Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Is God menopausal?

Kicking the darkness until it bleeds light ... is, as Maria commented, a quote from a Bruce Cockburn song. Chris mentioned it on Sunday morning, which as I said, was brilliant.

Chris and Alun have been doing a series following the Jewish people from the beginning, using places as stopping points. At the moment we're in the Sinai desert, which is not at all as I imagined, being altogether hillier and bleaker. We'd reached the point that talks about God's people being a nation of priests. Chris asked for some definitions of the word and most agreed that a priest was an intermediary who pointed people to God and showed God to people.

At that point I was wriggling uncomfortably, thinking what a bad example I am. If people are looking for God in me they'll have to look hard; I'm altogether not good enough to be a priest, to demonstrate God; I have far too many failings; and so on. Then Chris said, 'Now some people are going to say that they've got far too much rubbish in their lives; they can't do that. But I think that's a cop-out. It's because of the crap in our lives that we can.'

Our crap that we've been forgiven; the love, grace and mercy that has been shown to us. In spite of us.

Then it was Alun's turn. 'Six thousand die from AIDs in Africa every day. That's two 9/11s.' He went on to list other horrors and insanities that go on before asking, 'Where is God in this? Why doesn't he do something?'

If we are God's priests, why don't we?

It ended with a challenge to make a difference. The same challenge was repeated in Zac's tonight. We can't change the world single-handedly but individually we can make a small difference to the lives of others, and corporately, we can bring about change. We have to believe that; we have to hope. We have to kick the darkness until it bleeds light.

* * * * * * * * * *

And because I can't be entirely serious for very long I'll also mention that Sean spoke about God not only forgiving our sins but forgetting them too. He said, 'When we go to God and say, "I'm sorry I've done it again", God says, "Done what again?"' And my first thought was, 'Don't tell me God's menopausal too!'

xx

2 comments:

Leslie: said...

Hmmm...a menopausal God - gives one pause to think about that.

I like this post about the sermon because I am trying (TRYING) to put down in words all the "crap" I've been through in my life to try to help others realize that if I can make it, so can they. It's so hard to do and is taking FOREVER, but I truly feel called to it. So no matter what, I will kick until it bleeds light.

Mauigirl said...

Good thoughts.

Love the idea of a menopausal God. (After all, many people believe God is a "she"!).