The Unknown

 

"If you could see 

the journey whole,

you might never

undertake it,

might never dare

the first step

that propels you

from the place 

you have known

toward the place

you know not"

From "Those who have far to travel" by Jan Richardson

I've had this poem on my wall since I first heard it when I gathered with other ministers - the first time I'd met most of them in person and not on zoom - a few months ago. On that day, as we were retreating together, the weight of leading a church through the pandemic and all the effects of that on me, my relationships and my own sense of identity began to feel like something I couldn't carry for much longer. The burden was too heavy, and I knew, if I didn't do something, I would break. 

As we read this poem I didn't get past this first verse. When I first moved to the far south, I moved with a sense of unknowing, uncertainty, but sure that this was where I was meant to be. I had had music played over me that spoke of me going, not only on a journey south, but on a journey myself, and this poem reminded me of that. 

I reflected on that day when I first met this poem, that if I could have known the things that lay ahead when I first answered God's call, I may have never made the journey, but in the blurriness of it all, the ahead was enough - the mystery propelled me forward and brought me to a place where everything was unknown. 

And sometimes, the unknown is where you should be. 

In remembering that, it reminded me that in all my efforts to find certainty, to take control, to keep a handle of things in the pandemic chaos, I'd been trying to hang on too tightly to something that was too difficult to hang onto. The pandemic storm and all its after effects have not been something we have been ever able to get a handle on. Our mantra of 'one day at a time' or even 'one hour at a time' has always said that, but our actions have not necessarily said the same thing. 

Last night as I was waiting for yet another zoom, I looked up to my right and there was this poem and I remembered that maybe the unknown of the last 18 months, the journey I've been on, the things that have almost broken me, is part of the journey that God has called me on in moving south. 

It's taught me that I can't stay in control, however hard I try. It's taught me to listen to the voices around me who say that I am doing well. It's taught me to know and value the gifts God has given to me and my capability and strength that only come from Him. It's taught me that despite the chaos around, God is still doing good things, that lives are still being changed and there are things to celebrate. 

It's taught me that when I bring something to God in prayer I can lay it down at His feet and there it can stay. Let go and let God, and sit at His feet. 

When we are at our lowest, when things hurt more than we can possibly dream, when our head is racing and we're not sure how we can grasp something that is running away, perhaps resting in the unknown is where we should be. We don't need to know every waypoint on the journey we are called to, we need to know that the one who is guiding us is sure of the way. 

"The Lord is the one who is going ahead of you. He will be with you. He won’t abandon you or leave you. So don’t be afraid or terrified" Deuteronomy 31:8

Instructions not included

I've had a bag of Lego on my desk for a while. I don't know where it came from, but I think I found it lying around and claimed it. 

Yesterday I decided to open it and make what was inside. The picture on the outside of the bag promised much, but inside there were no instructions. Maybe that's normal for these kinds of bags of Lego, or maybe that's why it had been discarded, or donated, or whatever happened with it. 

Being a resourceful person, I decided that I could probably make it using the picture as a guide. I started with the bits I could see most clearly on the picture, which, with a bit of manoeuvring, rotating and inspecting the picture closely were quite easy. It was beginning to look like a train. 

It was the next bit that was hard. I couldn't really see what was going on underneath and there were a few irritating bits where I had to get up close and personal with the picture and try and work out if it was two pieces or one, but in the end the outcome didn't look bad and resembled the picture quite nicely.

But then I put the train down on the table and it tilted. The front wheels far too small and the back far too big - misaligned and not quite stable with two spare pieces that I have no idea where they go. 

I eventually figured out that to make it stable it probably needed a track - some kind of rails to give it some direction and stability, showing it the way to go. 

Whilst I was building the train I reflected on how the mystery of how it fitted together is a bit like trying to lead a church - particularly trying to lead a church right now. The picture of what we think it might look like is there, but how the pieces fit together is a bit of a mystery. The pieces aren't necessarily the pieces we expect, and don't fit together in a logical order sometimes.... yet something is being built. 

Where the pandemic scattered our pieces and the instruction book that went with them, as we come back together the pieces aren't necessarily fitting together easily. Key pieces are missing because people have moved away or disappeared or are still nervous about stepping out into the world. What we are trying to piece back together is not quite the same as the picture that we might imagine is on the outside of the bag and when the pieces seem to be put into place, the end product, it leans..... and there are some bits that don't seem to have found a place at all. 

When I looked back at that picture I noticed that it wasn't because the wheels were wrong, but because the wheels had no track to sit on. Perhaps if the wheels had a track to sit on, then the train would feel stable and the pieces that were struggling to find a place right now could be carried without falling out. 

As we cling on to the picture we hope will emerge, beneath our feet has got to be a track to hold us steady, and what might seem to be a track made of Christian cheese, those rails that hold us steady - they are the rails that Jesus laid when he said, come follow me. 

As we seek to put the pieces back together, we've got to remember that however finished the final model is, without rails, it will just be wonky and functioning will very likely be a challenge because a wonky train without tracks is not going to get very far under its own steam.....

"Everybody says they want to be free. Take the train off the tracks and it's free - but it can't go anywhere" - Zig Ziglar 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your [tracks] straight" Proverbs 3:5-6

Faithfulness

My Grandad Dan played the organ. I will always remember him sitting at the organ at Durham City Baptist Church, tongue in its place that showed his concentration, playing with all his strength despite his MS, worshipping as he played, believing that the words that were being sung to the music he was playing were true. He held those truths in his heart. 

At his funeral (a long time ago now, I was only a teenager), we sang the hymn 'Great is Thy Faithfulness' (I'm doubting myself right now because it's one of those weeks, but I'm just about convinced - the hymn always reminds me of him), and as I attended the church up the road today online (because when you've put together an online service you don't always want to watch yourself preach or take communion with yourself) we finished with the same hymn..... and my thoughts went back to my Granddad, as they often do. 

What would he have thought at a time like this? How would he have reacted? 

I don't know really - he died before I started to have too many in depth conversations about faith and life.... but I'd imagine he'd be frustrated. I'd imagine that over the past 18 months the loss of freedoms in worship would have got him down. I'd imagine that my Grandma would have been anxious and my Grandad would have had to try and be the level one. 

It seems so long ago that my Grandad died and my biggest memories of him, as well as the organ playing, are him sneaking a cigarette on a walk on the cold Hartlepool seafront telling us not to tell our Grandma because despite 40 years of marriage she 'didn't know' and teas where the offer of jam tarts was often on the table..... yet in amongst the ordinariness of all that (ordinariness in a Nicholls way), he continued to walk in the ways of God and God continued to be faithful in his life, working through him in amazing ways. 

The writer of the hymn 'Great is thy faithfulness', Thomas Chisholm, lived an ordinary life, there was no big disaster or time of grief or significant encounter that inspired the hymn, just words of faithfulness from the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3. It was written in 1923, which was not long after my Granddad was born, so he would have grown up with it. It's a hymn of how God is with you through all the significant and insignificant times. It's like the footprints poem but with a deeper dig into the theology of it. God never leaves you and provides hope for tomorrow. Whatever today brings, there is better and more ahead. God is with you in the most ordinary of moments as well as the less ordinary ones. 

It pops up quite often at significant times and this morning as it popped up it moved me. I've been in isolation for 6 days and it's getting me down and Sunday is always worse because I just want to be with my church family, but in this hymn I was reminded of how God has been faithful through the last 18 months (and before that)..... that somehow we've got to today and I'm still standing firm -  church is standing just about together and things are looking up. 

The next few weeks feel uncertain. I feel like I'm meant to be excited about restrictions easing, but I am really not. The pandemic hasn't eased up enough for me to be anywhere near excited and I continue to be fearful. The weight of the next is heavy and self isolation has brought more time for reflection on this. 

But, in this song I am reminded that through the lives of those who have gone before I have seen God's faithfulness. Through the lives of those who are walking with me now, I have seen and experienced God's faithfulness.... and through the lives of those who are going to walk beyond the path God has put me on now, he will continue to be faithful.... because that is Him.... that is God.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. 
There is no shadow of turning with thee
Thou changest not, they compassions, the fail not
As thou hast been thou forever wilt be. 

----------------------------------------------------------

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.      Lamentations 3:22-23 (Message Version)

Communion - Together and Apart

This Communion Liturgy is written for New Addington Baptist Church' first in person communion service of 2021, acknowledging that the community is still scattered - our call is for God to gather us in around the story that centres us. 

Communion – Together and Apart

Invitation

We gather round this table, our tables, representative of this table - some of us in person, some of us online, some of us just at home.

We gather around this meal of bread and wine to celebrate life. We celebrate the life of God in the world.

The Word became flesh and moved into our neighbourhood, and as we have scattered in our community, the Word has continued to dwell here.

This bread and this wine are representative of the Word – the bread is Jesus' body, the wine is Jesus' blood – and as we participate in this meal, His story finds its rightful place at the centre of our story.

We come to remember that His body was broken, just as we are broken, but that through His brokenness healing and reconciliation, transformation and salvation, deep love and forgiveness all comes.

It is Him who has been there when all seems silent, speaking in a whisper “all will be well”.

It is Him who has been there when we have wandered the quiet streets, our companion and our guide, leading us on.

It is Him who has been there when the situation has felt impossible and through the words of others has brought us peace

It is Him who has been there when the house normally teeming with life has been emptied and has made sure we are never alone

It is Him who has been there in the cries of injustice as the inequalities of society have been laid bare. He shouts in the protests, this is not my way.

It is Him who invites us, again and again to His table, ‘come sit down, I’m here, come and laugh, come and talk, come and cry, come and be’.  

It is Him who gathers us here and there today, it’s His story and we remember all he has done.

It is in Him that the church is held together, this community, in His breaking, is able to live, for we are called to be the body of Christ.

And so this table, our tables, is a place where we remember our calling to be His body, and that as His body we must walk with and watch over one another as we seek His way.

Thanksgiving

So let us give thanks

Lord God, we give thanks for this bread and this wine, a reminder of all that Jesus has done for us. A reminder of body broken, of a life rejected and scarred, yet of an unstoppable life.

A life that will not be ended by death, will not be stopped by the purposes and ways of the world. A life that isn’t halted by war and injustice and pandemic. A life that brings transformation and abundance…..so much abundance.

As we eat the bread and drink the wine we give our thanks. We thank you that you accept us as we are, however we’ve been recently and however we’ve behaved. You accept us with gentleness and grace and you transform our shame into honour and dignity. You love us into an abundant life.

We thank you that you look at us and see great potential in us, for you have made us in your image and you call us to be partners in your kingdom vision for this world.

As we eat the bread and drink this wine we call on your Spirit, in this room, in our rooms, to come alongside us, so that as we continue to walk together, as we gather from our scattered places, we might give ourselves anew as participants in your story. So we might restore and renew our places, our parts in your body, and live the life you call us to in this world.

Amen

Feasting

This story we are invited to participate in is a story of hope and celebration amongst brokenness and despair. We hear this story again and again, and we pass it on to one another as Christ passed it on to his disciples, as Paul the apostle passed it on to the churches, as the churches passed it down the generations and as we pass it on in our scattered community. This story says that on the night Jesus was betrayed by one who was meant to be his friend, he took bread, and he gave thanks and he broke it saying:

“This is my body that is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me”

It is in the breaking that we find wholeness.

It is in the sharing we find community.

It is in Jesus we find life.

Let us break our bread and share it now.

The body of Christ broken for you.

Pause for distribution

After supper, Jesus took the cup saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me”

It is in the cup we find God’s promises

It is in the cup we find forgiveness

It is in Jesus we find restoration.

Let us share the wine and drink (in the building we will all drink together)

The blood of Christ shed for you.

Pause for distribution

Prayer

We have taken this bread and wine into our bodies. We have taken his promises, his restoration, his forgiveness and accepted them as our own.

Let us Pray

Lord, may you through this meal, draw us back together, draw us ever closer, gather us in.

May we be a community centred on Christ. May our hands be his hands in the world, our feet be his feet, and in the places where we go, the people we meet, may Christ be seen in our lives.

May we be the ones who in the silence, speak His words of wellness.

May we be the ones who amongst the lost, point out the directions

May we be the ones who stand with those finding life impossible and bring peace

May we be the ones who sit down with the lonely, welcome in the wandering, walk with the justice finders.

May we be the ones who say come and join us, you are welcome here.

May we be the community Christ calls us to be.

As we move from our scattering, we pray for unity.

Lord gather us in.

Amen

Here is the communion led through on video:

66 days to change the world

In an article in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Philippa Lally comes to the conclusion that it takes anything between 18 and 254 days for something to become a habit. In fact, says Lally, on average, something becomes a habit after 66 days. So, if you want to change the way you do things, you've got to be committed for just over two months. 

As we journey out of lockdown, I've been reflecting on this. We've had some sort of restrictions since March 2020, which takes us to about 14 months, which is longer than 254 days and definitely longer than 66. Perhaps this different way of existing has now become a habit, and when things change, some of these habits will be hard to break. 

Take going to IKEA for instance - I went on Friday, but I found it difficult to park. Not because there were no spaces - the car park is mahoosive - but because there weren't three spaces together so I could park in the centre space and still be far away from other cars. Social distancing has come to my parking habits. As someone who has always kept my distance from others (it's the family way), I've been surprised that the need to social distance over the last 14 months has become so much more of a behavioural habit that I am slightly freaked out by getting close to anyone. I am one of those people who suddenly shouts at the telly 'but you're not social distancing!'. 

We're all going to be challenged in whatever the next few weeks and months bring because our habits have changed - our shopping habits (I've thankfully broken the online supermarket shopping habit, but it was tough), the way we are around other people, our worshipping habits (isn't it easier just to sit on your sofa even if it is lacking?), our everyday routines (who else rolls out of bed straight to their desk?)..... some of the habits might be worth keeping and nurturing, but many will have to be broken and changed as life changes again, and that'll be hard. 

The effects of the pandemic on our habits is a small window into the habits that we have developed over our whole lives and the habits we have developed as a society as a whole. We have a whole load of bad habits that affect the way we treat others and approach issues of justice. At Baptist Assembly 2021 Sunday morning service, Shane Claiborne talked about how we have adjusted as a society to accept injustice as normal - as something that just happens because of the way things are. Whilst we might say that we believe in equity and justice for all, the reality is, that our whole way of living has adjusted to habits that present injustices as normal.

Shane talked about our need to readjust, to rethink the whys and the wherefores, to consider the habitual behaviours in society (I'm not sure he used quite those words, but bear with a bad listener) we accept as normal and seek to live in a more Jesus way. 

You see, Jesus presented a vision for his Kingdom where those who we would not normally see as blessed are the blessed ones (see the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5). His kingdom is a kingdom of justice and joy, of love and of peace. If we accept that the rich - poor divide is just the way it is, or that foodbanks are always going to be around, or that racism or sexism is just the way it is..... if we accept that mantra of 'things or that person or that place is never going to change' then we miss the potential that Jesus sees in the world and the role we have to play in bringing transformation that points to, that shows signs of what the way of Jesus is. 

In Ephesians 5:1-2 (Message Translation) it says this:

"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that"

As we break pandemic habits and form new ones we need to think about the other habits we need to break and the ones we need to take up, and as we do that we need to observe 'how Christ' and be a bit more like that. This is Jesus who left the extravagance of heaven to live on broken earth, to move into the house next door. This is Jesus who went and spent time with the people who nobody else would step near. This is Jesus who turned the world upside down, not by shaking it to get the broken pieces out, but by embedding himself within it, taking its brokenness upon him and becoming broken with it as he died on the cross. This is Jesus who cried 'it is finished' as he gave up himself so that new life might come and new ways might be formed. 

This is Jesus, who in resurrection declared that it doesn't have to be this way and showed us the way of transformation.

And in a society that is adjusted to a normality or habitus of injustice, the call of 'how Christ loved' is a call to readjust our view and be people who are committed to developing habits that reflect his image far more brightly than the image of the broken world in which we dwell. 

Desperately seeking Sabbath

 

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?- No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows: No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass: No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night: No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance: No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began? A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. WH Davies This poem came to mind as I've been reflecting on the process of re-opening, of reforming, of restarting, of new beginnings as we pace the road out of lockdown. There has been much talk of new beginnings, of things changing, of the old passing away and the new being allowed to flourish as life has forced us to stop and stare.  There is a lot of talk about how lockdown life has given us time to reflect and contemplate the meaning of life, our reason for doing what we do, and particularly, in my role, where we are going as churches.  For some people, this might be true. Exciting new things might come from months of planning and reflecting, of waiting on God. But in my circumstance, and in many others circumstances where the work just hasn't stopped, that time of pause, we're still waiting for.  My life has been one long race in the last year or so - suddenly moving the way the church works years beyond where we were as we embraced technology with a crash. Trying to love and serve the community that we're called to in the best way possible with increasing needs for practical and pastoral support. Life hasn't stopped and I, for one, am exhausted. And as we begin to open up again, I am aware that I am already at capacity, beyond capacity where the energy to keep going is much lower than it has ever been, yet the need to re-open is pressing.  I am almost constantly wondering where rest will ever come.  You see, because we have been so far beyond anything normal than whatever normal is, the pressure to find the normal that was is huge. And when the normal that was, was so much more than capacity should have allowed, the never ending pull is straining quite hard right now.  And that's before we ever get to the place of processing the trauma of the last year and a bit. On the seventh day God rested. He had used a huge amount of energy in creating the world and rest was important - not only to appreciate all that had been, but also to bring to the world a key part of living - that of the need to rest.  When Moses brought down from Mount Sinai the ten commandments, there in the centre of the commandments was that of rest - of sabbath. It sits as a hinge between the importance of right relationship with God and the importance of right relationship with the world and people in it. It sits there reminding us that without rest, we cannot live, we cannot thrive.  As we find our way out of the roadmap, remember that we are not made to move from one marathon to another, that rest in between is important.  As we find our way out of the roadmap, we need to remember that it is God's way we seek, and that God's way puts in rest, right there, smack bang in the middle. And that rest is not just sleep. That rest is not just a day off. That rest is about finding our place once again, not in doing as much as we can to find normal, but in seeking the new regular God is calling us to.  Take some time to just hang about. We've not been allowed to do that for a while.

Learning to communicate [again] - finding fruit

A baby cries. Why are they crying? Is it because they are hungry? Is it because they need changing? Is it because they are in pain? Or is it just because they want attention and you were doing something else? 

Even from birth, humans are difficult to interpret. Even if we know the human well, interpreting what they mean can be hard work. And those we have never met in person.... well they are another story! 

And the pandemic - it's made it more difficult. It's affected all of our thinking patterns, our sense of self worth and our reactionary behaviour. Even the most level headed and mild mannered of people can find themselves, right now, going into a rage over something as small as a can of beans in the wrong place on the shelf. Even the most emotionally stable person has found themselves falling apart when the person who just walked past them has forgotten that masks go over their nose. 

The lack of in person meeting has meant that we have forgotten how to communicate with understanding. When meetings are functional and faces are the only thing to be seen, if that, how can we know what is going on in somebody's reaction to something we said or did? When the only place we know people is when profiles meet in a facebook group, how can we make assumptions as to what their comment means? 

Yet we do, then we shout, and even the gentlest of us suddenly finds ourselves accusing others of all sorts, and we lose sleep and we throw things and we label that person as a..... pick your words carefully here. 

It's difficult to know what is causing the crying if we don't try and find out. The problem with people we do not see or even know in real life is that we also, quite often, don't try and find out either. 

The anthropologist Clifford Geertz talks about when we see someone whose eyelid is flickering up and down, we need to know something more about why that is happening before we react to what might only be described as a wink. Are they winking at us or is it directed to someone else? Are they trying to get a message across and what is it? Is it part of the established social code or is it just that they've got some dust in their eye? 

It's complicated. Yet misunderstandings come from not understanding that what someone might say or do might be meant in a different way to how we initially interpret it. 

Our reactions to people in person seem to be missing this and are becoming more like pre-pandemic reactions to people online. And our reactions to people online.... they're becoming, frankly, in some cases, from people who in normal circumstances do know better, appalling. The pandemic has made us all act weird.

As we try and find this road out of the pandemic and see one another again, there are some things we need to do as we learn to communicate again. In fact these things are not new, they just need to be relearnt (see Galatians 5:22). 

Look at the person you are talking to as someone who is made in the image of God and love them like God does. That will help turn them from enemy into something better. 

Seek to be a person of peace. Don't seek out arguments for the sake of argument, but look for ways ahead. Compromise. Agree to disagree. Don't assume that someone is thinking what you think they're thinking. Be still. Pause for a moment. Or many moments. Then seek peace. 

Be faithful to who you are. If the behaviour you are exhibiting would be behaviour you would condemn in others, then ask yourself what is causing you to act in this way. If that behaviour is unusual for you, ask someone to help you work out how to deal with all you are struggling with. Be faithful to God who made you and looked on you and saw you as good. 

Find joy and seek goodness. We have lost laughter and joy from our lives. Seek the places where you find it again. Spend time with those who make you laugh and deliberately let it all out in laughter, not shouting. Find joy in the people you meet. Whatever is good in your and others lives, celebrate that. Don't dwell on the bad stuff. 

Be gentle and patient. We're all grieving, hurting, in pain right now. Recognise that some might not be fully themselves and be patient with them. Be people that exercise grace in difficult situations and recognise that sometimes healing takes time. 

Act with self control. Think before you speak. Try not to react in a way that hurts other people. Recognise the need for anger, but don't direct to the wrong places. Don't scapegoat all your frustrations onto another person. Check your behaviour. Always. And apologise when apologies are needed. 

And be kind. Always. Just be kind. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. We cannot know for sure what is behind the behaviour of others, but we can control our own behaviour - and that - that will make the world a better place. 

A baby cries - why are they crying? We don't know, but we wouldn't leave them to just cry not knowing. We'd go over to their cot, we'd look, we'd perhaps lift them up, and we would remember and think about what was good about them. We'd likely cuddle them, smell them, try and understand them, and then, we'd do what we needed to do. 

A human being stands in front of you, in person, online, however they stand - why are they acting in the way they are? We don't know, but we can try and understand them. Then we can do what we need to do. Just be kind. 

"Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies"      Philippians 4:8-9 The Message