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From Bleak Liturgies ¹

"Alms. Alms. By Christ's

blood I conjure you

a penny." On saints'

days the cross and

shackles were the jewellery

of the rich. As God

aged, kings laundered their feet

in the tears of the poor.

Economics eventually lead back to God. Because justice and injustice, generosity and greed, compassion and callousness, sharing and possessiveness, these and many other contrasts in the human condition are inextricably woven into the fabric of human ethics, and for people of faith, provide the texture of holiness in practical terms. Living in contemporary Western affluence there was a time, in the not too distant past, when we could say at least people didn't starve, there is a welfare safety net, that our economy budgets for the vulnerable. The days just before the advent, then the normalisation of food banks.

We believed that, at its best and with all its faults and holes in the safety net, our benefit system seeks to be all those positive things listed above; just, generous, compassionate, sharing – not in order to create dependency, patronise or undermine a person's independence, but to support and enable and empower people to participate as fully as they are able in the wider life and culture of our society.

Much has changed in the past decade or two of this new millennium, and there are multiple explanations for those changes in the ethos of our society. But whatever selected explanations satisfy us, we are still left with an increasing deficit in the social capital, and I would argue the moral vision, of a society more and more fixated on individual self-interest, national economic advantage, and tectonic shifts in the distribution of wealth as fewer and fewer have more and more. Our worldview is increasingly monoscopic, its focus on economic growth and prosperity so fiercely specific, that much else which is essential to human flourishing is deemed secondary. More significantly, these other aspects of human welfare and flourishing are often presupposed to depend upon economic prosperity, which is assumed to be morally and politically prior in demand for resources and sacrifices.

The poem above comes as the critical comment of an odd, often angular, sometimes angry Christian man who 30 years ago sensed the trends of a culture becoming more and more one in which obscene rewards are available in the cultures of celebrity, entertainment, sport, financial industries, and with their con-commitant attitudes of self-expression, self-promotion and ultimately self-manufactured individuality. It isn't a large step from such unexamined self-importance to a selfishness which is made socially acceptable and politically validated.

What I read in this poem, Bleak Liturgies is R. S. Thomas as Amos the prophet. Amos condemned those who sold the poor for the price of a pair of slippers; Thomas condemns those 'kings' who launder their feet in the tears of the poor. Both prophets are raging against the inequalities and cruelties of a society in which it is just so hard for the poor to have life chances. And both reserve their sharpest words for the rich whose opulence and extravagance in money and material things, are the distorted sacraments and physical embodiments of their greed and arrogance. Thomas makes no mention of judgement, but of course, presupposes it; while Amos lays about him with graphic threats and sarcastic images of overfed cows, ivory beds, rotting fruit baskets of wasted food. Mind you, Thomas has his own ironic edge – the cross and shackles reduced to trivia, baubles of the rich who long forgot the realities to which the symbols point.

Easter brings an end to Lent. But not the need for critical self-reflection, refreshed repentance, changed ways, renovation of our moral furniture, refurbished lifestyles more aligned with the contemporary living Christ who strode out of the tomb into the resurrection possibilities of peace, justice and hopeful actions let loose by the Resurrection.

Those two images in Thomas's poem take us back to basic realities of human life – the contrasts of those who need alms and those who give them; and the scandal of a secularised power elite, 'laundering their feet in the tears of the poor.' And if we ask where Jesus is in such a society, he is more likely to be in the food bank than the 3 Star Michelin restaurant where a meal costs more than 4 weeks benefits.

The cry of the poor in this poem invokes the most sacred of obligations – 'by Christ's blood'. Till we acknowledge the imperative of that invocation, it's doubtful if we have the slightest clue what Easter is all about, and what its consequences if we commit to living an Easter faith.² 

1. R. S. Thomas. Collected Later Poems. (Bloodaxe, 2004) p. 185.
2. I collect cruciform images. This one was taken in John Lewis's, an old repair to the floor covering, worn and scuffed by countless feet. The trampled cross is a telling image of a culture which values value for money, and confers worth mostly without reference to human value and human worth. 

'The Agonie'

Not much comment needed on this poem.¹ Just three by way of context, and a comment on Jurgen Moltmann, the theologian whose work most closely mirrors some of Thomas's theological questions.

1. By juxtaposing the inspired, disciplined agony of the artist, with the creative suffering love of God, Thomas revitalises theological imaginations smothered by the tedium of the overfamiliar. Ever since a friend chose to read this at a Good Friday service years ago, I've never again been able to listen to solo violin music with previous innocence, or been able to separate the vision of a musician giving his or her all, from the God who does the same.

2. The copy you are reading was written by a man who attended that service, wrote out the poem and presented it to me. It is for me a literary Icon. Alistair first started doing calligraphy in an Asian POW camp, sharing accommodation with Laurens van der Post. His first tools were split bamboo nibs, with mud and water as ink. Though he almost never spoke of those experiences, he knew more than a little about suffering, and that in human faith and experience which makes "such music as lives still".

3. That Good Friday reading of 'The Musician' alerted me to the theological profundity and complexity of the mind of this poet who composed and played such poems. Repeatedly, as poet-priest, Thomas returns to the Cross, the place where the mystery of the God who speaks through suffering love, and the place where the God who listens closely to the music of heart-broken humanity, performs the unoriginate music of the Passion of God.

I finish with some words from Jurgen Moltmann, from whom I continue to learn not so much by way of satisfying answers, as by a fellowship rooted in both honest perplexity and steadfast refusal to give up on truth that is beyond the grasp of human reach.

"The Son suffers death in this forsakenness. The Father suffers the death of the Son. So the pain of the Father corresponds to the death of the Son. And when in his descent to hell the Son loses the Father, then in his judgement the Father also loses the Son. Here the innermost life of the Trinity is at stake. Here the communicating love of the Father turns into infinite pain over the sacrifice of the Son. Here the responding love of the Son becomes infinite suffering over his repulsion and rejection by the Father. What happens on Golgotha reaches into the innermost depths of the Godhead, putting its impress on the trinitarian life in eternity." ² 

One of the most controversial elements in Moltmann's theological explorations is the way he takes with utmost seriousness, Jesus' cry of abandonment, and its implications for the inner life of the Triune God. Not everyone is comfortable with Moltmann's theology of divine agonising and his insistence that the death of the Son implies the grievous bereavement of the Father, borne and absorbed into the life of God through the Spirit, embedded within the divine love from all eternity.

But here is mystery beyond all our efforts at lucid coherence and systematic control. The truth is, no honest grappling with such searing realities should leave us feeling other than uncomfortable – because all honest and prayerful struggle to understand, and adore and surrender should be recognised for what it is – taking off the shoes of our intellect in acknowledgement of Love's eternal and redemptive and patient purpose.

The phrase most closely associated with Jurgen Moltmann's theology, and the title of his most famous book, could just as easily describe much of the poetry and implied theology of R.S. Thomas, and could stand as a sub-title of his poem 'The Musician.' – The Crucified God.

1. R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems. 1945-1990, (London: J M Dent, 1993), p.104.
2. The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Jurgen Moltmann, (London: SCM Press, 1981), p.81

 This evening, Maundy Thursday, I get to preach on John 13.1-17, that hinge passage in John's Gospel, when Jesus washes the disciples' feet.

The atmosphere in that upper room was dangerously charged by emotional friction, a build up of static energy looking for a point of discharge. 

Judas is there, his inner world weighted with the menacing ambiguities of a man about to do what he thought was right for the right reasons, but feeling as if he was about to carry out the worst decision of his life. How to justify betrayal of the Messiah whose crime is to be peacemaker?

James and John are there, still simmering in their arrogance that they even asked about the seating arrangements in the Kingdom of God, and getting their applications in early for the most important seats. Had they learned nothing from three years of following Jesus. And still puzzling over Jesus answer to their ambitions: "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10.45)

Peter was there, troubled and yet confident of his resilience to defend Jesus and be absolutely there for Jesus no matter what. Sure enough, he had a habit of promising more than he could deliver, but always well-intentioned, enthusiastic,  guilty only of being impulsive, unreflective and honest in that sometimes embarrassing wear your heart on your sleeve way of his.

The others, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, who had followed every step of Jesus from day one. All of them, still outraged at the arrogance of James and John scheming for their place at the top table. They had all made sacrifices, they shared a love for the strange glory of this Son of Man who turned water to wine, and transformed ordinary routine hopelessness into the extraordinary extravagance of a love that couldn't be contained in any containers however huge. 

There's something almost amusing about a group sulk. But given the danger Jesus was in, the excitement of the crowds when Jesus entered the city and the sense that whatever happens next, life will never, ever, be the same. This meal, this time together, this is the slope above the ski-jump – once you push off, you can only hope to jump safely, or fall to disaster.

Who will first put that into words? What words could possibly reassure each in their personal anguish, calm things down, draw out and deal with the cocktail of toxins such as fear, anger, jealousy, and love helpless to make the bad stuff stop?

There are no words. That cliche is sometimes true. Jesus used no words, nit at first.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end… The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

 Jesus kneeling, holding each foot of Judas. Feet that had followed, walked with Jesus as companion; com panus, eating bread with. Feet that, once washed, would soon walk out the door, hurrying to betray his companion, friend, Lord.

Jesus kneeling, holding the foot of John the Beloved disciple, who would later write the Gospel, and this story of the word become flesh; kneeling and holding with firm gentleness the foot of Thomas, who had his own doubts and hopes and who a few days later would kneel at the feet of Jesus saying, My Lord and my God.

And Peter, big mouth, big feet, big ego. Loud, proud and centre of attention – "No. Not my feet." Yes Peter, your feet, those feet that first left nets and boats and came with me; those feet that climbed the mountain of transfiguration; these feet, Peter, with which in three days time you will run all the way to the tomb and beyond.

When stripped down to the story, Maundy Thursday has two lessons.

The humility of the eternal Son of God. "All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made…" Those "hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered…This is out God,m the servant king. And here is the Eternal Word, God's creative energy, in a human body handling human feet. He who was equal with God "emptied himself of all but love" – the humility of God in disposition of love. Washing the feet of his disciples was not the docile humility of submission; it was the strong humility of assertion. That basin and towel are the silencing of all arguments about who's right, who's first, who's the leader. The answer is kneeling at our feet, washing them. 

Jesus demonstrates the radical no-nonsense hospitality of God. Jesus is the host, we are the guests. Jesus is the welcome of God wearing a towel and holding a basin. In the upper room, humble love breaks the silence of resentment, and washes feet. This is Jesus, showing with human hands the humility and hospitality of God to each of us. Those same hands will take bread and break it and give it; pour wine and share it. Those same hands will be tied behind his back and nailed to the cross. And it isn't only the nails that hold the arms of God open in welcome – it is the embrace of eternal love, bearing the sin of a broken world. 

Dear Christ, uplifted from the earth,
your arms stretched out above
through every culture, every birth,
to draw an answering love.

Still east and west your love extends
and always, near and far,
you call and claim us as your friends
and love us as we are. 

A lot of time and money is spent on books on prayer which are of the Teach Yourself, Idiot's Guide, Prayer for Dummies genre. Sometimes it's a help if someone gives you the instructions for the IKEA pack. There are also books of prayer or prayers that prime the pump, kick-start the engine, flick the switch, reboot the hard drive – these metaphors are all a bit reductionist, mechanical and utilitarian, but unless we are super-saints, we all need that kind of encouragement and stimulus, at least sometimes.

Monday

Matthew 21.4-5 “This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

A humble king demonstrating soft power. We don’t associate gentleness and power. The word Matthew uses is often translated meek; but that word is also used of the ox harnessed to a plough, and so means strength harnessed to purpose. Jesus comes to Jerusalem with strength and purpose. Here he will confront the powers that be, from religious authorities who fear him, to a Roman Governor who pities him.

Tuesday

Matthew 21.12-13 “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.”

Strength harnessed to purpose, remember? Money-making in the holy place; the noise of bartering and selling and the clinking of shekels drowns out the psalm singing and the prayers. Those tables stand for all the business and busyness that leaves no time or space for God in our lives – and they should be overturned!

Wednesday

Matthew 21.15-16 “But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”

One way or another, the vice jaws of power will crush the upstart Nazarene. WE now read the story knowing how it will end. The signs are ominous. Those who have the power to prosecute (Chief priests) and execute (Pilate) are already moving into place. And Jesus denies nothing. Instead he says the children simply shout the truth. Holy Week is about the confrontation of truth with power, the truth of who God is confronts the truth of what human beings are capable of.

Thursday

Matthew 26.26 “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying “Take, and eat; this is my body.”

The simplicity of the action is completely normal, but made emotionally stunning; its meaning heart-breaking as it dawns on his disciples. Jesus knows this is the last meal he will share with them. Then the wine, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.” When we take communion, we replay the reality of those words, real then, real now, for us.

Friday

Matthew 27.31-2 “After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”).

No matter how often we read this story, it touches deep into who we are, and what we believe about God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” Unlike Simon who had no choice but to carry someone else’s cross, Jesus calls us to take up the cross and follow him. “Were the whole realm of nature mine that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” 

Saturday

Matthew 27.59-60 “Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.”

Silence. It is finished. Nothing is happening. Hope is extinguished. The rock thuds into place. What now? Holy Saturday is the day that seems to last forever. Twenty four hours in which the whole creation groaned, awaiting its redemption. The darkness that fell on Golgotha has deepened, inside and outside the grave. Death has won, the powers that be get their way. They always do. Unless…No, “It is finished.”

Sunday

Matthew 28.5-6 “The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.”

Ah, now it is finished! The unfolding drama of redemption comes to its climax in front of an audience of the two Marys and a couple of Roman soldiers knocked senseless by events a universe outside their experience! Life is let loose, and has invaded and conquered the darkest prisons of death. This is a world where resurrection has happened, where love and life and light can finally and fully eclipse hate and death and darkness. “Thine be the glory, risen conquering son.”         

Lectionary Texts for Passion Week.

• First reading
  • Isaiah 50:4-9a
• Psalm
  • Psalm 31:9-16
• Second reading
  • Philippians 2:5-11
• Gospel
  • Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

What are we to make of the contrast between the One who ‘was in very nature God’ and the one who ‘became obedient to death – even death on a cross’? Why would “he who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” make himself nothing and take the form of a servant?

Unless we ask this question we ourselves haven’t grasped what Paul is on about in this passage. “Made in human likeness, he humbled himself.” Again, why? Charles Wesley taught us to sing the answer, “Emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race…Amazing love! How can it be?”

And in one of Graham Kendrick’s finest lines, “Hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered. This is our God.” So that’s why. The self-giving love of the Triune God.

The diamond pivot of this passage is the word kenosis, which has caused no end of discussion amongst biblical scholars and theologians. It means to empty, to become nothing. It refers to the self-emptying of the One who in obedient love to the Father, refused to cling to divine prerogatives. This is Paul at his most daring as he explores the divine heart of the Triune God. But not because he is interested in theological speculations about the pre-existence of Christ. He has a far more practical purpose.

Paul is writing to a church he loves and a community that loves him. But it’s a congregation in trouble. There are factions and differences of opinion, relationships are strained and for all the talk of unity, two prominent leaders, Euodia and Syntyche are at loggerheads. Paul wants them “to agree in the Lord” (4.2)

So this prose poem about the eternal glory of the Son of God, is the story of the coming of Jesus in the incarnation, his full humanity, ministry and crucifixion for the sins of the world – a story Paul now tells straight into the life of a congregation as a critique of self-assertion, a rebuke for broken relationships, and an encouragement to “be likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.’

Pastorally, how can people who have fallen out with each other be helped to realise this isn’t the way of Jesus? What argument could persuade those split into opposing factions, and riled by party spirit, to think differently about each other? Is it possible to tame the ego, or in Paul’s words, how do you tell people “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Before Paul begins that astonishing story in 6-11, of how it came to be that the Son of God became the Son of Man, he raises the bar of Christian behaviour to its highest level: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” (2.5) So that’s the goal to strive for, the true prize of the high calling of God, the gold standard of Christian obedience; to have the mind-set, and motivations of the One “who because he was in very nature God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” 

The Lectionary links this passage to a Psalm in which the Psalm-poet anticipates the realities condensed into those few words of Paul: “he became obedient to death, even death on the cross.” (See Psalm 31.9-16) The Psalm is a cry for mercy, and a prayer of obedient surrender: “My times are in your hands.” (15) Whatever happens as a result of being obedient and faithful to God, the Psalmist who has humbled himself and become obedient to God has the confidence to pray: “Let your face shine on your servant, save me in your unfailing love.” (16)

The inner thoughts of the Psalmist echo the other Lectionary passage from Isaiah 50.4-9a. The words of v 6 describe with uncanny detail, the experiences distilled into those five words, “even death on a cross.” Anticipating the words of the Servant Song in Isaiah 53, Isaiah’s words expose the brutality and cruelty that characterise human sin at its most imaginative, and vile.

“I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard, I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” But. “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.” (Isaiah 50.6)

And so back to Philippians and those five words, this time plus one, “even death on a cross. Therefore…” The hinge point of the story of Christ is embedded in that word of eternal consequence – “Therefore”. The humble one is exalted; the servant is enthroned; the one made in human likeness is given the name that is above every name; the crucified is exalted. The unfailing love of God, revealed in the humility of the eternal Son, triumphs over all and every other name and power. 

The final Lectionary reading from Matthew 27.11-54, is the long story of the passion; the One “who made himself nothing, took the very form of a servant “and ”became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Holy Week contains the long unfolding in history of Paul’s prose poem in Philippians 2.6-11.  From triumphal entry, to the Last supper, from Gethsemane to Calvary, and from the Saturday tomb till the Sunday resurrection morning, we follow in the footsteps of the One who made himself nothing.

Why? For love of all that God has made. Wesley, as already noted, shows deep theological instinct: “Emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race.” 

(This piece was commissioned for Goodfaith Media, and published earlier this week as a reflection on the Lectionary Readings for Holy Week. The reflections are based on the Philippians text in conversation with the other texts. You can access the published version here)