‘Gathered for the Journey Ahead.’
Sermon-blog
To Him Belongs Eternal Praise.
Psalm 111
The Gospel according to St Mark 1:21-28
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Sometimes there is a plan. Sometimes not.
I’ve found it almost impossible in recent weeks to set
down any plans for what ministry and teaching and prayer might look like for us
in this season, because the goal posts keep being moved.
You know what I mean exactly, especially if you are
home schooling.
Is it to be blended learning or a few weeks at home;
will everyone or just some return after half-term, or is it now 8th
March, and will the executive here keep in step with decisions planned for
schools in England?
It’s much the same in parish life; stop, start stop;
endless checking of changing guidelines and competing opinions about what we
might do; it’s an achievement in itself to maintain a sense of good will and
positivity in it all. I try to recognize that others too are trying to manage
themselves.
In the absence of a clear way ahead, I deliberately
stop listening to those who tell me what we will or won’t be doing, because how
could they possibly know anymore that anyone else; I cannot take on any more of
the unknowns. Instead, I look at what I already have in front of me.
Today, the known is a few phrases in the Bible
readings, and a book I have been enjoying.
I look at these and wonder what it is that God is
saying.
I know that He has plans for us, even if at times I
cannot hear them clearly,
or am not paying attention to Him. I call it gathering up.
It’s a little like the beautifully colourful ladies we
met on one of our first mission visits to South America. The Bolivian women there
who have retained their traditional sense of dress, use exquisitely coloured
pieces of woven cloth instead of the dreadful plastic bags we are accustomed
to.
Yes, some cloths are machine made for the tourist
trade; but others are hand made in a loom placed on the ground, as the weaver
sits aside weaving wool from local sheep. The dyed wool is formed in stripes to
reflect the fields and fishing habits of her area, a little like the Aran
pattern we are used to seeing.
And that cloth is put to every possible use. The most
notable is when everything that might need carried for the journey is placed
into it on the ground, and the four corners are lifted and wrapped around the
lady for her journey. Her Aguayo, as its called, might contain potatoes, a live
hen or vegetables; I have even seen small children wrapped into one of them.
All that is needed is gathered for the journey ahead.
I have less sense today about where this particular
journey might be going, and in all of the pastoral calls by phone this week, we
share in that same sense of unknowing and frustration.
But for this part of the Way, there is much to
encourage us.
My eye was drawn to that great and challenging phrase
at the close of today’s Psalm, No.111.
‘To him belongs eternal praise.’
I am struck again by the teaching that I owe praise to
God.
We are so conditioned to thinking about God’s freely
given grace and new life, that perhaps I forget that I owe God my whole life,
and very breath.
I forget at times that I am a creature, and he the
great Creator God. I am not devalued in
thinking like this, rather I am reassured that He has plans for His world. I am
uplifted and helped in knowing that it is a life-giving duty and obligation
which I have been given, to offer my praise to God. It is a great task and one
I must lean into more earnestly.
The Psalmist finished with words, perhaps better well
known:
‘The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of wisdom;
all who follow his precepts
have good understanding.
To him belongs eternal
praise.’
To fear is to respect, and to have a holy regard for.
I am not afraid of God, but I hope I have a deepening respect for and true
regard for Who He Is.
To follow His ways, to open up my life and thinking to
His values, His teaching, His purposes, and commit myself more fully to them,
is Wisdom indeed, as the Psalmist well knew.
I have also gathered up a phrase from the Old
Testament reading in Deuteronomy.
Words from Moses are spoken to help his people prepare
for a future without him present with them; he tells them that God will in fact
raise up another Prophet,
You must listen to him.
But Moses remined the people that in a previous day
they had said
“Let us not hear the voice
of the LORD our God … or we will die.”
It’s hard to think of God’s people telling Him,
through a holy fear perhaps, or perhaps just through fear, that they no longer
wanted to hear from Him.
It is unthinkable today. Our greater risk is not a
holy fear of God putting us off listening, but modern day distraction, preoccupation and perhaps
even indifference.
God reminds His people in saying that
‘I myself will call to
account anyone who does not listen to my words.’
I am reminded in this little piece gathered from
today’s readings, that I owe my praise to God, and I have a responsibility to
pay close attention to God’s words to me and for me.
Before the various lockdown, perhaps that was a little
easier. We mostly relied on the weekly routines of Church, and meetings to help
us praise and to listen. In these days, we have to work much harder to find
time amidst all of the busy needs and changing demands of family at home, jobs
and routines to maintain, and the very effort of just keeping going ion these
very stressful and unpredictable times.
But praise I will, and pay attention I must.
One of the most heartening things in recent months has
been seeing God’s work in the ordinariness of a day. That is true discipleship,
I think.
God at Church on Sundays. Yes, but powerfully too in
the ordinary things of the week-days.
It was put brilliantly well by former Archbishop Rowan
Williams in a very insightful little book of blogs he wrote for his local
parish church, in the first lock-down:
Candles In the Dark: Faith, Hope and Love in a
pandemic.’
He wrote simply: ‘As I was taking the bin out the
other night…’
We love and trust a God who speaks to us in the big
event, the packed full church service, in the Baptisms, the Weddings, the special
events. And He also speaks on the evening’s when we have to do the ordinary
chores. If an Archbishop is learning to notice God in the mundane and ordinary,
then we can too.
The people of Nazareth in Jesus own day, didn’t always
understand Him or His words.
In today’s piece of the Gospel reading, were told that
they were amazed by His words.
Our prayer for one another in these unpredictable
days, is that even though we are not able to gather to worship in our familiar
ways, that we carry on as followers of Jesus in the ordinary and routines we
now have. That we learn to praise God, and pay attention to His words wherever
we are and however the demands and restrictions placed upon us.
These are just a few of the things I’ve been able to
gather up into my piece of woven cloth from
this week, to share. I hope it is helpful to you.
In closing, it has been made all the brighter by a
lovely piece of woven cloth which arrived by post this week, from the Weavery
at Camphill, in Clanabogan.
Made with brightly dyed wools in oranges and blues,
from wool in Donegal; it reminds me of the days my then small boys attended
their play group, of their Advent Lantern walks, of much missed days on the
beaches on the West coast, and of the Bolivan ladies I met in a different day.
Today, much nearer home, we remember the needs of
other communities, and our own here as we carry on in the Praise of God, and as
we listen to the words He would place into our hearts.
May God Himself bless you in these days set apart.
Amen.
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