Tag Archives: still small voice

WOW! WHAT WAS THAT?

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I KNOW THAT OTHERS share the slight sense of shock that I’m feeling today. The image of my standing on a beach, 20 years or more ago, on the isle of Anglesey, near RAF Valley, came back to me this morning. A thunderous low flying military jet flew over my head, and gasping, albeit that it wasn’t a new experience, I can hear myself saying “Wow! What was that?”. For many years I’ve felt that way about Christmas. Maybe that’s why this is “Boxing Day”? My head feels slightly puddled today,  and stunned in a similar sort of a way.

And actually, it’s been a Happy Christmas. I’ve shaken hands and exchanged greetings with hundreds and hundreds of people. I’ve been the grateful recipient of a great deal of kindness and warm generosity. And I hope that I’ve been kind and generous. But deep down I’m still left with an uneasy feeling about the enormity of a UK Christmas – for it’s really the celebration, for Christians, of a particular kind of littleness that had absolutely nothing to do with any form of self-interest or acquisition.

Deep down the “still small voice” encourages me not to worry too much about the overwhelming sense of relief I feel when high festival gives way to “ordinary time”. There’s an underwhelming sense of rightness, quietness, human-sized and human-shaped littleness in the stable of Bethlehem. Natural straw instead of wrapping paper. And lying in that straw is the Word that shows us the way back to our senses – whether we pay any attention, or not …

I AM

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I AM SHALL BE INVOKED. And Jesus prophetically proclaimed “I AM” gentle and humble in heart, tenderly calling the overburdened in a too noisy and distracted world to find rest for their souls.

Moses, hearing the voice of God coming from the middle of the bush, said to him, ‘I am to go, then, to the sons of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you.” But if they ask me what his name is, what am I to tell them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I Am who I Am. This’ he added ‘is what you must say to the sons of Israel: “I Am has sent me to you.”’ And God also said to Moses, ‘You are to say to the sons of Israel: “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name for all time; by this name I shall be invoked for all generations to come. Exodus 3.13

Jesus exclaimed, ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ Matthew 11.28-30

Scripture points to I AM’s intending that all humankind shall be free. I AM is gentle and humble. I AM does not intend that heavy burdens be laid upon the lives of his beloved. I AM reveals I AM to humankind upon “holy ground” – which is to say that the presence of I AM makes all created space holy, and so we are to be careful where we trample – and take great care not to miss the loving message of the still small voice.

Someone told me the other day that they longed to be free of their addiction to almost round the clock TV. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to feel that free.” Others are similarly addicted to a whole host of activities, some of them “church” activities. And we live in a society at large that can’t imagine what it would be like to feel free.

Meanwhile the still small voice (more recently translated, Lucy Winkett writes, as the sound of sheer silence) who is not in the earthquake, nor the wind, nor the fire (1 Kings 19) is, simply and eternally and silently ”saying” I AM. And You Are. Free :)

I’ve been further struck by another passage in Lucy Winkett’s Our Sound is our Wound today:

In a world of constant noise, church communities can teach themselves to be oases of stillness, witnessing to a different reality, one that doesn’t need endless distraction and clamour to communicate it.

I AM calls us precisely to try to imagine what it would be like to stand, or sit, or kneel, or lie down confidently upon “holy ground”,  in silence, in the sure and certain knowledge that just as I AM is free, so are we. God’s yoke is intended to be easy and our burdens light. Imagine that!

THROUGH THE ROOF!

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I WENT DOWN THROUGH THE ROOF … (until I came face to face with him) … here, probably, will have begun the recollections of a man (or Everyman?) deeply involved in a humankind story intended to be heard and seen by as wide an audience as possible – hence the big entrance! Involved in a story that came to be described as GOSPEL, as GOOD NEWS, the story of a Man (or Everyman?) who was (is) PARALYSED: (much like some parts of the Church particularly, and much of humankind generally, appear, perennially, to be today).

Some men appeared, bringing on a bed a paralysed man whom they were trying to bring in and lay down in front of him. But as they could find no way of getting the man through the crowd, they went up onto the top of the house and lowered him and his stretcher down through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith he said, ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you.’

The scribes and the Pharisees began to think this over. ‘Who is this man, talking blasphemy? Who but God alone can forgive sins?’ But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, made them this reply, ‘What are these thoughts you have in your hearts? Which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven you,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ – he said to the paralysed man – ‘I order you: get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’ And immediately before their very eyes he got up, picked up what he had been lying on and went home praising God. They were all astounded and praised God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today.’ Luke 5 17-26 JB

Friends bring a paralysed Man (or Everyman?) to the One they believe can administer healing. Oddly a debate flares up because forgiveness is offered instead.Forgiveness instead of healing! Damn! That’s not what we came for. And – at any rate – this forgiveness stuff is bordering on the blasphemous. An odd little, mean little end to the story?

Except that it wasn’t the end. And the story wasn’t little. Turned out that the forgiveness CONTAINED the healing. Turned out that the paralysed Man (or Everyman?) picked up his mattress and walked.

Yet the debates still flare up. Some folks are still saying that this forgiveness stuff is bordering on blasphemy. Everyday reveals another paralysed Man (or Everyman?) – and the proclamation of the Healer is still a proclamation of forgiveness. It’s beginning to dawn on paralysed humankind that we can’t “get up and walk” whilst we remain convinced that white people, or coloured people, or doubting people, or gay people, or straight people, or male people, or female people, or different people or (dang it) just plain other people are beyond the pale. It’s beginning to dawn (pretty reluctantly, still) that, where the balm of forgiveness (the wholesome medicine of the Gospel) is applied, EVERYONE can “pick up their mattress” and “walk”.

Shouldn’t we all strip off the protective cover? Shouldn’t we all “go down through the roof”, recognising that we ourselves are paralysed and restricted? Shouldn’t we pull  out the plugs from our inner ears so that we can hear the ‘still small voice of calm’ within? “My friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Ha ha! That’s why I’ve been making thanksgiving this morning. That’s why I’ve been making Eucharist. For “they shall come to Zion shouting for joy, everlasting joy on their faces; joy and gladness will go with them and sorrow and lament will be ended.” (Isaiah 35.10). “They”, someday, shall say “I went down through the roof!”

May it be that, after supper, we can say: “We have seen strange things today”.