Good habits for a new church year…

I’m just coming towards the end of having a month’s holiday. I don’t usually take four weeks off together but I agreed not to take any time off during my Superintendent’s sabbatical and I would go away on his return at the beginning of August. 

I needed a break after a busy three months, and also I needed this time to think through where my eight communities have developed since I arrived to be among them in September 2020. Frighteningly, if the Circuit choose to let me go after five years, I’m half way through my appointment in February! It’s not been the easiest two years really with circumstances beyond my control blighting normal everyday pastoral care, but I begin year three with my folk with hope and a desire to find where each of my churches can move forward. 

In these weeks, I’ve discovered three things we all need to hold on to when it gets hectic or we feel we cannot go on with this church thing.

First, the need to rest amidst our chaos. It’s been good for me to drop into Evensong again both in Ripon and this last week back in Peterborough where I learned to love it. The other Sunday afternoon, the reading in the cathedral in Ripon was some of Isaiah 30:

“For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." But you would not, And you said, "No, for we will flee on horses"-- Therefore you shall flee! And, "We will ride on swift horses"-- Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift! One thousand shall flee at the threat of one, At the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain and as a banner on a hill.

Therefore the Lord will wait, that he may be gracious to you; And therefore he will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; When he hears it, he will answer you.”

Maybe in our stresses and strains, we have forgotten the promises of God. We need rest in order to listen for and understand his will for us and hear his message for us again. We make the choice to go the other way, we flee on horses, and we wonder why we are so troubled! Yet God waits… and he will answer. It was very powerful to sit and listen to Canon Michael read Isaiah 30 very slowly. The joy of Anglican Evensong is that you just enter into it, it’s timeless, it doesn’t change, the story of God’s care for his people is recited as it has been for centuries, in churches and cathedrals up and down the country day after day. And yet, in it, there is something that’s always fresh that you’ve never heard before to put you back on track whatever you face. So for me, a resolution for the new Methodist year has to be to go to my local cathedral more and enter into disciplined returning and rest… and then wait for God to speak.

Second, maybe in these weeks, I’ve rediscovered that life needn’t be so complicated! We are all surrounded by stuff, personally, and in the news. This cost of living crisis will be catastrophic for so many people as we get nearer the winter. We all have worries. But maybe we need to remember our blessings in order to cope with our chaos. This regular recitation of our faith seems to me to be important. As Wesley once said “preach faith till you have it.”  

It’s been good while away to revisit some friends in the Fens. A highlight for us was to visit George and Mollie and June, dear friends we got to know in the chapel at Tydd St Giles, where we chose to worship in our short time in the Fens Circuit. Mollie had her 92nd birthday last Friday and it was a privilege to be at her party at home with her family and friends. Mollie and George are two of the dearest people we’ve ever met. They’ve lived all their lives in the Fens, been married over sixty five years, their lives being about their small holding, an appreciation of Fen life, their family, and their chapel. They went to the chapel at Tydd Fen up the road, then when it closed, they went a bit further to Tydd St Giles. 

I’m sad the chapel there never reopened after the pandemic and apart from being sent the Connexion at home service and Songs of Praise on the TV their church involvement after a lifetime of service is minimal. But they taught me again visiting them this last week twice, about contentment. They’ve got aches and pains and physical impairments and don’t go out much now but they are happy, happy with each other and happy with their lot, and they’d be amazed if they knew I was writing this next sentence - they are an inspiration to me. Sometimes, we need examples of rest and returning to remind us that blessedness comes when we remember what we have. Yes, there’s lots to moan about and lament is a vital part of spirituality, but we also need to remember what we have. And nurture it! There’s a prayer which goes - Lord, we thank you for the bright and glorious things of life, let us count them and remember them.

Then thirdly, a new vision of what church might be. 

It was good to have a day last Sunday at Greenbelt, the Christian arts festival in Northamptonshire. I went to Greenbelt in 1985 and camped with my youth club and hated every minute of it and vowed I’d never return! We went back in 2019 and I loved it and this year we went just for the Sunday. Next year I hope to do the lot and yes, perhaps camp (!) as I really enjoyed it three years ago and this year. Why? Because it’s church without the pressure! You just rub along with thousands of others, sometimes having conversations with complete strangers about faith or about life or about laughter. The highlight for me this year was a Taize service at 9pm as night fell. The tent was very full so a lot of us were outside it but we could still hear. Over a thousand people who’d never met, joined in singing what we believe very simply. The most powerful bit for me was the ten minute silence in the service. There wasn’t a murmur. You could feel the peace. You were being church with folk next to you, in that moment, a gathered community of pilgrims led to be there together. It was a spirit filled thin moment. No one was thinking about a church building or how we keep going, it was God and his people simply gathered together… in returning and rest you shall be saved. 

I’m very aware I return this weekend to three services on Sunday, and to many issues. They are mostly about how we might grow the church. I’m also very aware of the pressure on me to deliver - all my churches want to see me more, schools want me, care homes want me - we have one less member of staff and no more hours than before - and I’ve things at home as well as work that need my attention…

What’s the message for a new church year? Not more on our plate, but returning and rest…doing less will help us cope with all our demands. Where’s our prayer life? How do we carve out time to read? How do we wait? In returning and rest we shall we saved. I’ve needed Evensong, George and Mollie and Greenbelt this August to put me back together and remember good habits.

A fruitful and flourishing new church year depends on me - and all of us - keeping those habits going. 

A Bible Study for my church at Allhallowgate on Isaiah 65 and 66

A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible -- Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to learn the verse. Little Bobby was excited about the task, but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Bobby was so nervous. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, "The Lord is my shepherd . . . and that's all I need to know!" 

Did any of you or your children do the old Scripture exam? There was a memory verse to learn as part of it. How much of the Bible do we know by heart and its promises? One of the first churches I worked in had a sisterhood and the promise box was brought out for any birthday and the person with the birthday got to pull out a promise on a small rolled up piece of paper with a little pair of tweezers.

After a month of study what are the promises of Isaiah for you? Read one out loud and then keep the page safe as we will return to it.

Here’s one from Chapter 12:

“You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to You, O LORD, for though You were angry with me, Your anger turned away, that You might comfort me. “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted. “Sing praises to the LORD, for He has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

It’s tempting to look around the world and simply give up. It’s all too overwhelming. I don’t know where to start to put it all right. I had a long discussion about the Tory leadership election at the hatch of the kitchen at Boroughbridge this morning. Well, the same was true for the people of Isaiah’s day. 

Isaiah 65: 17 – 25

Words here spoken at a time when it was easy for the people of Israel to look around their world and give up.

After centuries of internal upheaval, the Babylonians were the latest to invade Israel, killing their loved ones, carrying off the brightest and best to live in a foreign country, taking over their land, and destroying their Temple. Eventually, the exiles were allowed to return and we join them a couple of generations from having come home when their expectations for a renewed Jewish existence simply haven’t come to pass. The previous few chapters of Isaiah speak of bloodshed and miscarriages of justice, of a divided people whose leaders are greedy, unjust and drunk on power. 

There is hardship in the land, cynicism about their future, suspicion about their neighbours. And into this situation, Isaiah brings a word from God;

I wonder how those words were first greeted. I wonder whether Isaiah was heralded as a visionary or a daydreamer; a prophet from God or a fanciful fool who chose to ignore the harsh realities of life around him. And I wonder how you hear those words. Have you ever received or dismissed a message as crazy? Have you ever delivered one?

Do you find comfort in those promises of the future or frustration that they are yet to come to pass? Perhaps, of course, we are supposed to feel both. 

Make a list of what God will do and how the earth will be changed.

What do these words of Isaiah mean for us in Ripon in August 2022?

Isaiah’s words remind us that God isn’t finished with creation just yet. If you’ve ever looked at the headlines, listened to stories of suffering or rumours of war and thought ‘is this it?’, God’s answer in Isaiah is ‘You’ve not seen the half of it yet for I am creating new heavens and a new earth.

Think about how the Bible ends – in Revelation. Listen to these words of Barbara Brown Taylor: 

“ In Revelation, people do not go up to heaven; heaven comes down to them. The earth is not struck by a rogue meteor, laid waste by aliens, destroyed by nuclear holocaust, or otherwise demolished so that humans have nowhere to go but up, like steam escaping a cosmic forest fire. In Revelation, the same God who created heaven and earth the first time is pleased to create them both anew. The sea is no more. The new Jerusalem comes down to rest on the same footprint where the old, troubled city once stood, and God comes too—joining humans right where they are. “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them…” 

In this vision of final destination, the arc of the divine bends down, not up.”

What if we were to be symbols of God’s good news in a world which has had its fill of bad? If we pledged to try to be a visible symbol of hope in our homes and on our streets, in our actions and words and prayers so that people could point to us and see hope incarnated in a way that might become subversive and contagious and transformational?! 

In the little leaflet I produced to help us navigate through Isaiah this month I asked this question:

Sharing a month immersed in his prophecy as a Circuit, what is our good news? Share what you think in your next church meeting. Write a new mission statement for your church. 

 

Someone wrote to me: 

 

We have no good news at present. We do not live up to our present Mission Statement, never mind me typing another! 

 

What are we here for? Surely to bring transformation… but some   times we cling to the past as it slowly sinks into a rough sea. It’s clear God has a different agenda but we stubborn stick to our own comfortable ways. 

 

Allhallowgate Methodist Church exists to spread the love of God  in Jesus Christ  to everyone, to worship, pray and learn together, in  order to share our faith in the community, and to bring hope and joy to all. 

 

How does Isaiah end? Read chapter 66

 

We have a choice. That’s what all 66 chapters of Isaiah have been about. Threatened because of injustice, overtaken by an enemy, languishing in exile, returning to desolation it’s all been about turning back to God. Hear how the prophecy ends:

 As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

 

The book of Isaiah concludes with the fate of the wicked.  Their worm (soul) shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they will be abhorred by all flesh.  God is describing the lake of fire Christians call hell. Why would God leave the reader with the last though of eternal damnation?  The answer is simple:  God is warning us of the consequences of neglecting Him. Fellow preachers, have you ever preached on hell? 

 

Go back to the promises we began with. God is faithful and sometimes we are not. So we wonder why we struggle. We might not face threat or exile or the desolation of desolations but maybe we’ve made God less and the church more? That might get me sacked saying that! What if we believed and acted upon what we read?

 

So slowly read your promise again… how will it make a difference to you and to the work of this church?

 

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