If we see love we see God

 

One of the questions my director Jeff asks me from time to time is “how are things with you and God?” And I answer truthfully. A bit distant. I feel close to Jesus; from time to time, I sense the Holy Spirit and see the Holy Spirit at work in others. But God? God is distant.

Of the three persons of the Trinity, God is the most distant for me. If we think of the Holy Trinity as a triangle, then it is a very narrow pointy one for me, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit at the bottom corners and God a very distant top one. I’m near those bottom points.

Jeff keeps picking away at this point with me. In fact, I know he'll ask about it when we meet back up in a few weeks.

When over a year ago now I was told I was due another sabbatical, and started to think of a title / objective, I knew it had to be about finding God. But how do we find God? It's a point I raised with Jeff. Between us we agreed that God is everywhere, and God is in all situations. It's just a case of being aware, and perhaps purposely looking for God.

Jeff said to me “Have you ever found yourself in a strange town with a letter to post.  It's a strange area but if you purposely go around looking for a post box you will find one. Therefore, I suggest if you purposely go looking for God, seeing signs of God, you will find him and them.”

Of course this brings up some big questions. How do we see God? How do we know God?

In 1 John 4 we get some really helpful guidance and pointers.

Verse 16

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

The key point of this verse is God is love.

With this in mind I started to get an idea of what I wanted to think about on my sabbatical. Looking for signs of God through a camera lens. In other words, while on my travels looking for examples of God's love in the world. And if possible, capturing that in a photograph.

I didn't need to look too far for the first sign of God's love. I live with a sign of God’s love all the time and have done so for almost 38 years of marriage. In the six weeks we were away, we spent 42 days together that's 1008 hours together all the time. Well not quite all the time - we didn't do everything together!

But my point is we spent a lot of time in each other’s company. And God’s love was there right next to me.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

But what signs of God did I see outside?

I kept remembering Jeff’s post-box analogy. In other words, we'll see God's love if we look for it.

I got a reminder of this in the words of a book I read during sabbatical. Perhaps surprisingly it wasn't some great theological tome. Rather it was in a crime novel I picked up in an Oxfam shop. It was a novel written by Robert Galbraith - the pseudonym of JK Rowling. The book was called “Career of evil.” You may think it would be hard to find words of advice on looking for God in such a book. But in the book the detective - Cormoran Strike – says to himself “You can find beauty nearly anywhere if you stop to look for it.”

I took this to mean that in the beauty we can find anywhere, if we stop to look for it, we will also find God’s love.

One of the first expeditions I made to go and seek signs of God, was to Bath. And I didn't have to wait long. I was sat outside a Costa Coffee near the entrance to the Roman baths. A busker was playing the trumpet and he started to play “What a wonderful world” the song made famous by Louis Armstrong. It is a song I have always liked even from a being a small boy.

A few moments later, as the busker carried on playing, a little girl perhaps three or four came skipping down the street holding the hand of a lady who I assume was grandma. Grandma and the little girl were giggling, and grandma was singing Lou Lou skip to the Lou skip to the Lou my darling. There was a sign of love in the joy of the little girl and in the smile on the grandma's face.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

I have no idea whether grandma and granddaughter know God. Nor the trumpeter for that matter. But God knows them, and God's love is in them as God's love is in us all.

I'd identified certain places I wanted to revisit on our travels as they had some significance for me in my faith journey. Therefore, our itinerary made sure we went to these places.

I believe Yorkshire people refer to their county as God's own country. I've always thought this a bit presumptuous. When we all know that Wales is God's own country. Even so Yorkshire has played a part in my journey of faith. It was at Ripon cathedral I first felt the call to preach back in 1991. My “John Wesley heart being strangely warmed moment” I suppose. We revisited the cathedral this time and I sat roughly where I thought I'd sat that day back in 1991 and said a prayer. A prayer of thanks for being called to this ministry and a prayer asking for God's help as I continue it. But I can't say I felt God's presence particularly strongly in that place.

Earlier that day we'd been to Fountains Abbey. It is a beautiful tranquil place. And thinking of those words said by Cormoran Strike again, “you can find beauty nearly anywhere if you stop to look for it” God was certainly there. But all I could think of as we wandered around the ruins and the beautiful grounds, was how the vision of the 13 monks from Saint Mary's in York who had established this place in 1132, had been lost. They had purposely left the extravagant and rowdy living of the monastery in York, seeking to live a devout and simple lifestyle elsewhere. To be closer to God.

But over time the Abbey became rich off the back of wool production, lead mining cattle rearing horse breeding and quarrying. All from lands given to the Abbey. And although the fortunes of the Abbey were reduced due to the Black Death, and raids from the Scots, money was still found to build the magnificent buildings we see in ruin today.

I couldn't help but feel that those original 13 would have despaired to see how their vision was lost. How God may have become more distant.

But if I did not glimpse God in the buildings of Ripon and Fountains Abbey, I kept glimpsing him at work through people.

In the love shown to us by friends we visited in the Lake District. Friends who took us out for a very nice lunch as their treat. The same friends who were incredibly supportive in all manner of ways as we entered ministry. The same friends who in fact prompted me to offer for ministry - even though it took five or six years for me to answer God’s call.

And we saw signs of God in friends we caught up with in Scotland. Signs of God through the love one shows to the other as he cares for her.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

If I didn’t see signs of God in Ripon Cathedral or Fountains Abbey there were two other places, we visited where I saw signs of God and felt his presence.

Firstly, on Iona. This was the third time I have been there as an adult and as before I found it to be “a thin place” where God is very present. Within half an hour of us being there I had an experience of God’s love that I cannot put into words. I suppose a sense of being humbled but also a sense of being loved and a sense of joy and peace.

And in Iona Abbey on Sunday morning, I had an experience of being part of God’s family like never before as with several hundred others I received communion.

I must say communion featured a number of times during my sabbatical in all kinds of ways, from low church at Cirencester Baptist. to very High Church at Southwark Cathedral. And I sensed God in each one.

And it was at another communion service this time at Malmesbury Abbey that God’s love was shown. The church was busy – there was a large Christening party as well as usual worshippers. Yet before the service one of the priests came over to us and said ”You’re visitors, aren’t you? Welcome”. And during the communion the other priest when giving us the bread and wine said a prayer for us both.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

In small Northumbrian village called Warkworth we went into the pretty parish church of St Lawrence. But I was immediately stuck by God being there and his people following him. They support a foodbank in Newcastle, they’d just been awarded Bronze eco church status no mean feat for such an old church. And from the large poster in the entrance vestibule, they have a very active Messy Church for children.

So, what have I learned? What do I bring back into ministry?

As I was putting these thoughts down on paper the Bible passage from John’s Gospel came to mind particularly these verses:

⁷ If you know me, you will know^[d] my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

⁸ Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ ⁹ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

I’ve realised that I have been beating myself up about not knowing God, about not seeing signs of God. I’ve realised that in speaking to Philip, Jesus made it clear – if we know Jesus, if we have “seen Jesus”, if we have experienced his love, then we have “seen God” we have experienced God. For God is love. Love most evident in his son.

Over this last couple of weeks we have seen plenty of hatred directed by racists thugs intent on causing trouble. You may have an opinion on the rights or wrongs of offering homes to refugees and asylum seekers. But I hope you’d agree that the actions of these mobs is wrong. They are trying to get their point over through criminality and terrorism. That is just evil.

Yet  “you can find beauty nearly anywhere if you stop to look for it.” One such moment was a photo I saw of an elderly Muslim gentleman, the morning after a riot, taking tea and biscuits to weary looking police officers.

In Southport people came out the next day to clean up the streets, Builders came and rebuilt the wall of the mosque.

In Middlesborough a man originally from Nigeria, Brendan Nwabichie who is working as a carer while he puts himself from university. Brendan Nwabichie returned from a 12-hour shift to find the car he needed for work and to get to university had been burned out by rioters. He said he "went to the bathroom and cried".

A fundraising page set up by his employer, Clare's Care UK, has raised more than £37,000 for a new car.

In Liverpool a fundraiser launched by a lady called Alex McCormick, to help rebuild the library destroyed by rioters has so far raised over £200,000.

A Scottish Baptist minister called Oswald Chambers said this:

God and love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. — Oswald Chambers

If we see love, we see God.