Time to Listen

•February 24, 2014 • 7 Comments

How much time do you have in your life?  I’m guessing not much.  It is a truism that things expand to fit the amount of time we have, we never seem to gain any time.  But sometimes in our busy, busy lives, we need to stop, take stock and listen.

This coming Sunday is the one before lent, which starts with Ash Wednesday on 5th March.  So this is an opportunity to prepare, to think how we are going to meet God anew in the journey towards Easter, to pause and reflect.

Exodus 24:12-18 (CEV)

Moses on Mount Sinai

12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up on the mountain and stay here for a while. I will give you the two flat stones on which I have written the laws that my people must obey.” 13 Moses and Joshua his assistant got ready, then Moses started up the mountain to meet with God.

14 Moses had told the leaders, “Wait here until we come back. Aaron and Hur will be with you, and they can settle any arguments while we are away.”

15 When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, a cloud covered it, 16 and the bright glory of the Lord came down and stayed there. The cloud covered the mountain for six days, and on the seventh day the Lord told Moses to come into the cloud. 17-18 Moses did so and stayed there forty days and nights. To the people, the Lord’s glory looked like a blazing fire on top of the mountain.

God invites Moses to join him on the mountain, in his holy place.  But this isn’t for a jolly, a rest or just a special time with God (though undoubtedly it would have been that!), this is for Moses to hear God’s word, not just for himself, but for all the people.

Now, I’m sure God could have given his word to Moses where he was, without bringing him up the mountain, but maybe Moses wouldn’t have heard it in quite the same way.  Sometimes it is necessary to draw apart to hear what God is really saying; to intentionally focus on him with no distractions; to be where God is, alone with him.

And so it is with us.  Yes we can hear God in the everyday, and actually that is necessary, but sometimes we need to step apart, to specifically put aside some time and space to be with God, to hear what he is saying – not always just for ourselves.  Lent is an opportunity to take that time.  Whatever we do, or don’t do, during lent, it is an opportunity to set aside purposeful and intentional time with God.  If this isn’t the right time for you, and it may not be, then there needs to be a time to set aside, to have the space to listen purposefully to God.

Taking time out to listen to God can be scary – after all who knows what he will say or ask of us?  But it is vital for our well-being and our relationship with him.  What can I do, to take time out to listen to, and really hear, what God is saying?

Lord,
life is so busy,
so much to do,
often for you…

Yet,
you call to me
to come and stay a while,
to listen to you,
to hear what you are saying.

And so I come
and wait in your presence
and listen

To Be In Your Presence

Posted in bible, calling, faith, God, Lectionary, lent, Religion, theology
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Tough Love

•February 20, 2014 • 11 Comments

Revenge is about in some way feeling that you have got your own back for something that you perceive has been done wrong to you.  According to common wisdom, revenge is a dish best served cold, yet that implies careful pre-mediation of what you are going to do, rather than a simple knee-jerk reaction.

Jesus had something quite different to say about revenge…

Matthew 5:38-48 (CEV)

Revenge

38 You know that you have been taught, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39 But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. When someone slaps your right cheek, turn and let that person slap your other cheek. 40 If someone sues you for your shirt, give up your coat as well. 41 If a soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles. 42 When people ask you for something, give it to them. When they want to borrow money, lend it to them.

He says, when someone does something to you, not to try to get even, but to offer them something else too.  What is Jesus thinking now?  Surely if someone has abused you, stolen from you or demanded something unreasonable, you don’t offer them even more?  This makes no sense.  What about justice and rightful punishment?  What about the damage that has been done to me?  I don’t think this precludes that, it just takes the responsibility for feeling we need to wreak vengeance from us.

I wonder if this is about power?  If we give, the person who steals no longer has power over us, we are choosing to give up, and are not getting caught up in thinking only how we can retaliate.  We let the situation go free.  This may not effect the person who has wronged us, but it will affect my life.  It also shows freedom of possession.

But Jesus goes further:

Love

43 You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” 44 But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. 45 Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. 46 If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. 47 If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? 48 But you must always act like your Father in heaven.

These are such hard passages to understand, probably even more so to act on, but this is my attempt.  I’d welcome anyone else’s thoughts…

We are to love those who we believe to be our enemies and to pray for anyone who mistreats us.  He is turning around the justification to hate anyone.  Because life is not black and white.  There’s nothing special in loving those who love you – that is easy.  God asks more of us.  I understand entirely those who find it hard to personally forgive those who have done terrible things to them, but I don’t think that is what this is about, in fact to suggest it is, is an abuse of God’s word.  But I think Jesus is challenging us to not look for excuses to dislike people, asking us not to devise our own punishments when we think it is necessary, but to look on people with his love.

As in all this weeks readings, we are being asked to think and act like God, to live the ways he asks us to, which are actually the best and healthiest way for us to live.  We are not to be deciding the right thing to do, but to seek God’s way in all things.

Lord,
I come to you for guidance
and I come to you for love.
I do not have
the inner strength and resources
to look beyond the wrongs
I perceive
have been done to me.
Yet you ask me to give
and keep on giving,
to love
and keep on loving
and to pray
for those who hurt me,
in fact
to act like you.

So I pray
for your help,
your strength,
your love,
to be in me
and through me

Take my life, my love, my all

Posted in bible, faith, God, justice, Lectionary, love, Religion, theology
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Good Building

•February 19, 2014 • Leave a Comment

I don’t know much about building, but I do not that you need a good firm base to build on and that as you go along, you need to keep checking that everything is aligned correctly – otherwise the smallest wonky bit becomes amplified more and more as the building goes on.  And if you watch enough dream-house building programmes on tv, you realise the folly of not having plans, proper plans, drawn up by an expert…

1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 (CEV)

Only One Foundation

10 God was kind and let me become an expert builder. I laid a foundation on which others have built. But we must each be careful how we build, 11 because Christ is the only foundation.

16 All of you surely know that you are God’s temple and that his Spirit lives in you. 17 Together you are God’s holy temple, and God will destroy anyone who destroys his temple.

18 Don’t fool yourselves! If any of you think you are wise in the things of this world, you will have to become foolish before you can be truly wise. 19 This is because God considers the wisdom of this world to be foolish. It is just as the Scriptures say, “God catches the wise when they try to outsmart him.” 20 The Scriptures also say, “The Lord knows that the plans made by wise people are useless.” 21-22 So stop bragging about what anyone has done. Paul and Apollos and Peter all belong to you. In fact, everything is yours, including the world, life, death, the present, and the future. Everything belongs to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Building for God is done with people though, human lives in all their different shapes and sizes.  Together we become his temple.  But just as bricks resting only on each other would wobble, we need a mortar to hold it all together – which is God’s Spirit.  That is what will hold us together in him, built on the foundation of Jesus and all he showed us of God.

Thinking we can manage without God is foolish (Paul’s words not mine!).  We haven’t done anything, bricks do not build themselves, God is the one who builds.  Our plans might make a very wobbly building, we need to keep checking them against God and what he wants.

And we need each other – one brick does not a temple make!  Together we make a temple, a place for God to live.  We can help and support one another in the building process, in our individual as well as  corporate lives. For we must be careful how we build, follow the plans that have been laid, build on the firm foundation we have been given and check and check again that we are building right, straight and true.

Build me Lord,
into your temple,
what you want me to be,
with the people
you are building me with.

Let us not be wobbly,
but true,
held together in your promises
and your truth,
built on the foundation Jesus gives
and sticking to the plans you have drawn

Build This House

Posted in bible, church, community, faith, God, Jesus, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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