Newick Church



Sermon Mothering Sunday 22nd March 2020It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . . . it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair.The opening lines of Charles Dickens “A Tale of two Cities’ speak so directly into our situation this morning.?This week has meant that we all need to rethink how we live our lives in every single aspect? the change has been sudden, challenging and unprecedented There is no doubt that things are going to be different from now on.Personally one of the most difficult things for me this week was a friend who asked “ where is God in all of this?”? I asked her where she thought God would be and she answered “ I think God is self-isolating”. Hard as that was to hear it invited me to reflect on her answer more deeply. We are currently in the middle of a five week Lent Course, the title of which is, rather appropriately ‘Finding God in all things’ and I have drawn particular strength from this exploration into Ignatian Spirituality the resources are on The St Mary’s Newick website and I commend them to you?Finding God in all things means finding our God who is already there, in the best of times and in the worst, in light and in the darkness, in the Winter and in the Spring, in the breaking of bread and at the foot of the Cross. This week, I’ve been finding God in the compassion of community, in the support of the stranger, in the faithfulness of friends and family, in the grief of those who mourning, God is with us and we are never alone.And when we look at our faith in this way, my friends answer was pretty on the ball.God is in self- isolation and in community, God is the supermarket cashier, the critical care nurse, the ENT Consultant, the health care assistant, the paramedic, the school teacher, the TA, the caretaker, the refuse collector, the hospital taxi driver, the working from homeAs a Church, our life is going to be less characterised by numbers passing through our doors at church on Sunday, and more personified by the prayer and service we offer each day.Finding God for us as Church means we are being asked to step up and step out in what we do as Christian communities where we live.In the Gospel reading for Sunday we see Jesus at the most painful time in his life reaching out to his friend, family, followers pointing out that while things were going to be different they must to carry on the work that he had started.?This was especially true for the new relationship between the disciple and Jesus’ mother, called to care for one another; a new family built not on blood but on the love Jesus taught.This Sunday, Mothering Sunday, we are called to find God in each other, in our distance and in our togetherness,? in our prayer and action? for the sick and anxious in our communities, for those self isolating and those Key workers keeping our services going, loving them as Jesus has loved us, and demonstrating this in new and inventive ways that respond to the whole of our communities and not just those we know well.Amen? ................
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