Find Rest

Have you noticed how exhausting the Psalms are? ‘Clap your hands, all you nations’ (Ps. 47:1), ‘Shout aloud to the God of Jacob’ (Ps. 81:1), ‘Let us kneel before the LORD our maker’ (Ps. 95:6), ‘I stand in awe of your laws’ (Ps. 119:120), ‘Let them praise his name with dancing’ (Ps. 149:3), and ‘I will bow down toward your holy temple’ (Ps. 138:2.) We shouldn’t have pews in our churches, we should have treatment tables; and our churchwardens should morph into personal trainers and physios. Maybe that’s why we have kneelers in Anglican churches, for when the congregation simply collapses to the ground exhausted? Perhaps the Baptists have got it right with their Jacuzzis up front? Quality recovery time.

But have you noticed how peaceful and restorative the Psalms are? ‘He grants sleep to those he loves’ (Ps. 127:2), ‘Be still before the LORD and wait patiently’ (Ps.37:7), the rather emphatic ‘He makes me lie down in green pastures’ (Ps. 23:2) and ‘Find rest O my soul in God alone. (Ps. 62:5) Christian spirituality at its richest is both contemplative and charismatic, stilling and shouting; and the psalms won’t let us have it any other way.

So if you are visiting Malmesbury Abbey this summer we hope you are richly blessed on your travels and that you meet God as you worship with us. And we also hope that our short series exploring the Psalms is enlightening. But our sincere apologies; many of us have left town. We’ve done our dancing for the time-being, and we’re off to find rest.

Pope Francis 1 World Cup 0

Pope Francis has made our headlines and TV screens, albeit briefly, with the astonishing scenes from Rio de Janeiro as over three million young people gathered on a beach for the Catholic-led World Youth Day. 

The Pope challenged the young people and dancing bishops gathered not to be part-time Christians and to get out there and make disciples; he seems a brilliant, holy man. And then he told Brazil that 'Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup!' Wow. I once, unthinkingly, quite gently criticised the Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh in a sermon in Australia; I was lynched at the door by a succession of older ladies pretty much accusing me of blasphemy. So I really like it that His Holiness has the audacity to stand on the Copacabana beach a year before the World Cup opens in the same city and declare that Jesus is bigger than Pele, Kaka, Ronaldo and the entire World Cup machine.

Of course he's quite correct. And what's more World Youth Day itself just about equalled or beat the entire 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa. 64 matches, 31 teams plus England, and a total attendance of 3.18 million. Pope Francis topped that in one day. So given that the BBC invited us to spend hours watching Slovenia v Algeria and Honduras v Chile perhaps a little more coverage of the prayerful, youthful vibrancy of the Roman Catholic church might have been appropriate.

Butterflies

Last Thursday morning, as six of us gathered in the chapel for 9am Morning Prayer, we were looking back in awe and gratitude for the previous night’s Abbey prayer meeting. Over the last year I have always been moved when a small group, normally in single figures, gathered to intercede for the renewal of the church and for the healing of our world. This month we took a different approach, renamed the meeting ‘Glory!’ and spent nearly an hour in passionate worship, declaring the glory of God, and then continued to seek his face and share the revelation the Spirit gave to us. 45 people came, we left rejoicing, and then at prayers the following morning Psalm 29:9 nudged us back to the previous evening: The voice of the LORD twists the oaks, and strips the forests bare. And in His temple all cry, “Glory!”  We did; we will again.

Many in their prayers received a personal revelation of God’s glory; but there was also a theme of emergence, a parcel being unwrapped, barriers coming down, and particularly the image of the butterfly coming forth from a chrysalis. Emerging from the chrysalis for freedom in Christ (Galatians 5:1), the church emerging from darkness into light (with the red on wings symbolizing the blood of Christ), the church’s wings being strengthened as it struggled to emerge from the chrysalis, and the created existing to worship the Creator signified in the beauty of a butterfly. For myself, and for many others, the very gathering of so many to declare God’s glory and to intercede was an emergence for the Abbey, and a profound encouragement for the journey ahead – for which we interceded for an anointing of lips to praise and proclaim the gospel, and prayed with expectance that God will stretch out his hand to heal (Acts 4:30,31.) There is so much more to say and share, but this is offered to encourage you to rest this summer and prepare for the harvest ahead.

A couple of tourists visited the Abbey on Wednesday night as I prepared for the meeting. I explained to them that I was setting up for a prayer meeting, that the Abbey wasn’t a ruin and neither was the vicar. After their dinner in town the couple popped back and heard our final prayers, our glorious final song (In Christ alone) and stayed as I pronounced the final blessing. They came up to me and simply said ‘you must be a very happy man.’ They were right.

Tea with the Queen

No, I didn’t have tea with the Queen; Her Majesty has more important things to do than sip Assam with me. However there is the odd remarkable thing to report about my incarceration at Windsor Castle for 11 days.

Firstly, do you realise how amazing Malmesbury Abbey is? Hand on heart, if I had to choose between St George’s Chapel, Windsor or our 12^th century beauty at the heart of North Wiltshire there is simply no contest. I’m excited to be back in the richness of our worshipping and community life, what a blessing.

Secondly, I did see the most extraordinary kitchen table at Windsor Castle. In the Deanery study (the deanery is where the Dean lives) is the very old kitchen table which was which used to lay the body of King Charles I on while they sewed his head back on after his execution. He was then, rather oddly, interred in the vault of King Henry VIII – unlikely companions really.

Thirdly, I observed that it must be pretty hard to build a congregation if you have two or three police armed with machine guns at the gate and an admission price of over £15 just to get on the site.

But one real benefit was disconnection. I resisted the temptation to make phone calls and e-mails and took the opportunity to step back from parish ministry. Psalm 127 says this:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labour in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early
    and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat –
    for he grants sleep to those he loves.

We build our houses and we guard our cities (sometimes with very large walls) but unless we have a divine partner it’s all vanity. So this summer we step back, rest and sleep in the shade and ask of the Lord, what next?

(Re)Discovering Worship

We’ve spent two months so far in our (Re)Discovering series. The first month asked ‘do you know how to work your jaw?’ – the focus was evangelism. The second month asked ‘do you have a pulse?’ – the focus was vocation. Eight weeks summarised in four words: say something, do something. We grow as disciples as we speak about God; we grow as disciples as we serve alongside each other in the church and the world. What next? Coming on Sunday 14^th July for four weeks, (Re)Discovering Worship.

Worship is holistic, it incorporates all of our lives; it is orientation. Before the fires descended on Mount Carmel, Elijah went up to the crowds and had one final word with them, a simple request, ‘if the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.’ (1 Kings 18:21) The sadness of that moment is that the people said nothing in response. St Paul writing to the church in Rome similarly calls for a complete reorientation of life in light of Christ’s sacrifice: ‘I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.’ (Romans 12:1) Worship is the orientation of a human life in such a way that it declares the worth of God. It is all grace, God’s gift to us that we might give ourselves to him.

But what the psalmists discovered was that as they orientated their lives towards God, often literally walking the roads towards the temple in Jerusalem, something happened to their bodies: ‘I spread out my hands to you’ (Psalm 88:9), ‘In reverence I will bow down towards your holy temple’ (Psalm 5:7), ‘Clap your hands all you nations’ (Psalm 47:1), ‘His praise will always be on my lips’ (Psalm 34:1),and ‘Praise his name with dancing, make music to him with tambourine and harp’ (Psalm 149:3.) It all flows from this: ‘I love you LORD’ (Psalm 18:1). The psalms mention love more times than any book in the Bible; the psalms engage the entire being in worship more than any book in the Bible.

You’ve probably already put yourself into a worship category: ‘I praise the Lord with my impressive theology’ or ‘I praise the Lord with my radical life’ or ‘I praise the LORD with my exuberant song’ or ‘I stand passively with folded arms’ or ‘Diligam te Domine fortitudo mea’. But we all know that that’s not right, true love doesn’t compartmentalise. The question for the next four weeks brings it all together: do you have a first love? The answer is our worship.