Promises

I should have been in this room at Ore Community Centre this afternoon leading a carol service. I was glad to see this picture posted by Steve Stewart but it also reminded me of what I am missing this season and I’m finding it so hard. I hope my churches are all okay and I really thank those who today and tomorrow and Tuesday will be taking all my services. I really miss you.  

I’ve not been good this week breathing wise and then I managed to get the bug that has been going round - it came on as I was driving. I now know what the hard shoulder you can pull onto is for! I slept for 36 hours solidly after I got into bed. Lis now has it, and is sleeping upstairs as I write. 

I managed to drag myself to church tonight. I am trying to listen for God’s promise over the next few days. I’m still very unclear what God is saying through this time of uncertainty and hard going to me. 

This Christmas people need some comfort and joy; they need the men of strife to hush their noise and they need to hear an angel sing. It’s been a year of wondering where we are going. Perhaps that’s why a song about a sausage roll has reached number 1: a bit of light relief but also doing some good as it has raised timely monies for food banks. There seem to be more houses with lights on them this year and the season feels longer.

 People need something better than what they face in the everyday. But not just artificial temporary “it’s all okay” but something to hold on to. January and February can be bleak because you really believe in the words of that trite song because it is Christmas “from now on your troubles will be out of sight.” We need some comfort to help in a bad time. That often needs to be gentle. I’ve just managed my first food since Thursday evening: a very slow eating of parsnip, apple and thyme soup (yummy from Morrison’s) and it feels good! 

I heard three divine promises tonight: they don’t take my trouble away nor do they make me feel suddenly better, but they give me something to hold on to.

1. The Psalm for tonight was Psalm 25. There were only three of us in the service and we read the Psalm slowly. I owe a lot to the Anglican dot on the page as it makes you pause and take the words in better. The 15th verse stood out for me: “Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.” So many people are caught in a net tonight. They want escape, freedom, to be rid of what is holding them back, often people! The promise here is if we keep our eye ever towards God he will pluck our feet out. I’ve been very honest in my writing recently and I know some find that hard who read this but while I’m struggling with much, my writing and thinking are somehow a strength. I still believe God has a plan, even if I haven’t a clue what that is yet. In July I was going along quite nicely...

2. Tonight’s Gospel was the lovely “other” reading of Jesus’ birth from Matthew chapter 1 where Joseph is reminded of the ancient prophecy that God will come as Emmanuel, which means, God is with us. With us, that’s the point, with us. To be with someone is to sit with them where they are. When someone is in pain or mental anguish or just uncertain, the thing that they need is to know they are not alone. But too often we don’t stay with people, we dare not face their reality or we make excuses why we can’t be there. I remember when my Dad died and my Mum was widowed at a ridiculously young age of 48, people would cross the street to avoid interacting with her, because they didn’t know what to say. But the more they stayed away, the more detached she became. If God is with us, then the church that says it worships him has to be with people wherever they are and whatever they face. The huge promise of Christmas is that, surely?

3. We shared the Magnificat tonight. I’ve shared these words over and over many times but tonight as in the Psalm another verse hit me perhaps for the first time: “He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.” I’m tired of people, as I think we all are, who think they can lord it over others and can push us about and who never make mistakes and never are accountable to anyone. President Trump seems to be imploding but he doesn’t notice; the Brexit thing is out of control; so many examples. To be “excessively proud of oneself” is a disease of 2018. “Look at me!” celebrity culture cries; “I’m very important” shouts the man in a responsible post in an office,  yet does not do that post justly or honestly. The promise is these types will be scattered! And one day a new world will come. And we need to live it now and work for it now. I think learned folk call it “realised eschatology” - look it up! Jasper the cat sits on the bedroom window sill of the Hailsham manse. The cats love the bedroom window sill because it is a sun trap. He’s looking in my picture at the tree in the front garden. It’s full of blossom. It thinks it is spring. A sign of better days to come. 

So I guess this unusual Christmas for me is God saying to me “hold on with me, there are no answers, but I’m still with you, stick with me.” I was grateful to the President of Conference who posted this prayer the other day. In all my writing I’m yearning for honesty as we search for the promises and its brilliant to see some of that in her leadership of us. I’ll listen for what Christmas Eve and Christmas Day say to me and come back with more. If you are bored, you don’t have to read it!

Here is the President’s prayer:

“Praying for all who are finding this season a challenge. May light break into darkness and may those dazzled by too much light find safe dark spaces in which to heal.”

Amen to that!