Prophetic words for today

It’s the 5 September 2022. You are standing outside the front door of 10 Downing Street. You wait for that famous door to open. A lectern appeared ten minutes ago. There’s an air of expectation and curiosity what words might be about to be shared. Then comes the moment. Here’s our new Prime Minister. What’s she about to say? There will be words of intention, direction, new beginnings, it can’t be like it was (even though you were in the cabinet that did it like it was) and those words will be the summary of her task and responsibility in the early days of a new chapter of British political life. Or… it could be him! What’s he about to say? Unless there’s a member of the Conservative party reading this, we have no say in whether it’s a she or a he at all. 

 

There are times in the human story, when words spoken announce a new era, a new positivity, a new hope. Remember when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, she referred to herself as we and used the prayer of St Francis of Assisi as her charge: where there is hatred, may we sow love etc. When Tony Blair swept to power in 1997, there was a party somewhere in London where the D Ream song blasted out: things can only get better were the words. 

Joe Biden, a practising Roman Catholic at his inauguration as President of the United States in 2021 talked about living through tough times, like Covid and he said "And I promise you this, as the Bible said, weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning. We will get through this together, together.”

Sometimes, after a tough time we need a word of promise, a word in season, a leader who will guide us into a secure future. We’ve been looking at different parts of Isaiah this month. We’ve had the threat of the enemy and divine judgment in the first bit, we’ve had words of comfort and assurance in time of exile in the second bit, and now we are in the final part of the prophecy, which is chapters 55 to 66. We often call this section ‘Third Isaiah’ because scholars set these particular prophecies in the post-exilic period after the return from exile in Babylon around 540 - 520BC.  Many of the prophecies of Third Isaiah are positive in tone, looking forward to a time of blessing and prosperity.

            The spirit of the Lord God is upon me:
            because the Lord has anointed me.
 
Remember that priests and kings were anointed – oil was poured on their heads as a sign of God’s choice; as a sign that the priest and the king were set apart, consecrated to God’s service in a special and particular way.  We still anoint our Sovereign at the Coronation. Moreover, the prophet Elisha was anointed by Elijah as his successor, inheriting a double-portion of his prophetic spirit.  When King David was anointed to be king, we are told that ‘the spirit of the Lord came mightily’ upon him.  So here in Isaiah 61, we have a prophet, who is full of God’s spirit because he has been anointed. Of course, this is a metaphorical not a physical anointing, but the metaphor carries the same meaning as the ceremony.
 
We have to remember that in the post-exilic period there was no king.  So here in Isaiah, it is the prophet who becomes a kind of new David, in whom God’s power or spirit dwells. And what does this spirit-filled ministry bring? Well, he comes to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring liberty to captives, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour – the ancient year of Jubilee when debts were remitted and burdens lifted. 

He comes to comfort those who mourn, to bring a garland in place of ashes, the oil of gladness – yet another anointing - instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. 
 
You see, the post-exilic Jerusalem community was a shattered and impoverished people. To return home had been their fervent dream and hope and prayer for generations.

However, once they finally made it back to Israel, it was not exactly the sort of Utopia they had imagined. The people who were back home had never really seen home before. They had just heard tales of it passed down from their grandparents and great-grandparents who had once lived there. Tales of it being wonderful, remembering Zion.

The Temple and city lay in ruins; there was severe economic hardship; there was an unbelievable mountain to climb, challenges of monumental proportion in order to make things right again, in order to make home feel like home.

 

Just where do you begin when almost everything has been lost? The prophet brings a message of hope; there will be a future. And in time, prophecies like this one became the basis of the hope that one day God would raise up a new David, a new Anointed One, full of the Spirit. And the Hebrew word ‘anointed one’ is Messiah.

 

Fast-forward to the New Testament. Jesus is baptised, and the Spirit descended on him as a dove. He is led into the wilderness to begin to fulfil the story of Israel – 40 days in the desert to match the 40 years of the wilderness wanderings. Now, full of the Spirit, he comes to Nazareth to begin his public ministry. In the synagogue, he finds Isaiah 61; he reads it, and his sermon begins with dynamite – ‘Today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing’.
  
When the Messiah comes, the promises of Third Isaiah are fulfilled.  

The poor, which includes the spiritually poor as well as the materially poor, hear good news – God will enrich them. Those who are captives – to sin, to demonic forces, to legalism, to social stigma – are set free. Those who are blind – blind to the truth, to God’s love, to God’s favour - are enabled to see; and the year of Jubilee is no longer simply a fifty  year, once in a life-time, remission, but is the perpetual Jubilee of a God who declares for all the forgiveness of sins.
 

Here is the Messiah, the Anointed One – and translate that into Greek – here is the Christ. So when we say, Lord Jesus Christ – we are speaking in a profoundly theological way. As Lord, he shares the divine nature, as Jesus, Joshua – he comes to save us, as Christ, he is Messiah, the Anointed One.
 
And we are called Christians. Of course, the word Christ became a kind of title in its own right. The word Christian denotes a follower of Christ. But we need to remember the root of the word. For ‘Christian’ could also be translated as ‘anointed one’. It reminds us, that like priests and kings, we have been chosen by God to be his own possession. Like priests and kings, we have been consecrated, set apart, called out by our baptism, to share the royal priesthood of Jesus. That like prophet, priest and king, we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. 

 

Imagine being in the synagogue in Nazareth that Sabbath morning. Jesus stands up, reads from the Torah, and sits down to interpret it. The text he reads is itself dramatic: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Luke puts this story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to tell us something very important about Jesus. It’s a summary of the key themes of Jesus ministry. We can see how important it is for Luke by recognising how he has changed the story from the versions in Mark and Matthew. In both of those gospels, the visit to the synagogue in Nazareth comes after a significant portion of Jesus’ ministry. Both gospels put it after big chunks of Jesus’ teaching and a number of his healings. For them, it is only a story about Jesus’ rejection in his hometown. They don’t tell us anything about what Jesus said. By placing it here, by putting these words in Jesus’ mouth, Luke is telling us to pay attention—this is what Jesus is all about.

So Jesus reads these verses, then he sits down and tells the congregation words I’ve already quoted, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The people are amazed by the power of his words. There are several fascinating things about this text. In the first place, we see Jesus behaving like he’s supposed to do. He’s a good Jewish boy, he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, he knows his scripture. But then, when he begins to speak, he blows away people’s expectations. 

Perhaps the congregation was expecting to hear how all this might happen when the Messiah comes. Instead, Jesus tells them, it’s happening right now!

To put it into contemporary language—this is Jesus’ mission statement according to Luke. 

He makes this clear later in the gospel when the John the Baptist, now in prison, has heard of Jesus’ activity. He sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah or if they are to wait for another. Jesus response to them, and to John is “Go tell John what you have seen, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the poor have good news preached to them.”

Jesus’ mission statement, but is it ours? 

As followers of Jesus, we are called to share with him in his ministry and in his proclamation of good news. We are called to do great things. And the standard by which we should judge ourselves and our work is the Gospel. Is this the year of the Lord’s favour? How are we going to bring good news to the poor? Help the blind to see, the lame to walk, the oppressed go free? Do our ministries match up to that job description? If not, why not?

Jesus’ reading from Isaiah 61 sets out a vision of restoration, one which cuts through politics and Empires, powers and wars, and puts the intention of God in the driving seat of world affairs. It points to a church full of confidence and hope which knows its mission. Like the new Prime Minister on 5 September will persuade us of hope in her or his words to us, we need to be sure of what we are saying and whose we are trying to transform. 

 

I was leading a service at Long Meadow care home just along from Harrogate Road church on Wednesday afternoon. It was so hot in there the staff weren’t functioning. Did you find this week even when the temperature outside cooled down it took your homes inside  three days to catch up? They’d forgotten to copy out my hymns and there was no music. So I asked the assembled congregation – do you know any favourite hymns by heart? They not only knew one verse of some old hymns they knew all the verses, word perfect so they sang them with joy and with confidence because the words were inside them. Despite me nearly keeling over with heat especially with PPE on, I found it deeply moving. 

 

These words of third Isaiah heralding a new age, words which Jesus used to describe his ministry are words we need to come back to again and again if we’ve lost focus. What is the spirit of the Lord leading us to do and be? For Isaiah the words were about rebuilding shattered lives. 

The community returning from years of hardship needed to have a direction and a purpose and to be confident in that direction and purpose. And we can all contribute to that direction and purpose despite what we think. 

 

We do it when we care for others pastorally.

We live it when we worship enthusiastically. 

We share it when we offer good news to one person at a time or we pray for change in the world by standing up for those God values when the world is going mad. 

We can live it despite who we are. You know I had a Church Council recently and they told me they are too old to do anything. I get that. John Wesley beat himself up you know in later life. At the age of 83, he was annoyed his eyesight wouldn’t let him write for more than 15 hours a day, and at 86 he was annoyed he wouldn’t preach more than twice a Sunday. I’m 55 and I’ve got three services this Sunday and I’ll be done in by 7.30! I’m not sure I’ll be doing three on a plan in 2053! He complained in his diary that there was an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5.30 in the morning! We do what we can do, but together our reading of these words and keeping them at our heart will make a difference. 

 

What do the words of Isaiah 61 mean to you? 

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because  he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captive and  recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. 

Go back to that synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus closes the book and sits down.  And everyone is looking at him.  And then he says to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

And in that moment, we get it. We get what it’s all about. We get recommissioned. We rejoice, we laugh, even in the midst of pain and loss and devastation, because in Jesus we hear the deep resonant laughter of God. 

 

There is good news – and today we are anointed to share it. I’ll leave you with a mighty bit of Matthew Henry’s commentary to chew:

 

“An unsanctified soul is like a city that is broken down and has no walls, like a house in ruins; but by the power of Christ's gospel and grace it is repaired, it is put in order again, and fitted to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. And they shall do this, those that are released out of captivity; for we are brought out of the house of bondage that we may serve God, both in building up ourselves to his glory and in helping to build up his church on earth.” 

 

On 5 September then I’ll be listening carefully as this country’s direction is shared in words of a new leader. Today I’m asking us to listen to the words of the prophet. There is good news – and today we are anointed to share it.

 

The mountain of the Lord

I wonder how excited you are to come to church or join church on a Sunday morning. I wonder what you talk about on the journey if you come with other people in a car or walk along the street as you approach the church. If you come on your own, what do you think about as you get nearer to the time of worship. Do you come thinking, it’s too hot, we hope it’s short. Or do you come excited and expectant, that God might do something, because it’s absolutely fabulous to be in the presence of God this morning alongside God’s people. 

In the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, there are some Psalms called Psalms of Ascent.  And we think people used to sing them together as they climbed the hill to the temple in Jerusalem, to Mount Zion. 

And I wonder whether we have a good sing as we came to church. People were glad to be in the presence of God.

 

Isaiah reminds us in chapter two, that God’s holy place  is "the mountain of the house of the Lord.” The Temple, remember, was visible from a long way off and it was visible not only to God’s faithful people, but also to other nations and it was a tremendous success in its heyday. It had power to draw and attract the people of the world. And God says that Temple, Mount Zion, "will be established as the chief of the mountains," it will be an imposing attraction to the people of the world, it "will be raised above the hills."

 

How visible are we as a church? Do people care that we are here? And do we attract people in? Isaiah sees all nations streaming to Mount  Zion, the house of God attracts the people of the world. Isaiah sees them streaming or flowing to Jerusalem the "city of peace." Jerusalem. People are streaming like a flowing river.  When God is enthroned in Zion, many people will be attracted to Him because they accept His sovereignty.

 

So you can hear the people in the streets climbing up to the Temple Mount, excitedly encouraging one another in Isaiah’s vision. "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths" Jeremiah also has this sort of thought in chapter three of his prophecy: “at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord and all the nations will be gathered to it.” There’s a new direction, they will leave behind the stubbornness of their evil hearts! 

 

 Isaiah remember was around 740 BCE. It was a time when Assyria was threatening to overrun Syria and Palestine. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had formed a coalition with neighbouring nations in order to repel Assyria. They had asked the Southern Kingdom of Judah to join them. 

Isaiah has spoken out clearly against such military coalitions, and instead calls on the people to trust God. He calls the people to look to Mount Zion and the temple as a symbol of salvation. He paints a vivid picture of God's realm which will come if we learn to walk in God's way. 

 

This is called centripetal mission (in-drawing, rather than out-sending) There are sermons which will tell you to go out into all the world. This one is about encouraging us to draw people in, because what we’ve got is so attractive they cannot help but join us. What have we got that’s so attractive here that your friends and neighbours will not be able to resist coming with you, singing that song with you as you come to our equivalent of Mount Zion. When’s the last time you asked somebody to come to church with you I wonder? 

 

Jesus says don’t hide your light under a bushel basket. He talks about a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. He says let your light shine before people that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. How do we draw people in?

 

I was listening to a discussion on the radio and there was a lady called Sara Davies, who is part of Dragons Den if you know that programme and she’s a great crafter, and she was explaining to the presenter that preparations for Christmas start in July. You’ll have seen adverts starting to appear on pub notice boards as you drive around – Christmas dinner, book now. People in the North East tell me the biggest excitement that tells them Christmas is near is a trip to Fenwick’s window in Newcastle. Fenwick’s window is a sign that Christmas is coming and every year it’s different, every year it draws people in to a story, more and more people want to come and see it. I think that’s what Isaiah is getting at here. We need to be so exciting that people cannot resist noticing us and reacting to us. Remember Jesus talked so often about the covenant of God, that should be so visible that people from outside are attracted to it. 

 

Many years ago, when I was running a youth club, we used to do Christian Aid envelopes in May, delivering them door to door one night then calling to collect them full hopefully later in the week. It’s very interesting isn’t it what perception people get of a building or a door. We are either invited in, we are drawn in, like Fenwick’s window, or we are put off. There are some doors and some gates as you go about which shout ‘keep out'.  There are some gates on big houses which are wired up so that you can’t  get into the front garden.  There are some doors which have no letter boxes or the letter boxes are wired up, presumably on the grounds of - no letter box, no letters.  Some places have large signs - ‘enter at your own risk', ‘beware of the dog', often accompanied by a picture of a ferocious Alsatian bearing a huge array of teeth, and saying, ‘if you come in here, these teeth will sink into your leg!” There are in some places houses with 12 foot high walls and electronically operated gates with spikes on them; there’s closed circuit television cameras poised to observe anyone who dares to draw near;  a veritable fortress  to keep the outside world outside. 

 

Is that what the church does? In a supplement we had some years ago called Hymns and Songs, the supplement to the old 1933 Methodist Hymn Book, there was a hymn which says “when the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door, lest the noise of traffic drown the voice of prayer.” There are churches, and Isaiah knew it well about the spiritual life, that just shut you out, we don’t want you in here, we will do everything possible to make this unattractive. We will sit where we sit. If you come in and want to sit down, we will say that’s my seat you can’t sit there. Or we will have a service that’s so alien that will make you so uncomfortable, you will never come back. We will lock a door, lock you out, and we will make sure we are unattractive because we don’t want you here. 

 

Jesus says he’s a gate, a door. This is all about this in drawing, this invitational ministry. The response is ooh, can I join in.

 We have weird cats at home. Bella likes to join in if you are eating cheese and onion crisps and she misses nothing that might be exciting. Yesterday a friend rang me from Worthing. He lives just off the sea front as I had him on speakerphone Bella could hear seagulls and her ears pricked up. It was exciting or if not, it got a response.

Jesus is not a grudging, exclusive, discriminating, night-club bouncer but a Jesus of welcome, hospitality and inclusion. We are not into ‘keep out of here' mentality, a narrow, sectarian, head in the sand church, where only members of the club can enter.  

We are not a Church that is so fearful of what is out there that it only opens the door a little, or peers out through safety chains, or worries about the draught or whether it is letting the heat out.

We are not a Church that wires up its letter box because it doesn't wish to read words from the world. 

We are not a Church that claims to offer fullness of life but is in reality neurotic, miserable and sad.

 

What’s our call? 

“Come, let us go up the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

 

 And perhaps this as well in Isaiah’s chapter 49, these words:

The Lord says:

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob

and to bring back the preserved of Israel;

I will make you as a light for the nations,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” 

 

A church had a Friday night fellowship which met in the tiny chapel in the back room. 

And the back room was cold and damp and it wasn’t a very pleasant experience. 

So the minister said to them “Why don’t we move this into someone’s house?” And one of my saints there, looked at him and said “we keep the light on, it’s a witness to our community.” To which the minister naughtily said, “but the light is in a back room and no one can see it. No one knows you are here.”

 

We are called to let our light shine. We are called to be so attractive that others want to join us. We’re called to live love, peace, and joy. We’re called to sing God’s song and to get excited about encountering God again in worship. We’re called to be a people so full of the Holy Spirit that others looking at us say “I want some of that.” A church that shouts welcome and speaks positively about the difference faith makes. 

 

Let me end like this. We were at the Great Yorkshire Show on Friday. You can spend a lot of money there. Why? Because of a hard sales pitch or seeing something irresistible cleverly placed in your eye line. A man said to us “you are the two people I’ve waited all afternoon to see” before giving us his patter. His product was to him irresistible! We couldn’t go home without buying it. He won. The dancing hares in another tent stayed there – I just couldn’t afford £22,000 for them! 

 

So, are we attractive to the world? Is our temple irresistible? 

 

What’s our call?

 

May the message of Isaiah today challenge us, and more than that, may it inspire us to be God’s people, keen to come and encounter him, more confident to draw more people in that we may build the church and make it come alive again, because it can. 

Mourning into dancing…

“You have turned my mourning into dancing” declares the Psalmist.

On day ten of Covid fuzziness my brain isn’t functioning as well as it might - but I am feeling a little bit better, and today’s line was very faint so I’m hoping for a first negative tomorrow and that this might now soon pass. I wrote an article for our Circuit magazine the other week about taking your partners. I’m going to share some of that again this week here.

When I was at school, I used to dread sports events where you had to stand in a line and wait for someone to pick you as their partner. No one wanted to be my partner because my ability sport wise was pretty spectacularly bad! I also used to dread school discos or dances. I’d just stand and watch from the side of the hall. I was too scared to ask a girl to dance with me. Childhood for the shy and introvert could be tough! 

I’ve been thinking about partners a lot recently. Maybe the Church has in recent years become insular and isolated in her communities. Maybe we haven’t been brave enough to look for partners to work with us, because we’ve been told sacred and secular don’t mix. Maybe we have convinced ourselves no one would want to dance with us so we don’t ask if we can join in. Maybe we’ve lost confidence that we have something we can offer other people who live in the same place as us. Maybe we’ve simply forgotten the joy of just joining the dance of vibrant life with others. 

So here’s a story about church a:

Towards the end of last year, the minister spotted that the town Lions club were looking for a space to open a community larder for the town. Ten minutes later he had contacted the folk at church and suggested we might offer them our unused little Sunday school room. The Church Council met a month later and agreed unanimously to give them the room just asking for a donation now and again for heat and light. He then began to join in some planning meetings with the Lions, a Community Care and the local Morrisons Community Champions. A survey was done whether the food shops and pubs would give excess food to us. The response was very positive. An appeal went out across the town for volunteers. Again, this was very positive. An appeal for fridges went out. Fridges were donated.

While the minister was on sabbatical, the little room was painted, and updated with old Sunday school benches removed, a new floor laid and shelving put up. This was done by church members and members of the Lions working together. The larder opened in April once a week on a Wednesday between 12 and 2. The minister returned in May to find each week a steady queue of people using it. A few weeks later, the church decided it would try serving coffee as a church. It was amazed at the response! The hall was buzzing with people of all ages, so much so they are now doing coffee every Wednesday from 11.30. The church has become alive, people know where it is, it is part of serving the town with others, and amazingly it’s had new people come to church on a Sunday and there is a baptism in the autumn. All because it is now open and accessible. 

Can we survive alone? All of our churches are struggling to find people to take on the jobs, we worry about money, our buildings lie empty a lot of them in the week. It could be people around our churches are waiting for us to invite them to join us in doing something. It could be there is an opportunity others are thinking about, our churches might help solve. What do our communities need? Have we ever asked? In church a barriers have been broken down. Working in partnership is fun and church a has found the view some people had of church (and the minister!) has been changed.

But as well as partnership with others and dancing with them, Psalm 30 invites us again to dance with God. A God who turns our mourning into dancing. A God who comes to our raw state and says come with me, this isn’t how it need always be.

Henri Nouwen, the great spiritual writer, wrote a book called “ Turn my mourning into dancing: finding hope in tough times” and he says this:“Mourning makes us poor; it powerfully reminds us of our smallness. …And as we dance, we realize that we don’t have to stay on the little spot of our grief, but can step beyond it.  We stop centring our lives on ourselves.  We pull others along with us and invite them into the larger dance. …As we dance and walk forward, grace provides the ground on which our steps fall.  Prayer puts us in touch with the God of the Dance.”

Sometimes we stay mourning for a long time. Remember Queen Victoria. When we grieve, it takes time to move out of that place of pain and numbness and we can’t be rushed. Even having to be indoors away from people for nearly three weeks because of Covid first in Lis and then in me, I’ve begun to feel rubbish not just physically but mentally. There’s only so much daytime tv you can stand. Sometimes you just don’t think you are ever going to get out of where you are, although I’m very glad my positive line this morning was VERY faint so I have hope this might soon be over, but then I see Covid cases on the rise around me and I just now want it gone! But staying mourning isn’t how God intends us to be. 

That phrase of Nouwen is a powerful one and the choice we have whether to mourn for ever (or moan for ever) or step out in faith joining the Lord of the dance wherever he leads us. So here’s Church b’s story:

Church b hit a major problem which it had to solve quickly somehow. A Church Council was called chaired not by their own minister, as he was on sabbatical, but by the other minister in the Circuit who they didn’t know very well. The minister suggested all sorts of ideas to them to be told they were too old. But then they had a discussion about possibilities if they would just be open to them. Arms started to unfold. They then had another meeting a few weeks later, they’d found a way to solve the problem which wasn’t easy but then ideas flowed out of them about what they could do to try and grow their little church a bit. The minister wasn’t present. They started to own their future. The minister received a report from them after their second meeting and wasn’t expecting such positivity. Maybe it took the unsolvable problem to lead church b into a new narrative. Time will tell. 

Dancing with others and dancing with God. Both would if we did them lead to a church and a society that was fun and inclusive and vibrant. A church and society of mourning and moaning and negativity will die. What have we to celebrate, right now? Church a got a surprise with new partners joining them or them joining other partners, seeing we are stronger with others; church b hit a wall that might have toppled them. Out of the depths they decided to pick themselves up, and all it needed was some words of encouragement and a determination they do not want to die. 

When I was so shy. I didn’t want a partner so I’d stand on the edge, alone. Or I’d not be chosen by someone else, perceived as having nothing to offer to any partner.

As churches we’ve shunned the world, wanting to keep sacred and secular separate. So the world has passed us by. The time is right to be more open to working with others doing good things building community together, and the minister of church a would tell you conversations about church and God happen as trust is built. It’s exciting.

Maybe too we’ve forgotten how to dance with God. Where’s the joy gone?

Maybe the task of the Church is to remember those last words of the Psalmist: “…you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.” Proclaiming, living with and celebrating the God of new beginnings and tremendous hope.

So this week as well as hearing about church a and church b remember this story and be encouraged. Desmond Tutu liked to dance! I want to end this week with this story told by Jim Wallis in his fabulous book “God’s Politics”:

“The former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu used to famously say, “We are prisoners of hope.” Such a statement might be taken as merely rhetorical or even eccentric if you hadn’t seen Bishop Tutu stare down the notorious South African Security Police when they broke into the Cathedral of St. George’s during his sermon at an ecumenical service. I was there and have preached about the dramatic story of his response more times than I can count. The incident taught me more about the power of hope than any other moment of my life. Desmond Tutu stopped preaching and just looked at the intruders as they lined the walls of his cathedral, wielding writing pads and tape recorders to record whatever he said and thereby threatening him with consequences for any bold prophetic utterances. They had already arrested Tutu and other church leaders just a few weeks before and kept them in jail for several days to make both a statement and a point: Religious leaders who take on leadership roles in the struggle against apartheid will be treated like any other opponents of the Pretoria regime. After meeting their eyes with his in a steely gaze, the church leader acknowledged their power (“You are powerful, very powerful”) but reminded them that he served a higher power greater than their political authority (“But I serve a God who cannot be mocked!”). Then, in the most extraordinary challenge to political tyranny I have ever witnessed, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the representatives of South African apartheid, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!” He said it with a smile on his face and enticing warmth in his invitation, but with a clarity and a boldness that took everyone’s breath away. The congregation’s response was electric. The crowd was literally transformed by the bishop’s challenge to power. From a cowering fear of the heavily armed security forces that surrounded the cathedral and greatly outnumbered the band of worshipers, we literally leaped to our feet, shouted the praises of God and began…dancing. (What is it about dancing that enacts and embodies the spirit of hope?) We danced out of the cathedral to meet the awaiting police and military forces of apartheid who hardly expected a confrontation with dancing worshippers. Not knowing what else to do, they backed up to provide the space for the people of faith to dance for freedom in the streets of South Africa.”

“You have turned my mourning into dancing…”  Thanks be to God!