Reciting it until you see it - Holy Week thoughts for Wednesday

I wasn't sure what to write about today - a reflection on plan making and proof reading the plan and my window cleaner coming didn't sound very exciting...

I had a hour and a half pastoral visit this afternoon which wasn't easy. The person was very low and thought no one cared. They thought I didn't care because I hadn't visited for a couple of weeks. They had cancelled an appointment not being able to face people, and for some time they didn't make any eye contact with me. We got onto some deep stuff about naming our pain and our hurt before God, even if God feels very absent today. The person thanked me for coming as I left, having been quite hostile when I arrived.

I've been thinking about this visit all evening as I sat in a Passover meal with Churches Together. Part of the Passover is all about reciting and remembering God's steadfast love. Jews state it as a present reality even in the midst of rubbish going on. There is a need to say it over and over again, especially when we are struggling to believe it: preach faith til you have it. Tomorrow on Maundy Thursday we remember Jesus breaking bread, we remember him as present with us every time we do that, and I know how renewed I am when I am given bread and wine each time at communion. I am reminded that God in Christ cares, suffers, understands, transforms from within and is patient with me until I see the reality of his presence myself. He is always there, it is our life that separates us from him. Perhaps my picture is an illustration of where our spiritual life can be sometimes. Edinburgh Castle a couple of weeks ago had not moved, but I couldn't see it as I walked near it in the evening fog. I had to wait to see it when the sun came out. But it was still there.

I think it is okay to voice when we feel alone or no one cares in our perception. The person I visited today I think was somewhat surprised by my prayer. "Help us voice how we feel O God when life is crappy." Well, life is crappy sometimes, isn't it???!!!! Part of what this week is about for me is that there is nothing in life or death and so on that separates me from the love of God. And I need to say that to myself over and over again.

Holy Week Blog for Tuesday - seeing glory

I am reflecting on a passage I am about to lead worship round in a communion service - John 12: 20 - 37.
In this passage, people (some Greeks) want to see Jesus (a reminder of a plaque in my home chapel The Folly in the pulpit) and Jesus says the hour has come for him to be glorified. Later in the passage, he talks about followers living in the light, so that we may become children of light - making a difference to others, showing Jesus' glory to others.

People want to see something/feel something that will make a difference to them.
Yesterday with a friend in London I saw lots of crowds:

• Crowds in Trafalgar Square watching people stand motionless dressed as a character (Peppa Pig!)
• Crowds taking mobile phone pictures of a nice day for them on Westminster Bridge.
• Crowds queuing having been given a flyer for a "fantastic" Italian restaurant, queuing for a table. 
• Crowds on the South Bank watching some dancers from Ghana balance bicycles on their head for no apparent reason, and further on some singer blasting out. 
• Crowds in a pub opposite Cannon Street station enjoying a post work drink. 
• Crowds on a train home, just wanting to get home, after a long day. 

Everyone, be it watching escapist entertainment, or having a meal out, or a drink, or waiting to go home, wanted something to make them feel better. There is inquisitiveness in a crowd, sometimes we just join one to see what is going on.

I keep suggesting to churches that we live in an age where people encounter us with all sorts of questions, or not much clue about faith or Jesus or the church. Can we show them Jesus in a language that will make them stay and engage with us, or will we either not speak to them, or if we do speak to them will be it in a language that is long out of date? So, they walk away. I overheard someone say about my worship the other week, "We like him because he talks about things we know about." That's one of the greatest compliments I've ever heard. People need to see God makes a difference to them. They need to see the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. We need, those of us who profess to be Christians to live in the light, being attractive, wanting people to see us and stay with us. In today's on line bible study on the Methodist website, the President Designate Ken Howcroft writes, "like candles lit from a flaming torch, his followers must take his love and life into themselves so that when he is not physically with them, they can enlighten the world in his name. So must we."

Sadly I still think parts of the church are so unaware of the needs of the crowd, the crowd will pass her by. I've been watching "Rev" with interest this series, less a comedy, more a commentary on people's needs. We've had episodes this series touching on gay marriage and the rehabilitation of sex offenders and the response of the church to people coming with real life out of the world to find blessing and hope. I nearly cried when Adam the vicar turned on his highly critical verger and said, "do you think Jesus had rules?"
We don't glorify Christ by not meeting the crowd. In the end, meeting the crowd, making the crowd notice his claims cost Christ his life. But you don't get anywhere by being judgemental, ignoring and passing by.
As Ken says, we only enlighten the world in his name by taking him into ourselves. It is a challenge. But one meeting people this Holy Week where they are, I cannot not take seriously.

Holy Week Blog part 2 - for Monday

I've been thinking today about stickability and Jesus sticking to a cause entering Jerusalem, indeed setting his face resolutely towards the city.
We've been thinking this weekend in my Circuit about stickability. Yesterday, we dedicated the fab new church in Battle "The Emmanuel Centre - Home of Battle Methodist Church" in an inspiring service. The people there have stuck at it through hard decisions, setbacks and uncertainty, and now celebrate immense possibilities.
I watched Britain's Got Talent - the amazing dance act with a man hurling an 80+ year old lady round the floor. They've had to stick at practising, Simon Cowell had to stick at watching it until he saw it liven up. It was brilliant - go find it on You Tube!
This lunchtime, I had a meeting with my St Helens congregation who have decided to vacate their poorly building next year. We are waiting to see what other churches round us what to do, perhaps coming together with us, but we had a very positive conversation about sticking to our vision to be present where people need us. I was heartened that people in their 80's and 90's were saying this, with deep emotional attachment to our present building, but seeing a bigger picture.
Then this afternoon and tonight, we've had a Circuit gathering preparing and sharing worship for all ages where we've explored what we stick with. Volunteers were asked to come out and share what they would stick with no matter what - Fair Trade, a school supporting the Gambia and Southampton FC. The congregation were invited to ridicule them to put them off. Then we had someone play Jesus and we shouted at him "Crucify" to see what that felt like.
I have known in life how much it is to stick at things, especially when others round you are not being very nice. You have to believe in what you are standing up for.
In an age where we so easily give up, replace, throw away, rubbish an idea that doesn't seem to be working, we need to take inspiration from Jesus. How would we be at sticking at Christianity if we had to stand up for it? Perhaps we have it too comfortable - but I've been heartened this weekend by people showing signs that sticking to a cause might bring life. And worship tonight by the way with dancing, children, flags, drama, a worship band, participation and a talk by me with no notes whatsoever - was stonking!
No blog tomorrow as it is my day off - but back on Tuesday with a thought for Tuesday.

Palm Sunday - Holy Week blog part 1

Wouldn’t it be great not to get involved? To be apart from the problems of life forever, to be detached and not to worry – for ever? Let the world and its pain pass us by.

Most of you know I’ve returned these past days from a week’s retreat on Holy Island – if you come to Guild on Tuesday I’ll show you some pictures, including my latest set, Holy Island in the fog and cold. How lovely it was to avoid stuff for a bit, to step away, to sleep for 13 hours every night, to eat, walk, talk with companions, escape with no television, no mobile phone signal, no e-mails, and no hassle. Wouldn’t it be great to be like that permanently, to never have to bother with anything?

Of course, the Bible is full of people who didn’t want to get involved with God’s call to be in the world and who wanted to escape the world. Jeremiah is a good example. He is called by God to deliver a message of doom to the people, to warn that disobedience will mean years of exile. He is got at, and he turns on God and says blow this, deal with these people, get angry with them, I’ve had enough. Moses is similar. He’s called to lead the people to the Promised Land. He is stuck in the middle of nowhere and he wants out. He turns on God and says basically God, you have done nothing at all. Sort it! I can’t take any more. Elijah remember – well what does he do? Facing pressure he runs into a cave and hides, hoping it will all go away. That’s where Palm, Sunday begins really, with Jesus disciples wanting not to be where Jesus wants them to be, with him – Jerusalem. They would rather go anywhere but Jerusalem because Jerusalem meant trouble.

There’s evidence of two processions that day in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ was the counter-procession, stealing the pomp from Pilate’s ceremonial procession. The Roman battalion, solemnly advancing  through the western Damascus Gate, on the Syrian Road.  Awesome stallions. Clanging hooves against the paving stones.  

Pilate was marching his men because the Jewish Feast Days were beginning, and that stirred a restlessness in the people. He was sending a message, any trouble would be crushed.  The Pax Romana, Caesar’s peace, would be enforced.

At the Beautiful Gate, on the opposite side of town, coming in through an olive grove, rode Jesus, alone, sitting on a donkey, one leg draped over her colt, someone’s old cloak under him. Laughter and foolishness brought travellers together into a waving crowd, good naturedly throwing palm branches in the rutted path.  This was the gate legend held was the one through which the Shekinah, the glory of God, brought the Sabbath each Friday at sundown, and the gate through which the Messiah would one day come.

It was for this procession that they arrested him, scholars say.  Whatever trouble he made among the sellers at the Temple was a Jewish problem, not a Roman one.  But this counter-procession, this mockery of Pilate and Rome that drew a huge throng and filled the city with laughter, was intolerable.

“Who is this?”  The crowds asked. No wonder the disciples don’t want to be there.

Why would Jesus want to walk straight into trouble? Is Jesus saying in entering the city we have to hit the world head on?

There was no turning back. He was determined to see it through to the end, and trust it all into the hands of his Father in heaven.  Sheer determination, determination to love, determination to face humanity and its selfishness, humanity and indifference to his message, determination drove him on into the city of Jerusalem.

I want to suggest to you we need the same determination and steadfastness as Jesus today on this Palm Sunday to face our Jerusalems. To get involved and not be detached and remote.

Our society is deficient in the kind of spiritual drive that Jesus showed on that first Palm Sunday. There is a lamentable lack of willingness to get involved. Instead we opt for easy answers or diversions. We are not prepared to face misunderstanding, rejection and suffering.

Why is this? Well, let me suggest three reasons using three stories we would rather not get involved and stay out of trouble.

First, we might get ignored. Who might care if we stand in the middle of people and give our message? I was interested on Monday when I was in the driving wind and rain of Edinburgh. I went into St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile. I was interested in how the cathedral was set out. The pulpit and the altar are in the middle of the building, called The Crossing, with people either side of it. There was a midday act of prayer and a preacher in the pulpit. The majority of people ignored him, kept walking round, mobile phones going off, he simply kept going, looking at the people. Some of us were listening, but most weren’t. The word was in the middle of people, easily brushed by, but waiting for encounter. But most of us won’t want to speak it in the middle of life for fear our effort might be wasted.

Second, we might get laughed at. And that’s not nice. Being laughed at. But we live in a world that likes to laugh at what looks ridiculous. Read a tabloid newspaper. We like it when a celebrity falls. Who is this? What sort of king is this? One I can laugh at and reject – a donkey riding deluded false Messiah. It isn’t easy to pick yourself up when people laugh at you. I struggled on Tuesday afternoon with my luggage getting across London on the underground. I got on a Northern Line train at Kings Cross. I got in the carriage and was pushed, I tripped over my luggage and landed on my bum, on the floor. I was shaken up. And this party of Americans opposite me looked at me, and burst into fits of laughter.

And I gave them one of my ministerial glares and wasn’t very happy. Do we fix not venturing into places we might trip to save face? Remember Jesus the Bible tells us set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem.

Then I wonder whether the real reason for not wanting to enter a trouble place is that we might be persecuted. Perhaps not common persecution in Rye is it? But in some places of the world it really is? Not easy to stick with Jesus. I’m doing some work at the moment in my spare time on the spirituality of World War One, I hope to do a series of talks and sermons later in the year. We know that many people who saw the carnage of the battlefields lost their faith, but many did not. The Bible Society are currently collecting stories of people who have bibles that were in their ancestors possession during the war. Private William James Duffy was a baker living in Toxteth with his wife Maggie and children Edith and Harold when the war broke out.

It wasn’t until 1917 when the 28-year-old signed up and joined the King’s Liverpool Regiment.

Inside his brown Soldier’s Bible he lists the 17 engagements in which he took part including Ypres and Passchendaele.

He was given it before he set sail for France in July 1917 by E Chapman, who wrote in it a poignant verse from Ephesians, ‘For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.’

His grandson is certain that this well-thumbed Bible was important to his grandfather.

‘Not only was he carrying it, but he was using it to, and he knew it,’ he says. ‘I think it would have meant an awful lot in terms of comfort and belief that what he was doing was the right thing, and the belief that if you died it wasn’t the end of it.’

Private Duffy spent his war first in the trenches, and then close to the Hindenberg Line where he and other members of the Liverpool Regiment fought in near hand-to-hand combat between villages.

‘His faith remained very strong,’ ‘One would imagine that it could have gone one of two ways: either having been weakened if you thought, “How can there be a God with this evil?”. But he must have had a sense of gratitude for his own survival.’

But it must have been so easy to give up on God, encountering such evil. I think we begin Holy Week with a need to remember that Jesus knew what was coming (and so did his friends, hence their wanting anywhere but there, and their eventual denial and fleeing and hiding.) Indifference, ridicule, torture, evil and death. Not very nice things, but things that are part of the call. Sometimes we are called to encounter them, not avoid them to be authentic as Christian people. On the Sunday after Easter, we shall remember Thomas, the one who doubted, but we forget it was Thomas who once said when Jesus mentioned where he needed to go, “let us go with him that we might die with him.”

If we do it properly, then we will find this week hard, but we have to do it to find life. I like this from one of my favourite contemporary authors Sara Miles:

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20140407JJ.shtml

 I love going on retreat, indeed I’ve booked to go back to Holy Island twice next year because I think next year might be a bit busy for me, but you’ll notice I did come back. Despite it being easy to stay away from things, from life, from issues, from pain, from engagement with pain and suffering and real hurt in people, there is no other way.            

I hope we will renew again our commitment to him and to the values of his Kingdom which are sometimes not of this world and need to be stood up for. There was much wrong in Jerusalem that day and there is in our world today. It is not an easy way, but he promises never to leave us if we choose it. I know that. On Palm Sunday then, will we hear him say to us, “Come follow me” and will we say “Lord, I don’t want to get involved.”?        

Back at work two days...

I've just returned from a fantastic retreat time on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. This time it was very cold and very foggy, the sea fret meant you couldn’t see very much at all for three days of my stay. But on the last day, the sky turned from grey to blue and I sat watching this piece of sea, without a soul in sight, just me and God and the wonder of the wind and the waves, the only sounds around me being them. A sense of real peace.

As part of my spiritual top up on the Island, I enter the rhythm of prayer and space offered by the Parish Church of St Mary, morning and evening prayer at 7.30am and at 5.30pm. The church was very cold, and I was glad to have taken my winter coat! The readings each day were quite miserable, the lamentations of Jeremiah in and around chapter 18. Read them sometime, he is very low indeed and he is cross with those he is sent to serve and at one point he turns on God and tells him to sort them out! The pain of the prophet felt very real being read slowly in the cold. But later in the week, we listened to Jeremiah voicing hope – the hope of a new relationship with God, a new covenant. And on Sunday morning at 8am communion, beautifully read from the Book of Common Prayer as I confessed my manifold sins etc, we heard Psalm 63 – “my soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me.” It seemed again to me despite everything life (and sometimes the church) throws at you, God’s word says there is a better future, there is hope and there is immense possibility. 

I believe our church task is to offer hope.

The American theologian and social commentator Jim Wallis once said that “you can feel optimism, but you have to choose hope.” I see what he means. Hope is a lifestyle that expects it even if your life and your church aren’t easy today. You keep practising the story, reciting the truths, and one day you will see them coming to you leading you to new places. Perhaps our trouble is we don’t expect hope anymore so we dare not trust, and we content ourselves with grey skies rather than wait for blue ones.

How can the church offer hope? Where things have gone wrong, what do we need to do to rediscover God’s hope for us and those around us? What hopeful signs do we see right now? And how do we hang on to hope when life hits us again? Well, I think when life is hard, you need to work harder at keeping close to God, simply that. We come to worship, we take some spiritual space in order to live where we are and find God’s hope there too. So, let me end these ramblings with a prayer. Each night, the community at Marygate House, offers prayers in a beautiful crypt for those of us on retreat. This year, six of us formed very deep community. There was me and five ladies – an Anglican priest in training; a spiritual director from Manchester; a lovely lady who plays the organ in her church in rural Cumbria, and a very chatty mother and a not so chatty daughter who sometimes got a word in edgeways when Mum was quiet! We only met on Wednesday, by Sunday it felt we had known each other for decades. On the night before we left, this prayer was offered. Perhaps we might use it, as we work out in daily struggle how to offer hope and how to know hope for ourselves.

Lord of our lives, we thank you for bringing us to this place where we could rest for a while and find what we needed to find; where we could wander freely and feel your breath on the wind. Thank you that we could come before you with all our hurts and wounds and you cradled us in the stillness. We know that you are no more present here than anywhere else; but when the noise is too great to feel you, hold us steady in that truth and help us always to carry the treasure that we have found.”         

Evangelism today...

The lectionary passage for tomorrow concerns the woman at the well. 

Jesus took time to listen to her, to chat to her, to answer her questions. Evangelism begins not where we want people to be, but where people are.

We have to start there and it can be messy. We live in a world that doesn’t know Jesus, hasn’t a clue who he is, but I believe we are surrounded by people who are open to listen, searching for something to make them feel they are loved. We have to have the time and the skills to enter their world. It can be very different from ours.    

I see as I go round my four communities. I see it when I enter “the world” dressed like a minister and people’s hesitance to speak to me because I am frightening or abnormal.

I drove down a massive pothole on Tuesday and needed the RAC and then Kwik Fit and then the Peugeot garage because I needed a new wheel. All of the men who encountered me initially looked at me like I was some sort of alien from the planet church. This sort of thing stops when I (or the church) spend time in the world regularly. Tuesday is generally my Rye day, I do assembly, then a group in the afternoon so in between I do some visits or work in the library then I go for some lunch in the same lovely coffee shop on the High Street. I have been in there every Tuesday nearly for about six months now. Now they know me, and they chat to me like I am like them! Very interesting. I see it when I enter homes to prepare people for baptisms or marriage or funerals. One Mum last month said when I asked why she wanted her little girl baptised, “because I believe in all that stuff and that…” We spent an hour unpacking what all that stuff and that meant – it was about God’s love.

Another Mum answered the same question “because I believe in life after death. I have a mate who is a Christian who says we will come back as animals and I like that.”I did explain that might be Buddhism! But I started there.

If we want to take evangelism seriously, we have to have the capacity to answer people’s questions and have confidence in what we know about Jesus to give a correct picture of him. My church here says it wants to evangelize its community round the church. Acts of kindness and opening our door is part of that, but we also need to commend Jesus and tell his story to people. 

And one more thought:  there is a bit in the story in John 4 where Jesus talks about where to worship, on this mountain or that, and the right way to be religious. In Jesus, God shows a commitment to know and dwell among his people.

Not only is God present outside church buildings, God promises to be found there. We spend so much angst worrying about buildings, future pattern of churches, can we stay here long term, should we merge with another church, we need also to venture out in expectation that God will appear in another setting. This passage in John chapter 4 gives no support to views that say a person must come inside a church’s walls and traditions to meet God. It speaks in fact against any community that shields itself from the mysteries of a God who operates freely in all sorts of places, not exclusively on this particular mountain or in that specific temple.      

A God encountered outside the walls, encountered “in spirit and truth,” must be a God who dwells among flesh and blood. If that is so, what sort of church should we be and where are we to be church first?

Can we be like Jesus today? Can today's church show the world a way that meets our neighbours and does not avoid them? I think we are called to challenge stereotypes and expectations. Today, this week, it might meet this woman.

Will it spend time with her and offer her the living water or want to keep it for itself or offer it to someone more respectable?

Will she see in the people of God the presence of God’s grace filled love? And can they tell her about God’s love for her beginning where she is? And should they devote more time to going out and telling than to propping up and keeping on?  

How to cope long term spiritually...

I've been reflecting on the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John got so carried away with their experience up a mountain with Jesus, they wanted to stay there for ever really. They wanted to bask in the wonder of it all. They were lost in wonder, love and praise at it all. But of course Jesus reminded them that staying there was not an option; there was life on the ground to get on with.

Sometimes we are like them!

We go on holiday and taste God’s creation and are inactive for a bit and we want to stay there and not come home. When I was little, and we would go on holiday, there would be one last outing to the beach, and one last paddle in the sea and you came back and had the sand washed off your feet and then you would have a tantrum and run off and go in the sea again because you didn’t want it to end. I was a nightmare when little!

We are envious of other Christians who seem to do it better than us, or other churches that don’t have our problems. So we create a league table of success which is so unhealthy.

We want worship every Sunday to meet our every need and we complain bitterly when it doesn’t.

We want to rest in God’s presence without responsibilities, if we’re honest.

If Jesus was to be real to these disciples, then life back on the ground had to be different. We’ve all met Christians who are so heavenly minded they are no earthly use whatsoever, or brands of Christianity that teach, but don’t equip you for real life in the real world. 

And maybe we forget the whole point of a high spiritual encounter is that it continues to help us live in the world we return back to. I easily forget that. This week being an example!

On Wednesday I led a retreat at Penhurst Retreat House in the countryside near Battle looking with 20 lovely people about how you cope with transition. It was a great day and afterwards one of them wrote to me something that made me blush really “I have only known you a few hours and yet you radiate a contentment in living a life with God at the centre. It is evident your service is in the Lord and that your roots go deep and are grounded in God and his Word. What a wonderful man! Such an example to those around you. Thank you for showing us that God is faithful and gives joy even through suffering and transition. "

The little card the person handed me was a spiritual high for me.

But then I forgot everything she wrote and I beat myself up. On Thursday I had a bad meeting, I was in a fowl mood after it and had to go and buy chips late at night!

On Friday the cat decided to be violently ill all over the lounge carpet and the dishwasher decided to spew water all over the kitchen floor and all over me when I opened the door to investigate the noise and then it died. And then I got a migraine and I was grouchy! I forgot the mountain and wallowed in the plain without remembering I could cope and I could get through everything.       

We need to remember the call to go up the mountain is meant to help us cope with the world – even sickly cats, bad meetings and spewing water, even the deepest pain, the frustrations and challenges of life.

The disciples had an uncertain future but also the resources.

Peter, James and John saw the truth of their Master here, a truth that was more glorious than anything they could have ever predicted. And they heard the Word of God which was to send them out, the Word which stayed with them until they met their death.

In a few years time, James the disciple and apostle would be beheaded, for what he saw and heard that day he would not keep quiet about.

Many years later, Peter would be crucified outside the pagan city of Rome, rather than go back on his Epiphany.

John, well we don’t know when he died, but the last sighting of him we have of him is in exile for his beliefs on the lonely island of Patmos, still faithful to the vision he had seen.

This moment with Jesus was glorious. No wonder Peter wanted to build shelters on the mountain top and prolong the experience. But the experience had to change everyday life, for it to matter.

Those disciples came off the mountain, engulfed with a quality of love for God and for others, which for some of them would prove costly. I suggest that even when the cost was the ultimate price, they would not have had it any other way. Once we have glimpsed the transfigured Christ, nothing else matters as much as it used to. And we need to expect God to change us, you know! We live today with little expectation. I read this week of H G Wells who wrote a short story once about an archbishop who ran into difficulty and decided to pray about it. He had always said his prayers with the utmost regularity. Prayer he regarded as a purifying, beneficial process, no more to be neglected than brushing his teeth. Yet he had never really asked God for anything. He had not made a particular and personal appeal to God on his own behalf for many years. In this tangle, however, he needed help so desperately so, entering his private chapel, he sank to his knees and folded his hands.

“O God,” he began, and paused. He paused, and a sense of awful imminence gripped him. He heard a voice, not a harsh voice but a clear strong voice, neither friendly nor hostile.

“Yes,” said the voice, “What is it?”

They found His Grace next morning. He had slipped off the chancel steps and lay scrawling on the crimson carpet. His death caused by the shock that God might actually speak and change things.   

Today,my equilibrium returned after being wobbly for a bit as I went on a training day about the place of silence in spirituality. It was really good stuff. The leader of the day shared this story which I end with. One of his friends began work in a high powered job with IBM. His desk in the office was by a window with a wonderful view of delightful countryside. His new boss came to meet with him on his first day. Imagine the new employees surprise when he was told, “I want you to stop whatever you are doing every night at 4.30pm, make a cup of tea and stare out of that window for half an hour before you leave at 5.” Apparently, the employees best thinking was done in those half hours and productivity the next morning was high.

We need to commit ourselves to be resourced, regularly, and then remember the resources. That is the key to effective discipleship.