At the moment we’re in the middle of 10 weeks of #doyouknowHim? and as part of that we’re out in Ramsbottom every Saturday morning blessing the community with God’s love. #doyouknowHim? came from the church in Skipton who did a similar 10 weeks last year and continue to regularly spend time in the community blessing those they meet.
One thing that Skipton have done that we have chosen not to do is take blankets out in the town, enfold people in them and pray over them the prayer of St Patrick’s breastplate. I’ve been struck by this - as a not-very-often-hugger I’d find it strange but I love the idea - that God’s love enfolds us like a comfort blanket.
Right now I need some of that comfort blanket - it’s hard work with moving and everything and although I love all we are doing with #doyouknowHim? and it's really exciting, there are times that it has almost broken me (who’d co-lead on something so big whilst preparing to move?).
Yesterday was one of those days where one last kick sent me into hiding. I was packing, reminiscing, planning, dreaming and I reflected on some news I’d had that brought up some stuff that was tricky....
So this morning I began again, went back to my calling, went back to God with breakfast in the garden centre. And as I did I reflected on God as comfort blanket. As I did I reflected on the Bible and God threw out Matthew 11:28 in more ways than one.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”
And so I wrote...... a kind of comfort blanket blessing for me and for all those I know who are finding it tough right now. It’s not easy at the moment with so much uncertainty and change so sometimes we just need to accept the blanket offered and rest:
God’s Comfort Blanket
May the arms of God surround you
With the fibres of His warmth
May His comfort blanket enfold you
As you shelter in His wings
May the strength of embrace protect you
As the fleece and wool surround you
May you feel His love, His peace
As you rest in His arms
May you gradually unravel
As the threads ravel round you
May you begin to let it go
And feel release in his grace.
May the arms of God surround you,
Protect you and enrobe you
May His comfort blanket soothe you
As you shelter in His wings
Last Friday I went to see 'On the Basis of Sex' - a film that tells the real life story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film begins in her first year of Harvard Law School; her husband, Martin, a second year student, falls ill with cancer and she goes to both his classes and hers whilst also looking after her young daughter. The film tells the story of how difficult it was for Ruth to be respected within the legal community and she struggles to get a job as a lawyer, going on to become a professor instead, specialising in Sex Discrimination and the Law. This is in the 60s and 70s, and the idea of sex discrimination is only just beginning to be engaged with, but not necessarily taken seriously. She went on to challenge gender discrimination in US law, taking each law one by one and campaigning for the equality of women and men in law.
I won't say much more about the film - I knew nothing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg before watching it, but the film really inspired and resonated with me, not least because of the challenges that she faced and the arguments against her becoming a 'real lawyer'. The arguments against her are ones I have heard so many times as a female minister - how would she look after her family, women are too emotional to be lawyers, women's voices don't need to be listened to.... and she wasn't taken seriously - just a professor - just a wife - a homemaker - just a woman.... not enough to be anything. Yet she kept pacing onward and had a massive impact on US law and culture.
It's 100 years this year since the first Baptist woman entered college to be trained for ordination. It's 25 years since the first CofE women were ordained as priests. Last year was 100 years since women got the vote..... yet still we have to put up with challenges to our very identity in private, in public, in so many ways. Priests who happen to be women have campaigned on twitter recently with the hashtag #justapriest standing up for the day when they wouldn't be called women priests by default, or lady vicar, or....lady minister, lady pastor.... The Baptists Together Women in Ministry celebratory edition has been censored in our churches because the voices of women who we disagree with are better shut down before anyone thinks about what they are saying too deeply. The arguments against Ruth Bader Ginsburg becoming a 'proper lawyer' are still arguments used today. And they're wrong.
I sat down to begin to write my sermon - week 5 of #doyouknowHim? Jesus: Revolutionary and I began to think about the film I watched last Friday, T-Rex and what I have experienced in my first 7 and a half years of ministry, and I chewed a little on what Jesus would do.....
And I thought about the stories of women who encountered Jesus. And I thought about my exciting new book 'The Infographic Bible' which has two pages dedicated to women of influence in the Bible and how radical it is for a mainstream Christian book to have so many pages particularly focused on women (I recently attended a conference with a ridiculously male dominated bookstall reflecting the attendees of the conference itself I guess) and how that shouldn't be radical. And I thought.... if we are really following Jesus the revolutionary - why do we so often leave aside his treatment of women? His treatment of women was revolutionary. Valued as people, affirmed as leaders and as learners, identified as friends, sent out to testify, first to encounter him resurrected.... and so much more.
#doyouknowHim? is a massive question, and one important part of that question is answered in looking at the way he treated those who were different to him - and the way he treated women in particular - and I believe that if we really knew him, and we really knew how he treated women and how revolutionary that was, we wouldn't still have people in our churches who seek to undermine and challenge and shout out simply on the basis of sex.
