Lent: Humanity

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace.  Ephesians 2:15

Supper at Emmaus, Jacob Jordaens

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”’ Then they remembered his words. (Luke 24:1-8)

Relating is at the heart of what is redemptive, and what may bring about the transformation of the world. Mary Grey

A disturbing shift

Rowan Williams comments of the resurrection that it is the ordinariness that is so unsettling. 

'The Jesus who belongs with God, is disturbingly like meeting any human being - disturbingly, because the shift of perspective which recognition and confession involve is that much more drastic....to meet an exalted, apotheosized (deified, glorified, idealised) human being in vision like the first chapter of the Apocalypse makes some kind of sense; but to meet him on a road or around a table is far more bewildering....The risen Jesus is 'going up' to the Father, yet without simply sloughing off the human condition.'

Jesus continues to touch and be touched, to eat and to talk, in short to be human and to underline and enable ongoing yet transformed human relating. He gathers up and into himself inner and outer, differences and contrasts, reconciling the marginal and the fundamental in one broken and risen body.

Andrew Hook

Lent: Mother

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.
Shadows, D H Lawrence

Pieta, Giovanni Bellini

Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb. Matthew 27:59-61

Divinity had embraced the fullness of human life, its weaknesses, its weariness, its suffering, besides sharing its joys and keeping obedience even to death. Raymond Chapman, Stations of the Cross

A full stop

Knowing how the Passion narrative pans out is an obstacle to empathising with Jesus's followers at this time.  They are not spared the emptiness of loss or witnessing the cruelties of a shameful and painful death of a loved one. The lifeless body of Jesus is here laid out across a loving and forlorn lap.  It signals a full stop, an end, beyond which no amount of the disciples' imagination could pass.  For us, what does this once leaden body signify? 

Being present to grief

Kathe Kollwitz, a German artist and sculptor, painted a picture of the dead Christ in the arms of his mother.  Tragedy, war and loss were recurring themes for her, and her work often featured a grief stricken mother with her dead son.  She lost her 18 year old boy Peter on the Belgian front after the outbreak of the First World War.  The last time she visited her 'Mother' sculpture, a memorial to the fallen, she said of facing her: ' I stood before the woman, looked at her—my own face—and I wept and stroked her cheeks.'

Maybe Jesus here offers us, through his limp body, space for our grief, acknowledging and encouraging the need to be present to it.

Lent: A thief

I promise you that today you will be with me in paradise.

Good thief, Untraced

Two criminals were led out to be put to death with Jesus.   When the soldiers came to the place called “The Skull”, they nailed Jesus to a cross.  They also nailed the two criminals to crosses, one on each side of Jesus. Jesus said, “Father, forgive these people!  They don’t know what they’re doing.”

While the crowd stood there watching Jesus, the soldiers gambled for his clothes.  The leaders insulted him by saying, “He saved others.  Now he should save himself, if he really is God’s chosen Messiah!” The soldiers made fun of Jesus and brought him some wine.  They said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”  Above him was a sign that said, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals hanging there also insulted Jesus by saying, “Aren’t you the Messiah! Save yourself and save us!” But the other criminals told the first one off, “Don’t you fear God?  Aren’t you getting the same punishment as this man?  We god what was coming to us, but he didn’t do anything wrong.  Then he said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into power!” Jesus replied, “I promise you that today you will be with me in paradise.”

I've got one

The thief on the cross; surely here is a man on the margins of good society, a thief and a convicted one at that.  Jesus seems to encounter almost all walks of life in this incredible evening, a king, the ‘rulers’ or religious leaders of Israel, the Roman governor, soldiers, the ordinary people, they all without exception reject and mock him.   Even his friends are mostly too afraid to show themselves; one has actively betrayed him and has denied knowing him.  Where are those he has helped, healed and saved in so many ways?  

Even the man next to him on the cross weighs in (I am not sure I can blame him, if someone had just stuck nails into my hands and feet and I was dying in agony I am not sure I would be in a great mood either).   I feel that the other man on the cross is like God’s grace to Jesus in this most terrible of moments, here is Jesus come to save the whole world, rejected completely, but he gets one, this one man defends him and asks him for favour, asks to be saved.   Furthermore, that pattern is repeated, it not the great and ‘good’ who see their need and ask for help, all they see is a man caught and defeated.   It takes this desperate man to see the truth, the difference between himself and Jesus.   The thief, dying, sinful, needy, sees hope in Jesus.  As Jesus, the unnoticed and unrecognised Lord and Saviour, dies he gets to offer salvation to one person.   

Just Ask

Do we really need it to get this bad before we can see what Jesus has to offer us?   Does it take someone this lost to show us all that Jesus has for us?   Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, just ask.  Ask and I will give you water that never runs out.   The others, Pilate, Herod, the priests thought they did not need Jesus, that he had nothing to offer them.   If they could have seen him like this thief did they would have gone down on their knees and begged him to share with them what he had to give.

What is Jesus offering us at this time?   What is he longing to share with us if only we would ask it of him?

Kirsty Hook

Lent: Simon of Cyrene

Simon from Cyrene happened to be coming in from a farm, and they forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. Mark 15

Stations of the cross, Maria Jeutendorf, Austria. Photograph by Herzi Pinki

Pilate wanted to please the crowd.  So he set Barabbas free.  Then he ordered his soldiers to beat Jesus with a whip and nail him to a cross. The soldiers led Jesus inside the courtyard of the fortress and called together the rest of the troops.  They put a purple robe on him, and on his head they placed a crown that they had made out of thorn branches.  The made fun of Jesus and shouted, “Hey, you king of the Jews!”  Then they beat him on the head with a stick. They spat on him and knelt down and pretended to worship him. When the soldiers had finished making fun of Jesus, they took off the purple robe.  They put his own clothes back on him and led him off to be nailed to a cross.  Simon from Cyrene happened to be coming in from a farm, and they forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.   Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Mark 15

As Jesus was being lead away, some soldiers grabbed hold of a man from Cyrene named Simon. He was coming in from the fields, but they put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.  A large crowd followed Jesus, and in the crowd a lot of women were crying and weeping for him. Luke 23

A surprised and chief witness

Simon.  Two lines in Mark and two in Luke.  Just a couple of lines but he stands out to me quite vividly.  He had just come in from a farm.  Someone from the country, come in on his own business, maybe quite unaware of the events unfolding.  He is suddenly caught up in this most terrible of moments.  Jesus whipped, beaten, humiliated, bleeding and broken being dragged through the streets, crowds shouting, women weeping and wailing.  What a noise, what a huge scene!  Imagine being suddenly thrown into that.  Following Jesus through the streets, carrying the instrument of his coming execution; what was going on in his head?  Maybe he is the witness we have to these moments, maybe it is his testimony afterwards that describes what that was like, recounted Jesus conversation with the weeping women - after all the writer knows his name, even knows the name of his children.  One likes to think he became a believer.  He shared some of this terrible journey with Jesus, maybe that was a comfort to Jesus.

It is moments like these that so draws me to the gospel stories; vivid, personal, real people, ordinary people and extra ordinary moments. 

Questions

Whose lives do we touch?   From the margins Simon is flung into Jesus’s orbit.  Like Forrest Gump he is caught up in a major world event and we, through his eyes, become privy to it.  Unexpected and difficult encounters may change us.  Suffering that we do not want to encounter, share in, can sometimes transform us. We may not always want to be swept up in another person’s story, protect ourselves from its despair and ‘gore’.  Yet it happens, maybe despite us, and the ordinary moment is carried into an extraordinary narrative, which we recall and marvel at.

Kirsty Hook

Lent: Herod

Men here have short attention spans.
They see something sparkly and they're off.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, TV Show

Closed eyes, Odilon Redon

For a long time Herod had wanted to see Jesus and was very happy because he finally had this chance. He had heard many things about Jesus and hoped to see him work a miracle. Herod asked him a lot of questions, but Jesus did not answer. Then the chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses stood up and accused him of all kinds of bad things. Herod and his soldiers made fun of Jesus and insulted him. They put a fine robe on him and sent him back to Pilate.  That same day Herod and Pilate became friends, even though they had been enemies before this. Luke 23:8-12

Eyes wide open?

This Herod (‘the tetrarch’ or Antipas), is one of the clutch of sons born to Herod the Great.  The father was given the title ‘king of the Jews’ by the Romans, deceived the Magi and ordered the slaughter of Bethlehem’s infants.  His death signals the return from Egypt of Mary and Joseph (Matthew 2).  Antipas it was who was denounced by John the Baptist for his marital misdealings yet who also loved to hear him, ‘Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him’  His wide eyes are open.  Finally through the seduction of a single dance he has John beheaded, on a whim, a man whom he liked.  On hearing the news we read that Jesus ‘withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place’.  

The pattern is repeated here.  How quickly personal interest and fascination is allowed to be swatted away. The seed falls on rocky ground.  Herod, were you one who was ever hearing but never understanding; ever seeing but never perceiving?  Then the chief priest stands up and away we slide. A new an unforeseen alliance forms, sweeping away the vestiges of a spiritual hunger.  Herod, are you Pharoah, who closed his heart to this Moses? 

The eager and scrupulous Antipas gets his chance to hear Jesus for himself, he’s wondered whether this is John come alive again.  Oh, a sparkly thing.  What a mix is this man!  He is a walking parable – the sower, the builder on sand and rock, etc.  He asks Jesus a lot of questions.  Jesus replies to none of them, a harsh and cold response?  He has already referred to Antipas as ‘that fox’. Does Jesus see into Antipas’s , his motivation?  It was said of Jesus that he ‘knew what was in their hearts, and he would not let them have power over him. No one had to tell him what people were like. He already knew.’ (Matthew 2:24).  Herod insults Jesus and refuses him.  He closes his eyes.

The stirred heart as leader

Was Herod on an inner journey?  Did he follow the inner thread, or value it?  There was something to follow, a stirring and an curiosity that drew him.  Is the heart often marginalised?  Is instinct and the drawing of the soul to be a profound leader in our time?  What do we follow? 

How seriously do I take the stirring in my heart?  How much does that/might that then inform my outer journey, my actions, my decisions, my speech?  Richard Rohr says that the inner journey sustains the outer journey.  Maybe we can say more, that it directs it one way or another, like the tongue or the rudder of a boat. Jesus said ‘What comes from your heart is what makes you unclean. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness.’ 

The heart then is to be heard and not marginalised, the inner journey has outer consequences.

Lent: Disciples

I know a man of such
mildness and kindness it is trying to
change my life.
Mary Oliver, Thirst

Jesus washes Peter’s feet, 1876, Ford Madox Brown

Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him...Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  John 13: 5,14

Turning the world upside down

The sight of the Word of God, the Son of God, washing his disciples feet, his friends, might render us speechless and our knees compromised.  This, we sense, is no empty, self-aggrandizing gesture but one intended to turn the disciples' world upside down.  Jesus gently sets about untangling the mess of hierarchy and worthiness issues by a posture.  This one gesture speaks volumes for his designs on human relations.

Imagine yourself in the disciple's place; both having your feet washed but seeing Jesus wash your colleagues, family and friends feet too.  How does it feel and what thoughts are thrown up by his action?

Lent: A leper

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Leo Buscagli

Emil Nolde, 1926

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.  Mark 1:40-42

"Jesus always seeks to restore the social wholeness denied to the sick/impure by the symbolic order.  That is why his healing of the sick/impure is virtually interchangeable with his social intercourse with them."  Ched Myers

Turning a life around

The shocking approach by the leper is topped by the even more shocking touch of him by Jesus.  It rendered him contaminated.  In Walter Wink's words Jesus regarded 'holiness/wholeness as contagious'.  Jesus crosses a dark and menacing threshold.  His indignation is directed at the social exclusion meted out by society and by extension through the religious laws and authorities to God himself. His systematic inclusion of the sick and the impure is almost exhaustive; the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb, women, tax collectors and prostitutes.  He recognises both the depth of self-doubt and guilt perpetrated  and the sheer weight of corporate, community and societal pressure.

I have seen what you want;
it is there, a Beloved of infinite tenderness.

- Saint Catherine of Siena

Jesus gets to work and heals.  His cradling of the figure's head underlines the ongoing nature of his care, of his inclusion, and of changing people's perceptions of God.

In what context do I feel an outcast, don't fit?  Where has that gone for me?  What would Jesus's movement towards me be?

Lent: Jerusalem

Tell me what it means to you to call him Lord.
Anthony de Mello

Christ's entry into Jerusalem, Hippolyte Flandrin, 1842

Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”  Matthew 21:5

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Matthew 23:37

“It is amazing to me that the cross or crucifix became the central Christian logo, when its rather obvious message of inevitable suffering is aggressively disbelieved in most Christian countries, individuals, and churches. We are clearly into ascent, achievement, and accumulation. “ Richard Rohr, CAC 30 March 2020

Refused icons

How about this image? A fully grown man, a gentle man (arguably not only gentle) presenting himself thus. Maybe this icon, like the cross has suffered disbelief. Of the beatitudes G.K. Chesterton wrote: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

Both icons are still accurate of the divine nature and message. Today, on this Palm Sunday, allow this Jesus a way in, to affirm, to relax, to cheer you.

Lent: An army officer

There's no accounting for happiness,...
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.

Jane Kenyon

Roman soldiers

Matthew 8: 5-13

Many people will come from everywhere to enjoy the feast in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Matthew 8 v.11)

Many and everywhere

You get used to thinking of few and not of many, of somewhere as opposed to everywhere. These words then are a jolt, if the pace or our reading slows enough to register the words.  The terms ‘elect’ and ‘remnant are common formative currency.  Maybe they act in the same way that cold water splashed on your face brings you round.   Many are called and few are chosen says Jesus in his parable of the wedding banquet.

An accessible reality

Let’s for a moment dwell on the many and the everywhere.  Here an example is given to us, an army officer, a fighting Roman soldier, not a Jew.  He knows something, has received something and it is attested to by Jesus.  The truth that those outside of the faith can and do walk with, and into, a gradually widening revelation of the Divine may elicit surprise or suspicion, but also, surely, hope.  Wisdom and general revelation is offered by a generous and ‘worldly’ God.   The openness of the kingdom along with its earthy origins, ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ combine to describe an accessible, personable and immediate reality. 

I wonder

I wonder how many of those on the edges of, and beyond, our faith communities are actually of faith and whether their authenticity is attested to and deepened by contact with those of us within faith communities.

Lent: Children

I'm hurt all the time.
I don't want to cry for the way I feel inside.
I just want someone to hold me...
I'm alone in the dark, please try to find me.
Chula

What does it mean to ‘accept God’s kingdom the way a child does?’

We begin our life before birth in union with our mother’s body: her lifeblood keeps us alive.
When we are born, that same sense of oneness or unity usually continues with the people around us who provide for our basic human needs.  There are no boundaries: all is taken and held as it is and the infant lives almost entirely in the present moment without regret for the past or fear of the future.  However, too soon, boundaries get established and our understanding of the world around us gets divided up and separated out into good or bad, right or wrong, male or female, rich or poor, worthy or unworthy.  But one day, we might emerge from Plato’s cave, and 'become awake' to the false reality of illusory boundaries and begin the long journey ‘back home’ into that original whole ness.  It is the place where there is an integration of the self within together with integrity with the outer world;  where there is a ‘heart-knowing’ that we are all connected and everything and everyone belongs; where the Kingdom of Heaven is now, on this earth amongst these people.

But what about the children on the margins of society?

Is the relative ease or difficulty of that journey ' back home' somehow related to the way in which one was nurtured in wholeness as a child i.e., allowed to simply ‘be a child’ and made to feel worthy with a sense of belonging?  What about the children who have been born into families where addictions, abuse and violence have been a part of their daily life since they were born? What about the child soldiers and the street children? What does ‘back home’ look like for them?

As a former member of the Children’s Panel in West Lothian and a volunteer at a residential school for children with complex emotional and behavioural needs, the vulnerable children I have encountered are often the outcasts in our society.  For a variety of reasons, their parents might have been unable to nurture them, to provide for their wellbeing or to protect them from emotional abuse and/or physical violence.  For some, a series of foster careers were subsequently unable to manage their difficult behaviour and the schools were unable to cope with them.  Outwardly, they have often been labelled ‘trouble-makers’ and excluded from society. But inwardly, they might feel rejected, unworthy or uncared about; 'unconditional love' has never been part of their vocabulary and ‘belonging’ is something they might never have experienced.   Who will accompany them on their painful and difficult journey when ‘home’ is synonymous with suffering? Who will pick up the pieces along the way? What will we do when we meet them on our own journey ‘back home’? Will we hold their hand?

Nancy Adams

Lent: Fishermen

As Jesus was walking along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were fishermen and were casting their nets into the lake. Jesus said to them, “Come with me! I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish.” Right then the two brothers dropped their nets and went with him. Jesus walked on and soon saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat, mending their nets.  At once Jesus asked them to come with him. They left their father in the boat with the hired workers and went with him.  Mark 1

Getting on with our lives

Jesus spent most of his life and ministry in the same small area, travelling up and down the same roads, from Galilee to Jerusalem.  The creator of the universe, walked dusty roads, visited small fishing villages, used the ordinary things of life, seeds, farming, fields, to explain mysteries ‘hidden from the beginning of time’   His audience – anyone.  

I love this story of Jesus walking up to Peter and Andrew, busy with their nets, and saying ‘Come with me’.    We can all summon up a picture of these fishermen, busy, getting on with their lives.   And Jesus interrupts, calls, invites with ‘Come’.  It is not like they never fished again, but they were never the same again.  See the end of the gospels, Jesus has died, been seen, no one really knows what is going on and Peter says, ‘I’m going fishing’ and he encounters the glorious risen Lord, cooking fish on the beach.   In his confusion and loss he returned to what he knew, fishing, and there God met him.

Kirsty Hook

Lent: What matters?

A Pharisee invited Jesus to have dinner with him. So Jesus went to the Pharisee’s home and got ready to eat.  When a sinful woman in that town found out that Jesus was there, she bought an expensive bottle of perfume. Then she came and stood behind Jesus. She cried and started washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. The woman kissed his feet and poured the perfume on them...

He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Have you noticed this woman? When I came into your home, you didn’t give me any water so I could wash my feet. But she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You didn’t even pour olive oil on my head, but she has poured expensive perfume on my feet. So I tell you that all her sins are forgiven, and that is why she has shown great love. But anyone who has been forgiven for only a little will show only a little love.”...But Jesus told the woman, “Because of your faith, you are now saved. May God give you peace!”  Luke 7:36-50

Jesus adds an observation

I don’t know about you but there are certain bits of scripture that haunt me.  And here is one and it’s not about my inability to assess the appropriate amount of anti-deodorant to use. A stark contrast is drawn by Jesus here, though as a non-judgmental observation, I think.  She has washed and dried and kissed me.  You have been distracted and thoughtless.

This woman exhibits both directness and transparency.  It reminds me of children, of the uncluttered nature of kicking a football round a pitch, and of the immediacy that the vulnerable and the vulnerable moment can draw you into; that this is all there is, under my nose, here and now, in this present moment.  The quality of recent encounters reminded me of working in a hostel for single homeless men some years ago.  There was wariness on my part, some fear perhaps, but the overriding sensation was of being extremely present and being so very much alive, much of this was due to the raw directness and the simplicity that I encountered.

What really matters?

To what extent am I skimming the surface of (my) life, fumbling round its perimeter?  Have I touched any depths of late like this sinfulwoman, or am I just ticking off to-do lists?  I think the haunting is not so much about passion versus lukewarmness (or less so) as much as it is about seeing clearly what really matters to us.

Andrew Hook

Lent: Faith for geeks

Jesus left Judea and started for Galilee again. This time he had to go through Samaria, and on his way he came to the town of Sychar .Jesus sat down... because he was tired from travelling. It was noon, and after Jesus' disciples had gone into town to buy some food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her, “Would you please give me a drink of water?”

“You are a Jew,” she replied, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won’t have anything to do with each other?” (John 4:3-9)

I am not going to use the same cup

A footnote to this passage reads as "'won’t have anything to do with each other', or 'won’t use the same cups'. The Samaritans lived in the land between Judea and Galilee. They worshipped God differently from the Jews and did not get along with them."

'Won’t use the same cups'.  I can hear school kids here, and distinctions such as 'popular' kids and the 'geeks', oil and water that rarely mix. The obsessive, single-track, headdown nature of the geek is popularised in TV shows such as the Big Bang Theory.  Whilst excelling in their own narrow disciplines these academics yearn to do more than bumble through social protocols they feel ill fit to mimic.  I guess we all feel, at some time or other, out rather than in, and painful distinctions, created or perceived, based on qualification, origin, depth.

Indigenous faith

“You Samaritans don’t really know the one you worship. But we Jews do know the God we worship”.  (Now here comes the startling statement, that can be read as ignorance or as knowledge) The woman said, “I know that the Messiah will come. He is the one we call Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”  (v. 22-25)

Okay, where did that come from?  Have I misjudged this person?  Was Jesus taken aback by this confession, as he was surprised by the faith of the centurion?  Even Jesus?  He then rolled up his sleeves and drew out the indigenous spiritual truth that she had.  It’s not a matter of Jerusalem or Gerizim (where the Samaritans worshipped), says Jesus.  There is a faith journey that is true and authentic that passes through our own history, mind, psyche, outlook, genes, whether we be Samaritan or Jew, geek or popular.  We, like this woman, are to own our own journey, the inward and the outward and allow it to be drawn out and harmonised by Jesus.

Question

A lot of Samaritans in that town put their faith in Jesus because the woman had said, “This man told me everything I have ever done.” They came and asked him to stay in their town, and he stayed on for two days. (v. 39-40)

Is the place where you feel out rather than in, excluded rather than included really the barrier to faith and communion that you imagine?  Jesus stayed with the Samaritans for two days, no barrier there.

Andrew Hook