I spent September 11th this year planting poppies at the Tower of London. Created by the artist Paul Cummins, the aim of the project is to plant nearly 900,000 poppies in memory of those who died in the First World War. I understand that the project is currently around half way through, and the plan is to be finished by a week before Armistice Day. My being there was part of Santander's corporate responsibility and community involvement stuff, and there were a good number of us from across different parts of the business there planting our five thousand poppies.
 |
| Poppies at the Tower of London |
I enjoyed the day, and it felt like a real privilege to be able to take part. It was hard-going, though; constructing the poppies involves forcing variously sized washers onto a steel peg, and as these all seemed to be different sizes, it required a good deal of force. My arms haven't hurt so much in ages! It makes me realise how cushy my job is; I sit in a nice air-conditioned office in nice clothes doing work I find stimulating and enjoyable, and drinking coffee and chatting form a goodly part of my day! It's a good bit easier than manual labour, yet we don't value manual jobs as well in terms of material rewards, which isn't right.
In the evening, I preached a sermon at the local preachers' meeting about my memories of September 11th 2001, and how we might find resurrection hope in dark times. With all this remembering going on, it seemed apt. I've decided it'd be good to share it below, though readers are advised to bear in mind that it's based on Luke 24:13-35, aimed at a gathering of preachers during a communion service and written by someone candidating for ministry:
Do any of you recognise the painting below? It’s by the Italian artist Caravaggio, and it shows the moment where two disciples, one of whom we know to be Cleopas, recognise the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread, having unknowingly walked home with him the seven miles from Jerusalem. It’s a painting loaded with symbolism; for example, Cleopas is probably the guy on the right with his arms outstretched in the shape of the cross, thus keeping the events of Good Friday firmly in the picture. Notice also that, like the two men must’ve felt after the emotional rollercoaster they’d been on, the basket of food they’re about to share sits perilously close to the edge of the table, poised to fall off at any moment. I love just gazing at this painting and the sheer astonishment of the disciples, particularly the chap on the left, as they realise Jesus is risen while their server looks on obliviously. For me, it’s one of the highlights of any visit to the National Gallery, and I’d love to get the chance to see its sister painting in Milan one day.
 |
| Caravaggio's' Emmaus Meal |
The Road to Emmaus story captures one of those many moments recorded in the Gospels and depicted by artists down the centuries where the resurrection transformed the lives of those who witnessed it first-hand. To put this story into context: the two disciples began their walk home in a state of utter dejection. They’d believed this Jesus of Nazareth to be a prophet, and not just any old prophet, but the long-awaited Messiah who would finally redeem Israel. They hoped he’d put them back on top of the pile and destroy the hated Roman occupiers once-and-for-all. However, their expectations had been dashed as their religious leaders and the secular authorities found this Jesus too hot to handle, and conspired to have him cruelly executed on the cross. All his powerful words and deeds had apparently come to nothing. And yet that same morning, some of the women from their party claimed to have seen angels saying Jesus was alive, and still others had found his tomb empty. Cleopas and his friend needed to make sense of it all, to thrash it out between the two of them and figure out what on earth was going on. And that’s when they met the stranger on the road.
This mysterious fellow, who invited himself to join their conversation, asked them what they were chatting about and was greeted with sheer astonishment in response. Had he buried his head in the sand these last three days? How could he not know what was on everybody’s lips? When Cleopas and companion had dispelled the stranger’s apparent ignorance, they found themselves immediately confronted with their own. Had they not listened to what their history was screaming out to them about the Messiah? Had they not heeded the words of the prophets from Moses onwards? Jesus proceeded to set their hearts on fire by opening up their Scriptures to them and spelling out where Israel’s long journey with God had been leading up to, and yet they still didn’t recognise him. It was only later, when they’d invited this stranger into their home to share their meal, that Jesus was revealed to them in the blessing and breaking of the bread. Shaking off any tiredness, or concern for their safety on the dark road back to Jerusalem, they raced off to tell their friends that it was true; Jesus is risen, and that changes everything.
I love this story, and for me it highlights what I think our call as preachers is all about: we’re to set people’s hearts on fire by opening up the Scriptures for them, so that they can recognise the risen Jesus and be transformed. Sometimes, we’ll be asked to do this in times of celebration and joy, when it somehow seems easier to believe that God’s real and present among us. On other occasions, we’ll be called upon to bring resurrection hope to bear, to keep the rumour of God alive, in dark and difficult times, when it feels like God’s profoundly absent and everything’s falling apart around us.
I don’t know if you remember where you were on this day thirteen years ago, when planes slammed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, but that day will forever be etched on my memory. I was seventeen and just starting the second year of my ‘A’ levels; I remember it was a Tuesday afternoon and we’d had double economics. It was before the days of smartphones and instant internet access, and so while there were murmurs that something was wrong when we were waiting for the college bus home, it was only when I walked into my living room and saw the TV that I discovered what’d happened. The BBC kept showing a loop of the planes hitting the towers, slamming into them over and over again, as if seeing it often enough might help it sink in. It didn’t; it all felt unreal, like watching a disaster movie where you expect Nicolas Cage or somebody to run into the mess and save the day. The real-life stories of the emergency services personnel, such as the New York firemen, who did run in, and died trying to help those trapped, still reduce me to tears. How do you proclaim hope at a time like that?
Rowan Williams happened to be at a church gathering a couple of blocks from the World Trade Centre on that day, and in his book Writing in the Dust, he contrasts the last words of some of the passengers on those planes to their loved ones with those apparently given by one of the terrorists as ‘spiritual advice’. He says, “The religious words are, in the cold light of day, the words that murderers are saying to themselves to make a martyr’s dream out of a crime. The nonreligious words are testimony to what religious language is supposed to be about – the triumph of pointless, gratuitous love, the affirming of faithfulness even when there’s nothing to be done or salvaged”
I think it’s that love that lies at the heart of the Emmaus story, and that which we’re called as preachers to proclaim; resurrection hope is, at its core, about the persistence of love when everything seems lost, pointless, empty, and goodness incarnate gets nailed to that cross again. So if we ever find ourselves slipping into using glib clichés or reducing our faith to nice, neat formulae, then this should pull us up short. It’s in the silence of Golgotha on Good Friday, and the utter shock of the women who first found the empty tomb, that our preaching gets its integrity and purpose. It’s from these places, from this centre, that we can seek to be community storytellers, setting people’s hearts on fire by opening up the Scriptures and pointing them again to the truth of God, so that they might encounter the risen Christ, and be ready to keep the rumour of God alive.
In a few minutes, we’re going to share in bread and wine together. While others can administer this sacrament in certain circumstances, for me it’s very much at the centre of both what a presbyter does, but more fundamentally what a presbyter is in the first place. It’s from here that my sense of being called to explore ordained ministry stems, and where I think resurrection hope is most obviously found. When I had a breakdown in my early twenties, it was pretty much only the Eucharist that stopped me from being swallowed up by the darkness I felt was enveloping me. Knowing I was meeting with the risen Christ in his brokenness, and could only receive his presence in bread and wine once the bread had itself been broken, helped me to find hope and keep hanging on in there. It wasn’t as dramatic and unexpected as the Emmaus story, but it did have a transformational effect on my life.
Through a ministry of Word and Sacrament, presbyters are called, as Jesus did on the road to Emmaus, to set people’s hearts on fire, and help them to recognise the presence of the risen Christ among them. In that, they model what we’re all called to do as members of the body of Christ, to keep the rumour of God alive in times of joy and times of despair. As a gathering of preachers, we have a particular role in bringing the treasures of our faith to life, so as we celebrate this sacrament together, on this particular date, let us thank God for the gifts he’s stirred up within us, and pray for the courage to proclaim “the triumph of pointless, gratuitous love, the affirming of faithfulness even when there’s nothing to be done or salvaged”. Amen
