大象传媒

Introduction: Isabelle Hamley

Good morning. I鈥檓 Isabelle Hamley. I鈥檓 at the HeartEdge annual conference in Leeds. HeartEdge is an initiative from St Martin-in-the-Fields that seeks to transform church and society through commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life. The conference includes workshops on enterprise and commerce, cultural projects, developing congregations and sustaining community involvement. As part of the conference, we held the final of Theology Slam, a competition that invites young people under 35 to reflect on contemporary issues through the light of theology, scripture and tradition. We had three wonderful finalists, sharing their thoughts in a TED talk format, and we鈥檒l bring you extracts of the runner up talks, and the full winning entry. But Theology Slam is not just a competition. It is an invitation to think, to pray, and to meet with thought and ideas that can stretch our minds to engage more deeply with our vocation as Christians in beautiful but imperfect world. So I invite you to listen to them, as part of our service for this morning, thinking about and praying for the world and its people, and our calling as people of God to love and engage with every aspect of the world around us.

Let us pray.

Gracious God,
We thank you for the amazing world you have set us in, and for the wonders of human ingenuity that fosters communities, creates organisations, and expresses itself through science, art, and endless discovery;
Yet we recognize that often we use our God-given creativity and intelligence for the wrong ends, and the world and its creatures are marred and scarred by human actions;
We ask for your forgiveness, and for your Spirit to guide us in reflecting on our world and in directing our path as we live our lives.
In Jesus鈥� name,
Amen.

Music
Love divine all loves excelling
Cambridge Singers
CD: Sing, ye heavens (Collegium)

Isabelle Hamley
Taking place at St Edmund鈥檚 Church, Roundhay, on the outskirts of Leeds, Theology Slam took us on a journey with our three finalists, all of whom wove together reflections that held threads from theology, Scripture, personal experience and passionate fire for transformation. You will hear the full winning talk, but first we will listen to some moving and challenging extracts from the two runners up.

Music
Nada te turbe
Taize Community
CD: Taize Instrumental听

It was striking that in all three reflections, bodies and what happens to bodies featured prominently 鈥� in relating to queer bodies, in the impact of injustice on bodies, and in the lingering mark that suffering bodies leave on the whole person. All three talks also called us to see what we may often choose not to see 鈥� bodies, inequality, mental health challenges.

Our first runner up, Victoria Turner, a member of the United Reformed Church, who is completing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh, reflected on justice in the light of the words of the prophet Amos.

Reading
Amos 5:23-24

Reflection: Victoria Turner

Music
Like a mighty stream 鈥� Moses Hogan
Sung by St Martin鈥檚 Voices
大象传媒 recording

Prayer
God of justice and mercy,
We pray that you would learn to see the world as you see it,
See every person with an open heart and open hands,
And that our hearts would be ready for the changes we pray for when we say
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Amen

Our next runner-up, Alex Clare-Young, is a minister in the URC church and reflects on the experience of queer bodies and speak movingly of the centrality of the incarnation.

Reading
John 1:14

Reflection: Alex Clare-Young

Music
Christ has no body now but yours
CD: Son of God and Son of Mary

Prayer
Gracious and loving God,
We love every one of your creatures, and we pray that we would see you at work in each other, in the fullness of our being.
We thank you that you became flesh, and shared our vulnerability and physicality, and that your good news is good news for the whole person.
In Jesus鈥� name,
Amen

Isabelle Hamley
Amanda Higgin, this year鈥檚 winner, is training to be a Baptist minister in Oxford. She speaks movingly of the challenges of mental health through the lens of the letter to the Hebrews. But first we hear words from the letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 3.

Reading
Hebrews 3: 1-14

Reflection: Amanda

If you had met me last May, you would have seen a successful, well-adjusted, University of Oxford Masters student, in training to be a Baptist minister. What you wouldn鈥檛 have seen was the trauma I was carrying from an abusive relationship I left two years before. In June, my legs gave out under the hurt I was carrying. I had my first series of flashbacks. As my mental health declined I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or c-PTSD; I stopped my hobbies, baled on plans with friends, and eventually suspended from university.

As I found myself in recovery, I also found myself holding the Letter to the Hebrews. This text was the subject of my aborted Masters鈥� dissertation, and as I struggled with my own pain I started to see how uncertainty and trauma underpinned this masterful, anonymous, theological address.

Shelly Rambo calls trauma, 鈥榯he suffering that does not go away鈥�. It is the harm that remains and repeats in our souls and bodies after events of violence. The author of Hebrews, in chapter 10, tells us that they are addressing a traumatised congregation. They remind their audience how they suffered beatings, looting, and imprisonment: experiences which the members of the congregation carry in their souls and bodies as they listen. A young man rubs the scabs on his arm from being beaten in the street, and his partner sits anxiously by him, shaken by the cries for help that still ring in their ears.

Even those who weren鈥檛 targeted themselves, Hebrews tells us, shared the burden of those who were. This community holds trauma; as Rambo says, their suffering has not gone away.

As if I sat in the audience, I heard Hebrews speak to me:

as the Holy Spirit says:
鈥�Today, if you hear his voice,
听听听听 do not harden your hearts
听听听听 as you did in the rebellion,
听听听听 during the time of testing in the wilderness,

鈥�

For I declared an oath in my anger,
鈥楾hey shall never enter my rest.鈥欌��

If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later on about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God鈥檚 rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Hebrews draws those words from Psalm 95, which makes an example of that generation of Israel who wandered in the wilderness for forty years after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. The Psalm calls its hearers to obedience, unlike that grumbling generation who never managed to enter the Promised Land. Hebrews uses this text differently, though, reading in light of Jesus鈥� life. In chapters 3 and 4, they show how 鈥�a Sabbath-rest remains for the people of God鈥�, not a geographical Canaan-rest but an eternal sabbath-rest, which we enter following behind not Joshua but Jesus.

Hebrews does this because they receive Scripture as the voice of God. I first learned this from Madison Pierce; her work demonstrates how Hebrews reads Old Testament Scripture as the voice of a triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Where other New Testament authors introduce their quotations with the formula 纬蔚纬蚁伪蟺蟿伪喂 鈥� 鈥榠t is written鈥�, the author of Hebrews uses forms of 位蔚纬蔚喂 鈥� 鈥榟e says鈥�. We鈥檝e just heard how they introduce Psalm 95 with 鈥榓s the Holy Spirit says鈥�: 鈥樜何蔽羔郊蟼 位苇纬蔚喂 蟿峤� 蟺谓蔚峥ξ嘉� 蟿峤� 峒呂澄刮课解��. Later in this same chapter, Hebrews calls the word of God 鈥榣iving and active, sharper than any two-edged sword鈥�. By reading Psalm 95 as the living and active voice of God, the author of Hebrews discovers a message of rest and endurance for their traumatised congregation.

In his book 鈥楾he Wandering People of God鈥�, Ernst 碍盲蝉别尘补苍苍 shows how this image of wandering in the wilderness underpins everything Hebrews says. The author encourages their congregation to endure as if they are stuck in the wilderness: 鈥楲et us hold fast to the hope we profess鈥�, they say, 鈥楲et us run with perseverance the race marked out for us鈥�. Do you ever feel like you鈥檙e stuck between the pain of slavery and the promise of rest? I know I do. In 鈥楾rauma and Grace鈥�, Shelly Rambo describes trauma as a Holy Saturday experience, caught in the uncertain 鈥榬emaining鈥� between death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday. While Rambo鈥檚 language of remaining emphasises time; I believe Hebrews is expressing the same thought using this geographical language of wandering. We know pain; God has promised us eternal rest. In the space between, we carry trauma.

Trauma is static. It makes us feel like we are still stuck on the wrong side of the Red Sea. But healing looks to the future: rest in the Promised Land, resurrection on Easter Sunday.听 For that reason, the word 鈥榬ecovery鈥� can actually be unhelpful; it implies going back for something we鈥檝e lost. But in the same way that Hebrews goes back for old Scriptures and reads them in new, life-giving ways, we can retrieve our wholeness while moving forwards to that promised rest.

In the book of Revelation, John shows us a picture of the New Jerusalem. That final vision is not a return to the Garden of Eden. Instead, it is a new way of dwelling with God that transforms all the hurt and pain of a fallen world. The Israelites were afraid to enter Canaan because it was new and strange; but eventually there they found a home. In the wilderness between pain and healing, God speaks: a living and active voice of hope, renewal, and Christ.

So, as we encounter people and communities carrying trauma, Hebrews shows us a way. Recovery is a wandering from pain to healing. Recovery for our selves and our communities is guided by the living and active voice of God, if 鈥楾oday鈥� we will hear that voice.

I am here today to tell my story, and to share the role Hebrews has played in it, as part of my own journey to remake myself into a transformed wholeness that tries to put Christ at the centre. And like the author of Hebrews, I am standing in front of an audience, inviting you to do the same. We do not need to be afraid of the newness and uncertainty of wandering. In the space between brokenness and redemption, Egypt and Canaan, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Eden and the New Jerusalem, there is new life to be recovered from old traditions if only, like Hebrews, we receive them as the voice of God. Recovery from trauma is a remaking of ourselves and our communities as we pay attention to that voice.

Music
Lamb of God
Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir
CD: You are the key

Isabelle Hamley
Our prayers are led by Revd Heather Cracknell, the Director of HeartEdge, and others attending the conference鈥�..

Prayers

Music
Take, O take me as I am - John Bell
St Martin's Voices
大象传媒 recording

Lord鈥檚 Prayer

Isabelle Hamley
And so this morning we have heard three different theologians grappling with big questions for our world and our churches. We hold them in prayer as they continue to study, write and explore, and we ponder for ourselves how we might value our bodies and the bodies of those who are different, how we might live justly in a world of inequalities, and how we may pay attention to God鈥檚 voice in the midst of difficult and traumatic circumstances, either for ourselves, or in walking with those we know, who struggle with mental health challenges.

Isabelle
The peace of God,
which passes all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds
In the knowledge and love of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
and the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always.
Amen.

Music
The Fall from The Mission
Yo-Yo Ma
CD: Yo-Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone

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