At the beginning of the story of Peter Pan, Peter and Tinkerbell enter the Darling house searching for Peter's shadow. Their search wasn't exactly quiet, but it is Peter's sobs at being unable to find his shadow that wake Wendy and she asks:
"Boy........ why are you crying?"
Peter Pan was mourning the loss of his shadow. He saw it as
part of him, what made him kind of ‘normal’ – something of his past that he
wanted to keep as part of him. A trail of a former life. Where that shadow had
been and what it had seen, perhaps he couldn’t remember, but the shadow was an
important part of his life he felt he needed to carry, even if he didn’t know
what it meant.
I have been reflecting on the Biblical story of Nehemiah which is a bit of an adventure story – a bit like Peter
Pan but without the fairies. It is a story of discovery, a story of trying to
find something that has been, even though the story is not clear. It’s a story
of change, a story of discovery. It’s a story of coming home, even though the
Israelites didn’t really understand where home was.
Nehemiah was a leader in Israel during a time of significant
opposition. The Israelites are trying to find their home again in Jerusalem and
face all sorts of rubbish. Nehemiah is a gifted administrator who can get stuff
done, and he leads the Israelites in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem so
that they can feel safe in their home city.
Nehemiah's task, however, goes beyond the rebuilding of what has been before, to bringing the
nation back to where their roots are founded – not in a place or a building but
in God. Therefore, the first thing that happens once the building is finished
is that Nehemiah gathers the people together to ‘read from the book of the
law’.
Every morning the people get up, go and stand in the square,
and Ezra reads to them, the priests explain it and
then they split into groups to discuss it. This goes on for a week. The people
are reawakening a tradition that had gone on for centuries before – where at
the beginning of a new year, where, not the whole of the
Torah, but passages from within were read out in public.
It was the first time of an old tradition. It
was time for the people to rediscover their story – rediscover their place in
history as the people of God. It is a reminder of the teaching of God and a
telling of his covenant – a retelling of their very own story.
Our stories can be
powerful and life changing. Our stories inspire us and remind us of who we are
and where we have come from. Our stories spur us on.....
It's been a chaotic and crazy year for me and I have begun a new chapter in my life. My story has reached the time for a new sequel and as that happens I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the story so far....
Our stories are what make us. We all have our stories – our
faith stories, our home stories, our church stories and they remind us of what
has been, what could be and what will be.
Our stories are our past present and
future..... if we don’t tell the truth of our stories they become legends – embellished
and not real; stories that speak of past
greatness, of golden years, and we have got to always ask ourselves if those
years were really much more golden than now, or are they a shadow we find in a
drawer and sew on because the shadows of the past are much easier to understand
than the unknowns of the future?
The Israelites thought they knew how great their story was –
they thought they knew what God was going to do next. They thought they knew
the story of a successful nation. They knew where they come from, they knew
they were great in the past, and they had the possibility to be great in the
future.
The glory days when Jerusalem sang, when people prospered,
when peace reigned.
But then the story made them cry. Why? Why were they crying?
The glory days when Jerusalem sang – were they not as they
expected them to be?
Why did the story make them cry?
Perhaps they were looking for their lost shadow – they
realised they wanted to go back but knew that they couldn’t because too much
had happened since. Maybe they wanted to sew their story back on, have an
impact like they used to have it – perhaps their story was so far away from
God’s story the shadow it cast hid away the work of God – their story as they’d
like to see it was not something to be clung to.
When we tell our stories there is a danger that we get so
caught up in our own past that we miss the fact that God’s story has moved in
a different direction. We do that in churches – as we look back at the glory
days, as we revel in our fullness, we think that we’ve got God’s direction sorted – we
miss where we’ve walked off to a different rhythm..... we are so busy telling
the stories of our past, we make legends that inform where we are today instead
of coming to God’s word afresh.
We’re
living in a changing world, where God is still at work.... as we look at God we
need to think (quoting one of my former tutors) – who is God, what kind of world are we living in, therefore what
kind church is he calling us to be?
We need to try not to mourn for too long the loss of our shadow - that’s gone, this is a new
start, a new beginning, a new world..... This is HIS
day. There is a time for mourning – but we've not got to forget that there is a time for dancing too.
As we revisit our stories, we need to revisit them with our
centres on Christ – discovering new things from the impact they made. As we
retell our stories we learn of our roots, but that doesn’t mean we need to keep
sewing our past back on - that makes moving forward more difficult......however
golden our past is, it is not where we are now.
Why are you crying? Stop mourning the past and look
ahead. God is here, he is building now..... we need to remember the
lessons learnt from history and learn from them, but not cling on to them or
sew them back on - instead, we need to cling onto God and centre our stories on him. The next chapter - the sequel... has the potential to be so much more.
(and we probably need to begin to party a bit more....)
"Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength"
Nehemiah 8:10
