Finally, it has to be said that I don’t really like what I’ve prepared for tomorrow – and if you feel the same way I do, once you’ve read it, feel free to apply for the half time prison chaplains position we have going at the moment, so i don’t end up doing this again next year! Full service can be downloaded here: GoodFriday_MRC2014_final

What was it about Jesus
that was so confusing for governments
and for ordinary people?

Pilate couldn’t make sense of Jesus
and half the time we can’t either.

We want a God who comes in might and power to take all before him
and yet we get Jesus:
unmistakably human and vulnerable,
trouble-maker
peace-lover,
political subversive
always on the side of love, not power
human, even to the point of death.

We keep asking the question,
‘God, who are you?’
in the hope we’ll get a different answer.
And God just keeps coming back with this one.

And now we lay down the palm branches.
And with them we lay down
our belief
that there is another way for you to be God.

As the last echo of the final alleluia fades,
so does our hope that this journey can end
in any other way.

The week stretches ahead
glory-less
and pain-full

Whether we walk with all faith or none
we look towards the cross,
knowing it is both the most human
and most divine
of all journeys

travel the road with courage,
with love,
and with the uneasy peace that is the gift of faith
into this holiest of weeks.

Amen.

Easter in the prison went really well – beyond all expectations. We didn’t overthink it this year, and just let it unfold. It was beautiful. On holy saturday Jenny brought in platters of bread, cheese and grapes – we decided that we would celebrate god’s presence in our hell by having lunch together. One woman just sat looking at the food, she couldn’t bring herself to eat it, and after a while she whispered to those of us around her, ‘I think I’m in heaven’.

I had another of those conversations last week with someone who insinuated that we were doing something virtuous or sacrificial or brave by being in the prison over easter. Really, I’m not that generous – I do it because it makes sense of my world in a way that nothing else does.

I left the prison each day and went home to pack boxes, moving house the day after easter. The new place is gorgeous but currently internet free. It’s meant that I’ve started reading the newspaper again, instead of reading news on line – it feels like a reclaimed luxury, and like I know stuff again about the world! There was a great article hidden in yesterday’s paper about the fallacies of multi-tasking, particularly as it relates to creative, non-linear work. The article gave all the common sense reasons why multi-tasking is damaging: when we multi-task we ‘do by rote’, disabling our capacity to reflect and change what we do, which is of course the most critical part of double or triple loop learning; things take longer when we multi-task and we lose a sense of accomplishment when a task is finished because our mind groups all current tasks together. The kicker was the line that talked about how we all think we multi-task better than anyone else, but really we’re deluding ourselves… and worse, multi-tasking is addictive, feeding into our desire for constant stimulation.

I’d like to get back in the habit of uni-tasking. I’m going to ask myself, when i begin a task, whether it’s something that’s worth focussing on to the exclusion of all else, and if so i’ll create an environment of singular focus and non-stimulation in order to do that. I think that means I have to not be afraid of being bored. I also suspect it’s going to be much harder than i imagine…

We are here

because we’re people who have heard a rumour

that there’s life to be found on the other side of death.

We’re here because just the rumour is enough to bring
us hope

and just the hope is enough to bring us a moment of life.


We’re here because even though it is only a flicker,
a moment,
a breath

it’s changed our death forever.

Welcome to worship.

Prayer of confession
We confess, God
that we look for the living among the dead:
that we wish things would return to just how they were
rather than looking for where love might be alive now.

We confess that we don’t have the faith to believe
that life might come into our darkest hells.

We confess that it’s too dangerous to believe it.

Give us the faith to leave the death we know
and to search out the places
in the world
where life might be found.

Prayer for the world
Today we find ourselves in a world where the inevitable

no longer seems sure,
and we wonder what else is made possible

because of the resurrection:
what walls will be broken

and what darkness will be destroyed;
what death will be shown for what it is:

the possibility

for love

to come again.

You are invited to come and light a candle, and to say a prayer, either silently or out loud, for the world.
As you leave,
you might like to take a piece of cloth with you.

Blessing

Send us into the world, God
ready to encounter resurrection:
to point to love’s presence
to light another’s darkness
to speak your peace into the world’s pain.

and may we go as people who know there is another end to the story
and who will not live with fear anymore.

The grace…

when hope has died
when God is dead and buried.

They call this day holy
because we finally understand
what it is to be human
and what it is to be divine.

They call this day holy
because today we can finally believe
that God knows
intimately
and in the very depth of God’s being,
the world’s
grief
fragility
and fear.

We’re inviting the women to write some responses at each section of the service, which will be used for Holy Saturday with images of Pietas. One of the women, Tomy, is going to sing a song at the end of the service. The rest of the service goes like this:

Gathering

They call today Good Friday
but what could make this day good?

if you have ever believed that love inevitably leads to betrayal
this day says it doesn’t.
if you have ever believed that some people are unlovable, irredeemable
this day says they aren’t.
if you have ever believed that there is a limit to forgiveness
this day says there isn’t.
if you have ever believed you aren’t worth saving
this day says you are.
if you have ever believed that you don’t deserve freedom
this day says you do.
if you have ever believed that fear, anger, hate and despair will always win
this day says it won’t.
this day is good for you.

Welcome to worship

Hymn: O Sacred Head Sore Wounded
Introduction to the worship

1. Jesus before Pilate and Herod
Luke 23:1-12

It seems, even back then, that people wanted Jesus to do things
to satisfy their own desires:
to like the people they liked
to perform miracles on demand
to look after their own interests

But this is a story of how love doesn’t always do as we desire.

And this is a story of how God always takes the path of love.

Extinguish candle
Music: ‘By the rivers of Babylon’, Sinead O’Connor

What is the path of love you need to follow this easter?

2. Jesus is sentenced to death
Luke 23:13-25

It’s easy to condemn the crowd
for wanting Jesus dead,
to criticise their fickleness and stupidity

but if we’re honest
we put love on trial
all the time:

whenever we choose the easy way out
whenever we act selfishly or fearfully
whenever we take the path of least resistance
by denying what is good and holy
its right to live.

But even when our love fails, God’s love doesn’t.
And this is a story of how God always takes the path of love.

Extinguish candle

Where have you denied love the right to live?

3. The crucifixion of Jesus
Luke 23:26-43

Not much about this story makes sense.
Even though we know how it goes,
we still wish it would play out differently
that putting faith in God
might not lead to a cross.

we confess we wish that God were more judgmental towards those we find it hard to forgive
we confess we wish that love didn’t have this kind of cost
we confess we wish that God would simply step in and make everything better
we confess we wish that Jesus would stand up for himself and prove the truth about him.

And we confess that we excuse ourselves by saying ‘we’re only human’,
but this is the day Jesus shows us there is another way to be human.

This story tells us
that Jesus can only ever choose love
and that we are invited to also.

And this is the story of the path that God’s love takes.

Extinguish candle

What is the story you need to tell of God’s love?

4. The Death of Jesus
Luke 23:44-49

This is the moment when the darkness comes
there are no more words to say
because none can tell the story
of what has happened.

This is the moment when we have to acknowledge how hard faith is,
how difficult it is to live,
and how much it works against our instinct for self-preservation.

And this is the moment to celebrate the relentlessness of god
that follows love’s path
without failing or faltering
even when it leads to this end.

Music: ‘Outstretched Arms’, sung by Tomy

What is the story you need to tell of God’s love?

5. Jesus is buried
Luke 23:50-56

Sometimes we have to bury the dead
even when what has died is good
and lovely.

Sometimes we have to let hopes go
even when they are the very best we have known.

Sometimes we have to wrap them with the cloth of regrets and the blessing of our tears

we have to place them in a grave
and roll the stone across

If there is a hope you need to let go,
while the music plays,
come and take a piece of the white fabric
then place it onto the cross.

Music: ‘O God, where are you now?’

Extinguish candle

Hymn: When I survey the wondrous cross

Blessing:
Today is a day when all seems lost
When nothing about Jesus makes sense
unless we see it through the eyes of relentless, unlimited love.

Go with the courage to search out that love,
and to let it take you where it will.

And go in the uneasy and difficult peace of Good Friday

amen.

Today we find ourselves in a world where the inevitable
no longer seems sure,

and we wonder what else is made possible
because of the resurrection:

what walls will be broken
and what darkness will be destroyed;

what death will be shown for what it is:
the possibility
for love
to come again.

It confirmed for me that the way we work with hope – the language we use to invoke it, and the role we believe we play in offering it – is absolutely central to our understanding of faith. And how we understand hope isn’t determined by our alignment with a particular religion. The gift for me this morning was finding so much in common, in the struggle with these questions, with the Muslim and Buddhist chaplains. Not that our answers are the same – actually, perhaps it was the realisation that we had a lack of answers in common; that we liked each others’ determination to keep asking the questions.

But the blank faces from those who are in a different place – who are confused and bewildered by the fact that we haven’t worked this out yet, like they have, or sorted through the doubt – makes for a pretty exhausting time. I think they would say that doubt is good, but really only the kind of doubt that has faith at its core. I think I’m talking about something different. I have absolutely no concept of the being of God at all. None. But I’m absolutely, completely committed to the things that have always been attributed to God – the event of God, as John Caputo would say. Does make me faithful, or doubting? Who knows [and it was a rhetorical question anyway].

But I had a moment of insight at the end as to why talking about hell was so confronting for many of the women. One of the Muslim chaplains said ‘you’d think that if you were a Christian, being told that Jesus has broken the chains of hell would be something you’d like to hear’… and I realised that part of it is that the women don’t want all that is Good to be sullied by all that is Bad – that God will be made dirty by descending into our hell, and they need God to be pure; the place to escape to beyond our hell. Greg, one of the christian chaplains at the juvie said that he can’t play Nirvana in worship – the lads only want Hillsongs. Not because they believe Hillsongs theology, but because it’s so removed from their reality.

Not everyone has that reaction, of course. For every 10 people you get in prison, you’ll get 35 different theologies… which is about the same number as you do outside prison. And, in the end, when i wonder what the hell we were thinking trying this, I’m reminded of the woman who sat down next to me on Holy Saturday and started a conversation by saying ‘If God’s in my hell, then I guess it’s ok for me to tell you this…’

We’re going to talk about the easter stuff we did at the DPFC, and about the connection between art and spirituality – and in particular, the use of art and imagination to take us into transformative spaces.

We’re also going to look at the effect of doing that – what creating spaces that invite people into doubt, faith, hope and fear leads to.

[This is stream of consciousness, so it’s not edited or wrapped up nicely at the end! It’s also very, very long.]

The ‘When hope goes to hell’ space on Saturday was really interesting… The idea that God went to hell is most clearly stated in the Apostles Creed [especially its traditional versions], and it was a belief inherited from very early traditions, and from some interpretation of biblical passages. Psalm 139 gives a poetic version of the same concept. I guess the responses of the women was a microcosm of the community / church: some of the women got the idea instantly, and were right there with it. Some were horrified that we could say such a thing – that we could dare to mention the words God and hell in the same sentence, let alone put them in the same place. One woman was outright angry with me… then she came in the next day with her prayer book open to the Apostles Creed. ‘You were right’, she said. ‘Maybe’, I thought.

The women wrote prayers onto black card at the easter saturday vigil. The funny thing about the prayers was that we had the women writing with black on black so that no-one else would be able to read them. But they wanted them to be read… as I’d move around the room, they’d squint into the black card to find the outlines of their words and read out their prayer to me; by the end they were reading them out to each other. We sort of got this group prayer thing happening entirely by accident.

I feel my journey at times has meant nothing to anybody. That nobody hears my cries of anguish. That I am alone in this dreaded place called hell on earth. If God is in hell with me then he understands. Amen.

The Saturday afternoon was perhaps the most intensely theologically demanding that i can remember. Some of the women lost themselves in the art / meditations… for others there was too much prior stuff that needed to be sorted out before they could trust the process – too many questions that arose. Normally we have the luxury of talking about faith theoretically, and our questions have a buffer zone around them. They’re not life-threatening. But here, choices were being made about relationships, lifestyles and pleas in courtcases based on the conversations we were having. And none of these are simple moral choices – they are infinitely more nuanced and complex than that. I have to say, I don’t think I have the faith to do this. I think what we did only worked because it was framed in doubt – i can’t, with any honesty, write anything but out of doubt / disbelief – but it’s when people assume that there’s faith on the other side of it that I get overwhelmed with the responsibility.

Anyway, there were a lot of questions that came up – some of them asked into thin air, some of them that turned into conversations. We’re going to use them at tomorrow’s workshop – to discuss how we reframe the expression of our beliefs so that they actually contribute to a conversation about the questions that are asked; so that we create a shared conversation about faith rather than a forum with a religious expert offering the answers. For example, if we don’t believe in a physical manifestation of hell after death, how do we respond to the question ‘what actually happens in hell?’ in a way that provokes thought and interaction, rather than shutting down conversation. The real skill is in being comfortable enough with our own world view to be able to refocus a question…

These were the questions that arose on the Saturday. They weren’t just asking me, they were asking each other:

‘Who do you think is in hell?’
‘What did God do in hell?’
‘If we all go to heaven, will I need to be with the people who hate me after I die?’
‘If I can’t believe, will I go to hell?’

[learning number 1: belief in heaven and hell is entirely independent to belief in god… and the idea that there might not be a hell or heaven is inconceivable. there’s no prior question in this…
learning number 2: prison gives you too much time to ponder the existential questions of life
learning number 3: invoking the fear of hell is an evil motivator for faith]

‘what if it’s not true?’
[indeed. the great unanswerable question]

‘When i died, i just saw a white light. I reckon that means I’m going to heaven.’
[quite a few of the women have had NDE’s]

‘how do i know who i should trust to tell me what to believe?’
[too right.]

I think we imagined that the vigil would be the meditative part of the weekend – and it was in Protection where we controlled the space and time much more – but the transformative moment actually happened on the Sunday morning. This links back to the use of art and imagination. I think it was only possible because of the Saturday – that gave it an authenticity, perhaps, that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

On the Sunday, we started with Libera’s ‘Jubilate’, which is astonishingly beautiful, tear inducing… and it was like we all found ourselves in Rumi’s field beyond knowing… there was a moment where the questions were irrelevant, where belief itself didn’t matter. We just knew there was beauty somewhere; there was no desire to analyse or interpret it, we just wanted to lose ourselves in it… and after the service was over, when we were having a cup of tea, the women kept going back to the cd player to re-play that song…

I
I saw a slowly-stepping train —
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar —
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

II
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.

III
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
At times endowed with wings of glorious range.

IV
And this phantasmal variousness
Ever possessed it as they drew along:
Yet throughout all it symboled none the less
Potency vast and loving-kindness strong.

V
Almost before I knew I bent
Towards the moving columns without a word;
They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,
Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard: —

VI
‘O man-projected Figure, of late
Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
Whence came it we were tempted to create
One whom we can no longer keep alive?

VII
‘Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,
We gave him justice as the ages rolled,
Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,
And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.

VIII
‘And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed,

IX
‘Till, in Time’s stayless stealthy swing,
Uncompromising rude reality
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.

X
‘So, toward our myth’s oblivion,
Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.

XI
‘How sweet it was in years far hied
To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,
To lie down liegely at the eventide
And feel a blest assurance he was there!

XII
‘And who or what shall fill his place?
Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?’…

XIII
Some in the background then I saw,
Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
Who chimed as one: ‘This is figure is of straw,
This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!’

XIV
I could not prop their faith: and yet
Many I had known: with all I sympathized;
And though struck speechless, I did not forget
That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.

XV
Still, how to bear such loss I deemed
The insistent question for each animate mind,
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,

XVI
Whereof, to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
‘See you upon the horizon that small light —
Swelling somewhat?’ Each mourner shook his head.

XVII
And they composed a crowd of whom
Some were right good, and many nigh the best….
Thus dazed and puzzled ‘twixt the gleam and gloom
Mechanically I followed with the rest.