Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 18 February 2024 - Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny - image by Mitya Aleshkovskiy - CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia

First Sunday of Lent

Into our wilderness

Its odd how each year the Great and Holy Season of Lent manages to capture the image both of a hard, dark journey through life, but also allows us glimpses of something else, something much more than we have in life now, and that this happens to us in ways that are unexpected. We have to make the connections that are there in front of us, and in a connective way I caught a view of a greater journey with the event, as has happened this Friday, of the news of the sudden death of Alexander Navalny in Siberia.

His death left me strangely shocked, as I am sure it has many of you. This is something I am processing carefully, but it also pointed me in a particular direction of Lenten exploration to find an analogy with his life and death, and this season. In particular to be found in the quality of faith Alexei Navalny discovered in his dark hours of suffering and imprisonment.

At a court appearance in January 2021, he revealed he was no longer an atheist, and in public quoted the words of Jesus as found in Matthew 5 :6; 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied'. His conversion, extraordinary steadfastness and dark sense of humour in prison and through all his trials, sheds another light on his life and a meaning to his death, particularly as somebody who as I have noted, also embodies in an analogous way, our Lenten journey and now as an example of martyrdom for the sake of justice and righteousness.

He said at that trial hearing in January 2021: "Even though our country is built on injustice and we all constantly face injustice...we also see that millions of people, tens of millions of people, want righteousness. They want the righteousness and sooner or later they will have it." His death is a challenge to my Lent, a step into the bewildering chaos of human existence, where good and bad intermingle, but alas where good, justice and righteousness that seem to be so elusive for humans, animals, and for our Earthly home itself sometimes is given hope.

Yet today's gospel is where we like Jesus are also impelled by the Spirit and pushed into confrontation with the Lord in his wilderness, and in that place and space he asks us to be with him and endure, to hold fast to what and who we are as Christians.

Though the stability of much of our society might seem fragile, we are also called to know that where Christ has gone, we too are bidden. 'At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him'. (Mk1: 12,13)

Straight away several hints emerge in this passage to act as the consolation of that virtue of hope. The Spirit is with us still, the desert is not a place of fear but of encounter and reality, though temptations are there we need to face not hide from them. The imagery of those wild beasts with Jesus is not one of predatory action or aggression, but of a greater Eden about to be restored, unlike us the wild animals do not sin, there is a purity about them that God so loves, and with the angels they are also the devoted companions of Christ in that desert.

This Lent should be a wilderness and a wildness of journeying faith, and though we might be afraid of what is to come, we are asked to put our hands into Christ's and into those of our friends-the saints, yes even of a neo-martyr Alexander, and trusting them, know that whatever is to come, it is not an ending but a gathering into Christ in the new Eden of the Kingdom.

The Rainbow of God

That image of uncertainty, being called into the wilderness is exemplified by the story of Noah and the Covenant God makes with us all. The sign of the rainbow is its refracted glory, the glory of the unseen, invisible, omnipresent Holy One, binding with us for ever, a sealed agreement ratified by Christ and the Spirit. Doesn't this story give you all hope? In the chaos of the biblical waters, so real for so many this winter across the world, a sign appears when all seems lost, that dove with the olive branch, and then the defining moment of contact between Noah and God where a promise is made that will be permanent; ' When the bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature - every mortal being that is on earth. God told Noah: This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and every mortal being that is on earth'.(Gen 9: 16,17)

That beautiful visual optic of colours which delights us all when we see it in the sky, or shimmering on the ground transfiguring everything it touches, simple though it may be, is of the same value as those other symbols of our faith that are rooted in ordinary life , the food and drink of bread, wine, the powerful quality of water, the brilliant light, oil used to anoint , marking us our for healing and service, these things as also the natural world are the signs of God. Whilst the rainbow has been hijacked as a symbol by various groups, you and me are surely bigger than those who capture a symbol and turn it into a sign, I'd suggest we recapture the biblical rainbow as a sign of covenant for all life, something that makes us look at the ordinary in an extraordinary way. A sign of the wonder that is the Spirit at work refracting another light, not our bigoted prejudices, but a light that breaks down the dark walls we put up to hide our hidden fears.

Finally, let us start our Lenten journey by really taking to heart the words of 1 Peter, here is a rainbow of scriptural words to transform and transfigure us ! May our journey through Lent be as these words are , a measure of hope-and in a curious way, a striking message of deep gospel joy in the witness of Alexander Navalny for our world today. May he now rest in peace and rise in glory! Memory eternal:

'For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison'. (1Pt 3: 18, 19)

Lectio Divina

Psalm 25

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

In you, O my God, I have trusted; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.

Let none who hope in you be put to shame; but shamed are those who wantonly break faith.

O LORD, make me know your ways. Teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth, and teach me; for you are the God of my salvation. I have hoped in you all day long.

Remember your compassion, O LORD, and your merciful love, for they are from of old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. In your merciful love remember me, because of your goodness, O LORD.

Good and upright is the LORD; he shows the way to sinners.

He guides the humble in right judgment; to the humble he teaches his way.

All the LORD's paths are mercy and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and commands.

O LORD, for the sake of your name, forgive my guilt, for it is great.

Who is this that fears the LORD? He will show him the path to choose.

His soul shall live in happiness, and his descendants shall possess the land.

The LORD's secret is for those who fear him; to them he reveals his covenant. 15 My eyes are always on the LORD, for he rescues my feet from the snare.

Turn to me and have mercy on me, for I am alone and poor.

Relieve the anguish of my heart, and set me free from my distress.

See my lowliness and suffering, and take away all my sins.

See how many are my foes; with a violent hatred they hate me.

Preserve my life and rescue me. Let me not be put to shame, for in you I trust.

May integrity and virtue protect me, for I have hoped in you, O LORD.

Redeem Israel, O God, from all is distress

God's Word "On Trial"

From Ministry Update May 2021

-When Alexey appeared in court to present his defence, his speech was reported widely around the world, heavily edited. The media were forbidden.

Alexey Navalny has become famous for his fight against corruption and the Kremlin's abuses of human rights.

Formerly an atheist, Alexey Navalny has found faith in God.

Navalny said he came to faith after returning to Moscow in January 2021 following his treatment in Germany for poisoning by the Novichok nerve agent.

Excerpts from Mr Navalny's address which appeared in Russian publications and on radio where Navalny had been interviewed:

Minutes of the proceedings (of his trial in January 2021) were made secretly. Much of what was spoken, was deleted. A secret recording of the proceedings showed that his final defence consisted of a sermon.

Alexey stated that he had been a staunch atheist, whose world view had been anti-God, but now had come to faith. While in pre-trial detention, he had found comfort in the words of Jesus as quoted in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled" (The word righteousness in the Russian Bible is "truth").

As one listens to his defence, one can see that only a person who has come to faith is able to speak in the manner he spoke. Alexey Navalny reasoned: "In the world's eyes, it is mindless to thirst for truth and to be nourished by it."

Navalny's own words

"If you want I'll talk to you about God and salvation. I'll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself"

"But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It's not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it's easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics."

Navalny went on to quote the Bible, specifically the Beatitude passage from Christ's Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

Memory eternal.