Available Light

Forty or so years ago I committed myself to Jesus Christ. A glittery eyed young man led me through the sinner's prayer, in which I acknowledged that pretty much everything I had tried, up to that point, by way of making myself what I hoped I might be had been a bit of a flop, so I acknowledged that and asked God to take over. Since that moment, in the back room of the Assembly of God church in Lower Hutt, a lot has happened. I have been Vicar of 5 parishes, accumulated a few degrees and a roomful of books and become a father and grandfather. I've travelled the world and I've accumulated all manner of nicely framed certificates attesting to other people's confidence that I know some stuff. But really, in all that accomplishment, the one thing I have been trying to do, in everything I've done since that Sunday evening, has been attempting to live up to that commitment.  It is so simple and so hard because I am human. The experiences which have formed me, the ide...

Song: My Love Came Through The City My love came through the city And they did not know him With his beard and his eyes and his gentle hands For he was a working man My love stood on the lakeshore And spoke to the people there And the fish in the water forgot to swim And the birds were quiet in the air. ‘Truth’ - he said, and - ‘Love’ - he said, But his purest word was - ‘Mercy’ - And the fishermen left their boats and came To share his poverty. My love was taken before the judge And they nailed him on a tree With his strong face and his long brown hair And the whiteness of his body. ‘Truth’ - he said, and - ‘Love’ - he said, But his purest word was - ‘Mercy’ - And the blood ran down and the sun grew dark For the lack of his company. My love was only a working man And now he is God on high; I have left my books and my bed and my house, To follow him till I die. ‘Truth’ - he said, and - ‘Love’ - he said, But his purest word was - ‘Mercy’ - Flower...

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar. Psalm 69:21 Our words come back to haunt us. Even for Jesus. One day, walking through Samaria he met a woman, an outcast, sitting by the well outside of the village to which she both belonged and did not belong. He told her that whoever drank the water that he had to give would never be thirsty. And now, a few years later, an outcast himself, nailed to a cross outside the city to which he both belonged and did not belong he cries "I am thirsty. " For me this is the bleakest moment in a bleak event. This is the time when Jesus doubts everything he has taught and everything he has done. This is, after all that has been heaped on him, his moment of utter desolation and weakness. Here is the ending of all plans and all ambitions. And here's another irony: at the last supper Jesus says, or so Luke tells us, that he will never drink of the fruit of the vine again until the Kingdom of God co...

All religions, the old wisdom has it, are fingers pointing to the moon. They are not the moon itself. Which must always be so, if you take God seriously. Think of this universe, huge beyond comprehension and ingenious and elegant in its construction, and then try to comprehend the will which brought it into being and holds it there. An oyster sits in the mud on Doctor's Point. 20,000 feet above it, an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 flies overhead with five crew and 150 passengers on board. The oyster has as much chance of understanding the workings of that plane and the intentions, desires, dreams and memories of all on board as we have of understanding God. Our scriptures recognise this. When Moses has his epiphany at the burning bush, God is revealed as "I Am what I AM". The first four commandments are about loving God only, not trying to make images of God and not trying to name God. The Hebrew tradition was that the name of God was unutterable, that is,  it is im...

This video clip is from the wonderful and beautiful movie, Human . This short (3 1/2 minute) interview is a moving testimony to the transforming power of forgiveness and love. It is a living example of resurrection. Murder, such as this young man committed and such as Jesus suffered, has effects which extend far beyond the taking of a human life. Murder destroys the relationships of those who are left. It heaps up an seemingly unresolvable pile of guilt, anger, frustration and bewilderment on those who are left: the relatives and friends of the murdered and the murderer. Of all griefs, the death of your own child is the hardest to bear. Of all griefs over children, that for a murdered child is perhaps hardest of all. Which makes the actions of Agnes, whatever they were, all the more remarkable and all the more profound. And on the cross, Jesus works, even as his life is dripping away, to lessen that grief for those he loved most dearly, his mother and his friend. H...

Copyright unknown. Not mine anyway Clemency has a particularly womanly  metaphor for what happens after death. She compares it to a baby in the womb. Inside the womb the baby lives in a tiny all sufficient world. It is dark, warm and comfortable and all needs are met. Occasionally some hints of another, larger world drift in: there is perhaps music or the sound of voices or unusual movement, but the baby has no idea of what awaits after birth. While it is ignorant of all the things - people, air, sun, moon, tastes, colours, smells - which make up this new world, it is ignorant also of the basic principles and concepts -light, dark, up, down, hot, cold, painful, pleasurable - which it will need to make sense of  what lies outside. The baby is born into a new world which is beyond any comprehension and which is unimaginably bigger and more real than the tiny confined space of the womb. And the little world of the womb is seen to be not opposed to this bigger world, but actu...

This video clip is of a young man, a father and husband, whose wife was murdered by extremists in the Bataclan attack in Paris. It is searing, courageous, profoundly moving. And it captures exactly what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not about minimising evil. It isn't pretending that the wrongs done somehow don't matter or that the perpetrators can avoid the inevitable consequences of their actions. Forgiveness is the hard, brave, powerful decision not to let yourself be defined by the wickedness of others. Jesus lay with his lacerated back on splintered wood and watched as a drunk Roman Legionary with one hand held a nail against his wrist and with the other swung a mallet. In this moment of fear and pain he chose not darkness and anger, but the light which had guided his young life to this point: Light which would in only three days be shown to have triumphed over the darkness which sought so brutally to overcome it.