Stories - Part 2

Last week, one of the things I said in my sermon is that you can’t change the world from your armchair.

But given that it’s only the stories you remember from the sermon, chances are you’ll have forgotten that bit!

But I did say it. And today I’m officially retracting it. I now believe that you can, in fact, change the world from your armchair.

More on that story later.

We’ve been thinking about journeying out in faith. About the salt getting out of the saltshaker. And how that willingness to step out of our comfort zones and take risks opens up a world of new stories to us. New places, new people, new experiences.  The example I gave was Melissa joining us from America for the summer, returning home full of stories.

But as we go in faith, and get involved, something else happens. We help generate new stories that have something of the flavour of the gospel about them. Stories that can bring change in people’s lives and attitudes. So Melissa joins us, and learns from us. But as she teaches and preaches and pastors, people’s lives are changed through their encounter with her. She helps make new stories.

Last week we watched that dynamic play out in Philip’s life as he drew alongside an Ethiopian official on his way back home from Jerusalem and met him at his point of need. The official was puzzling over the scriptures. Philip was able to help him make sense of them and respond to the Christ who was revealed in the prophesy of Isaiah.

And I argued that Philip’s story is a good example of what’s needed if we’re to journey out ourselves. We need a little fire in our belly – we need to know the God whom we believe in. We need to be approaching life prayerfully. We need to be ready to go and to engage with people and with situations, whether that process takes moments, days, weeks or years.

And today’s story of Moses’ encounter at the burning bush, adds a little more nuance to the mix.

Let’s think our way into Moses’ shoes for a moment.

You’re a murderer and a fugitive. You’ve left behind a life of immense privilege and you’ve severed links with the family who raised you. You’re living with strangers and have married into a people you don’t really know. You rely on your father-in-law’s generosity – it’s his sheep you’re tending – and here you are in the back end of nowhere with a future that looks as barren as this scrubby desert the sheep are grazing in.

You get the picture - Moses is not in a promising place. Not a place you’d expect to find God at work.

And yet he is.

You know the story – the bush burns but doesn’t get burned up; Moses turns aside to go and investigate. And the rest is history.

And lovely detail I’d never noticed before is that frightened, stuttering Moses’ has this first encounter with God within sight of Mt Sinai. It’s worth pausing to remember how much will have changed, and changed within Moses himself, by the time he arrives back here as the liberator and leader of his people, and climbs that very same mountain to receive the law.

And it might never have happened if he hadn’t turned aside from what he was doing to investigate this burning bush..

He didn’t have to. He had a choice. There were probably plenty of other things that he could have been getting on with. But something, probably curiosity, drew him in.

And as I reflected on that I found myself wondering – ‘what would it take to get me to turn aside?’

Life’s so busy for most of us, isn’t it? Hard to look up or around when you’re running so hard to get things done. And when you’re not running hard, there are so many other diverting ways to spend your time.

But how many miracles do we miss because we don’t lift our heads from our work, or our responsibilities or our pleasures long enough to really look around us and see what God is doing among us?

Ah, it was easy for Moses, though, I find myself saying. He had a burning bush to grab his attention. What have I got? The same old same old day in day out.

Really?

The poets tell us otherwise.

“The world is charged with the Grandeur of God” says Gerard Manley Hopkins.. “It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”

What if God is there, in all the ordinary places of our lives, just waiting to be found? What if he’s there to be found in the interplay of our relationships, and our involvement with our neighbours, and in all the places where we go to work and play?

How might it change things if we turned aside from routine, or convention, or fear, or busyness long enough to open up a little crack in the ordinary where the glory of God might shine through.

We might have to take a risk to do it. But as I said last week: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

And now, a few stories to illustrate as we close.

I have to confess I’d totally forgotten about this until I was clearing out some old files and came upon a sermon from years and years ago.

I spend the summer of 1989 working for Exxon down in Southampton and as part of the training we had a two day course on presentation skills. And at the end of the course we had to give a short talk with the title: 'a subject upon which I am an authority'.

And the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel, with a little dread, that God was wanting me to say something about my faith. Now this talk was to a group of around eight people, mostly folk in their early 20’s, and I was going to be working with them for the next couple of months, so as you can imagine, I wasn’t keen to place my credibility on the line and risk being a laughing stock for the remainder of the course. But the more I thought about it the more certain I became that this was what God was asking me to do.

So the next day, when it came to my turn, I went up and wrote "LOVE" on the flip chart which instantly got a laugh because they all thought I was going to talk about sex! Instead I talked about the different kinds of love mentioned in the Bible - Eros, philos and agape and storge – and gave lots of examples from newspapers and films. And at the end, l read them part of that great passage on love from 1st Corinthians 13.

And as I spoke to that group the fear I felt dissolved because I knew that I was doing what God wanted me to do.

Later on that evening at a barbequeue one of the lads who was the life and soul of the party came up to me in private and said - "That was a fantastic talk you gave today. I was really moved. Have you ever thought of being a minister!?"

And the truth is, up until that point I hadn’t. But I did from then on.

This next story’s from Adrian Plass and you can read it in “Jesus. Safe, Tender and Extreme” – a book that I can’t recommend highly enough. Finds him standing in a supermarket queue. The lady in front of him is having a loud moany rant at her mousy husband about the service they’re getting.

She goes on for about five minutes and then looks at Adrian and jerks her head upwards as if inviting him to agree with her.

“Seeing her face more clearly” he writes “and noting the negative lines etched into the skin around her eyes and her crimsoned mouth, I think how unhappy this woman looks. So angry and so unhappy. How should I respond to her? Normally, in a situation like this, I would probably smile in a non-committal way and make a noise that could be interpreted as agreement, disagreement or a vague indication that given more time, I would have had things of great depth and insight to say on the subject.

Something is different this time, though. Words are pushing to the front of my mind and I decide to say what I am thinking immediately because any more than two seconds of reflection would result in my opting for the noncommittal smile. I just hope the origin of these words is what (or who) I think it is.

I say: “You should look deep down inside the person you are, find the softer part of yourself and bring it out so you can show it to others”.

This is not the kind of thing one normally says to complaining strangers in supermarket queues, and I wait with slight alarm to see how she reacts. Then there is her husband. Is there a chance he’ll resent these words of gratuitous advice from a complete stranger and tell me to mind my own business?

Instead, he smiles a whimsical little smile, which pales into insignificance beside that of his wife, who looks at me with real humour in her eyes.

“Perhaps I should” she says. “Yes, you’re probably right. That’s what I should do”.

That is the end of our conversation, and if I hoped my comment was going to have a miraculous, immediate changing effect I am doomed to disappointment because as they leave, I hear her expressing her equally negative views on the general management of their next destination, the chemist’s shop across the road.

I am tempted to say my intervention was a waste of time. But who am I to know? Perhaps I am half a phrase in the fourth line of the fifty ninth page of the long book of that lady’s life. And maybe that is enough.

(Jesus, safe, tender, extreme)

And finally, some conclusive proof that contrary to what I said last week, you can change the world from your armchair.

This story’s about Betty - an elderly lady in the United States who became housebound after an operation. And it was hard. She got frustrated that she couldn’t get out anymore and do the things she used to do. But she had a strong faith, and that, and the support of her church, kept her going.

And as she worked through her own problems, she realised that there must be many more people out there like her who needed some company and some encouragement, So she placed an ad in the local newspaper which read: “Hi-my name’s Betty. I’m housebound and I can’t get out as much as I’d like. If you’re lonely or just need someone to talk to, then please give me a ring anytime. I’d love to chat to you.”

Within weeks, she had literally dozens of callers, some of whom she talked out of committing suicide, and some of whom even came to faith in the months that followed as their relationship progressed.

Last week, the story of Philip encouraged us to get up and go – to journey out towards the other in faith.

This week, Moses’ experience reminds us that we can go in faith without having to go very far at all. We may just need to turn aside and look for God in the places we already are – the desert, the training course, the supermarket. Even your armchair.

And that’s all well and good. But as I said last week, our job is not to applaud other’s stories. It’s to go out and make more of our own.

And that’s why I’m setting you some homework.

My friend Chris Hoskins is a photographer down in Edinburgh and he often heads out into the wilds in the wee small hours to catch the sunset or the sunrise.

This week I saw he’d posted this image on Facebook with the caption – “Time for another microadventure!”.

And I’ve discovered that a microadventure is just a small scale adventure you have within spitting distance of where you live.

This week, I want to encourage you to plan your own little microadventure.

I want you to think about a way that you can take a risk in faith. I want you to pray about it and then to take your courage in your hands and act upon it.

You could invite someone along to something happening in the church – coffee haven, next guild meeting, soup lunch. You could chase up someone you haven’t seen around church for a while and see how they’re getting on.

You could be in touch with someone you haven’t spoken to for a long time, or take baking round to a new neighbour or one you haven’t got to know.

You could take the time to write a thank-you note to someone who’s not expecting it.

You could make a point of getting to know someone in the church family you don’t really know yet by sitting with them at coffee time.

You could get involved in something going on in the community and get to know new people and start to make a difference.

You could ask that question that you’re afraid to ask, but which might get a whole conversation going with someone.

You could offer hospitality to someone you don’t know very well, or ask them along to something.

It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you’re journeying out. Hearing new stories and making some of your own.

And over the next week I’d invite you to let me know you’re getting on. Pick up the phone, email me, Facebook me, send me a postcard – and let me know what you’ve felt called to do and how you get on with it.

I’m excited to see what God can do among us if we dare to step out of our comfort zones a little bit. We might just make some good news stories of our own.

Amen