Rev. Ann's Monthly Letter

September 2024

Last month I wrote about hope – real hope in the face of so much uncertainty. 

As humans, uncertainty is, I think, the only thing that we can be certain of, that and God’s presence in it all.

When it comes to faith, I am not sure that we are called to have a faith that is unwavering and changeless, no matter what happens in our lives.  I have often said, and no doubt will say again, that the opposite of faith is fear.  But we often deal with fear by trying to build up walls of certainty around ourselves in our beliefs, our attitudes and our prejudices.  The problem is that once we think we know everything we stop actively being engaged in the questions which by asking them might actually help us to grow.

We might think that doubt and uncertainty distance us from God, but it might be that the distance is more between us and the ideas we have about God, which is a different thing, but more hopeful.  ‘Growing in faith’ includes reconsidering the old ideas which have worked for us in the past and that sometimes need an update.  That too is a form of faith.

As Christians we stand on the shoulders of some giants of doubt!  Let us learn from Moses, Gideon, Jacob, Jonah and Elijah, not to mention all of the disciples at some stage (let’s not just single out Thomas!).  The great theologian Paul Tillich wrote: ‘Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith’.   And, of course, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus himself had his moment of doubt.

Of course, doubt and uncertainty can take us to some scary places and sometimes make us feel very alone.  But it may well be that in those times when we feel that God is most absent, he may be most present.  One thing we know is that God is not just sitting in heaven looking down on us.  He was not sitting in heaven watching as his Son hung on the cross.  No, in Jesus he entered our lives completely and fully so that we might know who he is and that we might find him even in our despair, our doubt and uncertainty because he is sharing all of that with us.

God is not distant at the cross and he is not distant even when we think he is.  We will never get all the answers to all of our questions in this life, but we can find meaning and that meaning is to be found in Jesus – Emmanuel – God with us.

We might have a tonne of questions for God, and that is no bad thing.  However, sometimes when we really want answers, what we get instead is God’s presence.

Go well

Ann

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August 2024

I don’t know about you, but things seem rather wobbly to me these days, and I can find myself falling into despair about the state of the world.  However, when this happens I find parts of my Christian faith can really help.

In Matthew Chapter 24, after his disciples have admired the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus responds by predicting its destruction and goes on to say, “and you will hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.   For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Jesus is right, these things will happen, and we have to admit our powerlessness in the face of them, which is terrifying.  However, as a people with a sacred text we know that we are a very small part of a very big story and having that big and that old a story should give us an important perspective.

When all we can see and feel and think about is the personal and political that is happening right now, it is good to remember that we are people of an old, old story, that starts at the beginning of time, brushes with the present and reaches into a promised future.  More importantly, the promise that God is not yet done and that we are not alone still holds true.  This is not a naïve or escapist hope, but the hope of people who have heard a rumour that there is life after death and hope beyond suffering.

This is the strange thing that people of faith do.  We do not invest our trust in financial markets, but in the God of Abraham and Sarah.  We do not place our hope in the government but in the God of Isaiah and Mary Magdalene.  Our hope is not in our own ability to be hopeful or to get anything right whatsoever. 

If we are anxious today (and maybe we should be), we need to hear that we stand in a big story that has yet to end.  We cannot know the end, but when the reality of the present threatens to consume us, we can be assured that God’s story – our story – is still being written and will continue to be written long after we have left this material world.

In other words, despite our anxieties, as people of faith, we still dare to get our hopes up.

Go well.  

Ann