Dear Friends,

I came across a quote by Harvey Cox this week that says: “Future historians will record the twentieth century as that century in which the whole world became one immense city.” As we look forward to celebrating Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary this weekend, it raises an important question for a church in the city: what does it mean to celebrate our city? With its long and often complex history, with stories of the good, the bad and the ugly, what are we really celebrating?

Perhaps you do not live in Amsterdam, which is true for many in our congregation, but the question remains just as valid.

This week—while preparing for my sermon, of course—I watched the NPO series Het Verhaal van Amsterdam. We can, I think, be rightly sceptical of a four-part documentary that tries to capture such a long and deep history. It certainly shows the familiar, rosy overview of the city that we all know well. Yet, one does get the sense, as the series aims to show, that Amsterdam has always been a city of migrants and passers-by: people coming and going. No one, they suggest, can claim to be a “real Amsterdammer”…..

Dear Friends,

In his book Cities of God, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, Graham Ward, sets out to map a much-needed theology of the city. In the introduction, he already points out how city and text go hand in hand. The earliest known form of writing comes from what was perhaps the earliest city, founded by the Sumerians in the fourth millennium BCE. The proto-cuneiform tablets from this city of Warka, later known as Uruk, show the connection between writing and urban life. As Ward notes, the emergence of writing and literature are urban phenomena. When the classical city collapsed in the Late Roman Empire and people in Western Europe began leaving cities for rural enclaves, schools closed and literary culture declined…

In our reading for Sunday from Luke 17:5-10, we hear the disciples ask a question that seems entirely reasonable: “Lord, give us more faith.”

There will be no spoilers for Sunday’s sermon in this newsletter. For now, I simply want to share a small thought that came up during our Bible study.

When I heard this question, I immediately thought of a sermon written in 1983 by the South African theologian Flip Theron. He focuses on this word faith—the faith the disciples are asking for. He observes that, sadly, the word faith can be like a piece of clothing: through overuse and misuse, it sometimes loses its shape and becomes worn out.

For Theron, faith is first and foremost a verb. In Afrikaans as in Dutch, glo (to believe) is closely related to geloof (faith). But it is an awkward verb. It is awkward because it describes both something we ought to do and something we ought to stop doing.

On the first point….

This Sunday will be our traditional Harvest Festival.

It is that time of year when we pause to contemplate creation’s generous giving and our own responsibility to care for Mother Earth. As I was preparing, I was reminded of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, in which he calls Christians to pay closer attention to creation: both in our relationships with one another and in our relatedness to the rest of the created world. It is at once a document of deep gratitude for creation and a plea to hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Following Laudato Si’, a prayer book was published which includes a beautiful “linger, listen, love” prayer. It is a way of contemplating creation, whether indoors or outdoors.

Please join me in this prayer today…

Dear all,

Our Courageous Conversations began last Sunday with an introductory discussion. We spent some time reflecting on a theology of conversing, drawing on John Calvin and the notion of ubuntu. We also revisited the Zulu greeting “sawubona.” All of this helped us see that in conversation we meet God as the Stranger among us, ready to surprise us when we least expect it. I was struck by everyone’s enthusiasm to join in and to get to know one another more deeply.

To take our discussion further, we divided into groups and had the chance to create our own Loesje posters. I have always liked these posters. They are so distinctively Dutch, and yet they manage to capture present realities with humour and simplicity. Loesje began writing them in 1983 in an attic, and the movement has since grown to include many co-writers (or “gang members”, as they like to call themselves). You can browse the Loesje archive online and see the posters created over the years. I did not gather all the posters from our discussion before we left, but below are a few I managed to keep..

Trauma & what it means

Three years ago, I fell badly on a tall ship which was racing its way from Denmark to Holland, and damaged myself to such a degree that it took over a year to recover and become mobile again.

Cut now to last Wednesday, and we suddenly found ourselves during Sail Amsterdam just 50m from the tall ship where my accident occurred, now moored as part of this huge celebration of Dutch marine history in our city.

At that moment, my wife and I parted company without a word - Annie spontaneously made for the ship (despite efforts by the stewards to stop her!), whereas I walked agitatedly in the opposite direction and took the next bus home.

What I realise now, rather too late, is…

Dear Friends,

Over the next few weeks, leading up to our Courageous Conversation on 14 September, I thought it might be worthwhile to share a few ideas about what it means to enter into conversation with others. This is the first of these reflections.

In the introduction to the Record this week, I mentioned the Archbishop of Cape Town’s reflection on what he calls Indaba: “a Zulu word describing a journey of slow discussion on controversial matters with the aim of furthering community life, not just solving an issue”. I will not repeat everything I wrote there, but I do want to return to how remarkable this phrase is. Our goal in the church is not simply to solve an issue. At least, that is not the first thing. The first thing is that we talk to one another in ways that deepen our life together. Can we speak with one another in ways that strengthen our community? And how might we do that?

I once met someone, Adri-Marie van Heerden, who likes to say, “How we gather matters”. Her point is that…

Dear Friends,

Over the next few weeks, leading up to our Courageous Conversation on 14 September, I thought it might be worthwhile to share a few ideas about what it means to enter into conversation with others. This is the first of these reflections.

In his book Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of a high-ranking CIA operative known as “The Mountain Climber”. During the Cold War, The Mountain Climber was the top name in the spy world. He built an impressive network of informants in Cuba under Fidel Castro and was successful in passing valuable information to Langley. His entire career and his promotions were built on this incredible feat. 

Fast forward a few years and The Mountain Climber, now a cemented legend in the CIA, is called to meet Florentino Aspillaga, his counterpart in Cuba and just as successful. Only now, Aspillaga wanted to defect to the American side. As a gesture of genuineness, Aspillaga revealed that all 48 people in The Mountain Climber’s network of informants had, in fact, been double agents all along. They had deceived him from the very start. Gladwell calls this one of the most humiliating moments in the CIA’s history, not to mention the personal embarrassment to The Mountain Climber himself…

The heart of worship

In this Sunday’s reading, the prophet Isaiah challenges us to look beyond the façade of false piety and return to the heart of worship: cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow. It is one of my favourite passages in the whole Bible, along with a few others that share the same message.

‘A life shaped not by despair or indifference, but by hope, love, and a deep commitment to life itself’

“Today human life itself is in acute danger. It is not in danger because it is threatened with death; that has always been the case. It is in acute danger because it is no longer loved.”

These words from Jürgen Moltmann’s Ethics of Hope still speak with clarity. Reflecting on the aftermath of the Second World War, Moltmann describes a time when people became “used to killing and used to being killed”. He draws on the words of Albert Camus, who, in the wake of war, wrote: “The secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life.”
Moltmann argues that this loss of love for life stands in direct contrast to the witness of Scripture. The Bible, he explains in detail, is deeply concerned with the fullness of life, “the life that is wholly and entirely filled with livingness.” This is why we proclaim and trust in the Gospel of Life: the good news of Jesus Christ, in whom wholly human life shares in wholly divine life.