God in Overalls

"If God comes in overalls, there'll be some sulking faces in Church." - Compo Simmonite, Last of the Summer Wine

That's always been my stereotype of English religion. God on the side of the middle classes. Everybody in their suits (or hipster jeans these days), putting on the Ritz for the King of Kings while the poor stay in bed of a Sunday morning.

What on earth happened?  The religion of prostitutes, slaves and fisherfolk ending up where, if anyone reads the Gospel in anything less than Received Pronunciation, they might as well have read selected works from Aleister Crowley. It's like the difference between Luther's Reformation and the English one was that Henry VIII slipped in a couple of lines about keeping the chavs out.

He didn't, of course. He, and his successors, wanted all the chavs in their places, every Sunday morning. So they could understand their place in God's great plan - ie propping it all up, without breaking any of the commandments. Then when they died, to prove that God loves the poor, they could be buried in some unmarked paupers' graves while the Lord of the Manor, when his extorting days were over, had the ignominy of a table-tomb, family crypt and/or nice inscription on a stone in the wall, according to choice.

So it's no wonder if, once they didn't have to, the Sons and Daughters thought "stuff this for a game of soldiers" on a Sunday morning,  and chose instead to stay in bed nursing hangovers. The whole "blessed are the poor" agenda had been co-opted by the ones who, persuading themselves they were very 'umble, reckoned their social ease and self-confidence would get them through any awkward moments at the interview at the Pearly Gates. And now we're where we are. Where Marx's opiate of the masses has become the post-dinner-party joint of the well heeled holy. Who, goodness knows, will give to the poor. Wish them well, run a food bank. But they're still the moderately well-off.

The Old Yorkshire Gods

When God came, he did arrive in overalls. He didn't line up with the bosses. He didn't tell us to gave the royal coat of arms over the church door, and say that the Great Commandment is not to drop your aitches. And he did give us the view of God that a van driver is worth as much as a stock broker.

Glad I cleared that up. Anyway.  Off to sort out my tax affairs in case the Trots get in. Didn't Our Lord himself say, blessed are those that allow their wealth to trickle down?

That List of Fertility Goddesses that Sound a Bit Like Easter - in Full

Eostre

Ishtar

Ipswich

Astarte

Asherah

East Ham

Esther Rantzen

Exeter

Aasmah Mir

Anwar Sadat

Eskimo Nell

Ezra the Scribe

Axminster

Asda

ASBO

George Galloway

Liturgy of Egg-Throwing

Some of you may be wondering, in the midst of a whole series of posts about general stuff, politics and science, what's happened to the Beaker Folk? Where are their normal jolly japes and frivolity, ludicrous liturgy and post-rational philosophy?

And the answer is, simply, hiding.

They really can't manage Holy Week. The hard decisions, rejection, pain, blood, death and so on. It's not a part of the Beaker self-image. Beaker Folk stand for joy, delight, low-grade liturgical dancing, hippy music and meaningless ceremony.

And the bit they can't cope with most of all is Easter Day. They like to inhabit the land of myth, and the demands of Easter Day to be treated as a historical fact mess with their heads. I try to put it like this to soften the blow. Easter is a myth, but one that is written in historical form. The resurrection of Jesus is written across the new leaves on the trees, the sprouts of bluebells, the rising sun, Isis and Osiris, Woden hanging on a tree to gain wisdom - a thousand fragments of a myth of beauty and wisdom gained through death and resurrection, all gathered up into one myth that happens to have been written, once, in a historical context.

And they look at me and shudder. They like me dragging in the Egyptian stuff and astronomy and Woden and all that - but they really don't trust the historical bit. If one man can be resurrected, they say, that means everybody can. And if that's a real thing in history, then what we do matters. And that's not a good message for a post-critical religion.

And I give up, and let them go home until Easter Monday. They like this afternoon's Liturgy of Egg throwing. As the eggs sail over the Moot House or, for beginners, the Great Trilithon, they represent the sun rising in strength. As they fall gently, they represent the sun returning to rest. And as they smash onto the would-be catchers' faces, they represent the myth of the politician who has a row with a brewery and thereby increases its sales.

They can grasp this. It's mythic, it's natural, and it has no effect on their daily lives. It's just the sort of religion they like.

Sawing off the Branch It's Sitting On

The belief, adopted by many of the Dawkinsite faith, that things are only true if they are proven experimentally has the effect of cutting off a couple of the things that they depend on. One is the multiverse theory in opposition to the spectactular degree of fine tuning our universe shows. The concept of multiverses is currently untestable, may never be testable, and if it is never testable it must be untrue. Even if testable and provable it is no disproof of God's existence. Partly because there is nothing in the concept of God that would say that the Creator is unable to create more - for we clearly have a God for whom creating is a bit of a passion. And the other is that it merely begs the question, why do we have a goldilocks multiverse? It's turtles all the way down, this one.

The other is that the belief in testability being the only source of truth, itself, being untestable, is a self-weakening statement. The Maverick Philosopher does a good job here. What's interesting to me is that it was Bertrand Russell who The M.P. quotes - who is a kind of Dawkins with intelligence, wit and substance. 

Personally I'll stick to my own belief, that if you're in the scientific world it's the empirical method that works. Let's put it this way - even Boko Haram, who believe that Western education is forbidden, use weapons that have been developed using Newton's laws of motion and the results of chemical developments based on Western education and the empirical method. They may be a bunch of murdering gets, but they still know that Western methods work.

The Gibbon Moon Folk and the Blood Moon

The Gibbon Moon Folk are, on the surface, a simple bunch. Dedicated to the belief that the moon is eaten by a giant gibbon every month, they are constantly terrified at the time of the gibbous moon (from mishearing which they get their name). But normally they relax around full moon. when they believe things are safe.

Except when you get a blood moon. According to the Gibbon Moon Folk, a blood moon means the end of the world. The fact that these phenomena happen all the time, and so far the world hasn't ended, doesn't change their minds. All they've gotta hear is the words "Blood Moon" and immediately they believe that the Moon Gibbon has run amok and the moon is running with the blood of murdered Clangers. At which point they invariably run screaming into the woods and hide.

They're in the woods screaming as I write. They spend a lot of time terrified, and a lot of time freezing cold and getting scratched by brambles. But the Gibbon Moon Folk reckon the apocalyptic certainty is worth it. After all, they ask, how could anyone cope with the future? Much better to expect it all to end at any time. And next time, after all, probably really will be it.

Jesus is Risen - the Rest is Details

When we come to Church, is it about the community? The people with whom we meet, we worship, we rather badly, normally, try to love. Until they knew the truth, Peter, John and Mary Magdalene were a confused, broken trio - two of them went back off to bed, while Mary stayed at the tomb and wept. But since Jesus is alive, the community is meant to be on fire with the Holy Spirit. The whole Church is the body of Christ. Each person around us is Jesus to us - just as Mary thinks it is a gardener, in that tender and tragic moment in the garden, before she recognises who it really is. Jesus is risen - the rest is details.

And when we come to Church, is it so we can process the things that have happened to us? To reflect on the week? To try to lift up our hearts? To light a tea light to put prayer into a difficult situation? To have space and time to grieve or rejoice or pray? Mary went to the tomb to complete something. She was going to carry out the only remaining thing she could do for her dead Lord, her Rabbi. The adventure was over. No more hoping for a new state of Israel. No hanging out with Jesus, when the crowds had gone home after their fish and bread suppers, in the cool of the air round the lake, listening as he told his tales of the mysterious "kingdom" he was bringing in. No more puzzling over parables, waiting to find out what his deep meaning was. And yet, in the dark of the garden on the first day of the week, she discovers a whole new life, and a story of unimaginable joy, is actually ahead of her. The future is now open. Jesus is risen - the rest is possible.

And when you come to Church, is it to remember the dead? The dead so often surround us - if not physically beneath our feet, or in the graveyard, then on inscriptions on the walls and in the lights we light and the the thoughts we hold. Or there's the clinging onto a dead past - wanting nothing ever to change now, because the dead past is safe and cosy whereas the present is uncomfortable and the future is scary. Mary Magdelene went to the tomb, early on the Sunday morning.  She was marking the death of a prophet - the death of a friend. And, I guess, the death of a dream. After a whirlwind tour round Judea and Galilee, the fun was over. But the tomb is empty. The dead one has risen. She is filled, not with fear or gloom, but with joy. Jesus is risen - the rest is hope.

And when we come to Church, is it to hide ourselves away? It would be cool there at the tomb. The spices are aromatic. It's peaceful, here in the cemetery garden. Just Mary and the other women and their lost dreams, shut away from a world where the Romans have once again proved who's in charge. Where the money-sellers will be back at their stalls in the temple, like they'd not been thrown from the place a week ago. Doves will be sold and killed, the priests will get their share, the Pharisees will take the most respected seats at dinner parties, and the people will render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But though the world has not changed on the surface, at its fundamentals everything has changed. Jesus is alive. The power of Rome and the Jewish state and the oppression of religion have been shown for the short-term shells that they are. Everyone who dies for Jesus will know that Jesus has conquered death. Every believer's tomb is a short-term stop, not a final resting place. And Jesus tells her - don't cling on here. Get out - tell my brothers. Tell them I'm on the move, and they need to be too. Church is not for hiding in buidlings and tombs - or at least, not as a long-term strategy. Jesus is risen - the rest is open before us.

And when we come to Church, is it in the belief that everything declines, nothing ever grows? Mary's there in the knowledge that today she can dress Jesus with spices. But in a few days she won't want to go in the tomb. And in a few years, according to Jewish custom, someone will return to take his bones, put them in an ossuary - a bone-box - recycle the space in the tomb for someone else and one more stage in Jesus's removal from the land of the living will be complete. But in that cool garden in the morning, when the sun is rising and the birds are starting to sing and creation is remade - at this time of year, when the Earth casts off the death of winter and is starting to glow with the colour of green and yellow, of leaves and buds and new life - Jesus stands before her and restores her hope. There's a story unfolding with the new leaves. It's the story of new life. For her, for the disciples, for Israel, for the people of the whole earth. For you, and me, and the places we live and the whole of creation. Because if Jesus is alive, and we are with him - then we will be made alive with him. We will be made in his image, as God took on ours. As he ascends to heaven, we will rise with him. And with us, the whole of the Creation which Jesus made, and for which he died. Jesus is risen - the world will rise with him.

So as you go about your Church life, your home life, your work life, things may often look as they always were. Illness is still illness. Arguments with your family or colleagues are still stress. The Government is still useless - at least, that's the best we can hope for. The cycles of life still go on. But the underlying nature of things is changed. The reasons we go to Church may be manifold - community, stillness, a hiding place, stability. But none of these really matter unless we realise that Jesus is alive among us. He is alive in the liturgy, the prayer, the bread and wine, the fellowship. Jesus is in each of you, and oddly enough also in me. He is alive, in the world. He is alive in our neighbours. He is alive today as he was on the Sea of Galilee, in the fields of Judea, in the Garden Cemetery. He is more alive than you or I. And he wants each of us to know his new life, poured out into every heart and overflowing in every life. Jesus is risen - the rest is joy.

Jesus is Risen

Everything else is the details.

Nicola Sturgeon - A Clerihew

Nicola Sturgeon
Is no relation of Charles Spurgeon

Instead of resurrection

She wants to do well in the election.

The Gospel According to Dave

So the Prime Minister's Easter message is out, and has been criticised and mocked by many. And, in places, fairly. It's a bit confused about the central meaning of Easter.  After all, it's not the Easter message, or the teaching of Jesus, that says we should withdraw benefits from people who won't work - no, that is St Paul in 2 Thessalonians. And David Cameron didn't say that - in his message, at least. For the Easter Message he boiled it down to hard work. Which is not part of the Easter Message. Yes, Jesus was a hard-working Messiah. Constantly touring. But I don't think that's what David Cameron meant.

But then he pulled me up short with what was, I think, his third attempt at defining the heart of the Easter Message.

"I hope everyone can share in the belief of trying to lift people up rather than count people out. Those values and principles are not the exclusive preserve of one faith or religion. They are something I hope everyone in our country believes.
That after all is the heart of the Christian message. It’s the principle around which the Easter celebration is built."

See, to me that is the heart of Easter. Not the multi-faith bit. The bit about lifting people up rather than counting them out. Jesus at the moment of conception - celebrated around Easter time every year - just the tiniest cell with the spark of God the Word, joined to this fallen world. Jesus at Christmas - a working-class baby in the place they keep the animals. A refugee or - if he's as white as he's often pictured - an ex-pat in Egypt. Jesus with a little child, declaring them the most important in the kingdom. Kneeling before his disciples to wash the dust from the feet. In a garden once, the story said, our first ancestors had a choice about a tree and took the wrong decision. On Maundy Thursday, Jesus had a choice about a tree in the garden and made the painful decision - the unwise decision - the humiliating one. The one that lowered him to the status of a condemned slave, a renegade.

And the reason he allowed himself to fall to the bottom, I believe, is that it meant that in the strength of God he could then lift up the whole Creation with him on Easter Sunday. God believes in "trying to lift people up rather than count people out". That's the story of Redemption. 

Of course, if God is in the process of lifting people out, he doesn't get them to do it by their bootlaces. It requires Incarnation. God must become one of us - and the representative of all of us - to get down low enough to lift. He's the lifesaver who has to jump into the water because there's no rubber rings or handy tree branches around. The one who saves potholers by climbing into the depths to find them. The army medic who, to bring wounded soldiers out safe, has to go into No-mans-Land to treat them. 

The story of Easter is that God doesn't count anyone out. He comes down and lifts them out - doesn't just offer encouragement from on high.

So well done, David Cameron. I think that, somewhere in what is frankly politically correct confusion, you put your finger on the truth. I wonder how you'd actually play that out.

Re-enchanting the Rainbow

Once again a day of sunshine and showers. Glimpses of rainbows, but never quite a real rainbow.

I dream back to a hallowed day on the North Cornwall coast, heading towards Tintagel, Boscastle and - most important of all - St Joliet, where Thomas Hardy met the wild sister-in-law of the local vicar, ravishing as she was in her original air-blue gown. And down in the sea, half a mile from the shore, was the base of a rainbow. Not when Tommy H was there. When I was.

A strange site, just the part of the rainbow where it hit the sea. A many-coloured glowing over the sea surface. Like Lyonesse was having a street party.

And the thing is, I know the physics. I know it's all about refraction and reflection, and it could only have happened with the sun behind me yada yada yada. It's all great and it's all scientific and it's good and predictable and - don't you think a rainbow in the sea off Cornwall shouts "sunken city of the Little People" at you? Doesn't it make you want to go "God, you ride on the waves and your glory is so great that, frankly, it would only take the inclusion of octarine to make my life complete"? 

Or is that just me?

Letters to the Church Magazine

Once again the monthly letters page is available in the Trim Valley Benefice. I quite like the old place. Makes the Beaker Folk look normal.