So this weekend you can be at the 'Aurora Borealis' Christian Festival, the 'Do Not Build On my Judo Grade' Christian Festival or the 'Village in the Wye Valley' flower and Christian festival.  Others will be recovering after the 'Front Side of an Aeroplane Wing' Christian Festival for Dunked Persons and probably others after the fairly recent 'As Yet Only Partially Fermented Grape Juice' Christian Festival.  Small wonder our congregations are going to be small.

It is good that there are so many, and such diverse, festivals.  It is good that people get so much from them.  Just my cynical head that says 'why can't we put the same energy into supporting our local, (small) churches in mission?'

So, to all those Bappy bloggers at whatever festival you're at, have a great time.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

(PS can any one tell me why Greenbelt is so called?  I'm sure it's neither a judo grade or a piece of house-proof land)

Thus said the teacher!

On Saturday I am conducting the wedding of a nominal Baptist to a nominal Hindu.  I am excited by this, and it has been great fun working with the couple to prepare a litrugy that embraces that which is good in each faith without compromising my own beliefs.

In each of the other (a whole two!) weddings I've 'done,' the couples have chosen to read their vows from cards, something I encourage as it feels more personal and authentic than the 'repeat after me' approach.  This had been the plan for Saturday until the groom decided he didn't want to wear his glasses and he wouldn't be able to read without them - vanity, vanity, all is vanity!

I leave you with the wedding blessing I'll be using; it's for you to decide whether its origins are Christian, Hindu or both!

May God be your guide as you nourish and sustain each other

May God be your guide as your loves grows stronger

May God be your guide as you grow in grace and maturity

May God be your guide through the joys and sorrows of life

May God be your guide as you cherish and care for children

May God be your guide so that your friendship lasts forever.

 

A propos of nothing much really - just a thought that flitted across my brain and provided five minutes distraction from a backlog of admin.

As part of my research into Habakkuk, I looked him up in the Revised Common Lectionary - he doesn't feature much.  I recalled a work colleague telling me about a nun he knew who set out to list, and then read, those parts of scripture not covered by the Lectionary.  They tend to be the tricky bits - the odd rape or murder, insightment to violence against babies, and accusations of satanic parentage by none other than JC himself - and the boring & puzzling bits - long lists of names, numbers or objects and obscure rules about vomit, excrement and other bodily emissions.  But what if we did engage with these 'texts of terror' (as Phyllis Tribble titled her work) or texts of boredom or puzzlement.  How might that impact our thinking?  Hmm.

I have long been struck by St Augustine's words...

You called, You cried, You shattered my deafness.

You sparkled, You burned, You drove away my blindness.

You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath.

Therefore, from now on, I will pant for YOU alone.

 

This week, as I researched stuff for my prayers, I found a website on the Hebrew names of God that said that "Jehovah Nissi" does not simply mean 'God is my Banner' - the standard that flies above me on the battlefield - but effectively  'God who Glistens.'

I like that.  I like the idea of a sparkly God, though I'm not entirely sure what that means visually!  It helped me to make a bit more sense of Augsutines powerful and beautiful words.

I still need to work with what it means to have a sparkly God in the greyness that Habakkuk speaks of, but I'm sure it fits somehow.

It's a while now since my decision to preach on Habakkuk.  As I have studied this book, read some commentary and pondered what God might be saying through it to me, to my congregation, I have also been struck by the relentless level of bad news on the television.  Am I just more attuned to it, or has this been a summer of almost unrivalled awfulness?  Every day, it feels, there's another murder report, another fire, another natural disaster, another soldier killed - and the cry of Habakkuk 'how long' seems ever more pertinent.

Today was a rare event - one of those times when I felt it right to abandon my written sermon and just talk.  I retained the main threads - a faithful God and the need for faithfulness in the face of struggle - as we explored the idea of authenticity in church.

Some people got it, some people didn't - the only comment I got was that I spoke too quickly!

Next week we move on to theodicy - the defence of a good God in a world marred by evil.  It had not clicked until now that the weekend will be overtaken by Diana stuff, so it will be the more important to move beyond the mawkish to some real engagement with tough questions.  I will be attempting to get people to think a bit, and to move beyond simplistic views I have heard expressed that "these are the end times so such things must happen" and/or "well it must be down to their sin." (Think of Luke's gospel and the tower that fell on people if you need to challenge such views)

Before the service, one of my folk told me she felt that God was speaking to her about the need to open the door between church and world, I have felt that we need to allow the realities of real life to enter our worship (something that Habakkuk expresses).  Many non-Christains I know use the questions of evil and suffering as their argument for the non-existence of God; I feel that we need to see that an engaged and provisional theodicy is actually part of mission - authenticity and trust in God despite all, not in a naive way, but one that is implied by Habakkuk's words that 'the people of God will experience life in all its fullness because of their faithfulness' (my paraphrase of some stuff I've read).

It is a mystery how sometimes things seem to fall into place,  As one of my Regional Ministers sometimes says, with a twinkle in his eye, 'if you were religious you might think God had something to do with it'!