JULY 2018
There is a time for everything….a time to be silent and a time to speak Ecclesiastes (3.1a, 7b)
MULOA – Mothers’ Union Listening, Observing and Acting – Jeremiah 7.1-7
Jeremiah was asked by God to do his job as a prophet – to ‘proclaim’ i.e. to speak out clearly and publicly on God’s behalf ‘at the gate of the Lord’s house’ v.2. That means that this was a message that everyone was supposed to hear. And it went something like this:
1. ‘Hear the word of the Lord’ – So you’ve ‘come through these gates to worship the Lord’? Well then…LISTEN first!!
2. Then comes the core of the message. ‘Reform…’ (v.3b) Do not listen to just anything! Reform i.e. ‘re-form your ways’ Change – like a potter using the same clay but giving it a different shape so that it can be used for another purpose. In this case, God’s purpose! But what exactly needs to change?
3. ‘Our ways and our actions’ (v.3b) = our behaviour! What we DO needs to be different. And if we don’t change our behaviour there will be consequences in God’s relationship with US! IF (repeated 3X) we listen and obey God’s guidance (the vertical relationship) as to how we should behave (the horizontal relationships):
changing how we treat each other – ‘deal with each other justly’ (v.5)
changing how we treat the alien, the orphan and the widow (i.e. the weak) by no longer taking advantage of them because we are more powerful than they are, oppressing them and shedding innocent blood (physically harming and/or turning a blind eye to harm that leads to death) and benefiting from it (v.6)
and changing our attitude towards God by not putting anything else before Him – ‘to your own harm’ (v.6b)… Here God is asking us to practice enlightened self-interest, even if nothing else will motivate us to behave the way we should in His world, He hopes that this will work.
4. …then God will keep His promise of giving them a HOME…forever!! (vv.5-7).
God wants us to trust in Him completely – this is the basis for listening to him and doing His will – what is right and good for us. Verse 4 unpacks two things that we might be tempted to trust in:
Deceptive words (vv.4 and 8) are lies – maybe even flattery comes under this category?! Talking about doing something and never getting round to it?
‘Going’ to the temple is not enough! It is repeated 3X, like a mantra. Don’t keep on saying ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!’ Don’t say, ‘This is the church, this is the church, this is the church,’ as if talking about ‘church’ makes everything else right. We cannot trust that going to church will keep us safe, as if it were some kind of magic to ward off evil. We ‘go’ to church to worship God and to pray – that relationship where we hold a conversation with God that includes listening to Him, so that we become one with His heart for His world.
Mother’s Union members speak our and act on behalf of God’s world in many ways. One is by attending the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The Information and Guidance Notes for people wishing to apply to attend the annual meeting in New York explain that the reason behind our involvement is “to look at how to improve gender equality and the empowerment of women across the world. Delegates from the governments of member states negotiate a set of policy agreements or ‘agreed conclusions’…which they agree to take home and implement in their own countries….civil society organisations (CSOs) with ‘consultative status’, such as Mothers’ Union, can seek to influence the content of the agreed conclusions, through advocating with national government representatives….Mothers’ Union have been successful on a number of occasions in influencing governments, and Mothers’ Union recommendations have appeared in the agreed conclusions of a number of years’ negotiations.”
Let’s pray that the prophetic voice of Mothers’ Union in our world will continue to be MULOA – Mothers’ Union Listening, Observing and Acting – towards God and towards others.
JUNE 2018
Mary…sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said (Luke 10.39b)
MULOA – Mothers’ Union Listening, Observing and Acting – Luke 10.38-end
Listening comes first! Some years ago we were invited to an Orthodox synagogue to take part in the Bar Mitzvah of one of our son’s friends. Like all of the women, I was upstairs in the balcony. I learned a lot that day, and not just because I was listening carefully to the rabbi and the other men downstairs, trying to follow it all in the Hebrew Scriptures that were available for any woman who cared to follow the proceedings. Despite my limited Hebrew, I was able to follow quite well. But I also observed! And what I observed was that the other women were mostly busy talking and making plans for the day, or maybe the week, or maybe even more than that. It gave me a fresh perspective on Paul’s advice in I Corinthians 14.34 that ‘women should remain silent in the churches.’ To remain silent gives the unique opportunity for women to listen and learn. As I listened and learned that day, I also, like Eric Liddell of Olympic and Chariots of Fire fame, felt ‘God’s pleasure’ in what I was doing.
God is pleased when we listen to Him! There will always be room for action, and we women are prone to jump into action feet first! But better HIS action after listening to Him than our own without it.
Psalm 119.1-32 encourages us:
(jointly) seek him with all their heart v.2b
(individually) seek you with all my heart v.10a
Be…consumed with longing for your laws at all times v.20 And…
...rejoice in following your statutes
…meditate on your precepts
…consider your ways
…delight in your decrees
…not neglect your word. vv.14-16, asking God to:
…teach me your decrees v.26b
…let me understand the teaching of your precepts v.27a
The result of this attentive listening to God is a dynamic relationship where action becomes obedience to God’s good will for His world:
…obeying your decrees v.5
…I will obey your word v.17
Because…’You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.’ v. 4
This desire to obey God’s will comes from God and is only possible as we enter into His love – both for each one of us and for each and every atom of his very personal creation. The commitment to listen is a movement towards God that enables the whetting of that desire.
When I first became a Christian, I was consumed with longing to know God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I read my Bible and books that interpreted the Bible constantly. I couldn’t stop sharing about my Lord and Saviour to anyone who was interested. During this period in my life I lived with someone who exalted action above listening. One day she said to me, ‘You need to stop being so much like Mary and become more like Martha!’ I was taken aback! And I have never stopped thinking about that comment. It was a challenge, and continues to be a challenge. Will I listen to people who want me to run before I can walk, putting action before relationship with my Lord, or will I put HIM first – ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ – Luke 10.27 in the passage that immediately precedes the account of Martha and her sister Mary? I decided that I would not be bound by my flat-mate’s judgment. But it is still a constant and sometimes difficult choice, because many are like her. Do we want to try to please and impress the ‘flat-mates’ of this world who want to bind us to their own desires, or do we want to please the Lord of all creation?
‘I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.’ Psalm 119.32
APRIL / MAY 2018
Pay attention to God’s word to you – it may be an annunciation!
Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me (Psalm 66.16)
This year, the annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary was transferred from 25 March to 9 April, to make room for Palm Sunday. An annunciation is another way of saying ‘an announcement or proclamation’. It is a message that can be either listened to or ignored. In Mary’s case, we know what happened – she listened to the angel Gabriel’s message from God and responded!
The Magnificat, the worship song recorded in Luke 1.46-55, is both personal to Mary and corporate, to be sung by all of us who, like Mary, trust God. Angels are God’s servants, His messengers. When Gabriel appeared to Mary, a virgin, with God’s message, his words were rather surprising. ‘Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you’ (Luke 1.28). This was obviously not a usual greeting, because Mary ‘wondered what kind of greeting this might be’ (1.29b). She was ‘troubled,’ also unusual, because when presented with an angel, most people are afraid, a point made beautifully in Jostein Gaarder’s novel The Christmas Mystery. The story is about numerous angels, in particular about a ‘young’ angel who is being taught how to behave when giving a message to a human being. The young angel has been told over and over again, ‘Don’t forget to say, “Do not be afraid!” – this is the ‘usual’ greeting!’
Mary was troubled, perhaps by the words ‘highly favoured’, because the angel repeats that with, ‘you have found favour with God’ (1.30b). Mary had a close relationship with God, so the phrase ‘The Lord is with you’ (1.28c) would not have troubled or surprised her. She knew that God was with her. Nor was she afraid, because Gabriel doesn’t tell her ‘Do not be afraid’ (1.30b) until later. So maybe she was just thinking, ‘What have I done to deserve this favour?’ Or, ‘Has any angel ever greeted anyone with these opening words before?’ It was like being given the name, ‘You are highly favoured’! Names are very important in the Bible. They describe who a person is, their very essence. The angel could have said, ‘Greetings Mary!’ After all, that was her name. No, Mary was troubled, not just because an angel visit was unusual. She was troubled because Gabriel’s greeting was unique.
God didn’t make her wait for the answer to her troubled thoughts, for Gabriel immediately explained the meaning of his greeting: ‘You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end’ (Luke 1:31-33).
At times our daughter would say to me, ‘Too much information, Mum!’ But Mary took it all in her stride, even the most momentous angelic announcement in human history. All she wonders is, ‘How will this be since I am a virgin?’ (1.34). Here is someone who gets down to the brass tacks, to the realities of how God has made this world to function reproductively! So Mary carries on a relatively normal conversation with Gabriel, and he obliges with more information, for God did not want Mary to be in the dark about such important things. He tells her: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God’ (Luke 1.35-37).
Mary listened to the angel who came to tell her God’s will for her life, and went on to have a conversation with him. She listened attentively and asked intelligent questions. After Jesus was born and more insight had been given to her about this child of hers, we are told that ‘his mother treasured all these things in her heart’ (Luke 2.51b).
Would a young woman like Mary, pregnant before her marriage, be your first choice as a core member of an MU branch? Mothers’ Union is entering a powerful new stage in its development with the MULOA programme. MULOA means ‘Mothers’ Union Listening, Observing and Acting. Taking Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary Sumner, the founder of MU, as our models, let’s make a commitment to begin by listening:
-
To God
-
To each other
-
To the marginalised
-
To learning from others
-
Creating a safe space
And above all – don’t be afraid!
March 2018
Remember! God has done it!! – Psalm 78
‘…it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you….So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.’
Genesis 45:5b and 8a
Start each day listening to God – then obeying Him if He asks you to do something. Some years ago I was impressed by the publication of a book entitled Hit the Ground Kneeling (Bishop Stephen Cottrell). Yes – whatever you do, don’t ‘hit the ground running’! Wait to connect with God – hit the ground kneeling. People see this – particularly those who live with you – particularly children! And they take note of the difference it makes to the person you are becoming. It translates into what we end up doing and how we end up treating others. We no longer expect God to bless our own projects. Instead, we end up thanking Him for blessing us by permitting us to be a part of His project(s).
Such was the case with Joseph. His story begins with youthful pride and arrogance (knowing himself to be his father’s favourite son) and continues with powerlessness when his brothers first put him down a well to die, and then decide to sell him to Midianite merchants on their way to Egypt, where he was sold as a slave to Potiphar, one of the Pharaoh’s officials. We know that the story ends with Joseph’s full trust in God, whom he has come to know personally through the many ups and downs of his life in Egypt.
But how did Joseph use the TIME from when his brothers put him down that well until he got out of prison and was honoured by Pharaoh? The story doesn’t tell us everything! BUT we can see the effects of his relationship with God by his attitudes and actions towards other people:
Righteous: Joseph does not take advantage of Potiphar’s wife offering herself to him. He honours his master because he knows that it is the right thing to do…and ends up in prison!
Tender-hearted: When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt for food during the famine that Joseph had predicted with God’s help in interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, he lovingly helps them. He also ensures that they keep coming back again and again, and have to deal with him personally until he finally reveals himself to them as their brother! He loves them with all his heart, despite all they’d done to him. This is because Joseph was, by then, enormously…
Trusting of God: Joseph interpreted every circumstance in his life as God’s way to bring blessing not only to himself, but also to his entire family and beyond – to Egypt and the countries surrounding it. He trustingly allowed God to have His own way with Him.
I wonder how you and I use the TIME forced on us by illness, other people’s injustice, etc. Do we fret (see Psalm 37)? Do we allow the root of bitterness to creep into our hearts? Do we become furious with thwarted ambition and jealous of those who seem to ‘have it all’? How you respond not only reveals who you are – it also ends up making you who you are!
TIME is really important. I’m sure that Joseph had plenty of it in prison – and he used it well! Many of us in the 21st century don’t know how to simply take time to ‘be’ with God and receive from Him. We are either moving faster and faster in order to achieve bigger and better ends for our own projects, or we just give up, because it is all simply too much for us! Or we might be constantly communicating with people who aren’t there.
But God is there, and, in the words of another book, He is There and He is Not Silent (Francis Schaeffer)! We may like to know what’s coming and plan for it to go our own way with all our capacities, but we don’t know the end from the beginning. Yet we can choose to say with the apostle Paul, ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain’ Philippians 1.21. That’s why we ‘…fix [our] thoughts on Jesus’ Hebrews 3.1a. Like Joseph, we can ‘Hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast’ Hebrews 3.6b.
May all your projects be God’s projects! AMEN.
February 2018
To See or Not to See
‘Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.’ Mark 8. 23b-25a
And…I have continued the year with rest (see reflection for January 2018)! Please forgive me for sounding a more personal note in this month’s reflection. I want to especially thank everyone who has been praying for me. Thanks to Bev Julian’s son Stephen being part of our congregation this year, I know that MU Presidents (and many others) all over the world have been praying for me. It is overwhelming!
On 12 January I discovered that I had a weakness. Well – if I had been more attentive, that weakness would have been recognised some days earlier! As I left the church I had felt something ‘go’ in the eyes, and felt momentarily disorientated and a big dizzy. I thought, ‘Oops! There’s been a change in my eyes – I need to see an optician SOMETIME…’ And I carried on. Things seemed to settle down. But on Friday 12 January, as I got off a bus, something really did ‘go’. I covered each eye and discovered that nearly half of the sight had gone in my right eye – it was a dark smudge. BUT…there was no pain, so all it did was cause me pause. As I walked along the streets I tried to analyze what had happened, slowly and meditatively making my way to the sculpture studio where I work once a week. I wasn’t unduly upset – just curious about what was going on. A studio companion, when I recounted this to him, said, ‘You must get to A&E immediately – you could lose your sight!’ But I wanted to stay on for the studio New Year party so I thought, ‘I’ll go first thing tomorrow…after all, it can’t be all that bad because it doesn’t hurt.’
I thank Xavi for his urgency. I woke up anxious to find answers, not really thinking it was serious, because there was still no PAIN! Three hospitals later, I was booked in for an operation first thing Tuesday morning and was told that until then I had to lie flat on my back, no pillow, mouth up, and keep as still as I could. As any active person will know, after 24 hours that DID begin to cause me pain! ALL OVER!! What had occurred was a ‘giant’ detachment of the retina nearly reaching the ‘macula’, in which case I would likely have had some permanent loss of eyesight.
Little did I know how much the operation would affect every aspect of my life. Five weeks later, I still have a gas bubble in the right eye that both protects the repaired retina and limits clear vision – I feel like I am wading underwater much of the time! But today I have more energy and am finally feel able to write this reflection. I don’t have much depth perception (essential for a sculptor, who of necessity needs to be able to see three dimensionally), but I have great peace that it will come back. It has been a very special time of prayer – just God and me, most of the time. And I’ve discovered a free app for audio books in the public domain, called LibriVox, with, among other things, volumes of old sermons from some of the truly great orators of the Christian faith. We are truly blessed!
As my sight and energy come back, the contrast between sight and lack of it have made I Corinthians 13.12 more real to me: For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
We will doubtless have depth perception, vividness of colour, dimensions of vision, far sight, middle sight and near sight multiplied many times over, in a reality that without the presence of Christ in our lives could very well be painful! That much reality can hurt!! Loss of vision can happen all too painlessly, but seeing as God sees, feeling the compassion He feels for us, can be a painful thing. That kind of ‘seeing’ show us that, for now, there is something very wrong in our world. But thank God that it is for now – and that that particular reality is not the final, God-desired, goal of creation!
AND…our own honour and privilege is that we are cordially invited to share with our Lord and Saviour in the project of helping people to ‘see’ what God desires much more clearly, and, in loving obedience, to DO it!
January 2018
Being People Who Enter God’s Rest – Hebrews 3 and 4
‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…’
Hebrews 3:7b-8a (from Psalm 95:7b-8a)
This year my husband and I started the year with rest. We went ‘home’ to our little cottage with no internet, no television, no direct telephone line, no central heating…and rested! We started the year with rest!! We started the year with prayer – with being with God and with each other.
This is the way of the Lord. The Jewish day begins at sundown. It marks the beginning of the day, as preparation for living out the rest of the day in God’s way. Rest does not mark the end of a day where, perhaps in exhaustion, people collapse in a heap and plead with God to replenish their strength, in order to start again with a day full of activity. The day begins with rest – receiving all that God has for us to enable us to live HIS way! For us as Christians, the week also begins with rest. It begins with a gathering of people to enjoy one another and God – at rest and in worship. The two go together, because we truly worship God when we acknowledge ourselves to be totally powerless and yet wonderfully loved before Him. And not being full of our own actions means that we can better obey God’s word in Hebrews 3.1: ‘Therefore…fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess…’ or Hebrews 12.1-2 ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…’
Jesus said, ‘The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ Mark 2.27-28 The rest that we receive as we trust in God is meant to do us good – not to be a legalistic burden. Making Jesus Lord of the Sabbath means we keep fixed on Him…that day and every day! In the same way, a sabbatical is an extended period of ‘rest’ from our usual activities, but not a vacation from focusing on Jesus. Having a sabbatical can quite often lead to a change in direction – first in our thoughts and then in our hearts and lives, that ends up transforming everything. It was during one such sabbatical that my husband first felt the clear call to ordained Anglican ministry!
The word ‘rest’ can be connected to that little word that smacks of relinquishing something – the word ‘let’. To relinquish means to ‘voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up’ (Oxford Living Dictionaries). Psalm 37 begins by telling us not to ‘fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong’ (v.1 and repeated in vv.7and 8). This decision to let go of / relinquish fretting is not only obedience to God’s will for our lives. It is good for us! It results in an attitude of serenity – of rest and peace – as we trust in God (vv.3,4,5,7,11). It is so important that in the very last chapter of the Bible we are told to accept things as they are: ‘Let those who are wrong continue to do wrong; let those who are vile continue to be vile; let those who do right continue to do right; and let those who are holy continue to be holy.’ Revelation 22.11. Basically, we are only responsible for ourselves and our own actions before God. He Himself will ensure that justice is meted out when He makes His final judgment.
In fact, our very LIFE is in our rest! Entering His rest = life. And life with Him forever is about having hearts that are continually tender and open to God in Christ. Luke the evangelist, when writing about the final Day of the Lord, when Christ will appear in all His glory, tells us, ‘Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap’ Luke 21.34. To be ‘weighed down’ is anything but restful!
Hebrews 3 equates ‘rebellion’ with the hardening of heart of the Israelites that resulted in those very same hearts ‘going astray’ – and resulted in God’s judgment that they would ‘never enter [his] rest’ vv.7,8,10,11. But God cannot be blamed for that judgment – they brought it on themselves!
Whatever your plans are for blessing others this year – particularly through whatever work with Mothers’ Union that you are personally involved in – begin each week with the Sabbath, and by resting in worship and praise, open your heart to hear God’s voice and tenderly let Him have His will in you and through you to others.
December 2017
‘We would like to see Jesus!’
John 12.21b
On 30 November we celebrate St Andrew’s day – always at the end of the rhythm of the Christian year. Many of Jesus’ disciples were from Galilee, including Philip and Andrew, who were both from Bethsaida (John 1.35-44), where the fresh water of the lake yielded Andrew and his brother Simon a good living from its abundance of fish. Andrew became known as the first evangelist because ‘The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.’ (John 1.41-42)
In John 12, Andrew is still taking people along with him to Jesus. Jesus’ reply to the news that some Greeks wanted to ‘see’ him was to say “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” (v.23) And then He carries on with the paradox of how death leads to glory:
A grain of wheat dies…it produces many seeds (it is ‘glorified’)
Those who love their lives will lose them…those who hate their lives in this world will keep them for eternal life (i.e. be ‘glorified’)
Moses also asked to ‘see’ God, associating it with glory: ‘“Now show me your glory!”’ Exodus 33.18 ‘And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you…”’ v.19 God’s greatest goodness is dying for us in Christ. His greatest GLORY is that goodness! And our own greatest GLORY is also our goodness – that in our being which most resembles God – His image in us.
The 150 Psalms begin in Psalm 1 with a study in contrasts. First is a description of those who are blessed. They are those who do NOT
Walk in the counsel of the wicked
Stand in the way of sinners
Sit in the seat of mockers
That means that in their whole lives they do NOT associate with those who are opposed to God’s goodness. Then there follows a description of the opposite – the wicked! Yes – the Bible pulls no punches. Wicked people do exist, and they are the ones opposed to God’s goodness – have nothing to do with them, because they are wicked and wickedness is insubstantial, like the ring wraiths in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. ‘They are like chaff that the wind blows away.’ (v.4)
The ‘good’ on the other hand, are blessed! They ‘delight in the law of the Lord’ (v.2) i.e. in the expression of His goodness and His guidance about how to be good themselves. And in their families, of course, they impress the same on their children (see Deuteronomy 6.7). The Deuteronomy passage is part of the great Jewish shema – ‘Hear O Israel…’ that remains an important part of our Anglican liturgy.
As Mothers’ Union, we are very interested in how to help families be strong. Here is a wonderful trinity to bear in mind as we teach our own children and encourage other families in their own lives in Christ. GOODNESS – GLORY – LIFE! A trinity of words we have ‘in Christ’, and that, like Andrew, we need to introduce people to. Pray that as Mothers’ Union members we may aspire to be truly ‘good’, losing our lives to gain them for eternal life – our GLORY NOW! – in obedience to His will and teaching our children to do likewise!!
