Background

In 1980, as a curate at St Mark’s Harlesden, London, I heard a BBC Radio 4 interview with Jean Waddell. This British missionary had been taken hostage during the Iranian revolution and then released, through the work of Terry Waite, adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In the interview, Jean recounted how she answered a knock at her door and, seeing three revolutionaries, invited them in for a cup of tea. She was tied up, interrogated, and finally shot. Church Missionary Society (CMS) colleagues Paul and Diana Hunt and their two small daughters lived in the flat below. Diana and the children came to take Jean on a picnic, but there was no response to their knock. A determined 3-year-old Rosemary continued to hammer on the door, finally to be met by the gunmen, who pushed the trio into the bathroom and fled. I learnt of these details from Rosemary, 35 years later.

But for this interruption, Jean may well not have survived. They left her lying on her bed, soaked in blood, shot through her lung. An Iranian surgeon saved her life. Inspired by her loyal heroism, faith and determination to forgive, Ali and I immediately joined CMS as members.

Call and Response

In 1983, we were considering our next move — whether to serve in Africa with CMS or in an inner-city London parish. We had a summer holiday staying with friends in Jersey. One evening, alone saying Evening Prayer in the local parish church, I was struck by the Old Testament lectionary reading, Genesis 12:1-6, the call of Abraham: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” It seemed to Ali and me that God was calling us too.

This was difficult for both our sets of parents, as we were planning to live in Africa for two tours of three years each, with six months in England in between. At first, I did not tell my parents that we really wanted to go, and merely stressed that we were answering what we believed to be the call of God. This was to avoid upsetting them by implying that we were happy to leave them, with the added consequence of their not seeing their grandchildren for a long time. My father and mother did not understand. Both were upset and angry — especially with CMS — and tried to dissuade us.

My training vicar, Terry Nottage, and his wife, Eve, invited Ali and me to lunch to discuss this. Over coffee Terry said, “You know what, Graham? I don’t think you’ll ever go.” That evening, I postponed my meetings for the next day and arranged to have time with my father and mother in Chigwell, northeast of London. I explained that God was not dragging us to Africa through a hedge backwards, but that we really wanted to go.

That changed everything. I never asked Terry whether he had deliberately provoked me, but his question proved crucial in transforming our relationship with my parents. Dad and Mum joined CMS as members, and during our seven years in Kenya, Dad would visit some of our link churches in Essex, showing our tape-slide presentations. It seemed like a replay of Dad’s reaction to me changing from law to theology after my first year at Oxford: resistance, then backing, which was fulfilled in commitment. Ali’s parents were also worried and troubled to think of us going so far away, especially with small children, but were actively supportive of us making our own decision.

Following interviews, and then a CMS weekend selection conference, we had a farewell service and party at St Mark’s Church. We sold or gave away almost all our furniture. Friends and family kept a few items for us.

Training

With Rosalind (three years) and Miriam (six weeks), we moved to the CMS training college, Crowther Hall, Selly Oak, Birmingham, for two terms, September 1984 to March 1985. Maurice Sinclair was the new principal and Paul Kybird and Joanna Cox the tutors.

Crowther Hall was part of the ecumenical federation of missionary training colleges in Selly Oak. Our courses included theology of mission, cultural studies, communication, and historical and geographical studies of particular continents. In private, I studied John V. Taylor’s CMS newsletters, written when he was General Secretary of CMS (1963-74). 16 years later, this provided background for my chapter “Mission and the Meeting of Faiths: Max Warren and John V. Taylor,” in the CMS bicentenary volume.

I enjoyed attending a seminar at the home of Walter Hollenweger, inaugural professor of mission at the University of Birmingham, and pioneer of studies of Pentecostalism. One of his doctoral students gave a paper on white working-class men in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, and how, although most did not attend church, many would pray to God. In 1997, I invited him to give the Henry Martyn Lectures at the University of Cambridge on “Pentecostalism: Promise and Problem.”

Looking at the desk of Lesslie Newbigin in the library of Selly Oak Colleges, I was amazed at the extraordinary range of philosophical, missiological, and ecumenical books. These were the foundation of his prolific writings at that time, on the gospel and Western culture, which have influenced me. We only met in January 1996, when he attended the opening of the Henry Martyn Mission Studies Library at Westminster College, Cambridge.

I met up with Roger Hooker, interfaith adviser in the Diocese of Birmingham. While serving with CMS at Varanasi, India, he had a weekly correspondence (1965-77) with his father-in-law, Max Warren, then a canon at Westminster and former General Secretary of CMS (1942-63). These letters formed the basis of my later Utrecht doctoral thesis and were published in 2002. I was intrigued by his concept of a “theology of loitering,” the key to getting to know people of other faiths in the parish by “hanging around and chatting.”

I played squash regularly with Christopher Lamb and learned of his depth of insights into interfaith relationships. Christopher was then coordinator of the Other Faiths Project of CMS and BCMS, and was also writing his Birmingham doctoral thesis, which was later published as The Call to Retrieval: Kenneth Cragg’s Christian Vocation to Islam (1996).

Most of all we learned from profound relationships with new friends and colleagues in training, especially Carole Fallows and Hilary Green. Forty years on, we still see them both regularly. Carole later trained teachers in Juba, Sudan, and would stay with us in Kenya on holiday. She married Mike Boardman and they both went to Pakistan with CMS. Hilary did not work in Nepal, as planned, but married Tim Naish and they worked with CMS in Zaire and then in Uganda.

Carole and Hilary were immersed in John V. Taylor’s The God-Between God: the Holy Spirit and Christian Mission (1972). They came to dinner at our house with Simon Barrington-Ward, general secretary of CMS. They asked Simon if he could arrange for us to meet Taylor, his predecessor. Carole, Hilary and I had a memorable tea with John in the Royal Commonwealth Club, London. It was a generative meeting, full of probing questions and fascinating answers which, typically, led to further ponderings. Many years later, in retirement, I coedited Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward (2022) with Ian Randall.

Two possibilities arose for a location for us in Africa: a theological college in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and St. Andrew’s Institute for Theology and Development, Kabare, Kenya. We were relieved that CMS decided not to send our young family to Sierra Leone, which was in the middle of a civil war, and so Kabare became our vocational location. Ali and I met Dr. David Gitari, Bishop of Mount Kenya East, at CMS’s Partnership House, London, in early 1985, and were fascinated by his vision and wisdom.

Moving

We filled nine reconditioned oil drums with our goods and books — disposable nappies proved excellent packing materials — which were sent by ship to Mombasa. Paddy and Eleanor Benson, mission partners with the Bible Churchman’s Mission Society (now Crosslinks), had been teaching at St. Andrew’s since its foundation in 1978. By letter, we discovered that Eleanor’s mother, Nancy Silver, had taught Greek to Ali at Henrietta Barnet School, London. We visited Paddy’s parents in Derby before traveling.

Ali, Rosalind, Miriam, and I stayed with Ali’s parents in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, over the long Christmas vacation and during the month of April, before flying to Kenya on May 5, 1985. Our farewell, at Heathrow Airport, with family and friends, was a mixture of sadness and the excitement of beckoning adventure.

In part one, we considered the many blessings announced by Christ in the beatitudes. These form a counterpart with several surprising meetings with that same Christ.

This passage is sometimes headed “The Judgement of the Nations” and is known popularly as the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”

How do we match verse 32, which mentions, “All the nations will be gathered before him,” with the fact that the judgment in the parable will be on particular individuals, rather than nations?

It seems to me that “all the nations” refers to the Gentiles and that these are individual Gentiles who are responding to the hidden Christ in the missionary disciples.

I agree with H. Benedict Green in his commentary, The Gospel According to Matthew, that the “least of these” referred originally to the disciples of Jesus, rather than to every poor and marginalized person in the world, which has become part of the tradition of interpretation of this passage, including the inspiration for charity work, notably of Mother Teresa.

Green commented:

In the light of [verse 32] and of 24.14 [“And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations”] and 28.19 [“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”], the reference [to the least of these my brothers] must not be to nations as opposed to individuals, but to Gentiles as opposed to Jews (whose judgement as a people has already been pronounced at 23.38f [“See, your house is left to you desolate.”].

Gentiles who have not encountered Christ himself will be judged on the basis of their behaviour towards him in the persons of his disciples. That ‘least’ means these, and not suffering humanity in general (an edifying thought often read into the text), is borne out by the “little ones” of 18.6, 10, and 14 [“If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me”; “take care that you do not despise one of these little ones”; “So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost”] … and above all by 10.42 [“and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple— truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.].

Green then developed an interesting point of ecclesiology:

‘the whole scene’ [in Matthew 25.31-46] is really an extended dramatization’ [of Matthew 10.42.] It is the nearest that Matthew, or the synoptic tradition generally, comes to the conception of the Church as the Body of Christ.

We saw earlier that Helen Vendler described Herbert’s poem “Love (III)” as being constructed on a “source” of only nine words in one verse — “He shall make them sit down to meat” (Luke 12:37): here, we see Benedict Green also imagining the parable of the sheep and goats as an extended dramatization of one verse, Matthew 10:42.

We shall be looking at the six descriptions of the king hidden incognito in his disciples and consider how they match six experiences of Christ on the cross and six events in his ministry leading up to Good Friday.

1. Hungry

I was hungry and you gave me food.

On the cross Jesus was given no food, and in the feeding of the 5,000 he provided food for the multitudes.

2. Thirsty

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

On the cross Jesus cried out, “‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth” (John 19:28-29). At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, Jesus provided abundant supplies of wine.

3. Stranger

I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

On the Cross, Jesus was an outsider in Jerusalem because he came from the north of Palestine, from Galilee. Zaccheus the Jewish tax collector, who knew what it felt like to be shunned, welcomed Jesus into his house in Jericho, en route to Jerusalem (Luke 19:1-10)

4. Naked

I was naked and you gave me clothing.

On the cross, Jesus was naked, an awkwardness scrupulously obscured in most paintings of the cross. In Matthew 6:28-30, Jesus asks the rhetorical question,

Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?

5. Sick

I was sick and you took care of me.

Before and after his trial, Jesus’ body was beaten and on the cross, he was in excruciating pain. The mocking irony of his previous multiple healings across Galilee and in Jerusalem was not lost on the bystanders. “He saved others. Himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:42).

6. Prison

I was in prison and you visited me.

Jesus was arrested and imprisoned and, after his death, he was locked in a borrowed grave. But you cannot keep a good man down.

Jesus visited the Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20).

He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had strength to subdue him.

After exorcism and healing, the people “came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.”

We conclude our second part, “Meetings,” with another of my poems that references George Herbert.

“Consecration” surfaced from the personal appropriation of a line in Herbert’s poem “Church-musick,” “God help poore kings’. Helen Wilcox, in her magisterial book The English Poems of George Herbert, says this line “has aroused considerable critical interest” and implies that scholars are at a loss to agree on its meaning. But I know its meaning — at least for me. For my name is Kings and, as a bishop, I need all the help God can give me.

My poem is located in three places: in a famous Oxford bookshop; in Westminster Abbey; and on my episcopal ring. I was consecrated bishop in the Church of God on June 24, 2009, in Westminster Abbey.

Consecration

In Blackwell’s, on the Broad,
Between appointment and announcement,
Contemplating coping as a bishop,
I laugh out loud,
Disturbing book-browsers.
In Herbert’s “Church Music,”
I read the enigmatic plea:
“God help poore kings.”

In Westminster Abbey,
Inundated by the Spirit,
Hilaritas mingles with gravitas.
Laying on of hands,
Anointing with oil,
Giving of the Bible
And a ring, engraved:
“God help poore Kings.”

Conclusion

Matthew’s use of chiasmus in his gospel includes its whole design. We can see how he shaped the teaching of Jesus into five sermons, which resonate deliberately with the five sermons of Moses in Deuteronomy.

Chapters 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount), chapter 10 (on mission), chapter 13 (on the parables — and chapter 13 have a chiasmic structure, as David Wenham has outlined in a New Testament Studies article in 1979),[i] chapter 18 (on the church), and chapters 24 to 25 (on the end times).

So Matthew 5 and Matthew 25 do, in effect, mirror each other at the beginning and the end of the sermons.

Christ’s character may be seen in his Beatitudes: Christ is hidden, unseen, in his missionary disciples.

My final poem is “Concealed in a Comma.” Have you noticed that the chapters in Matthew between chapter 5 and 25 (actually between chapter 3 and chapter 25) are not mentioned at all in the Nicene Creed?

Next year will be the 1,700th anniversary of the first edition of what we call the Nicene Creed. It jumps straight from the birth of Jesus to his crucifixion, with a comma in between.

Concealed in a Comma

Where does the common-or-garden comma
Guard the life of Christ?

In the Nicene Creed,
Between “and was made man”
And “was crucified for us.”

Three-quarters of the Gospels
Hidden in a comma.

The grounded life of the Controversialist,
Three centuries later,
Was not dissected, divided, and debated
As much as his eternal life as God,
His conception by the Virgin,
And his bodily resurrection.

Our life is hid with Christ in God:
His life — concealed in a comma.

Preaching “Kingdom is now,”
Healing the sick with power,
Teaching crowds with parables,
Walking hills and valleys,
Contradicting sneers of scribes,
Abiding with sidelined:
Diminishing the lofty, raising the lowly.

Come on, theologians of Nicaea,
Seventeen hundred years ago,
Expand your comma.

Have a heart and harken.
Give space to the life on earth
Of the Life of the Universe:
Intermediate time of Intermediary,
Between eternity and eternity,
Son of Man contracted to a span.

Express the compressed:
Point to the tale of the point with a tail.

[i] Wenham, David. “The Structure of Matthew XIII.” New Testament Studies 25, no. 4 (1979), pp. 516–22.

This article grew out of two long silent retreats at St. Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre in North Wales. My wife, Alison, and I usually go there in August, every two years.

I sometimes feel that entering into, and emerging from, deep silence with God for eight days resembles diving into a pool and swimming underwater for a length and then surfacing again.

We both keep notes in our spiritual journals and, during a few days of holiday afterwards, catch up with each other about our meetings with God in the silence.

In August 2019, two of the passages my spiritual director asked me to contemplate for the week were the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 and the surprising meetings with Christ in “the least of these my brothers” in Matthew chapter 25.

In August 2023, in the silence, I wrote some poems and I will be interspersing my reflections on “Blessings” and “Meetings” with four of those poems. Today we shall focus on the blessings, turning tomorrow to the meetings.

As an introduction to “Blessings,” I begin with the poem “Christ the Oboe,” which I hope has positive echoes for ecumenism.

Christ the Oboe

For an orchestra tuning up,
The oboe plays the note of A.
Instruments, in their variegation,
Tune themselves to Alpha.

In tune with each other,
They are ready and waiting,
Attentive, well-tempered,
A consort for concert.

In Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 four-part TV film, Jesus of Nazareth, Robert Powell played the part of Jesus. Powell reported that when it came to the scene of the Beatitudes, they had to do several takes. He said this was because he kept breaking down and crying as he pronounced these extraordinarily simple but powerful words.

We shall be looking at each of the eight beatitudes, at my suggested synonyms and antonyms, at the instruments in an orchestra that seems to me to resonate with them, at how they are resolved, at a one-word focus of resolution, and finally at an illustration in one of the parables of Jesus.

We hear the indicative mood at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount before the imperative mood in the rest of chapters 5-7. “This is who you are,” before “this is then how you should live,” comes out even more dramatically in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes in Luke chapter 6. Grace and justification come before ethics. We notice a similar order in Paul’s letters.

Joachim Jeremias, a scholar of Aramaic, discovered a particular way of speaking preferred by Jesus and outlined these in his New Testament Theology, Volume 1. He translated many of Jesus’ words in the Greek New Testament back into his mother tongue and found that many of the memorable passages, including the Beatitudes, had a particular rhythm or beat.

One of my favorite commentaries on Matthew is by H. Benedict Green, The Gospel According to Matthew. In his Introduction, he discussed the importance of Matthew’s use of chaismus (a “sandwich arrangement of his material ABBA”), and on the Beatitudes he commented:

These are arranged in pairs, not in simple juxtaposition but dovetailed: the poor and the meek, the mourners and the hungry, the merciful and the peacemakers, the single-hearted and the sufferers for righteousness.

The result is a rhythmical hymn in eight lines, ABABCDCD, tied together by the use of righteousness in the last line of each quatrain, and by the repetition of for theirs is the kingdom of heaven from the first line to the last (Green, p. 76).

1. Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

My suggested synonym is humble and antonym is proud. My orchestral instrument is the double bass. The blessing is resolved in the kingdom and a one-word focus of resolution is harmony. The parable is the Seed Growing Secretly in Mark 4:26-29.

2. Sorrowful

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

My synonym is bereaved and antonym is all is fine. My instrument is the cello. The blessing is resolved in consolation and a one-word focus is comfort. The parable is of Dives and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.

3. Gentle

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

I like the graffiti that was added to a church poster headlining this beatitude: “If that’s OK with the rest of you.”

My synonyms are reverent, pliable, and absorbing and antonyms are reactive, hard, and harsh. My instrument is the viola. The blessing is resolved in the earth and a one-word focus is home. The parable is the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32.

4. Hunger for Justice

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

My synonyms include focused, determined, and persevering and antonym is laissez-faire. My instrument is the violin. The blessing is resolved in satisfied and the focus word is full. The parable is the Importunate Widow in Luke 18:1-8.

5. Show Mercy

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

My synonym is compassionate and antonym is strict. My instrument is the clarinet.

This choice was influenced by the first chapter of Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic, in which he describes being in a café and in a state of despair. He heard, as background music, the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and felt the mercy of God. Spufford then quotes another writer:

The novelist Richard Powers has written that the Clarinet Concerto sounds the way mercy would sound, and that’s exactly how I experienced it in 1997.

The blessing is resolved in receiving mercy and the focus word is relieved. The obvious parable is the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37, when Jesus, typically at the end, reverses the lawyer’s question “And who is my neighbor?” with his own question: “Who acted as a neighbor?”

6. Hearts Pure

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

My synonyms are integrated and unalloyed and of a bell giving off a pure note of clarity. My antonyms are fake and split. My instrument is the French horn. The blessing is resolved in seeing God and the focus word is delight. The parable is The Sower in Mark 4:1-9: “… and other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

7. Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

My synonym is reconcilers and antonym is warmongers. My instrument is the flute. The blessing is resolved in being called children of God and the focus word is belonging. The parable is the Laborers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16, the generosity of which is bracketed at the beginning and the end with Jesus’ summary of the gospel. We do not usually notice this clever bracketing by Matthew, because of the chapter division.

Matthew 19:30, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” Matthew 20:16, “So, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

8. Persecuted

Blessed are those who are persecuted for rightousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

My synonym is stressed and antonym is attacker. In the Anglican Communion book that I edited, Out of the Depths: Hope in Times of Suffering (2016), we suggested the following spectrum of persecution, which may be delineated from “squeeze” to “smash”:

‘Harassment’, where people have subtle consistent pressure put upon them. ‘Subjugation’, where they are kept down, as a lower class in law. ‘Persecution’, where they are physically and violently attacked, by individuals or the State. ‘Martyrdom’, where they are killed for their faith or for standing for justice. ‘Annihilation’, where whole peoples are wiped out. ‘Obliteration’, where the original existence of the annihilated peoples is denied, or they are ‘airbrushed’ out of the picture, such as the destruction of Armenian churches and artefacts in Turkey, holocaust denial and the destruction of churches by the so-called Islamic State.

The instrument is the tympani drum. The last blessing is resolved, as in the first blessing, in the kingdom and the one-word focus of resolution is the same as the first blessing, harmony. The parable is of the Wicked Tenants in the Vineyard, Matthew 21:33-44, “But the tenants seized his slaves, and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.”

As we conclude this installment on “Blessings,” with “Meetings” to follow tomorrow, I offer a second poem as a bridge between the two.

Have you noticed that the Beatitudes actually describe the character of Jesus?

“Herbert’s Hilary” emanated from noticing the confluence between the reticence portrayed in George Herbert’s poem “Love (III),” which begins, “Love bade me welcome,” and the subtle gift of Hilary — a friend of mine for 40 years — of drawing people out. I published it on my site, and quote it here, with her permission.

Helen Vendler, the Harvard scholar of English literature, who died earlier this year, concludes her book The Poetry of George Herbert with comments on Love (III):

The observant “quick-ey’d”, courteous, conversational, and smiling Love is himself at first a mysterious creation, quite unlike any other literary version of God … Like some decorous minuet, the poem leads its character through steps in a delicate hovering: a pace forward, a hanging back, a slackening, a drawing nearer, a lack, a fullness, a dropping of the eyes, a glance, a touch, a reluctance, a proffer, a refusal, a demurrer, an insistence— and the final seating at the feast … To think that such a poem could be constructed on a “source” of only nine words— “He shall make them sit down to meat” (Luke 12:37)— is to stand astonished at Herbert’s powers.

Love

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d any thing.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, you shall be he.
I, the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, Who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, ‘and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

Herbert’s Hilary

In her psychotherapy, I imagine,
Hilary performs the role
She typically plays at parties.

“Quick-ey’d Love,”
Noticing the unnoticed,
Gently welcoming,
Releases the reticent.

Loved by Love, she loves.

Simone Weil, in her spiritual autobiography Waiting for God, describes how Herbert’s Love (III) helped her come to faith in Christ. Here are excerpts from a letter written in Marseilles, France, about May 15, 1942, to Weil’s close friend, Father Perrin:

In 1938 I spent ten days at Solesmes, from Palm Sunday to Easter Tuesday, following all the liturgical services. I was suffering from splitting headaches …

There was a young English Catholic there from whom I gained my first idea of the supernatural power of the sacraments because of the truly angelic radiance with which he seemed to be clothed after going to communion. Chance — for I always prefer saying chance rather than Providence — made of him a messenger to me. For he told me of the existence of those English poets of the seventeenth century who are named metaphysical. In reading them later on, I discovered the poem of which I read you what is unfortunately a very inadequate translation. It is called “Love”. I learned it by heart. Often, at the culminating point of a violent headache, I make myself say it over, concentrating all my attention upon it and clinging with all my soul to the tenderness it enshrines. I used to think I was merely reciting it as a beautiful poem, but without my knowing it the recitation had the virtue of a prayer. It was during one of these recitations that, as I told you, Christ himself came down and took possession of me…Moreover, in this sudden possession of me by Christ, neither my senses nor my imagination had any part; I only felt in the midst of my suffering the presence of a love, like that which one can read in the smile on a beloved face.

Tomorrow we shall resume with “Meetings.”

— Editor.

Kajiado is a semi-arid area south of Nairobi, Kenya, and I was a mission partner with the Church Mission Society; Salisbury is an ancient city in Wiltshire, and I served as Bishop of Sherborne; Cambridge is a university town, where we now live in retirement and ministry.

Kajiado 1986

On Easter Day 1986, I baptized Samuel Kasiane, a Maasai infant, in Kenya’s Kajiado County. He was the firstborn son of Daniel Sankete, a Maasai moran (warrior), and of Rosemary, his wife, and is my godson. The church, which met in the primary school building, was only two years old but already had 20 members.

I was staying with Daniel and his family for six days over Easter. He was one of our third-year students and the first member of the Maasai tribe to train for ordination at St. Andrew’s College, Kabare.

The Maasai are a nomadic, pastoral people who live in small, low houses made of branches and cow dung, which take about four days to construct. At first, it seemed very dark inside and smoky from the wood fire, but I soon adjusted to it. I slept comfortably next to Daniel on a cow skin, laid over a raised bed of branches. I remember that the first thing we did on rising each morning was to wash our eyes (kuoga macho). The smoke left its mark. The second thing was to clean out teeth with the root of a tree, which had white juice.

Several houses of the extended family formed the manyatta. It was surrounded by a wide thorn fence, which protected the people, cows, and goats at night from leopards and lions. I wasn’t too worried, because Daniel had killed a lion when he was in the warrior age group.

Cows are the wealth of the Maasai and are milked in the early morning by the women, using long gourds as containers. These are cleaned by thrusting lighted olive twigs inside them. The milk and yogurt (maziwa lala, “milk which has slept”) are kept in separate gourds and both have a tasty tang of olive wood.

Daniel and I walked for miles and miles. I remember brushing up against a tree, which caught hold of me and held me back. He laughed. He explained, “That tree, in our language, is called ‘wait-a-bit,’ because of its hooks.” Daniel’s manyatta was near a place called Mile 46, named by the railway company to show the distance from Nairobi. This 2023 video, by the Norwegian Art for Change Foundation, brings the area alive.

Salisbury 2010

On Easter Day 2010, early in the morning, David Stancliffe (Bishop of Salisbury), Stephen Conway (Bishop of Ramsbury), and I (Bishop of Sherborne) celebrated Easter in Salisbury Cathedral, which was built in the 13th century.

Throughout the previous night, from 9 p.m. on Holy Saturday to 5:30 a.m. on Easter Day, an Armenian series of readings from the Hebrew Scriptures had been read in the cathedral, which had been open to the public. At 5:45 a.m., David Stancliffe led those to be baptized and confirmed into the Chapter House and the readings of the Exodus were expounded

The service was a symphony in six movements. The first began at 6 o’clock in the early morning chill, with readings from Psalm 105, Psalm 106 and Exodus 14 outside the west end of the cathedral when the Easter bonfire was lit.

The second was just inside the great west door in the dark, with light flickering still from the bonfire outside. After a short homily, those to be baptized made their promises and were anointed with oil in the shape of a cross on their foreheads and the Paschal Candle was marked and lit.

Third, the deacon processed with the Paschal Candle to the nave altar and sang the Exultet and the bishop proclaimed “Christ is Risen,” announcing the resurrection of the Son of God, accompanied by the energetic ringing of hand bells and loud peals on the organ. I remember ringing my Tibetan bell, a gift from my youngest daughter, so vigorously that the small clapper came off, narrowly missing someone nearby. It is still lost.

Fourth, we moved back to the magnificent font of still-yet-flowing water, designed by William Pye, in middle of the long nave, for the readings and another short homily. My words were based on my poem, “Easter Prayer,” and I trailed a finger in the water of the font:

Lord Jesus Christ,
we follow in your trail,
blazing through life;
we sail in your wake,
surging through death;
we are your body,
you are our head;
ablaze with life,
awake from the dead.

The surface of the water was flat, even though it flowed — so much so that tourists sometimes put their bags on it and, unwittingly, baptized them. New Christians were baptized, and sprigs of rosemary, in the hands of the bishops, sprayed baptismal water over the assembled Christians, in remembrance of their baptism.

For the fifth movement, we processed again to the nave altar for a final homily and confirmation and thence, for the sixth movement, to the High Altar for the Eucharistic Prayer and giving of Holy Communion. Those who had been baptized and confirmed circled the altar.

As a coda, champagne was served in the cloisters and breakfast in the Chapter House for all.

Cambridge 2023

On Easter Day 2023, at St. Andrew’s Chesterton, Cambridge, our local church, during the service I wrote the first draft of a poem, “Raid,” on a blank sheet of paper.

It was the third poem I had written that week: the first was “Confluence” on Maundy Thursday, the second was “Crossed” on Good Friday. All three were published later on Covenant.

On the following Sunday, April 16 I preached at St. Andrew’s Chesterton at our all-age service of Holy Communion. At the start the sermon, I asked the congregation to read out the dialectic oxymorons of “Crossed.” Those on the left of the nave proclaimed each of the positive first phrases (beginning with “Delight of the Father”) and those on the right pronounced and denounced the second word (beginning with “darkened”). I remember the poignancy of the final word, “buried,” which everyone said together.

Crossed

Delight of the Father, darkened.

Begotten, unmade;

Glory, gorified;

Chosen, forsaken;

Filler, emptied; Immensity, squeezed; Gatherer, isolated;

Teacher, distraught; Walker, lamed; Welcomer, woe-begone;

Renovator, degenerated; Healer, pained; Joiner, dislocated;

Devoted, devastated;

Protector, bludgeoned;

Bridger, downed;

Blesser, cursed;

Humility, humiliated;

Founder, lost;

Heaven, in hell;

Joy of the Earth,

buried.

Then I asked some young people to come up to the front to act out the “Raid.” Two boys played “Death,” next to the lectern. Their widening and closing arms were like crocodile’s teeth. Another boy played the dead Jesus in the jaws of Death.

A boy, the Holy Spirit, next to a girl, the Father, in the pulpit, was sent down to earth to take away the gates and fences that kept Jesus locked in Death and he then returned to the pulpit.

Death is

de-gated, unfenced,

dispossessed, deposed,

by the Spirit.

Finally, the Father swooped down from the pulpit, picked up his beloved Son and repatriated him.

Dead Son is

declutched, unclasped,

snatched out, scooped up,

by the Father.

Repatriation.

Conclusion

God met me deeply and movingly in all three of these Eastertide services, when I was 32, 56, and 69.

In Kajiado, I learned profoundly about living simply and close to creation and rejoiced in infancy, walking, and new life. In Salisbury, I discovered the power of procession and delighted in how the awe of architecture and liturgy can combine to proclaim the risen Christ. In Cambridge, I loved the way the medieval Doom Painting, above the chancel arch, presided over the modern imaginative drama of Good Friday and Easter Day being acted out by young people.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!