Passage for reflection: Isaiah 55: 10 - 13
I loved the fact when the new Archbishop of York was installed this week he did something very different with his crozier. Apparently it is usual for the new Archbishop to knock on the door of the minster to gain access. Instead, the Archbishop knocked on the door from the inside to say very clearly the task of the Church and ministry is to go out... out into the world. And outside, he talked about us needing to not just talk about God but live in him. He called it “living the good things.” Great stuff!
I’ve chosen to reflect on the Old Testament reading for this Sunday from Isaiah 55. The last chapters of the book of Isaiah were written at a time when the people of God were picking up the pieces after a national disaster. Their lives had been uprooted when the Babylonians had defeated their armies, destroyed their cities and farms and burnt their temple to the ground. Now they had returned to Jerusalem, their holy place where God was closest to them, to rebuild.
We find ourselves at a time in our country where we are being encouraged to rebuild after a time of crisis where lives have been disrupted or even lost and dreams have died. Like the ancient people of God in exile, we have had to adapt to unwanted new circumstances in lockdown and we still have days when we wonder how on earth we put life back together. People ask about how we return to normal. A more positive question is to ask where we go from here...
The government tells us to go out and enjoy the summer safely. Eat out to help out! Rishi Sunak’s meal deal!
There’s a lot of talk about how we reopen church buildings safely. But maybe we need to be more radical and see our priority to be going out over staying in. What do you think?
Isaiah told the people that God’s presence should not be thought of as located in one fixed physical place, that God did not live in a special holy place on earth where people had to come to experience his presence. This would have been a shock to people who thought the temple was the be all and end all. Perhaps we need in our context and time to relearn what Isaiah was trying to say. That God’s love and grace flows wherever God chooses to be, often in surprising and unexpected places.
How does God work?
“ My word is that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. ”
Maybe we in this time of questioning what we put back we have permission to be the Church we were always meant to be as we only put back what matters and we carry on in what we offer the superb on line and other ways we’ve been Church in these unprecedented days.
Maybe we need to see going out as exciting! Isaiah wanted his people, bruised by exile and away from what they knew, and then bemused why when returning to normal things weren’t as they were, that there was a new song to sing, a new way of being the people of God
“You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.”
What is joy? Maybe the Psalmist gets it.
“In your presence is fullness of joy; in your right hand there are pleasures forever more.”
Have we the confidence to go out in joy and be led forth in peace? We should have, if the fullness of joy is simply being in God’s presence and we let this God lead us on to whatever with the promise of peace. Can we put being there for others first over keeping our church buildings open if we open them again? I’m not dissing reopening buildings. I yearn for public worship again. As a minister of word and sacrament I yearn to put bread and wine into the hands of those in my pastoral care. But we’ve seen in this time the Church, far from being shut, but going out in joy...
I’ve seen it in the lay worker in my local Circuit who has gladly done our shopping and collect our medication because we cannot go out safely.
I’ve seen it in the on line worship and generous giving of Churches who have reinvented themselves on line. I’m especially grateful to the Nidd Valley Methodist Circuit in North Yorkshire whose daily prayer on you tube I have followed all through lockdown. I hope in September to provide on line stuff as I’m concerned if we reopen buildings, those who are vulnerable or don’t feel safe, could be easily forgotten.
I’ve seen it in the stories of colleagues who’ve spent time keeping in touch with their congregations, especially those not on line. We’ve kept in touch with the little congregation we have been part of this year at Tydd St Giles chapel, all five of them! A phone call asking how they are has made a real difference to them. Sometimes, you know, going out with joy, isn’t difficult! If we are people of joy, as Henri Nouwen said in the picture at the beginning of this post we have to choose joy every day.
This Sunday, 12 July, I should have been leading two acts of worship at Oakham Methodist Church. I’m sad not to be with the folk there as I always love returning. I had a very happy time being their minister. In the context of going out with joy I wish to remember the Likoma Link Trust. I think now the charity has been wound up, but it was something Oakham as a congregation supported. Two of the folk there, Maggie and Brian McLester, did a year of VSA on Likoma Island in Africa. It changed their lives. Through them, setting up a charity to fund raise for things in the hospital or for mosquito nets, the Church had a “go out” focus.
I guess going forward the Church, coming out of lockdown, has a stark choice. Either we stress how we put back all we knew in March, or we let God speak to us and see what happens... and believe the future might be bright. I’m a few weeks from a new appointment. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. I guess the new Archbishop of York felt that as he banged the door of York Minster. To begin an appointment by Zoom is bizarre! I had this lovely words sent to me by my soon to be Chair of District:
“We’re so looking forward to welcoming you to the District, and I know the Circuit is anticipating your arrival with excitement. We will do all we can to ensure that you and Lis can flourish.”
Isn’t that great?
“You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.”
So my readers, here’s the choice we have in two bits of writing.
Choice 1: stay inside! In the words of a hymn in the old Methodist hymn supplement “Hymns and Songs”
”When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door, lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer: May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware,
That the world we banish is our Christian care.”
Or Choice 2: what going out with joy really means. I can do no better than quote from a sermon from Walter Bruggemann from 2011, which he preached at a Church Anniversary: how exciting would our churches be if we embraced what he suggests?
“Go out in joy and peace, not in anxiety and in discomfort, go out, taking your life transformed from brier to cypress, from prickly brier to a blooming flower tree.
Go out. Go out from old tired stuff, go out from fears that divide you, go out from quarrels unresolved.
Go out from old sins unforgiven, go out from old decisions that have scarred and wounded
Go out from old memories that have become graven images.
Go out into the way of God’s demanding mission.
Go the way of father Abraham to a new way of place and life.
Go the way of mother Sarah, surprised by new life.
Go out to neighbours waiting for a caring act of generosity.”
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