Hearts and Minds Conference August 2011

Through story telling and poetic reflection, Tim and Clare challenge the inadequacy of imaging the Eucharistic as a memorial and suggest that by viewing the Eucharist metaphorically it becomes the focal symbol that can face up to the brokenness of the world and point us to the possibility of something other. They begin this journey by re-introducing us to Tilii (Telling it like it is) and her methodology of engaging worship and theology with real life.

Dancing with the scarecrow - Re-mythologising Eucharist from memorial to metaphor

Here hangs a man discarded, A scarecrow hoisted high, A nonsense pointing nowhere To all who hurry by Can such a clown of sorrows Still bring a useful word Where faith and love seem phantoms And every hope absurd? We want to answer Brian Wrens beautiful question with a resounding Yes. God is still active and Jesus Christ is still relevant in the modern world in which we live. Sadly, it does seem as though much modern worship does not accept even the validity of the question. The form of worship may have been addressed - so old-fashioned hymns have been replaced with modern worship songs and the Bible has been stripped of its thees and thous. But the underlying assumption is that the theology which underpins our worship is universal and unchanging. We have not made what Gustavo Gutierrez describes as the paradigm shift away from an imperial model of theology. God is transcendent and unchanging. Alpha and Omega. Yesterday, today, for ever. In an imperial theology, we find Jesus, Christ, Father and Holy Spirit worshipped interchangeably. Jesus becomes the lamb upon the throne, the object of veneration and worship. The indefinable Holy Spirit is captured, personified and made concrete as another object of worship. They are imaged using the language of imperialism. King, Lord, Victor. Messiah, and Saviour, are imaged literally, drawing upon their political roots. Worship becomes the triumphal procession, celebrating the victorious conqueror of death.

All these images are, of course, male. This says little to Shirley. Barely literate, but just able to scrawl her name, married and divorced four times, she struggles to make a loving home for children, grandchildren and dog. Her fourth ex-husband is in jail, having been convicted of abusing one of her grandchildren. This has split the family apart with the childs parents unable to accept that she was ignorant of her manipulative husbands activities. She has escaped the clutches of the loan shark, but now he is threatening another of Shirleys daughters with violence. To speak of God as Father in East Manchester is to risk conjuring up images of absence, neglect and even violence. Of course, there arent many scarecrows there either! Although if you wander down onto the allotments, you may find one or two dancing in the breeze alongside the dangling CDs and other improvised bird scarers! Dancing Scarecrow is the name we have given to our web-site for worship resources that reflect the reality of 21st Century Britain. Our scarecrow dances, blown by the wind as it hangs precariously from a cross. Perhaps the dance is the drunken stagger on the way home on a Saturday night. Or the disturbing dance of a woman with schizophrenia driving demons out of buses in the middle of the night. Perhaps the dance is the death throes of Elie Wiesels concentration camp suicide. But maybe the dance is the exuberant whirling of a little girl revelling in the sensations of her own body. Or the celebrations of 15,000 home fans at the nearby City of Manchester stadium. Or Shirleys limped walk across the road to share her joy that her divorce is final. Our scarecrow dances. The scarecrow does not sit on a throne, waiting to be worshipped. The scarecrow dances, calling us, through wild exuberance, to follow. **** A group of theological students bounce along the rutted track to visit a repatriated refugee community in war-torn El Salvador. As night falls, the driver refuses to turn on the headlights for fear of attracting the attention of the army helicopters circling overhead. In the pitch black of night they arrive in the tiny village where, fearful that the strangers arriving at night are actually death squads, the villagers send out an old man - whose life is

almost over anyway - to find out who they are. Discovering that they are visitors with a missionary organisation, the whole village comes out to share fruit and drink maize coffee Waking at dawn, the students find that, as shells fly over their heads, the whole village has been decorated to welcome the delegation from the EEC. Returning to the UK, one of the students, Tim Clay, wrote up his experience for the Baptist Missionary Herald (yes, it was a long time ago!). Breaking bread - or in this case fruit and maize coffee - with the villagers was, for him, a participation in the body of Christ, a means of sharing in what Jon Sobrino has called the crucifixion of the Salvadorean people. The next edition of the Missionary Herald brought a swift rebuff in the form of a letter to the editor. Whilst he felt very sorry for the suffering of the poor in El Salvador and elsewhere, the writer could not allow the use of the metaphor of crucifixion to go unchallenged. There was only one Crucifixion. Furthermore, in the Protestant tradition, the breaking of bread was a memorial act, a symbolic remembering of the suffering of Christ. It was not in any way a sharing in, or participatory event. *** But the Dancing Scarecrow wont be consigned merely to a place in history to be a fleeting memory central for the moment of Sunday worship and then ignored for the rest of the week the Dancing Scarecrow is mischievously and yet very seriously present in broken fruit and shared maize coffee as a community of believers is crucified alongside a crucified people the Dancing Scarecrow too hangs forlorn and discarded in the midst of the decorated village hidden from the worlds media and pushed out of the churchs view in case s/he causes offence. Meanwhile the church focuses on a Jesus crucified in our place crucified instead of humanity

in place of humanity rather than alongside humanity compared to this once and for all event what is human suffering? what is human pain and loss? Focus your minds on Jesus and he will take your troubles away look at the lilies of the field and forget your worries but what if the lilies are stained crimson with blood? what if our minds are full of images of human atrocities? And instead we catch a glimpse of the Dancing Scarecrow in the hidden recesses of our minds encouraging us to speak out to speak into our stories of pain the stories from the margins from the underside that will never make the news headlines or our Sunday intercessions? **** A student is on placement at a rather traditional church where numbers are dwindling the response is that invitations to join in with community events on the local estate are met with a firmly closed door and outreach consists of American-style line dancing in an attempt to draw people in but only the usual suspects turn up. On the Sunday, for the first time in this congregation, the student has been asked to preside at communion and uses a liturgy she has written herself but has deliberately kept close to the order as laid out in Patterns and Prayers. There are no disgruntled murmurings during the liturgy so she relaxes somewhat but when she goes to pass the plate of bread to one of the deacons he refuses to take it and says in a loud stage whisper, We dont do it that way. Unsure in an unfamiliar context what the proper way to proceed would be, she replies with a whisper and a firm smile, well well do it this way today and you can tell me the correct way to serve communion later. ****

One church, one table? One historic last supper? One tradition: I hand onto you that which was handed on to me... History or his story story, many stories gospel stories Biblical stories of meals shared meals celebrated meals which point to the possibility of something beyond meals where humanity and divinity meet experienced by different people in different places in different times. And how then can we speak of one universal human story? of one salvific event? of one church? of one story? The Dancing Scarecrow is glimpsed again fleetingly in story after story snapshot after snapshot in the gospel narratives as Jesus meets people in the small and seemingly insignificant the deeply contextual exchanges that make up individuals lives and their communities. Can a community which seeks to follow the Dancing Scarecrow

ever be universal? Can such a community become an institution without pinning the Dancing Scarecrow down? Or rather, if we are true to the Dancing Scarecrow is such a community by its nature always small, vulnerable, prophetic and deeply contextual? And what happens when we try to replicate the creative outpourings of the small communities of the Dancing Scarecrow? And Toronto Blessing Signs and Wonders Messy Church Cafe Church or Godly Play become the latest attempt to maintain the institution? And our kaleidoscope community becomes monochrome and loses its power to connect with the margins and its ability to keep up with the Dancing Scarecrow who is always just beyond our grasp? Or sometimes such a need to maintain an institution is altogether more sinister and loses sight of the Dancing Scarecrow completely. **** In the background, behind the sounds of my morning ablutions, John Humphrys thunders

his indignation. Another scandal rocks the Irish Catholic Church as the Cloyne report revealed that the Bishop of Cloyne, as late as 2008 falsely claimed that his diocese was reporting all allegations of child sexual abuse to the authorities. In fact, a second set of records confirmed that the diocese was covering up such allegations and moving accused clergy around. The taoiseach is incandescent and accuses the Vatican and the papal nuncio of narcissism and of being entirely unhelpful to bishops who wanted to fully implement the 1996 guidelines, Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response. Forgive me, it may not have been John Humphrys. It may have been James Naughtie. Or Evan Davies. Or even Sarah Montague. Such stories are now so routine, I wasnt really listening. *** The institution the imperial church closes ranks decides who belongs and who does not who is to be protected and who is not for a crucified Jesus consigned to history and remembered in empty rituals and mumbled words sanctified bread and chaliced wine do not have the power to whirl the dance of lament across our newspapers and into the lives of those know abuse and terror and crucifixion to dance pain and anger fear and defiance to slowly pick up the pieces and breathe the possibility of new life for the Dancing Scarecrow

calls us to let go to let go of self let go of institution and only then can we stand at the foot of the cross and ask what have we done? only then can we be a community which reaches beyond ourselves who lives for and in those who are marginalised those on the edge. For in joining the scarecrows dance we dont know where it will lead or what lies beyond for if crucifixion is real then we do not know there is resurrection For in joining the dance we are invited to give of ourselves and to let go of that which is secure and just maybe as the dance draws its final breath and the Dancing Scarecrow hangs limp and lifeless we may find the possibility just the possibility of resurrection. For we have danced with Tilii (telling it like it is) through Wisdom and Word daring to name the death and possible signs of new life in our urban community. For we have danced with Tilii through Old Socks and Communion Wine sharing her pain with those excluded from the table and daring to place a child in the centre and turn the tables on traditions and expectations.

For we have danced with Tilii in bringing to voice our Crumbs of Hope scattered lovingly on a broken community. For we have danced with Tilii as she has embraced with a radical inclusivity the Eleanors in our midst and told them to put on their boots. For we have danced with Tilii as the Velveteen Rabbit asks what is real and how we can be real and how our worship can be real and Tilii takes us by the hand and leads us to the foot of the cross to broken bread and spilled wine as week by week in Sunday worship or gathered around a kitchen table we seek to put into words our journey with Tilii as we name crucifixion for our own context, our community and the world, and name our glimpses of the Dancing Scarecrow as we look to let go of the pain and hurt and look beyond to the possibility of resurrection. **** A radical Baptist minister believes he has a gospel imperative to change the world. He engages in numerous projects to redeem the community in which he is located. Yet the world remains surprisingly immune to being changed. Project after project fails. The minister becomes more and more angry. He takes to wearing a clerical collar - a visible sign of his prophetic voice. Still the world refuses to be changed. His voice becomes more and more strident, while his practice becomes more and more concerned with ritual. An expression of Gods denunciation. A denunciation of all those around him. A denunciation

of those who for so long have been working with him and who have shared in his failure to change the world. His anger spills over into aggression and even, on several occasions, into violence. Relationships shattered, he is forced to leave the church. *** Once again the Dancing Scarecrow will not be pinned down crucifixion and resurrection are not destinations to be arrived at once and for all Once again the Dancing Scarecrow catches us up in whirling, rhythmic process the process of crucifixion and dreaming of resurrection Not The Resurrection once and for all triumphant victorious triumphant and victorious over what I wonder? Because we are not like them the other, the poor, the marginalised those outside of the church? Not The Resurrection once and for all triumphant victorious for where does this speak to our experience to the experience of those on the margin to the experience of those we are called to serve? Increasingly we cannot deny

the reality of the world around us or even inside us We may buffer ourselves and maintain our church is secure but economic reality starts to bite and challenges our so called security. This is my body, this is my blood simple words simple actions not of early church controversies and attempts to pin down memorial words for all time or enacted in the temple or synagogue This is my body, this is my blood simple words simple actions true to the gospel narratives located in peoples homes or at a BBQ on a beach a picnic on a hillside the ordinary and the everyday the household and the community broken and breaking restored and restoring made sacred This is my body, this is my blood. **** Two young women, in their late teens, have a fight. Both belong to the Christian Union and when the fight is resolved they want to seal the healing of their relationship by sharing bread and wine together. They phone a (male) friend to come and lead them in communion. Never having done anything like this before, he is uncertain as to whether he is allowed to do so. He is uncertain as to what words he should use. He is uncertain as to whether it is OK to use water because there is no Ribena in the house.

*** Ordinary bread and celebratory wine made extra ordinary imbued with new meaning sharing with new significance the symbol which recognises our pain and brokenness and holds out the possibility of letting go and moving beyond a glimpse of how things could be of relationships restored and community renewed. The breaking of bread and pouring of wine a ritual very much of human making earthed, grounded but deeply sacramental pointing beyond glimpsing the divine. And so we write we craft words out of and into our experience that catch us in Tiliis hermeneutical circle Not The Resurrection that we search for but a mottled patchwork of glimpses of resurrection hope drawn from everyday life in all its pain, frustration, joy, fulfillment, fun, silliness... *** Ministers gather together for support and challenge, but the conference does not go well.

Power games are played. Some win. Some lose. Some choose not to engage with the games or the conference - at all. Voices are raised. The gospel is proclaimed with a shout. Songs of victory are sung loudly. Breaking into prayer triplets, surrounded by the clamour of other peoples prayers, a still small voice asks if room could be found for some silence to listen for the voice of God. Father, comes the response, we just want to thank you for the gift of silence loudly filling the space, and the time when another voice could have been heard. By the end of the conference, bruised and marginalised, the silenced have found each other and decide to opt out. Instead of joining in the main celebrations, they gather in the garden with bread, with wine and with water. The liturgy is the Silent Eucharist devised by the St Hilda Community. A liturgy of mime, of dance, of broken bread and spilled wine. And, at the end of the rather self-conscious act, the ritual blessing of one another with the sprinkling of water. Which, as relief from the tensions of previous days and squabbles, degenerated into the silliness of a water fight. **** Maybe this is why weve survived or maybe even flown or danced as a tiny, vulnerable but not insignificant community while others have given up sometimes the means of survival is a symbolic act such as a silent meal or a raucous water fight crumbs of hope that dont always lead anywhere crumbs of hope to which we cling on the never-ending rollercoaster ride of urban life reflected in our ongoing dance with Tilii between crucifixion and the glimpse of resurrection finding hope in the smallest and most insignificant of things and naming this theologically naming this catching it up in the whirlwind dance

of the Dancing Scarecrow. **** Its evening in a hospice room, the colourful Spring day is turning to dusk and the temperature cools. A drinks trolley rattles cheerily along the corridor - this is definitely not the NHS - as a friendly face asks, What can I get you? I dont suppose you have any ice cream and cider? And we settle back with ipod and headphone splitter to share a favourite piece of music, Puccini's La Boheme, the whole piece, uninterrupted except for the occasional sip of cider through a straw and squeeze of a hand as the music reaches a spine tingling crescendo. For here, in a place where time stands still and death is an ever present reality, here we experience crucifixion. For here, in a place where time stands still, life is lived to its full, here we experience a taste of heaven. Here where the tiny, insignificant incidences of daily life, the mundane things we take for granted, in this context take on new meaning. A taste of ice cream, sharing a cider, a piece of music, the visit of a pet, sitting outside in the spring sunshine are experiences that are treasured, that resonate with hope and space is created to tell stories, to talk or simply to be together and share moments that are precious. For this is my body... this is my blood... Maybe it is not a coincidence that Tim Clay too, saw life through the eyes of the hospice where he worked and read significance and meaning into broken fruit and shared maize coffee with a fearful yet celebratory community in El Salvador. **** We lament for a church which so often needs to control to package the gospel to attempt to mediate a universal experience many of our churches could be anywhere in any community the MacDonald's of Kuala Lumpur or Hawaii or Debdale Park. But the tides of change are gathering as the church universal

struggles to maintain itself a paradigm shift on the horizon as churches hear gospel stories that speak to the here and now that resonate afresh in each context Not a universal Good News for good news is always contextual I have come to bring good news... to the poor, to the marginalised, to the blind, to the oppressed Not a universal Good News but an all-inclusive good news and radically so as it includes those on the margins who know that you can have crucifixion without resurrection as it happens to millions everyday but who also begin to voice that you cant have resurrection without crucifixion. **** Its a Wednesday morning in an inner-city primary school thats had a rough year and is struggling to cope with the constantly changing community it serves, conscious of the undercurrents of racial hatred that are simmering beneath the surface. It is a special assembly, with parents and younger siblings invited, to celebrate Pentecost - though despite being a Church of England primary school this is a little known festival. A story is told of Sadako and her home in Hiroshima and of her Leukemia and her attempt to fold 1000 origami cranes and of how her classmates had completed the cranes after her death and how there is now a Peace memorial in Hiroshima Park to Sadako and 1000 Peace cranes. Then ribbons are sent out in a rainbow of colour across the hall as with the sound of a rushing wind and tongues of fire the story of Pentecost is told and of how the Spirit of Peace united people across languages and cultures and nationalities. Suddenly with all the

glamour but none the less force of the Wild Goose, the story suddenly makes sense in this place. Its two days later at the Living Well Project that one of the Childrens Centre workers - a Muslim - asks whether we might consider telling more stories on a regular basis, stories that might bring broken communities together and we catch the glimpse of the Dancing Scarecrow playing mischievously at the corner of our eye, challenging us, daring us to join the whirlwind dance. **** And so we introduce Tilii or at least we can attempt to paint a picture of her or give you an inkling as to who she is but she is rather elusive and impossible to pin down and you really do have to find her and get to know her for yourself because she will be different for you and for your community. She begins by listening observing experiencing and gradually engaging in your own time your own place not the big and grand but the small and insignificant but go gently if you dont pay attention you may miss her. She then tells stories mostly Biblical but occasionally from other traditions other cultures

or even contemporary media of films, novels, music or even todays paper linking you with a wider, global picture the stories may be familiar but listen again for she tells them in a different way with different voices or from perspectives you had not thought of. Then she weaves with you dancing connections between the stories and your own experience and the stories and experience take on new dimensions changed meanings deeper significance asking questions challenging answers re-thinking who God is and how God is and where God is showing pain and brokenness and seeking for a glimpse of hope. Then it is over to you to respond to Tiliis dance to speak liturgy into life not so much to stand and worship a universal Jesus made to conform to our image of power as to follow the Dancing Scarecrow to create rituals of worship that reflect on and engage with and seek to change and renew

in the here and now our context, our community, our selves and drive us out from the conscious reflection of worship to live, to work, to be. And as we meet with Tilii we break bread and pour wine in our own context our own community For this is the place where the Dancing Scarecrow participates in our pain and brokenness and is crucified with us For this is the place where the Dancing Scarecrow brings us together and shows us a glimpse of what could be the merest hint, a taste of resurrection. This is my body, this is my blood not so much a memorial or re-enactment but a living, changing metaphor for an ongoing way of life. **** A group of friends gathered around the clean, but always somehow slightly sticky kitchen table amidst the debris of a Saturday night takeaway. Stories have been shared - between the interruptions of children for whom the novelty of Saturday night guests is too exciting to sleep. Laughter is mingled with tears as the friends create a safe space together where truth can be shared. Out of this bread is broken and wine - Ribena - is poured. A liturgy is found. A liturgy is read, reflecting the pain, and anger the author felt at an act of betrayal. The liturgy is

shared; received in sacred silence. The body of Christ is torn apart and shared. And as the first friend receives the bread, she pours a story of personal tragedy into the silence. What is she doing? Treading on this delicately manicured liturgical lawn? She passes the bread to her neighbour. He too shares a story of personal brokenness and passes on the broken body of Christ. The third participant is a newcomer to the group, but he too shares of his journey before passing on the bread. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10: 16) Around the table, the broken body of Christ was shared and with it stories of personal brokenness until it returned to the author of the liturgy. Who raised the cup with the unscripted, but somehow necessary words, The blood of new life. And after communion: We have stamped our feet, and petulantly cried, Its not fair! We have laid all our anger at the injustice of the world at the foot of your cross and you have gladly picked it up In return for our bitterness you give us bread In return for our anger you give us wine So send down your Spirit upon us transform our bitterness and anger into your rage and passion and send us out into your world to transform what is not yet into what can be Today and tomorrow Now and forever Amen. ****