Refreshment comes in many forms

Taizé tea is something that I wouldn’t drink in England – it is very sweet and is drunk cold, mid-afternoon when the sun is really hot, and it is really refreshing. It wouldn’t suit my normal life, but it doesn’t have to.

There is something very refreshing about holidays – being somewhere else and doing things differently. Taizé has a big emphasis on prayer and being available to God, but in common with many holidays some of the refreshment is in being out of step with normal life. Spending time with different people, eating different food, praying in different ways can all lend themselves to changing and renewing our tired thoughts.

I don’t think I would want to live like that; it is very ordered and personally I would miss the chaos, but for a time it is great. The previous Pope visited once, and he said to the thousands of young people there;

‘One passes through Taizé as one passes close to a spring of water. The traveller stops, quenches his thirst and continues on his way. The brothers of the community, you know, do not want to keep you. They want, in prayer and silence, to enable you to drink the living water promised by Christ, to know his joy, to discern his presence, to respond to his call, then to set out again to witness to his love and to serve your brothers and sisters in your parishes, your schools, your universities, and in all your places of work.’

That seems a desirable outcome for a holiday!

Grace and the X Files

When you pick up a similar spiritual message twice in one day its quite hard to ignore it.

This morning Henry preached on the passage in Luke 18, where Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector at prayer, and observes that the tax collector, a sinner begging for forgiveness is closer to God than the self-righteous Pharisee, despite all his worthy acts. Henry spoke about how it demonstrates that God's grace does not follow the rules of human 'fairness'.


Anyway, a few hours later I'm in the cinema watching the new X Files movie, 'I Want to Believe'. Quite early on in the film, Mulder and Scully have to go and talk to a former Catholic priest who's a convicted paedophile, as he has been having visions that may help them in their investigations. When they get to the hostel where he stays, they find him praying, and he says he is seeking God for the salvation of his soul. Scully's immediate reaction is to say 'Why would God listen to you after what you've done?'

I'm not going to spoil the plot for anyone, but I think its fair to just say that Scully finds her initial assessment of this man and what he has to offer challenged as the film goes on.

For my own part, whilst, yes, it was 'only a movie', I came away at the end thinking again about what I'd heard at church this morning. I guess God and his grace do indeed move in mysterious ways.

Review of Life

Review of Life based on the temptations of Jesus – Talk at Ashley 27 July
(Luke Chapter 4)

Every so often it might be useful to take a step back and review our life to see where we have been, where we are now and where we are going. It can take many forms and cover a long period and could be our whole life or it could be much shorter period of time like yesterday, last month or last year.

The story of Jesus time in the wilderness and his temptations could be seen as his review of his own life which was a prelude to his ministry. Jesus is our role model and this shows that for him it was very challenging thing to do and the extent of this challenge will depend on such things as personality, life experience and our current circumstances of life. He faced powerful temptations in his life related to what he knew of his own power, authority and gifts and the way they might be used. The temptations in the garden of Gethsemane indicate that the questions never completely left him and his choice of vulnerability, service and suffering and whether this was the right way to go would return.

In the light of this it may be that sometimes a review could be best done with the help of a friend to encourage and lift us out of a sense of failure or ‘what ifs’ that we can all be prone to at times. Maybe sometimes it is best left alone completely until we know we are in the right place to cope. I just offer this as a way we might consider at opportune times to re-gain a sense of meaning, purpose or direction in our life which offers clues and encouragement as to the future. Jesus ministry we believe was only about three years and he changed the world – so it is never too late and we are never too old!

Jesus in his wilderness temptations can be seen as him seeking the way to go and how to make sense of what he knew already about his birth and his life so far. With what we know about his life could there be hints of the material he might have been wrestling with? What about the circumstances of his birth and what his mother might of told him of angels, wise men bringing gifts and prophecies. What was the meaning of his baptism and the words that his cousin John spoke about him? What about the story of his parents fleeing to Egypt when he was a baby? How come he seemed to be able to speak so easily with teachers of the law at such a young age? What was the point of all that training in the carpenters shop? What does it mean to set people free? Was he pondering on the verse in Isaiah that he was to preach on in the synagogue at Nazareth? What is God’s kingdom? And may more questions……. Forty days wrestling with what was his mission in life and how was he to fulfil it. What we are told in the three temptations could be seen as attempts by Jesus to make sense of what he already knows, what he feels called to and how this might be worked out in his life.

He leaves the desert full of the Holy Spirit and goes in to his home town and preaches about releasing captives and setting prisoners free. After this encounter he realises that he needs to leave Nazareth and that his ministry can not be fulfilled there and tells everyone this. He is then rejected by his home town which leads him to a wider ministry in Capernaum and Jerusalem. Was the rejection with all the pain there must have been the spark that produces the explosion of his ministry with healing, preaching and casting out of demons to a wider audience? It is amazing to think that rejecting could be a powerful tool for doing God’s work in the future.

We might think that ours in so small a life in relation to Jesus but in God’s eyes we are all called to be a part of God’s presence on earth. We are now his Body. Sometimes a review can be tied in with a holiday or a retreat, a day’s walk or just a short time-out which gives you an opportunity to:

STOP and look at your life
LOOK at what you see and ponder on it
LISTEN to what this might say to you.

In the end this is an unpredictable spiritual exercise with the Holy Spirit. It always seems best to me to not try too hard and have patience. We are looking for ‘clues’ as to what might be there for us. It might take a while to see anything and so you need to stay with it and have the faith that there is something there that God wants to communicate.

Moving mountains vs being equipped for the climb

I have been thinking more about the idea of moving mountains and as I think back on the situations that I have faced in my life more often than not I have had to climb the mountain rather than it being moved out of the way or flattened. As I said on Sunday I believe God often wants us to see the view from the top but this does mean we have to go through a strenuos and sometimes scary climb. However, if we put our trust in him and we are prepared to use the strength of his Holy Spirit to help we will make it to the top and be able to enjoy the view and being with God

Micah 4:2 Come let us go up the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.

Being a pencil for God

Why not run through the powerpoint below and give us your thoughts on being a pencil!



Thanks to Anita for bringing this to our attention.

Jesus perspectives

Have had a busy week but am finally getting round to posting something about last Sunday's men's meeting in the Speckled Hen.

Had a good turnout (and the pub was busier than normal, a birthday party was going on and there was some tennis match or other on the TV) and some interesting discussion. Our guest, Andy Frost of Share Jesus International, used a set of intriguing photographs to provoke some discussion on how meanings can change when we look at things from different perspectives, naturally leading into discussion on our perceptions and images of Jesus (such as the stereotypical one in the corner!).

Andy referred to what Jesus said about himself in Luke 4 where he refers to the Spirit being upon him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, release for the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and suggested from that the concept of Jesus the revolutionary.

I think that passage is pretty revolutionary and it offers Jesus' hope to those who have lost out in life, be it emotionally, spiritually, physically or materially. This hope was evidenced in Andy's accompanying friend Leon, who came with his family to this country as a Kosovan refugee fleeing violence and war, and now seeks to reach out to others here (and back in Kosovo) with God's love.

The challenge for the church is how we can embody that revolutionary spirit in our activities and engagement with the community. We did start to discuss a bit about how different ways of being church can help or hinder that revolution. Not a subject to properly cover in one night but hopefully we all got some inspiration and challenge whilst crowding round a table in a local pub!

Questions

Hi Sue

Thanks for the comment. The questions from last Sunday's talk were:

What would be our strap lines?
What runs our life?
What clues are there for our spiritual development?
What could we commit ourselves to?
What habit could we change in 21 days?

With the first question I suggested that the apostle Peter might have had the strap lines:

I will make you fishers of men
Feed my sheep
Do not call anything impure that God has made clean

The last question relates to a piece of research that I spoke about that concluded you can change a habit if you continue the change for 21 days. Intuitively I think that the research might be right (although you never know with these pieces of research) and if it is I found that very encouraging (so, I hope it is). It was in a book on happiness that went on to say.

Why not make happiness a habit in 21 days!!! Quite a challenge.