SPENDING TIME WITH JUSTIN WELBY

Stocki and Archbishop

I am sad to see the resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. Janice and I have followed the John Smyth from Iwerne Trust scandal with horror. Janice's own minister, when she lived in Wimbledon in the 90s, was a member of the Trust and has also been accused of indecent assault and one of grievous bodily harm. John Smyth's actions are more terrible abuses acted out under the cover of Jesus' Church. It is truly awful.

I do not know where or how Justin Welby errored in this but if he feels that he did in ways that hurt others I sense that he will take that much harder within his soul than having to give up his post.

I had a few very wonderful times with Justin. In those he was warm and spiritual and always interested in what I was doing. When he spoke at the 10th Anniversary of the 4 Corners Festival in St. Peter's Cathedral in 2012 he was astounding. 

I even got to speak with Pope Francis about him in our private audience in the Vatican, just two months later. The mention of Archbishop Welby lit up Pope Francis's face. It was obvious the high regard by which Pope Francis held him and his wife Caroline. The work that all three were doing for peace in South Sudan was important to all three.

For me, I was blessed by spending an afternoon with him. He had arrived in for the 4 Corners Festival at lunchtime on Saturday and I had to look after him until dinner time. 

We started at the Dock Cafe, that honesty cafe run by Christians, in the Titanic Quarter. As we were going in and shown to our reserved seats, we could hear a man saying, "That's the Archbishop of Canterbury". Off we went for our sandwiches and chat.

As we were leaving I lost the Archbishop. He appeared a good few minutes later and told me that he had went back to greet the man behind us at the door and they had a really good conversation. The man felt that he had lost his faith. "I said a few words of prayer and suggested that he read Luke 15. There are a lot of things lost there." Justin Welby - the persona evangelist. 

Off we went to Fitzroy, where the 4 Corners Festival knitting event was taking place. I was rather staggered at the reaction of one of my own congregation. She was up and getting right into his space. It was like I had brought in a Beatle at the height of Beatlemania. Easy, I thought! 

As we left he told me how lovely that woman was from my church. He reminded me that we had handed everyone his Advent book, during Covid, the Christmas before. She had told him that book had gotten her through grieving for her husband in those isolating Covid times. Justin Welby - the pastoral carer. 

On to the 4 Corners Festival Wander, a now very well attended annual walk through some part of Belfast. That particular we finished with refreshments at the Farset Hotel on the Springfield Road. As people mingled a politician approached me to say that he wanted to say thank you to the Archbishop "because he has been the best opposition to this Tory government". - Justin Welby the prophetic voice.

This was all within a few hours. I was impressed and inspired.

I hope that as he resigns that he is not cast off into some social abyss. I pray that his love for Jesus and the sharing of that love will continue to find ways to flourish in the private and public steering that they did that February afternoon in 2022. 


GRATEFUL AND CHALLENGED OUT ON THE APPIAN WAY (ROME)

Appian Way

Today we took a bus out from the centre of Rome to the Catacombs of San Sebastián and then walked a little further out the Appian Way.

The Catacombs are a fascinating trip. The early Christians, to protect their family’s bodies after death, buried them in quarries outside the city walls. Hundreds of years later they were excavated and the bones of the burying places opened were re-buried elsewhere in Rome. 

Our guide today told us that the stories of the Christians hiding in the catacombs were not true. They were only burial grounds. As someone who brought his daughters up watching Story Keepers this was disappointing but understandable.

I guess today as we walked the narrow corridors well under the ground I was pondering these early Christians. These were the guys in those first few centuries who took the persecution and held courageously to the faith. 

In the claustrophobia as I walked past where bodes still lay and seeing the places others once were I was grateful. Grateful that through their bravery I was able to find Jesus nearly 2000 years after they had met to worship pretty much in secret to escape a violent Empire.

I was just as grateful walking on the Appian Way, just down from the catacombs. This is the road that Paul would have led along in chains, walking into Rome for the first time. Today it has walkers on afternoon strolls and it might remind you a little of the Camino. There were cyclists too.

Paul’s walk along it was a different kind of thing altogether. His was no Saturday dander in the trees. He was on a mission at whatever the cost. Realising he could get to Rome best as a prisoner he withstood a few things including a recent shipwreck off Malta, in order to get to Rome.

Standing on that Appian Way with the green grass and the trees, little glimpses of it could have been the 1st Century. Then these cobble stones. Then an imagining of a man in chains, struggling with tiredness and sore feet, surrounded by Roman soldiers on horses throwing out oppressive power. People by the side of the road abusing him and those other prisoners he was sharing his fate with.

Again I became thankful. Here was an apostle who saw the strategic need to take Jesus to the centre of the Empire where if he could share the Good News Of Jesus he might spread the name of Jesus and The Way out from here across the world… to me, 1900 years later. 

Following Paul’s footsteps, reminded me of the footsteps of the one who carried the cross. This is who Paul followed and we dare to claim that we do too. Really? 

Then Jesus said to his disciples:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Paul wrote to the Philippians, most possibly from Rome:

As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard[b] and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

Grateful and very challenged. That was my day out on the Appian Way. 


ANGELS UNAWARES by Timothy Schmalz

Angels Unawares

I was very taken by the bronze and clay sculpture in St. Peter’s Square in Rome called Angel’s Unawares. It is a sizeable piece, as it has to be in such a vast location. 

Sculpted by Timothy Schmalz, who we also must thank for the powerful Homeless Jesus sculpture, it was unfurled on September 29th, 2019 which was the 105th World Migrant and Refugee Day. 

It is a boat to note the movement of peoples and has a sizeable number of refugee and migrants. The faces and belongings of this mass of immigrants are carefully chosen and precisely worked in clay. I spent a time trying to place the country of origin, therefore what each was fleeing from and then where to.

Africa was easy. The Jew quickly spotted. I was trying to find the Irish sailing away from the famine. 

Schmalz sees all his work as prayers and this one I was particularly taken that this one was inspired by that verse in  the Hebrews 13:2 - Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

This comes immediately after the writer starts his concluding exhortation with the line Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.

From the beginning, through the law, the prophets into Jesus, the Acts and the letters we are constantly called to care for the orphan, the widow and the stranger. Indeed, these are the people that God puts before us as examples of the Kingdom. 

In the Kingdoms of the world, some rulers worse than others, these are the targeted, the neglected, the scapegoat. Any such Kingdom is an antithesis of the Kingdom of God. 

Instead the call of this prophetic piece of art is that people have been moving and fleeing since history began and God asks us, his followers, to accompany, welcome, protect, promote and integrate them. Why? Because as Scripture reminds and preaches - by doing so we will be entertaining angels unawares. 


PRAY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO BURY THEIR CHILD

Pieta

In Peter's Basilica in Rome today we started with my favourite pondering - The Pieta. It wasn't actually the real thing. It was a replica as they are working on the real one.

My friend, Rab, had spoken to me about it a few years ago. Rab would describe himself as “relatively agnostic but interested in many aspects across religions” so when he shared with me how taken he was with the Pieta I took note and cannot thank him enough.

His wife was investigating the Basilica and Rab kind of drifted over and caught sight of the Pieta. It is the work of Michelangelo. A beautiful 15th century sculpture in marble, the Pieta depicts Mary holding her dead son, Jesus, in her arms. It moved Rab to tears. 

As I have written before the theologically squeamish might shout, “It is not in the Bible.” No, it is not. That does not mean that between the cross where Mary stood watching her son die and the tomb he was laid in that she didn’t cradle his body.

However, fact is not the point. This is not theological. This is artistic. Whatever the facts, Mary did watch her soon die. She went through her valley of the shadow. She experienced that trauma. Michelangelo expresses that experience of Mary’s; beautifully, poignantly, painfully.

One friend, who lost a young daughter, once said to me that at weddings I should pray that the couple never have to bury their child.  The grief never leaves.  Other  friends  who experienced the loss of a son said that they could have held him forever. Michelangelo captured this heartache. It is so poignant that it drives you to tears and prayer.

For me it also highlights the reality of Jesus death. People, especially his mother had to go through those days. This humble God was fully human and the feeling around his death were not just theological. Indeed at the time they were simply harrowing.  The love and sorrow that mingled around Christ's cross are made vividly alive in The Pieta. There is something of the Gospel story right here that understands our humanity and our brokenness. 


DON'T SELF SAVE...

Png-transparent-basilica-of-san-clemente-al-laterano-the-descent-of-christ-into-limbo-christ-s-descent-into-limbo-harrowing-of-hell-hell

If Roman Basilicas were soccer teams then San Clemente would be my team. It is not as glamorous as all the others but is much more fascinating.

The reason is that about 150 years ago they discovered other levels under the floor. Excavation has meant that on the bottom floor we are pretty much in the Rome that the apostle Paul walked around. 

It is a balance of its history and art that has grabbed my attention. As I walked around it my mind was racing with thoughts of Paul, theology, church history and more importantly the contextualisation of all of that. There will not doubt be more blogs.

For this blog though I want to bring us to an insight that Fr Eddie O’Donnell shared with Janice the last time we were in Rome. I was distracted by a phone call home about my father’s health so missed the visit to San Clemente.

Janice was beside Fr. Eddie as they stood in front of a painting known as the harrowing of hell from Ephesians 3 where Jesus descends into hell. Jesus is pictured dragging Adam out of hell, with a demon at Adams heal, surely a reflection on Genesis 3.

Fr. Eddie asked Janice to notice where Jesus was holding Adam. He was not holding his hand. He was grabbing his wrist. Fr Eddie pointed out that if you are holding hands you can help pull yourself up. Holding the wrist showed how our salvation is all about Jesus. Christ alone.

When I preached recently on John Mark Comer’s book Practicing The Way I quoted Comer writing “Our job isn’t to self save, it’s to surrender”. 

I love that. Not holding Jesus hand but raising our hands in surrender. 

We cannot save ourselves BUT we need to surrender to God for God to work his wonders in the fruit and gifts of the Spirit in our lives. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, our salvation is God’s work and we are his workmanship.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

“Our job isn’t to self save, it’s to surrender”