September 2006

God of the mango, potato, and lime,
God of the field and the flower and the pine,
God of the soil, the grass and the sheep,
God of the waters from which salmon leap,
God of the air, and the clouds of the sky,
God of the birds and the bats and the flies,
God of gazelles and gnus and giraffes,
God of warm purrs, welcome barks, and wild laughs,
God of deep silent caves where no light can be found,
God of sky blazing lightning and thunder’s great sound,
God of snow on the mountain with ice on its peak,
God of spring, and of stream, and of river and creek,
God of village and town and of housing estates,
God of greetings and meetings and diaries and dates,
God of paintings and sculptures and poems and song,
God of dancing and tumbling and clowning along,
God of people next door, and of every nation,
God of me, God of us, and of all of creation,
You that bless us beyond all that fills time and space,
We approach you with love, even now in this place
and invite you to dwell with us; even now come,
by the breath of your Spirit make each heart your home.

The Axis Mundi dressed from toil

With punctured palms and skewered feet

Here stands up crucified and risen

on bare stone, aglow like wheat.

With flesh transfigured , mundane glory

aproned arms spread wide to greet;

they cast hope’s holy seed on our turned soil.

Yesterday I had some space in the afternoon to take my three girls to the park. Objective? Get Daisy, my 6 year old to ride a bicycle without stabilizers. The sun was making one of its fairly rare early September appearances and there were few people around in the park so we had plenty of space. Last year when I did the same thing for Emily she got quite a few knocks and bumps on the way to mastering cycling, so I was expecting quite a few tears this time too. But they didn’t arrive because Daisy took to riding very easily. After half an hour riding in a straight line on the flat grass I went with her up a smallish hill and she got on and freewheeled all the way down until she needed to start peddling again, beaming smile captured on film (well, pixels!).

What a joy it is to be there helping when children get hold of some new skill. I used to work as a primary school teacher (I won’t say I used to be one because I still feel I am at heart) and there in my classroom it was an everyday joy. I wish I could say I got the same buzz out of being a minister, but I guess we adults are slow learners by and large, and don’t so readily give away that we didn’t know how to do something in the first place.

Just had an exasperating conversation with a church organist.

“New songs? Not on your nelly!”

My response in picture form:

Nothing is impossible.

Trying to memorise Philippians 4:6-7 at the moment. I get anxious with stuff too often so this verse ought to be reassuring:- Don’t be anxious but instead pray and God’s peace will guard your heart and mind. So what gives?

I think I need a lot of convincing in myself that God actually knows better than me. I can type the words, I can think the thoughts, but some of the time I still end up trying to guard my own heart with my own meagre, no, inadequate resources. I’d like to be able to resort to the excuse ‘it’s only natural, you’re human’ but that isn’t good enough. Christ was human. But was he anxious/worried?

Gethsemane is as near as we get to an answer. It was an extreme circumstance, of course, but nevertheless a human one.

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. (Matthew 26:36-44)

My commentary on Philippians says that Paul could say what he did about anxiety because in the previous verse he reminds the reader that “The Lord is near”. At Gethsemane, perhaps Jesus was just beginning to wonder where God was in his experience and what role God was playing. The following day we have Jesus, at least in the Gospel according to Mark crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When I was training, I said to my New Testament supervisor that I believed this ‘cry of dereliction’ was still a cry of faith, however. Jesus went the whole way for us and never gave in. He cried to God even when there seemed little or no evidence that God was any longer ‘in on the act’.

On Monday I will conduct a funeral for someone whose favourite hymn is “There is a Green Hill”. It includes the lines, “We may not know, we cannot tell what pains he had to bear, but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there.” He died alone and yet he died still believing and was vindicated in his resurrection. And that is why he could promise at the end of Matthew, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He’d been there and done that etc.
Is that why we need not be anxious? What do you reckon?