Wilderness

The Judean wilderness January 2019 - a traditional idea of wilderness?

Wilderness

Wilderness is wide.

Bare rocks are there –

No place to hide,

Exposed to all the elements

From every side.

Wilderness holds fear

Of dangers seen, unseen,

From far and near,

Threatening sounds and shadows

Are everywhere.

Wilderness can bloom,

Creative power is there.

Trees and plants find room,

Signs that life will flourish,

Death be overcome.

Wendy Ross-Barker

It seems like forever ago now but on Monday evenings we hold (held) something called Evening Stillness. A short introduction, then a reflection to help us frame our thoughts, and then around 20 minutes of silence. I love it. Thinking along a Lenten theme, I chose this poem for the 9th March. It has been sitting on my desk ever since and I keep returning to it.

It seems to be such a metaphor for where we are now.

We find ourselves in a strange new world where we are all staying at home. It might feel barren, wide with nowhere to hide. We feel exposed and vulnerable - like being in a desert.
It's a threatening place. One of the things I love to do is Godly Play and there are a number of the stories of God's people that take place in the desert. One of the lines in the stories about the desert is that you don't go there unless you have to. Like self-isolation and social distancing perhaps...

But God sometimes spoke very clearly to God's people when they were in thh desert. Think of Abraham entertaining the strangers in the desert, or the wilderness wanderings of Moses and his gang. So it can also be a place of creativity, and there are many signs that death will be overcome.

 I don't know about you but I have been enormously cheered by some of the silly videos and photos that people have been posting of their antics in isolation or quarantine.

There's this song by Sam Chaplin (apologies for the resulting earmworm)

Or this video of an amazing machine at home.

And then there's the beautiful stuff like this video of a Guildford choir singing wonderful harmonies whilst apart.

My current wilderness

 My wilderness looks a little like this photo at the moment - it's beautiful Spring, with lots of signs of new life in nature. Separated perhaps. But there is creativity and new life around. I hope you can share in some of that, and find peace and joy too.

The self-isolated woman at the well - John 4 A homily for 15th March 2020

I love the English language. It is ever-changing and evolving. Every year, the dictionary compilers add new words to the dictionary – and choose a word of the year. A few years ago, who knew what a selfie was? And why it may or may not need a stick?

I can’t help wondering if the word of 2020 will be a compound one, self-isolate. It’s a word I think we would never have used a few months ago. We would have known what it meant, but it would have seemed an odd choice of phrase  - how things change.

But I don’t think that self-isolate is a new concept. In fact I think it’s something that appears in our Gospel readings today. The woman at the well. In Samaria. It was perhaps not the most obvious choice of route from Galilee to Jerusalem for an observant Jew like Jesus. Many would have made the detour to avoid the territory. The Jews and the Samaritans had a history of mutual hatred and  distrust. The dispute was almost a thousand years old by the time that Jesus met this woman. A theological and political dispute dating from the splitting of the northern and southern kingdoms. When Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, he was telling a radical story of boundary-crossing that has been somewhat diluted over the years. When we hear Samaritan, we think “good.” When his disciples heard “Samaritan”, they thought untouchable. Beyond the pale.

Living water? The River Jordan at Caeserea Philippi

And the Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at the well might have been regarded as the lowest of even these Samaritans. She was, perhaps self-isolating. We don’t know, but we might speculate that her relationship history had made her shunned by the rest of the women in the village. She was there alone in the heat of the day. Or perhaps she was self-isolating. Having had enough of the gossip, the taunts, the sly looks, she takes herself away from where she can be infected, polluted, by the hatred and suspicion of others.

And perhaps today when we think of it like that, the gospel reading takes on a new light. In the state of self-isolation, Jesus speaks to the woman. He does not shun her. He gives the means to quench her thirst for the true God for good. Jesus comes to those who are isolated or who isolate themselves. He comes to the shunned and those who shun others. That is his mission. He does not come for those who are well, but those who are sick. 

His disciples can scarcely believe it. Why does he pay attention to this woman? For what reason are so many of their taboos being ignored? Just how unclean is Jesus prepared to make himself in order to have his message heard by others?

We have no idea what lies ahead of us over the next few weeks. But it is likely that many of us may need to take some time to be away from others. This may or may not be welcome to us! But there is a need to address and acknowledge the fear that is widespread.

Isolation is not a good thing, all in all.

Jesus created a community of believers, in his lifetime and after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit continued that work at Pentecost. The church is a gathering, an ekklesia. It is all about being together with other believers. But there might be a time ahead of us when it is difficult to gather. There might come a time ahead of us when we choose to remove ourselves from  other people. But Jesus is still with us. Jesus still brings living water. Jesus will meet us when we are on our own, away from others. Jesus will be there always, ready to enter into conversation with us. ready to reveal himself as Saviour. So don’t be afraid. We are His and he is with us.

And the woman – even from her isolated position was able to share her faith in Jesus. She was able to bring others to him so that he could share that living water with more people. Perhaps there’s our challenge – even if we become physically estranged from others, we might still be able to point them to Jesus.