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.