Rest

"Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don't do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day." Exodus 20: 8-11 (The Message)

It's been a long while since my last post. This is partly because I find myself in the same place - of having very little to say to God - and partly because I've been busy. But God has not been quiet. Recently, I've felt quite challenged on the subject of rest.

Since August I've been developing a website. As is often the case it started as a list of tasks which progressed rapidly. Soon, however, various niggles appeared and the to-do list, far from diminishing, grew more rapidly than it shrank! As a result I have spent loads of time on the computer. Evenings. Mornings. Weekends. Sunday afternoons. Towards the end of this I became very weary and felt a prompted to keep the sabbath as a day of rest. Not complete inactivity, but something different. Something set apart.

This weekend I was away, but I deliberately didn't take my laptop. Instead of starting Sunday morning at the computer, I curled up in an armchair to read N T Wright's. Surprised by Hope. It was both relaxing, and immensely spiritually refreshing. Sometimes it seems we are responsible for our own dry spells.

Born to be me

"...we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give him scope for his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The man was created for it. He will not be himself until he is there." Membership (C.S.Lewis)

There have been lots of profound thoughts running around my brain the last few months - but whenever I sit down to blog they evaporate. Either that or they reduce themselves to something I've written already. I'm steadily concluding the kingdom is easier than I have been making it. Easier as in less complex, although simplicity is often hard to attain.

In the gospels Jesus often says "he who has ears to hear let him hear". He talks about us needing faith like that of a child. He means that it is simple. It's us who make it complex. Like Naaman, we want a nobler cure. Theology often muddies the water. Our feelings of obligation grow. We lose our perspective of God's love. His sense of our worth. His grace. We start to struggle. And that precisely is where we lose contact with the kingdom. Jesus distills the commandments down to just two. Love God and love your neighbour. If you do these all the rest of the law falls into place.

That quotation from Lewis makes me wonder. God made me unique. Gave me skills and character. Molded me to be me. Put me in a family. Provided me a saviour. If I aim to be the best me that I can be; love God and love those around me maybe that is it. The Kingdom. And the things is, I don't even need to be worried about the things I can't do. Because Jesus took care of the most important one and then popped me into a family, a body, chock full of people who are good at things I'm not.

The long, dark night...

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal." John 12:24-25 (The Message)

Looking back at my Good Friday post I had planned a triumphalistic follow on. Posts to follow Easter and reflect on the wonder of the resurrection. The truth is, however, I'm still stuck in that pause for breath. The last few months have been "interesting". I have watched the organisation I work for once again seemingly tearing itself apart. People have left who are still committed to what we do, not because they want to go but because of financial pressures or a perceived need for efficiency. A lot of it has been at best badly-handled and at worst unnecessary.

My own walk with God still seems stuck in the silence that I talked about last September. Small signs of growth and movement are visible - but the big picture still has not emerged. In the midst of it all I continue to cling to one thing. God knows what he is doing. As Adrian Plass would say, "Nothing is wasted".

For my colleagues moving on to new things I hold firmly to Romans 8: 28 - "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". The loss of a job is painful - but each ending is a new beginning. The circumstances may be regrettable, but God can weave something amazing from them. If I am unable as yet to see the pattern that is emerging I am left once more to just to wait.

The longest night

"I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night, but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again. At any rate that was how it felt to these two." - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S.Lewis)

It is impossible to fully comprehend the joy of Easter Sunday without appreciating the despair of Good Friday. Much like my Christmas Eve comment, it is all too easy to race forward to Easter Sunday. Yet Christ's resurrection only makes sense in the light of his crucifixion. Good Friday is sombre and bleak. It is the ultimate breakdown of relationship between God and man. Its sorrow a long shadow of the grief which would ensue if it truly where the end and not just the pause for breath before a new beginning. In holy week we see a model of the whole of history. Man's rebellion and God's salvation. Millenia of struggle compressed into three short days.

Understanding the pause helps too. The long night and empty day between the Friday night and the Sunday morning. For in some ways we're still in that pause. Salvation has arrived - dawn is already breaking. But for those on earth it feels like night still lingers on...

The silent saviour

"He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth." Isaiah 53: 7

"...we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Romans 8:17-18 (NIV)

This holy week if one thing has struck me, it is the poise of Jesus in the face of his suffering. His prayers in the garden reveal that he is not without doubts, not without questions, not without fears. Yet despite that, he approaches it head on. He rides calmly to Jerusalem knowing how it will end. He responds to his accusers with simple dignity. He does not fight. He does not succumb to anger. He does not even grumble or vent his stress on his followers. As Good Friday approaches it makes me wonder about my own approach to hardship. Ultimately I may trust God for the outcome but all too often that does not stop me from expressing my bitterness at the process.

Beyond healing

"But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.'

'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.'" Isa 49: 15-17 (NIV)

My mother's Alzheimer's continues to progress. Each time I see her she seems to shrink a little. There are simple things that she used to do that she no longer does. Sometimes it takes a few minutes work to get a spark of recognition. Yet, somehow albeit down at a visceral level, she still seems to know who I am. She would never say my name. If anyone asks her who I am she replies "I don't know". Yet her eyes light up when I talk to her. She giggles with me as I gently tell her stories from her past. She happily puts her hand in mine and walks with me - or kisses me on the nose as I lean forward to her.

Over the last few weeks I have been quite low - my thoughts and faith spiralling slowly round this single question. Do I believe in a God who can heal and yet chooses not to? Because if he cannot heal then he is not God.

This morning's sermon was some comfort. Isaiah 49 - an ideal passage for Mothering Sunday - seems tinged with bitter irony when faced with the reality of Alzheimer's. And yet it brings me back to the cross. My name, my mother's name, carved on the saviour's wounded hands. It makes me look back at the prayers that have been answered. Yet it is small comfort for the ones that have not...

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body." 2 Cor 4: 8-11

The last few days have been quite hard. A series of items of bad news from different directions. I guess that is the experience of many in troubled times. I'm still not sure that I know how to deal with any of it. In the midst of all the bad news though I read the passage above. Paul sounds so confident. He states the case as fact. We are not crushed, not abandoned, not destroyed and not in despair. Perhaps he's right. But I would be lying if I said I was not discouraged.

A couple of times this week I have muttered under my breath "It would be nice to have some good news for a change, Lord." And I know that sounds almost like sacrilege, because what is the Gospel if not good news? But that is not entirely how I meant it.

This weekend I visited my mother again. Yesterday she seemed very low. She almost didn't engage. As I have said before (in my posting the Long Defeat) it is heart-rending to see her slowly slipping away. Today by contrast she seemed happier. We sang a bit. We walked. I quoted old films and made her giggle. She even managed a sentence of four words at one point. It was nice to see her smiling. I guess this is good news. But somehow it doesn't quite feel like it.

Living in the light of tomorrow

"For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory." Romans 8: 29-30 (New Living Translation)

In my last entry - A Different Reality - I concluded that despite being in right-standing with God, all too often I choose not to live like it. I know that God is love and yet I act as if he can't love me. I know that God forgives, but I don't forgive myself. Because I don't understand his plan I assume that there is none and I make my own.

Unfortunately, the realisation that I live this way is the easy bit. Changing the way that I view the world is much harder and at this point I am not really sure I even know how to. In the end it makes my prayer for vision all the more fervent. Lord God, reveal your Kingdom to me and my part within it.

A different reality

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." - Morpheus. The Matrix

2009 got off to a slow start. The good intentions of Christmas and New Year pushed gently to one side by the cares and concerns of daily living. Discouragement and uncertainty abound. I see it in the news. I hear it in the stories of people I meet. I feel it within me. Omissions, recurring failures, doubts and fears that drive me away from God.

Last week heavy snowfall broke my plans and left me with a free weekend. On Sunday I decided to exploit my freedom and visit a different church. There I was brought face to face with Gideon interpreted in the light of Paul's letter to the Romans. The underlying message was simple. God sees our world very differently to the way that we see it. In God's eyes frightened, subdued Gideon is a mighty warrior. In God's eyes our discouragment and uncertainty still work together for good.

My minor failures are no obstactle to God. Any distance from him is of my own making. In the The Message I see now - striped right through the letter to the Romans - a subtle truth. God sets me in right-standing with himself. I knew this before of course. In theory. But whilst this reality is all-pervasive somehow, all too often, I choose not to live in it.

But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:21-24 (The Message)