One of the most difficult aspects of pastoral ministry for me has being alongside those who live with dementia. It is a terrible disease which seems to rob a person of their essence. Not only do they forget who their family and friends are they forget who they are.
I have sat with a university lecturer who cannot button up a shirt, a brilliant cook who could not remember what a spoon was and most poignantly a minister who had no remembrance of the church, the bible or Jesus.
This loss of self identity puts me in mind of the words of Jesus when he asked his disciple `”Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29)
Much of the western worlds thinking about identity has been shaped by existentialists like Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, and Jean Paul Sartre. (My sisters and brothers from other parts of the wold will have a different idea of identity.) They believed that a meaningful life involves being true to yourself.
To be true to yourself, you have to know who you are. Each time we confront dilemmas or challenges, struggle with disappointments or navigate heartache, we will either be true to ourselves or betray ourselves in what we do and how we do it.
As Christians, we share a common framework. You may not be a Christian, but I hope you’ll hang in there with what I’m about to say. Not because I’m trying to convince you to take up my faith tradition, but because I think that there’s something in it that stretches across a range of spiritual expressions.
In one sense, if the dementia sufferer cannot remember who they are we will remember for them. Sure, we may never know them exhaustively. Much of who they are may remain a mystery. But our love for them helps them to continue to be who they have always been, even if they themselves can no longer remember.
When He asked his friends “Who do you say that I am?”, Jesus was not testing whether they could recite some formula of orthodoxy. He was telling them something like this. “If you can see that I am the one who loves you no matter what, you’re going to get a sense of who you truly are: the Beloved.”
When we remember that we are the Beloved, we respond to the world in love. And this is the crucial bit, we all forget. At one time or another we forget that we are the Beloved.
And so we need each other. Our love for each other reminds us who we really are. The Beloved. But more than that. Sometimes we need the love of others to carry us when we forget until somehow, by grace, we come back to being ourselves at last.
When was the last time you said ‘I love you ‘, other than in the bathroom mirror! Just think about who the person was and what was their relationship to you.
Frequently we say I love you because you agree with me, because you belong to my family/group/church, because you are my ally and support me. Sometimes we say ‘I Love you’ even when your words and actions infuriate me (in those situations maybe we need to say ‘I love you’ more!). Don’t get me wrong, saying I love you to people in your social group is important but our love for others must stretch beyond those we like.
We will overcome prejudice, racism, homophobia and all forms of injustice only when we learn to say, “I love you because you are you.” To everyone.
A commitment to justice requires a devotion to and the pursuit of the common good. And in what may seem a contradiction, the good of the whole is rooted in our recognition of the infinite worth of each individual. Conversely, the worth of each individual is actualised only by the community’s commitment to the individual’s dignity.
As it turns out, this is a basic Christian principle. It is rooted in our doctrine of creation.
Drawing on the wisdom of Scripture, Medieval theologians like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus emphasised that God’s love is the power that brought everything into being. That same love sustains the whole universe at every single instant.
Duns Scotus went on to say that each and every creature has a unique ‘thisness’. He called this its haecceity. (hek-see-aty)
In other words, God doesn’t just create humans in general. Or robins or daffodils or stars in general, for that matter. God creates each person as a singularity. None of us is interchangeable. Each of us is irreplaceable.
You, O best beloved, are you. There is no other. And you were made this way by the infinite love of the author of all things. God loves you because you are you.
Scripture also teaches us that we were created in the image of God. To be fully human is to love in a way that reflects the divine way of being: to love you because you are you.
In other words, I need my neighbour in order for me to be truly me. That’s because I am my true self only by loving my neighbour as myself. Remember, Jesus said, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
It should come naturally to say, “I love you” not only because you are fearfully and wonderfully made by the same God who created the stars of the universe but also because you remind me more of myself than not. Of course, God knows as well as we do that it doesn’t come so naturally.
In other words, we still have work to do. We need to see ourselves in others as well as seeing the face of Christ in all those we meet.
Well it is Monday morning and the whole nation seems a little flat (unless you are Welsh Irish or Scottish). England didn’t quite win the European Championship, but they certainly lifted the nations mood.
One thing I will not miss is the constant, and often out of tune, rendition of ‘Three Lions on a Shirt’ (I much prefer ‘Sweet Caroline’!). A complaint that I have heard from Church members has been – Why can’t we sing at church like they do at the football?
If only! I wish people would sing in church like they do at the football match! So much passion and enthusiasm. Sadly many of the churches divisions have arisen of the style of worship allowed in the church. It is nothing new, Charles Wesley was criticised for using ‘popular’ tunes as settings for his hymns.
We can go back to King David and find the same disapproving of ‘inappropriate worship’. In 2 Samuel 6 we read how the Ark of the Covenant was moved from Baalah into Jerusalem. It must have been quite a spectacle as 30,000 men were involved, with singing and loud musical instruments. At the centre of the spectacle was King David dressed in a linen Ephod (his underwear?!) dancing with all his might.
His wife Michal was horrified by her husbands behaviour (nothing in life changes!). Michal’s complaint to David doesn’t sound too different from those I hear when Sunday’s “passing of the peace” becomes something more than a begrudged murmur of acknowledgment. Should Michal be understood as the first champion of traditional, decent-and-in-good-order worship? If so, she doesn’t come out of this incident as one whom God favours.
However we have to be careful in reading too much into this passage about the kind of worship that pleases God (as opposed to Michal’s dour preference), one only need remember the highly liturgical patterns that evolve in Jerusalem’s temple worship, a worship pattern that arguably bears David’s impress. One great story of exuberance does not a theology of worship make.
So what is there in this unique story? Supremely, just one thing: it’s a pitiful thing when we’ve gotten too prim, too proper, too stuffy to make merry before God when something wonderful occurs. The fact is you don’t bring the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem every other month. (Just as you don’t reach a major football final every week.) This is a momentous occasion and it deserves to be celebrated with silly party hats and horns and yes, even with the king doing a jig in his boxer shorts!
Over the years I’ve attended (and even planned) my fair share of church anniversaries and celebrations. The truth is most were less than “kick up your heels and shout hallelujah” occasions. There we were with a century or so of the faithfulness of God and people to remember, but a visitor might have mistaken it for one of those solemn assemblies Isaiah was underwhelmed by. On many of those occasions I knew enough about my fellow worshipers to know that they’d go bananas over their favourite football team, but put them in a church context and all the whoopee goes out of them. Why is that?
Well, put a positive construction on it first. Maybe we are restrained in church simply because here we see things through a different filter. It’s not so much that we aren’t as joyous as at the football, as that in church we recognise that life and all its blessings are interwoven with holy purpose. A late goal to win the match is one thing; a child’s baptism is another. Joy is appropriate on both occasions, but is it not a different kind of joy when by water and word a child of God is claimed for time and eternity? Maybe it’s not that our whoopee evaporates in worship; it just has a grateful hush of reverence about it. But granted that this is the case, there still remains the awkward possibility that most of us mimic David so seldom because we’ve lost touch with the grandness of what we are doing.
We mouse around because the wonder God’s love escapes us. I know it to be true, that there are Sundays when the Minister sleepwalks through the service—even when they seem most animated. A gauzy film of the theoretical shrouds the action. But there are those moments when the awesome, absurd good news of what we are about comes crashing in like waves on our stony shores. We can no more program those epiphanies than we can count the stars. But we can be careful not to stifle them, and we can be quick to give them glad permission to soften the eye, catch the voice, and lead us to make merry before God.
When I read this story of David’s enthusiasm without contrasting it with Jesus’ story of the elder brother who would not join his father’s party. It was a time to make merry, but the elder brother didn’t live like that, he seemed fixed with life being bound up with duty. How many children have given up on ‘Church’ because they were told they had to go to church and there was nothing attractive or joyful about the experience.
Grace, those lovely moments when the unexpected holy descend upon us, is a gift we are privileged to see every now and then. That’s the time to put aside the balance sheet and even the prayer book and to kick up our heels, and with body and soul make holy fools out of ourselves, dancing an Alleluia to the giver of all good and perfect gifts.
So as they say on the Strictly Come Dancing “Keep on dancing!” but you may want to wear a little more than King David!
In the middle of this years Methodist Conference there was a report presented which I suspect most people missed, given the interest in the vote on same sex marriage which made the national news!
The report I refer to is ‘Holy Communion and Online Worship’ (Report 39). During this period of lockdown we have been effectively deprived of Holy Communion as the present standing orders of the church prevented people joining in a service of Holy Communion at home over the internet. (The get out clause was to call it a Love Feast). Given this deprivation the Faith and Order Committee have begun a period of discernment as to the experience of online communion.
The Conference adopts a period of discernment from 1 September 2021 until 31 August 2024, in which presbyters and other persons authorised to preside at the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper be permitted to lead celebrations of Holy Communion in which some or all of the worshippers gather together through electronic means, and directs all who preside at such celebrationsto consider prayerfully the guidance in this report in their preparation and conduct of them and to observe the parameters set out in paragraph 7.4
At the same time this was happening unnoticed in Methodism, Bishops in the Roman Catholic Church were arguing as to whether President Joe Biden (a life long Catholic) should be prevented from receiving the Mass because of his stance on abortion. That did make the national news.
The Methodist understanding of Holy Communion reflects a broad spectrum of opinion so what I share with you are my own personal beliefs about Communion. I know there will be those who disagree with me but I am OK with that.
As a Methodist I believe Communion is God’s gift, not the church’s gift. Methodists should never debate, as the Catholic church currently is, whether some individuals should be permitted access to the Table. Deciding who deserves to receive communion is beyond the job description of the church. The origins of Communion begin with God’s gracious character revealed in Christ. It does not begin or end with the church. This means the church does not get to refuse anyone the privilege of participating in God’s gift. We did not create communion. We, therefore, do not get to limit Communion. We do not even “take” Communion. We receive Communion. And our job is to help others also receive it. The church is a recipient of grace. We do not own grace. We do not restrict grace.
As a Methodist I believe that in Communion God folds the past and future into the present. This belief begins not with the nature of time, but in the nature of God. The past, present, and future all collapse in on each other because we worship a God who transcends time and makes one community out of all of us. God’s presence has been given to the people of God in all times and places. The past, present, and future are God’s eternal now. As God was present in the Exodus, so God is present now. As Jesus is present in the future new creation, so Jesus is present now. This presence, in fact, is not a symbolic presence. It’s a real presence. The God of all time has folded all moments into this moment and given us not symbolic presence but God’s active, passionate, attentive presence. So that also means we all participate in the Exodus story, the liberation of God’s people from the bondage of Egypt, sin, and death. That past event is brought into the present. We participate in the future resurrection and redemption of all things. That is, Communion brings God’s future restoration and new creation into the present. This also means that Communion makes us present to other believers who are also presently alive and receiving Communion. We are participating in divine grace as a Communion with believers in China, Russia, Fiji , Zimbabwe, and Palestine.
As a Methodist I believe the table is open to everyone. Our language is that we have “an Open Table.” No one is restricted from the Table. No one is too unworthy because no one was worthy to begin with. Will unworthy people receive Communion if we leave it open to everyone? Well, yes. But unworthy people receive Communion even when the Table is “closed” because no one is worthy to receive Communion. I remember early in my ministry being criticised for giving communion to children as ‘they don’t understand what they are doing’. I asked the critic to explain to me what was happening when they received communion. I received no further complaints! Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with Judas, who was soon to betray him. Jesus washed Judas’s feet that same night. Jesus knew beforehand that Judas would betray him, yet he was not kept from divine grace. If Jesus can wash Judas’s feet and receive him at the Table, who are we to restrict anyone from the Table?
As a Methodist I believe Communion is a work of grace into the lives of non-Christians. Even non-Christians can participate in the Communion moment. They may not become Christians that exact moment, but they do, nevertheless, participate in grace. And that grace can lead them to conversion. When we say our Table is “open,” we mean that no one — not a Buddhist, not a Muslim, not an Atheist, no one! — is kept from the Table. Communion is the moment when all of us, undeserving as we may be, find God’s grace given to us in tangible ways. The church doesn’t own Communion, so we don’t even get to restrict it to those inside the church. The God of all creation has gifted it, through Jesus, to all of creation.
Sutton Park Methodist Circuit 