Eternal Echoes

New ragged cross...

 

This morning I will be dedicating a new sculpture as part of a Back to Church Sunday/ Church Anniversary Service. It is a cross that is filled with symbolism, you can read more about it on the artists blog; The New Ragged Cross. I really like the sculpture, the way that it shows the life of the area it will be set in and that as a cross it continues to challenge us with the creativity and passion of a God who turned an instrument of torture into a symbol for hope.

People recognise the cross, and it evokes various reactions from them. Recently two of the Journey Into Wholeness Stalls I helped to set up had different experiences with folk reacting to the crosses they used as a part of their displays. One group were using a metal sculpture, a welded piece by a local artist, visitors to the stall found it harsh and hard, feeling that it spoke of death rather than offered life. The second group used a cross made from reeds and woven with ivy, and this too dre strong reactions from folk. One of the other stall holders asked if we minded if she meditated upon the cross, saying that she drew great energies from it...

We wear crosses around our necks and in our ears,  tattoosof crosses are amongst the most popular designs. We place them in churches and on waysides, often folk with have a cross somewhere in their homes, and all of this is done without to much thought. They have become for many of us familiar, and even comfortable symbols, but they shouldn't be. Like the crosses at the two Journey Into Wholeness Stalls they should provoke strong reactions from us. The New Ragged Cross is sited in a hall used by the community. I hope that it will speak powerfully to folk, and that it might challenge us again to consider the message of hope that it represents...

Here is my dedication prayer:

 Loving God, we gather to dedicate this cross,

This New Ragged Cross to this space and this time…

 

May it speak to those who look upon it in new, life-giving, and challenging ways,

 

May we find surprises within it; as it speaks to us,

Echoing life’s joys and delights

Life’s realities, struggles and pains…

 

Lord we thank you for the way that you transformed an instrument of torture into a symbol of hope.

 

May it remind us that the path to resurrection was not easy,

But for love of the world you traveled it anyway.

 

And so we dedicate this cross,

and with it ourselves to your ways.

 

Im Jesus name, and for the sake of your kingdom revealed amongst us

 

AMEN

   

Some close up views of the cross, it is filled with different images.

Love's celebration- a retelling of the parable of the Prodigal son from the servants perspective. For Back to Church Sunday.

I have to say that he surprised me; even though I’ve worked for his family for years, he surprised me.

 

It was not that he welcomed the boy home, for I’d seen the effect the young lads’ disappearance had had on him. How he’d longed for news, how he spent days with his eyes fixed on the horizon just waiting for his son to come home.

 

Oh we knew he loved his boys, when they were tiny he would watch them sleep, and he was a “hands on” father; he would cuddle them as well as chastise them, and he didn’t care that others though him odd.

 

He loved to tell them stories too, although it has been a while now though since they hung on his every word…

 

But he has never stopped loving them…

 

No what surprised me was the party; a big celebration was to be thrown, a celebration that sent us scurrying hither and thither; selecting the finest fatted calf, bringing robes, preparing a feast! Taking invitations out to the neighbours—“Come celebrate with me” he was saying!

 

The boy didn’t ask for a party, in fact he looked rather shame faced, and well he might, but a party is what he got, his father was determined to celebrate!

 

The boy been gone for two years, he’d demanded his inheritance which was as good as wishing his father dead, but the old man, gave it willingly and the ungrateful boy just took it and left, left without a backward glance.

 

 At first we’d get reports, he was living the high life, surrounded by so called friends who were happy for him to lavish gifts on them. Fine friends they were, when his money ran out so did they. He hit rock bottom soon after that, ended up working on a pig farm, and that is when the reports stopped arriving. When we heard of the famine in the area I guess we’d feared the worst….

 

I’ll give the boy some credit though, he didn’t come swanning home full of confidence, he’d come prepared to be a servant. The party surprised him too!

 

The old man was smiling now, his eyes were shinning and he kept chuckling to himself- “he’s home” he kept repeating, “he’s home”.

 

And then another surprise, we were all invited to the party, a place at the table was made for everyone, servants and slaves, young and old, rich and poor, male and female; nobody was to be left out….

 

I guess that is partly why the older boy objected so harshly; his younger brother squandered a fortune, and here he was being celebrated, and everyone was expected to join in the rejoicing! To say he was angry would be an understatement; he simply could not understand his father’s reaction. OK accept the boy back as a slave, but as a son, and as a son to be celebrated that was too much!!! Surely he should have to earn any show of love and respect.

 

But love was being freely given; love was being lavished on the boy…

 

And love was determined to celebrate and not hold back, the celebration was open to all…

 

And all who accepted the invitation were received by love’s exuberant desire to celebrate…

If we keep the Sabbath....

Drawing herself upright she spoke, clearly, controlling her anger and frustration;

"If we kept the Sabbath as a Holy Day, as we should, things would be different."

Would they I wondered to myself, for her children though they had been brought up "well" are hardly ever seen here, and it is not because they live far away. They are not the only ones, countless people of my generation  ( and older)  struggle to relate to the God their parents wanted them to worship...

But then if they dare to look around those parents would have to acknowledge that many of their own generation have rejected that God.

And here I am, a convert by the grace of God with no rule bound Sunday School baggage to drag behind me wondering how to relate to these parents and their children...

Children who were told to be quiet in church, dressed in their Sunday best and not allowed to play. Children whose concept of being a Christian is a long way from anything I read in the gospels; children who heard not a message of freedom but a list of thou shat's and shalt not's...

The parents bemoan the state of the nation, and refuse to see that their children's devotion to their families on Sundays as a positive thing...

...and so the cycle of conversations goes around and around...

I want to break the loop, to hold before them the Jesus who ate with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors and drew them beyond their sins into fullness of life. Not a rule bound diminished life but a life compelled by a new found love and freely given grace, a life that offered more than cheap sex, and drunken stupors...

...a life that celebrated everyday, not just the Sabbath, and called every day Holy...

This Jesus is the Jesus I encountered, the one I know and follow. The trouble is he is still shocking, for he challenges the comfortable notions of many, and looks upon his church and weeps for those who have lost their way, returned to rules and boxed in thinking....

"If we kept the Sabbath", her words return to haunt me again...

When did she get lost? I wonder to myself...has she ever know grace....

Jesus said "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."(Matthew 11: 28-30)

Picture taken at Hunstanton Norfolk.

The Second Prodigal

He was lost too,

although he could not see it,

for he had stayed at home, was

loyal, hard working,

steady...

but lost.

*

Trying all the time

to prove himsel,

he put in long hours,

denied himself

all pleasures,

lost himself in toil

and busyness.

*

He was lost,

but somehow he didn't know

that he had

cut himself off .

 Our relationship suffered.

I longed for him

to be home.

*

He was as lost as his brother

a second prodigal,

upright and clean living,

but lost,

so consumed with doing,

that he forgot

how to be

my son.

*

...and I am still waiting

for him to come home....

*

is this you??

*

 

The Prodigal Son by He Qi

The Mother's tale ( a re-telling of the Prodigal Son)

I was starting to write a re-telling of the Prodigal Son from the Mother's perspective when I remembered this. No need to re-invent the wheel then!

In her book Praying like a Woman, Nicola Slee reminds us that womens' voices were often silenced and excluded... she reminds us that to see the full picture we need to hear them...

via sallysjourney.typepad.com

balm... (pondering Jeremiah 8:18- 9:1)

Is there a balm in Gilead,

a balm to soothe

and heal,

a balm to

make us whole again?

 

Is there a balm in Gilead,

a balm to yield

to tender touch,

bringing peace

to the wounded heart and soul?

 

Is there a balm in Gilead,

a balm to waken faith

and offer grace,

is there a balm?

 

Without it hope is gone…

 

There is a balm,

his name is love,

and he comes

with nail scarred hands

pouring grace

into the lives of all

who would receive…

 

There is a balm,

given freely,

costing all…

 

 

Spiritual gifts...

We began a Bible Study on Spiritual Gifts just recently, and once again I found myself faced with two familiar stories. First there was the statement from a couple of folk that the gifts that they read of in the New Testament simply aren't operating today; the result= no expectation for God to work in and through us in any way.

..the other story sadly familiar was of people who have been told all manner of rubbish about speaking in tongues, and folk who were told that unless they were "slain" in the spirit (?) then they weren't Christians and were obviously beset by some terrible sin; the result= fear and distrust of anything spiritual.

These two stories turn up in some form every time I teach on spiritual gifts and I have learned to give space to them for they must be spoken out and acknowledged as experiences before we can hope to move forward...

But the fact is that I believe in a God of the super-natural, a God who works and moves, equips and encourages his church through spiritual gifts today. I have seen and experienced healing, have given and received words of knowledge and have watched as folk who dare to trust in God have grown in faith and in grace as they have received the Holy Spirit's gifts, not for themselves but for the body of Christ that it might be an effective and transformative agent in the world. To put it bluntly without the Spirit we cannot be either salt or light for real Christianity is not a choice to live by a moral code but a choice to enter into the life of God through Christ, and to be equipped just as he said we would be!

I find myself grieving again and again as I encounter resistance to a God who asks for our all, don't get me wrong, for I resist too, but I don't want to, and I am willing to enter into the battle ( for it is a battle) with my selfish self...

So where does all this leave me? I find myself in a place where I am not only thirsty for the waters of the Spirit to refresh my soul but where I long to see the desert bloom, to see waters flowing in the wildernesses of faith, and where the body of Christ is effective and life giving...

O Lord hear my prayer...

..begin with me...

Holy Spirit by Colleen Shay.

free...

I want to break free,

free from the constraints

of oughts,

and shoulds,

free from fear of

being seen to be

inadequate,

to find a place

where my

inadequacy

is engulfed by your glory,

to a place

where my sin is forgotten,

and your grace is known...

I want to break free,

to open the gates to a spacious place

where laughter rolls,

and tears flow,

to a place where joy is known,

and awe-filled worship

is a right and inevitable response...

..the veil is thin

separating me from that place,

and I can feel and taste

its possibilities...

I long to break free....

He is risen by He Qi

Liturgy- an alternative to television....

Some interesting thoughts here from Stanley Hauerwas on Liturgy- He speaks of the "sermon" drawing us beyond what we think we need and want. As a preacher who likes to dialogue with the congregation I find this compelling- my aim is so often to draw people out and too often I think the mini lecture/ speech/ exhortation that is the sermon leaves many folk behind, they can and do switch off... His assertion that the whole congregation should be involved, actively involved with the service is of course returning us (as he points out) to the meaning of and reason for liturgy... " If you compete with television then television is going to win, it's so good at what it does. The liturgy has got to be a real alternative to that..." Food for thought...

Magic floor...

She crouched down and peered intently through the bottom pane of glass in the sanctuary door, and she was utterly entranced...

She was waiting with her mum for her ballet class to start...

"Would you like to go in and have a look? I asked. She nodded wide eyed, and her mother thanked me for being so kind.  So I opened the door and ruined the magic, for the patch of light on the carpet no longer sparkled with colour, and all of the mystery was gone, the small patch of sunlight which held such wonder only a moment ago now only highlighted the dust in the air.

We did take a look at the pictures and banners on the wall and she inspected the table, the cross and the font, but there was no magic..

Well not until we closed the door again and knelt to peer in. Perhaps sometimes all we need is to look at things from a different angle...