Doing what we can do

I dragged myself on Sunday to a carol service at the local Methodist church here in Hailsham. I’m really struggling with church at the moment and feel very outside of it because I’ve been away from it so long. I’m not engaging with Christmas at all and so I needed to hear the story and at least sing a few carols before it’s all over. 

I sat and thought about all the characters in the story as the passages from the bible were read. God came into the world in human form helped by people who said yes to him. They offered what they could to be part of the drama. 

I’ve been very good at focussing over the last four months I’ve been unwell at what I can’t do. I fret I cannot superintend my Circuit; I cry when my lungs ache so much because I’ve done too much. Tonight I’ve only changed the fillings in five cat toilets and made the dinner and I haven’t stopped coughing and I’ve gone violently hot. When I do too much which at the time doesn’t feel too much, I get frustrated. 

But maybe I need to refocus on what I can do, not what I can’t. There is much I can’t do at the moment. I need to rejoice in little steps. I thought about Mary as the service progressed on Sunday morning. She was frightened, she didn’t understand, but she said “let it be to me according to your will.” And then through that act of obedience, giving what she could, even in uncertainty, remember her fiancée in law could well lead her to death for playing away - she enables potential revolution.

One of my favourite writers, Rachel Held Evans, talks in a blog post about belief being hard this year. In her yearning and her offering to God she concludes “ And so I’m waiting with the angst of the prophets, with the restlessness of the psalmist who cried “How long, oh Lord, will You hide your face forever?” and with the stubborn, unsentimental hope of a woman so convinced the baby inside her would change everything, she proclaimed in present tense that the great reversal has already arrived.”

 

We can make a difference even if we can only do a little. My phrase I say a lot when I collapse is “this is so ridiculous!” I can’t see I’ve done well doing something as pathetic as servicing cat toilets! 

We had to be in Chichester today and slipped into the cathedral for a few moments. Above the nave is a star created using two laser projectors, set high up in the cathedral roof, directing light onto a transparent mesh to form its image. “The Star of Bethlehem” appears as a morphing geometric shape, moving slowly and gracefully across the space.

Visitors to the Cathedral can interact with the artwork by operating an iPad to change the star's appearance and colour. The idea is to see the vibrance of light always ahead of you with endless surprises and colour. When we went outside in the dark, we passed the statue of St Richard, floodlit, but more powerful was the reflection of the light from him in the wall opposite. (Even if it does look like the late Bruce Forsyth). It spoke to me about when we choose to obey, do, share with someone, the light spreads. We don’t know what the little we can do, will do. 

So I’m trying not to beat myself up when my body says enough. I’m trying to be content with doing what I can. Incarnation is for me about small acts making a difference. God comes quietly and in a tiny child rather than with power. That child changes the world! 

I was glad the minister at Hailsham, Roger Leslie used an old bidding prayer for Christmas in the service on Sunday. This season if we take it seriously challenges us to make a difference rather than focus on what is beyond us. It also challenges us to sit alongside, be with those who feel they are worthless and don’t matter or who feel outside of love today. Your visit or card or call, just letting the person in pain know you walk with them, can be Christmas come. Let the words of this prayer challenge us all to do what we can in response: 

In the name of God, who has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and made a place for us in the kingdom of his beloved Son, we welcome you: grace to you and peace.

As we meet to celebrate anew the coming of God's Kingdom, we hear revealed the mystery of God's loving purpose for us -- how that when we were far off, he met us in his Son and brought us home; how he humbled himself to take our human nature, that we might share his divine glory.

Let us then so celebrate this coming with our carols and hymns of praise, that our lives may be charged with his life; that we may bear witness to his glory and so bring light to those who sit in darkness. So first we pray for those among whom the Christ was born: the poor and helpless, the aged and young children; the cold, the hungry, and the homeless; the victims of poverty, injustice and oppression, the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved; those in despair or in the shadow of death.

Then, as we hear again the message of peace on earth and goodwill among all his people, we pray for the leaders of the nations, that all may be inspired to work together for the establishment of justice, freedom and peace the world over.

And that we may bear true witness to this hope in a divided world, we pray for the peace and unity of Christ's body, the Church universal, that the whole earth may live to praise his name.

Finally, as we rejoice with the saints in heaven and on earth, we remember all who have gone before us with the sign of faith, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we offer up our prayers for the coming of his Kingdom.

And may the Lord when he comes find us watching and waiting, now and at all times. Amen.

 

 

And so I’m waiting with the angst of the prophets, with the restlessness of the psalmist who cried “How long, oh Lord, will You hide your face forever?” and with the stubborn, unsentimental hope of a woman so convinced the baby inside her would change everything, she proclaimed in present tense that the great reversal has already arrived—