Faithfully laid aside by God

 

Reflection 10^th January 2020 Covenant Sunday

 

I may have said before, but a standing joke amongst many ministers is “They didn’t teach us about that in college”. And it is true, all ministers encounter situations in ministry that we’ve not encountered before, (though I’m sure the same applies in all walks of life.) But I can definitely say they didn’t teach me how to be a minister during Covid at college.

The last nine months have been very much learning on the job. Thankfully, early on I developed the pattern of the weekly Order of Service and Reflection. And many of you have told me how helpful you find these which is a relief.

Nonetheless I must admit to finding ministry in this way to be strange to say the least. Not being able to lead worship in the way I feel called to doesn’t sit well. Similarly, not being able to meet with you whether after service, or at a coffee morning or at a discussion group, doesn’t seem right.

With this in mind, last Sunday I felt down hearted. When all this started last March, I didn’t think (who did?) that we’d still be facing such restrictions in January (and for a few months more I imagine). But then in one of those “God moves in mysterious ways” moments, I received an email from a friend.

My friend emailed me to ask whether I’d been listening to the morning service on Radio 4 at ten past eight. I hadn’t, but my friend told me that the service had included this piece from Cardinal John Henry Newman:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.”

The timing by my friend could not have been better as I was already starting to think about our Covenant Service and what I would say.

Cardinal Newman’s words seem to be an excellent tie into our Covenant service. That reminder to us of what it means to be a servant of Christ. A reminder that in serving Christ we can find ourselves in situations we wouldn’t have planned for ourselves. That in serving Christ we can find ourselves being led to do things we wouldn’t normally do.  That we can be serving Christ without knowing it.

Our Covenant Service contains these words

Christ has many services to be done: some are easy, others are difficult;
some bring honour, others bring reproach; some are suitable to our natural inclinations and material interests, others are contrary to both; in some we may please Christ and please ourselves; in others we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.
Yet the power to do all these things is given to us in Christ, who strengthens us.

The words of the Covenant Service can speak to us in different ways at different times of our lives. The words remind us that as followers of Jesus we are not promised that all will be well. The words remind us that there will be times when we feel as if we’ve been shunted into a siding off the mainline. But the words remind us that at all times we are bound to Christ and, that in the highs and lows, Christ is with us giving us the strength to go on. Perhaps to enjoy and perhaps to endure. Perhaps to laugh and perhaps to cry.

You may remember that older versions of the Covenant service used a phrase “put me to suffering”. To modern ears it was very problematical. We think of suffering as to feel pain or grief. Or to endure something. Or to sustain loss. But there is a Biblical meaning that is now archaic in modern English. To suffer can mean “to permit” or “to allow”

Think back to the King James Bible and Matthew 19 when Jesus chided the disciples for preventing children coming to him:

¹⁴ But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 19:14 KJV

In that older English Jesus was saying permit the children to come to me or allow the children to come to me.

“put me to suffering” then is more about asking God for his help so that we might permit ourselves or allow ourselves to be fully disciples of Christ. In the good times and the difficult times.

We are saying to Jesus if my following You and Your purpose for my life should lead to joyful consequences and victories to me, I will gladly accept that please ALLOW it.  But if following You and Your purpose for my life should bring painful consequences and seeming defeats, I will bravely accept that too, please ALLOW it.

I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,

“Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. He knows what He is about.” Cardinal Newman

I have set my rainbow in the clouds

The following is based on a sermon preached at Central Methodist Church on 7th January 2018 as part of the Covenant Service.

Just before Christmas, I went to the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol to see an exhibition of work by Grayson Perry. Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases. There were examples of his pots but there were also sculptures and tapestries he’d made too.

One tapestry that held my attention was one he made in 2017 called “Battle of Britain.” It was a large tapestry 3 metres wide by 7 metres long.

In the foreground we see a teenage boy, mobile phone in hand. Sat on his bike overlooking a depressing landscape.

To the boy’s left is a railway line and backing on to the line is a row of houses. These are clearly meant to represent something like a run-down council estate.

Taking up the centre of the tapestry is the scene of a park. But the children’s playground features broken equipment and a concrete skateboard park is covered in graffiti.
Beyond the park is some farmland. A lone tractor ploughs a field, but the tractor churns out dirty black exhaust smoke. Somehow the land looks poor and it is partly flooded.
In the distance we see electricity pylons. There is an elevated section of motorway clogged with traffic.

It is clearly winter as none of the trees have leaves and there are black, ominous clouds in the sky.

All in all, it is a very depressing picture. And yet, a large rainbow straddles the centre section.

I was transfixed by the tapestry and the story it told. For to me the desolation of the landscape conveying hopelessness, was transformed by the rainbow. A rainbow symbolising hope. A rainbow serving as a reminder of God’s love. I don’t know if Grayson Perry meant it in that way. But that is what it conveyed to me.

We all know the story of Noah. The building of the ark, the animals going in two by two. The flood. The rain lasting 40 days and nights. The birds flying out to see if there was any land. And then finally the rainbow.

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Genesis 9: 8 – 11

After the flood sent to punish the earth for sin, God showed his love and forgiveness by establishing a covenant, an agreement between God and Noah and his decedants and through them all people in future generations.

And the promise was at one level that never again would God punish the earth in this way.

13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind Genesis 9: 13 – 15

But God’s covenant made with Noah, and symbolised by the rainbow, is much more than that. God’s covenant with Noah is designed to show the world how much God loves the world. Every person, every animal, every fish in the sea, every plant. God loves everything. God’s covenant, God’s promise, is built on his love for each one of us. It is a promise that runs throughout the Bible. It is a promise that is shown in Jesus.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

God loves the world so much, God loves each one of us so much, that God no longer seeks to punish the world but seeks to save the world through his son.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17

I’ve used the word Love, but perhaps we should be thinking more about God’s grace.

Grace is God's unmerited favour. It is kindness from God that we don't deserve. There is nothing we have done, nor can ever do to earn this favour. It is a gift from God.

Webster's New World College Dictionary provides this theological definition of grace: "The unmerited love and favour of God toward human beings; divine influence acting in a person to make the person pure, morally strong; the condition of a person brought to God's favour through this influence; a special virtue, gift, or help given to a person by God."

Or as I’ve heard it explained with this acrostic:

God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense

As part of the service the Methodist Covenant service we sing a hymn by Charles Wesley

“Come let us use the grace divine, and all, with one accord, in a perpetual covenant join ourselves to Christ the Lord.”

Through God’s grace to us, through his Covenant stretching back to Noah and forward to today and beyond through Jesus Christ, we are assured of eternal life. And in return for this gift of grace, this gift of salvation, we promise to set aside ourselves and do what is right for Jesus Christ.

That is what Wesley’s hymn is saying and that is what we promise in the Covenant service. As the words of the service have it.

“Let us give ourselves to him, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace.”

Over the last 16 months since I have been ill and unable to participate in active ministry, I have had much time to reflect on those words.

“Let us give ourselves to him, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace.”

That’s not to say I knew them off the top of my head. It is only in re-reading the Covenant service that the words registered. But I was very familiar with the sentiment.
One thing I hope not to do now I am back in semi harness, is to dwell too much on what happened to me and my family when I was taken ill. But that said, I want to touch on something I have experienced time and again over these 16 months.

When I was rushed into hospital on 2nd September 2016 the doctor at RUH told me what was wrong, that I would have to be transferred to Southmead for an immediate operation and that what had happened was life threatening. At that moment I experienced a peace like I have never known before. I gave myself to God, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace.

Now believe me, I’d rather not have gone through that. And I certainly wish my family and friends hadn’t gone through all the heartache they experienced.

But I can say with certainty, that by giving myself “to him, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace” I am here to tell the tale.

Over New Year we spent time away with some close friends staying on a farm in Carmarthenshire. On New Year’s Day, we went for a walk in Laugharne – Dylan Thomas’ home. It is a pretty little place. The sun was shining on the river estuary. There were flocks of sea birds and wading birds on the mud flats including my favourite the oystercatcher. As we got back to the cars and took one last look across the estuary I was the first to see a rainbow. I think to everyone else, it was just a pretty sight. But to me, it was a reminder that God is good. And by his grace I am restored to you.

13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.