Nature's Pain

It has been a bad month for our planet:
• Cyclone Nargis struck Burma in Southeast Asia and has claimed 32,000 lives, with an additional 30,000 missing and perhaps as many as one million homeless.
• An earthquake struck south-west China and killed more than 12 000 people (some guess up to 50 000), leaving many others trapped in the rubble. People are living out in the open without shelter and food.

And we are tempted to say: “but where was God?” or “Why did God allow this to happen?” As if there are easy, simple answers!

The scientists tell us that earthquakes, and storms are occurring all the time at sea, but they only occasionally emerge from the sea onto the land. It is this that drove the people of the Old Testament to admit our human frailty:
Psalm 8:3 When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places--- what are human beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them?
Perhaps we need to accept that we live on a fragile planet where storms and earthquakes are just part of the natural cycle... a cycle that we do not control.

But at the same time Psalm 8 speaks of a God who chooses to entrust this planet into human care. Psa 8:6 You appointed them rulers over everything you made; you placed them over all creation. This does not answer the questions of why bad things happen – but it does point out that when things go wrong, we are given the task of helping to care and to clean up.

So let us pray for those who suffer from the storms of nature; and offer help where we can; and commit ourselves to caring for this fragile planet.

Getting out of the Ghetto

Pentecost Sunday is celebrated by Christians throughout the world - but Pentecost did not begin as a Christian festival.

Pentecost was originally an Old Testament festival called the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot. This was a Spring festival that took place 50 days after Passover – therefore the Greek Pente for 50. This was a thanksgiving for the "first fruits" of the early harvest. It was a moment when the community affirmed their trust in God as the provider of Life. And this was done in two ways:
1. People brought the first fruits of the harvest to the Temple. This was an act of trust: you brought the first of the harvest – as an act of trust that there would be a completed harvest.
2. You did not harvest the whole field: the edges were left for the widows and orphans. These signs of generosity spoke about a generous God who gives the harvest.

By the time of Jesus, Pentecost had gradually lost its association with agriculture - and became a celebration of Jewish religious history and the gift of the Torah (the "Law") on Mount Sinai. This was the moment when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments – and the people became a nation under God.

With time the people of God had forgotten to use Pentecost as a witness to the generosity of God – and had instead allowed this to become a time of religious pride: which sometimes led to poor people (like the widows and the orphans) being excluded, because they did not have the education or the money for the religious rituals. So here was a festival that should have spoken about God’s generosity, being subverted to become a time of pride in the achievement of a nation.

I do not believe that it was accidental that the Holy Spirit’s blessing should come on the festival of Shavuot. Here we see a renewal of the festival of Pentecost... this is a moment when God comes to this festival and reminds people of things that they have forgotten.

Acts Chapter 2 uses very specific language to describe this event: The Spirit of God brings renewal in a number of different ways:
1. A wind: this is an ancient sign called Ruach in the Old Testament: which can be translated as “Wind” – and also as “Breath” and as “Spirit”. So we see God deciding to breathe new breath into Pentecost / blow a fresh wind through the cobwebs of a stale religious ritual and bring fresh air.
2. A fire: again this is an ancient sign of the presence of God: Moses knew that he stood in God’s presence because he saw a fire burning a bush, or saw a pillar of fire leading the people. So we see God sending his fire - perhaps a fire that could melt cold, hardened hearts that have forgotten Pentecost as a time of generosity to the poor.
3. Many tongues spoken: this is a reminder that God is not the exclusive property of one culture: here is the reminder that God comes for people of all the languages of the earth.

So we celebrate Pentecost.... along with millions of other Christian people .... and along with millions of God’s people from before the time of Jesus.
I am inviting us to discover the wind, and the fire and the tongues of the Pentecostal renewal as it is described in the book of Acts:

1. Wind
Hear the invitation to allow the Spirit of God to blow the religious cobwebs away:
It is so easy to become like the people of God in the time of Jesus – easy to take on the form of religion that has lost the life renewing joy of religion.... where our beliefs have become religious habits.
We can become religious experts that are not open to the promptings of a God who takes us into new places.

Use today to ask: “I wonder where God is prompting me to change?”

2. Fire
Hear the invitation to allow the Spirit of God to soften our hearts.
Again it is so easy to become like the people of God in the time of Jesus – easy for us to be religious people without loving hearts.

Use today to ask “I wonder where the Spirit of God needs to soften my hard heart”

3. Tongue
Hear the invitation to allow the Spirit of God to gather together a variety of tongues. We live in a suburb that speaks many different languages: and the Spirit of God calls us to reach out to all who live here – English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Portugese, Shona......

Use today to ask: “I wonder what language the Spirit asks me to encounter”

In Conclusion
In north Yorkshire in England is a place called Robin Hood’s Bay:
An ancient church lies on the brow of the hill above the village.
It was built at a time that smugglers wrecked ships on the coast.
It was built at a time when the church owned the whole hill.
And I wondered if the smugglers ever got into church?

If they did I know exactly where they sat: because
Inside the church the wealthy people bought boxes of seats for their families:
And right at the back are two rows marked as “sinner’s seats”.

Today the church stands empty....
Except that right at the back hangs a cobweb laden object from the roof: it is a funeral wreath from the funeral of a virgin.
Symbolic of the need for the wind of the holy spirit to blow away the cobwebs and bring new life...
- to bring a church that welcomes all people – even those who do not have the money to pay pew rent
- to bring a church that does not need a funeral wreath to remember a time when there were young people.

Hear in this our own warning:
• Beware the moment when we fret about who sits in what pew on a Sunday, or who has use of what hall in the week – the wind of God’s Spirit might just blow us out of our seats and put other people here.
• Beware the day that our church organisations and our church rituals are more important than the people who are to be found in and around our buildings: the fire of the Spirit might just melt our cold hearts.... and send us to people we do not yet know.
• Beware the day we think that we are a one language, one culture church... the power of the Spirit might just give us many other tongues instead.

So let me invite us to be open to the moving of the Spirit in our lives, in the life of our church, and in the world where the church has died.

Pofadder is N!gha

On the way home we spent a night at Pofadder – a town South Africans use to typify a sleepy backwater. It is certainly small: two tar roads, a kaffee, a church, and a hotel. But this is a town with a big history of resistance to the European colonial invaders.

This fresh water spring was home of the Koranna people, who emerged from fragments of various Khoi-Khoi groupings who had found safety along the Orange River. While they were held in low esteem by the European colonisers of the Cape - Rev Edward Terry described them as “beasts in the skin of men” while J. Campbell described the Koranna as lazy beings who only hunted, slept and danced.....(which could describe most university students today) - they put up a spirited resistence to those who invaded their traditional lands.*

In 1875 a mission station was established amongst the Koranna by the Reverend Christiaan Schroder, who named it Pofadder, after their local chief. In 1918 a town was laid out at the Koranna springs and called Theronsville. But local memory prevailed, the name Pofadder stuck, and it was later officially changed back to the name of the old mission. The mission is now a Roman Catholic Church that runs a blockmaking enterprise, a chicken farm and a dairy, giving employment to the poor

Today it is a great place to stop over. The hotel has self catering cottages that provide a welcome break from the endlessly straight roads through the Kalahari/Bushmanland plains. And the people are warm and welcoming – even when we arrived in the middle of a crucial rugby match (Stormers vs Brumbies) . And I am told that in the flower season this is a great place from which to explore the beauty of the Namaqualand flowers. So a return visit in August is definitely on the cards.

And if you asre wondering what the logo on the cap means: n!gha is a khoi-khoi word for “great/wonderful/cool – as in “this is n!gha food” or “that is a n!gha car” – and contrary to the South African perception, Pofadder is n!gha.




Footnote * (The escalating conflict between the colonising white farmers and the Koranna led to a commando of about 300 mounted burghers attacking the Koranna entrenched on one of the Orange River islands. Cupido Pofadder negotiated a treaty that agreed that he would protect his part of the river which bordered on the district of Calvinia in exchange for ammunition to enable him to do so. He would also be recognised as chief of all the Koranna living in the region. But this treaty was short lived, as drought forced the Koranna to attempt to regain their traditional land from white farmers. Klaas Pofadder succeeded his brother Cupido as chief and thought to arm his people by pretending to distance himself from the rebels. The terms of the treaty 1870 were still being met and in January of 1879 Pofadder was given 20 lbs lead, 5 lbs gunpowder and 4 guns. Unfortunately for the colonial authorities, two days later Pofadder returned to the rebel side. The inevitability of superior fire power led to Pofadder being gunned down by a commando of farmers).

backhome

Our family went camping in the Kalahari desert. This involved
- sitting around a fire at night, under a warm star-filled sky, listening to the sounds of animals calling just outside of the firelight.
- grinding our slow way over day-lighted corrugated gravel roads in search of those animals
- tents and 4x4 vehicles
- stories told amidst laughter, friendships deepened, and family bonds treasured.

And I return home content to be part of God's world.

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

We are going away for 10 days to the Kgalagadi Park, Northern Cape, South Africa





This is one of Africa's great parks. The Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (South Africa) and Gemsbok National Park (Botswana) have been formed into a transfrontier park of over 3,6 million ha. This is a rugged wildlife sanctuary with 3 rest camps & abundance of game.

The Empress has no Clothes

She suspended him from practicing medicine for a month for daring to throw her photograph in a dustbin. She is a political flunky, while he is a medical doctor. To add insult to injury she called the police to arrest him for damaging government property.

While this might sound like some banana republic, it raises issues about respect for a superior, personal dignity, and the place of ego…….
Dr Mark Baylock, the chief medical officer of Manguzi Hospital, trashed the official photograph of the provincial Minister of Health, Peggy Nkonyeni, when she told a meeting at his hospital that rural doctors “do not care about people. It is all about profit”. She was responding to the news that he had raised donor funding to supply rural women with free AZT to prevent them passing on the HIV virus to their babies. Nkonyeni, of course, was only following the official line of her national health minister, who does not believe that HIV/AIDS is a virus, and advocates the use of garlic, beetroot and the African potato as effective ways of preventing the illness. (The only thing she needs to add to this is banana - to truly become a banana republic Minister!).

The difficult issue at stake is how to manage grievance processes. Dr Baylock showed clear disrespect for his superior – and probably from her perspective she might have been tempted to colour this in racial and gender terms. From the point of view of Dr Baylock, his frustration is understandable: he could choose to work much more comfortably in private practice without the political interference. But he has chosen to commit himself to the rural poor, and probably finds it hard to be criticised for his dedication.

So is her picture more important than a month’s worth of health for rural people?
I doubt it. I believe that more sensible ways of resolving the issue could be found. But then, powerful people are often less than sensible. It is often the practice of political leadership to have their pictures placed prominently in public. And it is not long before these pictures take on an aura that is larger than the person. And suddenly I begin to understand the motivation for the commandment that speaks about “Worship no god but me … Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth”

Pray for all those dedicated doctors who choose to honour their patients with self-sacrificing service.

The way the truth the life...

This past Sunday’s Gospel reading included the following text:
Joh 14:6 Jesus answered him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me”.

So what do I do with this verse?







1. Did Jesus mean to say that all other religious beliefs are false and that only Christians get to God? Some Christians think this is so, and have been known to say things like “Christians are saved and all other beliefs / lack of beliefs are not” or “Christians need to get the world saved because otherwise you will not know God, and then you go to hell”.
2. Did Jesus mean that while all people have some kind of understanding of God, Christian people have a unique understanding of God as Father.
3. Did Jesus ever say this at all? Is it not perhaps words attributed to Jesus by the writer of John’s Gospel at a time of vigorous religious debate and search for a Christian identity between Hellenistic Christians, Jewish Christians, Gnostics and other competing religious positions? These words are thus used to reassure the Johannine readers that they are on the right track.

Personally I believe that Jesus would never have said something that sounds like people can be “shut out” of God’s presence if they do not know the right formulas or observe the correct form of religion (in fact Jesus criticised the spiritual leaders of his day for doing such a thing). It is far more likely that this is a reminder of Jesus’ teaching that it is possible to discover a personal/ intimate relationship with our creator akin to a father-child relationship.

Sadly – many Christian people have not understood this and have used this text as a way of suggesting that only Christians are the beloved of God. I recently discovered a preacher by the name of Angus Buchan who gathered 40 000 Christian men on his farm this past weekend to reinforce the idea that they were right. In the words of Buchan : “I believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: they that are saved - unto resurrection of life – and they that are lost - unto resurrection of damnation”. Pity about the homosexuals, and the Buddhists, the alternately religious.... and whoever else does not fit this White Anglo-Saxon Protestant brand of faith.

The loving Grace of God is not constrained to a particular brand or format. Let God be God. And let us be open to be led by God’s Spirit wherever the journey takes us.

On Being a Pastor

Last night I had an appointment for a marriage counselling session ... but the couple never arrived.

So I dropped in on the meeting of the Women’s Auxiliary.
It is a pastoral thing: go to see the ladies once in a while, keep them happy, and they will not complain too much when I do or say things they might not find comfortable – like the stuff we do with street people, or my support for gay and lesbian people.

So I dropped in and discovered my friend Peter showing pictures of his epic motorcycle trips: one across America on Route 66, and his adventure from Cape Town to Lusaka on an old BMW, and his recent trip from Holland to Czechoslovakia. And I thoroughly enjoyed Peter’s narrative – which can only be described as eclectic. He showed photographs of small town gaols alongside diners and pubs. He juxtaposed WW Two Concentration camps with cheerful beer full bikers’ gatherings. And I realised that this is really the nature of life: an unplanned adventure, where we try our best to survive each day without falling off, and we attempt to grasp a moment of happiness amidst the struggle to keep going.

Like Audrey Bell. Who came to the meeting tonight to say farewell to her friends. She has been attending this monthly meeting for more than forty years. These are the women who accompanied her through the years of child-rearing. These are the women who got her through the unexpected death of her husband. And these are the friends who filled the loneliness of the years since then. But now she is old, and can no longer live on her own. So she has sold her home...as has her older brother, and a cousin. And they are moving together to a gated complex further than is possible for her to drive herself to this church.

She explained it all to me like this: “I never wanted to go to an old age home. But now we have created our own” And she chuckled. And we drank tea together. And I kissed her goodbye.

A Reflection on God and Government

We all have watched the elections of Zimbabwe with amazement and disbelief. The people of Zimbabwe have clearly rejected ZanuPF as a vehicle for their political wishes. But President Robert Mugabe and the generals of the military and police are finding it very difficult to let go of power.

This is nothing new. Throughout history people have tried to keep political power. We read in the Bible of Saul who would not give up being King of Israel when David was anointed by God’s prophet; and of many succeeding kings of Judah and Israel who tried to hang onto political power. The words of Jeremiah are pertinent to political leaders of every age: “The Lord spoke to you when you were prosperous, but you refused to listen. This is what you have done all your life;(therefore) your leaders will be blown away by the wind…because of all the evil you have done.” (Jeremiah 22:21)

Robert Mugabe take note. And also all others who seek to cling to power.

The New Bike

Yesterday morning I rode my bike out to Tulbach for a wedding. Approximately 180km into the countryside to a pretty farm chapel set amidst vineyards and rose bushes.

The couple were “friends of a friend” and I had agreed to officiate at their wedding. They came to the marriage preparation classes I run and I enjoyed getting to know them, and knew that I would enjoy the morning. The guests had booked in to local accommodation for the weekend, and had already spent Friday night getting acquainted. So they arrived in a relaxed mood – with all day to spend in celebration and laughter.

And I thoroughly enjoyed the wedding, with really good voices singing a duet, a wonderful silver trumpet for the Trumpet Voluntary, and a lovely couple getting married. All of which contributed towards my mood as I left Tulbach to return home.

So there I was: riding my BMW GS1150 from Tulbach towards Bain’s Kloof at an easy 120kmph, with “Stairway to Heaven” ringing in my headphones. It was a sunny midday sky, with the prospect of a tight twisty pass over to the sleepy Boland town of Wellington... this was definitely as good as it gets.

Farewell to the Tiger

Here is a photograph of my Triumph Tiger.

We spent many, many happy hours together in and around Cape Town, transporting children to and from school, visiting congregation members, and riding with the Iron John Bike Club.

We also had some epic trips further afield:

• We visited Port Elizabeth, winding up the beautiful garden route – choosing to do the Grootrivier and Blaaukraans River passes instead of the bridge overpasses. I spent a wonderful week with my dear friend Charmaine, and then rode back down Route 62, enjoying the hospitality of Cherrill on the way.

• We spent one mad winter’s day riding 1000km from Cape Town to Kimberly. My friend Alex and I took our respective Tigers to his family farm. We left Cape Town in the dark and braved the misty cold of the Hex River Valley and the chilly Karroo wind. When we returned a week later we decided to accept the warm Beaufort West hospitality of my colleague Rod. The following morning we rode a consistent 160kmph to Cape Town with the rising sun at our backs.

• We visited two Buffalo Rallies, joining thousands of other roaring, swearing, drinking, posturing bikers. And amidst the thousands of Japanese and German bikes there were a few unique British bikes: my Tiger proudly strutting its stuff.

So I bid farewell. And this is all that is left of the bike. This will make my bank manager very happy, because my credit card has suffered a painful financial hole since I have purchased my BMW GS 1150.



And a new biking chapter begins for me.

.... the Enemy

Steven is an old Xhosa man who lives on the streets.
He used to live and work as a well respected member of the community. But alcohol has taken its toll on his life. His wrecked body carries the odors of hard drinking and vagrant living. He is without many of his teeth, has rheumy eyes, and a gaunt skeletal frame.

I sat down next to Steven after praying a general prayer for those gathered for the weekly Tuesday morning coffee and bread gathering. “Thank you for the prayer” he said, “it gets me through the week. When I do not come, I am unlucky in the week.” And so we struck up a conversation, and I learned about his family. His daughter is married and living in comfort in Gauteng. His extended family own land in the Eastern Cape. They are all involved in the Methodist Church - which is the brand that I belong to+.

“But Christians are the enemy” he continues. “They do not like drinking, and will not speak to me because I drink. And their pastor has banned me from their church”. And so Steven has abandoned his family and his roots, and lives in Cape Town.

And comes to my church every Tuesday for a prayer.

Thank God It's Friday

...if you, God Almighty, won't stand up and act like God, well, then we'll have to get organized and do it for you. It'll teach 'em a lesson.
So when they attacked us we attacked them. Bomb Baghdad. That'll teach them. Evil for evil; it's all they understand. We'll teach them the joy of democracy, the preciousness of human life, the value of a free market, if we have to obliterate every grain of sand in their desert to do it. It'll teach 'em a lesson.
But then, when we had done our worst, you looked down from your bloody cross where we had nailed you and with your last breath worked your justice, saying, "Father forgive 'em. It'll teach them a lesson."
Your lessons are hard as nails.
Amen.
William Willimon from
"Thank God It's Friday"

Come mourn awhile with me

Maundy Thursday: a time for mourning
………….. a time for sober reflection and prayer

China is insisting on carrying the Olympic torch onto Tibet’s Mount Everest. Tibet responded with the largest anti-China protests in almost two decades, sparking riots in Lhasa, demonstrations in nearby ethnic Tibetan provinces, and daily pro-Tibet protests around the world.

The protests began on Monday, March 10 when five hundred monks from the Drepung monastery defied Chinese authorities to march into Tibet's capital, Lhasa. This marked the 49th anniversary of a quashed rebellion against communist rule. Monks from the Lhasa-area Sera and Gamden monasteries also protested. Thousands of Chinese security personnel responded by firing tear gas to try to disperse more than 600 monks from the Sera monastery.

Last Friday (March 14) About 300-400 residents and monks took to the streets in Lhasa. Violence saw shops and cars set on fire. The Chinese authorities sealed off Drepung, Sera and Gamden monasteries, and protests spread to ethnic Tibetan areas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces. Tibetans hurled petrol bombs and set a police station and market on fire in Sichuan's Aba region. In Gansu's Machu town a crowd of 300-400 carried pictures of the Dalai Lama, in defiance of authorities.

Since then the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao dismissed calls for a boycott of Beijing Olympics, and accused Dalai Lama of inciting unrest to sabotage the Olympics. China has turned foreigners back from areas close to Tibet and Olympic organisers vow the Olympic torch will travel to Tibet despite the riots.

Mourn with me the loss of life.
Mourn with me China’s brutal oppression of Tibet.
And pray for justice – so that there might be peace.

whatamess

Five years ago the United States of America invaded Iraq.
This was not sanctioned by the United Nations, and was opposed by many, many nations in the world. But because the USA is the strongest nation on earth it can do as it likes - so George Bush ignored world opinion, and unleased untold misery on the Iraqi people: so far it is estimated that 80 000 civilians have died. The USA does not keep official figures, and this estimate is probably much higher. The USA does keep figures of the deaths of American soldiers, which are just under 4 000.

Even more troubling is the way one bad decision has unleashed so many more bad possibilities:
- The Times of London reportes that it is estimated that this war has cost $400 billion.... imagine how useful this could have been in healthcare, building houses or educating people.
- The abuse by the US troops at the Abu Ghraib prison has fuelled an equally vicious response towards prisoners captured by the militant insurgents.
- Muslim and Christin people have been severly polarised.

And the end is not yet in sight. No one pretends anymore that life will return to normal anytime soon. And the worst of it is that George Bush refuses to admit to making a mistake. Even more appalling is the fact that he suggests that God is somehow on the side of the USA.

God is weeping.

Irish Bishops move St. Patrick's Day

Today is declared St Patrick’s day.... by some religious people. The rest of the Irish world goes on as usual. Here is the press release:

“Ireland's bishops have shifted the feast day because St Patricks Day (March 17, 2008) falls on the second day of Holy Week. The liturgical norms would require the feast day to be moved to the earliest available date after Easter, which would be April 1. But church officials said the Vatican approved the March 15 date in order to minimize conflict with the scheduled civic events.
While religious celebrations honouring St. Patrick are affected, secular authorities stressed this would not change secular festivities. The St. Patrick's Festival Committee in Dublin confirmed that the St Patrick’s parade would be March 17 as usual. In addition, Monday, March 17, will remain an official day off of work in Ireland”.

And I found this illustrative of how society has appropriated religious festivals and used them for socio-economic purposes: Easter, Christmas, St Patrick... it is all one and the same. Why allow religious scruples to interfere with making money (or making merry)? Holy Week, a time for reflection and spiritual preparation, is just an inconvenience to the important business of making money off the back of St Patrick. In the same way more and more shops invite us to come on Easter Sunday to spend our money on their Easter specials.

I remain convinced that religious people can mark their convictions by resisting the temptation to be consumers on our holy days. It is enough that we worship at the altar of mammon most days of the week. I invite us to mark a shift in our allegiance by not shopping on Holy Days.

A Living Community

I work in Brenda Road - but many other people live on it.

Peter, Dave and Joe spend their days directing traffic on the corner of Brenda Rd and Cranmere Rd. They laugh and joke with the customers of Standard Bank, and make sure that no dodgy character hang about. For example, a few months ago a group of strangers tried to take over the corner, and I was called in to persuade them to move on. These men, marked with prison tattoos, tried arguing that it was their constitutional right to freedom of movement, but the bank did not take kindly to having them sitting across from their front door. And they were persuaded to move on.
For the last few weeks Peter and Dave have come to the Sunday early morning service. They want to reform their lives, and are asking me to pray for them.

Miela, Bennie, Charmaine and Prevan live on the intersection between Brenda Rd and Gabriel Rd. They spread the matrasses each nigh outside the Television repair shop and light a fire to cook their food. Miela and Bennie begin the day sober, and become progressively more drunk, and abusive as the day wears on. By the evening they shout for "Pastor Pete" to get them food, interspersed with "joumasepoes" and "fokoffbennie" and other endearments. They do not want to reform their lives - but I care for them anyway.
This morning was washing day.... thought that I would share the picture.

THE PLEASURE OF DOING NOTHING USEFUL

John 11:1 A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived.... The sisters sent Jesus a message: "Lord, your dear friend is sick."... Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus... Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days...Then he said to the disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

This one of the passages traditionally read in the weeks leading up to Easter. Amongst the many, many ideas this story has generated is this one gem that struck me as I prepared for my sermon yesterday: we need to discover the pleasure of doing nothing useful.

Lazarus gets sick. We know nothing about his illness: but is obviously serious enough for his worried sisters to ask Jesus to come to their aid. But by the time Jesus arrives Lazarus has died. So far so good. The bit that intrigues me, however, is verse 6: which tells us that Jesus “stayed where he was for two more days”. I find this curious, because at first glance it seem like the callous disregard of a stranger to the family.... “I’ll come when I’m good and ready”. But this completely out of keeping with Jesus’ character, which is consistently one of compassion for those who struggle in life. And so my question was “Why did Jesus not rush over to comfort the family – and maybe perform a healing miracle?”

The answer is not in the text. So we must draw an inference from the context. John 10 tells us that Jesus escaped certain death twice in the days leading up to this “Lazarus incident.” I have the impression of an exhausted rabbi, who not only has taught extensively, but has faced life threatening opposition. And now he is hit with another crisis – the life threatening illness of his friend Lazarus. And Jesus does what he has done on other occasions such as this: he takes time out to recover. This is seen for example after feeding 5000 people Jesus goes off by himself to recover (John6:15); and after hearing the news of John the Baptist’s death Jesus chooses to escape the crowds to be alone (Mark 6:31). So John tells us the Jesus takes two days off before going to Mary and Martha.

And here is the wisdom that struck me: we all need times of quietness in order to help us life effectively. It is a fool that thinks she is so indispensable that she cannot take a rest. If Jesus needed a two day break, then how much more do we not need to take time off from our busy-ness. The problem of course is our culture that persuades us that doing nothing is sinful: we are taught that sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, and “the devil finds work for idle hands”. So we keep busy, often to the detriment of being effective.

So my invitation to us – for the sake of our souls – is to discover the pleasure of doing nothing useful.

Silence

I am going into silence for three days. This is an opportunity to listen – rather than to talk. Because I am so skilled at talking it becomes my Achilles heel…. And I require the discipline of stillness to become aware of a life bigger than my own. I will be at the Springfield Convent Retreat Centre, accompanied by my colleague Dave Newton.


“A gentle, loving, inner peace and silence is here and now in this moment. It has always been this way. It is always here. It is right here within you and all around you, a stillness, an apparent void, a seeming nothingness out of which everything arises, exists, and eventually returns”.

Pray for me.