How’s your Spiritual life just now? What’s your sense of Spirit in and with you?

A friend was telling me about her sister who is very sick: and how her sister is afraid to cry.  Afraid that if she lets the tears start to fall, there will be no stopping them.  The fear of becoming undone by tears.  Do you know that feeling? 

Even if we’re not intentionally holding it all in…  Life is just so fragile.  We are fragile: and strong, bold, courageous, … and fragile.

I wept on the floor of the Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday night at the Split Enz concert.  As the Hymns of a Nation, the Hymns of an Era were sung, I was undone: “History Never Repeats”, “I Got You”, “Six Months in a Leaky Boat”, “Message to My Girl”.  ‘I Hope I Never’….

I fall apart when you’re around

When you’re here, I’m nowhere.

I can’t pretend that I’m not down

I show it, I know it

I’ve been a fool – more than once, more than twice

I’m gonna move to a new town where the people are nice

I hope I never, I hope I never have to sigh again

I hope I never, I hope I never have to cry again

I still want to beam and smile

Happiness is back in style

I hope I never, I hope I never have to see you again

These are devastating lyrics: of loss, of pain, of grief.  And there are times when we think we may never sigh or cry again: because the crying or sighing didn’t ever seem to stop.  There is a season, turn, turn, turn: A time for laughter and time for tears…

Over the past 7 weeks we have been living into the Scriptures of Easter; and I’m sure there were tears that seemed to have no end in the Easter stories .  The horrendous death of Jesus: brought with it the total ending of hopes and dreams, especially for the disciples: the men and women who followed Jesus.  Imagine the personal devastation of having eft everything for follow Jesus and now he has been killed in the most humiliating way?  Imagine the personal loss?  Why did we follow him?  Has he failed us? Feels that way?  What did we think we were doing following this man?And now they’re after us?

We forget the unwritten Gospel of Good Friday night: the very night that the Jewish community are supposed to be home around the table cherishing family: we forget the unwritten emptiness of Easter Saturday.  The literal nothing-ness of God.  I bet there were disciples hoping never to cry again then…

hoping never to sigh again.  I hope I never, I hope I never, I hope I never..

Why did we leave our nets? What could we have been thinking? And now, they’re after us…

I’ve been a fool – more than once, more than twice

I’m gonna move to a new town where the people are nice

I hope I never, I hope I never have to sigh again

I hope I never, I hope I never have to cry again

Now here, at the end of these 7 weeks of Easter, our reading from Acts reveals to us the community of men and women, gathered again in that upper room in the face of the disappearance of Jesus’ in this earthly life; and we are told that they devoted themselves to prayer.   In the face of unexplainable loss, prayer is often the pathway… I wonder what it means for us to devote ourselves to prayer?

What would we look like if we prayed more? Discovering prayer beyond the LISTS of complaining, beyond the LISTS of worrying: beyond the LISTS of hopeful outcomes: and learning to pray like we were sitting in silence with one another: and in silence with God?  In God’s very stillness.  What if we devoted ourselves to prayer, for the pure simple sake of prayer.  Prayer because you can. Prayer because you are.  Prayer as a habit?  “And the devoted themselves to prayer…”

So I asked you at this top of this reflection… “How’s your Spiritual life just now? What’s the sense of Spirit with you?”

Only fair I attempt to answer that if I’m prepared to ask you that… So, at the moment, I have a little thing going… I’m using a morming Common Prayer: a gospel reading from Irish Jesuits’ sacred Space prayer book: a quote from my Though the Year with Thomas Merton book; and a refection from Clair Boyd-Macrae: followed by the Lord’s Prayer and a Day Blessing from the Common Prayer book.  That’s quite formal I know.  I’m not always like that at all.  It doesn’t always work like that: but at the moment, it’s an anchor point.  And just so you know, these are OLD resources.  I didn’t need to go to hunt for something new…  Strange thing is that it’s leading me back  to Journaling again. 

Prayer is about turning up: and it also needs flexibility. Variety. Regularity. Walking by the river, in the park, gazing softly at a bunch of flowers, Bible reading, Bible study, reading a faith resource or stories… music or lyrics, faith-filled or other… prayer is not an equation… it is a practice.

This story of Jesus being lifted up and taken away in the clouds, for progressives like us, is a physical impossibility.  It’s nonsense; was Jesus was like a superhero, flying into space?  We know if you go too high up, the air gets so thin, and you don’t survive.   So the writers must be doing something else.  Remember, they are writing theology: a book of meaning.  Theologian, NT Wright has some helpful words here: 

He says “Neither Luke nor the other early Christians thought Jesus had suddenly become a primitive spaceman, heading off into orbit or beyond, so that if you searched throughout the far reaches of what we call “space” you would eventually find him. They believed that “heaven” and “earth” are the two interlocking spheres of God’s reality, and that the risen body of Jesus is the first (and so far the only) object which is fully at home in both and hence in either, anticipating the time when everything will be renewed and joined together.” (Surprised by Hope, Ch 7 and Acts for Everyone ch 1-12)

It’s a remarkable Scripture for people who only knew a flat Earth and a 3 tiered Universe.  For the Good Old Testament scholars amongst you, you will recognise the metaphor of the Cloud (think of the pillar of cloud and fire as the children of Israel wandered through the desert); the cloud as a means of communicating that Jesus disappearance is like God’s Cloud presence. And for you New Testament nerds, the phrase “and when he had said this, as they were watching he was Lifted Up’ can only be referential to the Easter experience again.

Progressive theologian, Brian McLaren asks us a question to take us further in response.  He says, “We see something very similar in the story of Jesus’ departure. Will his followers look up at the sky and speculate about their departed leader with their heads in the clouds? Will they be fans instead of followers? Or will they get down to work and stay focused on living and sharing Jesus’ down-to-Earth way of life, empowered with his Spirit?” (p. 52) Me Make the Road by Walking it, ch 12 Stories that Shape us, Brian McLaren.

It’s a good question:  Will we get down to work and stay focused on living and sharing Jesus’ down-to-Earth way of life, empowered with his Spirit?  What would it be to devote ourselves to prayer?  

The Gospel reading today from John, tells us something that might ease the fear of endless tears?  The Gospel reading brings a string of assurances to us: if we trust them. “Eternal Life or ‘the life of God’s coming age’ means this: that they should know you, the only true God, and Jesus the Christ the Messiah, the one you have sent.” 

This whole thing we do: Sunday by Sunday; in prayer and Bible reading together and alone: we come to know God.  Being a follower of Jesus brings us to Knowing God.  

When Tim Finn would sings  

“It should be possible I know

To see you without stress

But I can see I’ll have to go

I’m changing my address

My urge to cry, I have failed to conceal

Life – it’s no fun when you’re hunted by the things that you feel”

I hope I never, I hope I never have to cry again

I hope I never, I hope I never have to sigh again

I’m for living while you can

I’m an optimistic man,

I hope I never, I hope I never have to see you again”

Prayer and praying when feeling haunted by the things we feel is a challenge.  The fear of endless tear fall… can prayer undo us?  Yes. And prayer brings us into the Encounter of the One who is Love and brings Healing, the ONE who brings hope.  The One who knows our needs way before we even know the words to say?

At this end of the 7 weeks of Easter, we have come to this point of the story: Jesus leaves the disciples. He will send the Spirit that will sustain and encourage us.  As we will devote ourselves to prayer.  To say it again ‘to get down to work and stay focused on living and sharing Jesus’ down-to-Earth way of life, empowered with his Spirit’

And so I ask again… How’s your Spiritual life just now? What’s your sense of Spirit with you?  And what do you want more of?  Prayer is here: a gift: shall we get down to it? …  Amen.