on my knees,
drawn by love,
to give
all that i am
for all that
has been given
shared and broken open...
+
on my knees
gazing into
the face of the one
who loves me
beyond my
feeble understanding
and calls me to loves work...
+
on my knees,
known and knowing,
sent by the sending one
to be his, to share
in givenness,
healed and healing,
loved and loving
served, and serving...
+
on my knees
i meet the one
who makes
me, makes us,
whole...
+
small and
impossible
the offering
was accepted with joy,
held for heaven
to see, and
given thanks for;
what can you bring?
what do you have?
it is enough
to release an
immeasurable
blessing
in his hands...
do not be
afraid to give...
When the day of Pentecost came; the disciples were waiting…
I don’t know about you but I am not very good at waiting, and especially not good when I am not sure what it is that I am waiting for. Many of you will know that my daughter Jo got married last November, Jo is an organiser, and as she planned and waited for her wedding day she made lists and took care of details, planning and preparing everything. She was living at home with us for a few months during that time, and occasionally when all of the men were out of the house we’d indulge in what can only be described as horror viewing; we’d watch “Don’t tell the bride…” For those of you with more sophisticated viewing tastes “Don’t tell the bride” is a reality T.V. show where the brides put everything into the hands of their husbands to be and them wait (not so calmly) for the wedding day to happen! I am sure you can imagine some of the tensions and nerves involved….
When the wedding day comes, there are surprises, but usually everything is OK, because love overcomes… and everyone breathes a sigh of relief as a new life, two becoming one begins…
When the day of Pentecost came…
The disciples were doing what Jesus had told them to do, they were waiting together, waiting and praying and hoping for the gift that Jesus had promised them, but they did not know quite what the gift was or where it would lead them. They knew that the gift was the Holy Spirit, but like the brides in Don’t tell the bride, they did not know what the gift would be like, not did they know where their new lives would lead them…
When the day of Pentecost came…
There was a sound of rushing wind, and flames of fire separated and rested above the disciples’ heads, God was there in power, surrounding them and filling them….
The gift that Jesus had promised had arrived, and they were all overcome! The filled with joy and what must have been a sense of holy awe they burst out onto the streets, preaching and praising in languages they did not know, into a stunned city full of folk who wanted to know what was going on…
It was then that Peter, Peter who'd let Jesus down and got it so wrong who stood and proclaimed the message of Jesus crucified and risen, Jesus who had given his all, whose love knows no boundaries, giving himself even to death on the cross, and that same Jesus overcoming death, raised in power who now poured out his new life into his followers that their new life could begin.
And all of this added fresh significance to the Feast of Weeks that the gathered Jews were celebrating, for they were celebrating and remembering the birth of a new nation, when Moses had received the Ten Commandments from God. Now there was something new, God was pouring out his Spirit into the followers of his Son, something new was happening again! A new life, a new kingdom was forming, a new adventure lay ahead.
The Holy Spirit had come, and nothing would ever be the same, and the Holy Spirit remains alive and active in the church today, bringing new life, calling the people of God outward and onward on a continued adventure, and it isn’t always easy…
Think about it, when the Spirit came the disciples did not receive a nice gift and a warm fuzzy feeling and then go back to their old lives, they were propelled out into a world of danger and difficulty, fired and fuelled by the message that God had come through an itinerant preacher in Palestine, and through him had put his plan into action to save all of creation. Through the cross he displayed his complete self-giving love, through the resurrection his power to overcome death and to set his plan of restoration and renewal into action…
The church today is still called to be a part of that movement, the movement of God towards his people, offering radical love, a radical welcome, a radical acceptance and radical freedom….
Just as a bride and groom give themselves to their new life together so Holy Spirit comes to us, inviting, wooing and drawing us, calling us to follow, to dare to walk the way of Jesus, the way of radical self-giving and love. As we dare to step out with God into our community and asking “who needs us?” and “What can we do with our resources to bear Christ’s love to this part of the world?” we will find ourselves changed just as the early disciples were changed, changed and challenged and filled with the awesome love and power of God….
...for yes we’ll make mistakes and get it wrong just as they did, but we must not let the fear of that hold us back, we must experiment and count on failing, innovate and count on failing, invent and reinvent and follow God into the adventure he lays before us. This IS the story of the church throughout the ages, ever changing, ever responding, ever learning new ways to share the love it has found…
No marriage is a bed of roses, and I’d dare to ask any couple who tell me they’ve never argued or faced a difficulty whether they have dared to live. Jesus calls us to a new life, he calls us to share the love he has for all; and if the cross teaches us anything it must be that success does not always look like success, and that victory often comes disguised as defeat, so we must not be afraid of giving ourselves to God’s plan and purpose for us, for our future is not secured by our abilities but by God’s good promise, and because of that we can stand with and reach out to the vulnerable, we can take risks and dare to enter into great adventures. The Janapese often mend broken objects with gold, highlighting the cracks, they believe that when something has a history and suffers damage it is made even more beatuiful, God is like that with us, binding our woulds and cracks with love, filling us with the gold of his presence so that although we clay jars and cracked pots his glory shines through us higlighting his presence, telling his story.
We don't need to protect and preserve ourselves for God is with us, but we must remember we have a part to play; resurrection always follows crucifixion, and we must die to self and selfish self protectionism both individually and corporately if we are to enter into the new life possibilities that Pentecost holds for us…
The questions we have to answer is these:
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, turning the lives of the disciples upside down, setting a spark within them, and propelling them out to change the world. That same life giving world changing Spirit of God is here moving among us today, waiting for us to pray afresh… come breath of life, come sweeping through us…. draw us into fullness and newness of life, together with you.
I was walking past the market square yesterday when one of the stall holders called out to me; he wanted a chat, nothing strange in that as I often chat to the folk on the market. He told me about his adventures with the hospital, how he needs an operation and the appointment has just been put back by 2 months. I offered to pray for him, and he accepted there and then, so I placed my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him for healing. When I'd finished (it was quite a short prayer) he looked up with tears in his eyes and asked me if I really believe that stuff. I said I do, told him that healing is a spiritual gift and told him of a couple of healing incidents I have seen (all of them would have made for a long conversation). His response was interesting;
"Well I used to be a Methodist, but I've never heard anything like that, isn't all that stuff more about the supernatural?"
"I've never heard anything like that;" like what, stories of a God who healed, or those stories explained by people who believe that they might well be true. We chatted a bit more and unpacked a little of what the supernatural might be. I asked him if he thought that God might be supernatural, he said he'd never thought of God like that....
Later in the afternoon another conversation, this time someone wanting me to hear about an experience he'd had with an angel, he told me of a trip when he'd prayed for travelling protection, and how a shining opaque being had appeared at the side of his car and travelled with him the whole way home. He was sure this was an angel, and I have to say I agree with him, especially given the rather interesting descriptions of angels found in Ezekiel and other places, there isn't a lot of tinsel about!
"I don't talk about this often" he said, "I'm afraid people will think I'm mad, especially in the church..."
"Especially in the church?" But I know what he means, and it breaks my heart that it seems that so often we'd rather talk about anything but the things of God. Take last Sunday evening, after a truly inspiring service, a time when I felt I'd met with God in a powerful way, and I am sure others had too, I was crushed in spirit to be trapped into conversations about cars and cakes, and even one comment about "what a good sing-song it had been", now while I know this is normal I am always left thinking that it should not be normal, and I am left wondering why we find it so difficult to talk about what God is doing....
I do believe in angels and that people have visions, and that prayers are answered, I do believe that God gives us spiritual gifts today and that if we dare to step into all that he has for us we will be constantly surprised by what s/he will do in and through us. Quite simply, God is more than we can imagine, and is not contained by our structures of theologies, every new glimpse we get of all that God is simply opens us to more of the height, breadth, lent and depths of God.
So why don't we talk of these things? Maybe the end of my second conversation holds the answer;
"Of course," he said, "that stuff is bordering on the supernatural, and that is wrong isn't it?"
Is it? And if not, what are we afraid of?
I have a secret, it is one I don't talk about very often, and now I've decided to share it I wonder why I don't talk about it very often. My secret is this; I need to worship God. There I said it, I NEED to worship God, for when I live a life of worship something happens within me, my natural selfishness gets kicked out the back door and my heart opens up to the transforming, powerful, grace-filled love of God.
I need to live a life of God focused worship, because it reminds me that I don't need to do it, that all of the responsibilities and struggles I take on are in his hands, and that I can trust him to walk with me and not abandon me, to give me the words and the strength.
Over the last few years I've been on a bit of a journey of faith, I've moved from what was quite a strongly delineated faith to one that is full of open doors and soft edges, discovering Arminian theology that declares that all are welcome, and all can be saved has been huge, and it has demolished all sorts of barriers that I had placed around myself. My faith is bigger and less containable, I live with more questions than answers, but my centre is sure, and I need to worship God, to remember the love he has for me, to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit and to remind myself that he is that centre.
Living a life of worship helps me to know that I am loved, and it sets me free to love others, and to see the grace of God at work in the world around me, so it saddens me that so often in discussions about worship that we have a tendency to make worship about us and not about God. While I understand that different people connect better with some forms of worship than others it is important that we don't forget what it is for and who it is about. In worship I become more fully alive to the re-creative, transformational, purposes of God...
I need to worship!
I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
(Ephesians 3)beyond the greenhouse,
beyond the protective glass,
and constant temperatures
lies a land of
possibilities and
opportunities,
greater than our wildest
imaginations,
beyond the greenhouse
beyond the protective glass,
and constant temperatures
lies risk
and adventure,
dependant on the wild whims
of natures forces,
within is safe constriction,
without the winds
of freedom,
whispering and winding their message
through our hearts,
choose freedom, choose life,
take the risk,
take the risk,
beyond the greenhouse,
beyond the protective glass,
and constant temperatures
lies our hope...
When did we loose our
language of love,
and how has praise
become a sing-song,
and worship a matter
of taste and preference?
Are we really more concerned
with paintwork than our neighbours,
do we really think that preservation
should be more important
than a risk of faith?
+
I ask because it seems
that so often we talk ,
and I find myself at odds with you...
+
I want to paint pictures with you
to wonder at creation,
to run through the landscape with
and ponder the care
lavished there in every tiny detail,
I want us to fall to
our knees captivated
by a sunset or moonrise...
+
I want to sing songs of love
with you, songs that tell you
you are loved beyond
your wildest imagination,
with a love more powerful than death,
poured out to set you free...
+
I want us to raise our hands to heaven
to sit in awed silence,
to be open to friend and stranger,
to give recklessly
and without fear...
+
Let's place ourselves afresh
into the hands of the one who flung stars into space,
let's trust in the one who woos and wows
us with words of wisdom,
let's learn to dance
to the beat of his heart,
let's re-learn the love of the vistas he sets before us
that we might be blessed afresh
with fullness of life
and a vibrant irresistible faith...
I was told;
just trust...
+
just trust...
well I couldn't,
so I cried, and ranted,
shouted and cried some-more,
I hurled my questions,
doubts and fears at heaven,
I chose not to believe
yet could not
let go;
I sobbed and sighed
and prayed
in inexpressible groans,
and deep, deep silences,
+
just trust...
+
I was beyond trust,
out of strength,
out of hope,
devoid of joy
+
BUT
He
did not
let me go
+
This is Tim's image and he says:
I had to do this image after the service as there wasn’t enough room to really do any art in the service. The enduring image I had was of two people wrestling and when I drew it I noticed how similar the image looked to two people embracing. I wonder if we sometimes get confused and in our wrestling with God are unaware that he is actually embracing us and perhaps there are times when it is the other way around.
I used it today because I am fed up with the platitudes I hear offered to people who are struggling with faith, and because I wanted to say something about my own past experiences of struggle. Sometimes we have huge questions, hurts and pains, and it is OK to ask why, to express disappointment and feat, it is OK to be angry and sad and confused. God does not abandon us in our doubts, neither should we abandon one another!
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
moving on,
letting go,
stepping out,
carrying wisdom...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
may we be
rooted in love
yet uprooted,
following,
learning,
changing,
transformed and
transforming...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
to a new
place of being,
living with tensions,
with heads
full of questions,
the confident, and
the doubting...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord, for
none of us can
move without you
where could we go
unless you
go before us,
unless you are in us...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
equipping and guiding us,
help us Lord, for we would
be disciples,
channels of your love...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
help us to hear your voice,
dance to your heartbeat
and place our footsteps into
yours...
+
As we take one more step
Go with us Lord,
but more than that
help us to go with you....
+
Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."
(Matthew 28: 16-20)
When they were together for the last time they asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?"
He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."
(Acts 1: 6-8)
I've just been listening to the latest D-sign pod-cast from the Methodist Church, this week Eunice Attwood speaks about her work at Brunswick Methodist Church, and her hopes for the people of God, especially those called Methodist. She speaks of the church in the community and how it works in partnership with many groups...
As she spoke I kept hearing echoes of the verses from Matthew 5 that will not leave my heart alone:
13"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
14-16"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
You are here to bring out the God colours and God flavours in this world.... The you Jesus was referring to were those who were following him, all of those who were following him at that time, it was about who and what they were to be! It is about who and what the Church is called to be today. Eunice reaffirmed the need for the church to live out and claim that language of a "Discipleship Movement made for Mission", to become once again a church of active laity supported by a few clergy whose role it is to enable, encourage, equip, and inspire. That really resonates with me because I know that I cannot do everything or be everything and I am passionate about the need for EVERY MEMBER MINISTRY!
She continues by speaking of the times we live in, times of global economic crisis, times when everyone is being challenged to think about how they live, but she also pointed to the reckless generosity of God, the need for an articulated hope and a radical welcome, the need to accept people as they are but to so live out the hope that we have that we reflect (though imperfectly) the God who loves us so much that although he accepts us as we are he does not leave us that way but transforms us bit by bit to live whole and healthy lives.
I have long been concerned that too often churches remain constricted by their lack of vision and their lack of the grasp of the radical generosity of God. For Methodists our Arminian theology should declare to us not only that all are welcome, but that all can be saved, that God's heart is truly towards and not against all he has made, and yet I see many struggling to grasp the enormity of this and the freedom in Christ that it offers. I can hear the apostle Paul speaking to us down through the centuries:
"Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
11-13All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don't let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
14-19My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes! (Ephesians 3)
Just think about it: ""Through followers of Jesus like us gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!" That means that what we do and what we say has impact, how we treat one another, how we hear one another, how we respond to our communities, how we love the world in all its fullness, all of this is discipleship, and all of it springs from the heart of God and flows to and through us when we are listening to and responding to him...
All of this is a whole church activity and an expression of hope in a world where people are looking for hope, and there is hope, hope in the generous self-giving God who loves us and calls us into a relationship of love with himself, and with the whole of creation.
God is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine!
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