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.

UK civil unrest August 2024

 In the images you will find a letter I've written today to the churches in the North Wiltshire Methodist people. 

Britain's Holy Trinity - profit, speculation and consumption?

Drawing on 1 Kings 12: 10 – 16, Proverbs 1: 8 – 19, Matthew 12: 22 – 30

The passage from 1 Kings needs a brief explanation. Following the death of King Solomon, Rehoboam succeeded Solomon as King. Rehoboam was taking over a united kingdom that had existed under Saul, David and Solomon. It was united in the sense that all the 12 tribes of Israel had accepted Saul, David and Solomon as their king. But things were now about to change.
On his succession to the throne, Rehoboam called a meeting of the tribes in order for them to give their approval to his reign.
1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king.
No doubt Rehoboam thought this was pretty much a formality. But things were about to take a dramatic change. Enter Jeroboam.
Jeroboam was the son of Nebat a member of the Tribe of Ephraim. While still young, Jeroboam was promoted by Solomon to be chief superintendent of the "burnden", i.e. the bands of forced labourers.
Influenced by the words of the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 11:29-39), Jeroboam began to form conspiracies with the view of becoming king of the ten tribes; but these were discovered, and he fled to Egypt, where he remained under the protection of Shoshenq I until the death of Solomon.
It would seem that the tribes appointed Jeroboam as some kind of negotiator (or at least he took the role on himself.) For we get the impression that he went to speak to Rehoboam.
4 “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labour and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”
It’s pretty clear what this means. Under Solomon the tribes felt they had been harshly treated. So they were now saying that if Rehoboam rules more fairly and justly, then they would remain loyal to him.
Rehoboam decides he needs to discuss this with his advisors. Firstly he consults the senior statesmen as it were. A bit like I suppose the Queen speaking to Winston Churchill when she first came to the throne.
6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
7 They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favourable answer, they will always be your servants.”
It seems like sound advice. However, Rehoboam wasn’t too impressed with the answer he was given so instead he decided he’d ask someone else. And so he spoke to the young men he had grown up with. And they gave him the answer he wanted to hear:
10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’—tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. 11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
And sure enough, three days later when Jeroboam came back to meet him Rehoboam said exactly that.
Unsurprisingly the tribes were not impressed by what Rehoboam said and this led to the kingdom being split. With the kingdom of Judah in the south and the kingdom of Israel in the north. Originally only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the House of David (Rehoboam) but soon after the tribe of Benjamin joined. In essence the northern tribes felt shut out of Rehoboam’s plans for government and although Rehoboam tried to join the two kingdoms together the northern tribes felt rebuffed by him. Particularly his harsh threats
15 So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfil the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
The king did not listen to his people leading to unrest, disruption and the country fracturing.
The two kingdoms, Judah in the south and Israel in the north, co-existed uneasily after the split, until the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians in c.722/721 left Judah as the sole remaining kingdom. And after that point only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are accounted for in history. The other 10 disappear from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria.
What is it with rulers and politicians that they don’t do listening? They always know best. They listen to those who tell them what they want to hear not to those who tell the uncomfortable truths.
In the light of the recent riots it would be very easy for me to draw the analogy between Rehoboam and David Cameron or Nick Clegg or Michael Gove or Teresa May. But I’m not going to do that. And in fact as much as I am no admirer of them, I suspect that Ed Milliband, Harriet Harmon or Ed Balls would be exactly the same if needs be. Listening to their advisers rather than the people or the wisest people in society. The elders of you like.
No doubt in a few months there will be a public enquiry set up to look into the recent riots. Just like the Scarman inquiry was set up to look into the causes of the Brixton riots in 1981. In 1981 the Scarman inquiry found that: the riots then were a spontaneous outburst of built-up resentment sparked by particular incidents. Lord Scarman stated that "complex political, social and economic factors" created a "disposition towards violent protest". The Scarman report highlighted problems of racial disadvantage and inner-city decline, warning that "urgent action" was needed to prevent racial disadvantage becoming an "endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society".
In essence the Scarman report found that the Brixton riots were the result of a backlash against the police. This time it seems that there is no so much of a racial element and not so much of s resentment towards the police. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised that a 2011 report would also find "complex political, social and economic factors”.
We can all put forward views about the cause of the riots – ill-discipline in the home or in the school or both; yobbish behaviour; pure criminality. I am sure all these contributed. But for what it is worth my feeling is that what we are seeing with the riots is evidence of the moral breakdown in our society.
Again, it would be easy for me to have a go at this government. But that would be wrong. Because the moral breakdown has been going on for decades. In fact I suppose we could say it has been going on since the time of Adam and Eve. But perhaps things have got worse in recent years. Some might say the swinging 60s were the start of it. Some might blame Thatcher’s Britain. There’s a good case for saying that despite Tony Blair saying his government would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, they weren’t.
I don’t know where we could start. One thing I do believe though is that the moral decay is not just limited to housing estates in Tottenham or here in Swindon for that matter. It is rife throughout our society.
On Wednesday morning (10th August 2011) on the Today programme, a French journalist called Agnes Poirer was interviewed about what the French papers were saying. She was reminded that after all the French know something about rioting. She agreed. But said that French riots can generally be pinpointed as relating to something specific e.g. the Paris riots in 2005 were directed against the police following the death of a teenager.
But she said she felt the English riots of 2011 were motivated not so much as challenging the government or the police, but rather they were fuelled by envy and greed. I was so challenged by what she what saying that I went back and used the listen again feature on the internet.
“Looting is not a sign of protest. Looting is a sign of disgruntled consumers. It is a sign of consumption.”
“London is the epitome of inequality in the Western world. The gap between the richest and poorest in London is the widest of any place in the Western world.”
She went on to make the point that given this it is not surprising that riots turn to looting with people taking goods that in many cases they could not otherwise afford.
Then, this next quote was the one that really got me thinking. She said:
“Profit, speculation and consumption are Britain’s Holy Trinity.”
She made the point that wealth and acquiring wealth and possessions is at the heart of our society. And this is wrong. Whilst acknowledging that French society has its problems too “Money is not at the heart of French society.”
Agnes Poirer writes for The Guardian amongst others. So her thoughts might be regarded as a bit left wing. Imagine my surprise therefore to find in the Daily Telegraph on Friday an article saying a very similar thing. An article in which Peter Oborne, a confirmed right winger makes the point that:
“ … there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington.”
And he goes on to criticise not only politicians but businessmen such as Sir Philip Green and Sir Richard Branson who on the one hand are rewarded with knighthoods but at the same time move their companies off shore so as not to pay tax in the UK.
“Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.
“The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.”
Now one thing a preacher should never do is find a passage of scripture, or more precisely a verse from scripture, and use it to prove a point. I have to confess that I now going to break that rule, because I want to take a verse from the passage from Matthew 12:
25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.
Jesus was talking about overcoming sin specifically Satan. And showing that Satan is conquered because his kingdom has been divided and is fighting against itself because of Jesus conquering the power of sin.
Nevertheless, I do think this verse is really powerful
25 “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.
For it shows us how the sin in our society – greed, excess wealth, avarice, corruption, is dividing our society and ruining it.
I feel that until we see the values of God’s Kingdom established, or at the very least people becoming reacquainted with those values as a starter, the unrest, the dissatisfaction, the cynicism in our society will continue to grow. Until we see people valuing God’s kingdom, people will continue to worship the Golden Calf of money and fame and future.
Anne Atkins on Thought for Day on Today Thursday 11th August referred to a series of letters The Times published 100 years ago all on the topic of “What’s wrong with the world?” One correspondent wrote in reply “Dear Sirs, I am. Yours faithfully G. K. Chesterton.”
Given Chesterton’s Catholic faith that is a very Christian reply. Because it is always easy to blame someone else. But the truth is we need to realise that all human beings are flawed to a greater or lesser degree and that includes you and me. And whilst I don’t see you lot looting the Co-Op after the service, all human beings have the potential for doing bad, evil sinful things.
But whilst all of us are the thing that is wrong with the world, those of us who believe in God can show that there is a better way.
I was greatly moved by the humility of Tariq Jahan the father of one of the men murdered in Birmingham during the riots there. The way Mr Jahan called for peace and in subsequent interviews has talked of how God’s love and the need for forgiveness, is a glimmer of light and hope in a dark world.
If each of us is what’s wrong with the world, then equally we can be the thing that is right with the world. People of faith have an important role in healing the damage to our society and to remind those in Parliament that there is another way. The way of the kingdom of God and all that means for all people including the rioter in Tottenham, the MP and the businessman. A way demonstrated by the people who came to sweep up perhaps?
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

© David Gray 14th August 2011