Light shining...

If you get up for a drink in the night or go to the loo, or let the cat out at 3am when you are being head butted as she is having a sponsored walk round the pillow round your head, you think, I needn’t put the light on. Even your house you know well, feels very different in total darkness.

Light makes it easier to journey, even a single little light. I live up a tiny lane and there are no lights until you get to my front door where a security light comes on. When I have meetings in an evening in the winter, I see people coming along the lane with torches to reach it safely.  

We need to anticipate the light coming to shine in the darkness when we are in the darkness and to believe it will come.  

I am thinking about Candlemas.  It is officially in the church calendar the end of the Christmas season. I keep a crib out in my house until February 2^nd. In the Gospel of Luke, we meet Simeon.

Simeon, old, righteous and devout, was looking forward to the consolation of Israel, perhaps to the peace of Israel, perhaps to its freedom from the Roman yoke. The Holy Spirit rested on him and had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Now the Spirit led him into the temple. Simeon took the baby Jesus into his arms and uttered what have become the familiar words of the Nunc Dimittis, one of the most beautiful prayers we have I think.

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace: according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation: which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles: and for glory to your people Israel.

Simeon spent his whole life waiting patiently for God’s light to come in a new way, and when he saw Jesus, he found peace, and he found life’s journey was complete. He didn’t know God’s timing, but he knew that that light would come. Can we not just simply say and sing that God is light, do we expect it to shine even when life is grotty? Is our attitude optimistic and do we live in expectation even when others think we are crazy to do so?

Someone in the Circuit said to me recently, “the trouble with you is that your glass is always half full, and you are always so positive.” I am a problem for this person because they like to moan about everything and nothing is ever good enough, and they keep me on my toes. Perhaps you know people who cannot ever believe anything good will happen. Sometimes they need us to walk alongside them a lot pastorally.

This last week we have remembered the Holocaust and the 70^th Anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

I have a DVD in my DVD cupboard I have never watched. I saw the film on the DVD at the cinema and it was so horrific I had to keep turning away. I took a girl to see it on a date. She dumped me not long afterwards. Schlinder’s List is not a girl’s idea of a romantic date really. If you remember the beginning of that film, a candle is lit at the beginning and then is blown out and the film turns from colour to black and white. 3 hours later, a candle is lit again, the film turns back into colour and all these elderly people are at a memorial to those lost in the Holocaust in Jerusalem, and you realise quickly you haven’t watched a story, you have been caught up in a period of history that involved real people, ordinary people, just like you and me, born into a certain circumstance, wiped out for being “different” by an ideology that strove to be perfect, without any deviations from the mother race.

I watched a programme on Wednesday night called “The Holocaust – An Act of Remembrance” – three stories were told. One a lady who fled as a child in the 1930’s to Switzerland. She later wrote children’s books including one about her childhood being taken away called “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.” Now it is a set text in German schools. One a lady who survived Auschwitz who tried to tell her story moving to this country after it and found people didn’t want to know. The last one though really got me.

It was a female rabbi who had traced her family back to Lithuania. There all the Jews in her family’s village were rounded up, put in the synagogue for three weeks with no food or water, some dying, but not allowed to remove the dead bodies, then without warning, the survivors were root marched to a wood, children murdered by their heads rammed into trees, like Psalm 137 that horrific bit “blessed be those who take your children and dash their heads against a rock.” And everyone else shot.

There was an image of a very elderly man in a wheelchair at an act of remembrance, the only Jew left in that village. A scene of utter disbelief as people collectively remembered the unspeakable.

I found awonderful piece of writing in a new book about where God might have been in all of this.It ends "they can’t take your prayers away from you."It’s like those words in Cologne Cathedral where Jews hid in the basement to escape Nazi tyranny.At the end of the war, fragments of a poem, believed to have been written by a Jewish child. were scrawled on the wall.

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining and I believe in love even when there's no one there and I believe in God  even when he is silent I believe through any trial there is always a way.

We anticipate the light coming in hard times, we need to pray for it, and expect it. Prayer is important, we need to turn to God, who will come.

Then we need to be the light for people.

I love that story from China where in a factory suddenly all the lights went out and the entire workforce were in the dark.

It is always a nightmare when we have a power cut and we cannot remember where the candles are and worse any matches. Anyway, the factory manager said to everyone, “put your hands in the air.” Everyone put their hands in the air. He said “you know old Chinese proverb say, many hands make light work.”

It is pretty dark out there for people at the moment, people are struggling financially in many places, struggling to feed their families turning to food banks, people are lonely, needing companionship and support, others have major health struggles which make the future feel frightening. People need to know from us that God in Jesus enters the darkness and gives light within it. People around us need to know that there is something concrete and real that can help them get through their crisis, not words, but action. We know if we light a single candle, it makes an amazing difference. God is in the darkness to transform it, and I believe today’s church can only be credible and have a future if we are prepared to enter the darkness of the world, instead of getting on with our cosy programme and pretend all is well with life and hope that the suffering and messy things of the world go away.

A lady called Patricia St. John was in Sudan when war refugees flooded that country. They had suffered terribly and had lost everything, yet those among them who were Christians still gave thanks to God.

Patricia said that she stood one night in a crowded little Sudanese church listening to those uprooted believers singing joyfully. Suddenly a life-changing insight burned its way into her mind. "We would have changed their circumstances," she said, "but we would not have changed them." She realized that God "does not always lift people out of the situation. He Himself comes into the situation. . . He does not pluck them out of the darkness. He becomes the light in the darkness."

Remember the old hymn we used to sing in Sunday School:  God make my life a little light within the world to glow; a little flame that burneth bright, wherever I may go. Remember the last time the UK won Eurovision (another of my weaknesses is Eurovision) - Love shine a light, in every corner of my heart, let the love light carry light up the magic in every little part let our love shine a light, in every corner of our hearts

We thank God for being light, we expect that light to shine and we are challenged to be light for others. Can we go out in our world whatever that means this week and be a positive presence, I hope so.

O God, who in the work of creation commanded the light to shine out of darkness: we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ may shine into the hearts of all your people, dispelling the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and revealing to them the knowledge of your glory in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Prayer for Epiphany

We reach the end of our Advent and Christmas journey. I love it that on their notices one of my former churches is having an afternoon "de-Christmasing" the church! How easy is it to do that!

The road is only just beginning to show itself ahead of us in this New Year. Already people are talking to me about strategy and targets and I've spent this afternoon planning worship for August and looking up tide times for Sea Sunday! Some things are now fixed in my diary. But all the details of the year are not known, and there will be a mixture of joys and sorrows, certainties and surprises. The road may well lead me somewhere I didn't want to go or be one I never expected to take.

The road may look the same every time I go down it, but every day there is challenge on the road and there are new things to spot if I keep my eyes open.

The road may need some careful stepping on. The cobbles of life may well try to trip me up.

What is at the end of the road? I don't know. I can only travel on it in hope and expectation.
I end these blogs by again reminding myself the magi, who we remember today, travelled a different road after their own Christmas. They didn't "de-Christmas" themselves glad it was all over.
I pray that whatever road we travel this year we will continue to find joy on it, and where it is hard, we will find God's light shining. Thank you for travelling with me on this journey of writing since December 1st. I will post occasionally now if you follow me and have me bookmarked, and I will back more permanently again in Lent. Looking at God's world, things in my life and reflecting on them has been a good thing to do.

Father God, thank you for the journey of the Magi, following the road guided by a star. 
When it is gloomy for me, and I can't see where the road is taking me, or the road looks the same and it feels too much, or I can't cope with a road that might take me to new places, remind me I never travel alone. Thank you for your daily care. Amen. 

Prayer for the Monday before Epiphany - Adoration II

It has been back to it with a bang today. My phone has been red hot with things that need sorting like funerals and meetings. There is strategy to sort, to keep my "we love strategy" people happy coming to see me in the morning! 

How do I keep the spiritual in my life when it all gets busy again? 

We need to know the presence of God way beyond twelfth night, when it is cold and wet and grey and in the middle of strategy meetings. We need to know this God in Jesus we have found will come with us into the mess of life as well as the good bits. I don’t know what you did to see in 2015. Some people went to parties, others watched fireworks, others can’t do it as emotions are stirred within them. It is a hard night, especially when the girl on the telly at one minute to midnight suggests “go and find someone to snog” and you are sat there on your own. I watched Methodist Central Hall by rocked by Queen and Adam Lambert, doing a good stand in for the great Freddie Mercury. Queen songs are very optimistic. You into Queen, folks? I sat with my glass of Baileys (naughty) and was moved by these lyrics:

I've paid my dues time after time. I've done my sentence but  committed no crime. And bad mistakes ‒ I've made a few. I've had my share of sand kicked in my face but I've come through.

We are the champions, my friends, And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end. Isn’t Christianity meant to make a difference to us?

Isn’t the future optimistic because Jesus is here, not just born into the world, but redeeming the world, dying for the world, and triumphing over everything. The Covenant of God is this – I will be your God and you will be my people. Not just for a few days at the end of December and some nicey nice spirituality you dip your toe into and leave, but permanent, there, inviting, sharing, journeying, consoling, befriending, wherever we are, and whatever we do. We can do anything if we believe that Jesus is here and we believe in ourselves. Remember those Magi returned to their country by another road. 

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Prayer for the Sunday before Epiphany - Adoration I

I have just come in from an encouraging Circuit Service at the Methodist Church in the centre of Bexhill, pictured here. We had a pre Epiphany service with reflections and some amazing organ playing. The church is vast! 

Part of my wacky ways here as Superintendent is to insist on a Circuit Service once a quarter, so tht we worship together. This year we need to think about vision together as well. Our reflecting on Matthew chapter 2 tonight helped us think about the courage and conviction of the travelling magi. 

They felt an inner, irresistible need to leave everything to follow the star that would lead them to a new understanding of God’s presence. They kept going.  We are so good at giving up! The Gospel is about good news, about discovering the possibility of God, about potential, about journeys, about catching up with where God is, often far ahead of his Church! I wonder if other people joined the magi and their entourage on their journey, caught up in the wonder of it all? 

I like Spurgeon on this need to keep to the vision, and to keep following: 

“Beloved friends, if wise men of old came to Jesus and worshipped, should not we come also? These wise men came naturally, traversing the desert; let us come spiritually, leaving our sins. These were guided by the sight of a star; let us be guided by faith in the divine Spirit, by the teaching of his word and all those blessed lights which the Lord uses to conduct men to himself. Only let us come to Jesus. It was well to come unto the babe Jesus, led by the feeble beams of a star; you shall find it still more blessed to come to him now that he is exalted in the highest heavens, and by his own light reveals his own perfect glory.

Delay not, for this day he cries, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

Prayer for January 3rd - Nurture

I am thinking about the journey of the Magi over the next few days as these blogs come to a close.

A place to be nurtured is important. This is the house I grew up in. I revisited my old room pictured here upstairs, yesterday. When life was tough, I used to stare out of the window at the world passing by. It was a safe space for me. I also went back to St Albans yesterday and walked round the lake at Verulamium, lots of times to think round it have happened over the years. I then walking through the city centre remembered school, cathedral services and being told off for letting the school down walking back disgracefully by the rather eccentric headteacher we had, Miss Legerton.

I wonder what sort of nurturing community the magi had. The magi would have followed the patterns of the stars religiously. They would have also probably been very rich and held high esteem in their own society and by people who weren't from their country or religion. I can imagine them meeting for years studying the stars, waiting for a sign, preparing for a special journey one day. I can imagine them going through the motions of their star gazing for year after year and then suddenly one day they see what they have been preparing for and their hearts beating fast.

This year not every day will great things happen for us. Most days will be ordinary, uneventful. Our churches will function through our faithfulness. We will worship, we will offer what we offer to the community, we will do our work with families and children, we will look after one another. As we are confident with one another, as we get more confident with the way of God, when God chooses to break in, we will be ready to respond. We need the resources to journey, and the journey can only happen through preparation, knowing God, and being faithful to our call. Barbara Brown Taylor, who is an American priest, in a super book called “Leaving Church” says this about the need to be nurtured in a confident and valuing community: “Church is not a stopping place but a starting place for discerning God's presence in this world. By offering people a place where they may engage the steady practice of listening to divine words and celebrating divine sacraments, church can help people gain a feel for how God shows up--not only in Holy Bibles and Holy Communion but also in near neighbours, mysterious strangers, sliced bread, and grocery store wine." The magi saw God in the world, they were not sure what they would find, but they were confident that God was active outside and they had to find what he was up to. 

I found this lovely in my old room in the current URC prayer book yesterday. Mum's cousin staying with her, had it by her bed:

We have seen the star at its rising, but have been too busy to take note. We have heard the angel’s warning, but have been too distracted to heed it. We have tasted the bread of justice but have preferred the wine of self-indulgence. We are Herod, alerted, alarmed and afraid, scheming for our own advantage, keen to keep hold of all we have accumulated, certain our security is in power, position and wealth. A star has arisen, we fail to stand. Light has come, we shade our eyes. Mystery has been revealed, we prefer our mirror to your horizon. Light of all peoples, born in the vulnerability of love, shake us from our sleep. Open our eyes to the dawn of your new day that we may see and become radiant.  

Prayer for January 2nd - a salted caramel yule log sort of day

Today has seemed to me to be a funny sort of holiday day but not holiday day if that makes sense.
I delivered Mum home to Harpenden - the M25 was a dream. The new way of doing the Dartford Crossing is much better. The service stations were full of people still looking very relaxed and enjoying the day. Later I went to meet a friend in St Albans and enjoyed the last pre January detox of a salted caramel yule log in Costa. St Albans felt like it was before Christmas, loads of people about, shopping, laughing, enjoying being together, perhaps the last relaxed day before the realities of January hit on Monday morning.

The M25 was very good again tonight, but then I hit an enormous queue on our favourite bit of road in these parts - the horrid A21. Cars were turning round and I was told a car in front of me was alight. Soon police cars and fire engines were screeching down the road. I guess it hit me that a relaxed day can suddenly be broken into with tragedy. I hope there were no fatalities in the accident, The flames were visible from some distance. Perhaps it reminds us this sort of story to remember those who have had hard things happen to them in this holiday season.

I also was aware that when you are relaxed sometimes life ahead of you means you have to take another direction. I have just got in discovering country lanes around Frant, that were not pleasant to
get me back on the road I needed to be on, a three quarters of an hour diversion. I was glad to follow a car in front of me to get me safely back on familiar territory. This leads me into the theme of the reminder of this little series of blogs - travelling, setting out and arriving, thinking about Epiphany on Tuesday, my last day of writing in this way for a while.

God, thank you for what feels to be the last day of relaxed enjoyment. 
Help me though to be aware that every day life happens, sometimes quite suddenly. 
I pray tonight for those in the car accident, and for all others for who today has been hard or has seen sudden tragedy. Give them your peace. Amen. 

Prayer for New Years Day

I sat up late last night - Queen and Adam Lambert were brilliant and I had fun sending and receiving messages from friends until about 1am! Today has been a bit of a blur. I sang along to every song of Mary Poppins this afternoon and now appear to be watching some thing about a tortoise!

The New Year has begun - but not its work😃 - that can wait for a bit.  

God of the New Year, I will get on with it soon, but today it feels too much. Is it okay to rest for a bit longer? Amen