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We certainly were’t prepared for COP last year, when we heard it had been pushed forward, though in the meantime our awareness of the urgency of change has grown sharply, covid or no covid. But now it’s coming. A runaway train. Like the crisis itself, no escape or excuses. After the UN’s “Code Red” in August, every would-be green preacher or prayer leader has now to ask themselves – when we have softened or played down the severity – “have we really shared the Truth in Love?”.
And for every piously environmental messaging, every prayer for salvation and liberation for the Earth or the poor, from now on, climate change calls our bluff.
In one way – and especially as we approach the “end-of-world ministry” of Advent in the weeks immediately following COP – we’ve been saying the right thing for centuries. We have been prepared for an age like this one, though sometimes setting aside the scary stuff in our scriptures, that deals with scary times. Or diverting it with ornamental approaches. November’s question is: “given the games we play as Church, do we really mean it?”
In the meantime, the age-old tasks of hospitality beckon: the Dear Green Place, and indeed Scotland as a whole can rise to the call to be welcoming to visitors of a dazzling diversity. Who was it Sarah and Abram met under that Oak Tree in Mamre? Whom will we welcome with the pilgrims politicians paparazzi and protestors . As the lark says in her song, ‘often often often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise!’ [‘Celtic rune of hospitality, Iona Community Welcome Service ].
In the same way, we have already grown closer than ever before to people of faith and goodwill. The significance of interfaith work has grown beyond the marginal meeting of cuddly Christians with cuddly Muslims, Hindus and others, to an unassailably necessary way of life for the road ahead. Those who are not against us – yes really- turn out to be for us, if we are for the planet.
It would be so nice to be able to sit back and encourage churches just to include the whole thing in their prayer intentions for a week or two and just carry on, though that’s not the nature of the gift of such a gathering of the nations on our doorstep. How can we be “the church, but different”, when the circus has come and gone? How can we bring the bad news about the planet into our sacred spaces and activate the spiritual resources of our scripture and tradition to engage with it?
And just as every claim to ’stop the climate crisis’ in its tracks is dishonest or self-deluding, so too, of course, is the suggestion that we can directly dictate what goes on in the blue zone ‘outside holiness’ and behind the razor wire where ” soldiers gamble, thieves curse, and the nations clash at the cross-roads of the world [George MacLeod, ‘Only One Way Left’]…
This is COP, and this is where again we raise the Cross, offering our way of hope beyond hope; of courage faith and a cheerfulness that sustains. Humbly, eagerly, and trusting that God can use whatever imperfection or encouragement will emerge from this gathering which will do good, but maybe not enough, maybe now, as diaries, events, locations finally slot into place, we are as ready as we’re going to be. COP is not an ‘event’ but a spiritual journey of transformation. That’s what’s on offer, by the grace of God. And a congregation that prays along, takes part as surely as the superpower delegate on the conference floor.
Highlights: Look out for: the interfaith vigil in George Square on 31st OctoberThe great Peoples’ Action – a march of hope and protest on November 6thEcumenical Service from Glasgow Cathedral on November 7th, streamed live from 4pmMany venues around the city centre, and elsewhere in Scotland….
(A long draft for a possible video reflection, already consciously omitting quite a few possible themes)
Mungo is the Book we never read. Two names, many spellings: Kentigern: the formal identity in a warrior society; ’Mungo’ is a term of endearment. We’ll go with Mungo.
You’ll have heard something about a revived robin and that fish on the lamp posts with the ring in their mouth. A Celtic Salmon of Wisdom, caught in what the Clyde once was. Trees, birds, fish, bells.
There’s other stuff you might not have heard of: deer harnessed to the plough, and how the location of Glasgow Cathedral – in common with Durham Cathedral – was entrusted to the instincts of untamed cattle; how Mungo relied on the guidance of a wild boar, to found Llanelwy monastery; trusting, with significant Biblical precedent, to the gifts of these creatures.
The landscape of Scotland, written by the Ice Age, reworked by humanity, tells the story alongside a clutch of fragments and poems, all with their own agenda, from centuries after Mungo lived, and in Glasgow in 614, died. All agree with Jocelin of Furness that:
“he demonstrated from the beauty of visible creatures that … God was the creator of all things”
Look at the birds, learn from the trees. The miracle of nature?
There’s also the nature of miracle: Never mind water to wine: Mungo’s influence turned milk to cheese, which, when we’ve finished being underwhelmed, might open our eyes to the immersion of God in Creation in the wee things too.
Inspiration in the small wonders of daily life, enlisting us in care and responsibility for the bottle-garden of our Planet; a habitat gifted and shared simultaneously with so much other life. And it’s all recycled. Or it dies.
* * *
Mungo went to Rome, of course. ( Seven times, to be on the safe side) and received from the Pope, a Bell, curiously identical to those of the Celtic Saints.
These were Bells to drive out the demons of injustice and to hold power to account. Mungo’s Bell has been not just recycled and repurposed, but made and remade. ( 1450, 1651) Looking in each case curiously like a bell of the age in which it is founded.
We ring Mungo’s bell anew, to call for climate justice and to drive out the demons of denial. Hand in hand with Mungo the Green. One with us, in justice for Creation. One with us in love for God’s creatures, one with us in in Christ, whom we trust above all. God willing, there’s truth to be found, without much digging. Truth right now: for the mega-pilgrimage of COP, as the great and bad and small and good gather in the city that grew round Mungo’s salmon fishery, which a thousand years later was dredged blasted and channelled into a major waterway. The stream of his story may have undergone similar violence. And yet, through the preaching of God’s word, that became the city motto, we have the chance to flourish.
The Truth we need today is one where your neighbour is your fellow creature, or indeed the living planet that Pope Francis calls us to cherish as we would a beloved relative on whom we also depend. This Truth for me, lurks in the lovely murk of Mungo of the Green Place.
A Truth, that, kindled by the breath of love from damp brushwood, is a wildfire leaving in its wake a fertile ground for change. For Mungo deserves forthwith to be recognised as patron of sustainable energy.
As a young monk, he’s charged with guarding and fuelling a sacred flame “sent down from heaven” which, when he drops off – by the malice of his young peers, is snuffed out.
This flame is a practicality. It’s a matter of ‘keeping the lights on” as politicians put it: and through prayer and practicality, an alternative light is brought on stream, for the good of all. Our ways of life and economics, globally unjust, have burned out. We’re running on empty, in need of direction, and hope.
Facts are part of that: warnings from scientists of terrifying changes to the balance of the Earth. With COP upon us, we’re up to our eyes in facts, with figures coming out of our ears, and there’s a whole lot of change to embrace, to be the church for today. For the Glasgow COP to be the Mungo COP
But cry ‘Mungo’, and you trip over the stumbling block of entitled contempt. In many ways and places. There’s the colourful contempt of the Cumbrian biographer Jocelin (five and a half centuries later), for the Scots. Contempt for the common people who told and loved Mungo’s tales; contempt for their culture, their way of speech and more.
“Pouring the life-giving liquid from the original vessel into the new, …… that this work not be obscured by crawling in the filth of debased speech”
Jocelyn discovered a tale of trashing, dissing. Belittling. Denying. St Mungo is so fittingly the patron of the Bullied….. intimidated and misrepresented. In his life and beyond. Fleeing from pointless conflict, facing danger, speaking compassionate truth to power.
I’m reminded of death threats against climate scientist Michael Mann, whose blessed name is invoked by the iconic hockey-stick graph. Malice arising from the Gospel of Warning. Our first entrenched reaction to Truth is not just defensive, but aggressive.
“Why should I…..?”
Mungo “absteyned fro flesshe and wyne and fro all that myght distempre hym” .
.. But why should I eat less meat?
Ultimately, when we know the score, it’s for our own good, rather than some pointless regulation.
We sympathise with Jocelin’s gritted teeth, over the commission to fashion the miraculous life which regulations required for Mungo to take his place as a proper cathedral saint.
For even writing “new” material, we cling on to the Enlightenment heritage of domination of all other life and matter, content with “stewardship”, keeping partnership and accountability at arm’s length.
Like Jocelyn, when we eat our words… we find it’s a nourishing meal. For like Jocelin’s patron, and namesake Bishop Jocelyn of Glasgow, climate crisis calls our bluff. What is the church for, but the good of Creation? Creation in unity, heaven and earth, sky soil and sea, not split apart like a science fiction universe. Not split into people and all the other stuff.
When Jocelin swallows pride and sticks his neck out for the wonder of God at work in Creation… this, too, is our urgent need as we open our eyes hearts and minds to the Truth of our kinship and partnership with God’s other creatures, supported so powerfully by the kingdom of biological and natural sciences. Enriched beyond measure by personal sharing with land and sea …and Jesus, the friend of wildlife, in the mainstream of our faith.
It turns out all right, when we overcome that human-centred entitlement which looks to God for excuse for the futile enterprise of world control, but rules out Christ’s Truth that those who would be great must be servant of all. For “all” is a Creation-inclusive word. And it turns out that service is more fun than domination.
* * *
In our churches, we still have to confront the eagerness of modern scholars to trash our defining legends, though mythology remains a vital vehicle of truth. Stories shift us like statistics seldom do.
There’s also those fundamentalist liberals who insist that ‘you must not even flirt with belief ‘ – driving out what they see as the demon of naïveté, to leave in the void a desirable residence for fake science, despair, and worse: prohibiting our access to these rich resources for spiritual resilience in times of threat and turmoil, and privileging denial, because, just like the Truth of the tales told by genuine refugees to professionally incredulous border guards, “they’re only a story” .
When the circus of COP overwhelms Mungo’s Dear Green Place, we need stories – of refugees; of people flooded out of their homes; of those unjustly punished for the suffering already inflicted upon them and habitats denied to those God gave them – as never before.
Allow the rich and powerful a monopoly of hearing and we dig our own grave. Better prefer stories of refugees like Mungo, their nourishment, their refuge, and how they transform the world for good. We need to trust God within them, even through a glass, darkly.
Jocelin’s misgivings grew ironically into a lovely green image: he feared that, engaging with the untamed folklore of Mungo, he would be accused of planting not just a tree, but a whole “forest in the Temple of God”.
That’s Deuteronomy 16: that terror of ritual abuse of the holiness of nature by the vicious cults of Asherah. But Trees remain holy. Trees are where God meets God’s people and not just Sarah and Abram. And through human violence, the tree abused for crucifixion reasserts their unity with the Tree of Life. In ancient Glasgow, Oak trees over a grave marked the holiness of those buried beneath.
As for the ‘tree that never grew’ then in the age of Climate Crisis it is time for the saplings of courage, faith and cheerfulness to grow into exactly what Jocelin feared: that forest in God’s Temple, breathing in the air the forest breathes out, sheltering under their leaves, enjoying their fruit,
Even (here, )where Mungo’s embraced by the Earth. That’s truth.
* * *
Which Truth was the question over the pregnancy of Mungo’s mother Thenew, or Enoch vulnerable daughter of the dynastically ambitious king Lot, seduced by the preaching of passing Christians into refusal to be married off expediently, finding herself pregnant through intimidation, deception and shocking abuse which shines out grimly through the awkwardness of medieval writers about women. As does a feisty determination which sits oddly with a pure noble virgin. Thenew’s not a victim, but a survivor.
We need the abused Earth -which for Pope Francis is our mother – to be a survivor, rather than a victim. Christian writers are gleeful about the barbarism of her warrior father King Loth, whose stone though relocated, is still at the base of the Holy Hill Traprain Law, one of those prominences of the Scottish landscape which connect one place to another as surely as any telecommunications might. Not the highest, but the best-connected hill is the holiest in such a landscape.
Long before the quarry gobbled a cliff into the east side, there were cliffs from which Mungo’s mother-to-be was propelled to hell in a hand-cart.
Yet it seemed to her, she descended “in the fashion of a bird falling gently to earth lest by chance she would strike her foot against a rock.”
By the grace of God she survived, only to be set adrift on a charge of witchcraft (here )at Aberlady – today a gorgeous nature reserve and a great place for a swim, but back then stinking to high heaven with rotting fish gutted on the seashore.
The single mother set adrift, is cast ashore, giving birth where the altar of the chapel remains at Culross…
And in the refuge that she found, the modern twisted narrative of a vindictive church, determined to blame victims and add rejection to abuse, has no part.
Thrown off a cliff by their own family and people, Enoch and her unborn child Mungo are carried in safety by waves entrusted with their demise. Victims, survivors, refugees, welcomed then alone by those who served God. Womens’s Aid (here) at Culross. Where coal would soon be mined and where gas flares on the far bank of the Forth. St Serf was summoned either by the cry of a baby or of angels. Is there any difference in urgency? Was that Christ… or Mungo? The saintly local hero came bundled with extreme and embarrassing parallels to the life of Jesus, which Jocelin struggled to massage into orthodoxy. Our Gospels make that easy in a way Jocelin strangely struggles with.
When you saw them homeless hungry, persecuted, outside the law – and act – you do so for Christ.
Is Christ’s authority threatened by obedience to his commands? Is our love of Christ endangered when we really do meet Christ face to face in fellow creatures in need, or suffering from injustice?
Jocelyn had a balancing act on his hands:
…. because the foolish and unwise people living in the diocese of Saint Kentigern still do not fear to say that he himself was conceived and born of a virgin.
He couldn’t beat ‘em, though. He joined ‘em
“And there were shepherds keeping watch nearby, having care over the protection of their flocks. They were going out in the early morning when they saw a fire kindled near at hand. … with an infant wrapped up in swaddling clothes”.
I became more fond of Jocelyn reading that.
* * *
Mungo’s insistence on covering ground on foot looks like ostentatious humility, but presents a different type of travel from the instantaneous teleportation which seems to be our ideal. Mungo was what we’d call an ‘active traveller’ walking accessibly, rather than riding like an overlord. Ready to spring into action every step of the way
“Alway he had a Manuell in his hande redy to do his offyce when nede requyred “
The ways Mungo’s people keep in touch – through prayer, and word of mouth – are incredible only because we rely on modern technology to do that ancient job. Celtic saints were thoroughly networked. Before Scotland England Ireland and Wales had their current meaning, they taught and travelled, though like Mungo, often on foot.
Enduring wonders in the tales of Mungo and his mother Theney, though, are of forgiveness, the renunciation of violence, the refusal to collude with laws which protect only the powerful. The Gospel of seeking wellbeing rather than punishment; of leaving vengeance to God, of acknowledging in other creatures a valid parallel of what makes human life worth living; blurring that respectable razor-wire boundary between rational human and brute beast.
A hidden gem is Mungo’s encounter with the wild man Lailoken, who merges easily into the wider legends of European Christendom: the Green/wild/wood man, the personal, spiritual aspect of nature, suffering from its abuses, embodying its goodness. Beloved of God and those who serve God. ( Baptised by Mungo (here) in Stobo) But perhaps he’s also a veteran with post-traumatic stress. That’s what war does. Puts people where we’ve put animals. Othering is deadly.
“Lord Jesus Christ, in whose hand is the breath of all your creatures,… restore to this little bird the breath of life so that your blessed name will be praised forever.
That’s the valuing of a small life, in the robin who fell victim to the boisterous jealously of Mungo’s peers in Culross, and for whose death Mungo was unjustly blamed; the realisation that our own sternly exclusive way of thought and speech and life does not scratch the surface of the independence, the interwoven-ness of the flesh that the Word of God became; the life of the Rainbow Covenant with God in their entirety.
In Mungo, we come closer to God when we abandon our objectification, our othering, of fellow creatures … Like [St Serf ] , with cheerfulness, admiring in the robin the great power of the Creator, by whom the mute speak and irrational things are known to experience reason. …by the command of the heavenly Father, without whom not even one sparrow falls toward the earth.
The predations of a wolf were no cause for the death of the predator, who serves a probation by ploughing nine acres before he’s allowed to return to the forest.
We won’t leave Mungo without noting how, since we are part of Creation and we need management, intervention and guidance, the same is true of nature without us.
Mungo’s interventions in nature to cure disease and heal the sick, even the resuscitation of the grumpy cook who died before his time – all these are in the same category as speaking out against injustice. The human calling, to the flourishing of life.
Jocelin leaves us with this assurance, that in Glasgow, sight is restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, steps to the lame, speech to the mute, cleanliness to the leper’s skin, strength to paralysed limbs,
The group photo for the Nations Climate Sunday Service in Glasgow
Creation Time/Season of Creation is well under way: we’re hearing reports of congregations using the material, including the major video reflections in sermon-slots, in Scotland and further afield.
It’s very difficult to measure the impact, so any messages about what people are doing, and indeed any requests for help – such as supplying an MP4 file of a video from YouTube – are most welcome. Then we know that one of the ‘hits’ one the site represents contact with a whole congregation.
We’re also still reflecting on material that has been posted, and in some cases adjusting it when we notice what could be better: it’s that exciting!
But I’m also, in the process, becoming aware of the challenge still posed by the church cultures we’re working with, in terms of evolving an environmentally aware approach to scripture and tradition. Two years ago, I put a search thread on ‘climate’ into the Bible Society’s website, and it returned “no results”. I did so again today, with the same outcome.
How many churches view environment as an “issue” rather than the overall context in which we do all our theology, and in which we offer all our praise?
Online conversations with colleagues make it clear that small nuances – such as the presentation of Genesis 218ff in the NIV, which dares to depart from a consensus which otherwise permitted the idea that all other life was created from scratch for the benefit of ‘Adam’ – may not stand out as significant if you’re not constantly interrogating scripture with a green tooth-comb. Or you might dismiss the NIV approach as an aberration designed to force the two, parallel, Creation stories into a consecutive ‘historical’ narrative. Fair enough. For me, it is sufficient that we emerge with greater respect for fellow creatures if we’re not forced to see their creation as serving a human purpose. The variety of translations now easily accessible online allows discernment beyond the Babylonian captivity of the ‘pew bible’.
Relatively few in the churches acknowledge, as a matter of course, that we all approach our relationship with the Bible with layers of slant and prejudice. That’s not a criticism, but a liberating awareness. Just as, with planting trees, the right tree in the right place makes a huge difference, and even the right mode of sustainable power in the right place, there’s another question.
And I’m delighted today to see the joint statement from Pope Francis, Archishop Justin Welby and Patriarch Bartholemew, presenting the Earth as someone who can cry out, rather than an inert object. https://climatenewsnetwork.net/earths-future-hinges-on-un-glasgow-climate-talks/ . The more, the merrier! It makes the job of a humble environmental chaplain that much easier!
What is the right sort of slant for here and now? And it does set us free from the dominating aspiration to definitiveness of the white, western and largely male and anthropocentric presentation of the church which held sway for several generations, sometimes reinforced by theological rank being pulled. The critique of anthropocentricism by no less than the Pope, in Laudato Si, has been a gift to all the churches. I bless every bishop, lecturer, district chair, or moderator who stands up to be counted in this awareness.
Being part of a meeting shaping a denominational environmental policy last month was quite encouraging: leaving behind the deceptively comfortable language of “stewardship” – which presents creation as property to be guarded, rather than life with which to partner – and taking care to avoid calling a living Creation “it”.
In terms of use of language, it was also a great relief that the version of the Genesis 1 Creation story chosen for the Nations Climate Sunday service in Glasgow was The Message, which rightly talks of ‘human beings’ for ‘Adam’ and notes ‘responsiblity’ as the key to any ruling or managerial role to which our species may be called. I was also particularly pleased to note that ‘sky’ was used rather than ‘heaven’.
But even more, it’s clear we need to work towards a new relationship between scholars and preachers (yes, they often are the same person, bu stick with it!). At least in my own tradition, the work done in forensically investigating the possible meanings and the ‘Sitz im Leben’ – the context in which a text, or object, has been created, and its function and purpose at that time, is highly respected, and is the foundation for creative and inspired interpretation. This indispensable work gives us the word from which we wrestle the Word, though even the best translation is a very long way from, and no substitute for, an inspired and creative response to the question of what the Spirit is saying the the churches today.
The Eco Garden at Oakshaw Trinity Church with their bottle greenhouse.
We are delighted to announce that Oakshaw Trinity Church, Paisley has been given a Silver Eco Congregation Scotland Award for their environmental work. The assessors noted that the team at Oakshaw Trinity church had presented a strong application for their silver award. They were impressed by the way in which the team arranged their meetings to ensure that the Kirk Session is kept fully appraised of their work. The assessors also commended the discussion about environmental matters within the congregation.
Oakshaw Trinity Church has links with charity shops and various events in the community. There is a Fair trade shop which operates in the church and links with the shop in the town. The congregation also support the Renfrewshire Foodbank. The church also has strong links with Christian Aid and TearFund.
Seasons Panels at Oakshaw Trinity Church
Springwatch and Autumnwatch events are held and encourage all of the congregation to participate in caring for the grounds around the church. The youth organisations like to work with gardeners to care for creation. The services held on these days link the spiritual and the practical, with discussion of environmental matters.
The assessors noted the ways in which environmental messages are communicated within the congregation and to the wider community. Good use is made of notice boards and newsletters. During the Covid time of lockdown and isolation more use has been made of online communication, with hopes that this will continue beyond the pandemic.
The team at Oakshaw Trinity have found a number of ways to share environmental learning with the congregation. They have used pledge cards to encourage members of the congregation to review their lifestyle and carbon footprint. Their Zero Waste events have been successful and will be repeated when the pandemic rules allow. All age groups have been encouraged to participate in projects.
The team have linked with the Fabric Committee and this has resulted in an improved environmental performance of the church buildings. There has been discussion about ethical investment and environmental philosophy within the congregation and these discussions have resulted in changes in investment and activity.
Most of the Psalms prescribed by the Lectionary during Season of Creation, read “between heaven and earth”: high up, on location, near Slochd an Lochan (960m) Psalm 8 (bottom of page) is at locations including Glencoe and Isle of Skye.
