The Last Hour

People have booked. Everyone who has booked is here five minutes in advance so we could start. Seems wrong though. An hour at the cross should be 2-3. We have a track and trace list. Socially distanced seating. A Zoom link for those who cannot be here. We have covered the pictures of the children on the school hall wall. This is peak 2021. This is weird.

I have no part to play. It has been conceived and is being delivered by a placement student from the local Theological College. He has not been to an hour at the cross before and I have deliberately not told him too much about what happens. I am enjoying being led by someone I have helped train and now utterly trust. I can let the hour carry me along, journaling, as is my preference when listening to a well-known tune remixed. This is not weird.

But it is Good Friday. A day we need to remember is meant to be weird. The Romans invented a cruel-spectacle execution for those it wished to use as an example. The gallows is too quick. Insurgents would not be put off by a quick death. Crucifixion is slow. It is said Jesus died in six hours - relatively quickly. The business of breaking the legs of the crucified was to prevent them from pushing themselves up to grab a breath. It hastened the slow death of suffocation. Those executed were not always taken down once dead, as Jesus was. Some were left at cross-roads and other public places to be picked at by carrion. A visual aid. This is what we will do to you if...

We have been following the story of Jesus from Mark's Gospel this year. 'The Tabloid Gospel' we have called our series although that is a bit harsh on a mainly eye-witness account containing much on which to reflect. 'Who is this man?' it keeps asking, telling stories of astounded and astonished crowds hanging on the every word of this unpredictable preacher.

And at some point in his life the destination of his journey became clear to him. One whose family knew nails and wood intimately. And at some point after his death followers tumbled to what his life meant, piecing together prophecy, preaching and pain. 'It is finished.' What is, Jesus? What?

The finish is of the quest for further clues. You can either conclude that life is meaningless or see the answer on a cross. A man, so clearly divine that his chroniclers called him 'Son of God', abandons the otherness of the spiritual world he inhabits to become one like us. There is no glib Christian answer to suffering, just a bow to its inevitability. Demand your money back if anyone sells you one.

'If you must bang your head against a wall...' said my doctrine tutor and hero Tom Smail '...bang it against the mystery of Jesus. Relevant martyrdom.'

Look no further.

Accept no substitutes.

Like no other.

No art, theology or music can do justice to this event. It is the thing that gives all other things the right to happen. They change meaning when juxtaposed. This lovely, messy, unfair world is a place we are free to inhabit because somehow God inhabited it once. We loved him yet also treated him unfairly, messily. We even have the freedom to ignore the story or take it no more seriously than an Easter food ad.

I don't send Easter cards. Well OK, one, but that is for other reasons. This is not a time for commerce. I take this hour (this year) and commit to serving this mystery for another year. I've done this for 37 years, one year at a time. This will be my last time. From next year my time is my own and need not be committed to anyone. Nine more months. Here you are.

Nine more months to the one who knows how insincere, two-faced and hypocritical are my hints to others to have faith. I call no-one. I invite them to investigate what I have investigated as thoroughly as I have and to work out how to respond after doing their own deconstruction.

Put to death by the unspiritual for allegedly claiming to be a human king.

Put to death by the spiritual for allegedly claiming to be divine.

As I try to make sense of the competing imagery I hear some Tallis, see a dead sheep or Christ on a cold, cold stone. And I hear mockery even now, that I would dare to find this important. Because it's not science, it's not cool, it's not very now and it's not monetizable. And I wonder if most people understand what the meaning of life, the universe and everything should look like. For what, if anything, do they search?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John took some liberties with history. We do well to get that out onto the table. Not with the truth but with the reality. Mark took fewer. Some of the stuff they made up was designed to illustrate the truths they had glimpsed. They knew no other way.

Every now and again a chord seems exactly right in an 'If I knew what it meant I'd have said it not painted it' sort of way.

The music of Good Friday must be minor. The art abstract. The theology metaphorical (as all language is). Today is not a matter of history. It's far more important than that.

(Silence)

Good Friday
2021

Hour at the Cross

Some years ago I used to curate an alternative hour at the cross, based at Holy Trinity, Nailsea. The hour consisted of three or four pieces of music, three readings, three prayers and three periods of silence. I enjoyed doing it greatly.  It was one of the things I have done in the course of my ministry that proved most divisive. I received comments that the silence was too long, the music inappropriate and my favourite ’Did anyone else see the Holy Spirit walk out?’ I also received an equal number of appreciative comments. Marmite worship, I guess.

The whole point was to answer the question, ‘Would you wait and pray with me for an hour?’ Despite any feelings you may have about the music. I almost hoped that people would not like one or two of the pieces. In any case, some of the juxtapositions were meant to grate a little.

But it occurs to me that we’re all volunteers in cyber space so here is another hour at the cross. You can take an hour, a day or twenty minutes over it. I’ll never know. The music links are from Spotify. An account costs £9.99 a month. A free account is available but you’ll have to listen to an advert every third track.

Hour at the Cross 2020

First Reading: Matthew 16:21-26

Opening Prayer

We adore and magnify you, O Lord our God, that in Christ crucified you reveal that the very essence of your nature is a love that will go to the uttermost lengths for everyone: for the lost, the lowest, and the least; for each and every one of us here as we kneel at the door of the cross today. Amen.
(Frank Colquhoun, New Parish Prayers - adapted)

Music: Hayes and Cahill - The Windswept Hill of Tulla 

Silence

Second Reading: Matthew 22:23-40

Second Prayer

Eternal God,

in the cross of Jesus

we see the cost of sin

and the depth of your love:

in humble hope and fear

may we place at his feet

all that we have and all that we are,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Church of England- Common Worship)

Music: Daughter - Made of Stone

Silence

Third Reading: Matthew 27:45-56

Third Prayer
Lord God,
you are attentive to the voice
of our pleading.
Let us find in your Son
comfort in our sadness,
certainty in our doubt,
and courage to live through this hour.
Make our faith strong
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

(Nursebuff)

Music: Dusted - Under the Sun

Silence

‘Build a shrine to credibility and then bow.’

Well?

Do you?

Wait and See.

Music: The Faith Brothers - Secret Heart

Proper Preaching - Article 35/39

XXXV. OF THE HOMILIES

THE second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.

Of the Names of the Homilies

1.Of the right Use of the Church.
2.Against peril of Idolatry.
3.Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches.
4.Of good Works: first of Fasting.
5.Against Gluttony and Drunkenness.
6.Against Excess of Apparel.
7.Of Prayer.
8.Of the Place and Time of Prayer.
9.That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministered in a known tongue.
10.Of the reverend estimation of God's Word.
11.Of Alms-doing.
12.Of the Nativity of Christ.
13.Of the Passion of Christ.
14.Of the Resurrection of Christ.
15.Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
16.Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost.
17.For the Rogation-days.
18.Of the State of Matrimony.
19.Of Repentance.
20.Against Idleness.
21.Against Rebellion.

The job of the preacher these days has much more scope for individuality. Article 35 recalls a time when the clergy could read but were not necessarily theologically educated. So there were homilies (talks) available to ensure the congregation were soundly taught. And reading down the list you can see the sorts of issues that were concerning. Not for nothing did Philip Pullman accuse the church of being an institutional vehicle to keep people in order.

But O'Donovan rightly points out that the Reformers had to come to terms with a situation that the New Testament did not; the conversion of a whole nation to Christian allegiance. And these Reformers wanted, just as much as the politicians (in fact some of them were the politicians), a hard-working, well-behaved population who kept the church building clean.

These days a preacher only has to irritate someone in a very minor way for them to google three other sermons which they find more comforting. The wise preacher today sets out the options within which people might choose to be holy and allows for some personal discretion. A return to the Homilies would scare the living daylights out of most congregations. Hmm. Might try it.

My Good Friday sermon would thus end:

'For it shall little auayle vs to haue in meditation the fruites and price of his passion, to magnifie them, and to delight or trust in them, except we haue in minde his examples in passion to follow them. If we thus therefore consider Christs death, and will sticke thereto with fast fayth for the merit and deseruing thereof, and will also frame our selues in such wise to bestow our selues, and all that we haue by charity, to the behoofe of our neighbour, as Christ spent himselfe wholly for our profit, then doe we truely remember Christs death: and being thus followers of Christs steps, we shall be sure to follow him thither where he sitteth now with the Father and the holy Ghost, to whom bee all honour and glory, Amen.'

(HOMILY ON THE PASSION FOR GOOD FRIDAY )

Amen to that indeed. Now excuse me while I visit all those who haven't been to church today and turn their faces to the dust in due penitence.

Good Friday

If it is true that the cross makes a difference to everybody and everything then the 'last-hour' gathering we have enjoyed at Holy Trinity, Nailsea these last few years has been an amazing opportunity for me to curate (I think that is the right word) a worship activity. Here, juxtaposing old words and new music, we allow ourselves to be trapped in watching and waiting with only our thoughts for company. Across the reaches of time we hear a voice asking those of us who are unhappy in the silence, or with the choice of music, whether we could not watch and pray with him for just an hour.

And so this year we listened to:

Beginnings by Junip
Dream of the Rood by Erland and the Carnival
After the Ordeal by Genesis

All bookended by one of Eno's wonderful ambient soundscapes and with Josh Howard's knack for finding appropriate visuals to lift everything.

Numbers have fallen off dramatically this year, perhaps because we have another opportunity for alternative worship in the evening and a 'proper' meditation at 9.00 a.m. and so it may be the case that a new breath of life is needed into this next year.

If this has been my last one, it's been a privilege.

Good Friday Music

Here are the four pieces of music I used for Good Friday yesterday in case anyone wants to follow up, purchase or download.

Good Friday Playlist

Want to listen to something that will connect with the deep, deep feeling following you around today that this is the day something really important happened? Try this playlist:

Peace by Los Lobos
Is it Like Today by World Party
I Can't Stand the Rain by Ann Peebles
Solid Air by John Martyn
Pink Bullets by the Shins (starts with a brief advert)
Liquid by Jars of Clay (with a Good Friday video)
The King Will Come by Wishbone Ash
Converted by the Alabama 3