Dry bones

Methodists' Sundays are governed by “the Plan”. To the uninitiated “the Plan” sounds vaguely like something out of a James Bond film. “I’ve been expecting you Mr. Bond. I have the Plan!” Sadly, it’s not that exciting. The Plan is the Preaching Plan, the rota of who is leading worship on a particular Sunday.

A quick glance at “the Plan” shows that on the first Sunday of Lent I was taking the service at one of my little chapels, Studley. It was also St David’s Day. Now the fifth Sunday in Lent is here. Where has that time gone?

I’ve just opened the sermon I preached that Sunday and see that I talked about the need for us to care for the environment as God has placed us on this planet to be his caretakers. It seemed an appropriate topic for Lent. And there were a number of initiatives by various churches focusing on this theme.

But looking at my sermon notes for that day I see I made no reference to Corona Virus or Covid 19. I may have mentioned this in my prayers but certainly not in my sermon. 5 weeks ago, it didn’t seem “big news” in this country. Now of course life seems very different.

I suspect that for many people who started off Lent with the good intentions of being more environmentally aware, things have changed. That intention to buy less food and not throw away so much might have gone with the panic buying of food in supermarkets. Though on the positive side, a report on the BBC News web site a week ago showed that, for now anyway, air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have fallen across the world due to Corona virus dramatically reducing the number of car journeys.

So far, one of the challenges for me as a minister during the Corona virus epidemic, is in trying to find a way of being your minister during this time.

There is no such thing as a typical week for me. But broadly speaking I have a service (sometimes two) on a Sunday. Each day I do some Bible study and make time for prayer. On Monday I start to think about the service for the following Sunday. This means reading the Bible for the suggested passages for the next Sunday. Usually by Monday afternoon I have a rough idea of what I want to talk about and can prepare an Order of Service with my hymns.

As the week progresses, the sermon will get written. But this is interspersed with church meetings, leading Bible studies, pastoral care and paperwork. All enough to keep me busy.

But now, many of these things are on hold. I can’t have face to face contact with people (though I can phone and write), I don’t have meetings or Bible study groups. There is, if truth be told, a sense of guilt.

Although I won’t have a service this Sunday (or on any Sunday for some time by the look of it) I have prepared an order of service for you to use if you wish. And I decided to look at the Bible passages for the fifth Sunday of Lent. One of those passages is taken from Ezekiel.

In the passage, Ezekiel, a prophet living with the Jewish people exiled to Babylon, sees a valley of dry bones. Skeletons. It is a vision. And we think the dry bones are meant to represent the Jewish people. They symbolise that they were spiritually dead. The Jewish people had turned their backs on God and in their sinfulness God has allowed them to be taken captive into Babylon. But in Ezekiel 37 God is prepared to give them a second chance. God is prepared to breathe new life into the Jewish people, the dead bones.

One of the Bible commentators I read, said Ezekiel was being presented with a vision of how God saw the world. A valley of dry bones. Lifeless.

In preparing a service to send out to members of my congregations for their own use on Sunday, I came across a prayer written by Donald Hinton:

To stop and think; that is the gift God offers in our Lent.
To pause and reflect; that is what God lays within our reach.
To look life in the face and ask its meaning; that is the opportunity God gives.
To see within ourselves and ask just who we are; that is an awesome task God offers.
And then step out to meet the Easter call. Donald Hinton Called to Praise

The prayer though could have been written for the situation we find ourselves in now. “To stop and think; that is the gift that God offers in Lent.” God presents us with this opportunity every Lent, but normally I for one am too busy to accept the gift.

This year God has taken his gift wrapped it up in brightly coloured paper, put a very big ribbon on it and put it right in my face. I cannot avoid the gift.

For me maybe a good thing that will come out of the enforced times of reflection we are all having to go through, will be the chance to look at the world through God’s eyes. To look at my own dry bones and the dry bones around me and then “prophesy to these bones and say to them ‘Now hear the word of the Lord’”?

In the future I’m sure many of us will look back on this time and try and think about what it meant to each of us. But I hope that each of us will use the opportunity now and in the future to consider what God is doing and what he wants to join in with.

Please take care. You’re in my prayers. Please pray for one another.


You can now listen to the all new "Not a normal vicar" podcast at https://soundcloud.com/revdgray-1/not-a-normal-vicar-1

It's alright for the birds, they don't want baked beans

At 5am this morning, I woke up to go to the toilet. My first thought was “makes a change from 3am”. As I went into the bathroom, I realised it was a bit chilly as I’d left the window open yesterday. I was about to shut it. But then, through the open window, I heard the dawn chorus for the first time this spring.

I’m not good at identifying bird song. I can just about identify a blackbird and a robin, so I don’t know what birds were singing. That doesn’t matter. It was the tweets and whistles and chirps that combined to form a glorious sound.

I returned to bed, and for a while all seemed right with the world.

But then today started.

My wife said around 7am she was going to Sainsburys to get some shopping. She was back within 10 minutes as she couldn’t get into the car park. It was annoying. We could manage for a couple of days no problem but the day seemed gloomier. And what if things weren’t better tomorrow?

We had breakfast and I suggested that we might get what we needed at Lidl. My wife was a bit sceptical, but we went.

Good old Lidl. We got 90% of the things on the shopping list (no sugar, cornflakes or baked beans.) But we’re ok. And other shoppers there were being sensible. (Apart from the bloke with at least 10 chickens in his trolley who was told in no uncertain terms by a member of staff to put 8 back in the fridge.) The lady on the till looked tired and stressed. I always thanks checkout operators and try and chat. But I made sure she knew how we appreciated what she and her colleagues were doing.

The day seemed brighter. And not just because, for once, I was proved right!

We then went off to the nearby little town of Corsham, to our favourite butcher and got what we needed there. We got some fruit and veg in the green grocers and paid a very important visit to the Corsham bookshop. (A gem of a place that needs support. What we’ve saved in my wife not spending on petrol to get to work this week, we used on buying books and CDs!)

I was on my mobility scooter, so I trundled back to the car to put the scooter away and the shopping in whilst my wife popped into Coop to see if they had the missing bits. My wife needed our one spare bag, so I dumped everything on the back seat and loaded my scooter in to boot. A young woman with a baby was next to me. She put the baby in her car and put the push chair away. Then she said to me “Are you ok? Do you need any help? I’ve got a spare bag for your shopping if you need it. You can have it no problem.” I thanked her and said my wife would soon be back. “That’s ok then. As long as you’re alright” and she gave a me a smile.

It was as if the drizzle had stopped and the sun had come out. The world seemed a better place.

(Coop had Cornflakes and sugar but no baked beans.)

Coming home I recalled a Bible passage, Matthew 6: 25 – 34, in which Jesus reminds his followers of the importance of keeping perspective on things and not worrying. And of not getting swept up in the things of the world.

25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? NIV

The birds of the dawn chorus seemed to be care free. They didn’t worry about toilet rolls, or cornflakes or baked beans.

I know it’s an easy thing to say “Don’t worry”. It is natural to worry. We are living in unprecedented times. Nothing like this has happened in most of our life times.

(And by the way, if I hear one more 50 year old idiot say “We survived the war” they may find that a walking stick, deployed in Christian love, hurts! Most people in this country were not alive “during the war”. And many who were probably were too young to remember rationing clearly or would not wish to experience rationing again.)

It is worrying when we see pictures of supermarkets with empty shelves. It is worrying if you’ve been told to work from home. It is worrying if you run a business and you wonder whether it will survive. It is worrying if you have a gig economy job that won’t pay sick pay. It is worrying when you’re sat on a checkout in Lidl coming in to contact with many people each day. It is worrying if you’re a medic dealing with really sick people and you wonder if you’ll catch the disease yourself and haven't been given the Personal Protective Equipment you need.

I'm worried. I worry about my own health. The health of my family. My elderly parents.

Covid 19 is worrying.

But for those of us with a faith all we can do is trust in those words of Jesus. Words that Eugene Patterson in The Message brings right up to date:

Matthew 6:25-34 The Message (MSG)

25-26 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
27-29 “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen colour and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
30-33 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Still worried? If all else fails, get up at 5am, go in to the bathroom, open the window and listen to the dawn chorus. Then you’ll understand what Jesus means.