.

This is how Advent always begins. In the place where everything seems lost; where the human condition is experienced at its most starkly bleak. It is only within this manger of dread, desolation and despair that Christmas makes sense. Only there can we feel its new born warmth for ourselves and cradle its living truth in our arms. Nowhere else. God invites us to journey into our darkness on the strength of a promise, daring to believe that the incarnation of love will become real in the wombspace of our fragile faith.

This is always a collective endeavour. In Advent we travel for ourselves and we travel for the sake of others, always these two held together as one redefining purpose. The dread, desolation and despair may not be our own this time around, but it will be somebody’s truth, somewhere very close and somewhere far away. Advent is the great collectiviser of God’s economy: our imagined separation from the desperate plight of others is destroyed by the inclusive ardour of the divine will which places the manger where we would be least inclined to welcome it as gift.

To me Deflated Bodies provides an holistic visualisation of the narrative trajectories of human being along which Advent leads us and into which Christmas speaks. Here are the people of the prophets. Here is all the agony, angst and ennui out of which the Old Testament gives testimony to God’s alternative world view and the passionate single-minded creativity with which God pursues it through people of faith. Here is all the deflated misery of the human soul.

Here too are the ladder-like temptations, false promises, misguided schemes and malevolent strategies which lead us astray and set us against each other. Here also is the politics of the ladder constructors which promises the world to everyone, yet delivers misery to the many. The 1% who climb to the top do so at the cost of the 99% who lie strewn in their wake, deflated, empty, and abandoned to their fate.

In the face of such injustice and harm the Bible prophetically kicks away the ladders and gives the lie to seductions of ladder climbing and ladder making. Seen through a biblical lens Alexandra Bircken’s Deflated Bodies portrays the horrific cost and the appalling waste of the thinking which blighted our world then and which continues to do so now. It makes plain all that God desires us to subvert and overthrow.

Looking at these deflated figures pitifully draped across the ladders and hanging forlorn from the rungs one is brought face to face with everything that breaks the heart of God. Here are the ones that Jesus came to save.

Here are the lost, damaged and dispirited ones who gathered around the manger on the strength of a promise.

And to those who have made it to the top, who sit aloof from the carnage below them, Advent brings them down to earth and challenges them to repent of the cost of their privilege and power and to recognise that they too are in fact deflated as people and diminished by every empty life that lies behind them on their way up.

No more should women and men, our sisters and brothers, hang limp and lifeless in our midst from the rungs of oppression and exploitation which God is always doing so much to tear down. This is the narrative of hope and life which takes shape in the darkness and which calls us to the heart of Christmas again. For our own sake and for the sake of others it is a journey we simply have to make. When the ladder climbing stops we are ready to gather around the manger.

Imagining the Lectionary: Christ the King?

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:01:00 +0000

Walking through The Old Town in Bridlington I came across this unexpected and quite extraordinary sight. There in the window of an antique shop was an almost life size religious statue. Clearly in the Catholic tradition, it depicts a saint/bishop arrayed in full ecclesiastical vestments, mitre and gloves included. As the figure appears to be holding a clover leaf in their right hand it seems likely that it is St Patrick. It was such an incongruous sight that I stopped to take a picture. I wondered what the story was of how and why it had ended up here and moreover what sort of person was now likely to purchase it.

A few yards down the road and the likely source of the statue became obvious: the Convent of Mercy has closed and is for sale. Now the figure of St Patrick in the window of the antique shop did not seem out of place at all. In its new context I realised that it represents the jarring reality of the postmodern displacement of religious institutions in contemporary society, and sums up the cultural marginalisation of Christianity in common perception from the mainstream High St to the side street curiosity shop.

Out of place and bereft of an attractive paradigm within which it makes sense, the forlorn nature of the image of the statue encapsulates the dilemma described by sociologists of religion that so besets the churches today.

The churches have been progressively disempowered within and by a culture that is increasingly inimical to organised expressions of narrative dominance. My story has parity of esteem with ‘their’ story, so why should I defer to ’their’ institution and its world views? How have ‘they’ earned my trust? The churches and political parties alike are struggling under the weight of this cultural shift.

The ecclesiastical vestments which envelop St Patrick convey power and authority no longer by demand. Increasingly they are meaningless in the minds of the majority outside of the narrow confines of the churches in which they signify status, rights and responsibilities.

Relevance, allegiance and commitment are no longer available 'on demand' or to be taken for granted. Stripped of the trappings of power Christianity is relegated to the curiosity shop. Or rather, this understanding of Christianity is, the one that institutional religion has bought into since Constantine.

This Christ is King no longer.

And thank God for that.

Because we have been pushed right back to the essence of Christianity in the first place. The one that gets St Matthew all excited and passionate. The praxis of Jesus eshews and indeed overturns notions of kingship. He subverts mechanisms of hegemony, control, dominance and demand. He overturns perceptions of status and worth. Jesus distils the nature of faith down to the clear intoxicating spirit of compassion in practice.

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
Matthew 25: 35-40

This is what being a Christian looks like. First and foremost doing church means doing this. First and foremost being church means being this. And if our first thought is to commit to this, we might find a Christ of the High Street who still provokes curiosity in a culture that has relegated church to the antique shop.

shadow and light, ups and downs

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:54:00 +0000

At this time of year the low angle sunlight of late afternoon renders the undulations of the landscape as a succession of chilly dark hollows of shadow and warm bright upslopes of light. To make progress along the only available maintained path one has to walk through each in turn.

Each is negotiated in the knowledge that the other is only a few steps away.

In our annual journey through Advent we walk in the biblical footsteps of those who have made this trek before us and for whom shadow and light come together in testimony as blessing. It is a pilgrimage through life as we know it to be.

With each faith footstep we take downwards through the shadow, we draw closer to the rising awareness of the brilliance of God’s love for us. In that truth we trust.

letting go

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 14:51:00 +0000

Somedays of late I have been aware of a sadness which envelopes me and goes deep, like the chill from a cold, damp and light-denying autumnal mist. Then it feels as though my depression might slowly rise up again from beneath the surface of the present moment, brought forth by the pressure of my being on the boggy ground of my age and professional responsibilities. Being tired and recovering from an infection exacerbates my sense of slowly becoming mired.

It is time to let go. I say this because I sense that my soul needs to embrace the autumnal gift of a season of shedding, releasing and letting go so that I can simply be stripped back spiritually to the essentials, that I would see clearly the framework of my life once more. The trees all around me are doing this beautifully. Come winter they will be resplendent in their sparse simplicity.

Only through this letting go can the fresh growth of springtime become possible.

As Advent approaches I trust God to guide my own falling-leaf refreshing and refining. I look forward to the simple joy of joyful simplicity and the clarity it brings. I welcome this season of letting go.

Remembrance: 100 years and counting

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:12:00 +0000

If you think about it for a moment, when was the last time that you can recall a conflict or a war that was initiated by a woman? (Margaret Thatcher’s decision to send a task force to the Falklands in April 1982 was in response to the invasion of the islands ordered by General Galtieri and Admiral Anaya of the Argentinian Military Junta). As Remembrance Sunday draws near in this centenary year marking the outbreak of the First World War, we are 100 years and counting when it comes to the cost in lives lost and lives ruined by violent solutions to political challenges.

All were started by men.

Bullies, psychopaths, status-riddled inadequates, ego-obsessed narcissists, politically cuthroat operators; modern history is littered with men who have risen to power and then wielded it with disastrous consequences. 100 years on and our news is still filled with the same dispiriting stereotypes of male macho political empire-building and territorial ambition.

The old 1914 Vickers pattern 13 pounder gun on display on the quayside at Scarborough was recovered from the wreck of the S.S.Hornsund which was torpedoed and sunk on 23rd September 1917. As you can see from the close-up photograph, in essence the gun itself shows us the difference between our gendered ways of dealing with conflict. Generally speaking men tend to Fire, women tend to Dismantle.

Dismantling the processes and attitudes which lead to conflict is what Remembrance Sunday should stimulate. Often this dismantling begins when the cost in lives already lost and misery caused is deemed to be too great to endure. Yet women and men of courage have always been prepared to advocate the type of peacemaking that Jesus himself espoused. The Kingdom of God sets out to dismantle the mechanisms that lead to violence and conflict in the first place.

Will we ever learn? Perish the thought we ever forget. 2000 years plus and counting.

Seeing the Unseen: Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 07:28:00 +0000

The name of this road in Scarborough surely has to be a candidate for possibly one of the most optimistic, hubristic or ironic one's around. Yet the thought is a tantalising one; what vision of Paradise would we expect to glimpse through the gap in the wall if the name truly merited its use right here in the down to earth muck, muddle and marvels of contemporary life?

What is the interconnected vision of self, community, society and world towards which you are committed to strive and why do you hold this particular worldview?

Politics today has become bereft of such all-encompassing ideologies. In the scramble to get votes and garner media presence we are presented from all sides with a populist plethora of bitty, ill-fitting, ill-conceived and often contradictory parts which in no measure constitute a coherent and well differentiated and understandable whole. Political parties tempt us with this or that headline soundbite in the hope that we will be attracted but singularly fail to give us the overarching vision of how this makes sense as part of an integrated and clear picture of their unified mindset and strategic direction of travel. The crystal clear simplicity of an easily understood metanarrative either eludes them or frightens them. For fear of being found out in this way politicians obfuscate and scatter singular commitments and pledges around like confetti at a wedding, rather than honestly setting out the big, macro scale picture which shows us the worked through implications of where they want to take us in terms of values we can grasp.

It is their values which drive politicians to want power. Policies and commitments are only stepping stones in a direction of travel which is their real goal and defining purpose. They should be much more honest with us about this rather than trying to mimic chameleons and outwardly resemble the appearance of whatever group of people it is whose votes they are desperate to have.

In the Bible the Kingdom of God is the overarching and unifying mission statement. It is a picture of 'Paradise Now’ which in Jesus is actually very clear and uncompromising. The church exists to stand up for and to put into practice these values. In Matthew’s Gospel we see this very clearly indeed: The last shall be first. Invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet, both good and bad. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. As you did it to the least of these you did it to me.

Paradise indeed.

Seeing the Unseen: Heavy Lifting

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 07:03:00 +0000

This pulley is an essential piece of kit on the fishing boat. This one is well used and substantial. It enables the heavy lifting to be done. Without it the loads would be cumbersome or even unmanageable.

Our shared ministry is only as strong as the theology with which we do our heavy lifting. Death and dying, infidelity and unkindness, bitterness and hurt, callousness and selfishness, injustice and exploitation, all of these challenges - and many more - require hauling up and lifting out. It takes more hands than our own on the rope to do the work.

Seeing the Unseen: Hinge

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 11:05:00 +0000

The contrast between the intensely brilliant lightness of the sunlit wall and deeply black darkness of the shadow in the doorway is striking. Because it is part of both contexts, the rusted hinge looks as though it is attempting to hold these two extremes together, and in so doing create an opening which would not otherwise be possible. The hinge takes the strain inherent in the situation and converts it into a fresh dimension of free movement.

Every peacemaking situation, every opportunity for conflict transformation, requires something similar.

Seeing the Unseen: Purpose

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 11:00:00 +0000

There is no mistaking the purpose of the RNLI Lifeboat Station at Filey, or of its magnificent Lifeboat. The design, the branding, the equipment and the history are distinctive and immediately recognisable. Saving lives is the sole aim and everything we see here is dedicated to that task. Nothing is superfluous. The highly skilled volunteer crew and the paid Coxswain / Mechanic are trained to get the very best out of their equipment. Their dedication is beyond reproach.

When people encounter the church is there an equally self-evident clarity of purpose? What sense of dedication, conviction and single-mindedness is conveyed? What is the overriding task that should shape and define us and how apparent is it to the casual observer?

Imagining the Lectionary: righteousness, risk and authority: exploring Matthew's passion (Proper 21A/Ordinary 26A)

noreply@blogger.com (visual theology) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:24:00 +0000

Toddy Hoare’s striking ciment fondu panel depictiing a naked St Matthew sitting in his tax booth at the moment of his call to become a disciple is on display in the grounds of Burton Agnes Hall in East Yorkshire. My treatment of the rather bland looking original emphasises the exceptional moment of transforming grace when Matthew’s old identity, narrowly centred on money and greed, is entirely displaced by total immersion in God’s expansive righteousness met face to face in Jesus.

I believe that this singular paradigm shifting moment is the hermeneutical key which opens up the whole amazing vista of the inclusive intention of divine love which is so characteristic of this Gospel. Having been one of the despised and excluding ones, a pariah who was a stranger to righteousness, Matthew’s great concern for the all-inclusive nature of grace is entirely understandable. Tax collectors and prostitutes, outcasts and rejected ones, the lowly, the poor and the left outs; these are the ones who are centre stage in the drama Matthews unfolds.

It is all deeply personal and heartfelt. Matthew is shocked by Jesus' call and overwhelmed by being included in God’s beloved one’s. Because Matthew’s Gospel is ignited on the periphery of society, catches fire on the edges and then blazes fiercely towards the centre of religious identity, it produces a scorched earth theology of righteousness. Every exclusive barrier and separating prejudice is consumed in its wake, each aspect of unrighteous religion which colludes with the dominant hegemony and allows the poor to be belittled and outcasts to be despised is burned to the ground by grace. Purposefully and inexorably the last and the least are brought into the centre to occupy the primary socio-religious space which was once the sole preserve of the Temple.

Church is usurped by Gospel. Law is supplanted by Grace. Radical righteousness becomes the defining characteristic of the primary reality of God’s inbreaking Kingdom of Love.

In Jesus, righteousness, risk and authority become a brilliant inferno of shekinah-esque qualities which sear the religious imagination with the imprint of God’s glory. The authority of God’s Kingdom is self evidently manifested every time someone is freed, healed, released, unburdened, empowered and included by Jesus and enters into God’s Kingdom of right-living. The Gospel risks everything for the sake of the written off.

Jesus invites everyone to enter in and do likewise. Which is why he is such a threat to the religious authorities. Entering a risk-averse Temple is hardly likely to ignite a revolution of righteousness. The risk of entering that space is that of accepting that the status quo cannot be changed or challenged but is a given. By definition the edge-dwellers and periphery people are kept well away.

You enter the building Jesus is constructing in the mind at your own risk. You will be changed. Righteousness will overwhelm you and if you let it it will transform your life utterly. God’s authoritative presence at work in your life will lead you to take risks for Jesus. You will love on the edges and at the periphery. You will challenge the centre. Wherever you are you will be the loving face of God’s inclusive Kingdom.

This is what Matthew offers and this is the testimony he gives. He flings wide open the locked doors of religion and offers a new sense of the ministry of the whole people of God: spirit-led, with a heart for Jesus and a passion for mission.