Looking for God

In Psalm 105 verse 4 we read “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually” (NRSV). In the context of that psalm,’ seeking the Lord’s presence’ amounts to looking at his wondrous works and recognizing all that he has bestowed on us in creation.

From the blessings of a loving family, a warm dry home, and situated in lush countryside, it is perhaps not so difficult to recognize the Lord’s presence as to stop ourselves becoming contemptuous of the familiar.

There is however more than one way in which to seek the Lord’s presence, and perhaps Matthew 25 vv35-36 expresses it elliptically. The Lord is to be found in the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned and the stranger.

We may find it difficult to seek our powerful God among the weak and destitute, in the ‘other’. Yet He is God of all, not just a chosen few. Jesus was after all born to a young woman barely into her teens and in the humblest of situations: in an animal house, where his crib was a food box. Dressed in swathing bands, he was naked in the sense of too poor for the rich clothing we might have expected for him. He was among strangers and was soon to be exiled to avoid Herod’s slaughter. Such was the condition of his birth, and such is the condition in which we find him still.

Finding the Lord in the least of his subjects, our responsibility and our duty is clear. It is not that in order to save ourselves we must offer alms to the poor: it is that in looking after these we offer them a glimpse of His glory reflected in our compassion for them. ‘Compassion’: that gut-twisting feeling that enough is enough and we must be the change we want to see. In such acts of ministry we begin to help others to perceive the Lord’s strength and to wish to join us in seeking him continually in a blessèd unending cycle of building His kingdom on earth.

Seek his presence continually.

Choices, choices

I don't like coffee, but I understand that sometimes people who do so suffer an overabundance of the bean. I don't mean addiction; I mean when you ask for a coffee and get offered cappuccino, americano, latte and so on. You choose latte and are offered skinny or full-fat. You choose full-fat and are offered 'sprinkles'. Suddenly the choices overwhelm, and you explode into "Just give me a b****y coffee!"

I'm writing this at Greenbelt, where there is a superabundance of theology, of dogma, of worship, of talks, and of causes to sign up to or protest against. I fail in my attempt to get into a talk on new monasticism and find myself instead, irony of ironies, going to get my iPhone charged.

And I wonder: "Am I missing out because of the choices that baffle and bewilder?
Yet in the background I hear the infectious beat of Rend Collective Experiment on the main stage. I catch phrases from the talk I'm missing but will be able to catch on mp3. A 'flash mob' has just burst into 'Amazing Love' right next to me. And I find myself inspired by the artistic efforts of unsung volunteers to sign-post the venues around me.
Inspired. Look up the root of that word, and look up the Greek for Holy Spirit.
No choice. Good choice.

Stand Up for Jesus

John the Baptist's vocation in the wilderness, that place where human frailty is laid bare, is the vocation of all Christians in these troubled times. We are surrounded by doubters and scoffers, and perhaps we lack the rhetorical skills to argue for our faith.

Yet we all possess choice in how we respond to our personal form of wilderness. We can each of us choose how to relate to those around us. In this lies the ability to put forward the Christian viewpoint to its fullest measure: that we love each other as ourselves, and that we love the Lord our God with all that we are.

The Word of life which was from the beginning we proclaim to you (from 1 John 1).

Steps to Heaven

I heard yesterday of a man who wasn’t sure he wanted to go to heaven. In heaven, the man thought, he’d get to know everything, and wouldn’t that be boring.

The knowledge we have or aspire to in our lives is perhaps a red herring. Take one of the pieces of knowledge that passed me by as a bachelor and is of no use to me as a happily married man: the finger of the hand upon which a wedding band is worn in western society. I’d have to Google it to find out, but what then would I do with my new-found knowledge?

When a Sadducee asks Jesus about the man who’s six brothers each in turn marry his childless widow, and wonders who in heaven is married to whom, the reply is that no-one in heaven is married or given in marriage. It’s an activity irrelevant to the kingdom of heaven, so the question has no bearing on the truth of resurrection.

I’ve just watched a TV interview with a couple whose son died possibly as a result of mismanagement in the hospital to which he was admitted after a road accident. They wanted, as so many grieving parents, spouses, siblings and friends have wanted before, some ‘answers’. My fear is that no answer they get will have relevance to their relationship with their child now or in the time which is to come: a relationship in which they preserve his bedroom as it was in his life. For no-one in a position to give them answers in the medical or managerial circumstances of their son’s death is in a position to know the questions that underlie their grief, their 'un-knowing'. The One who might is God of the living, not of the dead, and his only answer in this age is to try to wrap them in love and thereby to chance rejection.

The 'love that will not let me go' is not a clinging desperate and somewhat forlorn love that we might have in our loss of someone dear to us, but rather a blessed assurance and hope that is bestowed on us even when we are lost to He who holds us dear. Such assurance and hope can only have relevance in the sureness and certainty of resurrection.

Avoiding the Void

When I first started college, a number of us were taken aside by one of the staff and told about one of our fellow students. She was, it seems, terrified of stairs. Since the college’s one lift was prone to be out of order, this was a problem.

Those of us let in on the issue were advised that if we should happen across her near the stair well, we should engage her in conversation. Doing so would enable her to move gently up or down the stairs. If we placed her between us and the walls she could overcome her fear for the time taken to get to the floor she needed.

Now I describe myself as a pretty poor conversationalist. Indeed perhaps conversation is to me my terrifying staircase, and I often feel sorry for the poor stranger sat next to me at a dinner party. Yet given a purpose, such as helping a fellow creature get through a difficulty of their own, I seem to be able to cope. Perhaps purpose is what I need to have walk between me and the chasm of chit-chat.

At any rate, how wonderful it seems to me that our weaknesses may be enablers for others. That surely should help us to recognize the many ways we may go forth to love and serve the Lord in the name of Christ, Amen.

Rock the baby

Pulpit abuse can come all too readily, and so here is the sermon I'd like to give but am unlikely ever to have the right or opportunity, since for some people it would be just too close to home.

"Reverend Pringle was rector of the small rural benefice of Little Snoring, and he had but two parishes in his cure. These were St Martin the Little, and its neighbour St Edmund the King.

"Now despite their names, there was on the face of things hardly anything to distinguish between these two churches. Both had the same small number of church members, and both the same attendance levels. Both had (just about) working PCCs who struggled but always managed to pay their parish share in full and on time. Indeed it is scarcely worth mentioning the only difference on paper, which was that worship at St Martin the Little was predominantly, though not exclusively, Book of Common Prayer in traditional language. At St Edmund the King's, however, they had decided years ago to use modern language Common Worship services of the Word.

"One day, Reverend Pringle's rural idyll was smashed by the ringing of his telephone. It was Bishop Pugh of Soddemall, who got straight to the point. 'Pringle, you've known for years that two church buildings and all their services are just not sustainable. You've got until the end of the week to make your choice, and then we're going to implement it'.

"Pringle was horrified. As I've said, on paper there was little to choose between the two parishes. He took himself off to his study, where perhaps some prayerful Bible reflection might help.

"Pringle's mind then fell upon the story of Solomon's decision in the case of two women both of whom claimed a baby as their own. That seemingly macabre but very intelligent suggestion of Solomon, that the baby be sliced in half, was boon to the false mother who would gladly have half a baby than none at all, but aweful to the true mother who realized that half a baby could never be nurtured and grow and hopefully bear fruit of its own womb.

"Then Reverend Pringle reflected on a curious thing. Whenever he had a team service at St Martin's, it was well attended by members of both churches. Yet whenever the team service was held at St Edmund's, the members of St Martin's church were noticeable by their absence: until that is they darkened Pringle's door to suggest, huffily, that they were sure they could have found someone to lead a service at their own church if they'd been allowed.

"And so it was that the Reverend Pringle, Rector of Little Snoring, knew that one of his two churches was a clear and rightful mother with every wish to see the Kingdom of God nurtured and grow and bear fruit. He picked up the phone, ready to give his decision to Bishop Pugh.

"Now allegory is a fragile thing. If you believe that my little story is a barbed attack on this church, you have one easy means of discrediting it. All you need to do is imagine yourself in the story, with Reverend Pringle asking you when it was that you last attended a team service. Think carefully on what your answer means to the verity of this sorrowful tale".

Let's hear it for the team ...

I should have seen it coming, but didn't until I was already falling on my face. I had just arrived to help with some admin work when the client's rep asked me if I was on the team. "No", I replied: "I'm just temping."

I stood dumbstruck at my own stupidity. The one thing I had been frightened of doing was to somehow damage the good name of my friend's business, and here I was distancing myself from it.

Yet the upshot of that boob was to make me believe that from that moment on, actually I WAS on the team. Each candidate I met and greeted I did so firmly of the opinion that I had a job to do and do it to the best of my ability.

Now this friend and I had spoken only a week or two earlier of how neither of us is a confident networker or socializer. I'd told her how in a room full of strangers I'll gravitate to the one person I know, or find the food, at a loss how else to behave. Yet in my temporary role of 'meeter and greeter' for her client's job applicants, I donned the mantle of the role with ease. Rather than being a fumbling dullard with no conversation, I was asking them about their journey, their comfort, and helping them prepare for their interviews.

Oh how I need to do this as a Christian: to somehow understand my role and to be a credit to my Lord and my Saviour, bringing people to his Kingdom.