Methodist Conference statement on National Life

July 7, 2016 by Rev. Liz Dunning

The national Methodist Church meets each year for its annual Conference. Lots of issues are discussed during the week, resolutions are proposed and voted upon.

One of the discussions followed the EU Referendum. Below is the text of the resolution which was passed:

The 2016 Annual Conference of the Methodist Church passed a resolution containing the following text:

The United Kingdom, as a result of the referendum on 23 June 2016, has voted to leave the European Union. In this time of very significant change and uncertainty there is a need for leadership which seeks the common good and encourages people to work together, to respect one another and to uphold the dignity of all.

The Methodist Conference believes that the British Isles are enriched by diversity and celebrates the contribution made by those who have come from other parts of the world.

The Christian tradition calls for respect, tolerance, love of neighbour and hospitality to the stranger. All bear the responsibility of speaking and acting for healing, reconciliation, and mutual respect.

The Methodist Conference abhors and deeply regrets those actions and words which incite hatred and lead to the victimisation of groups within society and notes with concern that such actions and words have been normalised in recent public discourse. Believing that racism is a denial of the gospel and that to stay silent when others are abused is to collude with those who seek to promote hatred and division, the Methodist Conference calls:

on the Methodist people to challenge racism and discrimination
for a political debate which neither demonises any nor leaves the vulnerable (the foreigner, the immigrant and refugee) in danger of victimisation.
on political leaders to work together for the good of the whole community putting the needs of the nation before party politics.
on all those in positions of power and authority to hear the voices of those who have been marginalised and alienated and to respond to them in ways which offer real hope for the future.

For more information, including suggested wording for writing to your MP, visit: www.methodist.org.uk/nationallife

Easter Sermon

March 26, 2016 by Rev. Liz Dunning

‘And the last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Corinthians 15: 26)

This will be the first Easter since my Dad died. In some ways, this has made the themes of Lent and Easter – dying, death and resurrection – more resonant and relevant for me this year. What shall we say about death? What shall we say about those who have died?

Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, in John’s gospel we read the event of the raising of Lazarus from the dead – this is portrayed by John Reilly’s painting ‘The Raising of Lazarus’ (John Reilly ‘The Raising of Lazarus’). Before Jesus calls Lazarus forth from his tomb, we have the shortest verse in the Bible: ‘Jesus wept’. Jesus weeps for the death of a friend; but I think there’s more. Jesus weeps for the power that death has over those he knows and loves; the power of death to destroy hope, relationships, confidence, joy; death as separation, death sapping colour from life.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians describes death as the last enemy – the greatest enemy. There are other enemies in our lives – greed, selfishness, injustice, cruelty, poverty of experience, lack of hope, loss of love. These enemies (and others) could be given the collective name ‘sin’. Sin is the power which seeks to control us in place of God and God’s love; sin isn’t just a description of human wrongdoing. Sin is a force which seeks to separate us from God; this is why Paul describes death as the ultimate consequence of sin, or to use his words, ‘the wages of sin is death’. This is why death is the last and greatest enemy.

So when Christ rises from the dead, his resurrection defeats death, (the ‘sting’ of sin). Death no longer has the power to ultimately separate us from God and God’s love; death no longer has the power to separate us from the love of one another. Sin loses all power to control us and separate us from God. These are the enemies destroyed by Christ’s resurrection. Dylan Thomas puts it more poetically than I can:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas

Yet resurrection is not just about Christ’s resurrection – the first and most important though it is. Christ’s resurrection is the foreshadowing of the resurrection of all at the end of time. Jesus speaks of this to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, as he tells her: ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (John 11: 25). In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he is speaking to those who had begun to question the resurrection of all people at the end of time; Paul says if you doubt that resurrection then you’re denying that Jesus was resurrected. And if you’re denying that, then what’s the point? What’s it all about? What is your faith based upon? We have to believe the resurrection both of Jesus and the promise of the resurrection of all people.

If we consider John Reilly’s painting ‘The raising of Lazarus’ we get a sense of the now-and-not-yet-ness of the resurrection. Christ is risen, Christ will come again and will draw all people to himself. In the painting, the resurrection is represented by the rising sun at the centre of the painting. All things, all creation seems to be drawn into the spiralling light – the opposite of a black hole. To the left of the painting we see a before-and-after of Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus is in bright white, like the dazzling light of his transfiguration and ascension. This painting says that we will all – in time – be drawn into the resurrection. It may be that we feel that we are on the outer reaches, still in the darker areas, but eventually we shall be drawn utterly into the light of resurrection.

So, what shall we say about death? Life, victory, hope, light and love. That’s what we can say, because in Christ’s resurrection we have something positive to say about death. The resurrection is real – even if it is a mystery to us as well. Mary’s encounter with the risen Christ in the garden has that dream-like but real quality. John doesn’t try to explain how it happens – it just is! Mary doesn’t respond to a long theoretical explanation – she responds to her master calling her name. Although we still live with the shadow, the light we are being drawn into is stronger than the darkness. We are part of that big story, that big picture of resurrection. Christ is the resurrection and the life – this is what we believe. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia! Amen.

Rev Liz

Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that – pierced – died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

John Updike

Reflection for Holy Week – an extravagance of death

March 24, 2016 by Rev. Liz Dunning

John 12: 1 – 8

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

One Sunday when this was the set reading, I took some nard – the perfume mentioned in this reading – for the congregation to smell. I put a few drops in some oil and we drew crosses on our hands as a form of anointing. As the anointing took place, the room began to fill with the smell of nard. I say smell rather than fragrance as fragrance would suggest it was a sweet and enticing smell – it wasn’t! The reactions to the smell of the nard were strong; wrinkled noses, turning away, some even wiping it off with their hankies (only to discover later the smell doesn’t come out… even after washing). You could see the physical reaction to the smell. I wouldn’t say it’s really unpleasant; rather it is very earthy and musty. Our modern noses might wonder why it was such a precious and expensive perfume.

One of nard’s historical uses was for the anointing of bodies. More than one person in the service commented how they’d smelt this before at funeral parlours. This usage along with Jesus’ comments about Mary’s actions being the anointing of his body for burial brought it home to me that the smell that filled the house at that moment was a smell everyone would associate with death. Of course, in that room, the thoughts of death were already close because Lazarus sat amongst them. Lazarus who had been dead for four days, and then was restored to life by Jesus’ summons from the tomb (John 11: 1 – 44). When Jesus calls Lazarus from the tomb the onlookers fear the smell of the dead body, even though it would have been anointed with nard and other spices. Once again the thought of death is brought close by the power of smell. Jesus knew what was coming and he had told his followers, but I wonder if they had really taken this in. Mary’s actions are prophetic, even if she didn’t realise it.

Just a few drops of nard filled the church – imagine the impact of a whole pint of the perfume. There would have been no escaping it. There would have been in that moment an extravagance of smell, an extravagance of death. John’s gospel often points to the extravagance actions of God in Jesus: the miracle of the water into wine at Cana (John 2: 1 – 12) Jesus makes gallons of wine – more than needed and of the best possible quality; in feeding the 5000 they end up with twelve baskets full of left-overs (John 6: 1 – 14). The extravagance of God’s love is seen in Jesus’ anointing and in his death on the cross. It might seem an odd way to show love, but it is summarised in John 3: 16 – ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life’. Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice for us – an extravagance of death pointing beyond to an extravagance of love. But for the moment, whilst we are still in Holy Week, let us remember the smell of the nard reminding us of the imminence of Jesus’ death.

Rev Liz

Jesus the refugee

May 1, 2015 by Rev. Liz Dunning

Matthew 2: 13 – 23

‘Get up, and flee.’

This reading from Matthew is the continuation of the Christmas story. Jesus is not left in the manger, but almost immediately there is action and things happening as a result of his birth. The wise men visit and leave; and we join the story of the implications of that visit are played out.

In many ways, Matthew relates the story as part of a bigger picture – to show how all that happens is evidence of the realisation of old prophecies; the prophecy of the weeping in Ramah; the prophecy of the calling of God’s son out of Egypt (reminiscent of the first Exodus from Egypt by Moses and his people). ‘All this happened because…’ says Matthew, looking at the bigger picture; but today I cannot help but wonder about the smaller details, the human details. After all, Mary and Joseph were ordinary people – just like you and me.

The Holy Family went and returned a different way; and different people. It wasn’t a baby who was taken but a toddler, a young boy – no longer ‘new parents’ but an established family unit. Perhaps there were siblings on their way.

More than that; the family would have returned back to their homeland with experience of being the outsider, the foreigner, the asylum seeker. It’s likely that there was a Jewish community in Egypt into which they could have settled, but it still must have been a difficult experience.

I wonder how this would have changed them?

Did they find it difficult to settle back into their old ways, their old communities? Were they welcomed back easily, or was it a bit more difficult? Did their neighbours want to know what it was like in Egypt, or were they uninterested?

And did it change Mary and Joseph’s perception of new-comers? Did they make an extra-special effort to offer hospitality to others, because they knew how important that was?

I wonder how the other children took to Jesus? Did they do that wonderful thing which children have the capacity for – regardless of race or creed or language they find the common ground of play; or did they take a while to let Jesus into their games, confused by the odd Egyptian words he used?

As I’ve pondered on the human story of the Holy Family’s fleeing to and returning from Egypt, it’s been impossible not to reflect on how their experiences are being mirrored today by thousands of people in different places around our world. For the last five years, refugees have been fleeing the conflict in Syria into surrounding countries. This would have been the land of Jesus’ time; makeshift camps have arisen and a semblance of life has had to go on – babies born, people die. Yet all of them their life is in limbo. For many of those children, they will have little or no memory of life before exile, life before conflict and fear. For those children, those refugee camps will be ‘normal’… what sort of life is that? If – pray God when – the conflict ends and they can return home, what sort of life will they return to?

Perhaps there are folk among us how have had to flee their home; perhaps some of your families arrived in Britain generations ago because they had to flee.

As someone who has never had to leave somewhere other than by my own choice, I cannot begin to imagine the depths of the difficulties and pains.

And yet, Jesus did know.

This is the mystery of Christmas – our God, made human, is almost immediately thrown into the maelstrom of being a refugee, into the family knowledge of having to flee violence of being an outsider. To those who were expecting a powerful king to bring about God’s kingdom, this didn’t make sense. Yet, perhaps they might have heard the words of Isaiah:

It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

God, our God, shared our life in all its fullness – experienced the absolute highs and lows. Surely we take more comfort from a God who walked with the refugees and lived in their camps than a God who kept his distance behind palace walls. A God who experienced being the outsider can walk alongside all who feel like the outsider – and we’ve all felt the outsider at some point. A God – our God – who loves us so much as to do this. This is the wonderful mystery; this is the love which came down at Christmas. It’s almost too wonderful to comprehend.

Amen.

Rev Liz

Reflections on Advent and Christmas

May 1, 2015 by Rev. Liz Dunning

Recently, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about vulnerability. The dictionary defines the word vulnerable as ‘capable of being physically or emotionally hurt or wounded’. The thesaurus gives the following alternative words – defenceless, helpless, insecure, perilous, tender, unguarded. When our society is compassionate, it sees the vulnerable – the young, the elderly, the ill – as those to be protected and perhaps even pitied. Often, it wants to enable these people to develop so that they are no longer vulnerable. But when societies are not so compassionate, when they are cruel, then the vulnerable can be ostracised, forgotten, persecuted, and despised.

I wonder why it is that sometimes, when faced with the vulnerability of others, we find it difficult to deal with. We don’t always want to see the weakness of others. Maybe it’s because it reminds us that we too can be, and often are, vulnerable. We too have those times or areas of our life which are vulnerable. Sometimes we’ll try to hide this – the angry person who snaps at others before they’re snapped at themselves; the always busy person avoiding their loneliness. But sometimes we can’t hide our vulnerability and we have to let others see it. It can take a lot of courage to let others see our vulnerability, to ask for help, to accept the care and compassion of others. Yet, in seeing and responding to the vulnerability of others, we too can start to be more honest about our own vulnerabilities – we can share them together, find strength in holding each other’s cares and concerns.

The thesaurus has one other word for vulnerable – human. In other words, each and every one of us is vulnerable. And Advent is a good time to reflect on this, for Advent and Christmastide is the time when we remember how our God became human, became as vulnerable as it is possible to be – a baby, poor, a refugee. God chose vulnerability as a way to reach out to humankind. God, who could have sent powerful angels or chariots of fire or bolts of lightning, chose instead to enter the world quietly, chose humility, chose our life. It is almost too amazing to take in.

So, as you prepare for Christmas, and perhaps you become more aware of your own vulnerability – feeling frazzled, feeling overwhelmed, succumbing to winter bugs – remember that it is in our vulnerability that God comes close to us, holds us, lives with us. Immanuel – God with us.

And did it happen
that all of this was meant to be,
that God from distance should
choose to be set free
and show uniqueness
transformed in weakness,
that I might touch him and he touch me?
(Wild Goose Worship Group)