Take up your cross

Passage for reflection: Matthew 16: 21 - 28

There are times on our journey we would rather avoid what we are being asked to do and have an easier life. 

When I was at school, we used to go cross country running and I was part of the group that were at the back, straggling to the finish line hours after the winner of the race. The run went through a wood and in the wood was a huge dip which when wet, was almost impossible to slide down one side and clamber up the other. So, us stranglers thought we’d just not bother going in it but just round it. No one would know! 

But what we didn’t realise was that the evil PE teacher stood in the dip and knew what we were up to. He yelled at us and made us do the whole run again. There was no missing out the hardest bit. 

It seems to me that many of us who profess we are Christians would like to avoid the reality of the cross. We know Jesus has beaten the cross and has risen so we want to not really think about its barbaric nature as an instrument of torture or all that blood, or suffering we cannot begin to imagine. We want fluffy bunnies and to have a faith that just doesn’t put us out. We want Easter without Good Friday.

But Jesus in our Gospel reading for today reminds us avoiding or by passing the cross isn’t possible. Indeed, he compels us to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow him, every day.

In Jesus’ day, everyone knew how you got rid of troublemakers. There were crucifying posts placed by the side of the road so if you thought about doing wrong, you knew what would happen to you. Crucifixion was a slow, agonising, inhuman way to kill someone. Crucifixion happened on a rubbish tip outside the city wall. Crucifixion was a means to purge the evil from the midst of the purity of religion practiced by strict Jews and from the perfect rule of Rome.

And yet, Jesus says, we are to take up our cross and follow him. We are, like he would soon after speaking these words, to carry our cross through the streets of the world, risking ridicule and being put out. We are to take up our cross because otherwise we cannot come after him because we haven’t really got the point of following him. You can’t just have the nice bits. You have to trace the rainbow through the rain. You have to go down the dips of life and clamber back up. You cannot walk by the hard places. 

So how do we take up our cross today?

 By being self sacrificial rather than pandering to our self. 

By being in the world rather than aloof from it. By making our churches cross shaped again rather than kidding people it will all be okay if we just pray harder. 

By putting ourselves second rather than first. 

By rediscovering the radical nature of Jesus so much so we risk negative reaction from people to our plans and our words.

 By looking for Jesus in the hard slog, in the things we find ourselves doing that aren’t easy. 

By being brave to follow him to death, death to our selfish desires and open to the job he calls us to to bring peace and reconciliation to a broken world. 

Remember the words of Bonhoeffer:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

When I served in the church in Shildon in County Durham we had two men who looked after the property, but who didn’t come to church very often. One day they were mending the church fence. 

With great glee they saw me walk by and said to me:

“We’ve found two champion bits of wood in the shed!” 

I pointed out to them these were the parts of the cross we carried through the town on Good Friday and that rather than use them to mend the fence, they might be put back in the shed for their proper use! 

You can’t avoid the cross, you can’t use its wood for other than what it is meant for, you can’t sometimes go anywhere but straight into trouble. To be authentic and relevant today, we have to show we bar where people are really struggling. We only do that by being in those places. However hard it is.

At the end of another church year our call is to be crucified with him that we may rise with him, to die to self and in doing that to embrace others.  

"Take up your cross," the Saviour said, if you would my disciple be; take up your cross with willing heart, and humbly follow after me." 

 

Take up your cross; let not its weight fill your weak spirit with alarm; Christ's strength shall bear your spirit up and brace your heart and nerve your arm. 

 

Take up your cross, heed not the shame, and let your foolish heart be still; the Lord for you accepted death upon a cross, on Calvary's hill.

Take up your cross, then, in Christ's strength, and calmly every danger brave: it guides you to abundant life and leads to victory o’er the grave.”

Who do you say I am?

Passage for reflection: Matthew 16: 13 - 20

I wonder if you’ve ever been walking down the high street and wished you’d picked another time to do your shopping. The survey lady pounces on you, asks if you’ve time to help her and tells you it won’t take long. She whisks you away into an office. She lies. It takes for ever!

“Was that cheese stronger, milder, or about the same as the last one?”

Your opinion counts. 

Politicians know all about opinion polls. Sometimes they are accurate, sometimes not. Joe Biden appears to be in front in the opinion polls a few months before the American election. But often on the day things can be very different. 

What do you think? 

Methodist ministers know all about people’s opinions, especially at the time of reinvitation. The last time I said I would stay longer in an appointment, 89 people were asked “what do you think?” and then I was presented with a vast document with all 89 opinions, the names of who said what left out, though some of who thought what I could guess. 

I guess it’s important to know public opinion, what people are thinking. I guess in a few weeks some good folk in North Yorkshire will be sharing their opinion about the new minister over the Sunday dinner! 

I’ve had times when something someone hasn’t liked has been brought to my attention, usually with the words “people are saying that...” - and usually “people” who “are saying” don’t exist!! 

After the disciples have been with Jesus some time, Jesus wants to know what they’ve been hearing as they travelled from place to place.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is? What do people say about me?” Jesus asks.

“Some say John the Baptist”. Like John, Jesus was a sort of moral authority for them, someone who remembers the commandments of God and appeals for repentance and change.

Others say Elijah. Elijah had struggled for the exclusive worship for Yahweh in the midst of Baal and Queen Jezebel. For people who answered in this way, Jesus was, like Elijah, a religious and political revolutionary. 

Others say Jeremiah. Jeremiah was known for his intensive and very personal prayers, his so-called confessions. He was an inconvenient prophet and was persecuted.

Who do people say that I am? 

But then Jesus reminds those disciples that what other people think isn’t as important as what we are thinking. 

“Who do you say that I am?”

It is much more significant to clarify for ourselves  the question of Jesus. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”That’s a great confession! It is a decisive moment when Peter recognises and proclaims this. 

“You are for me the person who fulfils the hopes of people over the centuries. You are the Messiah, the Christ. In you, God comes very close to me. In you, and so, at the same time in God, all my trust, my power and my strength are based.”

But Peter, who is able here to speak in that clear way, is that same Peter who in other situations is very weak, shows great fear and makes grave mistakes. Shortly before this scene the gospel tells us how Peter, full of enthusiasm, wants to approach Jesus at the lake. But at that moment as he becomes aware of the strong contrary wind he loses his foothold and sinks. He is out of his depth.

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

 So says the same Peter who makes the wrong decision and pulls his sword during the capture of Jesus – as the gospel of John tells us. Jesus admonishes him by saying: Put your sword away.

And last but by no means least: Peter, who speaks such great words here of certainty and recognition, is the same Peter who sits during Jesus’s interrogation in the courtyard and cannot find in that moment the strength to give the merest expression to even an acquaintance with Jesus.

And yet Jesus says “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

I used to know someone who wouldn’t ever do anything risky because she was always petrified about what people would think. In the end, if we are truly convinced of Jesus and committed to following him, then we should not be worried or bothered what other people think. We should stand by our convictions and be confident in them even if we are ridiculed or get the “people are saying” brigade in our face! 

Jesus tells Peter, giving him a new name, the rock, that his faith is what the Church will be built on. I find it very comforting that Peter will as I’ve already said will make huge mistakes, fall from grace and need forgiveness but that Jesus stands by him. Our faith will falter but it is what we need to confess at the heart of who we are. A Church not built on faith will fall. 

“Who do you say that I am?” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing while sitting in the darkness of a prison cell in Nazi Germany, determined this was the central question for the church in his time, and would be for every generation to come: Who is Jesus Christ for us, today? he asked, adding urgency to the question. Who do we say Jesus is for us today?

In other words, what does the call to follow Jesus look like for us in this moment? What does it demand of us?

It seems to me Bonhoeffer is right. Today’s Church needs to answer Jesus’ question. Can he be met through what we do and are, can we give an opinion about him? We can give our views on cheese and politics and ministers, more vital is sharing the hope we have within us. 

“Who do you say I am?”

“Who am I for you?”

“I believe that followers of the real Jesus can make our nation the city set on a hill it was meant to be—a more just, more compassionate, less violent place, a place where every human being can flourish. I believe that following this Jesus can help turn our world around by making this “Christian” nation more Christ-like.

But what about you? Who do you say that he is? Is your reply awkward and uncertain? Do you have more questions than answers? If so, you qualify to be a disciple—right in there with Peter and Mary and Martha and James and John.

Jesus is after big game here. He wants you and me to be part of the healing of the world. He wants us to be his friends and companions. He wants to fill us with his life. And all we have to do is to follow, learn from him, and let him live in us.

But enough of my response. The question he asks today still hangs in the air for you too, and it matters enormously how you answer it. “You — who do you say that I am?””

Doing a u turn

Passage for reflection: Matthew 15: 21 - 28 

When the sat nav in the car thinks you’ve gone the wrong way, it will say “when it is safe, prepare to do a u turn.” Almost saying to us “you need to think again.”

Throughout trying to manage this pandemic, the government has had to do some pretty major u turns on policy. Of course, there was one former Prime Minister who would never consider such action! 

“We shall not be diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the u turn, I have only one thing to say.

You turn if you want to. The lady’s NOT for turning.”

The Gospel story for this Sunday asks of us a huge question. Does Jesus get things wrong and have to do a u turn? 

Jesus finds himself in foreign territory. Tyre and Sidon were cities of Phoenicia, a part of Syria. Tyre lay forty miles north west of Capernaum. Its names means the rock, so called because two huge rocks were joined by a three thousand foot long ridge, forming a natural harbour and defence. Phoenicians were famous sailors and the first to navigate by the stars. When, under Joshua, the land was divided among the tribes, this area was allocated to the tribe of Asher, but they never managed to take it over. They didn’t obey the Lord’s commands, so that is why it is Gentile territory. 

Jesus was under attack from the Scribes and Pharisees, so he came here for a brief respite so that he could spend quality time with his disciples before the final showdown with the Jewish authorities.

However, as soon as he arrived there, he was accosted by a woman whose child was very ill and because she had heard about the healings that had taken place elsewhere, she begged him to heal her daughter. 

“Lord, have mercy on me.” 

In one of the most outrageous bits of the Gospel, Jesus tells her her problems have nothing to do with him. 

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

In other words, I am here only to help Jews, not Gentiles like you. How often have we heard that in our lives out of the mouths of people? “They are not my problem because they are not my sort, or part of my world.” “I need to look after my own.”

Matthew, the Gospel writer, calls the woman a Canaanite. The Canaanites of course were Israel’s old enemies eight hundred years before. They had worshipped Baal and his female consort Asherah, and the Old Testament is full of stories of conflicts between Yahweh, Israel’s God, and Baal. So Matthew is trying to make the point that this woman is completely outside of God’s care, she’s not just any old Gentile—she’s belongs to the most worthless, most hated group of all.

Imagine you are that woman. 

You hear Jesus tell you, “look I’ve got nothing to do with you.” But like any loving parent, you won’t take no for an answer. “Lord, help me,” you plead.

Now Jesus responds to you directly, but what he says is hardly reassuring. 

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

You’re not sure you believe what you are hearing! 

But is quickly becomes clear. You reply, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ tables.”

Jesus calls (and those of her community) dogs.

Help! We need a bible commentary here: 

Search Results

Featured snippet from the web

In other words: what Jesus is saying is that the spiritual teachings given to the Jews are NOT for everyone. ... Thus, what Jesus is saying to the woman is that as: “a Canaanite” she is like a dog because she will “eat” any type of meat offered to her and give them all equal value.

 The woman doesn’t doesn’t bristle at the put down. Instead, she turns it back on Jesus.

“We may be dogs, Jesus, but remember, loving masters give their dogs table scraps to eat.”

Now, you’ve finally convinced him. Jesus praises your faith, and your daughter is healed instantly. Not a very pretty story is it? Jesus isn’t behaving like he’s supposed to behave, and the woman isn’t exactly a model of proper decorum, either.

This is may be one of the most troubling stories in all of the gospels. Jesus is supposed to be merciful and compassionate, he’s supposed to respond with love and care when someone asks him for help. But that’s not what he does here. It’s here (at least in Matthew’s Gospel) there comes a realisation he might have been wrong in the narrowness of his mission. After seeing the woman’s persistence and her cheeky coming back at him, there comes a divine u turn. 

The u turn is caused by the woman’s faith. The disciples want her sent away. Jesus isn’t really bothered with her but he is clearly moved by how much she believes in him and needs his help. 

She comes  to him, trusts in his promises, stretches out her hands and holds them there until he fills them. That’s all she does –  this woman who has no cultural right to be anywhere near Jesus, let alone talk with him; this woman who doesn’t even know the right stuff about God. But here she is, crying out ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon’ That’s how faith begins, doesn’t it? … by daring to come to Jesus even at the risk of being disappointed, and persevering. 

She echoes Psalm 142, ‘Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need.” Sometimes, that desperation leads us to the brink of despair. But that’s precisely where we discover the merciful arms of God. 

The woman is confident that even if she is not entitled to sit down as a guest at the table, Gentile dog that she is, at least she may be allowed to receive a crumb of the mercy of God. 

I believe at that point Jesus cannot let her go without being a hypocrite. As Martin Luther once said “she caught Jesus in his own words.” She’d heard Jesus say he loved the hungry, the thirsty, and the poor in spirit … well here she is! She takes his words seriously, and then she waits and waits and waits and waits until he comes to take them seriously too. The divine u turn! 

There is an important lesson for us from this story. We have a Jesus who is prepared to think again - even with major policy and theological understanding. We have a Jesus who has his convictions challenged. 

Which means in our thoughts on who matters and who needs care, we may have to do some pretty sharp u turns ourselves especially regarding our prejudices and misconceptions. 

How often have we come to our own conclusions about people because we’ve been told a story about them or because we just haven’t had them in our world?

 I ministered to a town which was a few miles from another town where race riots were happening. At a coffee morning in church I found some elderly ladies shaking with fear. “Asians are coming!”  they said. They’d never met anyone from Asia and their perception of Muslims was horrifying until I gave them an evening on Islam!

I ministered to a village where every problem crime wise was blamed on young people. I was told some older folk were scared to go through the shopping precinct to Waitrose because “youths are there.” I asked what “youths” were doing. They were sitting on a wall. The elderly and the younger folk never met. So all sorts of misunderstandings happened. 

We still hear rubbish spoken about people of another race, or colour, or sex, or sexual orientation. When we take time to meet people and treat everyone as our equal there can be change and often the stupid stories we’ve been told we leave behind as we become friends. 

This weekend we are remembering the seventy fifth anniversary of VJ Day, the end of the Second World War. I’d not really appreciated VJ Day until this weekend watching the service from the National Arboretum. For most people in Britain, peace happened in May 1945, not August, but for the forgotten army in the Far East, peace did not come until months later and there wasn’t much peace coming home, many had to live their cruel suffering in their heads the rest of their lives and it was hard to move on. 

But their sacrifice and pain helped build a better world. To work for that world to last takes an investment and commitment to work for it. I remember in the 1990’s being asked to listen to a local preacher. His service was on forgiveness. We were jollying along quite nicely until he said “I can forgive everyone, but not the Japanese.”

I was horrified but I tried to understand. He’d heard the story but he’d never met a Japanese person nor did he want to accept the world might have changed. I did a youth exchange in the 1980’s with a church in Germany. When they came to Harpenden and we sat in the park, some folk moved away from us. One of the German youngsters said to me, sadly, “I think it is to do with the war.”

To make a u turn to include everyone, especially when out of a learnt story or experience we have been told that they are nothing to do with us, takes time and effort. Jesus had to learn that. He really thought he should ignore this woman! 

The Methodist website reminds us of this:

“The assurance of the free grace of God was the experience of the early Methodists, which the Wesleys set in the Christian tradition of 'arminianism', emphasising within human freewill the need for holy living as an outcome of faith leading towards 'Christian perfection'.

The Calvinists (such as George Whitefield) by contrast stressed the absolute sovereignty of God and believed in predestination.

This implied that some people could never reach God, no matter what they did, as 'the elect' had already been chosen.

But Wesley and the Methodists preached that all can be saved. No one is beyond the reach of God's love.”

It’s so easy to say all matter. But let’s be honest, they don’t. We say and sing that all are welcome. But they aren’t. We don’t really want our cosy, comfortable world of like minded people challenged. We know what we believe and who is in and who should be out. 

But if no one is beyond the reach of God’s love, then the u turn is urgent. Jesus made one and so should we. If someone says “have mercy on me” to us, can we really ask who they are before we decide if we will bother with them? 

Let me illustrate it like this:

Dorian the cat who lives next door we are told by his owners isn’t allowed in our house. That’s the rules! 

It is raining. Dorian is getting wet. He jumps through our open window. Do we let him suffer because we are told that’s what has to be? 

What do you think??!!!

What are you doing here?

Passages for reflection: Psalm 38 and 1 Kings 19: 9 - 18 

Throughout this time of pandemic and uncertainty I have encouraged people to be honest about how they have been feeling. We have had good days and extremely bad ones, haven’t we? 

I’ve also encouraged people who have said they don’t have any words to give God in prayer to use the Psalms, for every human situation and emotion is in them, every sentence a cry to God or a reminder about God, every one of the Psalms written in the middle of a situation that is real and which often hurts or the writer feels they cannot move on from. Often they are quite stuck, and there feels no way out.

I have the Book of Common Prayer by my bed which I use for morning and night time prayer. My edition uses good old fashioned language and while I was thinking about what to share in this week’s sermon, Psalm 38 drew my attention. I don’t think I’ve really read Psalm 38 properly. How about this for where many of us have been and still find ourselves at the moment as we work out when we go out what is safe... 

“And I, truly, am set in the plague: and my heaviness is ever in my sight.”

The Old Testament reading for this Sunday is one of my favourites because it is an account of human frailty and of a God who comes into that frailty and panic and encourages a movement towards him to enable us to see his presence again, restoring us and helping  us move from our fear back into faith. 

I’ve been reflecting this week a lot on how when we are overwhelmed we focus on the fear rather than the faith we have, so if you are fearful and panicky hear the story of Elijah and his God for yourself...

Elijah, fearing for his life after destroying the prophets of Baal runs from the wicked King Ahab and his cruel wife Jezebel (go back a few chapters in 1 Kings if you need reminding of the back story.) Given a chance they will have him executed for challenging their rule and undermining their authority “in the name of the Lord.” Elijah runs for many miles until, utterly exhausted, he lays down in a desert place and prays that he might simply be allowed to give up... to die. An angel comes to feed him - who are your angels I wonder who come when you are at your wits end? 

Elijah wants to give up, to hide, to have life taken away from him. It’s all been too much. It’s easier to withdraw than face the problem...

At junior school I used to hide most of the day in a toilet. I remember we all had a number which we would shout out when the register was taken and I remember calling mine out when the teacher got to it. I was scared of the other children so I hid. I have no idea how I was persuaded to come out! 

In one of my appointments as a minister I had a lady who liked to try and find me to vent her spleen about everything that was wrong with the church and me! I had a little office on the premises and naughtily when I heard her coming into the building on the war path about minutiae, I would go and hide in there until the storm had gone home! I’ll remember her long lists of complaints for ever. I didn’t need her shouting at me. I could do nothing right so I hid away. 

Elijah finds that God comes into the hiding place, the place of exhaustion, the place where one is set in the plague and one is overwhelmed with heaviness. He asks Elijah to name his problem. “What are you doing here?”

“I am all alone. You gave me an impossible job and I did it. But now I’m in trouble and I just want to give up and die.”

The Psalmist in Psalm 38 pleads for God to hurry up and come, to not forsake him, he knows God can save him. 

The good pastoral carer will listen to the situation described and work out how to help the person move out of it. 

In this story, God sets to work to show Elijah he is there. But we have to note where God’s voice is not heard. Elijah saw God in whirlwind and in earthquake and in fire and sometimes yes, God does speak in those places. But God knows what we need when we need it and he knows Elijah in his torment and depression and contemplation of suicide, maybe, needs something different. I guess something Elijah is not used to when thinking about God. 

“Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

How does the Lord pass by for us just where we are, no matter how rubbish where we are is? 

In sheer silence.

In a still, small voice.

In calm. 

In a new way we have our eyes and our hearts opened to. 

To a prophet at the end of his tether, drained of strength and wishing he was dead, it is not supernatural displays of power, but God’s whispered word that speaks to him at his time of crisis. And so it is for us.

Two thoughts occur to me. 

First, God coming into the silence. 

I love silence. I’m not good at noise. That’s why I love quiet days rather than exuberant noisy worship! That’s why the most powerful times of reminder of the divine being with me through this pandemic have been on my walks alone where only the sounds of creation have been heard, no other people, no issues to worry about, a resetting of my soul and deep peace. Perhaps we need in our panic just to breathe deeply a bit and listen. God comes just how we need him to. I often go to this Edwina Gateley poem and I’m reminded of it thinking of Elijah:

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God -
Love you.

Then maybe we like Elijah need to be open to God coming differently. 

I read of a lady who had to go into her church building this week to read the meters. She got upset seeing the empty worship space, and she felt that God was not there and she felt alone in what she describes as an “eerie silence.” 

Then she left the building and something powerful happened as she went into town: she met people who asked her how she was, she saw strangers on the street chatting to each other, she saw a happy family group with two little boys skipping along and she realised of course God wasn’t in the empty church but he was there with her on her journey home, working in the world. 

In our upset, panic, sense of abandonment, times of overwhelming workload or too much information, times of heaviness set in the plague, come O God and remind us of what I can put no better than how John Greenleaf Whittier put it in one of the greatest pastoral hymns ever written:

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire,
speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

Reading the story of Elijah again I notice how it ends. The still small voice of calm, the sound of sheer silence doesn’t get rid of Elijah’s problem. Elijah repeats to God word for word his complaint, just as he spoke it before God passed by. But God speaks within the situation and gives Elijah a job. He isn’t let off his duties. He doesn’t get to be laid off or have a holiday or retire quietly. 

“Go, return!”

God also wants to say to him “ But remember, you are not as alone as you think.”’ 

What’s the message of this story for us?

To give our pain to God.

When God asks us “what are you doing here?” to watch for how he comes.

To listen for the sound of sheer silence to calm us.

To be open that God might not be where we expect and might well be ahead of us and when we see him, he will laugh how slow we are to get that he is in the world and not in our narrow box of God only being in the chapel. God hasn’t stopped working these past few months has he?

 

And finally to be reminded of this through a lovely quote I found:

“When we reach the end of our resources we have only come to the beginning of his.  Put your trust in him, and know that he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Wherever you find yourself today, know that God will find you. 

From where you are, come out and watch for him passing by.

Then know peace beyond measure.

Your Jezebel, your complaining woman, the ongoing pandemic, your huge fears will still be about, but you do not face them alone but with an inner calm that God’s calm is your strength. Today and always. 

 

August 1st

So today is August 1. It’s a huge day for a lot of people. 

Shielding has been paused.

Some parts of the country have had restrictions put back as the rate of infections is worryingly on the rise.

Methodist clergy and their families are preparing to move surrounded by boxes. I’m reminded of the old gag about the removal firm advert:

“We have removed many Methodist ministers to the satisfaction of all concerned.” 

It’s Yorkshire Day and the feast day of St Wilfrid.

There’s a mixture of emotions going on in people, not least in me! 

So I’ve written a prayer for all who face today and this month, either with excitement or with anxiety, and then I want to share a prayer for St Wilfrid’s Day.

O God, today I am not sure. So not sure. 

Shielding has today been paused. But is it really safe to pause it? For many today, there will be celebration as they meet family and friends again, can go out and shop or eat or enjoy a pint on a summer evening in the pub.

 For others though there will be fear. Going outside after so long will be frightening. And there are others who still don’t feel safe to go out at all. Give them especially today your peace. 

O God, today I am not sure. So not sure. 

I’d love to go and do everything others seem now to be doing. But I’m still being told to stay at home as much as possible. I know some churches are opening for the first time tomorrow. I’ve had an invitation to go to a service in the morning. I’m devastated I can’t just go back to church.

 If I’m honest, God, the thought of going inside anywhere scares me. I’ve not been in a shop since March. I’m not at all attracted to the thought of sitting in church with a face covering, not able to sing, or take communion, or chat to others. But I do understand why people need to go back to what they knew. 

So I pray for all those churches that are reopening tomorrow or soon, that everyone will be safe. I also pray for those who face unemployment as the furlough scheme is lessened today and for those who face impossible decisions having to return to work even though they are overwhelmed with worry. 

O God, today I am not sure. So not sure. 

I’m very worried as things move on so fast, those of us still being told to be careful will be left behind. Some days it feels like we are out of step now. It was okay when we were all in lockdown. Now I’m jealous of those who can just do what I’d love to do. It isn’t that I don’t want to do things. I’m very sad I can’t. I’m tired of having to think about what is safe and what isn’t. 

When is this going to end? I pray for patience not just for myself but for those who might get exasperated I’m not doing what they are. 

O God, today I am not sure. So not sure. 

The virus seems to be on the increase in some places. The tone of the government seems to have changed. 

I pray for those in the north who now cannot do what was allowed a few weeks ago. I continue to pray for health workers in hospitals and care homes and for those who are facing loved ones dying from this thing still. Some might be tempted to say “it’s only 74 today” but every death, all 47,000 plus of them, matters, and we mourn those who have been lost. 

Help O God, those who struggle in ongoing uncertainty to find healing in your presence.

O God, today I am not sure. So not sure. 

Many of us in ministry are on the move this month. We are surrounded by chaos as we get ready to start again in new places. How will being in a new place amongst new people be? 

September will be history making as we will never start appointments quite like we will this year. So I give you my worry and my questions and the unknown and I thank you for those who are helping us with kindness and nice messages giving us assurance the destination after our moving will be okay.

 I cannot do what I’d hoped as I begin meeting new churches, but I have a blank canvas and opportunities to be creative while keeping safe. So while I am not sure about a lot, I’m glad there are those who share this journey with me. It’s Yorkshire Day today and living in North Yorkshire is going to be just fab! 

O God, while today I am not sure, I can be sure...

I can be sure of your love which is sure and certain in my anxiety and wobbling. 

I can be sure I am okay saying no when what is asked of me is just not sensible. That staying at home is alright. 

I can be sure when it all feels too much and I want to shut my ears when the only thing I hear talked about is coronavirus and more coronavirus because I am just tired of it, you will give me perspective. I’m glad of my walks and my space and my friends. 

I can be sure, in Jesus, you get where I’m at. To know he suffers, has questions, gets cross, is worried, and endures overwhelming agony gives me courage. To know he comes through all of those things gives me hope. 

So sorry God for wittering on. A new month, a turn of the calendar for some is really exciting. For others we just need a bit of time... thank you that you understand. Amen. 

A prayer on St Wilfrid’s Day from the prayers section on Ripon Cathedral website: 

God of compassion be close to those who are ill, in isolation or afraid. In their loneliness, be their consolation;

In their anxiety, be their hope;

In their darkness, be their light;

Through him who suffered alone on the cross,

But reigns with you in glory, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Merciful God, we entrust to your tender care

Those who are ill or in pain,

Knowing that whenever danger threatens

Your everlasting arms are there to hold them safe.

Comfort and heal them and restore them to health and strength; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.