God at the Centre of our Lives Revd Sue Male Saturday 5 February 2011

Revd Sue Male is the minister of Northwood Methodist Church, our neighbours in Oaklands Gate

Exodus 25-27

Although as I have grown, I developed a liberal understanding of the Christian Faith, this was not the first way I came across it. My parents did not attend church when I was a child, but my Mum did have a group of friends – Methodists in fact – with a more evangelical approach to faith. They were good friends of hers, but she did not share or understand their approach to Christianity.  This is demonstrated by one of our favourite family stories.

These people were always keen to proclaim God’s hand at work in their lives. Somebody they knew would get married, and they would proclaim in a loud voice “Praise God!” A child would be born, baptized or confirmed and each time they would loudly proclaim “Praise God!, Praise God!, Praise God!” All reasonable and good.

Someone would pass an exam, have a good day at work, get rid of a headache, and that same proclamation “Praise God!” would ring out.

The baby would fall asleep – and again God would be praised loudly (although I can understand that one!), but God would also be praised when the washing up was finished, when the kettle boiled, when the coffee tasted good.

In fact, God was so greatly praised that the praise seemed to lose its effect. Mum could not at all understand the constant need to proclaim it. She has memories of telling them “Sue has a new reading book from school” to be met with the refrain “praise God!”

This has become something of a family joke. We share bemusement at the constant and consistent proclamation. This kind of constant proclamation can be off putting to those who don’t share that approach to faith.

BUT the story does remind me of Exodus 25-27. Here we have detailed description of how to build the tabernacle, including the passage we have heard, with instructions on how to build The Covenant Box. The instructions are practical, and they do certainly address the needs of a community who need to be constantly prepared to move on to the next place for God, but they are also highly specific, highly ornamental – the best ... for God. We can imagine that as the people constructing the Covenant Box, the Tabernacle, with the task of following every last instruction worked they were constantly reminded of the God they were doing this for, and their work became an act of worship. We can imagine the awe of knowing that they were following God’s instructions in as much detail as they possibly could – doing their absolute best for God. As they worked, God - and his instruction - were totally at the centre of their lives.

We see the same thing in the beautiful churches and synagogues of today, in this synagogue, and in our church next door. Again, we can easily imagine the building of places of worship to be a meaningful and wonderful act of worship in themselves; bringing God to the centre of the builders lives.

So, back to the story from my childhood – yes the constant proclamations were sometimes confusing, off putting even exclusive, but God certainly was at the centre of my Mum’s friends’ lives. Without the external proclaiming we could learn a lot about seeing God at work in everything, in every part of our lives.

So, if God is to be at our centre. How do we bring him there in our worship today?

Through liturgy!

During this service we have rehearsed part of the Jewish story. I have been in this Synagogue before and watched the children acting out the story of the crossing of the Red Sea. I remember looking on from the outside and thinking “wow!, what a community, with God at the centre, constantly acting out and reconstructing your story, who you are, who you are with God, what the journey has been like.”

Christians do the same thing at communion as we remember the last supper that Jesus shared with his disciples, and how he took the bread and wine and asked his disciples to remember him every time they ate or drank.

In church we dwell on that word remembering – meaning putting back together. For a crass description, we can imagine dismembering a body – taking it apart. Remembering is putting it back together again – reconstructing it.

So with communion we put the story of Jesus back together again, experience it again, here and now. Just as you, in this synagogue put your story back together each week, and experience it again.
“Remembering” is an active spiritual word. It is about finding that awe again – of having God totally at the centre of our lives – at least for the short amount of time that we are in the synagogue, or in the church.

This awe is so important for our wholeness, for our knowledge of who we really are before God. The knowledge that no matter what, God is our God and we  are all loved by him, no matter who we are or what we have done.

The Christian theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer perceived this knowledge to be at the heart of the Christian comm-unity ....  the “common unity” that we all belong to God, are loved by him, were created by him, and display part of him in the person that we are. I think this is extendible to Jewish understanding too – to all religious, Godly communities.

When I was still living in Leighton Buzzard I belonged to a group where we explored theological ideas and learned about other religions. One week we invited a local Imam to speak to us at the group. He came to tea at my house first. I did not know him, and had never met him. I was aware of the importance of hospitality in Islam, and wanted to get things right. We prepared a simple tea for him. Discussion was awkward and polite – as it always is when you first converse with someone you don’t know and are struggling to think of what to talk about. But then he mentioned that the reason he had been driven to our house by another member of his Mosque was that he was partially sighted. I am partially sighted too. Suddenly we had masses in common – conversation was easy and free flowing – albeit about computer software and adaptations for people with impaired vision. We had found the commonality within each other – we now understood each other.

Bonheoffer argues that this commonality is actually there in all humanity- that we are all loved by God, made by God, showing something of him in ourselves. This is our common-unity.  Bonheoffer argues that being in community is about recognizing what is of God in one another - you and I, all of us - responding to one another as God’s people, behaving with one another with a respect that recognises God in each of those he has created.

We see this in clarity in the greeting which Hindus use with one another – “Nomaste.” This means “The God in me, respects the God in you”. In Christian or Jewish terms – I am God’s and I respect you too as being God’s.

Bonheoffer then goes on to say that the Christian community – which could easily be the Jewish community, or a mixture of both - is based on our behaving as if God were in charge. This seemed odd to me at first – why on earth wouldn’t we behave as if God were in charge, but it means something stronger – it means for us to have the confidence to behave as if God were standing here talking to us – which is fully possible because we know what he wants from the Bible.

We don’t need him constantly standing here with us, but can behave as if he were here because we have learned and can follow his laws without constant reminder.

(Bonheoffer sees this as a mark of a mature community – a community that gets on with the work whether the “teacher” is in the classroom reminding them to do so or not. He calls it a picture of “Man (and woman) come of Age”)

We see this maturity in those who work for peace, in great religious leaders, in good politicians – all doing their best to live as God wants them to live.

But what of us here and now – What is our part in bringing God to the centre of life? We cannot all be great religious leaders, or notorious peace makers, or worthy politicians. It is easy to think we cannot make a difference.

But out part is about seeing through the skins of people and knowing they belong to God, and treating them as something (one) precious to God

Every time you help a child – or an old lady or man – to see things from another’s perspective

Every time that you visit the sick, the lonely, or the depressed

Every time you challenge homophobia, or racism, or structures which prevent the participation of disabled people in society

Every time you challenge the idea that all Muslims are extremists or even terrorists

Every time you smile at a child or a woman or a man

Every time that Jew and Christian meet and build a friendship which crosses boundaries of how we believe in God

You are recognising the love of God for that person -or people- you are building a community of peace
Remember “Nomaste” – “God in me, recognizes and respects God in you” or for us, “What God has created in me recognizes and respects what God has created in you” (and so there can be peace).