Today I sat down and emailed my deacons my annual leave intentions for this year.  As I won't use the last of last year's until April (only 2 days) it has given me rather inflated pleasure to book a three week block in August!  This will consist of two weeks walking Offa's Dyke followed by almost a week at a theology conference in Manchester.  Whether this is sublime to ridiculous or vice versa only time will tell.  What is rather nice is that the two are linked by a preach at my 'sending' church in dear old Warrington.

I also fixed my week's study leave in early April (before the last of last year's annual leave!) and am all set to spend five days away from it all at St Deniol's library in Wales.  Not a rest, as I have not one but two conference papers to prepare in a decent draft form (not least as the university needs a draft to be presented a week or so later!) but it will be a total break from the stresses of dear old Dibley.

Thus I am feeling fairly cheerful tonight, and looking forward to lots of lovely varied time away, refreshing body, mind and spirit.  Bliss!

Such is the title for the Women's World Day of Prayer for which I have to preach on Friday.  I am not over enamoured with the material I've been supplied with which seems too simplistic to me.  I have a bit of an idea rumbling around my brain, but I'm not sure whether it will work with a group of mainly older women , so I thought I'd dump it here instead!

One of the best things I was every taught in respect of preaching was based on a Barth idea of

WORD

Word

word

Where WORD refers to Christ, the Logos, the word-made-flesh; Word is the Bible, the scriptures; word is the thing the preacher speaks, shares, tells forth.

So how about a parallel for wisdom?

WISDOM

Wisdom

wisdom

Where WISDOM refers to the Holy Spirit, Sophia, the Wisdom-of-God; Wisdom is again the Bible, the scriptures, the inspired account of faith; wisdom is the thing that arises in humans as they acquire new understanding.

The two stories I have to work with - Job and Luke's Mary & Martha seem to me to represent three situations in which God's Sophia brings wisdom...

For Job there is a new perspective on questions of suffering, not answers but an awareness that God has not abandoned him.  I have to admit I don't find Job easy to work with because he has a happy ending and real people in real situations very often don't.  But even so, I think I can say God's Sophia can transform our views from within suffering, not to fatalistic acceptance but to the assurance of God-with-us.

For Mary there is excitement and desire to be at Jesus' feet.  Something prompts her to do this, because we don't actually know that she was a dreamer or a lazy little sister!  Something about God's Sophia moving us to new encounters and new possibilities.

For Martha there is just daily routine made worse by all these blokes arriving!  She questions Jesus (brave woman!) and is prompted to think again about her priorities.  From the Johannine accounts it is clear that her perspective does move on.  Even the everyday can be transformed by God's Sophia.

And this, I think, is where I want to go with these women - that no matter what life is like, God's Wisdom brings new Understanding - new ideas, new perspectives, new hope, new practices, new dreams, new attitudes.  We might not get the answers we long for, but God who is present as Spirit can and does offer hope and a future.

Does that make any sense?  Is it total heresy?  Who thought of it before me?  And will the good ladies of the church south of Leicester get it?

... a view on hermeneutics.

For a bit of fun try out a hermeneutics quiz here and discover whether you are 'conservative' 'moderate' or 'progressive.'

With a score of 72 I am apparently progressive.  Is this good, bad or indifferent?  That probably depends on what you are!  According to this article all three approaches are useful and none is inherently better or worse, just different.  I think I'm happy enough to be a self-aware, self-critical, progressive in this respect - better that than a foot stamping anything! 

Thanks to Maggie Dawn on whose blog I found this quiz

This morning I was giving my office one of its occasional blitzes - as ever prompted by the fact that it was so awfully untidy I could no longer work in it!  There are, because I've seen them, ministers' offices that are of adequate size to house their contents and which do not double as store rooms for those items of church property that no one else will store; mine is not one of them!  The advantage of the occasional blitz - which today included turning out some of the drawers - is that there are always lost treasures waiting to be rediscovered.

Today I found these two, from late 2003...

Even as we seem to be dying

in weakness

in fear

overwhelmed by all the forces against us,

there are moments when we know

that we will never be determined

by any of that.

      

There is a God

who says to us

weep strongly,

be strongly afraid,

care strongly,

choose life strongly in faith

and I will live strongly

in all of that.

  

There is a God

Who moves from hill to mountain top,

who stands high in the depths of the pit,

who gasps free of the waters of drowning

and plants the cross-shaped tree

on the very shaking ground on which we stand

as though our trembling earth is like a rock.

  

There is a God

who steps free

of the binding chains around our souls

and calls us in a voice

which always knows our name,

who always feels our pain,

who lifts our feet

as though our life

stands cupped in a saving hand

and cherished forever in a life-filled place.

from Dorothy McRae-Mcmahon, Liturgies for the Journey of life, p124; sent to me in 2003 by Jo H

 

 

Some days we struggle, other days we soar, but there's not a day when we're not held securely in his everlasting arms

 

From a card, not sure who from (I only have the front now!), probably Rachel J or Anne P c. 2003

 

 

If life is tough, then receive the gift these words offer

If life is good, then why not keep them in your own rainy day collection?

At D+1 tonight for a joint service.  Pretty poor turnout of my folk but to be honest probably would have been much the same had we been on our own.

It was 'a service in three parts' and it was very effective.

Part 1 beginning with Psalm 131 (weaned child on mother's knee) was about human mothers and was handled with appropriate sensitivity to those who aren't, without demeaning those who are, and had careful acknowledgement of when motherhood is trial rather than joy

Part 2 was about church as mother, picking up on the Ephesians 5 image of the church as feminine and bride of Christ, and spoke of the church birthing new Christians and then nurturing them.  This section culminated in Communion and I was invited to do the thanksgiving prayer - just wished I could have recalled more of the Mother's Shabbat prayer as it would have fitted; in the end I used the opening line (Blessed art Thou, oh Lord, our God, King of the Universe) and then extemporised.

Part 3 was about God as mother, drawing on a couple of beautiful images from Isaiah 49:15 (can a mother forget the baby at her breast) and Isaiah 66:10-13 (As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you) and the lovely Lukan hen and chicks.

It was a very comforting service - or at least I found it so - though I guess some may have found the feminine imagery a bit challenging.

Definitely a good approach to Mothering Sunday/Mother's Day, and it was a good place to be.