Dorothy Mary Daniell - May She Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory!

I needed to include this somewhere, so I thought I would blog it here, but below is the sermon I preached at the memorial service for Dorothy Daniell. The readings are from Romans 8:31-15, 37-end...

³²³³³⁴What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.^* Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

and St. John 14:1-6...

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe^* in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?^* And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’^* Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ^{3537383923456}

~~~

In the name of Jesus Christ, who carries our burdens, and gives us rest. Amen.

The Dorothy Daniell that we are here today to remember was in death as she was in life - gracious, graceful and generous. A slight frame belying a wisdom accumulated through a full and diverse life and a passion for people. Time spent with Dorothy was time well spent. It was time that was rewarding, sometimes challenging but always enriching.

Dorothy’s graciousness, gracefulness and generosity I believe, rose out of her quiet, still God-filled centre. It is that centre in others that she spent her life helping articulate, accept and respect whether in social work or psychotherapy and in friendship and relationship. She graciously listened like you were the only person in the world. She was graceful in her dress, her manner and her words were full of the grace and compassion of Christ. She was generous of herself, of her time and her talent, all arising from her trust in a God who was ‘for her’, to use Paul’s words, and for those with whom she spent her life working.

What can we say about the faith in God that lay at Dorothy’s centre? She trusted in a self-giving God - who shared His very self with us in Jesus Christ. Calling us into a life-changing love relationship through Him. She trusted in a God who justifies, who shows us to be worthy of love and respect, who does not judge or condemn us. She trusted in a God, who when we turn to Him, will never turn from us and from whose life transforming love will never be separated - not in hardship, persecution or distress. Dorothy, with us, will not even be separated from God’s love in life nor in death.

It is that quiet certain faith that was Dorothy’s centre and it is that same faith that calls to us as we celebrate her life today. ‘Do not be troubled’ says Jesus to His closest friends as they are confronted with the realisation of his imament death. ‘Continue to believe in God and all that you have seen and heard in me.’

‘Do not be troubled’ says Jesus to us as we are confronted with Dorothy’s death. Continue to believe in the same God she did. Continue to listen to and live out in your lives, all the things she saw and heard in her relationship with me.

I am in no doubt my friends that Jesus has prepared a place with Him, for her. How can I be sure? Because in her graciousness, gracefulness and generosity we met again and again a remarkable woman in every way. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a graciousness - the kindness and simple human courtesy that found a place in all of her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a gracefulness - the favour, the attention she showed you as you spent time in her company - true in all her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a generosity - the giving of herself in every way that found a place in all of her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God.

Dorothy’s faith was no intellectual exercise. It impacted her life and therefore ours whether we recognise it or not. As God made his way into our world in Jesus Christ, revealing the truth of God’s life transforming love for us, and offering each of us the chance to have our lives transformed by love - so He did also in Dorothy. We are not the same because of her and better for it thanks be to God!

With St. Paul I am sure that ‘...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord...’ Love we have come to know in Dorothy. Amen

Pain Killers and Hope Killers

I’m handing out pain killers tonight. You can take it if you want. You always have that option. But Advent asks you to wait just a minute, before you do, and consider this:

Painkillers don’t do what they say they are going to do. They might immediately mask the pain, but they don’t kill the pain. They numb our sense of the pain, but they don’t address the source of the pain. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t good reasons to numb your pain. And it seems like Advent brings a lot of these reasons to light.

Earlier we read in Isaiah about a time when everyone comes running to God to teach them how to live, about a time when the world forgets how to fight, a time when every tool to make war is repurposed into a tool to make food. And yet the present reality is that most of our children cannot remember a time when our country was not in two wars. The drastic disparity between what God promise for the future and what we experience now is hard to bear. And Advent seems to bring these differences out. So it makes sense that during the season of Advent we encounter so much pain-killing, like… excessive eating… excessive drinking… excessive shopping… excessive entertainment… the list goes on because your pain-killing is as unique as your pain. Making the connection is scary – but it could change everything.

Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the masses”, “Religion is the people’s pain killer.” And that is definitely one of the many shadow-sides of religion, but tonight Jesus is calling us out of our opiate stupor. Advent is the smelling salts of the masses; wakes you up to all that is around you, wake you up to all that is within you even if it hurts, because there is some pain that is linked directly to your hope and if you kill that pain, you kill your hope. Making the connection is scary – but it could change everything.

There are times when we feel so drugged, so groggy, so numb that we need something to surprise us into hope. The salvation of God always comes as a shock.

This year, you’ll know it’s Advent if there is desire awakened in you tonight. You’ll know it’s Advent if you face the possibility of becoming horribly disappointed, but you risk to hope anyways. You’ll know it’s Advent if you are beginning to feel the discomfort of reality and you know that you were meant for more. You always have the option of taking a pain-killer, but this year Advent is asking you to wait, confront your pain, and be shocked by the closeness of your God.

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This post featured originally on Christine Sine's excellent Godspace blog

I see Dead People

This very famous scene comes from M. Night Shyamalan's excellent film 'The Sixth Sense' but personally I can empathise with Haley Joel Osment's character, Cole Sear. At the moment I feel like I see dead people.

This feeling has much to do with a significant number of requests to minister to the dead and dying in recent weeks.

This blog post is not an opportunity to bemoan that ministry, for it is all too rare a privilege. Nor is this an opportunity to comment on the cost of that ministry on me personally, even though there is one but it is nothing compared to the cost of being a grieving relative in the first place.
Death is one of the things that Christians have traditionally meditated on during this holy season of Advent, along with Heaven, Hell and Judgment. Advent is, in the context of Christ's longed for coming amongst us and promised return, an opportunity to prepare ourselves for a holy death.

Death though is something that as a society, we try to avoid. Everything from extreme dieting, through rigorous exercise, plastic surgery and even anti-wrinkle face creams are all, at various levels, forms of coffin dodging, of death avoidance. Death more often than not no longer happens at home, but in hospital, the funeral no longer in the local church but in an out of town crem. Funeral services are no longer simply 'The Burial of the Dead' but 'Thanksgivings' and 'Celebrations.'

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was…

These words were written by Henry Scott Holland when he was a Canon of St Paul’s cathedral. But they weren’t written as a poem, these words were part of a sermon. Scott Holland fashions these words to encapsulate one response to death, a response which often comes in the immediate wake of a death but which swiftly evaporates. Alongside this response to death he expressed another view,

Death ‘makes all we do here meaningless and empty…. It is the cruel ambush into which we are snared... It is the pit of destruction. It wrecks, it defeats, it shatters It makes its horrible breach in our gladness with careless and inhuman disregard of us. We get no consideration from it. Often and often it stumbles in like an evil mischance, like a feckless misfortune. Its shadow falls across our natural sunlight, and we are swept off into some black abyss. There is no light or hope in the grave; there is no reason to be wrung out of it.’

Though from the same Scott Holland sermon, this extract is not read at funerals.

But death for the Christian is neither ‘nothing at all’ nor is there ‘no light or hope in the grave.'

Paul writes in Rom 6:23 '...the wages of sin is death'. Death is a serious thing, it is not a trivial or illusory as the first scenario from Scott Holland suggests. But Paul’s verse continues ‘...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord...' Therefore the second scenario from Scott Holland is also wide of the mark. For us as Christians therefore we can own on the one hand the seriousness of death, but also to our hope that it does not have the final word; hence Paul can taunt death, I Cor 15:55 '...Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O grave, is your sting?'

And yet the words 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust', part of the committal prayer, can so often sting. For whilst we rejoice as Christians in the knowledge that death itself is conquered by Christ's own death and resurrection, the reality that the person we have known and loved will be with us no longer is the harshest of realities, it is something.

Jesus knew this. 'Father if it is possible for this cup to pass from me...' Jesus didn't want to face what he ultimately willingly chose in the Garden of Gethsemene and turned his face to Jerusalem and his crucifixion. Confronted with the death of his great friend Lazarus '... Jesus wept...'

Death is nothing at all? No, death is something. God knows. This priest feels surrounded by death and dying at the moment. I see dead and dying people.

Advent reminds us that in a sense we all see dead people.

We are all made from dust and ash - from the ground, from the elements around us. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, reminds us of our mortality and failing and gives us permission to cry out to God for redemption, salvation and change.

God's Messiah comes to be enfleshed in dust and ashes with us, calling us to be transformed into glory.

Advent reminds us of our mortality, to prepare for our death's well and to long for God's transforming glory in our midst.

The Gospel for Christmas Shoppers

I dislike Christmas shopping. I don't dislike the thought that goes into choosing a present for someone I love. What I find hard is that you are all there when I want to go and buy it!

God offers us good news good news from Isaiah's prophecy (Is. 35:3&4)...

'...Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, do not fear!...'

In this season of goodwill, I am rejoicing that whilst our wallets might get exercised, our hands might get tired from bag carrying, God's all transforming love promises to transform the landscapes of our lives - even in the mayhem of Christmas shopping.

Perhaps that same good news is better expressed or demonstrated another way...

Christmas Can [Still] Change the World

The story of Christ's birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.

So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.

And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? Go to the Advent Conspiracy website to take part

Advent encourages me to believe that love will appear where the need is greatest

Dave Perry writes, '...With temperatures down to -16C our snow-bound village has been blessed with a spectacular display of frost. One sight in particular caused me to stop and think, an image which quite unexpectedly visualised my expectation of Advent and the Christmas season.

I came upon a barbed wire fence adorned along its entire length with a translucent fringe of delicate ice crystals. It was as though a decorative strip of tinsel had been unwound and very gently and deliberately put in place to counter the barbs with beauty. And what beauty.

The frost was growing by the hour, and to me it had the quality of a determined and irresistible protest at that which is designed to harm. Materialising out of thin air, the frost made visible the front line of love's work. Where else would I expect love to be if not where life's barbs are the sharpest and its boundaries the cruelest and most intransigent?

Where the tools and techniques of violence and oppression separate us from each other, where hatred divides and the innocent are denied freedom, that is where love materialises. Advent tells me this is so.

And so in the frosty miracle of love's incarnation in Bethlehem, God's crystal clear protest at all that bedevils and belittles the beauty of our humanity is made manifest for all to see. Such translucent grace makes a mockery of our barbed wire world. It encourages us to believe that love will always appear where the need is greatest...'

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From Dave Perry's moving and enlightening Visual Theology blog...

Arvo Pärt - Magnificat Antiphons

I have already blogged on the importance of the Advent Antiphons this year already. I love this setting by Arvo Part. They move me. I hope they move you too. Last year, I wrote about the Antiphons and said...

From at least the eighth century the antiphon before and after the Magnificat at Vespers (Evening Prayer), for the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve, has greeted Christ with a title starting with “O”. These became the basis of the popular carol “O come, O come, Emmanuel” (see below). The initials, when read backwards, form the Latin “Ero Cras” which means “Tomorrow I come.”

They are now also used, in shorted form, in the Alleluia verses before the days’ Gospel readings.

Here are reflections and musical settings (sung by the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford) for these wonderful antiphons that you can use day by day until Christmas Eve:

O Sapientia – O Wisdom – 17 December
O Adonai – O Lord of might – 18 December
O Radix Jesse – O Root of Jesse – December 19
O Clavis David – O Key of David – December 20
O Oriens – O Dawn – December 21
O Rex Gentium – O sovereign of the nations – December 22
O Emmanuel – December 23

There is also a really good resource of reflections on these antiphons, the 'jewels of the church' here.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.