Death and Resurrection in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter

Reflecting on his church’s integration of asylum seekers and refugees, David Tomlinson posts an instructive story in Holy Week for those who engage in mission, seek to be compassionate, and are committed to building communities.

It was raining heavily, and the deluge was not just outside. The four people in St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham that Sunday morning placed their buckets thoughtfully, aiming to catch most of the water. Once this task was finished, they huddled together again. Cold and a little damp, they completed the service. Then, as every week, they were sent out to love and serve God.

Every Sunday, their worship took this small congregation into the Kingdom of God, into the Father’s presence, where they saw the End: the whole of humanity united in love, heaven and earth joined, and the entire creation suffused with the glory of God.[i] The Church’s ascension in the Eucharist[ii] into the Kingdom is the beginning of its mission.[iii] Words from TS Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” are instructive: “To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from…”[iv] This vision of the fulfilment of God’s loving purposes, grounded in Christ’s Resurrection, is the Easter hope, and it sustained them as they persevered. Besides giving them a lift, it also kept them focused on the wider world, when it would have been so easy to become preoccupied with their struggles, and the church’s future.

The paradigm for the church gathering, meeting with God, and then being dispersed in God’s service is the encounter between the Risen Christ and his followers in Jerusalem on that first Easter Day. He came to them, showed them his hands and his side, and then said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”[v] While his mutilated body does confirm that the Risen One is the Crucified One, Jesus is doing much more than confirming that it is indeed him. As they are commissioned to participate in God’s mission, Jesus makes it plain that the distinguishing mark of Christian discipleship and the authenticating sign of God’s work in the world are the wounds of crucifixion. Then he breathes the Holy Spirit on them. In this powerful encounter, Good Friday and Easter Day are held together. The agony of the cross is united with the joy of resurrection, and vulnerability and indomitable love flow together as those gathered go out on the river of God’s grace.

Between Good Friday and Easter Day is Holy Saturday. As grief enveloped the world during this global pandemic, this overlooked day in the Christian calendar has come to the fore as a reference point, and it is easy to see why. Following his death, Jesus’ followers were bereft. Their shared life, with Jesus as its centre, had been ruptured. Life felt empty; the future uncertain. Yet, they are soon to see the dawning of the new day heralded by the resurrection of Christ. We too are in a time of tear-soaked waiting, hoping that a new work, more just and compassionate, might arise from the distress of recent months.

On Holy Saturday, those grieving for Jesus are in what is known as a “liminal space”. The word liminal comes from the Latin word “limen”, meaning threshold - any point or place where one enters or begins something new. A liminal space between the “what was” and the “what is coming”. It is a place of transition, a time of waiting, and not knowing what lies ahead.

The temptation when we find ourselves in this unsettling position is to rush on, to escape the anxiety or even apprehension that we might feel. Our ignorance - we cannot see what is coming next - and our disorientation - much of what was familiar has gone - can make us impatient. Yet, we need to stay where we are, be perplexed, and let the future come to us. By remaining, and staying with the disconcerting anticipation of what is next, we have let our defences down. In our weakness, we are open to God, and God meets with us. (The holiness of “liminal spaces” is underlined in Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus assures us that in tackling difficult issues in church, and in cross-cultural mission, the divine presence is guaranteed and known.[vi]) In this divine encounter, we are transfigured, and the future, often new and surprising, is given to us.

From the liminal space of dwindling numbers and a building in disrepair, the faithful congregation at St Pauls gathered Sunday by Sunday, and prayed. They waited and hoped, and then a new reality arose. To give hope to St Paul’s and some fresh energy, an experienced and energetic priest was pulled out of retirement, and put in charge. Within the next couple of years, the church had grown significantly, and the roof had been fixed. A church that seemed to be dying had been renewed. The resurrection for St Paul’s came through Iranian asylum seekers and refugees who are now integrated into the church’s life, and through those who continue to gravitate to us on arrival in Birmingham. Many have been dispersed across the West Midlands but some still return and others join us on zoom for our weekly social event, service, and bible study.

Now if you were to come to our Sunday worship, you would hear the bible readings, the intercessions, the sermon, and the notices all translated into Farsi. Our Sunday afternoon bible study is also in both languages. Besides this linguistic marker that we are an intercultural church, our common life is shaped by the Iranian emphasis on hospitality, and enriched by this nation’s stories and poetry. As we are embodying two cultures, everyone encounters a culture that is not their own. Crossing the boundary of our customary way of seeing the world, and trying to look around us and at ourselves from another perspective, takes us into that “liminal space” where we can be transformed. Having stood in a different place and seen the world from a new vantage point, we do not return to where we are, as we were: we have absorbed what we have learnt, integrated the vision we have had into our world-view, and now see everything differently.[vii] This is a kind of dying and rising.

Our vision is to be a church characterised by compassion and a strong sense of community. The journey into compassion necessitates a letting go, in order to enter into the experience of another. There is marked reluctance for many of the asylum seekers that I have met to tell their story; they are too painful to relive. There are though some common features: the harrowing reasons for leaving, the ordeal of travelling here, and the hostility of many on their journey and when they arrive. Bearing these traumatic experiences, they have to navigate their way through the asylum process, and begin to integrate into life here. They have to meet the challenge of learning a very different language, while missing family and friends that they have left behind. Coming alongside, and being companions for them, means that we have to identify. We have to imagine, and begin to feel what they are feeling. This is a particular example of what compassion always demands of us. As we are urged by St Paul in his letter to the Romans: we rejoice with those who rejoice, and we weep with those who weep.[viii]

When someone joins a community, it cannot remain the same. The stranger who has become a friend brings their own contribution. They need space in which to flourish, and we need to let them enrich the common life. The impact of our Persian brothers and sisters is obvious on a Sunday morning: we hear Farsi spoken. For a time, it was only the readings that were heard in both languages, now it is the sermon, and prayers as well. In the service booklets, the text is translated in Farsi, but it is only spoken in English. Incidentally, this facilitates the learning of English for those for whom it is their second language. There is more we can do to celebrate and enjoy together Persian culture. Recently, for example, we celebrated Nowruz, the Persian new year, at a social event on zoom. Next year, we intend to have a party. Communities though depend on much more than give and take. Their depth is determined by the capacity of everyone to share their own world, and to enter into each other’s. This willingness to enter the place of uncertainty, to take the risk of leaving behind what is familiar, if only for a moment, is to deepen the love between us, and to invite renewal.

My other role in Birmingham diocese is chair of Board of Trustees of Thrive Together Birmingham. Our values are compassion, collaboration and integration. We see to tackle poverty, build communities, and influence the wider movement of practitioners, agencies, and churches committed to the same goal: asset-based (that is, working with not for people) social action. The best community development workers understand the importance of waiting, being patient, and staying in the “liminal space” they find.

To die more profoundly and to rise to greater heights depends on our capacity to stay in the liminal spaces that are integral to mission, compassion, and strengthening communities, and wait for resurrection to come. Our facility to face the uncertainty and strangeness of these situations is fostered in prayer, in silence before God. By surrendering to God in stillness, we prepare to give up control, and let God be God, through the dying and rising of discipleship, and to be patient in mission. Sitting in silence, quietening the mind, and turning to God in love is the simple joy of this contemplation. As we are urged in chapter 3 of the famous book The Cloud of Unknowing, we are to “centre all your attention and desire on him”.[ix] Then we’ll enter into the ultimate of liminal spaces, the space between God and humanity, and find with St John of the Cross, that to “arrive at what you do not possess, you must go the way of dispossession”.[x] In this holy space, we, of course, meet the one who is fully human and fully God, the One who let go of life to be raised, the Risen Christ. Alleluia!