Heaven in ordinary

Passage for reflection: Exodus 3: 1 - 6

This Sunday has been designated by the Arthur Rank Centre, the fabulous folk who co ordinate rural work for the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, as Rural Mission Sunday. 

The theme for this year is “Heaven in Ordinary” and the material you can use to prepare worship includes these questions:

How do you experience God in the ordinariness of your day?

How have you experienced God in the past few months?

What may have helped you to glimpse holy ground 

Whatever you choose to do, we would encourage you to think about the people and places where you have experienced ‘heaven in ordinary’. Where have you seen God at work in unusual or unexpected ways and how can you celebrate and give thanks for that, or create space for remembrance or lament?

It is my conviction that when we least expect it, God breaks into his world to confront us with the challenge of his presence, or to comfort us when we are at a low ebb or are journeying wearily in our own strength, reminding us we are not alone. 

This week, I’ve continued to struggle with the ongoing scenario we find ourselves in. I had to have a blood test at the local hospital in Wisbech on Wednesday afternoon. We haven’t been out, apart from my walks along the road and to sort the house we had to leave, since the middle of March. We certainly haven’t interacted with people. Being amongst people in the waiting room for the blood tests was surreal and unpleasant. There we sat, on chairs two metres apart, all in masks, and in silence. I couldn’t wait to get out. I sat and wondered whether we will ever move on from this bizarre and frightening time. 

But the road along which I live has brought me comfort and peace and heaven in ordinary alongside my horrible hospital experience. Looking at the colours of the sky and the vastness of the fields was a healing moment, like God breaking in again with a powerful reminder that what we struggle with today will not have the last word. 

The people of God at the beginning of the book of Exodus found themselves like us in a strange and uncomfortable place where they saw no way out. Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law when suddenly he was confronted with the mystery of a burning bush. Imagine that! And we know, out of the bush, the mighty God spoke to him, reminded him of the faith story that had past, reminded him he was on holy ground “take off your shoes” and reminded him there can be another way - and Moses was to help it happen! 

Coming out slowly from lockdown, churches are asking whether they can open buildings again. Some Methodist churches are open having done a risk assessment, others are saying it isn’t the right time to reopen as they aren’t ready, others are choosing to keep putting their energy into on line worship, pastoral care by phone or in gardens  and community outreach, others are desperate to be open and are finding being told they can’t because they cannot meet the Covid safe criteria, and sadly I heard today some may be choosing not to open again ever. That’s so sad. 

If there has been any good for the Church in this period it is that we’ve been given time to ask questions about what we are for and what matters. I also heard today of a little church that has opened. There are twelve of them. They have twelve socially distanced chairs. The steward has turned into a very strict headmistress. You have to raise your hand to ask to go to the toilet and she barks at you “wash your hands” and after the service, which she leads as they don’t want preachers, she barks at anyone who dares to talk to anyone in the building or outside it. No one outside the twelve must know the service is happening as they can’t have more people turning up. I just wonder where God is in all of this? It sounds like my hospital waiting room rather than a joyful gathering anticipating God showing heaven in ordinary. Doesn’t it? 

On a Sunday we celebrate the rural Church, I believe a small group of Christians in a village can, unlike that story I’ve just told, be a reminder that God breaks in to where we are, and shows us in our lives today there can be a bit of heaven right beside us. I yearn for the Church to be the hub of every community, that small group to be known as people who build heaven on earth and have a vision of what can be. 

When George Herbert tried to describe prayer in a poem, he wrote of “heaven in ordinary.”’ 

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age, 

God's breath in man returning to his birth, 

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, 

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth 

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r, 

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, 

The six-days world transposing in an hour, 

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; 

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, 

Exalted manna, gladness of the best, 

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest, 

The milky way, the bird of Paradise, 

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood, 

The land of spices; something understood.

For the Christian, there is a vast Other, “Churchbells beyond the stars heard.”

 That heaven cannot be reduced to confines of our own devising...

And like Moses received a call, so the Church must reach out beyond the Church. There is something heavenly in being willing to engage with others’ ordin­­ary lives. The purpose of consecrating sacred places — churches, shrines, holy ground — is not to desacralise the rest of the world, but the reverse. God, in Christian belief, is in the kitchen, in the pub, at the bus stop. Celtic Christians had prayers for making the bed or doing the washing, remember! 

How do we remind people of the presence of God?

Are we prepared to stop what we’ve always done and see what God might be saying to us? We may have to leave what we think previous behind in order to embrace the new thing God wants to show us. 

Are our churches holy ground which enable people to stand in the presence of God? And are we ready to take off our shoes and spend more time on worship and prayer rather than the things that really don’t matter now. 

I like this prayer for Rural Mission Sunday:

Creator God,

there is so much that is strange in our lives at present. Help us to pay attention to your creation,

so that we may see you in the common and everyday.

Shepherd Jesus,

as we walk through this rapidly changing world,

help us to know you walk with us.

If our path runs through the valley of the shadow

may we see your light and know your comfort as you lead us.

Comforting Spirit,

as we go about our ordinary lives, surprise us with glimpses of holy ground.

Blessed Trinity, Creator, Shepherd, Spirit, surround us with you love, now and always.