Losing our memory...?

I’m rather late in posting a sermon for this Sunday. I’m sorry. We are trying to put a report together about this house we’ve just left to pass on to the Church who are responsible for the tenancy which cannot end until September, to prove we’ve left it in a decent state. It is taking ages! So perhaps you can use this for late night devotions...

This has been Conference Sunday, usually a day of celebration and renewal for the Methodist people. Things are being done rather differently this year with Conference meeting virtually, led by our officers in front of cameras in a room in Cliff College. I listened to the President’s address this morning, as we had no internet yesterday so I couldn’t listen live. Being a huge admirer of Walter Bruggemann’s writing on orientation, disorientation and reorientation in the Psalms, which Richard based the address on, very skilfully, there was a sentence that spoke to me...

“A church which loses its memory about its basic foundation has no future.”

There is much talk at the moment about churches “getting back to normal.”

But what was normal and was normal working? In most places, it wasn’t. So maybe the next few months are a God given opportunity to think seriously about what our “basic foundations” are, and what we need to hold on and what we can say goodbye, with thanks, to. 

We are built on the claims of Jesus Christ, welcomer, saviour, crucified and risen. 

We are built on the overwhelming love of God that is a gift for all. 

We are built on the faith stories of those who have gone before us, who dreamt dreams and saw visions. 

We are built on the values of the Gospel, to work for social justice and inclusivity, to be a voice for the oppressed and the poor, and to get involved in the world which ever bit of it we find ourselves in.

We are built on what Wesley called the “optimism of grace.” We believe the Kingdom of God will come one day in its completeness, and we celebrate signs of it around us now. We believe whatever mess today is, there will be a brighter tomorrow for God is working his purpose out. We are built on resurrection and hope because death does not have the last word. 

“A church which loses its memory about its basic foundation has no future.”

Was “normal” working? Many of our churches were finding congregations dwindling and many were struggling to survive, let alone flourish. Many of our churches were worrying about money and failing buildings and had little confidence. Many had, as the President said yesterday, begun to lose their memory about their basic foundation. Many did church but had forgotten why they did it, retreating into misery and negativity and having little clue about the story that should be at every one of their heart. 

So how do we build on “basic foundations?”

Here’s my answer. I’m sure the Methodist Conference this week will debate the Church’s future at length. I’m not there and I’m not important in its structure, but I believe we can all play a part if this thing Christ called long ago still has a use...

First, we have to relearn and be confident in the story of our faith. We need good, interesting, relevant preaching. We need a commitment to open the Bible. We need to rediscover house groups and study groups. We need to talk up what we believe. We are part of a heritage and we have a chapter to live today. We have to ask what God is doing at the moment. We need to seriously consider why so many people who haven’t been near organised religion are tuning in to on line worship and spirituality. My little plodges I film, just ramblings with no script, jade over 200 people a week watch them. That’s amazing. 

Maybe “going to church” won’t be the practice of all of us again. I certainly think we need to keep streaming services and using Zoom and You tube even when it is safe for us all to return to church buildings. For some, switching on to church when they want is attractive. I know of good faithful church members who have used on line stuff on a Sunday but at a time convenient to them - and you can listen again whenever you like! There is much to ponder about how we share. 

Then we need to celebrate that maybe these past few months we have, thank God, rethought what Church is. The Church has been at the heart of community through lockdown even with no building. We need a purpose which is exciting and meets the needs of folk who need basic Christian care. Today’s Gospel passage, while short, reminded us of our task: so easy, yet for many of us, too hard: and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ 

Who out there needs a cup of cold water? While we can’t offer hospitality in church at the moment, we can be hospitable. We need to put sacrificial giving at the heart of our programme, not just when there is a crisis. The danger when this pandemic is over, is that those who were forgotten or left out will be again as we all think about ourselves, especially if we are facing a bleak recession as is likely.

Then I think we need to encourage each other. Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of my ordination at the Methodist Conference in Southport on 27th June 1999. I was sent this picture.

Peter and George were my ministers in Harpenden many years ago. Both were at my ordination service. Both taught me that ministry should be fun. Often for me it hasn’t been. But I’ve always tried to encourage churches rather than slap them down. I think if we all seriously pondered what we do well and what we celebrate as we contemplate our life and what matters, we will be more healthy if we spend time building up those things rather than struggling on keeping what the Vice President called in her address yesterday, “dead religion.”

“A church which loses its memory about its basic foundation has no future.”

I recall this old hymn which I offer you as this day ends. We celebrate “basic foundations” and remember them always. Remember the man who built his house on the sand. What happened to it? Great was its fall. What the President is saying to us is “if you forget your foundations and you fail, don’t stand there wondering why.” It will be obvious why it all died. 

My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
	On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand,   All other ground is sinking sand.
2	When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.
3	His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.
4	When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found; In Him, my righteousness, alone, Faultless to stand before the throne.

 

 

  

Caring and cross bearing

Passage for reflection: Matthew 10: 24 - 39

There is a lot of thinking going on at the moment

about what shape Church will be in the future. Having to have our buildings shut and having to find new ways to be Church has I think given us an opportunity to think about what really matters in our programme if we really are to be the Church of Christ. 

I continue to say thank you to those of my colleagues who week by week since we were locked down on March 23, have enabled on line services, bible studies, pastoral support, Zoom meetings and coffee mornings and have provided practical help to the most vulnerable in their communities. The Church has not closed over this period, it has perhaps been more relevant than ever.

 One of my Facebook friends has unfriended someone who called on line worship “wishy washy kitchen sink services.” They needed  unfriending! Reflecting how long it takes me to think about an on line sermon like this and my plodges on film, they take longer to put together because I’m aware my congregation is diverse, and a lot of people who read my stuff or listen to my rambling don’t do formal church so it is a challenge to be relevant and helpful.

 On line, you don’t know who you are reaching. It is far from wishy washy, even though I long to return to public worship in a sacred space and with others around me, and most of all, I long to share communion with people. I last took a communion service in a Church on Sunday 15 March at Terrington St John Methodist Church. The steward put an out of date bottle of hand gel on the lectern. We were told to wash our hands before giving out the bread and wine, and to wipe hymn books after using them. None of us back then thought how serious this pandemic would soon become.

A lot of people think that Matthew’s Gospel was written as an instruction manual for the Early Church. We need some help as we work out where we will put our energy both inside a fellowship when it is safe to do so, and outside where we are called to serve.

The American writer Shane Claiborne tweeted this which got me thinking:

“ Our faith is not just a ticket in to heaven and a licence to ignore the world we live in. We have promised people life after death, when many people are asking if there is life before death. This is not just about going to heaven when we die. It’s about bringing heaven to earth.”

Is “bringing heaven to earth” the new missio Dei, the new raison d’etre for the Christian community? We are I think called anew to share who God is, and then think about our calling. The passage for today in Matthew 10 has words for us about both of those things.

What sort of God do we have?  A “God of the sparrows”, a God who cares deeply for even those small creatures in his world that are sold for half a penny. If you are one of those today, God loves you more than these. And God loves you more than anything. In fact, God will stop at nothing to make sure you know you are loved and valued beyond measure. For you are created in the image of God. The imago Dei. The very imprint of God is at your core. And you do not have to be afraid. Because God has counted your every hair, your every wrinkle, your every cell. And you are LOVED! No matter what has been done or left undone in your life thus far, your story can be told and new life can be found. You are ultimately a child of God. This is your truest identity and everything else stems from it. Flows out of it. And if we know our truest identity to be “child of God,” we can tell our stories and hear the stories of others in the light of God’s love. Without fear. 

Jesus sends the disciples out with few if any supplies, but he sends them out with everything they need: the assurance of care and the message of love incarnate. 

But it won’t be easy! Jesus comes to bring a sword. Our call to be his people may well bring conflict and trouble. We are not called to be popular. We may well need to be in the middle of violence and the struggle for justice, we may well need to use our voice to speak for the voiceless, and have days, even years when it just feels like hard graft. I don’t like Jesus’ words about families turning on each other. Not at all. 

He goes on to say what the heart of our call is.

“Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” 

This coming week the Methodist Conference meets virtually. On Saturday the new President of the Conference, the Rev. Richard Teal, will be inducted. I’m so glad Richard is this year’s President as he is a passionate advocate for rural chapels and mission. I’ve sat on a working party writing material on the rural Church with him. It will be easy when thinking about mission and where we put resources to just say, well, small chapels should just close. But but but but... it is my experience that often the best caring and sacrificial witness is done by little places in villages because they are often at the heart of where they are called to be and they know the needs and joys of people around them. So a plea to those in big churches who’ve never been in a little one but have all sorts of opinions about them and write papers about their demise, please don’t diss the rural Church. There is much to celebrate in it. 

“A small church is no more a failed big church than a satsuma is a failed

orange, they are different.”

So let’s as we think about the future focus on what matters. Maybe some things, when our buildings are safe for all, will not open again. I definitely think on line worship and presence will continue. Take my vlogs: over 200 people watch them. The largest physical congregation I preached to in the Fens was, at most, 40. 

Most of all, we need to be relevant, to have a vision and to keep the cross at our heart. Only a God who knows what it is to suffer can really be of help to people who desperately need care. It will take a long time to get over some of what this pandemic has done. Which reminds me of a song we used to sing in youth club in Harpenden from the Iona book “Enemy of Apathy”:

Don’t tell me of a faith that fears
To face the world around
Don’t dull my mind with easy thoughts
of grace without a ground!

Don’t speak of piety and prayers
Absolved from human need;
Don’t talk of spirit without flesh
Like harvest without seed.

Don’t sate my soul with common sense
Distilled from ages past
Inept for those who fear the world’s
about to breathe its last.

Don’t set the cross before my eyes
unless you tell the truth
of how the Lord, who finds the lost,
was often found uncouth.

So let the Gospel come alive
in actions plain to see
in imitation of the one
whose love extends to me.

I need to know that God is real!
I need to know that Christ can feel
the need to touch and love and heal
the world, including me!

I like how someone has responded to Shane Claiborne’s tweet about bringing heaven to earth. 

“In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to say “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If we sit back waiting for God’s kingdom to come on earth without actually becoming engaged it the process, it’s nothing but “thoughts & prayers.”

Claiborne has retweeted some words of Bryan Stevenson over the Black Lives Matter campaign:

"Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet."  Isn’t that the call of a cross shaped and cross carrying Church? Isn’t that the proof that God cares for the sparrow that feels insignificant and uncared for? That Jesus goes to the ultimate in love for his people means that his Church, in thinking about its programme has to be sacrificial. 

Losing our mojo

Rachel Burden who presents the breakfast show on Five Live has tweeted this:

“Anyone else feeling the 3 month slump? Maybe it was after 1 month or 2? Grumpy families. No motivation. Not much to look forward to. We’re going to explore what happens to your brain after 3 months of lockdown and work out how to get a bit of mojo back. @bbc5live breakfast”

Perhaps the 3 month slump explains why I’ve been so out of sorts this week. I feel stuck. I feel like this tree. We've had torrential rain here last night and in the early hours of this morning while half asleep, I half heard a bang. I rolled over and went back to sleep. When up I looked out of the kitchen window and saw this twenty foot tree in the garden. It needs attention after a storm. And so do I! 

I posted a miserable post about the frustration of shielding after three long months and no clear answers what might be relaxed next. Then I deleted it as it was wallowing in self pity a bit. I can go for a walk. Will I soon be able to meet people in a garden? Is it true that shielding will end next month? I get clear answers about the Premier League returning and Primark reopening but less clear answers about the future for a group who really are beginning to feel forgotten. 

I think the slump is mostly down to having to sort moving out of our rental home we should have been in until September but had to move out of early. It’s hard work moving in a global pandemic and you can’t be there when the removers are and other tradespeople. And if you go in the house with them you have to dress like this! 

To have our possessions in storage yet again is hard, and to not have seen our cats since the end of January and not able to have them back until the end of August is hard. We’ve moved too many times in the last two years and we are exhausted. Hopefully the next move will be the last for many years! We say bye bye to the Old Vicarage and hand over keys next Tuesday. Sadly the tenancy agreement can’t end until September 3 so rent will continue to be paid, but in many ways it will be good to drive away next week.  

Life can have a habit of throwing bricks at you when you are already struggling. A situation I thought was over for me is back in my consciousness because of an e mail I had to deal with yesterday and I’ve not found revisiting a difficult time easy. 

I need urgently to get my mojo back. I’m starting to watch daytime TV. Help! Chase the Case, Father Brown and Escape to the Country! Not good. 

So what to do? 

First, I need to get back to my book. I’ve written 13,000 or so words so far and I need to get back to it. 

Second, I need to do my vlogs again as over 200 people watch them. I couldn’t do one last week as i couldn’t walk after lifting too many boxes in the house and moving them about to help removers before they came, and tonight I went out to do one and found I had nothing to say... 

And third, I need to do some serious spiritual reading. I’ve two new fab books next to me to help me think about the essentials of ordained ministry as I prepare to return to it full time, and another on the hospitality and inclusiveness of the Church. I’m looking forward to both books. 

It’s okay to feel stuck and to lose our mojo for a while. This pandemic is far from over, even if it feels like the rest of the world is leaving those who are vulnerable behind. I described it earlier today as being a straggler in cross country at school. By the time I got back most of the others were having dinner! It’s okay to acknowledge we are struggling when it is too much. I want pizza from the take away down the road, I want fish and chips, I want people in my garden not just a massive tree, I want to be remembered by government, please! 

I always turn to the Psalms when I’m stuck. Psalm 68 is the Psalm of no mojo, of difficult circumstances, of frustration but a refocusing on God’s power. Read it slowly if you, like me, are struggling a bit tonight...

May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him.

As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away; as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God.

But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. 

Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds  -- his name is the LORD-- and rejoice before him.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families,  he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. 

When you went out before your people, O God, when you marched through the wasteland, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. 

You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance.

Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor. 

The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it:

"Kings and armies flee in haste; in the camps men divide the plunder.

Even while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of [my] dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold."

When the Almighty scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow fallen on Zalmon. 

The mountains of Bashan are majestic mountains; rugged are the mountains of Bashan.

Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever? 

The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands; the Lord [has come] from Sinai into his sanctuary.

When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men, even from the rebellious-- that you, O LORD God, might dwell there. 

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Saviour, who daily bears our burdens.

Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death. 

Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies, the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins.

The Lord says, "I will bring them from Bashan; I will bring them from the depths of the sea,

that you may plunge your feet in the blood of your foes, while the tongues of your dogs have their share."

Your procession has come into view, O God, the procession of my God and King into the sanctuary.

In front are the singers, after them the musicians; with them are the maidens playing tambourines.

Praise God in the great congregation; praise the LORD in the assembly of Israel.

There is the little tribe of Benjamin, leading them, there the great throng of Judah's princes, and there the princes of Zebulun and of Naphtali.

Summon your power, O God, show us your strength, O God, as you have done before.

Because of your temple at Jerusalem kings will bring you gifts.

Rebuke the beast among the reeds, the herd of bulls among the calves of the nations. Humbled, may it bring bars of silver. Scatter the nations who delight in war.

Envoys will come from Egypt; Cush  will submit herself to God. 

Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord, to him who rides the ancient skies above, who thunders with mighty voice.

Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the skies.

You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God!

Giving clear guidance

Passages for reflection: Exodus 19: 2 - 8a and Matthew 9: 35 - 36 

Where is Professor Van Tam? Of all the scientists in the government press briefings, I trust him the most to tell me the truth, he is clear and concise and I understand him. And now he has disappeared! 

In uncertain times we need guidance and care we can trust. Not fake news or not answering our questions. We can only respond when we are sure what we are doing. 

I was discharged by the hospital this week. I got clear guidance from the consultant about whether I should still be shielding. Yes I should! 

The government has said churches can open from Monday for private prayer. I was glad to read a very clear statement to my Circuit to be from Gareth, the Superintendent. I especially like the phrase “when it is safe for all.”

“The Ripon and Lower Dales Methodist Circuit will not be reopening its buildings on that date and they will remain closed for the foreseeable future. The Circuit Leadership team and I want to ensure the ongoing care of those most vulnerable within our churches and community. 

We will reopen our buildings when it is safe for all, but not yet.”

The Gospel passage for this Sunday is some words of Jesus bringing clear leadership and guidance and care into a situation.  Matthew tells us the people were “harassed and helpless” like “sheep without a shepherd.”

We know about those two feelings. We are harassed. We spend a lot of time worrying about the future. Our blood pressure rises - why? Because we are helpless. Our future is in Boris Johnson’s hands. He’s very buoyant about having this thing beaten and that the economy will recover and to those of us shielding, he says he will have news of arrangements for us this coming week. Perhaps we will be allowed someone in our garden! Or allowed to go and see some penguins! Who knows? 

We are like sheep, wayward and lost. We need safety and protection. We need leading back into the fold. We need a protective ring put around us. 

What does Jesus do for the harassed and the helpless and the lost? He throws what for me is the heart of what he is about into the situation that needs help - compassion. And what does the word compassion mean? Suffering with. Isn’t that what Jesus incarnate does? He suffers with us. Not throned above, remotely moved from human pain, but daily, in the midst of life, our Saviour with the Father reigns.

Compassion gets involved. When others keep their distance from those who are suffering, compassion prompts us to act on their behalf. Frederick Buechner describes what it means to have compassion in this way:

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace or joy for me until there is peace and joy for you too.”

This is amazing good news: if compassion really is the heart of the Gospel than it means no matter what we face, we do not face it alone. I have a crucifix in my study (not that I have a study at the moment, it’s all in boxes again) - I have a crucifix to remember how much Jesus suffers with me. On the cross he takes the crap I face and don’t know what to do with and enfolds it in his bleeding arms and body and says no matter how bad it feels today, it won’t be for ever. But let’s not water down suffering. Let’s not forget those who are really struggling nearly three months into this Covid 19 crisis. Those who fear going back to work on Monday morning; those who own businesses who fear recession if customers don’t return, those who are shielding still who can’t do what everyone else can.

Even getting a tank of petrol was a conundrum this week. Luckily the man in the garage recommended the BP me app. It’s amazing! You don’t need to go in the shop! Then we have had to face our things going into storage from the blessed Old Vicarage. You try moving shielding! We had to work hard as we weren’t allowed to be around when the removers arrived. My back is still recovering from moving boxes around. The animals were all moved to be packed! 

If you are struggling today, know that God revealed to us in the compassionate Christ  comes to you just where and how you are.

 

If compassion is the heart of the Gospel and we are to live that Gospel today as the Church, then that has huge implications. Is the Church a compassionate one? Are all welcome? Perhaps not. I’m glad my own denomination has put out a statement in the midst of the Black Lives Matter stuff has admitted we are still blighted by racism. But we have to try and be more understanding of where people are, and what their story is. 

As this coronavirus year goes on, as I contemplate beginning a new appointment while probably still shielding, I can see my role being ministering to those who, IF our church buildings open again, cannot attend because they, like me, are vulnerable. With what I’ve been through in the last two years, I get what it feels like to need some compassion! 

At the moment, some churches are beginning to ask what will be important when we reopen, not that we have shut! Maybe some of the things that we might struggle to reopen, need not. But dare I suggest we need a new focus: to put the lost and harassed and helpless at our heart? Can we be as devoted to the care of others as devoted doctors and nurses are continuing to be on the front line? I have been so excited to begin a new appointment in September. Getting to know eight churches in my pastoral charge if I’m still vulnerable will be interesting. I will want as a first step for my folk to know I care...

What might be the priority of the Church to a lost, harassed and helpless world? Well, I point us to the Old Testament reading from Exodus 19. A people in exile needed direction, focus and care. We have been locked down for nearly three months, they were exiled for generations. 

”You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”

How much does God love us? He has borne us on eagle’s wings and has brought us to himself! 

And now we are called to be loving as a response. A priestly kingdom and a holy nation. That means living in the light of divine promises and guidance. That means compassion as a lifestyle, not just an ideal. If the Church is to have any credibility after all of this, she has to prove she really wants to get involved where life needs guiding, help and compassionate sacrifice. Don’t you think?

Have you not heard?

Passage for reflection: Isaiah 40: 12 - 31

I think this past week has been the hardest since we were locked down on the 23rd March. 

Those of us who are shielding through medical advice are finding those who can do more than us very hard to cope with. 

We’ve past 40,000 deaths from coronavirus in this country. Yet the government seems keen to get us moving again with some thoughts the R might be rising, so it’s a bit frightening really. 

Then there’s the death of George Floyd.   

Desperate scenes of a black man murdered by a white policeman, despite him calling out that he could not breathe, and calling out for his mother. Eight minutes and forty six seconds the policeman had his knee on Floyd’s neck. I found it very upsetting watching one of the memorial services from Minneapolis where the congregation stood in silence for eight minutes and forty six seconds. It felt a long time. Imagine having a knee in your neck for that amount of time. It’s unimaginable. But the worst picture of the last few days is the one above. I just can’t cope with an American President who walks to a church, clears it with tear gas, and holds up a bible in front of it. I doubt he has ever read the words about justice and respect in its pages! 

As the spiritual writer Shane Claiborne puts it:

“Did you know the word "conspire" literally means "to breathe together"?

So let us conspire.

Let's plot goodness.

Let's create holy mischief.

Let's organize a revolution of love...

Because too many people are having a hard time breathing right now.”

So what to say after such a difficult week? I wasn’t sure, but then I noted what the lectionary Old Testament reading is for this Sunday: one of my favourite readings in the whole of Scripture. 

 Why do you say, O Jacob,
   and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
   and my right is disregarded by my God’? 
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   his understanding is unsearchable. 
He gives power to the faint,
   and strengthens the powerless. 
Even youths will faint and be weary,

   and the young will fall exhausted; 
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.

I can’t better those words. For me, they sum up the care and concern of God for us. In these words we see the human condition: faint, powerless, weariness, exhaustion...

How many of us are those things if we are honest? I am! I’m finding without being able to do what was normal before March, draining. I can easily sleep well into the afternoon if I haven’t anything definite to do, I can procrastinate and faff and because I can’t focus, nothing gets done. 

How many of us feel weary, faint, powerless, exhausted? 

We are trying to sort things in the house we were renting which turned into a disaster. Our removers arrive at 8am on Thursday and because we are acting as though we are shielding, we should not be about when the removers come to get our belongings into storage. Don’t try moving in a global pandemic! 

I can’t be in the house once removers arrive as I’m not meant to be in a building with others. 

My car needs moving off the drive. But I cannot go with someone to move it as I’m not meant to be in a car with someone from another household.It’s a total nightmare! And it exhausts us mentally and physically...

So as my study and our whole house is packed up, we feel out of control. From the 23rd June we will be again of “no fixed abode”! While our things have been in the house while we haven’t been living in it since the end of January, soon because we will have nothing in it and will have handed keys over, we will only have our holiday let, where we are safe, but it isn’t home. We’ve had our life boxed into storage far too many times! We are weary and faint...

It is, though, my conviction, that when we hit rock bottom, God comes. God comes with healing and strength into our broken lives. God comes into the mess and dirt of lives, remember Jesus comes where there is no room, and dies on a rubbish heap, outside a city wall. 

Weary? Powerless? Faint? Powerless? Well let God come into those things... Jesus comes to those who have no hope and no future. And into the mess and uncertainty, we are given a powerful reminder of what we have forgotten. 

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,  the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable. 
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.” 

This pandemic is exhausting! We are given hope as lockdown is eased but then we don’t trust Matt Hancock! Why aren’t the scientists on the government briefings? We had the chairman of Network Rail on Thursday, and no one on Friday and there are now no briefings at the weekend as ratings are too low! Those of us who are shielding or told to act as though we are shielding, are exhausted, as we work out what is allowed and not allowed while it feels everyone else is moving on. And we feel pressurised to “get on with it”! 

But take getting our stuff into storage this coming week. Usually straightforward but not now... 

I cannot be inside with anyone else outside my household. I cannot be in the house when removers come. My car needs moving. But I cannot get a lift back in someone else’s car if I drop it off somewhere. If I travel, I cannot use the loo in a service station. It’s a nightmare for the vulnerable still. Please don’t forget us! I’d worked so hard to get well and I’m so ready to return to full time ministry and wanted to get ready in my current Circuit to be able to care for eight new churches in September. But then a global pandemic came! 

Life is hard! I discovered in my memories on Facebook, that three years ago, I was on a boat, travelling to Shetland. The sea was rough! It was a twelve hour voyage and how we might keep well was a challenge. 

 Perhaps we feel like that as we face an uncertain future. How are we going to emerge out of this? What is the “new normal”? How will church, if we can gather again, be? I see a church with several congregations, one still safe at home.

A colleague sent me this the other day: “Ian you are in the same position as many of our members - shielding due to health. I know some ministers in similar positions have posted saying they feel bad they can't get out and do more stuff. I think you have a unique viewpoint now of being totally alongside those who are also inside, which enhances your ministry. And you are sending out great plodges via youtube/ facebook techie stuff. Zoom is just another tool for you. It can be fun - honest!!! You have so much to offer xxx“

We need to hold on in our struggle to the God who holds us through uncertainty. We need to try and not be demoralised and to give our worries to God. We need to know we are cared for. The church at Hailsham we attended last year has a care bear which the folk encouraged people to take to somebody struggling who felt no one cared. What a great idea. We all love a teddy!

And where the world is clearly wrong, we need to stand up. I’m sad there has been so much violence in protest, but I understand why people need to stand up and say racism cannot be, even when it isn’t safe to be in a huge crowd. “Get your knees off our neck!”

We need a new commitment to basic Christianity. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

And then there’s Micah 6;

I’m struggling. I need a future. I still hope we can move to a new home in August. But I’m not sure! I’m not sure where the world is going. Where are we going? I need to inwardly digest the words of Isaiah and the promise in it slowly and prayerfully:

“But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Isn’t that great?

We have a God who believes in our future.

We have a Jesus who shows us resurrection hope.

We have a Holy Spirit who says to us “come on, this cannot be.”

While it’s unforgivable there’s been violence in protest, I get why there is unrest. In a civilised society, racism cannot be, nor any discrimination. 

We have a call to protest! As Martin Luther King famously said “Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.”

“Have you not heard?”

When we are at rock bottom, our plans unclear, our heads mangled, so often God speaks... We are so sad the house that was rented for us turned out to be a nightmare. We are sorting out our stuff in it this week. It’s hard work. I had to drive back to the holiday let we are safely in until August 28 to receive a supermarket delivery. On the way back by Foul Anchor (what a great name for a place) there came a rainbow. Seeing it, I sensed, there is a future and it is one of hope, so I hold on...

God promises in our exhaustion, new energy. We will rise up like eagles! Yay! I need to believe that today. Isaiah 40 is rather life a revision session for an exam on what God does. He works for our good amid utter madness... 

So if you are struggling, listen for God’s word, look for rainbows, and be still. He has it all under control. 

“Have you not heard?”

While I’m writing this, I’m watching Martin Gilbert’s landmark series on Churchill. Churchill at some point in his life read these words: perhaps they are a reminder to us of what positive Christianity calls us, pandemic or not, to be...

Say not the struggle nought availeth, 

     The labour and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

     And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 

     It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

     And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking 

     Seem here no painful inch to gain, 

Far back through creeks and inlets making, 

     Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 

     When daylight comes, comes in the light, 

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 

     But westward, look, the land is bright.

A Psalm for a bad day

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.””

Karl Barth

I’ve not had a very good day. I’m full of hay fever and I’m overwhelmed with stuff going on. I came across this Karl Barth quote earlier today and it’s really helped. So let’s do a prayer of lament and in prayer let’s do a bit of uprising against our own disorder. 

Psalms of lament in the bible are really honest prayers. They say, “hey God, it isn’t alright today, I’m going to give you my situation because I trust in you. I’m then going to focus on your track record believing you can sort my rubbish out like you have countless others in the past.”

I think tonight I’m struggling because tonight’s government briefing was almost triumphant in tone that deaths are falling and look at what we’ve done!

 I think we need a national time of lament when we reach 40,000 lives lost, which won’t be long. Then there’s what’s happening in America, with racial unrest and violence after a very very wrong thing happening, and a President sending incendiary tweets from his bunker... 

Then there’s the uncertainty in my life. I am now allowed to go out for a walk (which I’ve always done) but not meet people or go in a building or shop or anything much really. 

I am still worried it isn’t safe to let the clinically vulnerable out, and anyway they still can’t see their family, that the R level is perilously near 1, that the government’s own alert level remains where it has been for ages but we are “transitioning” towards the level below, that track and trace isn’t fully operational and we don’t have any figures how many have been contacted, and it was meant to be “world beating” by now. It’s rather fun that when I put “lament” in Google images search this picture came up! 

Next week our stuff is put into storage yet again as we pack up the rental home which was meant to give us peace, but turned into a broken dream and where I now can’t be without being back on the steroids as it is very poorly. We haven’t lived in it since the end of January.

 Our rescue cats will have been in the cattery seven months when we can hopefully get them out. We thank God for the holiday let we now find ourselves trapped but safe in. By August, after having to get out of the Hastings manse, with a mixture of hotels and holiday homes, a manse in Hailsham for seven months and a rented home in Gorefield for seven months and where we are now for five months, we will have been on the move for two years. 

Then there’s the “will we move in the summer” question. Will there be a second spike due to crowded beaches and too large a party gathering and horsey racing coming back too early? 

So I give all this stuff to God. Poor God! But he can take it. Psalm 13 is a good example: 

1  How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3  Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4  and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5  But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6  I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

In the lament Psalms, help and intervention is asked of God to deliver us from suffering, sorrow, great loss, failures, and rescue from enemies. Expressions of trust in God to act in our favour lead to hope and joy. Sometimes the Psalms are personal and sometimes said as a community. 
 

They all seem to have a basic structure: 
(1)Address God
(2)Description of Complaint
(3)Request for God's help
(4)Expression of trust in God

There’s nothing wrong in prayer in telling God how we feel. There’s nothing wrong in prayer in asking for God’s help. One word “help!” is a prayer. Remember this though: my Old Testament tutor in college taught me the most important word in a Psalm is the word “but”...

Yes today life is crap, uncertain, frightening, mad, out of control, with no answers at all, but just by railing at you, God, I’m saying I believe in you. Nowhere does the Psalmist say there is no God, indeed the Psalm one on from the one I chose for this reflection says that only a fool will say there is no God. We might not know what God’s timing is but even if he feels absent he is waiting for the right time to answer our most heartfelt and honest prayer. Our human desire for instant answers wants to pray “Lord, give me patience, but please hurry up about it!”

So tonight I suggest to you:

Name your worries and your fears. I find writing them down helps but if you aren’t a writer name them out loud. Often naming the complaint is a first step to healing. It is a sign of a strong in God that you can name what’s wrong to him. 

Then find some way of letting God remind you of the “but”! Have some space, use a prayer book, breathe, let go and let God. Let God speak into the brokenness of your heart. 

Walter Bruggemann writes a lot about lament. He sees lament prayers as an expression of grief, but that they are also an expression of hope. They are “an insistence that things cannot remain this way and they must be changed.” We give what’s wrong to God and then mysteriously, in time, we are given energy again to join him in taking transformative action to affirm “we cannot stay like this.” 

So for the United States tonight we pray for an end to prejudice that there may be respect for all people as precious children of God, and that violence and inflammatory words might be replaced with justice and understanding.

For the ongoIng Covid 19 crisis in our country we continue to pray:

Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy
in this time of uncertainty and distress.
Sustain and support the anxious and fearful,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may rejoice in your comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from your love
in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And for ourselves we pray look on us, it’s tough today, I can’t cope with the world or sorting a house out I don’t want to be in or worries about this virus or whether plans can happen, I’m tired and I’m full of snot —— but  I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.