Today is officially the last day of the fourth week of Lent - we are two-thirds of our way along the path to Calvary.  I wonder if it feels nearer or whether we just feel that life plods along in its familiar pattern? For me, and for other ministers, preachers and worship leaders, the work load is beginning to crank up, in a good way, but if I were still in a 'real' job I've a suspicion my mind would more fixed on some time off after meeting the inevitable spring deadlines than the deep and meaningfuls of Lent, Passiontide and Easter.

So then, today's readings:

Psalm 107:1-16
Isaiah 60:15-22
John 8:12-20

I have to confess that I wasn't too familiar with the Isaiah reading... I recognised it once I got going, and the beginning of the chapter is often used in Advent services.  The imagery of one nation suckling on the breast milk of other nations is, well, not exactly everyday!  As for the breasts of kings, well we'll not push that idea too far...!

The John 8, Light of the World ego eimi (I AM) saying form the link to the Isaiah...

The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

Isaiah 60:19-20 NRSV

You don't need a degree in theology to make the connection between the two readings.

It's all very wonderful, a beautiful promise, but of course, as I've reflected in previous days, life is not always so lovely.  The Isaiah reading, in its wider context of chapter 60 as a whole is more wide ranging, there is critique as well as comfort.  The John hints at events to come as it observes of Jesus 'his hour had not yet come'.  That. I think, gives us a better, more healthy and helpful way of reading the promises.  The good old 'now-and-not-yet' begins to break in to our understanding.  The light shines in the darkness, the darkness has not not understood or overcome it, and yet, for now, we still depend on created light, pale imitations of the Light.  The sun by day and the moon by night point us beyond themselves to the one in whom they have their origin.

Every now and then, when it's full moon I will spend some time looking at it and marvelling at its beauty.  And on such occasions I will recall other moments in my life when I have done the same - times of joy, times of sorrow, times of fear, times of celebration.  But I go beyond that  to recall that this same moon lit the nights of my forebears, lit the nights of our Christian forebears, lit the night when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, the night when the shepherds were startled by the angel chorus, etc, etc.  This same moon, this constant reminder of the God who never slumbers nor sleeps.

God who made the sun, moon and stars

God who lightens our darkest moments

Light that can never, never be extinguished

That watched over my forebears

And will watch over those who come after I have returned to you

Illuminate my path

Enough to see the next step

Of my journey nearer to you

OK, cue soppy song 'somewhere out there' from the film American Tale and cute mice gazing at the moon...

Golly goshkins today's readings make for hard work!

Psalm 107:1-16
Numbers 20:1-13
1 Corinthians 10:6-13

So, we continue to sit with our same psalm, as we have become accustomed, and we recall it is the front part of the psalm from which we had a middle chunk first.  The Numbers reading provides the link between Sunday's (the death of Aaron) and yesterday's by describing the events at Meribah.  I'm not wild about the flash-back technique done badly that this gives us, but never mind.  These various stories, in whatever order we encounter them, lead us on to the reading from 1 Corinthians...

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,  and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.  Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.  Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."   We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.  We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.  And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.  These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.  So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.  No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

1 Corinthians 10:6 - 13

This is a pretty scary reading, with its stern warnings about 'putting Christ to the test' but I think it's the last little bit that I want to focus on:

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

I wonder how those words sound to you today?  Do they ring true or are they hollow, empty or even, so it seems, false?

There is a saying that I've heard many times over the last couple of years, 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger'... some people find it really helpful, others don't.  I guess I lean towards the latter, not out of my own experiences, but those of others.  True, some people come through incredible hardship feeling that they have learned a lot, have grown as people, and that's great.  But others emerge broken, bitter, bewildered... and it is not always the ones you think it might be.

God is faithful and won't let you be tested beyond your strength... This raises lots of questions about God... does God test people (some people believe so, others do not) or does God 'merely' allow the inevitable trials of real life in a disordered world?  And how much does God allow?  How does God know what is too much for someone to bear?  No glib answers permitted here... evidence shows that some people are tried and tested beyond their ability to cope.

Way back 18 months ago I wrote 'Did God cause my cancer?  No.  Did God allow it? Yes'  Some people tell me that it mere semantics, that the two are the same - I think otherwise.  Did God accompany through it all?  Yes.  Was it easy?  No.  Am I stronger?  Not convinced (and physically, definitely not)!  Did I 'grow'?  I hope so.

How do you know my limits, Lord

How can you give me free will and still be confident I will cope?

Not enough simply to say, with the psalmist

You have known me since before my conception

Inadequate to re-assert that

Before a word is on my lips, you know it

Not enough to say

There is nowhere hidden from you

These may be truths

But they cannot expunge

Cannot remove

Cannot deny

The chill of fear

The ache of loss

The weakness of limb and sinew

The emptiness of uncertainty

The questions of insecurity

Never tested beyond my limit...

In that I trust,

To that I cling

Not naively, expecting to be lifted clear of my trials

But accompanied within them

My fear, your fear

My loss, your loss,

My weakness, your weakness

My emptiness, your emptiness

My insecurity held in your security

And looking back,

My own 'flash back technique'

I see

How it is true

That even when I walk a valley as dark as death

You are with me, comforting and protecting me

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Who can tell what trials

Or tests (if tests they be)

Lie before me?

Yet not one can defeat me

If I dare to believe

These words

Are

True.

Here we go then:

Psalm 107:1-16
Exodus 15:22-27
Hebrews 3:1-6

I have to confess, that readings today's reading left me thinking "why let a bit of odd chronology get in the way of your reading scheme..." in a kind of sarcastic way.  We stay in Psalm 107 but we move backwards to read the beginning having last week read the middle why?  And the Exodus takes us back to the grumbling at Meribah that contributed to Aaron's exclusion from the Land of Promise... why go backwards via a different book?  Who, other than God who inspired it, knows the mind of the lectionary compilers?!

In the absence of much other inspiration, I'll look at the psalm...

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town;
hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress;
he led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
For he satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things.
Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons,
for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
Their hearts were bowed down with hard labor; they fell down, with no one to help.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress;
he brought them out of darkness and gloom, and broke their bonds asunder.
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
For he shatters the doors of bronze, and cuts in two the bars of iron.

Psalm 107:1 - 16 NRSV

The picture that is painted is a lot of very ordinary human travail - wandering lost and confused (literally or metaphorically), hunger, thirst, faint heartedness, gloom and despond, chains (literal and metaphorical) hard work, fatigue, isolation and abandonment...  And into each and every one of these comes the Lord as deliverer - saviour if you like, rescuer, redeemer, liberator.  It would be easy and unhelpful to make a twee leap here, to say 'all' that is needed is a 'cry to the Lord' and all will be well.  Twee and unhelpful, because it is never that simple.  The liberation, healing, redemption, rescuing, whatever word we want to employ, has to be worked out in real time, at real cost, among and through real people.

The psalm carries echoes of the Exodus story - hard labour, wilderness wanderings and so on - something that was worked out over at least a generation.  We easily lose that when we read in a few lines the whole story.  The psalm, and indeed the whole Pentateuch, are written looking backwards, picking out key moments and key themes, to express an understanding.  They are not the private journals of the people going through the experience (if such things might even have existed) they are the considered reflections.  Although anyone reading this knows that, sometimes it helps us to be reminded that the ancients experienced a reality every bit as slow moving as our own, and probably only in hindsight spotted where God had been there all along.

Oh give thanks to the Lord, whose steadfast love endures for ever!

Let all who have experienced God's liberation and salvation say so.

Sometimes we wander in wildernesses of our own making, unable to see the way forward

God comes alongside us and gently nudges us back to the path

Sometimes we are physically, mentally, spiritually exhausted

God guides us to spaces for rest and refreshment

Sometimes we are oppressed, victims of others' sin

God hears our cry and prepares our release

Sometimes it seems God is silent or sleeping

Sometimes it seems God is absent

God does not work nine-to-five

EU working hours directive

NICE guidelines

PERT/GANT chart plans

These are not God's way

"Soon" says God, "very soon"

"When?" we say, "how long?"

God of all eternity,

liberator

redeemer

saviour

sustainer

Help us to look back

Glimpsing your grace at work in our lives

Then face forward again

And journey onward with you

Amen

Today I have a germ of an idea in my brain for a reflection or poem or somesuch around the idea of motherhood but all attempts to catch it and write it down are failing.  So, instead here is a kind of a list of people to be remembered today and prayer for... not necessarily in any order, except the one in which they popped into my brain.

I am thinking of you,

Mothers that are,

Mothers that were,

Mothers that will be,

Mothers that will never be

Mothers that never were

Mothers that are not yet...

Thinking of you and praying, somehow, for you...

The new mother exhausted from labour whose newborn will not suckle

The elderly mother whose age-eroded mind can no longer recognise her own child

The frazzled mother whose children seem out of control

The mother who now nurses her own mother

The mother who longs to linger but is lured by death to eternity

The unexpected mother whose swelling belly bears witness to unplanned activity

The shamed mother, whose rapist's feature stare at her from infancy's innocence

The step mother trying, perhaps too hard, to get it right

The adoptive mother, finally holding the longed for child

The mother who cannot be mother, life-saving drugs having destroyed her fertility

The longs-to-be mother whose body has let her down yet again

The mother who cares for her children's children, her child having died

The mother who sits alone, rejected, neglected, unloved

The mother who clings to bitterness and refuses to ne reconciled

The mother who feels she has failed

The mother who dances for joy at her children's achievements

The mother who lets go the apron strings, and delights to see her children grown

The mother who sacrificed her career to fulfil her calling as mother

The mother who...

The mothers that were

The mothers that are

The mothers that will be

The mothers that weren't

The mothers that aren't

The mothers that never will be

On this Mothering Sunday,

May the mother-love of God,

In whom we are each conceived,

Surround and fill you,

Wherever,

Whoever,

Whatever you may be. 

Amen.

A gaudete Sunday, allegedly.

Mothering Sunday, for part of history anyway.

Mothers' Day, since the greetng card industry took it over.

So, a rare old mix of stuff to hold in mind when reading todays's passages:

Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

To be honest, whilst they are full of good stuff, they don't exactly make my heart sing!  They are not easy passages, not comfortable, not even the lovely John 3 stuff, because it links bck to the Numbers story which is all rather strange.  People grumble and God sends snakes to bite them... and they die.  That's cheery - not.

This week I heard of a book recently published about hell, that was being used as some kind of evangelism tool, I think the idea was that it would paint such a graphic and awful image of what lay ahead of the unrepentant sinner that they would be frightened into the Kingdom.  Oh dear.  Well intentioned I guess, but not consistent with the idea of a God who is love, who, at Calvary draws into God's very self all that is death-dealing and sinful.  Reading these little passages reminds us that the Bible says precious little about hell, and that the consequence of sin is not being burned for eternity or endless consumed by maggots (each based on unfortunate readings of extraneous verses), no it is death.  As the simplest statement says 'the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life".  In the Numbers story, the people looked at the bronze serpent on the pole and lived.   In the John 3 account of Nicodemus and Jesus, the same comparison is made... salvation equates to everlasting life.  it's opposite is, then, presumably, everlasting death.

This morning I am preaching on atonement theology - which is every bit as jolly as this stuff the lectionary offers!  I am employing three images of Jesus as Prophet, Priest and King and wondering just how each of these gives a glimpse onto some aspects of atonement.  I will not be setting up models as 'right' or 'wrong' since actually they can all be defended and knocked down by judicious use of scripture, instead I will be looking for the good, the truth, to which each one points.

You sent snakes, God?

Snakes to bite the people who grumbled?

That sounds a bit harsh...

And not just little grass snakes

Poisonous snakes whose venom brought death

Can't say I really understand that

You were crucified, Lord

Nailed to a cross by people who despised you:

That's more than a bit harsh...

And drew into yourself

The poison, the venom that brought death...

I can't begin to comprehend that...

Death-defeating God

Who in Christ has absorbed all hurt

Sorrow

Sin

Sickness

Dis-ease

Death

I don't need to understand

I need to believe

And -

As best I am able -

I do.