[First published by the Iona Community in 'e-Coracle' online magazine.]
When you hear ‘Heaven’ … look at the sky, and what is happening today. The sky is perhaps ‘out of reach’, but not remote to your experience. It’s always there. It doesn’t need to be talked about to be brought to mind. And it’s in danger, same as the earth! In the Bible, Heaven/Sky are the same word, most of the time. Heaven and Earth are one Creation, and belong together, in the same breath. Look it up! Next time there’s thick fog, have a walk in Heaven! But if you insist on separating them, experience Sky first of all, and only then bring your imagination into gear for ‘Heaven’.
When you hear ‘World’ … touch the earth, stroke an animal, drink water. Eat bread, exchange a sign of Peace. Don’t be funnelled down only into the genuine, but not universal, narrower meaning of ‘human culture’. ‘World’ includes every living thing, every creature. This is our starting point today. This is what God so loves that he gave his only Son … And the depths of the word’s meaning suggest something worth delighting in.
When you hear ‘Spirit’ … go outside and stand in the wind and feel its movement. Breathe in and out. Spirit, breath and the wayward gusty wind belong together in the Bible, and require no additional rapture to step into. But if you are given some sort of rapturous vision, remember, the community needs to interpret it, rather than just you yourself.
When you hear ‘Redemption’ … always substitute ‘liberation’. Christ and the truth (both, without conflict) set us free! Freedom goes with finding your place and purpose. Don’t wait till you’re dead to find it.
When you hear obedience … obediently and faithfully question who or what it is that you are being asked to be obedient to. When at Christmas someone sings ‘Christian children all must be/mild, obedient, good as he’, read again the only story we have of Jesus’ childhood, when he disappears in the middle of a crowded city and drives his parents to distraction.
When you hear servant/slave remember that it is the useless ones that do only what they’re told.
When you hear of God in Christ Jesus … remember and respect how the Church has insisted on (though also often ignored) the full and unreserved humanity of Jesus, revealing the holiness of that of which he was made. Feel your own body. Go to the toilet. Get hot, get cold. The radical implication of the Incarnation, if you don’t limply pass it off as a mere metaphor, is that Jesus also shares our evolutionary history – thus also that of all living things.