Standing On Holy Ground

I’m sitting catching up with the five prospective Prime Ministers. So depressing! Boris Johnson our unelected PM!!!!  Then President Trump is launching his re-election campaign in Orlando and I cannot see a strong Democrat candidate to beat him. It’s so easy to despair if all we had is human desire for power. I’m really enjoying “Years and Years” a frightening prediction of the future if we carry on being so selfish. The danger of populist leadership is real. Vivienne Rook’s Four Star Party is attractive as she offers a way we can all progress, but it is at the expense of anyone different. It’s like Germany in

1933 all over again. Not just depressing, but frightening. 

We need a new focus. We need a return to God and a vision again of a world where ALL matter. 

If we take God seriously then we will encompass again a world view that isn’t into power but is inclusive and into serving others as a response to the God who in Christ has served us. 

Who is God? I can do no better than quote from the fabulous “Mister God, This Is Anna” classic:  

Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”

There was no point in saying I didn’t really know. I said “Yes.”

“Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?” The pollywogs were those little creatures we had seen under the microscope.

I said, “Yes, he made everything.”

She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Mister God loves everything.”

“Oh,” she said. “well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?” Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God, we don’t know about?”

“Well then,” she continued, “if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?”

I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they? I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?”

She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on.

“Fynn, Mister God doesn’t love us.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy, but Bossy don’t love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don’t love me. I love you Fynn, and you love me, don’t you?”

I tightened my arm about her.

“You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truly but he don’t love me.”

It sounded to me like a death knell. “Damn and blast,” I thought. “Why does this have to happen to people? Now she’s lost everything.” But I was wrong.

She had got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping stone.

“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its millions of times bigger.”

I must have made some movement or noise, for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. The she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut from the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.

“Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different. Mister God ain’t like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.”

It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love, and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.

“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different because he can finish things and we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?”

Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, a Sunday we try and grapple with the nature of God and what matters. We attended three services on Sunday in our new area. The first had a preacher use Rublev’s icon of the Trinity to describe the inclusiveness of God who is everywhere. I’m afraid I rather lost her as her service was extremely involved! The church though we were in, Trinity in Wisbech, perhaps shows God more by having a cafe open every day offering basic Christian hospitality to the community. You don’t have to preach God’s love, you can show it in a baked potato. The place was packed when we were there today! 

How else do we know what God is like? On Sunday afternoon we worshipped at Tydd St Giles, we made a congregation of four, six! The preacher there used Psalm 8 and the image of the Psalmist looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars and believing God is in control. God is so vast, he’s got it all sorted but there is much about him we haven’t get discovered. She also used this parable:  

It   It was six men of Indostan,

To learning much inclined, 
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind), 
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind. 

The First approach'd the Elephant, 
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side, 
At once began to bawl: 
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!" 

The Second, feeling of the tusk, 
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp? 
To me 'tis mighty clear, 
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!" 

The Third approach'd the animal, 
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, 
Thus boldly up and spake: 
"I see," -quoth he- "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!" 

The Fourth reached out an eager hand, 
And felt about the knee: 
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," -quoth he,- 
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant 
Is very like a tree!" 

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, 
Said- "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most; 
Deny the fact who can, 
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!" 

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope, 
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope, 
"I see," -quoth he,- "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!" 
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long, 
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong, 
Though each was partly in the right, 
And all were in the wrong! 

So, oft in theologic wars 
The disputants, I ween, 
Rail on in utter ignorance 
Of what each other mean; 
And prate about an Elephant 
Not one of them has seen! 

But far more than theological argument, this little church showed us God’s way by making us welcome and feel wanted and glad we bothered to turn up! We will go back this Sunday. 

Then finally, on Sunday evening, we went to the Minster at Kings Lynn for Choral Evensong. The preacher there, Angela Rayner, who is being priested at the end of the month, shared some thoughts on the call of Moses in Exodus chapter 3. We cannot, she said, save ourselves, we have to turn aside and see what God is doing, we have to put God first and ourselves last by recognising we stand on holy ground and we need to know our place! 

I’m still watching Boris and co. They all want to be PM but none of them are asking the right question: how can we make a difference in the world? How can we show community matters? It has to be putting huge love first and we must decrease while divine possibility increases. 

I was in London yesterday. I have to go to London every Monday for the next few months. There were so many people about! Two weeks living in quiet ruralness has got to me. We look up when we hear a car at the end of our drive! I wondered what matters to people rushing along or checking their phones. Everyone wants to prosper. Everyone wants life to be rich and full and healthy. Everyone wants to matter. We all need a bit of humility! Basically I believe we need an urgent return to spirituality to learn again there is so much more than our narrow human agenda. 

The Psalm on Sunday night was a warning what will happen to us if we keep wanting our own way at the expense of God’s inclusive Kingdom:  

“Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.

How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.

As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image”.

Madly maybe tonight I see the rainbow through the rain of politics and selfishness and I still believe there can be another way...

Take off your shoes for the place on which you stand is holy ground: it isn’t yours!