Easter 2017

The White Tree

In a broken land a tree stood white and barren against the light 

clean and sinuous the dead branches curved through the sky

Graceful elegant dead

Left untouched by all around no nest of any bird to disturb its simplicity.

Clean unhurt by life only the rain casts an occasional grey cloak over the bole of the tree

Graceful dead elegant

No hole of woodpecker no visible sign of decay the white tree changes not with season

winter summer still it stands unmoving in the wind that tears down living trees nearby.

Dead graceful elegant

Dead is the tree dead are its children no seed sprouted under those boughs

dead is the man nailed to that white tree dead is the heart of his mother.

Dead twisted broken

He is taken down,  his blood stains the white tree,  soaking into the dead wood.

The man is taken to a tomb cut from the rock, a stone covers the entrance.

Dead, stained, hurt

The storm rages,  the rain falls, the stain on the tree unwashed,  night passes, day passes, night,

women come to the tomb,  the stone is not blocking it,  the body of the man is gone

Dead, fear, confusion

A crying woman, a man walks from behind the tree, she looks and cries for joy

she runs to find friends,  the man touches the tree, and is gone

Dead? What! How?

The sun falls on the tree, and leaves open to welcome the light,  its graceful shape confused

The foliage scatters the light hiding its elegant form, birds alight on it’s once pristine branches

Living, life-giving, hopefilled.

Mark Ieuan Johnston,  Easter 2017 

For Dad

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

A study -  a wall of books

A broken chair

What is left?

Photos on an order of service, a wedding here, another there, with children,  with friends 

the same face

old, young,  broken, smiling in life.  Under all a date of ending

a church packed out.

A notice in the local paper, a few paragraphs in the newsletter.  

A harsh bitter illness that lingered on for 15 years all the days he lived in this house,

Slowly all the liveliness and hope squeezed from him.

The final days - the anguished  “I don’t want to get better”

Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?

The care pathway changed   

Less and less he woke, till one morning 

removing all that was left to remind him of his weakness ,

he took a tissue from me, so he could wipe his own face

he sang along to the old welsh hymns and songs, a voice reduced to a breath.

He told the nurse he was in pain again

again morphine took to him to sleep, never to wake

Now I am eldest, no wise head to talk to, to ridicule, to love

No one to ring on a Sunday night

No hug at the end of that awful drive

81 summers and winters had come and gone since that November day

Children and grandchildren,

Grief and joy, hope and despair

Triumphs and disappointments

What remains ?

Some dust,  memories , and a hope

Now at this birth season of decease,

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,

Grant Israel’s consolation

To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

He was heard.

The Nunc Dimittis ,  The Seven last Words from the Cross and TS Elliots Song for Simeon all provided help in putting this together 

In the beginning

The Christian and Jewish scriptures start with the words – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” before the writer goes to describe how he thought God did it and for 4500 year ago I don’t think he did a bad job.

The creation is now revealed after 4,500 years of thought and tests to be even more amazing and immense than the genesis writer could have imagined.  At the beginning of time a singularity exploded and within a few moments all that is, was made.   In the unimaginable violence of the beginning of space and time, matter and antimatter were created in there most fundamental states collided into each other and annihilated themselves eventually a bit more matter was made and became the building blocks of all we see (and perhaps the dark matter we don’t). 

 It took time for the universe to cool enough for protons and electrons  to for hydrogen,  and then  it took even longer for the hydrogen atoms to clump together eventually to form stars,  and it was in the massive  starts  that the other elements were forged, carbo, oxygen, gold. 

These early stars were massive and unstable and took to blowing up scattering their contents all over the universe,  more stars formed  in their wreckage  and eventually enough stuff was made to  build rocking planets and asteroids   and eventually even Sol and her planets came into being and on at least one of them a carbon based life cycle began and evolved until standing on the edge of a tiny rock, spinning round  a small bright star, on the edge of a smallish galaxy  of millions of starts in an infinite  universe of galaxies,  a life form emerged and asked who am I, why am I,  how am I.

That life form had evolved from other creatures but was somehow different – somehow developed art and then in its current form – language and then writing so ideas could be shared and communicated between groups and generations, and then we could post selfies.

In all this, the human species had somewhere in their make up had a God hole - a curiosity that could not be sated and they wrote books about God ,  they wrote books about the world, about maths, about their emotions and they made music. 

A very different picture to the one in genesis, but it is the one that right now I think is right

None of this means I believe in science, because that is a meaningless statement,  the curiosity  of  humans  comes from the God hole  in us, we want to know everything – about the world, about the universe, about God,  each generation learns more, each generation stands on the shoulders of  giants and sees more.  

There are some humans who are afraid of the new, not ready to see the wonders of the creation and lacking knowledge  of  the way things are made, they turn away and  curse the new  and reject the God  but call themselves worshipers, denying the real wonder of the maker, because they don’t understand and they want not to think.  

There are others who see only the physical, the tactile and they raise new gods, themselves, crowing on their own dunghills.   Some of these little gods are kind, others cruel and isolated, but they all see only their own words as true.

Some rejoice in all the new, for in revealing the new of how God did things reveals how wonderful the God is, how amazing the world he gave us is.  These worshippers of the maker seek to discover more about the maker, about the made world, about the made humans. They live in a world of change, of life, of hope, they will go gentle into the next adventure, because they will know that there is so much more to know.  These are the true creationists. 

I wanted to ring you

I wanted to ring you last night

I wanted to tell of the journey to the valleys

The twists, the turns, the suddenly closed roads

No map reader like me in the car

To tell of meeting with Jo and Sian

The meal with the family - the jokes - the kindness  -  the laughter

Owain was with us, when was the last time we saw him?

The confusion of how to find the layby up at  carn-y-bugail,

The arrangements we made

Then the breakfast when Jane and Andy arrived

 The drive across the valleys, again a closed road -

All to meet at the new high school in Bargoed

The ride up over the mountain gate, all the ponies,

Many more than I remembered that there used to be.  

The lambs and their mams gently wandering over the road,

Then the red kites, two over the mountain - how good is that

We found the layby; the wind was cold and strong.

I got your ashes from the car - in 4 neat bottles,

Keith, Paul, Jane and Samuel took one – Paul locked his tight and wal undid it

We said a prayer and they carried the ashes over the road and

They scattered  in the sharp wind that came from behind us.

The ponies came to watch

The skylarks sang in the high cold air

And the sun came through the clouds

We had a picture taken, we said a parting prayer

We hugged and promised to meet again

And then the cars scattered in different ways

We went north, up past the Taff reservoirs to Brecon

Paul overtook us on the road to Builth

And we drove up the march till at last we came home

into our valley,  so like and yet so different from yours

Then I wanted to ring you and tell you of our weekend

A Few Pictures - including the door into summer !

Time to get going on this again

A write up of my sermon  from Sunday 

The readings set for this sunday reminds us of how we as christians should always be there to open our arms and welcome all peoples who walk the way of love and faith and to show those who dont the joy of doing so.

(the readings were Peter’s Vision a Joppa and  the new commandment)

That’s the conclusion to my sermon,  you can go to sleep now as long  you remember that J

But why have I come to that conclusion, how did I get there?

Lets start with Peter at Joppa and this strange dream,  a  great sheet  full of animals,  as a natural historian I would have like a bit more details than four footed animal, reptile and birds of the air but it is clear that they were animals not considered “clean”  and Peter rejects the instruction to kill and eat  ( three time  -  Peter seems to do things in threes – perhaps that we why ae taught to say the same thing three times as preachers  J  )

Did Peter remember Jesus saying  - it is not what enters a person but what comes out,   not the food we eat but the  words and actions  of our hearts.

Then when Peter went to Caesarea and saw the spirit move in the gentiles he knew that God and his good news  was not restricted to just the jewish people.  God could act and move in anyone and anywhere

So that means that we as Christians and  the inheritors of Jesus  are meant to be open and willing to see God work  in our village, town and land.

We cannot be exclusive or judgmental,  a friend was telling me yesterday that she is terrified of becoming a Pharisee, born and brought up in the church the temptation to become judgmental and to turn into a Pharisee is strong,  but  the vision at Joppa  re-iterates  the  challenge to us  al  to  be open minded and welcoming to all especially those of other faiths  who walk the  route of  love and peace and fellowship.   Do you remember how after the floods of boxing day 2015 Muslim groups brought food to those affected and those working to help,  surely that was an act of Love  -  god is love and all those who live in love  live in God  John writes in his letter so we must all who work the path of the neighbour.

Not all see that that though, not all believe we  are people of love  and that brings us to the gospel  -  Love one another as I have loved you, by this shall know are my disciples, Jesus told the disciples and tells us today.   That is what will draw people in - and give hope to our world that we love one another and extend that love to all who walk in the way of love.

No this does not mean I do not think that Christianity is not the best way to find God, Jesus is I believe the most complete image of God it will be possible to be,  but I also know  that if I am to avoid the Pharisee I have to realise that God is bigger, better and more exciting that anything I can imagine.

So many people today love to blame religion for everything for wars and the like but if we take Jesus seriously then if we show love to all people of faith who live in love and peace and thus expressing the love  of God  we  show it is not faith that is the problem – it is a faith that is too small,  a faith that’s needs Pharisees to protect it, a faith not in God but in things.   

 When the bombers attacked the churches in Sri Lanka on Easter day, I had  a  text of commiseration from a Muslim friend, and muslin communities in Sri Lanka opened their doors to give Christians  a place to worship as the churches were is ruins.

When we realise we are to love as Christ loved us without distinctions, without conditions, without limit then we will make such a light and a joy in our world that all will seek to know and love God.

Remembrance

This is a time of memories; on 21^st Oct we remembered 50 years since the Aberfan disaster, where 144 people 116 of them junior school children died when the coal tip collapsed.  No doubt when my family get together to watch Wales play South Africa at the end of November, we will talk of it - I remember as a child climbing the tips overlooking Groesfan - my grandad’s pit in the next valley.    100 years ago my other grandad was guarding the Suez Canal a year after being evacuated from Gallipoli.    So many memories and emotions are stirred up at this time of the year, not just the big anniversaries but with all souls at the start of the month we remember all whom we have loved who have died.  

As a mining family it will be difficult for the emotions that Aberfan will bring up in us to be separated from the memory of the events, as it is difficult for me to think of Gallipolli without  thinking of my grandad suffering in that hell hole.  On the TV program “Who do you think you are”, when the celebrity discovers a long dead great-great relative that they never knew about had a hard and difficult life - often they are overcome with emotion because they are no connected to that moment in history and it becomes real to them.  Sometimes it clouds their judgement of the times.

It is hard not to let emotion overwhelm us when we remember the great events and tragedies that affected us personally and nationally, and it is right we feel moved, that ability for compassion and identification with other people is part of the image of God that we all carry, without it we might be happy for the horrors of the pasts to be renewed, sadly in Syria and Iraq it seems that is just what is happening.

As we will gather to remember this November all these things, some personal, some as families and on the 11^th as a nation, let our God given ability to love and care reach out to all those who suffer as a results of the wars, all those who carry the scars of the past in their hearts, souls and bodies.  Let our remembering be an image of Christ in us, that reaches out and holds the broken hearted in His  care and love.  Remembrance is a time for love, a time to cherish, a time to pray for healing.