Date: 1^st March 2008

Preacher: Gordon Jeff

Churches: Draycott

Readings:

Genesis 9, 8-17

1 Peter 3, 18-22

Mark 1, 9-15

Lent 1

As well as being the first Sunday in Lent, today is also St David's day. Virtually nothing is known about St David. He died somewhere around the year 595 A.D. in Pembrokeshire, in what is now known as St David's. He presided at the monastery there as abbot-bishop. He was traditionally known as 'The Waterman', presumably because he was a teetotaller, and the life led by his monks was extremely austere. Indeed, his contemporary, St Gildas, made the rather acid comment that David's monks were more ascetics than Christians.

Which perhaps gives us a way into thinking about Lent. Not that I'm for one moment suggesting that we should become so austere as to merit that comment of St Gildas. We are Christians and not ascetics.

It's all too easy to look at Lent in negative terms, and I don't myself think negativity is very helpful. There's a saying, 'negativity begets negativity'. Try this for size - are you looking at this season of Lent as a discipline or as an exploration? Of course, a measure of discipline is necessary for us to get anything done at all, but you might perhaps find some mileage by thinking of using this Lent as a time of exploration into the reality of God and your relationship with God, your relationship with other people, with the natural world, and indeed, your relationship with yourself. And exploration does, of course, involve an element of discpline.

In what follows, please rest assured that I'm preaching to myself as much as to anyone. So looking at Lent in a more positive way, as a time of exploration, we might well start by considering what gets in the way between ourselves and God? What, positively speaking, might I release myself from? Well, if it's really chocolate biscuits or things like that which get in the way between you and God, by all means give the remaining chocolate biscuits to the birds to eat.

But I guess that for most of us it's more like letting go of activities which take precedence over giving time to God. Does God, and time for God, really have the first place in our lives? I know that all too often it doesn't for me. Many years ago, I had wonderful month living at St George's Castle, Windsor, doing a somewhat privileged mid service clergy course (even the guards saluted us as we went in and out). And I have never forgotten one of the staff team, Bishop Stephen Verney, trying to impress upon us an order of priority in ministry. First - time for God. Second - time off. And only then - work. Many, many clergy are workaholics who leave out necessary relaxation and their work suffers.

I think a lot of lay people are just as much workaholics as clergy, so I commend that order of priority to you for your thoughts. First, time for God; second, time off and relaxation, and only then, work.

At this point I can imagine you wanting to say something like: but surely I can serve God in my work … I can serve God in my family life and relationships … in my voluntary service? And surely I can become aware of the reality of God in the natural world as I live in this beautiful part of the world?

Yes, of course, and I've spoken from here more than once about God as the God of the whole of life, and about mindfulness - awareness - being open to the God who is ahead of us and around us and within us in every situation. That is why the traditional monastic rules always included time for manual labour, when the monks could be aware of God at the same time as they were working. God among the pots and pans, George Herbert's 'who sweeps a room as for thy sake …', the sacrament of the present moment - all that is important - even the informal, light-hearted remark at the supermarket checkout, which changes the cashier from just a sort of machine into a person loved by God. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber used to talk about transforming I/It relationships into I/Thou relationships.

But perhaps harder, even when we are not particularly busy, let alone when we are busy, is that more concentrated time of attention solely to God, that time of what we usually call prayer. And to return to my earlier distinction, prayer seen primarily as a discipline can all too easily beget a sort of negativity, even rebellion, which is why I'm inviting us to think of our prayer time not as a discipline, but as an exploration. Having been part-time chaplain to an Anglican convent for ten years, where the sisters met for prayer five times a day, seven days a week, I'm all too aware of the negativity which can arise from concentrating on discipline.

Most people feel guilty about their prayer time; many have simply given up apart from coming to church. So let's begin from a situation of having more or less given up on prayer. Maybe in addition we are totally overworked, tired when we get up, exhausted at the end of the day - typically the mother on the go non-stop with small children. Yet for all of us in any day there will be, assuredly, somewhere where we've finished one task and we don't have to do the next one immediately. OK - instead of bashing on to the next task, we simply stop for ten - even five - minutes just, if you like, just to BE. To BE in the presence of God. Attend to your breathing and think of breathing in the new life and vitality of God with every breath. Perhaps take a few simple words, ideally from the Bible, e.g. ' MY Peace I give you … These things have I spoken to you that MY Joy may be in you … dwell in MY Love…I AM with your always.

If we are less pressed for time, and we are only just getting back into all this, don't be too ambitious. Better ten minutes kept to regularly for a start than twenty minutes which you give up after a few days. And use a kitchen timer so that you aren't constantly looking at the time.

Again, if you have the option, when are you most awake and alive? Try to make your time of prayer when you are most awake and alive. There's no particular virtue in struggling to pray in the early morning if you are an owl and really come to life late at night, or vice versa.

Which doesn't leave me much time to talk about just what we might do in our time of prayer. Those of you who came on my MBTI course in November will recall how prayer is a far broader activity than often used to be thought - and I'm going to run another basic MBTI course in June - details in the April magazine.

However, just a few brief introductory thoughts - perhaps I might have a chance to talk more fully about this on another occasion. For some - perhaps for most - Bible reading is life giving. For others, even with a commentary - and I'm sorry if what I'm going to say is offensive to some, but I speak from the experience of some 35 years of people coming to talk to me about their prayer life … for some, even with a commentary, the words of the Bible stay flat on the page and fail to come to life, and people often feel guilty about this, or are even made to feel guilty or inadequate. St John of the Cross, among many others, wrote eloquently about when bible reading simply falls flat, and how this may indicate a time to change the style of prayer.

I think we do well to realise that for centuries millions of Christians were unable to read - even those in the monastic life - while for several hundred years what comprised the bible was undecided anyhow. But to stay with a few simple words or phrases, as I suggested just now, is life-giving for many, and forms an introduction into the wonderful path of contemplative prayer. If any of you are already into contemplative prayer, or feel this might be the path for you, Martin Laird's 'Into the Silent World' is the finest book I have ever read on the subject.

Or our prayer time might sometimes be spent looking at a picture - that was the point of stained glass windows when people couldn't read. Or listening prayerfully to music. Or taking a thoughtful book and stopping to ponder any time something comes out and says something to you. Or looking back over the last 24 hours - where has God been for you? Or keeping a journal. Or, as I've said before, and will say again - resting in an attitude of thankfulness. Take time to ponder, and to give thanks for so many things. And that, assuredly, will make us aware just how blest you and I have been in contrast with so many others in the world. And that will lead us into praying for others, aligning our goodwill and concern with God's goodwill and concern. God needs us if God's will is to be done in the world. So easily do we forget that God needs us.

Obviously we could go on. But to summarise, don't let's trivialise Lent into just giving up - those chocolate biscuits or whatever - let's be positive about it and explore. What is it that really gets in the way between God and me? - and it's usually five thousand other tasks which take precedence.

And then, trying to be more mindful of the God who is in and through every person and situation, and in you, whatever we are doing through the day.

And lastly, to try to discover what is your best way of finding time for a little more concentrated and undivided attention to the reality of the Creator (the God Out There), the Christ (the God beside you) and the Holy Spirit (the God within you).