Strange driving home on a day the country is in turmoil following more flooding, to find the roads dry and, mostly, clear between Reading and Leicestershire.

It was a good couple of days in which my worst fears evaporated fairly quickly and. monsoons aside, I had a good time.

One of the things that really struck me is the relationship between narrative (story, especially 'my story' or 'our story') and theology, and the need for some good basic systematic or dogmatic theology alongside the 'practical' or 'contextual' stuff.  Our keynote speaker David Lyall was skilled in showing how the two speak to each other in a creative manner and are not, as some seem to think, diametrically opposed.

During one of the early plenary sessions I shared that I was keenly aware of the paucity of my theological undertsanding, not having studied systematics.  Outside of the session another person said she was relieved when I'd shared that because she hadn't either, and had thought she was alone (ironically, in my view she is one of the more able theologians on the course).  I guess what did amuse me mildy was that my own ignorance was at least conscious - and I was secretly a little smug when I had to explain perichoresis to a systematitian!!

My own view is that all good theology is, ultimately practical, and that all theology, good, bad or indifferent, is contextual.  One of the tutors astutely recognised that in sharing our case studies we were far better at description and being nice to each other than we were at identifying and discussing theological issues.  I think that this, in a nutshell, is why so many people dismiss practical theology - it can all too easily drift into some kind of mutual navel gazing exercise which is possibly cathartic or even therapeutic but not even vaguely theolgocial - unless one subscribes to the view that everything is theology.

I think I left the event feeling that, actually, I'm a reasonably competent practical theologian, and that one of my strengths is that I know my weaknesses.  I could, if I had the time/inclination, pick up either McGrath's or Grenz's summary theologies, which are on my book shelf and I periodically glance through, and really read them, but maybe I have, by other means (an engineering degree and a systematic brain?!) acquired many of the skills if not the detailed knowledge they would give me.

It was good to catch up with people from the two centres, but also quite challenging to see the gulf that is already apparent in both skills and knowledge.  There are some really bright (in every sense of the word) people with whom it is a privlege to share; there are also others who it feels are already out of their depth and I feel for them as the theological water gets deeper (rain or no rain).

As we left we were told we were the 'big siblings' who were about to get baby triplets in the autumn (new Manchester intake of up to 15).  It will be intriguing to see what the new session brings and how the course develops.

I am honoured - I have been tagged along with the great and the good to share a scripture which 'haunts me', which I (try to) inhabit.  It has to be James 2:26b 'faith without deeds is dead.'  I loved this verse when I first heard it many years ago, I love it still, and it challenges me always.

As I studied a bit of theology, I found out that James was one of the 'dodgey bits' that nearly didn't get canonised, that people think, as well as they can think about any Biblical author, it "might well have been Jesus' little brother" who wrote it - might not have been, but it might.

The text is not salvation by works, but something more subtle - faith is manifest by what it does.  It is incarnated or inhabited or just plain lived!

My ordination service drew on two passages that for me exposit something of what James is saying (even if they were perhaps written down later) - Matthew 25:31-36 (sheep and goats) and Matthew 28: 16-20 (the Great Commission) which give the 'both/and' of 'mission in many modes.'  My call to ministry came from 2 Timothy 4: 1 - 5 - showing God's warped sense of fun that part of one of the allegedly more misogynous epistles was the call to a woman minister, but it too fits with what God says to me in James 2: 26b - 'Catriona if you have faith, then do it' (Which, by the way, reminds me of a memory verse from a GB parade service when I was about 14 'faithful is he who also will do it'.  I have long ago forgotten chapter and verse but the words came back as I typed).  Oh, and I love the bit about people wanting to hear things that 'tickle their ears' (thank you to those who slogged to teach me Greek) rather than what God actually wants them to say - this challenge to a prophetic edge also haunts me.

On the 'Fresh Expressions' DVD is a minister (Methodist I think) who says that when his number is up and he stands before God, he wants to be able to say 'I tried' - this for me is the practical outworking of 'Faith without deeds is dead.'  I get loads of things wrong, I struggle and sometimes have to say 'I believe, Lord help my unbelief,' but I try.

Faith without deeds is dead - a truth and a challenge.  I love it, it scares me, but I try to live it.

Most of the best people to tag have already been tagged, so I can't tag them but I'd love to know the responses from fellow Baptist bloggers Kez Lama, Andy Amoss, URC's Craig and K8, and "anyone else who knows me."  (Sorry Craig I don't seen to have a working link for you)

In this role you deal with a lot of pain - other people's and your own.  Sometimes the former causes the latter; sometimes it just goes with the territory.  A while back a friend (not one who reads this, to my knowledge) off-loaded a lot of stuff and thanked me for being a 'sponge' - but not like 'Bob' - and the expression "Sponge Cat Vicar Knickers" emerged spontaneously, abbreviated SCVK.  Well, maybe.  But even sponges need to wrung out now and then, and we all feel wrung out from time to time.

Trawling round blogs this week, I have seen a lot of pain - some posts written then pulled because the honesty is perhaps too raw to share with the world, some people bemused or confused by injustices on their doorsteps.  I have also worried lest comments I've left have caused pain for others when their posts vanished or when rereading what I'd written I cringed (so if my words have hurt you, I am truly sorry).

As well as that real life and emails have shown me that I am in contact with lots of hurting people and people who are hurting others, sometimes wilfully.  Researching the Elijah sermon was helpful for me.

On my latest trawl I came across this post by internet monk, Psalm 13: 1- 2, which seems to me to say what a lot of us feel, at least sometimes...

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

Psalm 13:1-2

I miss you, God.

It’s like you’re not around.

I see your world. I’m with your people. I’m surrounded by books about you. I read about you and talk about you. I teach others about you.

But I miss you.

I believe you’re there. I believe the Bible. I believe in Jesus. I don’t doubt your existence at all.

I miss you.

You. Not your people, or songs about you or books about you. I miss you.

I don’t miss all the theology in the books, the blogs and the lectures. I don’t miss the points of all the sermons. Or the answers to questions.

I have all those. Far more than I need, to be honest. But when David says, “Why are you hiding from me?” I know exactly what he is talking about.

I’m missing you, God.

All of the activities that go on where you are talked about don’t bring you to me. Nothing that’s said or done in church fills this empty place.

When I pray, I feel like I’m talking, and that’s all. I don’t feel like I’m your child and you are there delighting in me. I feel you are far away.

It’s like you moved on and didn’t leave your address. It’s like we lived in the same house, but you’ve moved out without telling me where you went.

I cried out to you last night. Over and over. I want you to hear me. I don’t need to get your attention. I believe you’re close by. But I can’t see, sense or feel you. I feel alone. Like I am talking to myself.

I am starting to resent those who know you are close to them. Why am I different?

When I knew less, when I was considered young and ignorant, I felt you close to me. Then I grew up, and now I’m in the middle of life. It feels like I have lost you along the way. Somewhere in the crowd I let go of your hand, and now I’m alone. I’m calling out, but there is no answer.

There are people who will ridicule me for saying I want you. They will say I’m too interested in emotion. I don’t care what they say. This isn’t about my theology. My theology is as good as I can make it by all my efforts at study. No, this is about being able to stop and say “God is close to me. God delights in me. God is my friend, my father, my ever-present Abba.”

Where did you go? Why did you go away? Did my sins make you go away? Are you teaching me something? Are you taking away your presence so I will walk on, by faith, without you? Is this the “trough” C.S. Lewis wrote about? Will there ever be an explanation?

I’m weary of explanations and answers. I’m worn out with principles and illustrations. I’ve heard talking for what seems like an eternity and it doesn’t bring you closer to me.

When this happens, I hear voices telling me I shouldn’t need to feel you, and I shouldn’t even want to feel you. They will say I’m not reading and believing the verses. They will tell me I’m not trusting.

I may not be trusting you as I should. It’s harder and harder to trust you in this loneliness. It’s hard to turn away from this emptiness and tell myself you are real. I believe all of the right things in my mind, but my heart is aching to have you close to me again.

You’ve seen my tears. I don’t suppose they impress you. Maybe they are selfish, or sinful. I just don’t know anymore. Those tears are my way of saying I want you again. I want you in the way I experienced you before anyone said “He’s smart” or “He knows about God.”

I miss you so much.

Please come back to me. Please tell me what to do. Please.

 

It is a perverse kind of privilege to be SCVK and I hope these stolen words offer some comfort/encouragement/reassurance to those who this week have need of it.

I know that when the Bible says 'forty days and forty nights' it probably means 'a long time' but pondering the commentator who told me Elijah had to travel around 150 miles to Mount Horeb (evidently whilst fasting; eisegesis in case you didn't read the last post) he didn't exactly rush did he?  150 miles in forty days - less than four a day on average.  Hmm.  The dangers of literalism.  More likely it took him a couple of weeks at a gentle stroll, with stops along the way.  But the point, I think, is that this story does not happen in the few lines it takes to record it.  This is not a quick fix to Elijah's depression.

Tonight we have a joyous Church Meeting which will handle some tough stuff - the next step on building disposal and the longer term future of our fellowship (the graph I've drawn of membership figures for the last century looks like Mount Horeb I suspect!).  Quick fixes are not going to happen; harsh facts must be faced - but somewhere in the silence God will speak.

This whole process has been anything but a stroll in the park, and we are learning a lot about what 'forty' days/nights/years can feel like.  I think Elijah will form the basis for our devotions tonight... just hoping to avoid storms, earthquakes or getting fired!

1 Kings 19, the story of Elijah, worn out and demoralised, fleeing for his life; the encounter with God in the 'sound of sheer silence' and the return to pick up his work.

I have a few general commentaries but nothing specific and have no Hebrew whatsoever.  The commentaries say that God rebuked Elijah with the question 'why are you here?' [why does the exact same question appear twice?] but is that a true interpretation (i.e. what does the Hebrew say, clever people who know these things).  The commentators I've found seem to see Elijah as failing here, but I'm not convinced - he's being blatantly honest about how he sees it (even if there are a load of other prophets hiding in a cave elsewhere).

The sermon I intend to deliver owes a lot to the incredibly courageous, open and honest address/study/sermon given by Alistair Brown of BMS at the BWA a couple of years ago.  Elijah hasn't failed, he's just human, knackered, scared and vulnerable.  God meets his needs - for rest and food, more rest and more food - and then Elijah sets off to seek God (according to one commentary Horeb was about 150 miles away;it also said he fasted for 40 days but that is definitely eisegesis).  When he gets there he tells it as it is - something we admire in the psalmists - and he has his mysterious encounter with God in 'the sound of sheer silence', then restates his case, before God sends him off with a new commission - to annoint a couple of kings and to appoint a companion-successor.  Interestingly, he only does the latter, it is Elisha who annoints the kings.

The theme I've been given is (joy!) 'Taking Responsbility for our own Spirituality' and I think that this story of frail Elijah speaks into that somehow.  It isn't a story of spiritual disciplines, though they are valuable, but a story of authenticity.  Elijah had had amazing experiences on Mount Carmel but he was left burned out; he needed a break, and that is OK.  A break to recover physically and then a journey, literal or metaphorical, to meet with God, pour out his heart and find the strength to carry on.  Perhaps the repeat of the question is to show that in one sense nothing has changed - he still feels frightened and isolated - but in another sense everything has changed - he is now ready to go back and do what is needed.  That seems to me to speak of taking responsibility both for and from his own spirituality.

I'm not too sure I like the idea of God rebuking Elijah, but the 'sound of sheer silence' (evdently a better translation)speaks so much more 'loudly' than a 'still small voice' or a 'quiet whisper.'  God is in the silence... now that's something worth contemplating.