The Long and Winding Road

            As a minister I often find myself staring at maps. Sometimes it is to work out how to get to someone I am going to visit, or to find the location of a Church at which I am preaching. For those travelling by car it is usually easiest these days to put a postcode into a Sat Nav and point the car in the right direction. As a minister who doesn't drive, my relationship with maps is a little more complex. When my wife is driving, I am usually the navigator and then it's mainly a case of using Google Maps on my 'smart phone'. But if I need to visit someone I may be considering walking, going by bus or getting on my bike. So then I study the map a little more carefully, I look to see how straight the roads are, how steep the hills are, how bumpy the tracks. I look to see if there are paths between the roads and tracks that go across the fields. I need to consult timetables for busses, I use Google maps' satellite image option to find those handy little pathways between houses that aren't on the printed maps and I need to take into account the possibility that my bike may not be welcome along the path that I have chosen.

            All these things help me decide which route to take and which mode of transport will be the most appropriate, but there is more to it than that. Sometimes I need to choose a route and a mode of transport based on what I need to take with me and sometimes I choose a route that helps me to see something new about the community, to let me bump into new people and see places I haven't seen before. I also use my map studying time to help me understand things about the local community. Seeing where the shops and the pubs are, where the schools and churches are, and where people go to work. I even seek out historical maps to help me understand how a place has grown over time. All these things say a lot about a community.

            In the same way the routes we choose in life show people a great deal about our intended destinations and they also say a lot about how we intend to get there; The metaphorical routes as well as the physical ones. When we choose products in the supermarket it affects people across the world, when we choose a bank account or a utility company do we just choose the cheapest or do we also consider the environment and our impact on developing countries? What truths do we carry with us as we travel through life? What burdens? When we look back over the route maps of our lives will they tell a story about how we wanted to get to where we wanted to go by the easiest route? Or will they speak of generosity, hospitality, a love for God's creation and a concern for the stranger who needed our help? 

Some thoughts on Ash Wednesday

                In the lectionary reading for Ash Wednesday,[1] from Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 we hear about the need for penitence, the need to return to God with weeping and mourning - this is at the heart of what Ash Wednesday is about. And in Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 we hear about how penitent people ought to act in the world, acts of religion that are out of the public eye, giving that is not announced, humble prayer, fasting without seeking attention or sympathy and the desire to store up heavenly wealth, not earthly possessions. That extract from the sermon on the mount offers us perhaps a picture of the finished product, the holy people we seek to become. But there is a stage in between Joel and Matthew, there is a time between our repentance and our stepping out into the world again as new creations. The reading from Matthew's gospel is suggesting that we don't make a fuss, we don't get wrapped up in religious pomp and circumstance, but rather we get on with doing the work of the lord, we get on with the work of being God's people. But there are some things we need to attend to before we can be those people. The way we group these two readings together in the lectionary for this service is very protestant, it's very modern and western. We repent, we are forgiven, we get up and get on with the work. But in between there are things that we are called to do.

     I think the first of these is the need to dwell for a moment in the place where we are, to dwell with the reality and the darkness of whatever situations we are experiencing. I have met a number of people in my life with severe depression, and one of the things I have learned through them is that the very worst thing you can do is to try to cure them, to solve their problems. What you do is to sit with them to listen to dwell with them in their pain. If you're really in tune with their feelings you might possibly be able to make them laugh for a moment or two, and that helps. But the last thing you try to do is offer a solution, because that's not how depression works.

     This often feels problematic to those Christians who want to save people simply by converting them to Christianity without understanding the subtle complexity of what discipleship and healing are truly about. That desire to dwell amongst people who are suffering is modelled for us by God through Jesus, who came to dwell amongst us, but it is also demonstrated in the old Testament. Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes we are encouraged to dwell amongst the harsh realities of the world, the futility and the hopelessness of many situations, in order that we might see what is truly of value and what is truly lasting.

     The other thing we are called to do in between repentance and being new creations is to go out. This is different to the being sent out as the people of God to heal and baptise, and to spread the word of God's coming Kingdom. And it's different to the going out on the town for a big party. This is the call to go out beyond the boundaries and the necessities of your daily life, to go beyond your normal places and activities to some place where you can be alone with God, to reflect and to grow, to allow the dust to settle in your soul, to wrestle with issues in your heart and to reconcile yourself to changes that need to be made. On Sunday the lectionary Gospel reading will be Matthew's account of the Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness - this is that time of going out for Jesus. And this is God modelling good practice for us through Jesus. This is what lent is about, this is what Ash Wednesday draws us into. This is our time to repent - to dwell within that repentance to dwell in the hurt to go out beyond the normal boundaries of our lives to be with God in isolation, without the distraction, and then, when we are ready, to return, ready to celebrate the risen Christ to be the people of God, ready to do his work.

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[1] http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=23