Who is my Herod?

 Today is Epiphany - the arrival of the Wise Men at the feet of Jesus.  By now the Christmas decorations are down and ‘normal’ service has resumed whatever that means these days!  But it is actually a season of light.  Having followed God’s Light we are called to be light, helping others find God who is always closer than we realise. 

Readings for today included Genesis 6 (the beginning of Noah’s story) and Matthew 2:1-12 (The Wise Men).  Reading these two passages together reminded me that the world has always been messed up yet still God enters.  Originally from a place of anger and disappointment but yet a change of heart because of Noah.  Then the Wise Men arrive via Herod, again showing how corrupted we can be as humans.  Made me think of that quote - ‘All that is needed for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.’ 

Sometimes we think there is no power for ‘little people’ yet our Scriptures reminds us again and again that is those who have no power who hold all the power.  With God we are powerful because his grace is perfected in our weakness.  Those who are NOT desperately trying to hold onto power are more open to God’s power being made evident in their lives. 

For example, the Wise Men could have returned to Herod and receive the power, the status, the praise, the kudos from Herod.  But they didn’t.  Instead they went home by another route. They didn’t need Herod to affirm them. 

And that makes me ask - Who is my Herod?  

Where do I seek my power, status, kudos from?  

And if it comes to it am I willing to annoy my ‘Herod’ and live with the consequences?

Even Noah had to put up with a lot when people didn’t understand why he was building a giant boat in a desert. 

And yes - the majority of us have a ‘Herod’ in our lives - that person, organisation, employer, politician that maybe we will need to stand against…

Following God is not easy and sometimes people will laugh as they did at Noah yet Noah changed God’s plan because he was a faithful good man in an evil world. 

Sometimes our decisions will have unimaginable consequences but doing the right thing is more important than any short-lived glory. 

We can make a difference especially when we think we can’t! 

Lord, help me focus on you and your leading that I might honour you with my life.  Amen. 

May your light shine bright my friends! Remember God loves you and he knows you.  Love Sarah 

(If you want to join me in worship you will find me by looking up Moncreiff Church, East Kilbride.  We have online services on YouTube and Facebook.  All are welcome.)

Remembers…Forget…Car Crash!

 When I do right…when I do wrong

God is sheer mercy and grace;

    not easily angered, he’s rich in love.

He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold,

    nor hold grudges forever.

He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve,

    nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.

As high as heaven is over the earth,

    so strong is his love to those who fear him.

And as far as sunrise is from sunset,

    he has separated us from our sins.  Psalm 103:8-12 (MSG)

Sorry I am running a bit late with this week’s instalment.  To be honest this week really needs a do-over.  Surprisingly Monday morning I felt light and chirpy and actually kinda excited. And then my car was rearranged on a local, notorious, badly painted lane arrowed roundabout.                     

In my defence I was totally innocent and for the record no-one was hurt, just inconvenienced and angry, scared and shocked. The other driver was in the wrong lane and mistakenly assumed that I would be getting out his way.  So hopefully all being well insurance and vehicles will be sorted out.

However, reflecting on this with a couple of nights sleep now, and the adrenaline rush and side effects passed I was struck by the responses of my family.  Of course immediately supportive and shocked and all the usual.  Yet when I said this was my first accident the chatter immediately turned to - well what about when you spun the car in the wet?  And I’m like; ‘no-one else was there. It doesn’t count.’. Or when you hit the gate Mum - that was just a turning issue through a particularly tight gap stone gate driveway says me.  In fact getting defensive I said ‘well this is the first vehicle to vehicle crash in 20+ years of driving and it wasn’t even my fault.’

It’s funny how when we try and sound righteous, we actually find others dragging us down.  It is like those around us have to dissuade us of our righteousness and take us down a peg or two.  My family meant no harm but I’m sure we can all remember the feeling of going from the righteous to the defensive.  And it made me wonder.  An ex-boyfriend of mine in High School (trust me we are talking decades now) gave me a wee sign:

‘When I do right, no-one remembers, 

but when I do wrong, no-one forgets.’

How grateful am I that God doesn’t do to us, to me what my family automatically did to me.  I don’t even want to imagine what God might say to me in my more righteous moments.  Heavens, I’d be terrified to let my best friend talk freely about my faults, never mind God.  Yet God doesn’t do that.  He doesn’t keep a list of my wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).  

Our challenge as Christians, indeed as human beings, is to resist the temptation to cast up the sins of others or sap the morale of one another by repeatedly pointing out flaws and failures or indeed constantly criticising ourselves.  Life is hard enough and mistakes are learning opportunities if we allow them to be.  Sometimes we are right but in the wrong place, like the roundabout on Monday morning.  Sometimes we are wrong in the right place like taking a risk and failing.  

God doesn’t look at you and see failure.  God looks at you and sees his child.  We know that our children will make mistakes but we love them anyway. God knows we are human and loves us anyway.  

So, whether you are feeling righteous or a failure - God loves you and he doesn’t measure your worth by your sins or failings or flaws.  He looks at your heart and sees the love, the compassion, the willingness to try again, the faith no matter how small, and he just loves you. 

Now I’m off for my PCR test and asking the Lord if the rest of the week could have a little less drama in it! 

Be forgiven and move on in faith.  God is ahead of you (future) and with you (present), not living in your past like unwanted houseguest lobbing missiles.  And if he doesn’t do that, let’s stop doing it to ourselves and others. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (1 Cor 13:6)

All being well - see you next week!

God bless, 

Love Sarah 

Sometimes you just got to speak…

 ‘But an honourable person acts honestly and stands firmly for what is right’. Isaiah 32:8

Hello and Welcome back! 

It is a curious time. Everyone has an opinion about something and of course we are right. The challenge remains that we can’t all be right and therefore at times even we must be wrong. What is even more challenging is that when we are right and seemly ignored or overlooked we either get louder and therefore annoying or we walk away and think - well maybe I will leave you to answer that. At the moment we are facing the ultra marathon of the pandemic where we flit from option to option as politicians walk the right rope between society and science. We need to live is the only thing everyone agrees on. Unfortunately for all to live something or some of us have to give. Our desire to live as we did overrides the fact we may have to adapt just a little. Then throw in the growing difficulties with deliveries, complicated by Covid and Brexit, never mind independence discussions and to be honest even I’m ready to hide under a duvet and exit it in 2023. (Not sure I’m holding out much hope for 2022 either!). 

I feel it myself. And there are times when I feel there are things that can’t be left unsaid. Sometimes we have to stand up and say our piece. Not to cause trouble or pain on purpose but because to say nothing would be even more unjust. We cannot fight all the battles because no one is able to do that. As I have often been told whether it comes to raising children or ministry or life in general - you have to pick your battles! 

My battlefield may not be the same as yours. And you know what that is okay too. I often think I’m not truly passionate about any cause but I am. My calling is to stand up against injustice, particularly but definitely not only in the church. Sadly Christians can be the absolute worst to their own brothers and sisters. But ask my poor husband and he will tell you that I make excuses for anyone and everyone (except him 😉 ). I defend others constantly. 

Yet in my heart I would do anything for a quiet life. I hate conflict. I’m absolutely terrified of standing up to others. Yet I am more terrified of doing nothing. All it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing or so the saying goes. 

Yes there are some opinionated souls out there who likes hear the sound of their own voice. Far be it from me to tell you who… However we need to listen to some voices, such as those of the climate change activists. Look how the earth responded when we were locked down. We are a real source of damage and these past 18months should be a wake up call.  We need to listen to the call for gender equality because it impacts on us all whether we realise it or not. The steps forward in places like Afghanistan that seem so vulnerable now reminding us that progress is a fickle beast. We need the ones who stand up to injustice dressed up in political embellishments, where policies are made to look good but are ‘all fur coat and no knickers’! 

The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. I have often pondered that as I read it again and again.  A time to be silent comes first. I think we need to pick our battles, pray and plan, then speak up. God places on all our hearts a cause to support because his heart is with the poor, the marginalised, the voiceless, the refugee, the outcast and the overlooked, whether through economics or politics, climate or creed, gender or sexuality, power or abuse.  

I get wanting to hide but just maybe this is your time to speak. Don’t be afraid to speak. You might be very surprised who you enable to speak up as well. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to sit outside parliament, to raise a hand at the meeting, to walk away from a toxic situation, to challenge the soapbox speaker for others to find their voice and start a movement.  

After all even Jesus stood up against injustice with words of wisdom or with righteous anger or with loving action.

We have a voice. And currently the freedom to use it. 

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.  Proverbs 31:9

God bless your silence and your speaking

Love Sarah 

Chatterbox Syndrome

 Hello!

It is good to talk…

I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies, which is code for I am not an entertainer but I love to talk.  I really do.  I love sitting down and chatting through ideas and falling headlong into all the cliches. Expressions like ‘think outside the box’, ‘comfort zones’ and ‘blue sky thinking’ just float my boat so to speak.  Hence my angst last week at the silence, missing 121 (rarely an expression heard in the CofS), and feeling flat.  (Read last week’s if you want, it is from the heart but might leave you wondering!)

I love finding treasure in scripture and I just want to share them.  I love reading books on ministry and life as I read a lot of organisational culture and psychology type material and I just want to talk it through with others.  I feel like I have been given something exciting and like a child with new shoes or toys I just want to show off. And so for now this is one of my ways to talk. 

I am currently in the exciting land of Isaiah. Okay, let’s be honest it is a tough read. Yet, my word, there are some treasures.  I love the fact there are flashes of texts from the New Testament and I don’t mean direct quotes.  Sometimes though in the doom and gloom, stories of anger, exile, and death we need to find the light.  And there is always light. 

I was really struck by Isaiah 28:16-17, 23-29 (GNB). We read of the solid cornerstone and written on the cornerstone ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’. True statement but wow, that is hard. It makes perfect sense but patience…Justice is to be the measuring line and honesty the plumb line.  The text moves from a building metaphor to a farming metaphor, and throws in the challenge.  To paraphrase - no farmer keeps ploughing the ground for sowing, rather he gets on with planting.  Through the verses that follow Isaiah is at pains to show how God gives knowledge and wisdom to the farmer so he knows what to do.  And concludes with the verse -‘The plans God makes are wise and they always succeed.’ Isaiah 28:29

As someone who likes to do, who likes to share, who wants to shout the good news from the roof tops, I feel we are constantly getting the ground ready to sow but not moving to the next stage.  The running joke is that God so loved the world he didn’t send a committee.  And the text from Isaiah had me wondering how much I have got stuck preparing the ground?  Is there no harvest because we are not planting?  Are we crushing the new crop with rotas, rules and head stuff, rather than nurturing strength, patiently bringing the crop on? 

Whatever we plant, do, build, as individuals in our homes and communities, and in our churches, it must have justice as our measuring stick, honesty to keep us straight and true, faith that is firm, therefore patient and Christ as our Cornerstone. 

It is good to talk but let the talk actually lead us somewhere.  All talk and no action is like a farmer constantly preparing the ground and never planting.  So what are we planting folks?  God has a plan and the seeds! 

God bless you!

Love Sarah 

Feeling Flat

 Hello, 

Long time no post! Hope you are staying the course…

If truth be told I have been feeling kinda flat at the moment. Nothing is wrong and my life is ‘perfect’ as it can be.  Yet I can’t shake the numbness of time.  I can fake it til I make it.  I can show the wonder, energy etc and I do feel that in the moment but it remains fleeting.  But around the edges I feel flat, going through the motions.  The doctor asked me when my world collapsed a couple of years ago if I was depressed. I don’t think so but I wonder what I am…I am prone to these wells of self-pity and seem to need a little more drama in my world.  Yet I am not sure what I am looking for either. 

I genuinely miss 121 life (Church of Scotland National Offices).  I miss the cut and thrust, the thin lines and the balancing acts.  I miss the energy of ideas and the push and shove of competing passions.  I miss the interactions, coffee catch ups, even snide comments!  The years of engagement have compromised parish life…

I struggle with monotony and everyday ness.  Not because in and of itself it is without merit.  Of course there are times when these are good things.  After all we can’t live with high drama all the time.  But in a pandemic the variety and spice of life and ministry is curtailed.  The pressure of home life that demands my attention as some kind of gendered role keeps me distracted from my discontent whilst also adding to it. 

The model of the parish church misses the mark.  I recently received pity because churches are no longer full.  It was genuine care for me and I was touched but left wondering.  A debate on social media about holy ground, holy space and sanctuaries left me wondering whether we have become so fluid that there was nothing left to hold onto.  Or is that a good thing?

I keep asking God for clarity, for vision, for wisdom, yet like Saul waiting for Ananias I am still blind. 

Lord, I cannot keep doing nothing. 

There has to be more. 

And in the silence that followed the outpouring of prayer shared above came a string of ideas, and a stirring of passion, energy and creativity.  

When I truly start to think what I might do, what my church family might do I feel stronger, confident and the spark brightens.  

And you know the Lord said;

Be present - Be Available. 

At that point this wee mouse crossed the patio and as I watched him I felt touched.  Every minister has a church mouse…he was struggling with the heat of the day and so together we shared an apple and then I released him back into the wild (as wild as it gets in urban EK). 

I don’t know if the mouse is symbolic, but certainly I have never held one or fed one on purpose. And it was precious. 

I don’t know what the future holds but I am convinced who holds mine just as I briefly held the mouse.    

So if you are struggling with the pace of life just now - hang in there and pray.  God hasn’t left us and there are adventures and indeed dramas to come.  

Just dear Lord, let this not be the calm before the storm!

Love Sarah 

The New Different - The Blank Face

 Over the years I have worked with teenagers and now live with one, and almost without exception ask them what they want to do, want to eat etc they look at you with that infamous blank face and shrug.  It is my all time frustration when I ask friends what they want to do and they defer to my choice.  I hate choosing!!! I want people to make decisions.

Over these past 12 months or so where we have lived with restrictions and route maps out of lockdown 1, 2, 312(!), there has been comfort and frustration so maybe there is just no pleasing me.  We want to be told what to do and at the same time we don’t.  My reading since last week’s talk has been How to lead when you don’t know where you are going by Rev Susan Beaumont.  I am only 2 chapters in but it is a good read so far.  Yet I finishing chapter 2 I find myself struggling, and to be fair the author is honest that what she is offering is a tension for any leader.  How do we step back from goal setting, striving for whatever markers of success we carry, relying on our knowledge and experience?  How do we embrace wonder, listening, actively laying down our knowledge and experience in order to hear, see, ponder anew? 

In the Church of Scotland as the General Assembly approaches rumours abound.  And at the heart of these rumours are cuts, closures, and closed power circles.  Rumours are never to be trusted but the pressures on the institution of the church cannot be ignored.  And this for me is where the tension arises because in order to be missional we need to invest in it.  And I don’t necessarily mean money although obviously that would help! To be missional, our author and many like her would say that we need to stop doing stuff (striving) in order to start doing the right stuff (attending). And the right stuff (yet to be defined) is not necessarily quantifiable.  How do you quantify relationships? How do you measure seeds planted or know whether they have landed in good soil or not?   

We are in the midst of planning for the future and face the challenge of keeping the ‘right buildings in the right place’ and determining the ministry allocation.  You can bet your bottom dollar that we use statistics because they never lie! Okay being flippant! It is our natural instinct to measure and quantify, and if we don’t do something ASAP we will cease to exist.  Of course we want to work together but put a bunch of us in a Zoom and ask what we want to do and there are blank faces, including mine.  Actually that’s not true.  I have lots of ideas for the place I recently left because I know the place.  My new place is more of a blank because I am still listening and wondering.  However, what is apparent in all my years in the church is that we have forgotten to nurture our ‘defining’ feature - that we are all in this together.  I grew up with more sense of togetherness across denominations than I see within the Church of Scotland.  The pros and cons of parish ministry, which is meant to be territorial in the sense that everyone has access to a minister, but then we put in so many boundaries!  

I do love how we support each other through our ‘ministry and mission fund’ but somewhere we lost the art of being missional together.  And so when we are put together we look with a blank face and hope someone else knows what do to.  Or we batten down the hatches and protect what is ours. 

There are plenty people at the centre of the institution looking out to the edges wondering how on earth to hold it all together.  I don’t envy them.  We want them to tell us what to do and yet we don’t.  They are limited because when you live in the centre you can only see the fringes from a distance.  Those of us living on the periphery of the institution really need to embrace the reality and truly push for what we want missional church to be.  We need to model it.  Build the relationships again which might mean ‘...accepting the past for what it was, embracing the present reality, yielding to the mystery of the future and the mystery of God in the future.’ (p.43 - How to lead when you don’t know where you are going).

Once you get a bunch of teenagers engaged by giving them some level of ownership, respect (good food works) and time, you will get more than blank faces.  In fact often the wonder of teenagers is how passionate they are, full of energy and vision.  How do we get folks in the church engaged again?  Trust me, form filling and bitter pills will not do it.   If we start from a place of fear we will never truly be open to what might be, can be and is already within our grasp through God himself.

We like to quote the Jeremiah verse ‘For I know the plans I have for you....’ but do we, do I truly ever stop striving long enough, trying to look like I know what I am doing, to actually find out what God’s plan is?  And then when we do realise his plan can we embrace it even if it means death and resurrection?  

Thanks for pondering with me - no answers here, just hope that there is more...

God bless you

Love Sarah 

  

The New Different - Is Mission a Verb, an Adjective or a Noun?

Guess who has been home schooling with a title like that?  But it is my dilemma as well as we ponder the future of the church, particularly in my case, the Church of Scotland. I was brought up missional, at least in the sense of taking worship to the people.  Open airs on the piers of Oban or in random housing estates, Pentecostal marches and a regular at the Fishermen’s Mission and the like.  Ecumenical partnerships was a thing before it was a ‘thing’.  But in those days I wasn’t Church of Scotland. I was a member of The Salvation Army who were linked in to so many other Christian gatherings.  We had Congregational members who went up the hill to their church in the morning and down the hill to ours at night. And even then to a teenager witnessing the CofS from the ‘outside’ it was officious, repetitive and in the most beautiful but worst of buildings.  As for Church halls, well they always have a unique aroma - at least the old style ones. (You know they do!)

Missional meant feeding the hungry, supporting the needy, friendship and fellowship to those who spent much time away from home on the sea and preaching the Good News wherever possible. It wasn’t an optional extra, it was just what we did as Christians.  Now it feels like an extra, something we haven’t been doing or it no longer works.  

Now as I listen to wonderful speakers and thinkers, as I buy the books with great titles (but haven’t yet read - sorry!), I am somewhat perplexed.  Not because the mission has changed, but that the rules of engagement have.  Now, perhaps a key issue, I have to work within a Church of Scotland context, and not just as a lay person but as the ‘buck stops here’ person.  The joy of being a participant rather than the ‘leader’ is the freedom to get on with it.  The challenge as the ‘leader’ is to find ways to encourage others to get involved in mission without getting lost in the rabbit warren of ‘what is mission?’  A lovely colleague once said ‘preach it and they will come’.  At the time I reacted against his naivety and blessed his optimism.  Yet it also spoke to my greatest fear in the talk of mission - how do the people get to know (of) God?  

I love the variety of expressions of church, of mission, knowing that the underpinning it is the belief that the Church is a response to God’s mission in the world.  He is the ‘leader’ and we are or should be the willing participants.  We do wonderful things to support our communities, tailored to building relationships and more but at times we also sacrifice our identity so as not to put people off. (Trust me, I don’t say that lightly.  I truly struggle with Messy Church as a title because it puts people off!).  We know our motivation is because of our faith but the evangelist drummed into me asks ‘where is the proclamation of God?’.  How will they know if we don’t tell them? I am struck by how often Jesus refers to his ‘work’ being for the glory of God.  He is specific at times and other times less so.  A balance perhaps? 

I struggle when people say - ‘let go and let God.’ and I say it too. Not because I think he doesn’t have a handle on it, but because I wonder at our ability, my ability to discern the mission of God in our communities and parishes.  How do we step outside our generations of officialdom and ‘aye been’s’ to embrace something different?  Sandy Forsyth in a helpful talk I listened to today used the phrase - The New Different and I doubt he meant much by it but it stuck with me. I’m not even sure I know why but it is making me pause. 

There is a risk that as we return to our buildings and practices that we miss the new different.  The pandemic is a life changing experience for us as church, as communities, as society indeed as individuals and families.  Even if the urge is to return to normal there lies beneath that desire a deep unsettledness.  Certainty has been further eroded if not lost all together.  It is, perhaps, no longer a new normal but a new different.  

And I wonder what that will look like for me, for the Church of Scotland, and for the parish in which I currently work.  And listening to some wonderful speakers today I wonder how much we can do in a Church that was overloaded with restrictions before it was hit with a pandemic. Put it this way there isn’t much time for mission in amongst the day to day requirements of an institutional church, or the expectations of congregation/parish/et al.   

Is mission a verb, an adjective or a noun?   Whatever mission looks like in my context or yours it certainly needs to be more than noun.  We can just say it is what we are (noun) yet people need to be able to see that in action and at worst use it to describe us (adjective) but better yet to know we are doing it (verb).  

As a noun:  The Mission Church 

As an adjective: The mission church went about preaching the good news in action and word.

As a verb: The church is mission.

Absolutely this is God’s mission and we are invited to participate.  Just remember we are not called to stay and watch, we are sent out.  You coming?

There will be more ponderings to follow - like how to embrace the settlers when you want everyone to be pioneers?  Haven’t figured that out yet. 

Just remember God loves you and me, and we are his children, and the Church his bride. 

Love Sarah