andygoodliff

Wake up you lazy blighters!

From Archbishop Sentamu's Maundy Thursday Sermon:

Children are always challenging and for ever bringing me down to earth.

In Birmingham I visited a school preparing for its OFSTED inspection, just before Holy Week. The children knew very well the events of Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. We got to the Garden of Gesthemane and I asked, “What did Jesus say to his three disciples who were sleeping?”

A ten-year old piped up and said, “Wake up you lazy blighters! Judas is here: he’s been paid to get me nicked! Don’t forget what I told you. I said to you, “This is my body, this is my blood. Stick to bread and wine; don’t touch my Easter Eggs. I will be back on Sunday!”

EASTER ICONS: seeing the face of Christ

Easter Icons a walk about exhibition with things to do and see that will help you to contemplate, reflect, question and wonder at the easter story (suitable for all ages). That's how I described it. We used readings, pictures (Christ We Share / Pictures of Jesus A + B / plus others) and sculptures and symbolic actions. These were designed to help people take a fresh view of the easter story, shake us out of our Western picture of Jesus and engage and involve us in the easter drama. We were open from 12-8pm yesterday and we had over 100 people come and visit. You can see photos and some of the stuff used here. 

1. The Last Supper (Luke 22.14-30) - Sarah and Naomi Hollands

2. The garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22.39-46) - Jude Purvey | symbolic action: draw round your hand and write of prayer of thanks

3. Jesus is disowned by Peter (Luke 22.54.62) - Andy Goodliff | reading: 'I did not know the man' from Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses, by Rowan Williams (1994, DLT) | symbolic action: Peter leaves his fishing nets to follow Jesus, walks on water, is called Satan, is named the future leader of the church, denies knowing Jesus, and is forgiven and reaffirmed. With Peter what you see is what get. This man has strengths and weakness. In saying ‘I am Peter’ we recognise that we are disciples-in-training, people whose lives bear fruit and also live among weeds. Write down your strengths and weaknesses around the statement ‘I AM PETER’ acknowledging and accepting who you are and asking God to continue the work of transforming us in to the image of Christ.

4. Jesus before Pilate (John 18.33-19.16a) - Helen Swinyard | symbolic action: Pilate asks Jesus what is truth? He wants Jesus to explain truth in propositional terms – statements which can be proved or disproved. Jesus remains silent, because he is truth: the truth of God, who reveals the truth about he world and humanity, who reveals the truth about ourselves (see John 3.16-21). Jesus gives Pilate his answer not in words, but (ironically) in crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus is truth embodied, truth given flesh. We encounter the truth of God not in following a scientific theorem or philosophical argument, but in facing the face of the crucified and risen Christ and following on his coat-tails. As a reminder, write the name Jesus using any of the materials on the table and take it home with you.

5. Judas betrays (Matt. 26.14-16, 47-50; 27.3-10) - Hannah Goodliff | reading: 'the Judas I Never Knew' by Kester Brewin (Complex Christ blog) | symbolic action: The tradition of the church has been prone to making Judas one-dimensional, to make him something less than human. Judas’ moment of betrayal is also a moment of revelation as he finally recognises completely that Jesus will not be made to fit Judas’ expectations of the Messiah (hat-tip to Kester Brewin). When Judas throws the money back at the chief priests, it is a sign that he has let go of his agenda for Jesus. As you are invited to throw the coins into the baptistry, let it be a sign of repentance, a sign that we let go of our attempts to mould Jesus into our image and rather we allow Jesus to mould us into his image.

6. Simon of Cyrene helps carry the cross (Luke 23.26) - Miriam and Ella Pugh | symbolic action: Jesus did not just talk about ‘taking up your cross’, but picked up his cross and carried the means of his death through the narrow streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha. As a sign of your commitment to walk the way of the cross, lift up the piece of wood (it was heavy!) and pray.

7. Jesus on the cross (Mark 15.36 [24-36]) - Hannah Goodliff | symbolic action: Golgotha where Jesus was crucified would have had the smell and taste of death, a place where hope appears absent, a place where God appears absent (the cry of Jesus is the cry of abandonment). Soak a piece of sponge in the bowl, smell and taste the vinegar as you read the passage. Do you identify with Jesus’ cry of abandonment? The story of Easter, the story of the Christian faith is a story where hope can appear absent, where God appears absent. Yet the words of Jesus before he dies ‘It is finished/complete/accomplished’ are a flicker in the deep darkness that hope is not lost.

8. The passion of Christ (a flash video) - Steve Goodliff

9. Seven words from the cross (Mark 15.34; Luke 23.43, 46; John 19.26-27, 28, 30) - Helen Swinyard

10. The curtain is torn (Mark 15.37-38) - Helen Swinyard | symbolic action: The temple curtain tearing into is a sign that the way to God is open, through Jesus we die to sin and self and live for God. On the piece of paper draw or write anything that gets in the way of your relationship with God. Then tear it in half as a sign that through Jesus you are accepted and forgiven.

11. Facing the face of Christ (2 Cor 3.18; 4.6) | symbolic action: As we face the crucified and risen Jesus, as we live our lives before him, as we seek to follow in his footsteps, so we believe we are transformed. Salvation is not just a saving from sin and death, but a saving for a life that ‘loves mercy, acts justly and walks humbly with our God’ (Micah 6.8). Take a picture of the face of Jesus home with you and stick it on your fridge or bathroom mirror to help you live before, and seek, the face of God.

I also did some readings based round key words: face / icon / servant / choices / salvation / betrayal / denial / death / devotion / suffering / guilty / facing the face of Christ - I got this idea from Chris Curtis

Some comments:

'Thought-provoking'

'An engagement of the senses'

'good to be brought out of our "good" non-conformist evangelical mould to face Jesus in more unexpected ways'

'thankyou also for the opportunity to share this as a family, particularly hands on/visual aspects for us all'

'the atmosphere on entering the church was awesome'

Thanks to my awesome team - Hannah, Helen, Ashley and Richard (we were at the church setting up thursday night from 9pm-1.30am) and those who contributed artistically - Sarah and Naomi, Jude, Rosie, Edna, Freda, Steve and also my dad for helping me with some of the reflections.

windows on the cross

contemplate. reflect. engage. wonder. question. look again. confess. give thanks.

'windows on the cross' is completed.  Yesterday evening saw my team beginning setting up, while in room next door we got some young artists to do some fantastic artwork for us.  From 12-3pm today the church was open for people to come and walk the way of the cross.  We had different stations like others are doing.  The 1st was called echoes of the cross which look at some of the echoes of the old testament scriptures in the passion narratives.  The most obvious being psalm 22.  Tom Wright says 'the psalms has obviously coloured the story of the passion in other ways (Mk 15:24; Jn 19:24 = Ps 22:18; Mk 15:29 = Ps 22:7; Matt 27:43 = Ps 22:8) and these are best explained on the assumption that Jesus really did utter Ps 22:1 on the cross.' (JVG, p.601, n.217). 

Then we had a space for people to do their own artwork and an area where we had Jesus of Nazareth and The Miracle Maker playing on tvs.  In the centre of the room we had a giant cross. This was linked
to the 2nd station confessing the one cross which was based on chapter one of Tom Smail's book Once and for All. Tom writes: 'Just as it is impossible to look directly at the sun, so it is impossible to grasp completely what Christ is doing on the cross.' The cross will always be a mystery. I then stuck in a great sentence from Stanley Hauerwas little book Cross-Shattered Christ, where he says “Mystery” here does not name a puzzle that cannot be solved. Rather, “mystery” names that which we know, but the more we know, the more we are forced to rethink everything we think we know' (p.15). The cross leads to three confessions: the confession of faith, the confession of sin and the confession of praise.

The 3rd station was facing the cross-shattered christ which was based on David Ford's Self and Salvation.  I took part of the opening chapter where he talks about the face, before linking it to how do
we picture the face of Jesus? And how do we imagine the dead face of Christ?

The 4th and final station  was  called the journey into darkness.  We built a tunnel which led down in the empty and nearly covered baptistry.  I really wanted to
emphasise after reading Sarah Breuer's sermon from good friday last year that the cross is a dark place and in the person of Jesus, God comes to that dark and narrow place and that today is a dark place we visit.

Finally I need to note the excellent music my brother steve composed especially. You can listen to it here. The people who came responded well, which was encouraging and several people said they found it moving.  Those in the team who helped plan and worked with me all agreed that it was a positive time, which helped people connect with the events of good friday. We learnt a lot as well for next time.  I've put some other photos in an album (see on the left).

tenebrae: a service of shadows

Hannah and I made a trip up to Robinson College this evening to go to Maggi's tenebrae: a service of shadows service.  It was great! A mixture of ambient and choral (the choir were fantastic), silence and song, scripture spoken and scripture enacted. There was a richness there so often missing from the general weekly service.  The service was structured in eight parts - Christ's journey towards the cross. What I liked was how the service allowed the whole journey to take place, to hear and see the story in its fullness. So thanks Maggi for a great service - it was good to experience something different!