by Rodney Marsh
I believe in the Resurrection of the body. In particular, Jesus’ body. Why?
When I first began to follow Jesus I was taught that Jesus rose from the dead and that the evidence for his resurrection (the tomb was empty, he was seen and the resurrection of Jesus is the most reasonable explanation of the church’s existence) was convincing to any who would fairly investigate. And throughout history, many have become convinced of Jesus’ risen status because of these historical reasons. However, this evidence seems convincing when presented to the convinced or attracted, but still fails to persuade many agnostics and atheists. They remain skeptical, along with many Christian believers, because the ‘rational’ truths of Christianity cannot be subject to the accidents of history (Lessing). Historical ‘evidence’ is not sufficient reason to believe and proclaim “Jesus is risen” nor to say “I believe in the resurrection of the dead”. The reasonableness of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is only part of the picture.
I have always impressed by the frankness of Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ as presented in John 6, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life.” That is, “I’ve looked and there don’t seem to be any viable alternatives”. I have a similar reaction to Jesus’ bodily resurrection: I have not found an alternative explanation that explains the ‘fulfilling life’ Jesus offers. Three essential beliefs of the Christian Faith – the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection – are all like this. They are all ‘post-Biblical’ and came about because, if we proclaim “Jesus is Lord”, there seems to be no viable alternative to these beliefs. It is belief in the incarnation, resurrection and Trinity, that give coherence to our (the church’s) experience of the love of God in Jesus through the Spirit and these beliefs are tied together in an eternal dance of dependence on one another. The incarnation, resurrection and trinity are not literal statements of belief extracted from Bible verses, but, without them, what the Bible says about God, Jesus and the Spirit cannot be true. Like the famous three-legged stool – each is necessary but no one is sufficient to make the stool stable.
This necessity applies, in particular, to belief in Jesus’ material/bodily resurrection from the dead. In our scientific materialistic age, the reality, necessity and believability of Jesus’ bodily resurrection has been questioned by many followers of Jesus. In addition, requiring belief in a physical resurrection seems to be an unnecessary barrier to faith in the modern age. I think this view mistaken.
Why? For me, three reasons not drawn from history or reason, but experience, make the resurrection of the body essential.
- Jesus’ earliest followers believed that God made and loves the material creation. They even claimed, post resurrection, that Jesus was involved in the creation of all things. They further believed that creation (and we ourselves) will one day, be set free from decay. Believers will be raised from the dead and be forever with the Lord. Many Christians believe Jesus restoration of creation and our resurrection, to be part of the metaphorical meaning Jesus’ resurrection. And it surely is, however, Paul explicitly ties the restoration all living and non-living creation to Jesus’ (and our) material resurrection. These earliest Jewish/Christian beliefs in restoration and resurrection tie the Creator God in a continuing intimate and eternal involvement with the material creation. The ‘metaphorical’/spiritual alternative to Jesus being physically raised breaks this link. I cannot believe it. Such a use of metaphor ‘mocks God’ (Updike) and is a ‘slippery slope’ to a gnostic/spiritual creator or Deism of some version of Scientism (matter is all there is). These idols are aliens in a Jesus’ world. Such a god (why only one?) is more interested (or uninterested) in a metaphorical/spiritual (or separate) world than in the one real and beautiful material/spiritual world which I experience around me. I cannot and will not believe in such god(s).
- My experience of Christian contemplation/meditation or the ‘prayer of the heart’ has convinced me that my body is a necessary part of my relationship with God. My physical body is who I am and is, in a sense, all I am (I am a scientific materialist in that respect). My material body is essential to my experience of faith and life. Meditation has taught me that my body is more essential than my thoughts or emotions. The discipline of Christian meditation or contemplation requires stillness of body. Without stillness of body we cannot begin to still our minds and when our body is still and we work on stilling our mind (thoughts, plans, desires, regrets, feelings etc…), then we discover the transformation that takes place by participation in ‘being’ with/in Jesus. My body is an essential element in this process. It is not an unfortunate ‘addon’. Can it be that the decaying humanity of my earthly tent (now the agency for my relationship with God), will not be changed in the twinkling of an eye into an eternal home for/with God (2 Cor 4:16, 5:1)? I think not, for God values me (my body) and all creation.
- My bodily senses are my only access to the present moment and the present moment is my access to the eternity of the present moment. Not my rationality. When thoughts form, I am attempting to use my mind to observe, describe, categorise, understand or analyse the experience of the present moment, the present moment has already passed into the “nonexistence”. Thinking about the past or the future can never substitute for the immediacy of life in the present moment. The present moment can never be captured but can only be lived, and so eternal life is where there is no past or future but where God is, in the present moment. The decaying humanity of my earthly tent already contains the eternity of the present moment and my body, in particular my senses, are essential to my experience of ‘now’ and so to my participation in eternity. One day I shall leave this body of death and enter that timeless present, forever with the Lord. Is my bodily ability to experience the present moment “the (bodily) pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (Ephesians 1)? If so, I believe my material body is (and will be) part of the resurrection because it is part of the created “heavenliness” of all things. As to the form of my resurrected body, I am not so much a fool as to comment (1 Cor 15:35ff).
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.” Julian of Norwich ― Revelations of Divine Love
by Christine Sine
I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. (John 15:16)
These words that Jesus spoke to his disciples really caught my attention the other day. Last week, I picked our first strawberries for the season and each day now, I go out hoping that there will be more. Tom and I relish the fresh berries I pick each day from the garden when the season is in full swing.
First strawberries
At the moment, there are only enough strawberries to whet our appetites – just one or two a day, but when the strawberries are in full season in a couple of weeks, I will need to pick them every day because strawberries only last a few days at their best. They are meant to be savoured and enjoyed in the brief few weeks of the season. Yet we want them to last. Not only do they taste good, but they are nutritional powerhouses containing not only high levels of vitamin C but also the mighty antioxidants anthocyanins, ellagic acid, quercetin and kaempferol, which all have been shown to have protective effects against certain types of cancer.1
Hoping for strawberries galore
What does “fruit that will last” really mean? It occurred to me as I picked my strawberries that they may only have a short life span but they last as long as God intends them to. They last until the next berries – usually the blueberries – are ready for harvest. They give us that spring boost of energy our bodies need, at the time that we need it. Yes we can dry them, freeze them or make preserves which maintain a goodly portion of the nutrients, but they never taste as good or provide as much nutrition as when they are in season.
What is your response?
Visit your local farmers’ market if you can, and buy yourself a basket of whatever fruit is in season. Sit and contemplate the basket of fruit. Smell it. Handle it. Eat it slowly, relishing the sweet, fresh flavour of it. From a spiritual perspective what do you think it means to bear fruit that will last? How long do you think your fruit is meant to last – a week, a month, a year? Are you like a strawberry, providing an intense but short lived seasonal burst of flavour, or are you more like an apple, able to be stored naturally without chemicals for several months?
Harvesting apples
Strawberries herald the beginning of the season with lots of other berries and perishable fruit soon to come. We don’t need them to be stored for long periods of time, unlike apples and pears which are harvested in the autumn, at the end of the harvest season. They can be stored as food for the long months of winter when there is no new fruit to be harvested. Historically, fruit that could be stored would hopefully last throughout the hungry seasons of winter and early spring when no new fruit was produced.
In a world that picks green and sprays with chemicals to extend the shelf life of everything from strawberries to apples, the significance of fruit that will last is often lost on us. So much of the “fresh” produce in our supermarkets, is not fresh at all. It lasts far beyond its intended lifespan because of the artificial chemicals that have been added. Some of it is injected with sugar and even vitamins to make it taste more “natural”.
I wonder how often we do the same thing with our spiritual fruit. We think that “fruit that will last” means it will go on for ever and so we do all we can to artificially preserve it beyond its natural season.
What is your response?
Now visit your local supermarket and buy a basket of fruit that is not in season. Sit and contemplate your basket of fruit. Handle it, smell it, and eat it slowly. Does it taste the same as you remember it tasting when it was in season?
Sit quietly in the presence of God and think about your spiritual life. What fruit have you borne that you have tried to preserve beyond its natural God ordained season? Is there fruit that has become tasteless and nutritionless because it is out of God’s season for it? What is God asking you to do with this fruit?
Listen to the song below, but instead of “breathe new life in me” substitute: “Breathe new fruit in me”
by Carol Dixon
May 26th is the feast day of the Venerable Bede who was born around 673 AD. The first we hear of Bede is as a 7 year old sent to the abbey of Monkwearmouth to be educated by the abbot Benedict Biscop, a well- travelled cleric who often visited Rome, taking illuminated manuscripts from Northumbria and bringing back books for the monastery, along with that at their sister house at Jarrow, to which Bede was later sent under the tutelage of Abbot Ceolfrith, and their library was known as one of the greatest in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 686 a plague broke out and many of the local population including all of the monks at Jarrow died, apart from Ceolfrith and Bede. Bede was later to refer to it in one of the many books he wrote, which included the lives of the Saints (such as Aidan & Cuthbert) and his now famous ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede – Public Domain
One of the amazing things I find about Bede that seems relevant to us today is that he made very few journeys and rarely left the monastery where he lived yet his writings were well-known in his own time across the whole of Europe and became stalwart reference books for people like Alcuin of York, who was invited by the emperor Charlemagne to be the leading scholar and teacher in his court.
In our times of the coronavirus ‘plague’ when so many of us are only able to leave our homes occasionally I find it heartening that the faith of this devout man had such a resonance at home and abroad, despite him being in ‘lockdown’ most of the time in his monastery. He still performed his daily chores and stopped for times of prayer, yet his insatiable thirst for learning, spreading his faith and encouraging others from the sanctuary of his own home kept him busy and his example even in his own time was a blessing to many.
Not all of us are called upon to write classics of English Literature but, as fellow followers of Jesus, we are also called by God to serve faithfully wherever we are and whatever circumstances we find ourselves in – whether doing chores, making times for regular prayer, or serving our neighbours and society in any way we can. One of Bede’s most famous prayers is still used regularly at St Paul’s Church, Jarrow which stands on the site of his monastery:
The Prayer of St. Bede “I implore you, good Jesus, that as in your mercy you have given me to drink in with delight the words of your knowledge, so of your loving kindness you will also grant me one day to come to you, the fountain of all wisdom, and to stand for ever before your face.” – See more at http://www.stpeters-wearmouth.org.uk/.
In my home church we sometimes sing an ascension hymn, A hymn of glory let us sing’ written by Bede (who wrote a number of hymns, including some music).
1 A hymn of glory let us sing!
New hymns throughout the world shall ring.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Christ, by a road before untrod,
ascends unto the throne of God.
Alleluia! (x5)
2 The holy apostolic band
upon the Mount of Olives stand.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
And with his faithful followers see
their Lord ascend in majesty. Alleluia! (x5)
3 To whom the shining angels cry,
‘Why stand and gaze upon the sky?’
Alleluia! Alleluia!
‘This is the Saviour!’ Thus they say,
‘This is his glorious triumph day!’ Alleluia! (x5)
4 O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
all praise to you let earth accord;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
You are, while endless ages run,
with Father and with Spirit one. Alleluia! (x5)
Hymnum canamus gloriae The Venerable Bede (673-735)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede – Public Domain
Here’s a slightly different version incorporating his prayer:
Here is the contemplative service from St Andrews Episcopal church in Seattle for the seventh Sunday of Easter. Enjoy
Fr. Rich Weyls, Rector, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers. Permission to web stream or podcast music in this service is granted under One License number A-710-756. www.saintandrewsseattle.org
Think about how many ways people gathered around the world to celebrate Jesus and their relationship to God BEFORE covid-19. People gathered in great cathedrals and under large trees and in the open air. They gathered in house church settings, small church buildings and in coffee shops, pubs, and even art gallery spaces. There are formal and informal gatherings, contemporary and very traditional, both low and high liturgically and many liturgies in between. None of these are better than another, they are just unique ways of being together that are particular to a worshiping community. Whatever the worshiping community or the church, we all have traditions and liturgies and ways of worship that we love. And just one of these ways to worship is singing. But there are SO MANY other ways to worship beyond corporate singing.
Jesus took me on the adventure of creating and curating worship beyond singing starting in 2001.
Up until then, I’d loved singing and worshiping with my voice, with my hands lifted, belting out songs of praise. I was a part of a church community that believed 20 minutes of singing worship wasn’t nearly enough! If we could sing longer, or host entire nights of singing worship we would! Then God surprised me and took me to a small Episcopal church and rocked my world with liturgical worship and old hymns. I fell in love with the beauty and rhythm of the church year and the Lectionary.
And then the Holy Spirit invited me to start an entirely new worship service called “Sacred Space” without a musician of any kind… no worship band, no choir. It was a way to learn how to worship beyond singing. We sometimes said we did DJ church because we created a soundtrack for our gathering with walk in songs and walk out songs that were meant to set the scene for what we would experience and learn about during the gathering, like a prelude and a postlude on an organ. We followed the lectionary, but instead of a sermon or homily, we used interactive prayer stations to experience the gospel passage. I became the worship curator, helping people experience God with all their senses and helping people see that they could share their gifts as acts of worship, like poetry, art, photography and playlists.
It was DJ church because we still used music and songs, but we listened to them and allowed the Holy Spirit to teach us through listening to someone else sing the words and viewing the lyrics on the screen. Since this was way before the pandemic, participants could sing, but many didn’t really enjoy corporate singing anyway, so the choice to just listen was very welcome. Worship songs became contemplation and often prayers.
As a worship curator, I’ve learned that there are so many other ways to express our love for God beyond corporate singing! We are all just so used to ONE way that we often cannot see beyond it to envision all the opportunities that not being able to do corporate singing can give us!
We can learn how to worship without singing and beyond singing!
Covid-19 is a great opportunity for MORE PARTICIPATION! We all get to respond beyond using our voices. And for people who don’t enjoy singing, this is what they’ve been waiting for!
THIS is an opportunity to show our communities how their varied gifts can be gifts of worship too, beyond those who are usually up front, and those who have the gift of music and singing.
We GET TO experience music in an entirely new way!
For those who love singing, you can learn a new way to worship with music and beyond!
Worship beyond singing will also give your music worship teams, of whatever flavor of music, an opportunity to just “be present” in worship, rather than working.
Here are five ways to use Music in worship beyond singing.
1. JUST LISTEN to a Song or Hymn. Print the words in the bulletin or post them on the screen. Allow people to listen to the music… use a recorded sound track withe words and music. JUST LISTENING… allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire. We too often don’t pay real attention to the words we sing and need time to hear.
2. SHARING WHAT WE HEARD: Part two of Listening to a song, hymn or worship set, would be to listen together and then have people share what they heard or noticed as they listened to the song. It’s like a Lectio Divina with music.
3. CREATE FROM THE SONG: Along with Listening to a song, hymn or worship set, have people draw or journal about what a song means to them. Or invite people to write a prayer or poem, or draw a picture as a worshipful response to the song or “worship set” you listen to in community. These pieces of art, poetry, etc can be shared instantly, or could be shared later on Facebook, Instagram or on your website.
4. CREATE A WORSHIP PLAYLIST: Have people in your community create a worship playlist you can share online or even in your worship gathering to go with the theme of your teaching/preaching series or with the themes in the lectionary. Have them pick three songs that reflect or express the theme to them… as the worship curator, it’s your job to select the playlists to share in the big group but all could be posted online for the community and others to enjoy and use in their own worship time.
5. MUSIC STORY TIME: Have people share a favorite hymn, worship song or other song that has meaning for them and have them share this song with the congregation. LISTEN to the song together and then have the person share why this song means something to them.
Part 2 HISTORY LESSON: Give them the history of the hymn or song. Doing a history lesson on a hymn even if your normal singing worship doesn’t include hymns. It’s great to know and understand more about our worshipping heritage.
You might notice that these things involve lots of participation! You can get people to bring in their own supplies, like clipboards or journals to use for writing, and bring in their own art supplies too so you don’t have to worry about cleaning things or spreading germs.
You will want to build a team and find someone who wants to be the worship curator to help coordinate this new way to worship if you or your worship music person doesn’t feel comfortable with doing this. The worship curator helps bring all the pieces together to create a beautiful painting of worship.
There are SO MANY other ways to worship beyond corporate singing. and beyond the music worship ideas above.
I’d love to help with you expand your worship and figure out what can work for your church in the middle of this crazy season. This is what I love to do, help people of all denominations and flavors move their worship beyond singing. Just contact me.
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
We are heading towards Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit being poured out on all people. But first Jesus has to ASCEND to heaven in order for us to receive the Gift of the Comforter! Ascension Day was officially yesterday (May 21st), but we most often celebrate the feast on the Sunday following. So as you look towards Sunday, and as we prepare for Pentecost on May 31st, 2020, let’s look first at how Jesus commissioned his disciples before he went back to the Father. Below you will find The Great Commission passage in Matthew 28 and some questions you can consider and journal from. Then I’ve given you some ideas to take us into ALL THE WORLD even though we cannot actually travel right now.
For a great look at the Ascension in Art, check out this wonderful blog Ad Imaginem Dei. Make sure you take a look at all four posts!
Before you start, consider a favorite place you’ve traveled. A place that has inspired you or been meaningful to you. Find a favorite photo of this place or a souvenir of this trip. Take time to remember the things that made that trip special. Thank Jesus for the time you had there. Ask Jesus to fill that place with his love and hope today! We did this as our thinplaceNASHVILLE gathering this week, so if you’d like to use it with your small group or community have everyone bring a photo or a souvenir to your zoom call and have them share about their special trip or place.
NOW read out loud or listen to these passages from Matthew. (lectio divina)
Matthew 28: 11-20 NIV
11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28: 11-20 THE MESSAGE
Meanwhile, the guards had scattered, but a few of them went into the city and told the high priests everything that had happened. They called a meeting of the religious leaders and came up with a plan: They took a large sum of money and gave it to the soldiers, bribing them to say, “His disciples came in the night and stole the body while we were sleeping.” They assured them, “If the governor hears about your sleeping on duty, we will make sure you don’t get blamed.” The soldiers took the bribe and did as they were told. That story, cooked up in the Jewish High Council, is still going around.
Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28: 11-20 THE PASSION TRANSLATION
11 After the women left the tomb, a few of the guards went into Jerusalem and told the chief priests everything they had seen and heard. So the chief priests called a meeting with all the religious leaders and came up with a plan. They bribed the guards with a large sum of money 13 and told them, “Tell everyone, ‘While we were asleep, his disciples came at night and stole his body!’ If Pilate finds out about this, don’t worry. We’ll make sure you don’t get blamed.” So they took the money and did as they were told. (That is why the story of the guards is still circulated among the Jews to this day.)
16 Meanwhile, the eleven disciples heard the wonderful news from the women and left for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. The moment they saw him, they worshiped him, but some still had lingering doubts.
18 Then Jesus came close to them and said, “All the authority of the universe has been given to me. Now go in my authority and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them to faithfully follow all that I have commanded you. And never forget that I am with you every day, even to the completion of this age.”
What is God’s Word for you today? What is God speaking to you about today? Use the psalm and/or the Gospel as your inspiration. Write, Journal, or create in Art, or Just BE with Jesus. Allow the Holy Spirit to inspire you! THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE JOURNALING….
What speaks to you today? What do you notice from the passage that you didn’t notice before?
1. The temple leaders couldn’t believe the truth of the situation. They couldn’t receive the gift of the resurrection. So, they bribe the soldiers, make up a story, and lie about the reality. What does this remind you of? Have you ever made up a story because you didn’t like the reality?
2. What makes it hard for you to believe and receive the truth about the resurrection?
3. Are you feeling like worshipping Jesus today? Or do you feel more doubtful today? What are some of your doubts or fears as you consider Jesus in the new world we live in today?
4. What does it mean to be a disciple?
5. Jesus invites us into a relationship with the Trinity…Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are not alone, we are not orphans. We are now a part of a community. And Jesus commissions us to include others in this community. How does this make you feel?
What does the TRINITY mean to you?
6. “Train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life”….How does this feel different from “make disciples of all nations”? Do you have any “baggage” around The Great Commission? Talk to Jesus about this.
“Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you.” What are the practices that Jesus commanded? What are the practices that we can learn and pass along to others as we include them in the community of following Jesus?
7. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” How does this make you feel? What is comforting about this?
HOMEWORK: GO INTO ALL NATIONS…since we cannot go anywhere much right now, let’s take time to pray!
Pick a country or two to pray for this week. Maybe it’s a place you’ve wanted to visit, or a place you’ve been to before that has won your heart. Pray for this country to know and experience more of God’s love and presence in the days ahead.
Do some research into how things are going there due to COVID19. Pray for specific needs. If you have friends in this place, pray for them. Besides the pandemic, pray for other things that the Holy Spirit highlights for you.
Watch a Youtube video or travel video/film on a country and imagine yourself there. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you new things about the people and culture. What do you notice? How can you pray more for this country ?
TAKE TIME TO PRAY for you neighborhood, your town, your state this week. Print out some pictures, watch a video, or find a website or instagram feed to help you pray with between now and Pentecost.
Ask Jesus to help you see Him in your neighbors.
main photo: Hans Suess von Kulmbach, Ascension
German, 1513
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Guest post by Mark Pierson,
I live in New Zealand, home of Hobbits, Zealong Tea Estate, and Jacinda the Magnificent. I started today (Day 7 of Level 2 Coronavirus Lockdown, the date of which I would write 21/05/20), with a cuppa.
In most of the English speaking world “cuppa” refers to having a cup of tea. It doesn’t need anything with it, but a biscuit would be appropriate. Again, in most of the English speaking world, a “biscuit” means a sweet, flat, often hard, unleavened piece of baking. Other parts of the world might call it a cookie. It’s not a scone. A cuppa and a biscuit is acceptable fare at any social interaction from smoko on a construction site to its precocious offspring – high tea. Which would have a scone. And cream, with jam.*
The quality, style and manner of use – or not – of cup, saucer and plate may vary wildly when having a cuppa, as may the tea itself – black, white, weak, strong, tea or tisane, leaves or bag – but the basic elements remain the same: tea and biscuit. Regardless of age, gender, background, social status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith, ability or lack of it; white collar, blue collar, dog-collar, no collar, a cuppa and a biscuit is your basic currency of community and connection where I live.*
If we ever needed more of anything in our world at the moment its community and connection. Johann Hari (Lost Connections) reckons the diminishing of both is the major cause of the tsunami of anxiety and depression that has swept over our world recently. I think he’s right.
A few years ago the people at the United Nations – no doubt over a cuppa, although the title would suggest something stronger – decided today would be the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. If they’d talked to Johann Hari we might have had the World Day for Cultural Connections for Dialogue and Development.
There’s nothing difficult about overcoming racism and bigotry, you just have to listen to someone who’s different to you (colour, faith, sexual orientation, gender, background, or education) tell you their story. With the emphasis on “listen” and “their”. Actually that is very difficult for most of us to do. In fact it’s pretty much impossible. Unless of course you are committed to following Jesus and letting his agenda become yours. And this only works because of who Jesus is: part of the trinitarian relationship that is the Christian God. His ascension from earth back into that heavenly kingdom means Jesus is God, God is accessible to us, and that God stands for us. This is especially true when we are doing our best to listen to the stories of others so we can be changed more and more into the likeness of Christ, who said that every person is made in the image of God. Every person. Every person.
Today is also the day we particularly remember the ascension of Jesus from earth to the heavens. That’s worth sitting down with a cuppa and a biscuit and thinking about as well.
Last year I served more than 1300 people cups of tea. Mostly at festivals and conferences, but also in churches and homes in NZ, Australia and the USA. I have a slightly formalised (some people would spell that with a zed or even a zee) way of doing it that involves telling some of the story of tea, and the customs associated with its drinking. Then I introduce people to some of the best teas in the world (Zealong Tea Estate) that happen to be grown in New Zealand, and we share cuppas and conversation for 45 minutes. I call it “Tea & Be”. It’s my response to the Ascension and the UN and Johann Hari.
Today is also International Tea Day. Those bureaucrats at the United Nations really like their tea. When I discovered there was no patron saint of tea drinkers (the Vatican prefers caffe crema) I anointed one and Francis Xavier of Goa became the patron saint of the International Guild of Tea Liturgists set up by a few friends who use tea in deliberate ways to bring people together, over a cuppa.
So today is a triple whammy offering me opportunity to think about making connections, having conversations, my prejudices, the flourishing and wholeness Jesus has made possible for me when I follow him, and to do that over a cup of tea – grown sustainably, harvested justly and traded fairly (as all Zealong teas are), perhaps even in conversation with someone who lives differently to me.
*How did you feel reading words and numerals that may have been used in a different way to what you are used to? Was your tendency to try to understand, skip over them, or not read this far!
BIO
Mark Pierson is a husband to one wife, father to four adult children, grandfather to four, and a pastor, writer (The Prodigal Project, The Art of Curating Worship: reshaping the role of worship leader), speaker, occasional blogger at markpierson.org.nz, curator of liminal spaces in public and church spaces, and tea drinker. You can connect with him or invite him to a virtual cup of tea here.
Photos by Mark Pierson, used with permission.
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