During Lockdown I have enjoyed watching what I believe to be a buzzard take its regular flight down the valley, over the village green and beyond.  It never ceases to amaze me just how effortless, graceful and serene it looks as it soars.

Christian Celtic spirituality has a close relationship with nature. Spotting a bird of prey in flight was/is often interpreted as a positive vision for the future. A confirmation perhaps that the pilgrim is on the right path.  It’s easy to see how the Celtic Christians came to these interpretations, imagine how far ahead you can see from the top of a thermal!

Whatever our belief or spirituality there is much that can be learnt as we reflect on these inspiring creatures. 

One lesson our humble, Hambledon buzzard can teach us is found in the simplicity of its life.  As serene as their flight might appear as with all nature, life hangs in the balance. In the animal kingdom this balance rests upon the energy expended hunting for food vs the calories their prey provide in return.  Buzzards spend much of their time perching, resting, conserving energy. Furthermore, like other birds of prey they use thermals to minimise the calories they burn whilst they hunt. Perhaps we might suggest they’re working smarter not harder.  I was once challenged by a preacher who said – “life, its creativity, its productivity is normally best when we work from a place of rest rather than resting from a place of work.” The Hebrews understood this well; each day starts in the evening, with rest; the Sabbath is the first day of the week not the last!  It is when we rest that we can reflect. Rest provides us with the head space we need in order to hone our art, deepen our passions and develop our work.

For some C-19 has meant a change of pace. As I think about society before lockdown, my reflection is simply that we were a society that was driven, competitive, distracted and perhaps even hyperactive. None of these things are necessarily negative but I pause to think what adjectives I might use to describe my hope for the world going forward. Perhaps words like: rest, relaxation, enjoying the company of others, peace, collaboration, might be included in such a list?

Where then does the balance lie?  The economy of course needs to be rebuilt but to what end and at what cost? Will we simply return to making life evolve around money, ravaging the earth’s finite resources? Will our new identity be built simply on what we do? Or might we perhaps learn to enjoy the gift of the pause in our daily, weekly and annual living; so that we can value ourselves for who we are rather than by what we do. Will we continue to maintain and build on the community love and support so admirably lived out in the life of our village and beyond? Perhaps we can continue to value others for who they are not simply by what they do?  It’s a cliche but after all we are human beings not human doings! Going forward might we be able to take the pressure off, to rest from our incessant productivity? Might we be more ready to stop and perch before we launch into our next flight?

Lockdown has given some in our global community- the opportunity to think about what is truly important in life.  Many social media posts have been posing succinct questions; what aspects of normal do we want to return to? Which aspects of normal do we wish not to return to?

Many scientists have been struck at just how quickly the ecology of the planet has shown early signs of recovery because humanity has had to pause its frenetic lifestyle.  In our combat against the virus we have proven in part that humanity can pull together.  So whilst the threat of the virus remains, we should be encouraged by the way in which many have sacrificed their own freedom and rallied to the cause. I see no reason therefore, why our sacrificial rallying needs to stop with the virus.  Should not a positive vision for the future also address our other ‘global’ issues; ecology, racial injustice, human trafficking, abject poverty? Perhaps the sign of the buzzard is that we could be on a positive path to a better future, perhaps if humanity could collaborate around issues such as these – we could even learn to soar!

May peace be with you and all whom you love.

Rev Simon Willetts

Luke 21:25-34

Strange things are happening around us!

Strange things happening mean our sense of our own ‘status quo’ has been upended. Personally, here are some strange things: I haven’t seen my mum since March; our family has made three 1,000 piece puzzles yet we usually struggle to complete just one at Christmas; my son has cut my hair (surprisingly well) and I find that I view hairdressers, keyworkers and shop keepers with new reverence. Strange times and strange things.

In my reflection last week, I mentioned that a friend of mine wondered if one of the reasons for the reaction to George Floyd’s death was partly because “the World has stopped”. We’ve realised that how we did things and why we lived them required adjusting or even radically re-orientating.

In strange times God unsettles our limited view of normal

It can be unsettling to reconsider things as we seek God’s spiritual normal for who we are. I was speaking with someone in our church family recently who has really struggled with not being able to gather for worship, but they didn’t call me for this reason. They called (and I have their permission to share this) because they’d realised that they’d made gathering for worship their primary way of being a Christian at the expense of a deep, personal daily walk with God through personal reading of Scripture and daily spiritual depth. In the past, one had kind of crowded the other out rather than the two acting together to complement one another.

They’d realised that strange times were leading them to realise what God’s normal in their life could be like. Strange times are a sign that we live in the End Times; the time between Christ’s resurrection as Saviour and Christ’s return as Judge. Our strange times do not indicate that His return is imminent, but Luke 21:25+ is clear: there will be strange things happening, whole countries will be in despair and fear and people will fear as strange things happen.

In strange times we’re called to discover God’s normal as a church and in our lives

Jesus call to us at this time is to live God’s normal. When “these things begin to happen” Jesus goes on in Luke 21 to call us to “stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near” (v28).

When we seek to have the deep things of Christ written on our hearts then the strangest of times may disturb us, but they won’t throw us off course. Instead, like the person who called me, we will recognise the Holy Spirit taking us beyond that which used to satisfy us spiritually and into a new normal with God. The things that truly matter about being a church and our faith increasingly become what we draw on.

In strange times Deep Truths of faith draw us to the Holy Spirit’s normal

I am reminded of Terry Waite, who worked for the Church Army. Waite was a Church of England hostage and peace negotiator in the Middle East in the 1980s. He became a hostage himself in Lebanon for 1,067 days. He had no fresh air or sight of the sky throughout and was not allowed books or writing paper for three and a half years. Even though he lost most of his muscle tone, he survived psychologically and spiritually by reciting the two things which were deep within him. One was a prayer he had memorised as a child (from the Book of Common Prayer!) and, at his point of mock-execution, he recited the Lord’s Prayer from memory. He had nothing else to draw on but these memories pointed to deep Truths which sustained him and enabled him to know the salvation of Jesus was near. You can read more here https://hope1032.com.au/stories/open-house/2013/terry-waite-break-my-body-bend-my-mind-but-my-soul-is-not-yours-to-possess/ or for how he is researching how we cope with extreme stress see here https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/terry-waite-and-what-his-time-captivity-taught-him-about-resilience-human-brain-598020

As I read this, I wondered what from my present spiritual living I would be able to draw on for my connection with Christ if I was alone for nearly four years? I find it an unsettling question.

This leads me to wonder what the deep Truths are which are sustaining us right now, both as Christians in homes and streets and as a church family together. It asks what these deep Truths mean for the future as we think about ‘normal church’ for tomorrow.

I believe God is inviting us into something new which is founded on His unchanging deep Truth. As we look to the future as a church family we’re seeking the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance as to how these unchanging deep truths shape our faith as we worship together, live together in Christ and walk together in love and care.

In strange times, eight questions for BHC about God’s Normal

Here are nine questions which may offer a glimpse of the future:

1.       How do we connect spirituality with those we have connected relationally with in recent months?

2.       What does our whatsapp neighbourhood say about where we focus our time and energy?

3.       What does worshipping together look like in a COVID19 world?

4.       What does Busbridge and Hambledon Church look and feel like as a community if we are always 2 metres (1 metre?) apart?

5.       How do we gather if gathering is limited to 20,30 or 40 people for our own health and for common good of the whole community?

6.       What is the connection between being a church which gathers on Sunday and a church of disciples living life together in the week?

7.       How can we deepen in knowledge, faith and understanding in a way which creates whole life discipleship?

8.       What has God gifted us with as a church which we can offer to others around us; what do other churches offer that will strengthen our walk with the Lord?

If the call of God is to be prepared for the future then these may be slightly unsettling questions brought about by strange times, but they are important questions because they ask what God’s spiritual normal is like for who we are as individuals and as a church family. They are questions of our preparation for the return of Christ on the Last Day so that we are people of watch and prayer (Luke 21:34;36), always ready to give an answer for the hope which we have.

All of this is not so much about services, buildings and locations (no, that isn’t code for no buildings!) and more whole life discipleship, mission and confidence in deep things of God, holiness and attitudes of grace and preparation as we journey with God into the future. We, the people of God, shaped by these things will be well placed to seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.

In strange times, glimpses of God’s Normal future? There are some practical signs of this:

·         We’ve had two documents on the church website for some weeks, asking questions about how we shape ‘being church’ in the future. We’ve been asking people to explore the questions they raise. They are questions of strange things and times leading us deeper into God’s normal for our shared life.

They’ve been read or downloaded over 140 times and lots of home groups, music leaders, youth leaders and many others have offered great responses. Many are saying surprisingly similar things. But we’d expect that if we deeply believed the Holy Spirit was leading the way!

·         We’re finding that more people in the local community around here are openly expressing spiritual things – not Christian necessarily, but certainly more aware of life being more than it seemed to be 14 weeks ago; particularly those under 40.

·         We’ve re-opened the church buildings for private prayer all day, every day. We are very aware of many for whom Hambledon Church cannot have opened soon enough; both people of our church family and the wider community. We know this because we’ve been asked about it many times. The building matters to many people and is seen as a place for prayer.

·         Busbridge Church has a gentle and thoughtful art installation with music and silence, art pieces and videos. There’s been a steady stream of visitors and most are not regular worshippers.

·         As of July 5th Rev Sheila Samuels, (pioneer) curate in charge of Ockford Ridge, will be working closely with myself and others, including our good friends at St Peter and Paul’s in Godalming. Sheila will be developing pioneer ministry vision into the community of Ockford Ridge and will have access to resources and staff expertise as I become her training incumbent. We’ll work out with our friends in the town what all this means and how we can see God’s normal flowing in this important area of Godalming.

This is to help Jane (Rector of Godalming) for when she returns from a long period of illness. This allows an interim vicar who joins St Peter and Paul’s to concentrate on ministry in the town itself and hold things for Jane. Do pray for the churchwardens, PCC and worshippers.

·         Many of us have stepped out in new ways, both practically in care and through folding into a home group for the first time. Over sixty people have chosen to join a home group and be part of this amazing midweek journey of faith together. Some home groups are getting quite large!

Simon

 

AUDIT. AWARENESS. ACTION

Romans 12:15 “…weep with those who weep”

The moment you see George Floyd’s name you know what this piece is about.

It is a piece which I have struggled to write and this is the third time I have started it and then started again. So, I ask for forgiveness if anything that I offer offends or demonstrates my own lack of understanding at this time. This piece is a start, not the definitive statement but it starts from a place of weeping.

I have found it uniquely difficult to put pen to paper and I have a strange sense of disempowerment. This probably reflects my sense of inadequacy to speak into the hugely destructive and distressing arena that is racism. Perhaps you feel the same way?

Perhaps that is a healthy place to start: to acknowledge that I don’t fully understand and I don’t have easy answers if my starting point is myself and my own marred knowledge. I am part of the problem because I see things dimly (1 Cor 13:12). We live in a broken World, before the glorious return and final judgement of Christ, and so we weep with those who are weeping.

I have found myself strangely quiet and reflective and wondering if I, with a white ethnicity, have anything to offer? The more I have prayed and read Scripture and spoken with friends and people who have far more personal understanding than I about racism and cultural presumptions, the more I have come to the view that my, and our, primary identity in Christ is the clothing (Gal 3:27) that means we each have a voice as Christ followers; and also ears to listen deeply by seeking the voices who understand this injustice from personal experience.

I have found the writing of Christian activist, pastor and theologian Thabiti Anyabwile immensely helpful. Do look him up. His challenge is to recognise the bias that we carry through life and to recognise that if we pause to dwell then we might be called by Christ to come to a place of change within ourselves and how we view situations.

“If we allow ourselves even for a moment to contemplate the vast weight of suffering in the world, we will easily be overwhelmed with grief. This is why we develop the habit and self-protective instinct of overlooking the suffering around us.”

Thabiti Anyabwile, In The Life of God in the Soul of the Church The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship

A great friend, Rev Esther Prior, is vicar of St John’s Egham, and she has helped me enormously in recent days. I highly recommend this seven-minute interview with Esther (32 minutes into the 54 min service, note that the sound goes for a moment at 34 minutes):

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBJHOKoBt6P/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet 

Esther wonders if one of the reasons that George Floyd’s death in another country has resonance in the UK now is because “the World has stopped”.

I recommend reading The Life of God. If you have stopped, don’t rush into starting again. Don’t bury the questions and learning, shaped by Scripture as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

A word of caution, writing not theologically but as a Christian pastor. We mustn’t reduce people to what they can help us with for our own ends, nor make assumptions about anyone. Please don’t assume that everyone you might want to approach to help you understand might be in a place where they can help you; it would be wise to ask their permission rather than make assumptions, because our faith surely leads us to honour people for who they are, not merely for what they can give us or what they may represent.

I come to this with a deep awareness that I am speaking about something which I am learning about alongside so many others right now. There are many, sadly, such as Esther, who can say “it is personal, think of me”, so are able to speak stories of pain and with far deeper understanding than my own. The fact that people have such stories in 2020, in the UK, in Surrey, in Godalming and villages and in homes, businesses and shops here strips away the veneer of image that racism is a thing of the past.

Thabiti Anyabwile provides a Christian framework for engaging with racism and how we respond personally and locally. He says that to be a healthy church (and Christian) then the pastors and teachers of the church must start with Scripture and allow its meaning to drive the agenda. In What is a healthy church member?

Galatians 3:28 “you are one in Christ Jesus”

Like many Christians, I am considering questions of identity, value, uniqueness, our God ordained purpose, and how our actions flow from our deep seated and sometimes unconscious attitudes. Our Christian faith speaks into all of these and we must not be silent. As Christians we bring the powerful voice of our faith in Christ, which shapes who we are.

Our foundation is that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3:28) and Paul’s reason for saying this is to demonstrate the basis of our identity which is beyond reducing people to an ethnicity. All people are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and our faith is about the identity we have found in Christ. We are called to proclaim this into every situation we find ourselves in. If we truly believe that a black life matters as much as any other life, then we will see everyone as having equal identity. I suspect that no Christian would disagree with this but…

This takes us to a place of being willing to pause and ask questions, of taking what Rev Ben Lindsey, the vicar of a black majority church in South London calls ‘audit’: to take a self-audit and to self-audit the businesses, churches and charities that we are part of with eyes and ears that listen and see. Audit is about asking questions, seeking to listen and wanting to integrate the saving grace of Jesus Christ fully into every aspect of who we are. As the Holy Spirit flows through us we are a new creation and we become deeply aware of places, people and positions where there is injustice.

This may bring discomfort and disrupt our own expectations and norms, but it is God who is the great disruptor time and again in Scripture and throughout history. He does not leave us in the status or the status quo we create or are used to. This is the point of Christianity: it is no longer about me but about God and us.

When we comprehend this we begin to understand that our Christian faith is an activist faith. We are disturbed by the Holy Spirit within us into action when we begin to glimpse with fresh eyes those who have been at the margins of justice, or on the receiving end of injustice. Sometimes, that injustice is forcefully propelled onto our tv screens and media feeds in an uncompromising way and we are left with a decision: to audit ourselves and places we are involved with, or to walk away from the discomfort and ignore the past and present.

Psalm 37:28 “The Lord loves justice”

As Christians we bring the unique power of God’s love into shaping how the past might be healed and where the future leads for those who bear the hidden trauma of racism but that love is also a love of practical action too. It isn’t about ideals alone but about ideas that are acted on, in love. Ben Lindsey gives some utterly shocking examples of what the disparity of opportunity looks like, today. I would urge you to watch this interview between Rev Tim Hughes of Gas Street, Birmingham and Ben Lindsey:

https://www.facebook.com/gasstreetchurch/ (8th June, 2020)

This is what Ben might mean when he says that Audit leads to Awareness, and Awareness leads us to Action. He warns against rushing to Action. Awareness is when we come to God in humility and cry “Lord, shine a spotlight on my heart”. What resonates with me about this call to all of us from Ben is ‘heart’. God is the God of compassion and time and again in Scripture God is described as the God of Love. The Psalmist tell us (Ps37) that God loves justice because he his righteous.

As Christians we have a voice to bring to wherever we have authority and power of the perfect interweaving of judgement founded on loving justice. Justice without love is no justice at all. Judgement without justice is injustice. We are called to have love at the heart of our attitudes but love can be a code for softness or acquiescence. There is nothing soft about God’s righteous judgement and we know God judges our hearts (1 Sam 16:7). It is a deep call to explore what drives us and, where we discover that there is sin present in this, to acknowledge and repent of this before Almighty God.

Today: what are you going to do and how will you think differently now?

This surely frees us, as Paul goes on to say in Galatians 4, to be people of freedom based on our clothing in Christ. Once we fully comprehend this freedom we lose the shackles of fear that bind us to concern about status, privilege, maintaining that which we have or concern that our voice may be dismissed or ignored. We become truly open to listen and learn and to ensure that the future does not repeat the past.

We are freed to speak out in our workplaces and communities; and do so in the love which knows that God is The God of Justice and hope; the God who draws us together for eternity.

Practically, right now, we can seek to learn and understand by Auditing our response to racism and our own situation. We can seek to be Aware of the situation, history and injustice so that we can understand more. We can sense the Holy Spirit’s calling us to Action in Love. This might lead us to attend an interview with Ben Lindsey on Tues 16th June at 8pm with a live Q&A afterwards.

We can open our eyes to why a person’s death on another continent has opened a response that means that I am writing this article and you are reading it.

The question I’d leave you with is one that I was asked by a friend after I’d listened to them: “so, what are you going to do and how will you think differently now”?

I recommend everyone to watch the Archbishop of Canterbury, as we consider our response to recent events in the US and UK following the death of George Floyd, and to racism. We acknowledge we have work to do as Christ’s people in Busbridge and Hambledon and are looking at ways to make a start on this journey.