Resurrection deferred? COVID-19 & the disruption in liturgical time (4)

In Parts 1 to 3, I've explored (with a lot of help from theologian of trauma Shelly Rambo) the ways in which the collective trauma of COVID-19 has disrupted, ruptured even, our sense of time, personally but also both politically and liturgically. Politically, that means that we should be suspicious of any signs of forgetfulness of COVID-19's 'pre-history' ('life before'), and cautious of claims and ambitions for 'life after'. Liturgically and theologically, I've suggested (in Part 2) that we find ourselves in an extended 'Holy Saturday time' and (in Part 3), if Easter has dawned or is dawning, it is dawning slowly, quietly, gently - in a gradual, fragmentary, piecemeal way. 

Those of us who are Christians are shaped by the story of Jesus and his friends, shaped by the rhythms of the liturgical year that tell and embody that story, shaped by time unfolding not in a linear direction, but in a layered, cyclical (or spiral) journey. COVID-19 dramatically - traumatically - disrupts these rhythms. Or better, exposes the way in which they are always disrupted, the way in which these rhythms always shape us imperfectly, always leave excess, remainder. Because these liturgical rhythms point to a one-off, original story (Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection, and the beginnings of the church), but also anticipate a future (the coming of God's kin-dom in its fullness, the gathering up and renewing of all creation), and interact with the present, it is possible (if maybe hard to get our heads round) for it to be both Holy Saturday and Eastertide simultaneously, for liturgical seasons to be both now and not yet, over but also remaining.

At the end of Part 3, I underlined Shelly Rambo's suggestion that we are called to the twin tasks, moved by the Spirit, of 'tracking the undertow' (discerning the suffering and violence that 'does not rise to the surface') and 'sensing life' (attempting to move toward a form of life as remaining, in love, without any confident knowledge of the shape of that life).

Lenten temptations

'Honestly hadn't planned on giving up quite this much for Lent'. The words of a tweet that rapidly went viral for its simplicity and its resonance for so many of us. Yes, if Lent is par excellence a time of deprivation - albeit normally self-imposed - then this year's Lent has been, as many have observed, 'the lentiest Lent ever'. Some way beyond refraining from chocolate for 40 days, we have had to give up travelling, restrict ourselves to one walk/run/cycle a day, deal with shortages and rationing of loo rolls, pasta, flour and eggs in the shops, resist any kind of physical contact with anyone who doesn't live in our own household, and - perhaps most dramatically - we're not able to gather for reason: not to work together, not to play together, not to eat together, not to pray, or worship, or share communion together. 'Together, apart' has been the challenge, and glimmer of possibility - but 'together, apart' has meant losing so much of what we have, for all of our lives, taken for granted - for all of us, but felt in sharp and particular ways for those of us who are immersed in the work of neighbourhood-based community-building, or in the life of a church community, or both.

It's a rather dramatic irony that, just as the COVID-19 crisis hit the UK, I was just 2 or 3 days away from finishing a first full draft of a book I'm co-writing with Ruth Harley, 'Being Interrupted: re-imagining the church's mission from the outside, in'. And then 'the Great Interruption' happened, 'business as usual' shuddered to a stop, 'being church' and building community both needed radically re-shaping, my wife Janey and I had to start juggling our jobs and suddenly being full-time parents / home-schoolers for our two kids, and my mental capacity to think coherent thoughts, let alone get them down on a computer screen, deserted me. By the end of this second week of the 'school holidays' (whatever that means, currently), it might just be possible that the much-heralded 'space to read, write and reflect' that many were promising early on in this crisis, could become an element of the new normal of my life and work - and that the book might, somewhat belatedly, get finished. And although I'm currently wrestling with the knotty question of how on earth I'm going to finish a book on the ways in which the life and mission of the church might be disrupted and transformed by practising a radical receptivity to the gifts and challenges of interruptions that come from 'the outside', without totally re-writing it in the light of this 'Great Interruption' - nevertheless I have a hunch that at least some of what we've written so far will still hold water.

One of the moments in the book that feels particularly relevant right now is our exploration of the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness - the gospel reading always set for the First Sunday in Lent - read with the help of the bishop, missionary and author of The Christlike God, John V Taylor. Taylor suggests that the three temptations the 'tempter/devil/Satan' puts to Jesus (turn stones into bread, throw himself of the Temple, and bow down before the tempter in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world) are temptations to three kinds of power: the power of the provider, the power of the performer, and the power of the possessor. It's significant that these temptations occur in the context of questioning Jesus' identity ('if you are the Son of God...'), immediately after that identity has been affirmed overwhelmingly in Jesus' baptism (the voice from heaven announcing, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased').

Now I'm not interested in criticising clergy colleagues for decisions they have made from the best of intentions, in the midst of a crisis that has thrown pretty much everything that has been familiar, stable and secure for all of us up in the air. But I am interested in observing some of the rapid, apparently instinctive, responses that have prevailed in this first phase of COVID-19 'lockdown', both at the level of local churches and neighbourhoods, and at wider, structural levels.

One of the earliest and most serious concerns that 'lockdown' raised was for those who risked going hungry. From self-isolation meaning people couldn't get to the shops to buy food, to the ongoing failures of the Universal Credit system meaning that people didn't have the money to buy food, to the shutting down of schools that have - criminally, for our society - played a critical role in feeding many of our children, to the closure of many of the places (in our neighbourhood, particularly) where neighbours usually come and eat together, making sure everyone gets fed has become a top priority of these times. While locally we have for years resisted setting up a foodbank, in the last few weeks we've been working more closely and frequently with our local foodbank than ever before, including doing significant numbers of home-delivery food parcels each week. But the power of the provider, the power entangled with feeding the hungry, is seductive, addictive. It can give us a buzz, make us feel good about ourselves, to feed others. And then we can find ourselves needing that buzz, needing people to be hungry so that we're needed to feed them. And as well as what that does to us, it also locks our neighbours into the one-dimensional identity of 'hungry person', 'needy person', 'vulnerable person' - eclipsing any other part of their identity, story, gifts that they might have to offer.

Providing isn't just about feeding people, of course. And getting into the 'feeding business' isn't just about providing. I've been struck by the temptation among many food providers (and we've not been exempt from it here) to tell the world how many people they're feeding, or even to share photos of food handovers, with the faces of smiling, grateful recipients. This slips into what John Taylor calls the power of the performer: the power and status that comes with being seen, with being appreciated, with impressing or persuading others through what we're doing. The sudden explosion in live-streamed church services, the excitement for some of seeing viewing figures many times bigger than their usual Sunday congregation, the subtle - and not so subtle - forms of public competitiveness between clergy as 'church-hopping' is made as easy as switching between TV programmes, coupled with an insecurity (I'll own up to this one) that wonders, in the face of what everyone else is apparently doing, producing, recording, broadcasting: 'am I doing enough?' And where the power of the provider defines recipients in terms of their hunger, the big danger of the power of the performer is that it makes worshippers little more than consumers. On a small scale, experiments with more interactive online communication tools (we've been using Zoom for a weekly Sunday 'coffee and chat' time, as well as for a number of regular meetings) can allow for a little more participation, but on the whole the sudden shift to online worship has played to the strengths of those who already focused on worship's performative dimension, and has shoved many others, willingly or unwillingly, in that direction.

Which edges us towards the third temptation: to the power of the possessor; the instinct or desire or need to control, to manage, to set the ground rules and police the boundaries. More often than not, it should be acknowledged, from the best of intentions (just as with the other two temptations). For the protection of the vulnerable, or in the interests of good order, continuity, orthodoxy or fairness. This power, like the others, has its valid place. But can all too often over-reach itself, expand beyond its proper and limited territory into colonisation and empire-building; seduce those who wield it into believing they are acting for the best when in fact they are acting out of conscious or unselfconscious self-interest, self-aggrandisement, self-preservation or self-defence; and reduce the agency, creativity and identity of those on the receiving end to that of 'operatives' to be managed, 'subjects' to be governed, 'mavericks' to be kept in line. Often this temptation is more visible on large, societal scales, although it is of course present at all levels of human structures. Look at the local authorities, trying to 'harness' the goodwill of neighbours and the energy of mutual aid groups with a level of strategic deployment and coordination, not to mention safeguarding processes - but which simultaneously wring out every drop of spontaneity, reciprocity, creativity and wild, loving neighbourliness from their newly-recruited army of 'volunteers'. Look at those within the Church of England - some near the top of the hierarchies, but also many self-appointed authorities among colleagues on the same level - hurrying to clarify, delineate and argue over what is and isn't acceptable in terms of consecration and reception of the bread and wine of communion, in this sudden new age of domestic isolation and online worship 'gatherings'. The driving concern, of course, is about how we 'hold together' in this time when we are in many ways more separated from each other than we have ever been. The anxiety is not just for good order in the present, and continuity with the past, but also for what unfortunate innovations might remain the other end of 'lockdown', from this period where all of us have quite literally been making it up as we go along. But, as Jonny Baker has pointed out in vivid terms, the danger is that these anxieties and concerns go hand in hand with hierarchical, clericalist impulses to hang on to control, closing off the possibilities that creative initiatives, subversive experiments, bubbling up in homes and local communities might themselves be the work of the Spirit.

Before we move on, I need to try and underline a few key points as clearly as possible.

Firstly, these three responses, instincts towards power, all have their proper place. Wielded carefully, appropriately, within minimal limits, they can play important roles in sustaining, nurturing, and safeguarding the wellbeing and flourishing of others. They are not in themselves bad.

Secondly, when we are under pressure and stress, when we're wrestling with anxiety or insecurity about who we are and our place in the world, when we're in the midst of a crisis - internal or external or both - and when we're feeling 'out of control', these responses are so common, widespread, familiar, we might even call them 'natural'. At the very least, they're perfectly understandable responses in the midst of stress, anxiety and crisis.

But thirdly, such responses - especially in the midst of stress, anxiety and crisis - can be profoundly damaging to both the wielder of the power and those on the receiving end, and profoundly distorting of the relationship between us.

And lastly, if distortion and damage can happen when these forms of power emerge at the level of individual relationships, when they manifest themselves in relationships embedded in systems - organisations, institutions, societies, governments, and yes, churches of course - they seem to take on a life of their own that multiplies the distortion and damage they can do - the seemingly invincible power of what Walter Wink calls 'the powers'.

Lenten fasting

So what can we do?

In 'Being Interrupted', Ruth and I argue that the best way to resist these temptations to power is to open ourselves to, and to find ways to intentionally practise, ways of opening ourselves to the interruptions and disruptions of our neighbours - both human and non-human - especially those neighbours who have been pushed to the edges of power: through sexism, racism and class inequality, as well as the ageism that minimizes the contributions of children, and the anthropocentrism that places humans 'over and above' the rest of creation.

But many aspects of our COVID-19 'lockdown' disrupt precisely the kind of 'radically receptive' habits that we've been learning in Hodge Hill over the last few years: discovering and creating 'bumping spaces' where neighbours can encounter each other across our multiple differences; encouraging neighbours to identify, draw out and share their passions, gifts and skills; finding neighbours who are natural 'connectors' and 'hosts', and supporting them to put on 'street events' to bring neighbours together, usually over a bring-and-share feast of food; nurturing church gatherings that 'hear to speech' the stories of encounter-in-the-world that have challenged and changed us, and that encourage the agency and leadership of children within our midst... and so on. COVID-19 is depriving us of so many of those spaces of encounter, possibility, transformation and life.

In so many ways, the desert of Lent continues, this far side of Easter.

And I'm pretty sure Lent still has wisdom to offer us - the wisdom of fasting.

Fasting - as our Muslim friends and neighbours know much better than many of us Christians - needs time to start 'working'. Given time, fasting can expose to us our deep desires, needs and fragilities, our drives and addictions - those things which, as Shelly Rambo put it, do not normally rise to the surface. And when they emerge, we can begin to face them, wrestle with them, seek out the help we need to deprive them of their power. What is it, in us, that needs to be providing, performing, or possessing? Where does that come from? How does it distort our relationships, and our own sense of identity? What might we do about it? We need Lent to last longer this year - Lent will last longer this year - for us to begin to wrestle with these hard questions about ourselves, both individually and corporately.

Fasting strips us back to bare minimum, strips of our normal layers of defences. This is a second, but entangled, point with the first one. Where normally we've relied on providing, performing and/or possessing to secure our identity, our status, the 'stripping away' of fasting - when we simply cannot do those things - leaves us, naked, with a sense of our own unproductiveness, uselessness. Many, many people in the world don't need any reminding of their unproductiveness, their apparent 'uselessness' - our social structures and systems, our political rhetoric, do that reminding for them on a daily basis. But for some of us, the reminder is necessary, and timely. I speak as someone involved in professions and institutions that can, to put it mildly, at times be a bit full of ourselves. The Church (with a capital 'C'), the ordained priesthood - and also, to a lesser extent, academics and community-builders. Our incapacity, in the face of what feel like our responsibilities, can leave us feeling guilty, inadequate - and can exacerbate the anxieties that we're living with already. But it can also open up possibilities for discovery, for revelation.

One of the meditations of Holy Week that struck me most were these reflections on Twitter from a priest-colleague, Revd Jody Stowell:

"I'm thinking about what it means for priests to learn to be on the sidelines. To be hidden. To be unneeded. To be 'useless'. To only do 'priest' in the unseen places. There's a lot of high feelings around about being unable to do the things we think make us priests. I think Maundy Thursday is a great day to be thinking about this. As we go with Jesus to put down the identities we have wrapped around ourselves. And find who we are in the scandal of failure. I am reminded that to Judas, Jesus at this moment in the story was a disappointment. Perhaps we too need to live in this space. To disappoint ourselves in what we had hoped to be. To lay down the glorious images we have of ourselves as triumphant saviours, even if we've wrapped that up in the symbolism of servant. And perhaps see that the way to be priest in a world of COVID19, is to become small, go to our room, shut the door, and pray to our Father in heaven."

Jody's words here feel profoundly resonant with what the disciplines of an extended 'Lent' mean for me.

A third insight that fasting nurtures in us is that of solidarity. Dislodged from our pedestals of power, deprived of some of the aspects of life we usually take for granted, hungering for things that would normally be readily available, those of us who are used to layers of invisible privilege - and here I'm not just talking about ordained priesthood, but also the privileges of living in the global North, or being white, or middle-class, or able-bodied - find ourselves, suddenly, experiencing some of the deprivations and limitations that for countless others is part of 'normal life'. This is, of course, a limited solidarity: many of us still have an array of choices we can make, freedoms we can enjoy, 'buffers' or 'safety nets' to catch us when we fall, that mean our experience is substantially more privileged than many of our neighbours. But in the enforced limitations that we experience, there is an invitation to a deeper solidarity that we can choose to enter. Through imaginative empathy, partly. But also through taking the time to read, and listen, to the stories of others - to get in touch with friends and neighbours, close to home and across the world, and spend time in conversation with them - that maybe we wouldn't normally have time for.

Fourthly, fasting can also deepen in us that awareness, that capacity to notice, that grows into a conscious gratitude for the gifts - both extraordinary and ordinary - of our daily lives. Those things we have taken for granted, those things that we've realised are not universally accessible, not evenly distributed in our world. Rarely have I found the line in the Lord's Prayer, 'give us this day our daily bread', more meaningful than in the last few weeks, when I've gone to the shops not knowing what I'll be able to come home with. Rarely have I been more careful and creative with the 'remains' (there's that word again) in the fridge and the kitchen cupboards. Rarely have I enjoyed meal-times more than at the moment. And equally, the gratitude that has grown in me for the opportunity to go for a daily walk with my family, and for dry, sunny days, and for the spaces of green and often hidden beauty in our surrounding neighbourhood. Not to mention the quiet creativity of neighbours - the path-menders, the tree-house-builders, the stone-decorators, the medicine-bringers, the seed-sharers, and many more... These have been just a few of the little causes for thanksgiving - life, more or less clearly 'sensed', as Shelly Rambo puts it - in these strange, lockdown days. And while my world has shrunk in so many ways, I'm noticing the ways in which my heart is, gently, expanding.

The fifth and last insight I'm noticing from this fasting that has been forced upon us, is perhaps most tentative as yet, but needs at least registering here. Just as Shelly Rambo urges us, with the persistent Spirit, to 'track the undertow', to seek to discern those things which tend to remain below the surface, so the experience of fasting, of a deepened self-knowledge, and of discovering a sense of solidarity with those who have been more permanently excluded, begin to nudge us towards seeking - only with and not for our more-excluded neighbours - to re-imagine and re-shape the structuring of our world - with all the caution about 're-' words that Rambo has already urged on us.

The temptations of Lent, and the gradual gifts that it begins to yield, feel like they might be pretty widespread in our 'locked down' world right now. For some of us Christians, they come to a particular focus in the question of whether, when, and how we might share communion together. I'm going to try and tackle that question, in the light of what I've already written in Parts 1 to 4, in the next instalment of this blog...