I have spent much of today adding dates to my diary for the next few months and planning a Family Service for Sunday. Nothing much unusual in that, nothing really different, and yet all is different, I am preparing to introduce myself to a new group of people, it's is the 3rd time I've done that in the last 9 years, first as a Lay Worker and now for the second time as a Minister.
I'll be preaching from Matthew 16: 13-20 and Psalm 139, my sermon (for the want of something better to call it) will be interactive and has the current (working) title; "Who am I? Who are you? Who is Jesus?
As I ponder what I'll say I am aware that so much has changed over the last few years, so much has changed, and even those things that are the same have changed. My children have all grown up, graduated from University and left home, this will be the first time in 30 years that Tim and I are both working full time and those are the superficial changes, there have been many others, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and even physically, that have had an impact on who I am.
Surely the years have not had an impact on who Jesus is, or have they? They have certainly had an impact on how I understand him, on how I relate to him, and how I preach him, I hope that I have grown positively in my faith, and that the change in me and my understanding of who Christ is have transformed me as a person into someone who is more gracious with others because I have come to understand much more fully how gracious God has been with me and must therefore acknowledge how gracious God is with all of his creation.
Of course we are all in different places on our jourenys, so if I ask you who you are today I probably won't get the same answer in a few weeks times, and as for Jesus, who he is to us is hopefully always changing as he draws us oin challenging and enlarging our faith, calling us towards fuller freedoms and into a deeper and more real understanding of the power of love...
So who am I? I am ever changing, hopefully transforming and growing. Who are you? I hope you too are not the same today as yesterday. And who is Jesus; The Christ? He is more than we imagine, full of grace and truth!
I haven't blogged for ages, well over two weeks and that's a long time for me, this has partly been due to moving house and the chaos and exhaustion it brings, and if I'm honest partly because I've been spiritually drained for a number of reasons. Today though has been a reminder that creativity brings me life, today we got around to beginning to bring order to what will be a creative/prayer space and a spare bedroom when needed. In that room were a collection of boxes containing fabrics, candles, paints, pens, pastels, music books, icons, pictures of various types, art books, paper of all kinds, prayer books, incence burners, and general creative stuff.
Some of that stuff has been packed away in files and folders and I've haven't looked at it for months, some for even longer. Some of the boxes contained prayer journals reminders of the ebb and flow of my spiritual life...
And while the room currently looks like something has exploded in it, it gives me hope, this evening we have moved shelves around, some are filled and some are not, we want to put a table in there for painting/drawing and a sofa bed and chair. I've found my music stands and guitar stand so they will have a place too. We'll put pictures on the walls find room for a music system too...
And it will probably not be the neatest room in the house, but that's OK...
" I am the resurrection and the life says the Lord, those who believe in me even though they die will live, and everyone who lives and beieves in me will never die."
These are the opening words, powerful words of hope, that opened the last service I was to lead in my current appoinment. Those who are familiar with them will recognise that these are the words of hope spoken by a minister as they go before the coffin in a funeral service. Many folk I speak to speak of funerals as an ending, and of course they are, but in a sense they also mark a new beginning, a beginning that may have begun months before with a terminal diagnosis, or may have come suddenly and shockingly with a accident or other unexpected death, or many places in-between.
I like the funeral liturgy, because it does help to mark an ending, but I like more that offer, that possibility of a new beginning that it holds out. It speaks of eternity, it offers hope of something more and it hopefully brings comfort and strength to the bereaved ones who may find will inevitably find themselves, if only briefly, in a liminal space, a space between what was and what will be. As the service continues prayers are said and words are spoken that look back and forward, rememberances are shared, rejoiced over and sometimes lamented.
I am glad I could end my ministry here with these comforting and faith filled words, for although the lovely folk of Snaith and Selby Circuit gave me a meaningful and very generous send off I found I needed something else. I needed a good end, and that came partly because the lady whose funeral I led was a member who had become very frail, and whose death everyone acknowledged as a relief and release, and in some senses I identified with that, but also because the prayers of letting go, the commital and committment through which you place the person firmly into God's hands seemed very appropriate.
Now I am not saying that my ministry here had become frail and died, for that clearly was not the case, but it has come to an end, and like the deceased person in the funeral I will leave a legacy. Some will struggle to see me go, and some will probably breathe sighs of relief, and I will do both in return. I go leaving behind me many friends, we will still be friends. I go leaving sucesses, and things and folk who I pray will continue to flourish. I go leaving behind failures and things I wish I had left unsaid and undone, I have apologised for those I am aware of and place into God's hands those I am not aware of. I go both strong and in need of healing, I go and as I go I enter into that liminal space of not being for a few short weeks officially but probably more in reality as I seek to find my feet in a new place.
Knowing that I go in need of healing as well as with strength is key to moving forward, for it demands that I committ myself into Gods hands for my needs. As I move towards a new beginning I leave others to do the same, I leave them to welcome a new minister as I go to be welcomed as a new minister, and yet neither of us are "new". As I move I am reminded that every day holds out the hope of a new beginning, and that every day holds within it those moments of new possibility, moments when something becomes clear and repentance is required with a turning to or turning from being the appropriate response...
So I move on, beginning to let go of the past, preparing to take hold of the new, I go with a prayer in my heart;
I place into your hands Lord those things I can't do, all I have been through and all that I move to. I place into your hands my sucesses and failures, I place into your hands my hopes and dreams. Take me shape me, mould me and fill me, help me to be aware of your leading and guiding Spirit at work in my life. Bless me afresh that I might be a blessing, bless those I leave, and those I move to. Begin your resurrection work in me again. AMEN
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