Evidence of the mystery

Last Friday afternoon, after close to 120 miles walking towards Walsingham, I had the chance to stop just before our arrival, and share something with those I had walked alongside. I knew roughly what I wanted to say, but inevitably hadn't fully thought it out. Actually, I think it was less incoherent than I had feared it might be, and this is my attempt to write down, more or less what I said, or maybe what I meant to say.

Earlier in the week someone else had spoken about how Student Cross can be a week away from the rest of our lives: immersed in the community that surrounds us, it can be a chance to switch off and unwind, be that from our own life or world affairs or the insidious presence of social media.I have often said the same: caught up in the bubble it has been a place to forget the stresses and situations which invade my brain the rest of the year. This year I would probably have had even more reason for that to be the case, with the organisational responsibilities of trying to ensure things happened more or less as they were supposed to. In fact it was less true for me this year than it sometimes has been: undoubtedly, I did get wrapped up in the moment, but nonetheless other aspects of life intruded too: stories I still wanted to follow, people I felt I needed to contact, lives and realities I didn't want to or wasn't able to let go of.

Many of those stories come from my work, from those refugees and asylum seekers whose lives I am privileged to share.

In another earlier reflection, someone else had spoken about how we sometimes desire to try and explain what we are doing, and about the impossibility of doing so. The fact that this whole act of pilgrimage, of what we do during Holy Week is in some ways an inexplicable mystery that cannot be tied down with words, is something I agree with whole-heartedly. While it is something I have written about, and spoken about, at length, part of me knows it is something that can be only understood through lived experience.

Which led me to thinking, or confirmed me in my thinking, that the same is true, not just of Student Cross, but of the whole mystery of faith. Faith can be lived, it can be experienced, it can be shared, but it can never really be explained. By definition,that's what makes it faith, if it could be explained and justified, it would simply be fact. Even as a great lover of words, I know there are concepts and experiences where words fail. Faith is one of them.

This is not something new. It is something I have long believed to be true. But I think one of the reasons this struck me so forcefully when it was mentioned earlier in the week is because one of the things I have spent some time doing recently is sharing with those who have been told exactly the opposite: that they must be able to explain and justify their Christian faith; and that a home office official, or possibly a judge will then get to decide, based on their own evidence and that of those who are witnesses to their lives, whether or not their faith is "genuine".

So for the last few weeks I have spent a fair amount thinking about this idea, in relation to my own faith, of justifying myself in a court of law and what that would mean. I realise it is a privilege of birth that this is something I will almost certainly only have to do for the interest of doing it, rather than for real, with all the strain and stress that would entail, and this is in no means intended to belittle those for whom this is their real lived experience.

But given my belief that faith is something mysterious, inexplicable and deeply, deeply, personal: how would I stand in a court and justify myself? What evidence would I present to prove that I am, in fact, a "genuine" Christian? Who would I call on to stand as witnesses to my faith, and what would they be able to say? If faith is a mystery which cannot be explained in words,which of my actions, which of my ways of living my life would 'count' as proof that my faith is real? Would there be sufficient evidence, in the person I am, to convince a judge, or a home office official embedded within the hostile environment and seeking for reasons to refuse, that my faith is genuine?

I don't have an answer to any of these questions. I don't know whether I could prove my faith nor how I would do so; but as our pilgrimage drew to a close, as we got to the end of a very visible act of faith, as we return to the lives we live most of the time, I wanted to leave myself, and perhaps everyone else, with that question: how do we, in the midst of the world, stand as recognisable witnesses to the mystery of our faith? I left it with them, I continue to struggle with it myself, and now I leave it with you too.

Feed my sheep

John 21 has long been one of my favourite gospel passages, and it has lost nothing of its beauty for its familiarity. In the midst of a deeply human scene, a shared breakfast on a beach at sunrise, it none the less expresses something of the mystery of God: this depth of love that even after utter abandonment and searing pain, allows the miracle of forgiveness. Forgiveness, and the trust to say even though you screwed up big time, I still want you to be part of this story.

As with everything in John's gospel, there is deep symbolism in the story, much of which, undoubtedly, I haven't fully understood.

At some point, probably a good few years ago now, I remember it being pointed out to me that the word for fish used here is a word "little fish" used only twice in the gospel: the previous time being at the feeding of the five thousand. There, the boy, humanity, brings the two small fish and Jesus multiplies them to provide enough for everyone to eat their fill. God can do nothing without humanity playing its part, but it is Jesus who works the creative miracle. Here, after the resurrection, the roles are reversed. Jesus brings the two small fish, but it is the disciples, humanity, who are asked to "throw the nets" and bring in a huge haul of fish; to take what is given by God and to work creative miracles of our own.

It seems unlikely that this choice of word, this drawing a parallel between these two stories, is mere coincidence: John doesn't work with coincidences he works with symbolic imagery. Perhaps this, then, is the essence of the resurrection message: just as Jesus during his earthly life stretched wide the boundaries of who was included at the table, who could share the feast, and demonstrated that there was plenty to go round for all those who chose to sit and eat; so we, as witnesses of the resurrection, are called to do the same: to push back the boundaries, to offer unbounded hospitality, to fish in a way that ensures everyone can eat.

Happy Easter!

Perfect love