Wilderness...

I suppose the advantage of being in a pastorate situation at this time of year rather than in academia means I'm actually spending more of my time reflecting on the season. Don't get me wrong, I haven't ignored Lent for the past three years, but I don't think I've given it quite the due consideration that it requires. It has, unfortunately, taken second place to essay deadlines and looming exams. However, even before heading off to theological college, I can't honestly say that Lent has ever featured heavily within the liturgical years I've cycled through. Maybe it is the tradition that I've grown up in and the liturgical freedom it affords that has allowed me to sail through the 45 days with only a cursory glance. Or maybe I have just been too lazy to look!

This year things are different, Lent is at the forefront of my daily reflections and my weekly worship preparation.

But what angle do I come at Lent from? Do I do the whole self-denial thing? Maybe spend time sitting in sackcloth and ashes doing penitence? Or maybe I should go on a journey it to the wilderness?

Well pastorate life really doesn't allow you to head off at a drop of a hat on some sort Lenten pilgrimage. Nor does it really allow time to sit around in sackcloth and ashes, especially if you don't what people to think that pressure has finally got to you. But it doesn't stop you from wondering and reflecting on what it might mean to head off into the wilderness, just as Jesus did.

As I was driving home from my weekly visit to Cambridge the other day, America's 'A horse with no name' came up on my iPod playlist, and it got me thinking. So often we reflect on the wilderness being a place of loss; when we're not sure which way to go, we saying we're in wilderness times. We think of it as a place of hardship and a time when we wrestle with who we are and what maybe we are being called too. And on reading the story of Jesus' time in the wilderness, or even following the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness, I don't think it is wrong to see the wilderness that way. But what if it was a place of relief too? The chorus to the song 'A horse with no name' goes thus: "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert you can remember your name, cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."

Yes, the wilderness is a place where we struggle, but I also think that it is a place that allows us to remember who we actually are too. Its a place where we can reflect on the world we live, the world that surrounds us without either of those worlds encroaching on us.

If you have a spare 10 minutes, take a look at this video, see that Jesus did not just wrestle in the wilderness, he also to delight in the world around him and remembered who he was!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xb8-mkSNSg

Waiting...

So one of today's task was to write another pastoral letter for my placement churches, and here it is. Some of the task that have to be done in ministry require a level of honest that puts you in a place of vulnerability - this letter is no exception. These words come from within current experience - and not just from standing waiting for a train! 

Rushing down the steps on to the platform just to see the train slowly pulling away is one of those really infuriating moments in life. Now on the Underground really there should be no need to get frustrated, but people do. I was with a friend the other day when this happened to us, and my friend exclaimed, “Well now we will have to wait 4 minutes for the next train!” In the grand scheme of things, 4 minutes is nothing especially when we apparently spend 653 hours in a lifetime waiting for trains and buses. Yet, when you are waiting, 4 minutes can seem an age. But all the same we must wait.

The Christian calendar seems to me to be made up of periods of waiting. Before Christmas we have Advent, when we wait for the birth of Christ. We are currently in the season of Lent, when we appear to be waiting for the death of Christ. Then from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, we wait for the resurrection of Christ. From then we wait for Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then we appear to wait for the cycle to start again. Christians are known as the people of the Way. Reflecting on how much time we spend waiting, maybe it would be more appropriate to call us the people of the wait! That aside, it is not an unknown wait that we experience though; we do know what lies at the end of each period of waiting. This you would think would make the waiting easier, just as the time ticking down on the platform sign telling you when the next train is due might do. But does it? Or does it make the wait feel even longer?

Psalm 13 starts with the cry, “How long, O Lord?”, and it is a cry that is uttered elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Psalm 6.3, Psalm 35.17, Habakkuk 1.2 and Revelation 6.10). When we are waiting with the expectation of something, how easy it is to cry out ‘how long?’ And how frustrating it is when the only response we get back is “patience”! Yet, in some sense that is what we have in these periods of waiting in the Christian calendar. They are periods of time that give us the space to reflect and prepare; to be patient before God. If we were to rush from birth to death to resurrection to spirit without pausing and reflecting, would we actually see what each event was and is about?

One of the things I very quickly found after starting my placement was that whenever I cried “how long?” it wasn’t because things were taking too long, it is because things came around too soon. This meant that whenever I missed the train or the bus in the morning and had to wait, I found myself getting frustrated because I felt like I was losing valuable time sat at my computer or in conversation with someone. However, it was not lost time, it has actually been some of my most valuable time—the time when I have been made to stop and wait. That is why the periods of waiting in our yearly cycle, I think, are invaluable. They cause us to stop and think; to reflect on what has been and what is to come. They also cause us to be in the moment.

So take heart! Do not get frustrated by the periods of waiting that come your way, because the times when we have to wait are as valuable and meaningful as the times when we don’t. Remember the last verse of Psalm 27: "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"