An hour in church

I saw it again today! I’d lost the sight of it but not the reality. In fact I’d lost sight of it for longer than usual. Because economic disaster and the suffering and starvation of many people had dominated my thoughts and the vision had grown faint

I had gone to church reluctantly, weary after a virus infection, I wanted to sit and read my Bible at home (with emphasis on the ‘sit’)

The sight broke on my vision slowly, like when a mist clears and the mountains become visible again. I was listening to the words of the prophet Micah, what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? Listening to the preacher’s brilliant interpretation of that as a requirement that we love Tenderly, Trustingly and Tenaciously, when all at once it appeared to my inner eye. The concreteness of the walls and pews remained, but I saw the Kingdom (realm) of God.

The mists began to clear as I listened to the exposition and as I looked at the citizens: first the little children being the kingdom of God in grade school, then the young people, learning by living the ways of the kingdom. I saw the old and sick carrying their testimony to the goodness of God. I heard what many of us hear: the innumerable host who lived and died before we did: they were singing. in an ecstasy of realized hope, about the powerful love and mercy of God. There was the echoing resounding voice of a prophet reminding me that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and the good-will of God will be the chosen life-style of all its citizens, and that this is our future. Hope returned! God longs to do good to us and the only obstacle to his life changing power is our own fear of the changes he will bring.

Like Paul, I only saw dimly, as though I were looking through a thick glass But I also felt it all around me in the intensity of the worshippers, in the knowledge that their loving-living will spread the kingdom in ways we never thought possible to times and places beyond our imagination.

The church has only one hour a week to teach us the kingdom but after that comes a week of living and being the citizens of the kingdom. The kingdom of God, the realm of Love comes within us when we accept and live out the good-will of God to all people. What a difference an hour makes.

FAITH: It's all around

Circumstances make a difference. The gift of faith in Jesus is scattered all around but that doesn't mean everyone receives it. Some people never notice it; it's a language they haven't learned. Some people have the beginnings of faith but loose it easily, they want a god made after their own imagination and when that doesn't happen they give up believing. Then there are the people (lots of them) who receive faith eagerly and are proud to have faith and even think of trying to develop it, but life is too complicated, too demanding, too crowded; faith gets pushed away; it is true that they value faith and wish they could attend to their faith needs but before then they have to work and play and earn and spend. There is another group, the people who believe. For them the opportunity to believe is something to be grasped eagerly. They start and continue to believe, finding answers to their questions as they continue to trust God. The harder their circumstances the more they nurture their faith with times of fasting and praying and meeting together to understand the scripture.

Faith is a gift from God, he makes it available to all people. Who receives faith depends partly on a person's attitude to faith. Whether they keep faith partly depends on how carefully they nurture their faith.


Matthew 13:18 (NRSV)
18“Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”