I have always thought the greatest treasure of Methodism is the annual Covenant Service, the new year reminder of God’s faithfulness and the challenge to respond no matter what we face. John Wesley pinched the service from the Puritans and he referred to it as a commitment to “an abandonment to divine providence.” I always count it a huge privilege to lead the people I care for pastorally in the words of the Covenant in which we pledge to do our best and express our content that Christ appoint us our work and our reward.
I’ve led this prayer every January for the last 22 years. Today for the first time since 1997, I stood and said the prayer not from the front, but in a congregation, not as a minister, but as a struggling disciple unsure of the future. I had a tear as I said the words “let me be employed for you or laid aside for you.” Being laid aside is painful and unwelcome but it is where I am at the beginning of 2019.
I’ve been struggling with this for many weeks and months now but today in worship there came a peace. I said the prayer amongst a former congregation in Oakham. I slipped in at the back and not many recognised me being there (until afterwards!) I had a very happy ministry in Oakham - it’s 13 years since I was their minister - and as we were in the area this weekend for other things I felt led to be in a former church today to do the Covenant prayer.
I cannot do active ministry at the moment, today I’ve hardly been able to speak, I’ve felt vulnerable and unsure for some time now. But powerfully as I shared the service today and did the prayer and was still there came in me a different feeling. I yearn for diagnosis and to feel better but what if I need to rethink ministry? What if I have to adapt to weakness and just do the things I can do rather than mourn the things I can’t? What if feeling sorry for myself I’ve missed what God might be saying and doing in this time?
I’m so grateful to the current minister at Oakham, Leo Osborn, who is a lovely man and a deeply pastoral preacher, for reminding me in his sermon of a simple truth. In the context of the Covenant, employed or laid aside, exalted or brought low, full or empty, God makes a promise. Leo preached on Psalm 121: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.” He reminded us in the Psalm where the person who prays seeks help, God tells us five times we are kept by him. In the uncertainty of going out and coming in, when we look at the mountains above us and are exhilarated or need to climb them and it feels hard, we are kept.
God does not throw us away, incarnation should not be forgotten now decorations are taken down, we are kept always. We may be disregarded by others around us, the future may be unbearably uncertain but we are kept. Maybe in this divine keeping there may be a new direction.
Circumstances mean adapting to new things often in life’s passage. I want to return to what I was doing four months ago, but what if my health and other unresolved stuff thrown at me means I cannot for now? One of my friends reminded me God has not laid me aside, life has and even then, there are new things to do. I’m moved to get messages people find my honest writing helpful. Perhaps that’s my call at the moment. I am kept. I am of value. I didn’t want to be here, but here I am. I need to learn to stop trying to do what I can’t.
We went to evening prayer at the cathedral this afternoon. One of the readings spoke to me from Baruch:
Baruch 4:36-5:9
36 Look towards the east, O Jerusalem,
and see the joy that is coming to you from God.
37 Look, your children are coming, whom you sent away;
they are coming, gathered from east and west,
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing in the glory of God.
5Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.
2 Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
3 for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.
4 For God will give you evermore the name,
‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’.
5 Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
Lovely words. I also found the hymn we ended the Covenant Service with this morning a reminder when much feels unsure. Can we move forward safe in the knowledge we are kept and held?
Safe in the shadow of the Lord,
beneath his hand and power,
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
my fortress and my tower.
My hope is set on God alone,
though Satan spreads his snare,
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
to keep me in his care.
From fears and phantoms of the night,
from foes about my way,
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
by darkness as by day.
His holy angels keep my feet
secure from every stone;
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
and unafraid go on.
Strong in the everlasting Name,
and in my Father's care,
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
who hears and answers prayer.
Safe in the shadow of the Lord,
possessed by love divine,
I trust in him,
I trust in him,
and meet his love with mine.
An Epiphany #Niteblessing is where I end and where I go back to Hailsham tomorrow, to face more medical appointments, another move somewhere in a few months and my tax form!!
Find your journey’s end in Christ. He is hope for your weary soul, strength for your battered spirit and rest for your tired heart. May He be your deepest satisfaction and your greatest joy. He has found you in your searching - in Him you have come home.
If you begin 2019 vulnerable, simply tonight remember the Lord keeps you. It will help. I promise you.
