Collar doves and the cross

I hope you had a good Easter. I must say that I have. It was lovely having all but one of our family with us (though we did miss him). Our grandchildren had great fun hunting for Easter eggs in the garden on Sunday morning. In Stanford we used to have them hidden round the graveyard and the children would hunt for them while the adults had a reading and sermon. It used to remind me of the angels on the first Easter morning, saying, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen."

Today we had Café Church, which is another family-sort of occasion. We'd moved on from the Easter theme. But not entirely. When we came out, we were met with a striking symbol. Sadly we didn't have a camera or iPhone to capture it, and when Jane cycled back with the camera they were gone. So I'll have to try and describe it.

On Good Friday in Grove we have an open-air service with all the churches together, at which there's a tall, rather flimsy cross. It's just a reminder of the cruel Roman means of execution to which Jesus was subjected. Afterwards it's put up in front of the parish church, by the roadside. It's still there - an empty cross. Today as we walked out of church (or at least Jane did and I chugged in my wheelchair), we noticed two dusky collar doves settled right down on the arms of the cross, one on each side, in the sun. It reminded me that the Easter story, and its meaning, doesn't end with the empty cross and the empty tomb. It doesn't even end with the risen Jesus appearing to the first disciples. It goes on to his ascension to be with God the Father - and to Pentecost, or Whitsun, when the Holy Spirit, the "promise of the Father", was given to the Church in order to enable it to live as the Kingdom of God and to share the good news of Jesus' love for everyone of all colours, languages, orientations and social status. One symbol of the Holy Spirit, of course, a dove. And so, there together were the signs of Jesus' sacrificial love for the world and his gift of his presence, strengthening, guiding and encouraging. The whole story of Easter.


I've learned that the Spirit likes to be welcomed in us, - he doesn't force himself on us -, and that it's possible to "grieve" him. I once read that a difference between pigeons and doves was that doves alight but are easily scared into flight, whereas pigeons are more phlegmatic. So it's not surprising the collar-doves had flown when Jane returned to photograph them. The writer noted that when Jesus was baptised the Spirit like a dove came and "settled" on him; in other words the Spirit was at home with him. You'll gather that I love George Herbert's poems, one of which is Whitsunday, which is a great prayer, starting:

"Listen sweet Dove unto my song 

And spread thy golden wings in me; 

Hatching my tender heart so long, 

Till it get wing, and flie away with thee."  We need to invite him to come and then continually cherish his presence in us.

Through the... narrow door

In Closer to God (that's the Bible reading notes than Jane and I use) yesterday there was particular good note, I thought, on Luke 13.18-30, with the heading "You have to choose". If you, like me, are too lazy to look up passages when they're mentioned, here it is!
'Jesus said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."
'And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened."
'He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, "Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' Then you will begin to say,'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!' In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last."'
Richard England commented:
"You know that awkward moment in a blossoming relationship where the girl (it's usually the girl) thinks to herself, 'Why won't he just ask me out?' Perhaps you've seen it among your friends or it's happened to you. What it indicates is that in a romantic relationship, it's not enough to hang out and say nice things to each other; you have to make a choice for a relationship to go forward.


"Perhaps one of the most deeply held errors about God is that, in the end, he will let everyone in. Today's reading shows us how mistaken that is. While God's kingdom will grow until it reaches every part of the planet, we still have to choose to enter it. Even those who could say to Jesus, 'Hey, we hung out with you, eating and drinking' - if they don't choose to follow him - will in the end hear him say, 'I don't know you.' We want to believe that being a good person is enough, but we're like the boy who hangs around the girl without realising that you have to make a deliberate choice. God desires a relationship, and a genuine relationship  cannot be coerced. It has to be chosen.


"This is a painful truth for many of us, but we cannot let ourselves be drawn into the mire of well-intentioned platitudes that claim 'it'll all work out'. Jesus transcends that. Love must be chosen."

That, he concludes, must make us pray for those we love who haven't chosen that Love. I think I'd add that that choice may be very tentative at first like fingers linking rather than hands firmly interlocked. The extraordinary thing about God is that he does not reject even the most hesitant approach, the tiniest seed of faith.

I quoted in full one of my favourite poems in I Choose Everything, which is George Herbert's Love, which begins: 
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";

         Love said, "You shall be he."...

Perspective

One of the temptations when you're in pain is to focus on it. Well, to be honest, it's a natural reaction. Our dog Jess, when she gets a stone or a thorn lodged in her foot, lies there licking it like mad. What's interesting about humans is that not only do we do that, but when things are all roses in the garden we're also tempted to become self-absorbed.

A good feature of New Wine this year were the opportunities to change our perspectives. Bishop Zac was particularly effective in achieving this. He identified four idols in 1st World faith: religion, security, sacralization (making sacred) of youth, and "me". He wasn't censorious about it; he was just describing ourselves from a 3rd World perspective. It certainly made me sit up! Then there was Baroness Cox talking about places like Burma and North Korea, Major General Porter talking about faith in the armed forces, Vincent Munyosi on church-planting in Uganda. One began to see the church in a world-wide perspective.

I love George Herbert's poetry. "The Elixir" from which there are quotations at the top of this blog is perhaps his best-known poem as it is often sung as a hymn (worship song). It is about practising the presence of God, seeing God in all things, even the most menial tasks and, I'd add, the most painful and restricted situations. The person who looks at a window ("looks on glass", which wasn't as clear as today), he says, has a choice, either to look at its surface ("on it may stay his eye") or to look through it and see the sky, or heaven ("the heaven espy"). We can choose to lick our wounds in our own confined safe world or to take the risk of looking up and seeing God's beauty. It's not that God isn't with us. He is. It's more an invitation to raise our eyes and recognise him there - and that means looking through the material to the real. Easier said than done, I know, and I guess Herbert did too as he prayed for a fresh pouring out of the Spirit in "Whitsunday":
Lord, though we change, thou art the same;
The same sweet God of love and light:
Restore this day, for thy great name,
Unto his ancient and miraculous right. 
Good call!