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The Beatitudes are often described as promises. True as far as it goes. But they are not promises without strings attached, quite far reaching strings. In each of them there is an assumption of God at work. And God isn't into reinforcing our comfort zones, approving our complacencies, defending our interests or preserving our standard of living. In fact the Beatitudes are an invitation, a dare even, for us to look at the world, ourselves, other people and God, through a different lense.

The Kingdom of God is not like any other kingdom; the culture of the Kingdom of God is counter cultural to all other transient and timebound expressions of human shared activity, work and creativity. The Beatitudes are revolutionary statements of God's intent. The Beatitudes are a checklist of resistance to dominant cultures that diminish human flourishing through the power plays of injustice.

There is a temptation to hear the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus' manifesto of the Kingdom of God, but with our backs turned on that other mount on which Jesus was crucified. The Beatitudes were precisely the kind of teaching that, to the powerful, merited silencing by force and contradiction by crucifixion. Lived faithfully, the Beatitudes are an invitation to follow Jesus from one hillside to another, from Galilee to Calvary.

The world watched, and heard, as the Beatitudes were read on Capitol Hill in Washingtoin at the inauguration of the 45th President. They were then rubbished by the content of the inaugural speech. The clash of cultural values was classic theatre, lacking only the voice of the child telling the blindingly obvious alternative truth that the President wasn't properly dressed for the occasion.

My friend Simon Woodman is one of the ministers at Bloomsbury Baptist Church. He has written the following glosses on the Beatitudes. Such writing articulates the serious collisons between the love of power and the power of love. Yes that is a cliche, but sometimes it takes one cliche to trump another cliche. We now look at a global future in which such collisions are inevitable. Followers of the crucified Lord have a long tradition of resistance through revolutionary love, bridge-building hope, perseverance in peace, and joy in trumping injustice.

Blessed are those who refuse the lie that one life is worth more than any other,
for theirs is the future of humanity.

Blessed are those who have stared long into the abyss,
for theirs is honesty beyond grief.

Every year I choose words of Jesus to read every day for a year,

words which in their subversive simplicity

destabilise our assumptions with the rumble of new truth

open our eyes to look at the world and other people differently

silence our complaints by contradicting our anxieties

question our easy answers by posing harder questions 

enlarge our ideas about God's love, justice and grace

disturb our complacency with constructive discontent

undermine our despair by resurrection hope

refresh our barren acres with streams in the desert

words which

call to The Way of the cross

compel embodied performance of The Truth

commit us to be, and do, and share Jesus The Life.

This year the words of Jesus I am reading/praying every day are the Beatitudes from Matthew's Gospel. Matthew 5.1-11.

Slow reading of the increasingly familiar, prayerful committing to heart and memory, cumulative study of the text so that exegesis becomes the Gospel interpreted in life, and a tapestry as a way of giving visual reality to words that are transformative. 

Martha should be the patron saint of the distracted, the overworked and perhaps the misunderstood. Think of Masterchef, and the competitors pushed to their limits serving sophisticated meals they've never prepared before, in a tight time line, and with VIP guests. Luke uses a rare word to describe Martha being "pulled in several directions at once". Being distracted means trying to do too much; sometimes multi-tasking leads to nothing being done well, or exhaustion. Excessive activity is either the sign or the cause of overanxiety, trying too hard to please, having too high expectations of ourselves, or even misreading other people's expectations of us. All of this helps to understand Martha who is "worried and distracted by many things".

Some commentators have suggested that the "many things" refers to Martha preparing an elaborate menu, when a simple meal would have done. Back to Masterchef again. But Jesus is not a demanding guest in relation to cuisine; he is a demanding guest whose word is to be heard, whose presence is to be attended to, because the words he speak are God's word. Earlier Luke told of the Transfiguration, and the voice from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." Mary is doing that, while Martha makes food to feed Jesus. Mary is being nourished by Jesus, Martha wants to nourish Jesus after his long journey. Mary hears what Jesus wants to say; Martha tells Jesus what to say, to her sister. Attentive listening and preparing food are both aspects of hospitality. But more than hospitality is going on here.

One lesser known painting shows how Jesus words to Martha, "you are distracted and worried by many things" suggest she was far too extravagant and ambitious in her menu. The culinary energy and expertise required to make a banquet was simply over the top. The painting is by Georg Friedrich Stettner, (d.1639) and the foreground is of a kitchen with enough food to feed an entire village. And of course it is food for the rich 17th Century German nobility rather than the food available in a first century Palestinian village.There is a good, clear image of this painting over here

However, this painting is about more than the food in the foreground, and much more is going on than a display of supermarket scale meal ingredients. Mary sits in her finery reading a text of scripture in her lap, while looking at Jesus. The light from the window falls on the pages, and on her face; Martha's colour is dull by comparison, and her apron is soiled, her sleeves rolled up and she is on her knees, not praying, but plucking various poultry. In the background three disciples are talking; further back still, other men are sitting at a table talking. In other words, Jesus is sitting in the kitchen! The last place it is reasonable to expect peace and quiet; and a guest sitting talking about holy things is the last thing a chief cook needs when her kitchen is in full swing.

But behind Jesus is the cover of the book on Mary's lap, and behind it another text; the kitchen table is also a place for holy things. In this picture Martha is a busy hostess exasperated by Mary's total disregard of the kirchen and the jobs needing done, while Mary is dressed for visitors not for the kitchen and she is clearly familiar with the book on her lap. Jesus has a hand on the table and another extended towards Mary but is looking at Martha. The dynamics are intense, and the picture viewed in the light of a careful reading of Luke's text is a powerful representation of the central tension between contemplative listening and energy consuming busyness. And I wonder about the window at the very back of the painting with its cruciform frame, and Jesus clothed in a red robe. These are familiar codes in artistic interpretations of biblical scenes.

It's interesting to ponder this picture, read the story again a couple of times, and look again at the picture. The contrast of busyness and overprovision and domestic activity, with the two people at the centre is a clever illustration of the contrast between being worried and distracted by many things, and the one thing necessary, and choosing the good part.

I confess I was troubled by Theresa May's Party pleasing speech at the Tory Party Conference last Autumn. Amongst the more concerning statements was her contention that to be a citizen of the world was to be a citizen of nowhere. In my view this is ignorance verging on arrogance, and privileges narrowness over breadth in matters of personal, social and national identities.

First, that which every human being holds in common is humanity, not nationality and not even citizenship. Our common humanity is the starting point for understanding togetherness and otherness, sameness and difference. Yes indeed, as human beings our personal and national histories, our cultural formation, social and economic context and experience, life opportunities and life limitations, create rich and at times confusing and colliding diversities. But basic to human sociality, and indeed fundamental to human flourishing, is that recognition of, respect for, and concern to protect and enhance, our common humanity.

Only then am I prepared to think of national identity in a globalised world, social identity in a multicultural and pluralist culture, and personal identity formed and developed in a changing continuity within the overall context of my life. So when the Prime Minister tells me I cannot be a citizen of the world, that to claim such makes me a citizern of nowhere, she is wrong. What is more her own say so does not, thankfully, deprive anyone of their self-identity of belonging to this richly textured, multi-cultural diversity we call the world.

There is therefore some irony in the same Prime Minister, a few months later, insisting Britain wishes to be global, to be a global trader, enaged in trade and commerical relationships on a worldwide scale, but only so far as it furthers our nation's interests. Well, yes, trade is conducted for the very purposes of furthering a nation's interests. But usually to the mutual benefit of trading partners, and within the recognised protocols of treaties and agreements, which preserve the principles of fairness, mutual concessions and accepting that in those compromises there may be pluses and minuses, but overall a relationship that benefits all particpants.

But the narrow minded pursuit of international relations on primarily economic grounds is itself problematic. What about being a net contributor to the common good of the world, and often at our own expense? And that expense borne willingly in order to underwrite our commitment to those other people and peoples beyond our own increasingly grudging borders? Four brief points sharpen this question.

• The well known hostility of the Prime Minister to the European Convention on Human Rights is a threat to an institution and instrument that goes to the very heart of what we believe about citizenship, power and humanity in its vulnerability to abuse of that power. This negativity towards the European Convention is darkened by an equal ambivalence towards the European Court of Justice.
• Second, we have a political future post Brexit that is heading towards tighter borders, intolerance of immigrant people, economic reconfiguration around self-interest and significantly distanced international relations, all of which make any claim that our country is interested in global relations at best self-serving, and at worst deluded. 
• Third, the Prime Minister's insistence that she alone has the right to trigger the Brexit clause would mean that my own current status as a citizen of the European Community, can be rescinded on the say so of a Prime Minister not elected as such by General Election, without recourse to the sovereignty of Parliament, and as an act which is brought about by her own Party's inner enmities which brought about the Referendum in the first place.
• Fourth, at a time when the United States is going through a political reinvention with similar strains of isolationism, radically self-interested economics, driving forces of anti-immigration and right wing resurgence, and with overtures of encouragement to the UK to be and do the same, there is a real threat to the international political order such as has not been felt since the end of the Second World War.

So when I am told, without discussion, and from someone claiming a Christian heritage, that I cannot be a citizen of the world, that global citizenship is effectively a dangerous nonsense, I hear the drums of nationalism and exclusivism, the clang of claimed privilege and unself-critical pride, and the ignorance and arrogance of someone whose personal ambitions are made embarassingly naked. Ignorance, in the sense of lack of knowledge of what it sounds like, looks like and feels like, to have your Prime Minister tell you what you are and what you are not. Arrogance in the sense that those statements that disenfranchise and denigrate those with a global worldview are not the remit of any democratically elected leader in a country. No leader has the right to unilaterally disqualify my view of the world in favour of a narrow, exclusivist, self-interested view of our own country's place in the world.

My own understanding of a Christian view of the world is neither rose tinted nor shadowed by fear. The Christian church is trans-national, world embracing in its mission, open to sharing the good news of the Kingdom of God with every language, tribe, people and nation, made up of those who in following Jesus are ministers of reconciliation, peacemakers, members of a Kingdom of justice, joy and peace, teachers and embodiments of all that Jesus taught and commanded. Such a position does not allow me the "crabb'd and confined" view of the world currently being marketed as our future.

This is the first of several posts on the story of Martha and Mary. Regular readers here will know my interest in this story, with its exegetical history as a contrast between the contemplative and the activist, prayer and social justice, or loving with the heart as opposed to religion of good works. None of which do justice to the rich texture of this brief, potent biblical scene of loving and serving Jesus.

For some time I've been working on a study of Luke 10.38-42, the passage which tells the story. The contrast between Mary seated at Jesus' feet, listening to his every word, and Martha worked off her feet in the kitchen seems straightforward enough. Jesus confirms the reader's first if rather hasty assumptions and instincts. Mary is the one who gives Jesus his proper place and who has the right demeanour towards him; Martha is so busy doing the hospitality duties that she misses the opportunity to spend time with Jesus. Read the passage, and hear the background clattering of the dishes and the softer murmur of two people talking; and imagine the inner turmoil of Martha and the inner focus of Mary; the anxious worry of the one and the unconcerned calm of the other. 

But is that a fair reading of the text, and does it do justice to the emotional and relational undercurrents that swirl beneath this story? Reading a lot of the commentaries of the past 50 years, many writers draw the same contrast between Mary who got it right and Martha who got it wrong. John Nolland is steeped in the study of the Gospels compares “Martha who tells Jesus what he must say, and Mary who listens to what Jesus wishes to say.”

But there is a minority report amongst modern exegetes of this story. One of the questions to be asked is about the tone and motivation of Jesus words to Martha. There is no uncertainty about Martha's tone and words; she is complaining to Jesus about Mary skiving while Martha is doing all the work. But Jesus' words to Martha are worth weighing for their tone and intention. It's easily missed that Jesus words of address use Martha's name twice. This is an idiom of persuasion, an affectionate and defusing of the anxiety and upset Martha is feeling; the double name is a reassurance that Martha is heard, noticed, and understood.

Only after that gentle re-focusing of a flustered friend, does Jesus then speak of Martha's complaint and point to Mary as someone who better understands the priorities of welcoming Jesus. The food and comfort are important, but his words are of first importance. Serving Jesus is indeed the heart of discipleship, but hearing and loving Jesus is what makes that service even possible. All of this, says Jesus, is the better part, the primary thing, the priority. Disciples are called to hear the word and do it, in that order.

While studying the biblical text, I also spent time studying a number of paintings of this biblical scene. Some are unsparing of Martha and take the traditional line of prayerful Mary and practical Martha, with Mary's spirituality preferred to Martha's practicality. But some portrayals offer other persepctives, and they aren't entirely negative about Martha and affirming of Mary. Somewhere in the reading and interpreting of this story some writers and artists have sensed the danger of pushing Mary the contemplative so far that she displaces and devalues Martha's work of hospitality, welcome and care for others. And that contrast, at times becoming a dichotomy, points to the pendulum swings in how some churches emphasise the spiritual prayerful activities of worship and devotion, and others focus on the importance of justice, hospitality, care for the poor and social activism on behalf of the vulnerable. There is a built in either/or in these attitudes that I'm not sure Jesus' words mean, or that Luke's story intended.

Have a look at the Vermeer painting (if you are in Edinburgh you can see the original at the National Galleries). What is Jesus demeanour and body language? What is Jesus' tone, attitude towards Martha? That loaf of bread, central in the painting along with Jesus hand? This doesn't look like someone getting a row for spending time baking when she could have been doing something more worthwhile. The idea that Jesus would be unappreciative of bread goes against the entire Gospel tradition from his refusal to magic bread rather than trust God, to his feeding the multitude, his inclusion of a loaf at the centre of the Lord's prayer, his claim "I am the bread of life", all the way to the night he took bread and broke it in Eucharist. Vermeer has chosen an image that places Martha's work at the centre of the table. And both women are looking at, and paying attention to Jesus. If Martha is in the act of complaining, Jesus' relaxed and laid back body language couldn't be further from the anger and scolding some commentators have heard in Jesus words to her.

Next time, a couple of modern paintings and the perspectives they take in portraying two strong women, each in their own way, welcoming Jesus.

There is great skill in taking a good photograph. And to do it right you need a good camera and probably a lot of add on lenses, filters and a willingness to be inconvenienced, patient and sometimes just downright thrawn.

I have several friends who are very, very good photographers. I know what goes into the composition, framing and timing. For myself I use a mid priced Sony Cybershot which does most of what I want it to do.

Sometimes I don't have it with me and I have to rely on my phone if something happens and I'd like to capture the moment. So on a Sunday before Christmas, having attended the Malcolm Sargent Clic Carol Concert in the Beach Ballroom, at the Aberdeen front, we were walking back to the car when the moon appeared from the cloud cover.

The resulting photo was taken with my Iphone 5, and it is one of the loveliest, most atmospheric pictures I've ever taken. It's entirely untouched, straight from the phone, and more like a painting than a digital image. 

I have always liked the kind of blue that lingers just after dusk. Van Gogh's Starry Night, and his Cafe paintings for example. In my own imagination that same blue was in the sky the night the Psalmist poet wrote Psalm 8, about considering the night sky and being left wondering why on earth, or even why in heaven's name, God is mindful of human beings and this tiny floating planet. The soft glow from the right is from an out of camera street light, and that's part of the serendipity, the accidental intrusion, that gives uniqueness to that one moment of stopping to look, and take a chance on a picture.

"I like a good laugh." That phrase, "a good laugh", opens an interesting set of questions. Laughter is a human response to a whole range of experiences, from the incongruous to the completely unexpected; laughter can be a shared joy, a healing relief, a derisory put down, a vocal signal of sarcasm, even a rejoicing in an enemy's hurt or worse. So what makes a good laugh good? Good for whom? Good for what? Perhaps for the person who laughs, so that laughter is therapy; or the person laughed at, so laughter is a humiliation; or the person laughed with, although shared laughter can also be corporate bullying, the clique picking on a less powerful individual. So laughter is morally malleable, and the motive and intention as well as the source and target, are all important criteria in deciding whether laughter is good or bad.

All of this was sparked in my mind this morning reading chapter 13 of Julian of Norwich and her Revelations of Divine Love. Julian has a fifth Revelation and sees the Devil as evil incarnate, but also sees that the Passion of Christ has rended the Devil's power impotent, because the cross signals the final defeat of evil, and the resurrection the final triumph of the love of God. So, seeing the strutting arrogance of the devil, the contrast between such vaunted power plays, and the triumph of the crucified Christ is so absolute, that Julian, from the depths of her suffering and near fatal illness, burst out laughing so hard it became infectious and all those waiting round her sick bed dissolved into mirth, festivity, inexplicable joy and loud laughter. Here is her account of her hilarious outburst having just seen evil do its worst, and eternal love do its best:

"At the sight of this I laughed heartily, and that made those who were around me to laugh and their laughter was a pleasure to me. In my thoughts I wished that all my fellow Christians had seen what I saw, and then they would all have laughed with me."

This is no trivialisation of evil, suffering, cruelty, greed, pride and the arrogance of abusive power. Julian lived through the black death, and in the context of an often brutal and violent culture; she knew evil was real, destructive, manipulative and persistent. But she had seen its end, because she had seen God take on the world's worst nightmares, bear their terror and absorb their toxic waste. Julian had seen that the love that made and sustains and redeems the creation is forever more powerful and life giving than anything evil can concoct. Laughter is her response; a good laugh is hopeful merriment at the expense of evil and the pretensions of sin and devil alike.

In that sense there is a close connection between holy laughter and eschatology. Holy laughter erupts from a heart that hopes and imagines and trusts "the love that moves the sun and other stars." Laughter in that sense is praise, laughter is gratitude for life, laughter voices faith and confidence in the grace and mercy of a Creator, whose purposes are benign and benevolent beyond human imagination. To see evil boast of its achievements, while knowing its ultimate defeat is to enter into the greatest mystery and the greatest denouement of the greatest drama ever. The incongruity of laughter at the foot of the cross is precisely what makes Christian faith wise foolishness, and Christian hope defiant of all other claims on the heart's allegiance.

The suffering of the Syrian people, the cruelty and inhumane trading and trafficking in people, the long treks and voyages of refugees, the poverty and powerlessness of billions, the plundering, waste and despoiling of our oceans and forests and human habitats, are all, and each, reason enough to dread for the future. They are no laughing matter; and Julian of Norwich, whose world was incomparably different from 21st Century times, would nevertheless recognise our human fallenness and capacity for damage and hurt of others, and our intractable and self-defeating fixation on self-interest, whether individual or national. And she would weep, as we ought.

And yet. I recognise in her laughter a profound theological conviction, that God, not us, holds the decisive hand. Julian's theological instincts are being entirely re-oriented as the Passion of Christ and his Cross, is shown to her in its folly and power, its apparent defeat yet mysterious triumph. And into the deep layers of her laughter, seeds of hope fall from the Cross, and in prayers of trustful joy, they germinate and propagate towards fulfilment as God's great purposes work out, "breaking down dividing walls of hostility, and "reconciling all things to himself, making peace by the blood of the cross."

It is now 10 years since I started blogging at Living Wittily. This past year or so I have posted less often. Partially that is due to the using of other media like Facebook for those serendipity, ad hoc, or immediate responses to news and events and circumstances. That has meant the blog has become more occasional and the pieces the more considered and intentionally thought provoking or for more developed engagement on things literary, theological and current affairs.

Several times I have wondered whther the effort is worth it, but only briefly. There have been many encouraging emails, comments and personal responses from regular visitors to Living Wittily. Amongst the losses of being engaged in Facebook is that more personal material tends to appear there instead of here. For much of that material that is right, as there are appropriate boundaries of what gets posted here, and indeed on Facebook. But I would like to return to more regular thinking by writing here, so those who regularly visit, there should be a more continuous conversation.

Amongst the enjoyments of my semi-retirement are my camera, my bicycle and more freedom to read beyond my own areas of specialism and necessity for teaching and preaching. I have come to enjoy the camera as a lens through which to observe the world, frame the world, consider the world, and in the deeper and more pentrating senses, to see the world. Here is a photo I took a year ago, and shared on Facebook. It is a good example of seeing Christ in the world of Creation. When I think of the great Logos hymn and the Colossian hymn, I imagine the cruciform shape of reality, that the God who is love, and whose love is cruciform, is the Creator of a world that is redeemed by love, sacriificial love that is eternal in intention and eternal in consequence.

This photo captures the reality that "all things were made through him", and "through him to reconcile all things, whether on heaven or on earth, making peace by the blood of the Cross". The old timbers of the breakwaters at Aberdeen beach were briefly exposed by the storms a year ago. Walking along the beach, at just the right angle the weathered timbers came into an alignment, at just the right angle of vision, for this photo. It is one of my favourite moments with my own camera – which is a modest Sony Cybershot, and can be surprisingly clever!

If you can't be bothered reading stories, I'm not sure pastoral ministry is a good idea for a vocation. I don't usually take the high ground like that, but there is something odd about saying "I'm called to ministry" while being disinterested in the narrative flows of human life, or complacent about the thickly textured existence that is human experience. Character, plot, tensions, resolutions, imagined encounters between people, with all their complexities of motive, meaning, and communication. Then too all the possibilities of misunderstanding, ignorance, hurt; these and many other features of the novel provide scenarios rich in hermeneutic possibility, forcing us to question and sympathise, to like and dislike, to care and not to care.

Pastoral ministry is a callling to enter the mess of human life, not as the great solver of problems, but as the companion and fellow traveller, the caring friend who knows when to shut up and when to interfere and risk the friendship itself. But even more, pastoral ministry, in its caring and accompanying actions, is a willingness to enter another person's story, and create a new complexity as their story and mine begin to be told together, in the exchanges and encounters and commitments that make up every serious relationship. Novels allow us to rehearse these.

Stories well told pull us into worlds where people and problems and hopes and fears, and all the brokennness and wholesomeness of life are opened up to sight. Tragedy and comedy, failure and achievement, fallibility and courage, moral anguish and spiritual longing, evil and good, diminishment and growth, the whole many-stranded fankle of human life in its complexificated messiness, are open to our eyes, displayed for our moral insight, and narrated not for our comfort in happy endings, but for our education in what it takes to be human. Novels are at their best when they challenge our assumptions, pull the rug from beneath our far too self-confident feet, and unnerve us by showing us our deeper and darker thoughts we are loathe to admit are there at all. 

All of this Helen Dunmore's book does well. It is a story of betrayal and deceit, but also of faithfulness and loyalty. At the centre of the novel is a marriage tested to the limits by secrets, unspoken suspicions, perseverance in believing in someone who seems not to deserve such faithfulness. The nature of love and desire, the accidental ways in which we meet people and begin to care and to commit and to bind our own destiny to theirs is all told in the context of cold war politics, spying as a way of life, and then the betrayals that can sometimes be deliberate and devastating, or inadvertent, but still devastating. Making the novel more interesting are the legacies of previous relationships, the half-life of our histories as these continue to influence decisions, subvert moral principle and impinge on the central relationships in the lives of the protagonists.

A review shouldn't spoil the plot, tell the ending or in any other way compromise the storyteller's primary goal – to draw you into the story and keep you reading till the last sentence. So no more clues here; just the observation that in a culture riven by suspicion and fear as were the 1950's and early 60's, there are telling parallels to our own culture where fear of commitment and its costs and consequences are just as acute. What makes this novel important is the integrity in Dunmore's writing. At no point did she take the easy way of resolving the dilemmas that are inherent in human relationships, nor does she simplify or guarantee success in that desperate search of the human heart for a place to stand, to feel safe, or at least understood. Good novels deepen our understaning of others, school us in compassion for human weakness and longing, and remind us of our own flawed hopes, missed chances and moments of insight that are amongst our most expensive and enriching gifts.