Reading the signs

Matthew 16:1-3 
Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them. He told them, “You have a saying that goes, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’ You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can’t you read the signs of the times?

As we begin to ponder what emerging from lockdown might mean for gathering as the body of Christ it strikes me that, in this season of Pentecost with the resurrection stories still ringing in our ears, we are once again invited to identify with the disciples as they worked out how to be community together.
Many of us have been discovering or re-discovering the things that matter about being church. We’ve been relearning and reconnecting with the stories of the people of God in every time and place.
We’ve been identifying with the pilgrims on the Emmaus Road, confused and dejected, trying, and failing, to make sense of the events that have overtaken them.
As Jesus walks alongside them, somehow he stabilises the disciples. How? By rooting them again in the ancient stories of faith which which they have grown up. By tracing for them the presence of God with people all through the ages. Jesus grounds them again in their faith - but he also helps them to begin to write the next chapter, the story that continues beyond the empty tomb. “Their eyes were opened and they recognised him in the breaking of bread.” It was in that ritual, a ritual they had shared with Christ just before he died that they were able to make the connection and recognise Jesus sitting at table with them. It was in that ritual that they were given confidence and energy to race back, in the fading light, to Jerusalem to share the news: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
We don’t know when we will be able to gather again to share that meal but we have even more stories to tell than those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In the midst of pandemic, we can recognise the risen, now ascended Christ, along with the gift of the Spirit walking alongside, helping us to reconnect our stories of faith. And, though we are in uncharted territory, isn’t that always the way of the people of God - learning how to make sense of a changed landscape in the knowledge of the living God by our side?
In confusion, grief, hurt, loss and yearning, we are grafted all the more to Christ the vine who enables and empowers us to keep on walking into the unknown. 
NO GOING BACK  
What Jesus did make clear is that everything was changed. There was no going back to “business as usual”. Living with pandemic takes us there too. Some of us may welcome that more than others. For those of us who long simply to go back to what we know, I wonder how much our perception of what we thought we had is real and not tainted by comfort and cosiness? And how much did what we were doing in our sanctuaries impact our communities?
As we emerge from the Easter season and welcome the Holy Spirit, how willing are we to co-write, with God, the next chapter of the story of God’s people? How prepared are we to walk the road in the darkness and uncertainty even knowing that the risen Christ walks beside us and the Spirit leads us? How will we make room for grief and lament and for fear and uncertainty. And, from our own bewilderment, how bold will we be to risk failure so that we can learn the new road that we are invited to walk as people of faith today?
And how patient will we be in sitting in that place of not knowing, that place of dependence  on God, that place to which we come with empty hands and full hearts and bruised and fragile spirits longing for healing and recommissioning as servants of God for this time? How will we read the signs?

Look to the healers

These are incredible days filled with darkness and with light, with hope and despair, with predictability and surprise. They are days in which we can, in one moment, take hold of our professional competence and, in the next, realise that nothing could have prepared us for ministry in such times and that there is nothing in our metaphorical toolkit that will see us through. And, in this season after Easter, it’s possible that we can identify with the roller coaster on which the disciples seem to ride - those heady days of occasionally glimpsing hope and joy and those plummeting days of recognising that still they could not comprehend. Those restorative moments when it seemed they had a place in the mission of God and the arresting times when they went into processing overload and had no idea which piece of string to attempt to unravel first.
We see it in all the different ways our colleagues react - from those who gleefully put into practice their technology expertise or who enable the folk who can, to those who are paralysed by observing the Herculean efforts of others. We witness those who are nimble and adaptive alongside those who are more sluggish and reactive. We are in awe of those with energy to implement a dozen new ideas before breakfast and empathise with those who simply don’t know where to start or what to tackle first, whose elephant simply won’t be decent enough to divide into bite sized pieces that they might tackle. And, of course, some of us are even managing to be all of these caricatures in any given moment or day.
When all our normal defences, the apparatus of our work, is taken from us, as it has been, to what do we resort?
Richard Holloway very helpfully describes something of the confusion that was embraced 40 years ago when AIDS was emerging as a global challenge, describing how it brought out the best and the worst in folks and exhorts us, in the words of Camus to “strive to be healers”.
It may not be within our gift is to determine, how our communities of faith and the communities we serve will emerge from this pandemic. We are, however, in a position to model love and vulnerability, exploration and commitment. We can share our wondering and our uncertainties as well as our faith in a God who majors in resurrection.
None of us would have chosen this way of cultural renewal and it is not simply opportunistic to recognise that, in time, we might emerge with wisdom and strength, with greater faith and hope. However, that is not, for now, our focus. Our task is not yet to attempt to make sense, to establish a new normal or to attempt to tidy things up. Rather, in the midst of trauma, while clinging precariously to the roller coaster ride of these days we could do much worse than “strive our utmost to be healers”.

Glimpsing resurrection

Matthew 27:61
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

I’ve always been intrigued by the tenacity of the two Marys who sat by the tomb. Why didn’t they simply leave when it seemed clear they could do no more? They had endured a long night and day, accompanying Jesus through all the horrific events that led to his death - the trials, the procession, the crucifixion, the final cry. They witnessed his body being removed and laid in a tomb. And still they waited and returned early after Sabbath. And their reward? Was to witness resurrection firsthand.
On so many levels it makes sense that to witness resurrection we have to stay close to the tomb. Yet often we are busy looking for the next new thing, rushing on from the place of death to work out what we should do next. Indeed we are encouraged not to allow our thoughts to linger on what has been lost but on what has been found. It is counterintuitive to sit with death. Especially in a church anxious for survival, eager to move on to restoration.
Perhaps faith and praxis has to be much more counterintuitive. Perhaps when every other area of our lives is crying out for life to return to whatever a new normal might look like, after this pandemic, even though we know we will be irrevocably changed, perhaps there is a call for people of faith to be slower. Partly because we are often the ones called to minister and accompany people through death and mourning. But also because we want to wait on God to show us the way of resurrection today. We’ve always claimed that we are about discerning the mission of God, about letting God direct our paths. That discernment is going to be critical as we emerge from this time of global trauma and crisis. A quick fix is neither desirable nor sustainable. Rather, attuning our hearts to the “slow work of God” as Teilhard de Chardin puts it will be vital for finding a way through. Yes the rate of change, the rate at which we we’ve had to respond to adaptive challenge has accelerated but we are still called to accompany folk through transition, to care for hearts and minds and to nurture souls. To do that, we must attend to our own souls. That’s why we must be prepared to linger by the tomb - so that we might see for ourselves those discarded grave clothes that symbolise those things by which we no longer need to be held and point to the new beginnings that are possible. Only once we have watched and waited and glimpsed resurrection will we be commissioned as the women were on Easter morning : “Go Quickly and tell the good news.”

Weeping or singing a new song - or both?

Psalms 137:1-4
Lament over the Destruction of Jerusalem
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

In these strange days of Covid-19, with worship gatherings cancelled and all the things we’d normally do to show our care for one another now considered too risky, it’s so easy to feel dejected, perhaps even useless. (Ask me how I know that?) Isn’t it for such a time as this that we responded to God’s call to become ministers of the gospel? What is our purpose if not to reach out physically, spiritually and emotionally to those we are called to serve?
How can we sing the Lord’s Song in this new and strangest of lands?
What did God’s people do in exile? They sat down and wept. They cried out to the God of their ancestors to show them how to be God’s people in a foreign land.
As we find ourselves feeling exiled in these days, as we discover that the familiar songs and the familiar patterns are of no use in this foreign territory, may we take time to feel the loss. And then, from the midst of that loss, may we know God’s purpose for us as we embrace a new reality that we might never have imagined. God’s call has not diminished. The gospel imperative  to love one another is not diminished. Who knows what we might trip over in the darkness, who knows what discoveries we might make that will enable us now - and in the future - to BE church rather than simply do church?
Instead of rushing around trying to find ‘virtual’ ways of doing all the things we’d normally do, how about taking the time to sit down and weep? And then, follow God’s lead as we find new songs and new patterns and new vocations revealed by God who is in every age the ground of our being.
Stay safe, stay well, stay connected - for the love of God.

Intentional and Provisional

Ephesians 3:16-17

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 

The Choluteca Bridge in Honduras was built to withstand hurricanes - and it did. It withstood Hurricane Mitch in 1998. However, the resultant flooding caused the river it spanned to chart a different course - and so the bridge became redundant.

As the third tranche of ministers and congregations embark on Path of Renewal, I’ve been struck again by the intentionality and the provisionality of what we are about together with God.

We are intentional about seeking God’s direction and about incorporating into our daily lives practices that will help us in being more aware of God at work all around us and the invitation God extends to us to become involved in that work.  Sometimes that involves rediscovering ancient paths and learning from old monastic disciplines. At other times, it involves finding some new digital practices (and digital sabbath) that allow us to deepen our connection with God and the world in this age. And so we find ourselves being taken in directions we might never have envisaged. 

Perhaps less dramatically but no less significantly, there is an awakening to the subtle changes that are happening as those we engage with and mentor notice too the pervasiveness of God and seek to pay attention to the numinous in our everyday. 

As the awareness of God’s presence grows, what we are noticing is an openness to experiment, to embark on new terrain rather than traversing well known routes, learning to navigate as opposed to simply reading the map.

Even as we chart a new course, however, we are conscious of the provisional nature of any structures we put in place or of any ventures on which we embark. God is always doing a new thing and calls us to be responsive rather than reactive, light of foot yet rooted in love.

Follow me

At our most recent Path of Renewal Conferences, one of the things we considered was the call of Jesus to “Follow me.”
In some ways (though certainly not others) a vague call. We considered how it is often helpful in following that call and in helping others recognise their call to embrace vagueness. Vagueness allow us to be responsive and flexible.
This has always been an important element in the Path of Renewal movement. We accompany one another on a journey in which we discover what it is that Christ calls us to in each of our different contexts, both as the body of Christ together but also as individuals on whose lives Christ makes his call.
We went further than that, though, to look at discernment. How do we discern the specifics of the vagueness of the call, “Follow me”.
That, too, has been an important part of Path of Renewal - that we make space and take time to discern the uniqueness of God’s call in each place and for each follower. Making space and taking time are not easy when we are already part of busy communities of faith. Journeying together on Path of Renewal has proved how difficult it is to create the space required and the pressure that is around to maintain the busyness of being disciples. What we have learned anew is the vitality of spending time with God, not just speaking but listening deeply. And we’ve shared with one another the spiritual practices that help us and sustain us in that.
The vagueness of Christ's call is not accidental - it necessitates our walking closely with him, listening, being sure of what our immutable values are, our gospel imperatives, and being prepared and able to change everything else.
Following Christ demands that we are equipped with the same responsiveness with which Christ encountered those whom he met in all sorts of ways in so many places - staying close to Christ enables us to do that.
It is important, now more than ever, for disciples to embrace the tasks of discernment and relearn how we engage in that to enable us to be faithful, obedient and responsive to the call of Christ.

Being intentional

Acts 16:13
On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

Whenever I arrive in a strange place, instinct calls me to seek out a river or some other body of water. Walking by moving water enables me to process and shake off the burdens of the day and create the space for new experiences. The rhythm of walking, accompanied by the movement of the water bring refreshment and Renewal.
When the first apostles seek out the river as they go from city to city, they do so with purpose. They are intentionally seeking out those places where folk might gather so that they can engage them with the gospel. Their instincts took them to those places where people had reason to be. Be it the river or the market square, those early evangelists sought out such places with intention - so that they might engage in the mission of God.

Intentionality still goes a long way in gospel sharing. Wherever our routines take us, it’s what we do in those spaces that will shape the nature of our encounters. And so our daily routines, offered prayerfully to God, can become opportunities to witness to the hope that is within us. We don’t, necessarily have to change those places we hang out or even adopt different practices - but we can be more intentional about living out and engaging others with the faith that shapes us.
Every space is sacred space and the way we occupy space with the expectation of encountering God shapes the encounters we have with others.