Ancestors of Jesus

As we approach the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the ancestors of Jesus. And some of them have a colourful story surrounding them!

Matthew starts off this first gospel with the genealogy of Christ. He wants to show how Jesus is not only the Messiah but also the Son of David, to demonstrate Jesus' Royal lineage. He also wants to demonstrate a continuity between the Israel of the Old Testament and Jesus. This Matthew may or may not be the apostle - opinions seem divided on this point. The gospel is also written in a very legalistic way when compared with the more personable accounts given by Luke in the third of the four gospels. Matthew follows the legal Jewish system in his family tree, following the father's roots even though Joseph was father of Jesus only by adoption.

So in Chapter 1 vv. 2-3 of Matthew we learn that Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, who begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar his daughter in law!!

So what is the story behind this?

Tamar originally married Er, the firstborn son of Judah and Shua. But Er was wicked, in ways we do not know, and as judgement from God he died prematurely before the couple had born any children. It was the custom in a Levirate marriage that the first born to a dead man's brother was considered to be the child of the deceased man. So Judah asked Er's brother Onan to marry Tamar to have a child, but Onan didn't want to consummate his marriage to Tamar so he too suffered a premature death at God's hand as revenge, because we are told the Lord was not well pleased!

Now we come to the really naughty bit! Tamar clearly wanted a child anyway, so she dressed up and masqueraded as a prostitute and waylaid Judah, her father in law, along the road where she knew he was travelling. Sure enough she enticed Judah and in due course gave birth to twins by him. And the first born was Perez and so the male line ran through from Perez to Joseph the adoptive father of Jesus.

Second Sunday of Advent

Last Sunday in the morning parish Eucharist we lit the second of the four advent candles on our wreath. This candle is the Candle of Peace, standing for the Old Testament prophets and the peace we look forward to in the light of the Jesus Christ whose birth we eagerly await.


And we had that lovely reading from the prophet Isaiah 11 vv. 1-10 foretelling the coming of Christ, the shoot coming out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch growing out of its roots, "righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins," and

⁶ The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

⁷ The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

⁸ The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

⁹ They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

For a detailed commentary follow this link, supplied by Anathea Portier-Young for the Luther Seminary: "The visions of 11:1-10 are characterized by a remarkable dynamism that is at the same time the mark and guarantee of stability and peace. In the visions, the order of nature, political and social life, and the common life of humans and animals are organically linked and woven together."

What is Wilderness

What does wilderness mean to you?

Somewhere harsh and unforgiving, where survival could be a struggle, where we feel remote and in danger, frightened, alone?

Or a place however harsh and unforgiving where in our isolation we can find nourishment for our soul, solace, healing?

I have written in a previous post of Belden Lane's The Solace of Fierce Landscapes - Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. For me the harshest of landscapes, where I battle against the elements, can be a very healing process, reaching my wounds and giving me that solace that I so thirst for sometimes - and rush hour crowds can make me feel very alone and far from being in touch with my soul or with any spiritual experience.  And busy motorways I find positively evil and playing no part whatsoever in God's plans for the human race.

In our Lent group we have been exploring wilderness in the context of Isaiah chapter 40, and we don't seem to agree on the fundamental definition! I think both can be right, depending on where we are in our spiritual journey.

And I find it very difficult to be confronted with those who profess to be so sure and sound in their faith that in any sort of mental distress they would find all the support and healing they need from the support and love of Jesus. Would that it were so easy. Wounded Healers do not come from that certainty. They gain their healing strength from vulnerability and pain. 

Perhaps my faith is weak. One thing I know for sure - I need professional medical help (albeit from those with a spiritual persuasion and understanding) in addition to my faith in my search for "that peace that the world cannot give." 

Lent, Consolatory ministry and the Wounded Healer

Well my experiment with the cellphone in the bathroom (last post) didn't do anything for me so I am back to the serious today!
We have just had our first Lent group - a house group of 12 people meeting once a week to discuss a theme. This week the subject was Isaiah chapter 40 - Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, says the Lord.
What is comfort? What comfort does God offer us in times of need? Someone mentioned the additional gift of comfort afforded to those who themselves have seen grief, hurt or other affliction and come through it to be able to help others - of course the Wounded Healer.
This reminded me of the consolatory ministry and the healing prose seen in the consolatory literature of the ancient Greeks. Perhaps the earliest example of this was On Grief, written by the Greek academic and philosopher Crantor in the mid fourth century BC. This type of consolation was offered on the occasion of any human misfortune, but seems to have been used particularly to console or heal following the death of a loved one, often a child. The consolatory ministry was built around the belief that by writing about one’s own suffering the author is not only helping himself through his own difficulties but can be in a better position to help others in a similar situation. The soul or spirit was often implicated in this healing process. It reflected the healing vulnerability of the Wounded Healer.
There were many examples of this genre of literature, which developed well into the European Renaissance period of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. By then people were recognixing that  sorrow, misery, and misfortune could be matters for sympathy - up until then they were too often seen as stemming from sinfulness. Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, who lived in the fourteenth century, was well known for his self- care and self -analysis. ‘No one’s solace,’ he wrote, ‘penetrates a saddened mind more than that of a fellow sufferer, and therefore the most effective words to strengthen the spirits of the bystanders are those which emerge from the actual torments.’ He quoted from Virgil: ‘Being acquainted with grief, I learn to succor the wretched (Aen. 2.630).’

The consolatory genre surely survives to the present day in the spiritual works of Henri Nouwen and perhaps Michael Mayne, for example. It was only when I read Michael Mayne’s Learning to Dance that I discovered that he had been deeply wounded as a child, when at the age of three his father, with no warning, committed suicide and left his wife and son homeless and very poor. This, Mayne said, left ‘an immense emptiness’ in his life. He was writing a meditation on his life of faith when he learnt that he had cancer. As he struggled with his terminal and painful illness, he completed Enduring Melody,  which became his own beautifully written and moving epitaph. In an addition to Mayne’s obituary in the Times in November 2006, Canon Chris Chivers wrote of Mayne: ‘The letter he wrote to me…was full of down-to-earth wisdom, mixed with deep prayerfulness, and an all-too-rare ability to put himself in the shoes and soul of another. This will surely be the enduring melody of his richly sacrificial ministry.’ Mayne’s meditational books are steeped in wonderful imagery that helps us understand more clearly the ineffable, the God immanent but unknowable. In his vocation as priest he was clearly the very essence of the Wounded Healer to those who received his ministry.

Isaiah 40 raises issues far beyond this and I hope to cover some more in later posts. Do "misery memoirs" come within this consolatory genre I wonder?

Oprah Winfrey and the Wounded Healer

Chiron the centaur and the Wounded Healer of Greek mythology, Jesus Christ the suffering servant as described in Isaiah, Henri Nouwen the wounded Roman Catholic priest and author of that lovely book The Wounded Healer, the shaman, all these and many more are generally understood to reflect the archetypal Wounded Healer. But Oprah Winfrey a Wounded Healer? Yes, says Dr Toni Galardi, author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon. She draws direct comparisons between Oprah's wounding upbringing and the Chiron story - and suggests that Oprah could use this side of her persona, as wounded healer, rather more in her media appearances. I have been exploring the part that the Wounded Healer can play in our lives, and in particular in the context of healing our fractured earth, whilst tapping into the new earth consciousness that some of us are experiencing all around us. But I confess I had not thought of including Oprah in my ramblings. I shall look at her now in a different light.



And is it true? And is it true
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained glass window's hue,
A baby in an ox's stall?
The maker of the stars and sea
Became a Child on earth for me?

John Betjeman

The photos were taken in our church this morning, showing the crib set up under the high altar, and a poster of Jesus as the Light of the World made by the children