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"Sea Watching."

Grey waters, vast

                        as an area of prayer

that one enters. Daily

                      over a period of years

I have let my eye rest on them.

Was I waiting for something?

                                          Nothing

but that continuous waving

                             that is without meaning

occurred.

              Ah, but a rare bird is

rare. It is when one is not looking

at times one is not there

                                  that it comes.

You must wear your eyes out

as others their knees.

               I became the hermit

of the rocks, habited with the wind

and the mist. There were days,

so beautiful the emptiness

it might have filled,

                          its absence

was as its presence; not to be told

any more, so single my mind

after its long fast,

                          my watching from praying.

– R.S. Thomas

in Laboratories of the Spirit, 1975

The sea is a rich symbol for what goes on inside us. Restless or calm, stormy or quiet, surging with energy, swirling in powerful currents, revealing hidden depths and glittering or dull surfaces, rhythmic sounds of waves, lapping or crashing on the beach; an endless fascination of possibilities. R S Thomas spent hours, days, sometimes weeks sea watching. One of his finest poems plunges into a theology of prayer that is spare, interrogative, hopeful, but in the end realistic about what it might feel like to search for God and not find, to listen for God and not hear, to suspect that it is not God's absence that is the problem but, perhaps, our not being present, not being there, when God is.

'Sea Watching' is written in a form suggestive of the ebb and flow of the tide, the gathering of movement in each waye as it approaches, breaks on the shore and recedes. The syntax is crafted to allow long spaces between words and lines, the silences of white and the voices of the words, in rhythmic alternating cadence. As a meditation on the sea, and on the human search for the God who searches for those so busy looking for him they miss him, it is a moving and honest recognition of how hard it is to discern the presence of God. "…..Daily / over a period of years / I have let my eyes rest on them." The urge and urgency of regular waiting, watching, hoping for a glimpse or an intimation of God's presence that can be confirmed, clung to as proof and evidence. But of what?  

That first line,"Grey waters, vast…" suggests both immensity and mystery, a reality that is impenetrable and incomprehensible, yet there. Unlike a number of Psalms, Thomas doesn't invoke the sea as source of chaos and danger, overwhelming and inundating those who are near it. It is the hidden depths that interest him, the perduring, persistent presence of the seascape, always changing but always the recurring rhythms, energy and movement towards the shore. Prayer has an area as vast and mysterious as the sea; stated like that it is a truism as flat as a docile sea. But Thomas takes a familiar metaphor and pours into it the passionate longing and intense watching and waiting that is the inner world of devotion, and in particular his own search for an authentic spirituality dismissive of all comfortable familiarity and warm feelings verging on the sentimental. This is a poem about the "Grey waters, vast…", the untamed potency of the sea, mysterious and unfathomable, cold if also filled with life. It is an acoount of a man who has come to accept that "You must wear your eyes out / as others their knees."

There are echoes of the Gospel of John, with its various verbs for seeing, beholding, looking, gazing and glimpsing. Each mode of visual perception and inner processing of what is seen, come together and make up the watchful attentiveness and alert constancy of concentration, and encourage the disciplined return, daily for years, and still with no certainty of a sighting, a discovery of the One being sought.

Those of us who walk by the sea find in this poem personal resonances of what Thomas describes. And at times, that same sense that watching the sea and wanting to pray, merge into a recognition that to seek God, to watch for even a glimpse of the 'rare bird', and to do so daily, repeatedly, in all weathers, is to have learned to pray the prayer of longing, loving and answering the lure of the divine love.

From the previous post, unpacking something of what Jesus meant by Rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's – what might that look like, sound like? These are not the only or the obvious implications. But they are the thoughts I shared when preaching on the text. (Mark 12.12-17) They were briefer notes, now written up -  but the gist is there.

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Politics is a Discipleship Issue. Who do you follow? The clues are in the papers you read, news channels we  listen to, FB or Twitter accounts, the political party we support, policies we agree with or disagree with. To give God what belongs to God is a quality test of our attitudes and actions in society, personally. Immigration is a complex and controversial subject – but refugees are by definition desperate, vulnerable and at the mercy of the world. There is nothing complex about human desperation and suffering for followers of Jesus who read of the Good Samaritan and go and do likewise; or who read about inasmuch as you did it not you did it not unto me. 

“Blessed are the merciful” is not a pious hope, but a political standpoint, a theological disposition. When migrants and refugees are blamed for perceived grievances, or made scapegoats for what’s wrong with our country, as a follower of Jesus I not only beg to differ, I will state that difference in terms that are Christian. For example each person made in God’s image; welcome of the stranger; care for the poor; Jesus in the least of these. I follow Jesus, and render to God what is God's – merciful actions, protective voices, protesting injustice, redemptive gestures of kindness and yes, money no matter whose image is on it! But Jesus text makes nonsense of keeping politics out of church, or ignoring political realities because they are not relevant to "my" spiritual life.

Prayer about Politics is a Discipleship Issue – "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". What is the will of God about refugees, immigrants, people on disability benefits. Or to cast wider, non-payment of corporation tax, start of life and end of life ethics, food banks, green renewable energy? To pray is to lift up hands against the disorder of the world. Giving back to God what is God’s is fundamentally a lifestyle, a settled disposition Godwards, a living sacrifice of worship. When I pray for refugees in the Mediterranean, I pray to the God of the Exodus; for victims of hate crime I pray to the God who is love; against the hate speech, divisive rhetoric of politicians I pray to the God of truth; for the poor, hungry, homeless, and for those struggling with mental ill health and social exclusion I pray to the God of all comfort, the God of peace; for a suffering world where famine threatens millions in Africa I pray to the God of Calvary, and to the God of resurrection. Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence; and my obedience and compassion in praying is part of the world wide web of God's mercy.

Protest and Prayer about Politics is a Discipleship Issue The Barmen Declaration was formulated in the 1930's and published by German Christians opposed to the nazification of the Church. MLK Dream Speech – non violent resistance fuelled by faith in the God of truth, justice and righteousness. The recent spat by the US President against John Lewis, Civil Rights veteran was sad in its own irony! When he tweeted, “All talk, talk, talk, no action. SAD”it blew back on him as protest.

Sometimes Caesar demands what cannot be given. Then we are fcalled to faithfulness, and perhaps with a prive to pay for saying no. That too goes with discipleship. Clarence Jordan founded Koinonia farm, an integrated community of black and white people, poor and marginalised folk. For 14 yrs they faced opposition, resentment, vandalism and finally a fire destroyed the community buildings and crops. The KKK were behind the attack, church members voices were recognised by Jordan. Whe a reporter came to visit, Jordan was in the field hoeing, restoring the soil. Repeated questions about when he would leave, recognising he had failed, giving in, Jordan's reply is now a celebrated moment of rendering unto God what is God's. "In what way can you claim to be successful", the reporter askerd. “About as successful as the cross, sir. I don’t think you understand us at all. What we are about is not success, but faithfulness. Good day, sir. “ 

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Being a citizen calls for limited liability, limited allegiance, an unwillingness ever to say our country comes first, and is ultimate. God comes first, "Seek you first the Kingdom of God…."Whatever has Caesar’s image is to be given, unless in giving it I am taking from God what is rightfully God’s

Render to God what is God's. What we give to God, the living sacrifice of our lives is he obedience of a heart renewed by grace; the convictions of a Christ shaped conscience; the integrity of minds transformed by the Holy Spirit; the allegiance of life to the Kingdom of God as citizens of heaven. That means politics is a discipleship issue which I think about as a child of the Kingdom. I tmeans prayer about politics is a discipleship issue and I pray the Lord’s Prayer as if I mean it, and mean for it to happen It means Protest and prayer about politics is a discipleship issue when Caesar is asking what he has no right to ask, and in words of early Christians, "We must obey God rather than man…or any human authority.”

Preaching on the text "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" puts the preacher in a difficult hermeneutical position. You can't simply ignore your own political principles, convictions and opinions. Depending on where we find ourselves on the political spectrum, the interpretation is likely to be influenced by those political presuppositions. Even if you are aware of them, try to make allowances for them, some have the force of conviction and are tied up with other life commitments.

But neither can the preacher be silent, take refuge in being "non political" as if that were remotely possible, or give an even-handed interpetation of a text that itself is a polarising ultimatum about where the line in the sand is drawn. So today and tomorrow I'll share my own attempt to preach with integrity and faithfulness to the text, acknowledging from the start that my own faith commitment and experience shape and inform my dialogue with this troublesome and troublemaking text. The following is an expanded text from my preaching notes.

The text I chose was from Mark 12.12-17. The same story is with small variations in Matthew and Luke.

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Contactless cards, phone apps, and credit cards, tend to mean many of us no longer regularly handle hard cash money. A visit to Oxford reinforced the faith people have, or don.t have, in money. A Clydesdale bank £20 note offered in two bookshops had one blank refusal, and one careful scrutiny of the offending note before reluctantly agreeing to take it. My offendedness was largely due to the social assumption that handing over money is an act of social conformity. Money enables buying and selling. The metal or paper is worthless, but it represents a set value, and a social contract. Money is about power, influence, ability to buy a cappuccino, to get things done, like painting our hall and stairway. You can’t eat money but it does buy food. The idea of food banks is for those not enough purchasing power for food. Note those linked words, purchasing power.

Back in imagination 2000 years. For hundreds of years Judah has been occupied. Emperor Tiberias is a familiar image, every engraved coin is a reminder of who has the power. Subjugation is written into every money transaction, every day’s work. On reverse side Pontifex Maximus – high priest of Rome, the mediator with the Gods. The slippage towards the Imperial cult and worship of Caesar, who has the favour, the ear and influence with the gods. Pious Jews didn’t handle Roman money – but taxes had to be paid in Roman coin, hence the temple tax paid in Jewish coins, hence money changers. The imperial denarius flooded the Empire with the propaganda of power, woven into everyday life. Coins advertised, confirmed, carried the stamp of the power of Caesar. Such coins were hated as instruments of oppression. Paying tax and tribute was a regular required act of compliance, submission.

So, the question. "Is it lawful, according to God’s commands, to pay taxes to Caesar" was a trapdoor question. Jesus asks "Why are you testing me", in Mark's Gospel an echo of Satan’s temptations about power. This once again was a moment when Jesus answer could spark a revolt, or show he’s a collaborator and not Messiah. “Whose image, and whose inscription?” These righteous testers of Jesus, who hated the Roman coin, had to touch and look at the very coin they paid their taxes with – and despised as an image of Imperial religion.

The question isn’t about money, it’s about taxes, and taxes are about power, and power is ultimately about whoever or whatever is God in our lives. Who or what has the highest, final, defining, claim on our allegiance? Who ultimately says what is right and wrong? Who has the right to require our obedience and say our disobedience is treason.

This coin isn’t about secular or sacred, or state or church. This coin has become a flashpoint of ultimates. What ultimately matters in life? Who ultimately has power over our lives? Caesar or God; the powers that be or the power of God? Who commands our conscience? Is it the state, the party, the employer, or God? “Give back to Caesar what belongs to him, and give back to God what belongs to God.” Which kingdom do we belong to? As followers of Jesus we are children of the Kingdom of God. We pray "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…." Those are the words of a community of contradiction, whose ultimate loyalty is not to no one, no entity, no institution, but to God.

We are living through a time when this passage may well become once again a flashpoint of ultimates. Here are two caesar-like statements.

“At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America.”

“But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."

The use of absolute terms like “total allegiance” “citizen of nowhere”, take these words beyond the legitimate claims of any political power. The State detects a threat when its citizens refuse to make allegiance to the State an absolute. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's”. Jesus didn’t call for violent revolution; he gave no permission for witholding money. He called for a reorientation of the heart, mind, will and strength towards God, and a refusal to make any other power Lord of the soul.

Christians nowe live in a globalised world of powerful corporate interests, where there are thickening lines of separation between borders, as we witness the re-emergence of nationalist ambitions and fears and the rise of rhetoric of confrontations, fears, self-interest and rejection of the other. It is a world of realigning economic markets, calls for increased military readiness, rising perceptions of threat and hostility and polarisation. In such a world those words of Jesus become a line in the sand – “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is Gods.”

(How this can be thought through in practice will be the second part of these reflections on Jesus saying, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

This Sunday I'm preaching in the church where I was minister for 18 years, and where I am now a member. The text I've been given is Mark 12.12-17. It's the one about giving Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and giving God what belongs to God. The powers that be need to shut Jesus up, they need to discredit or destroy him. If they don't he'll bring disaster on Jerusalem. 

The question was a hot topic – is it lawful, right, to pay taxes to Caesar. And as Jesus sometimes did, he turned the question into a test of truth, integrity and decisions about what matters most in life. He asked for a coin. He answered their question with a question, destabilising their certainties, wrong-footing their assumptions, and compelling them to acknowledge and expose their ulterior motives.

"Who's image is this" is not a primary class level question. Jesus knew, they knew, the crowd knew whose image it was. Point is, no self-respecting Pharisee would look on an image of one who claimed to be a god. By saying Caesar they already conceded that they were compliant with Rome when it came to civic loyalty and public standpoint. Maximus Pontifex was a religious claim, and it was stamped on that same coin. So politics and religion collide; Caesar and God are competitors; sacred and secular coalesce in a question about ultimate loyalty.

All of which raises interesting questions for us today. Who are today's Caesars? What are today's economic divine wannabes? What power, and powers, compete for the minds and hearts, demanding ultimate loyalty? When conscience is pushed to decide right and wrong, whose side is the default side, God or Caesar, Kingdom of God or Empire? Whose image commands our love, loyalty and even our life? In a globalised world of economic levers which are pulled elsewhere but can devastate communities in faraway places, how do we know what's a caesar issue and what is a God issue?

Come Sunday, I'll hope to have some answers to these questions. But then again, I may only be left with more and harder questions. Following Jesus is about cross-bearing, obedience to teaching which is counter-cultural and anti-Empire, and we may have to lose our lives to save them, forgo the world to save our soul.

9.00 am drive from Westhill to Montrose – at Stonehaven the wooded hill beside the road is a dirty strawy winter colour, till you see the sunlit snowdrops, suspended floral pearls framed in foliage so green it seems intended as a defiant statement of life, and Spring and the precious gift of secret but never superfluous beauty.

5pm driving over Netherley, the low sun glimmering on ten plough blades, the turned soil sun deepened brown, followed by a blizzard of seagulls, and ahead is Bennachie sketched across the skyline as if by an artist unsure whether it's meant to be a hill or a mountain.

Throughout Advent and into the New Year I worked on a tapestry based around a well known outline of the image of the Wild Goose. The connection between Iona, in Scotland, and the Wild Goose goes back to its modern re-founder, George Macleod. The story of the restoration of Iona Abbey is one of the inspirations and historical pivot points in the life of the Church of Scotland, and in the life of the churches in Scotland.

My interest in the image of the wild goose is its connection with the Holy Spirit in modern expressions of Celtic spirituality. There is little evidence it was ever a pervasive symbol in the earlier evolution of Scottish and Celtic religion.

Wild geese are, well, wild. Untamed. Uncontained. Unpredictable. Wild geese fly. They are migrants of the air, powerful and unerring in flight, they come and they go. Like the wind on which they are carried, they fly where they choose. We hear their choral honking, but know not where they came from or where they are going. So said Jesus, it is with those who are born of the Spirit. 

The Wild Goose defies our control, flies above our human earthbound limitations, heads for horizons we can only guess at, follows that inner call to God knows where. And that's the truth of it, God does know where. But we don't.

Yet the call of the wild goose is felt in those occasional longings for love and freedom and meaning, that tug away at our own wild hopes. The Spirit prays within us with those inner groanings of fear and hopefulness that are hard to put into words, but are the more real for their mystery and persistence.  The wild goose comes, and goes, we hear its sound, feel its tug, and if we are prepared to spread the wings of our own spirit, we are caught up into the life of the Spirit of Christ, we are born again into a trustfulness and newness of life that is the gift of God.

In the absence of adequate words, this tapestry is an icon of the Spirit. The goose, resplendent and alert, is looking upwards. towards, and beyond the horizon. The sun is setting, or rising, the sky in pastel shades of light is both sunrise and sunset. The sea is impossibly blue, the colour of glory, reserved for that which is of infinite worth, eternal and holy.

The foreground is moorland heather, rushes and grasses, and red moss; red moss is a portent of the Passion, because the new life of the Holy Spirit is at the cost of atonement for the sin of the world, and through Christ, the gift of forgiveness of all that is broken in us, and all that we have broken.

God is love. God is light. God is Spirit. God loves in freedom, God's light is the light of life, and God's Spirit moves in the sovereign freedom of grace.

 

 

When child refugees are someone else's problem. And the unacceptability of claiming "We have done our bit".

I read this piece this morning and immediately wanted to share it on Facebook. Here's why.

I share this because I believe the Dubs Amendment provided a morally and politically defensible response to a humanitarian crisis of suffering and threatened children.

I share the sadness of all who believe our country should not close doors on refugees – doors fit into walls as openings, and places of welcome; when they are closed all you are left with is a wall.

I share the shame that a rich and influential nation would rather pay others to keep refugees where they are, than welcome them as the human gifts they are.

For followers of Jesus truth-telling is not optional but crucial; the question what is truth, however cyncially asked, has an answer; integrity is truthfulness of character expressed in words that aim at honesty over expediency, clarity over obscurity.

The aim of words is to edify, build up, support that which is good and true and humanising; this in contrast to a discourse that aims to tear down truth and deceive the reader or hearer.

When words are captured by power and used as weapons to gain, increase and hold on to power, then yes, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. We shouldn't need to be told that by the author of two of most prescient and trajectory setting dystopian novels. But in the 21st century world of digitised and word saturated global culture, where immediacy and non accountable social media exchange encourages truth, half truth and lies, provokes disagreement, dislike, hostility culminating in hate language, and gives unprecedented exposure to anyone with internet access to a difficult to regulate but pervasive medium – in such a culture, truth is a hostage to fortune, and that is a euphemism for clear and present danger to its welfare.

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free", said Jesus. Placed alongside Pilate's ambiguous and exasperated question, "What is truth", Jesus words push back at us, and our responsibility to care, to discern, to defend, to speak truth. Failure to do these is the loss of the very freedom that makes us human.