Uncertainty and Uproar: how a reeling world and a disoriented church need God

So it appears that last Sunday's service was the final act of worship in school.

At the time we worshiped, though we were expecting to soon suspend services, we had not considered that Sunday 15 March would be our final gathering before the unsurprising decision of the Archbishops. In case you haven't heard, the Church of England has suspended public worship until further notice.

In the short term this has sent us into a tailspin of planning as we seek to adjust to life as the church without church.

On one hand, the world is reeling from the ever-intensifying Government measures introduced to slow the rates of infection, and protect our precious NHS from being overwhelmed. Though we are also reeling from an outburst of panic buying that has stripped bare many shelves in mainline supermarket chains. It's been hard to not feel like our leaders are making it up as they go along, while people are simply losing their heads.

Meanwhile, the church, sensing the opportunity that lays before us, is perplexed and uncertain about where to even begin. Do we focus on internal matters of liturgy and worship, or focus instead on the many needy people in our communities? And for those seeking to address both ends of the spectrum how do we make wise plans?

Two moments in the last week deserve re-telling that shape my response.

Firstly, on Sunday morning I was leading our service. I often find the psalm listed for morning prayer to be a great place to start our worship. This last week it was Psalm 46.

Unusually for me, in a church full of chatter and hubbub during our time together, I asked if people might be quiet - I noted my eldest son turning at the back of the room, arrested from a moment of mischief and stood still. And I started to read this ancient text, commenting on its antiquity to the gathered assembly from south Leeds.

And as I read each phrase I found myself wanting to both cry and laugh...

"God is our refuge and strength...an ever-present help in trouble..." 

"Okay," I thought, "that's a bit on the nose."

"Therefore we will not fear, though...though...though..."

And I feel the objections rise up, "Surely God...what of the elderly, the unwell...?"

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells."

I've been exploring more of Leeds recently, enjoying walks beside the River Aire. And I'm mindful that Holbeck's name derives from an ancient stream ('beck'). God loves this place. God loves this city. I'd prayed in the week before (not a prayer I'd written)...'God knew this place before it had a name!'

"God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day."

Yes! What hope!

"Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts."

Yes! What truth and insight. The nations are in uproar, in tumult, in distress and confusion. You may have seen the video of Bill Gates predicting years ago that the real threat to human life would not be because of war, but because of a virus. Coronavirus is going to cause seismic changes to society - it has exposed the fragility of our democratic, economic and social structures. Even our interdependent food supply chains are threatened, according to experts on the Food Programme (Radio 4) yesterday. This is a time of uproar, of melting, of fear and falling.

But are we to despair?

"The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress"

The antidote to despair is the knowledge that the living God, the Almighty one (the Pantokrater!), the God of our ancestors, and our fortress, that this one is WITH US.

"Should I stop here?" I wondered, "that's nice and neat....aw shucks, best read the whole thing..."

"Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth.

Did God cause Coronavirus? Do the people think I'm blaming God?

"He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; 

he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire."

"errrr..." The Bible has this way of disorienting you enough to help you get your balance back. He is the God who brings wars to pass and wars to end. He can bring desolation and restoration. All time is in his hands.

"Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

"Amen, amen, amen..." I felt rise up in me. And I then noticed that a particular stillness had fallen over the church congregation. It was like, even though there was already some restlessness at this reading, something went off in lots of us, a sense of coming home, of being spoken to from outside of ourselves. God's word is active. God's word allows us to encounter God...and as we prepared to sing, and laugh, and pray for each other, we were reminded to know that God is with us.

"The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress"

"Or is this just me...?" I panicked! Are those faces of bored indifference, or have they felt that spark as I did? Either way, "thank you God for being here, and setting our human affairs in the context of your majesty and presence."

Lesson one then - whatever is going on in the world, know God is with us.

Lesson two was a slip of the tongue earlier.

We'd had a long emergency planning meeting, and afterwards I chatted with a friend about my focus. Yesterday, I'd been into the two nearest pubs to my house, which I frequent regularly. Despite the Government's advice I visited in order to give to any who were there a church card with my number on - "Call me if you need anything!"

The temptation can often arise to be a messiah figure - to see yourself as the hero.

"I want to serve the community," I found myself saying. Followed quickly by a stream of consciousness, as though rebuking myself, "But I need to serve the church family so they can serve the community."

Of course, I'm still to do what I can. But I think church leaders would do well to remember our role to prepare people for good works. As Paul writes in Ephesians, "[God called] some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up." God loves the world (John 3:16), he is not indifferent to its suffering. We must seek to serve this place that he loves.

Lesson two then - how am I helping people to serve their community?

These are unprecedented times.

The world is reeling and the church is disoriented. There is uncertainty and uproar.

How do we respond?

Firstly, we are reminded that God is with us. He has not abandoned us. Meditate on Psalm 46 - trust the power of His Word to restore our souls in the face of despair and confusion. If you want some help or guidance or support or ideas on how to read the Bible, ask!

Secondly, we are to serve our community. The church exists to worship God, make and train disciples, and to love our world. If there's anything I can do to help folk serve the community better- great! As the church adjusts to life without the normal weekly rhythms perhaps we can recapture something of this servant heart.

Be assured that I am praying for you, wherever you are, and whatever you face.

God bless you!

Coming, Confidence and Candles

I attended the beautiful and haunting Advent Carol service at Bradford Cathedral last night. Many folk love a Christmas Carol service, but there's much more drama in the Advent version, which includes much more of the service conducted in near darkness. This meant that we were required to read our service sheets in the gloom, which initially proves quick tricky, but before too long my eyes had adjusted to the darkness around me and I could read the words to the carols with clarity.

And so it is with Advent.

As Christians we are obliged to take seriously the gloom and darkness that's around us. Darkness of unbelief (often in our own hearts), of sin, of sorrow, or grief, of pain, of loss, of a sense of being exiled in a hostile place, of not sensing where God is...and the darkness of our own death.

But we are called to read God's word carefully amidst this darkness. And one of the places we, as Anglicans, feel we can find God is in the pages of Isaiah.

During this Advent I'm setting myself a serious challenge. I want to blog every day: as a spiritual discipline. I want to really dig deep into Isaiah, and the lectionary has already done most of the hard work by weaving the majority of the book into morning and evening prayer for the coming season, and beyond into Christmas and Epiphany. Indeed, All Saintstide started us off. This means that bookending the Christian year is the glorious vision of Isaiah.

Yesterday morning, we read Isaiah 2:1-5 and I think we see the major Advent themes in these five verses: Coming, Confidence, and Candles.

Firstly, Coming.

The word, "Come" appears four times (v.2, 3, 5):
"In days to come" - a future perspective
"Many people shall come" - a future promise
"Come, let us go up" - an invitation to worship God
"Come let us walk" - an invitation loyalty and faithfulness to God

Many of us pray, every day, the Lord's prayer, which includes the line, "your kingdom come".

Now I don't know about you, but I find it helpful to linger sometimes on phrases or words in the Lord's prayer (this of course is only possible if you're in the habit of praying it on your own (and out loud)). I am always forced to think carefully what I'm praying for when I say 'your kingdom come', for this is not as straightforward as it might seem. After all, how many of us really truthfully want God's kingdom to come now, in all its glory? Would we be embarassed at what God might find?

But of course, we must pay attention to Isaiah. Where he says, "in days to come" it could refer to Jesus' first coming. Consider the promise of one who will 'judge' and 'arbitrate' (v.4). This has echoes in the great promise of Isaiah 9 and 11, that one is coming who will be the judge, one anointed by God. This Messianic hope in Isaiah is fulfilled in Jesus. And maybe Isaiah's talk of 'the mountain of the Lord's house' being raised up isn't so much an eschatological vision, as a metaphor for the cross of Christ?

Advent, then, is about coming: the Messiah born to reign and a returning Lord to usher in his completed kingdom. When we pray, 'your kingdom come' we are praying for both. There is that fervent hope (cranked up to fever pitch in Advent) that God would finally return, but also that renewed sense of how we need the saving work of Jesus, that his kingdom can begin to reign in our hearts, minds and lives.

So what?

I think we respond to this theme of Coming by inviting people to come too.

We encourage our brothers and sisters to keep on keeping on. How many of us have a Christian friend who needs to be invited back to church over the season? What a great opportunity.

But we also invite those who don't know Jesus. We do so much to celebrate but how much effort do we make to get folk there. And then when they come do we sparkle, shine and radiate that joy? Do we speak about the cross and resurrection at Christmas? Do we look to Jesus' promised return?

And I would also invite you to pray that ancient prayer, with all its multi-layered meanings, 'Come, Lord Jesus'.


Secondly, Confidence.

This brief passage is full of Hope. If Coming is the first big Advent theme, then Hope is the second.

And Hope is about much more than our future home with God in eternity - although this must come to dominate our prayers as we reflect more and more on the darkness of our own sin. We see a present hope that this world might be transformed... now.

We see the image of nations streaming to God's city, God's mountain.
We see the image of tools of war beaten to till the land.
We see men longing to worship.

But....(there's always a but)...we doubt it, don't we? We show an alarming lack of confidence in God when we doubt his ability to transform a fallen and falling world. We rob ourselves of hope when we expect nothing to happen, when we accept the status quo. We do this chiefly with our own lives: God can't do anything about this or that sin, or this situation...

Isaiah rebukes this apathy. We are called to an active, vibrant, obedient and confident hope. God has promised to act - and he will.

Isaiah speaks a lot about Israel - God's children. They are the leaving, breathing vehicle God works through and with to reach the world, which is why he's so angry about their sinfulness and apostasy. They were chosen to be the sign of hope, but they failed to live up this.

In the same way, the church of God, the body of Christ is to be that sign of Hope. We are to love and live for God.

So what?

Advent is a brilliant time to rethink how we engage with Church and the theme of Hope. What is it you hope for? What do you long for? Have you doubted God?
Spend some time as you read the promises of Isaiah to consider how you've become stuck in a rut with regard to worship and prayer.
How might your church reinhabit that role in its community as a sign of hope?


Thirdly, and finally, Candles.

We walk in a dark world, but we do so "in the light of the Lord" (v.5)

Okay...this may seem like a really weird theme to focus on, but consider how integral the theme of light is. We have candles, Christmas tree lights, and (where they're still affordable) we have civic decorations.

One of the major differences between Lent and Advent is light. In Lent, we get progressively more and more dark, as though hope is slowly draining, which all culminates on Good Friday with the horror of God's crucifixion. This darkness heightens in Passiontide and is sustained by a season of tough fasting.

Advent does the opposite - we should find ourselves getting steadily brighter and brighter.

In preparing for Advent this year, keen to be 'changed' by it, I got rather confused beginning to see Advent as a second Lent, a second opportunity to be tough on myself; I even considered giving things up (although I'm still trying to ration my chocolate intake!). I think this is also because I've been getting quite negative about my weaknesses. In fact, in a recent interview I genuinely struggled to list my strengths, my abilities, my light side.  You recall where I said (above) that the hope for eternity grows as we see more and more of the darkness of our own sin? Well, perhaps Advent is different from Lent in that we allow more and more of God's light, God's present activity to try and break in now.

Advent is about candles - and candles are about light; they're also about birthdays. Christmas and Birthdays are times for presents. Have you recently considered your gifts? Yes, the gift of Jesus, the light who has come into the world, into your world, but also the strengths, abilities and talents God has given you? This is a new thought for me. How might I use Advent to reflect on the light God has placed in me? We're so naturally inclined to be self-deprecating, to focus on our status as sinners, and not enough on our status as Saints.

And in thinking about gifts/presents, consider how Isaiah refers to the law and instruction - he's referring to God's word. We too have this inestimable gift - the Bible. One thing that struck me last night was how much Bible we read at the Carol service, how much was sung. We too must allow our lives to be saturated in God's word.

So what?

Well...spend time in Advent reflecting on Light. Get a candle and light it in your home, while you pray, while you eat...and let that candle stir memories of birthdays and Christmases gone, allow some light and joy to grow in you.
Also, commit more time this Advent to reading God's Bible. This is a great gift. Add an extra reading, or challenge yourself to read Isaiah, or start to read it with a family member, ensure Advent talk of Christmas is focused on the feast of the nativity, remind people of the Bible story. And have fun with it, make games...don't let the season rob joy from you. Play Frank Laubach's game of minutes - try to read more, to think more about God.
And finally, reflect on the light that is in you. You yourself are a great gift to the world.

Coming. Confidence. Candles.

Jesus. Hope. Light.

I hope and pray this Advent will be a time of rich joy, renewed hope and refreshing fellowship.




[There is a fourth theme to Advent that isn't covered in this passage, though. I think that a fourth C exists - COLOUR. We are aesthetic beings - we care about how things look - and colours are very evocative. The season has a focus on death so you might expect blacks to predominate, but instead we use purple, the colour of penitence. Although we allow bursts of kinder hues to break through, not least on the 3rd Sunday of Advent when we use a pink/rose candle (for Gaudete Sunday). And Isaiah reflects this spectrum. We find ourselves reading of judgment for sin in God's word against the nations (Chapters 13-23) but then quickly shift to kinder more hopeful themes in following chapters. Isaiah is often divided into two parts: chs 1-39 and 40-66: a book of judgment and a book of hope. And death is profoundly both of these things for a Christian - a judgment and hope]