busy

sweeping changes

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broom-2

Luke 10:38-42

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’

41 ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’

A while ago I read the passage above and wrote some reflections on it based on sermons I had heard about it which always criticised Martha and commended Mary. I wondered if there were other ways of looking at what happened…

Bad Martha?

Busy Martha

Distracted Martha

Humiliated Martha? (Jesus defended Mary)

Hurt Martha?

Jealous Martha? (would she have liked to be listening to Jesus too?)

Brave Martha (for telling Jesus what to do)

Being hospitable Martha

Caring Martha

Faithful Martha (exercising the gift of hospitality)

Neglected Martha (working in the background and nobody had noticed)

Devoted Mary

Wise Mary

Spiritual Mary

Smug Mary? (Jesus commended her)

Naughty Mary (going against cultural norms by sitting with the men)

Thoughtless Mary?

Inhospitable Mary?

Selfish Mary?

Scroll through to John 11:17-32. When their brother, Lazarus, died who showed faith In Jesus and who blamed him for her brother’s death? Who’s the spiritual one and who’s the practical one now?

Be blessed, be a blessing

Busyness

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I would like to apologise to avid bloggists for the intermittent bloggages this week. It’s not due to a lack of reflection, but a lack of time to tell you about it. We should always be looking for glimpses of God. However I will post something later this weekend.

In the meantime, remember that poor mathematicians don’t count and that some people don’t know what to do with punctuation – full stop.

beesyness

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Sorry about the lack of bloggage yesterday (a lackage?). The last few days have been the sort of days where I have been able to do all I have set out to do, but each activity has flowed into the next without much breathing space in between. I find I can sustain that level for a short time but I soon need space to breathe and reflect at a more gentle pace.

I have been doing lots of different things, meeting lots of different people – planned and unplanned, writing, reading, studying, making phone calls, taking phone calls, writing and sending emails, receiving emails, and much more besides. I have (to coin a phrase) been busy as a bee.

bee 2That’s an interesting phrase. Because bees seem to spend a lot of their time resting on flowers sucking up nectar. The cross-pollination that takes place because of the pollen that sticks to their furry little bodies is not their beesyness. Their real beesyness is to collect nectar to feed the bee colony.

It is very easy to justify your existence (especially as a Minister) by how busy you are. I know of some Ministers who are always on duty, always active on church business, always available. Their identity is their role: their role is their identity. Take away church and they haven’t got much else.

But is that a sensible or even a Biblical approach? We don’t have to read very far into the Bible to read about God taking a day off! Recreation is re-creation and it’s essential if we are to function properly as human beings.

I have a rechargeable battery inside me. It supplies power to an occipital nerve stimulator that is successfully moderating chronic migraine and cluster headaches, but that’s another story. I have to recharge it regularly as the electronics are rather sensitive. If I allow the battery to discharge completely there can be problems. I have been told that it is possible that the ONS can be restarted if I let the battery run out once. If it happens twice it is unlikely to be restarted. A third time would almost certainly be fatal to the system and it would need to be replaced with all of the cost and surgery involved. I am acutely aware of the need to recharge.

We all need to be re-charged, re-created and re-freshed: emotionally, spiritually, physically. There is no special prize in heaven for getting there early because you worked yourself into an early grave!

So what re-charges , re-creates and re-freshes you? Is it a regular part of your routine? If not I hope you also have a superhero cape to go with your superman / superwoman powers!

Be blessed, be a blessing.

Yay for Christmas!

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Let me start by saying that I love Christmas, and I love Colchester Baptist Church – they are wonderful. This is NOT a complaint it’s an observation and a reflection. If you sense any complaining or self-pity in this bloggage it has sneaked in without permission. ‘Bah, humbug’ is banned!

People sometimes say to me that Christmas must be the busiest time of the year for a Minister. Yes it is busy and yes there are extra things to do, but part of me wants to say ‘no’ because it’s not as if I am sitting around twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the year (cue jokes about only working on Sundays…). I also want to say that if there is any extra busyness it’s no more than lots of other people experience at this time of year. And lots of other people in the church are also working their socks off in a voluntary capacity (which is why they need new ones for Christmas). And I want to say that I love it.

The Christmas-related work may mean that some of the ‘normal’ (if anything I do is normal) has to be postponed until January. It may mean that I have to prepare a few more ‘thoughts’. It may mean that I eat a few more Christmas Lunches than is usual (4 this year). It may mean that I have to try to be more organised than usual in order to do everything. It may mean that there are fewer gaps between activities. If I had time I could re-write the twelve days of Christmas for Ministers. (Perhaps one day!) But I love it.

Before I was called to this church I worked at our Baptist Union’s office in Didcot. I loved what I did there, but at Christmas I missed being a Minister in a local church. It was not always specific things I missed (like all the lunches) – it was simply being among people as their Minister at this incredibly special time. I love it.

And each year there are new insights from the age-old story. Each year I am captivated by the realisation that the baby in the manger was God with us. This morning I was blessed by watching this wonderful video on YouTube, especially the ‘twist’.

This year some of my pondering has generated the following story, which I shared with one of our parent and toddler groups…

little angelNora the noisy angel*

Heaven was normally a calm, quiet place. It was peaceful, gentle and lovely. The angels would talk to each other in gentle whispers because it was so quiet.

Except for Nora. She could not speak quietly. If one of the other angels whispered, “Good morning Nora,” she would respond in a loud voice, “GOOD MORNING!”

If one of the angels whispered, “How are you?” Nora would bellow, “I’M WONDERFUL THANK YOU, HOW ARE YOU?”

And when the angels suggested that Nora should speak more softly she would shout, “I’M SPEAKING AS SOFTLY AS I CAN!”

The other angels called her Noisy Nora and that made her a bit sad. She wanted to be quiet but didn’t know how.

One day Nora heard that they were holding auditions for a very special choir of angels. She was very excited and went along. Thousands of angels were singing in sweet harmony: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to everyone!” It was a lovely, inspiring, melodic sound.

When it was Nora’s turn she tried her hardest. But instead of a gentle harmony she sang at the top of her voice, “GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND PEACE ON EARTH TO EVERYONE!”

“I’m very sorry Nora” say the angel choirmaster, “You’re too noisy. We can’t hear anyone else.”

Nora was really sad. She knew that the choir were practising for the most exciting moment since God had said, “Let there be light!” and she couldn’t be a part of it.

She went and sat down on a small cloud and cried.

She was still crying when she noticed that it had got brighter around her. She looked up and saw the Kindest Face.

“Hello Nora,” said the Kindest Voice.

“HELLO!” she said loudly, instantly feeling guilty about speaking so loudly to Him.

“I’ve got an important job for you,” said the Kindest Voice. And He whispered in her ear to tell her what He wanted her to do.

The next day the massive choir was ready, lined up in the darkness, waiting to sing their special song in honour of the special baby. They all waited for their cue. Then they noticed Nora walk out in front of them and step out from behind the night curtain in front of a group of startled shepherds.

“DON’T BE AFRAID!” shouted Nora in her loud voice, so everyone could hear, “I’VE GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU. IT’S NEWS THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD FOREVER! A SPECIAL BABY HAS JUST BEEN BORN IN BETHLEHEM. GOD’S COME INTO THE WORLD AND YOU CAN FIND HIM WRAPPED UP WARM AND LYING IN A MANGER!”

That was the cue for the rest of the angels. The night curtain was raised and the massed choir sang their special song: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to everyone.”

The night curtain came back down and the angel choir went back to heaven. Nora peeped through and watched as the shepherds faces shone and they hurried off down the hill into the village to find the baby.

When Nora got back to heaven the rest of the angels cheered and shouted and made such a fuss of her because she had done such an amazing job with her loud voice. And Nora could see the Kindest Face beaming at her.

She was so pleased that for the first time in her life she whispered, “Thank you.”

Be blessed, be a blessing

*If you like the story and want to use it, feel free. If you fancy giving me a credit that would be nice.

busy as a bee

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beeWhy do we say that someone is busy as a bee? Surely it should be buzzy as a bee? Yes I know that these are very active and diligent in collecting pollen, but we don’t say that we are as busy as other insects who are equally active and diligent. And while I’m thinking about it why is it that the buzzier an insect is the less capable it is of flying out of an open window? Silent insects seem to have no problem flying back out the way they came in. But buzzy ones spend ages bashing their heads against a window right next door to the space through which they entered.

Today I have an extremely busy day. It might even be a minor miracle if I manage to get to all of the different activities on time, unflustered, and able to focus on the different aspects of all I have to do. The success or otherwise of this busy day will depend on the availability of parking spaces and the free movement of traffic to enable me to move between meetings with a minimum of stress.

Two brief thoughts occur to me as I contemplate today: the first is that the busier I am the more time I need to spend in prayerful reflection. This enables me to get things in the right perspective and recognise that I am not indispensable.

The second is that often I concentrate on the meetings/events and not what happens between them. But without the time, movement and activity between the meetings/events the meetings/events will not happen. God wants to be involved as much in the ‘down time’ as in the moments of activity. Indeed I can use the ‘down time’ to focus more on him than perhaps I’m able to do when I’m busy.

Be blessed, be a blessing