Making space for life 1: Making space for God.

As you may recall, our overarching theme for the year is “building bridges”. The image of a bridge expresses who we want to become as a community of people who follow Jesus. We seek to see where God is at work in the city and join in with what He is doing. In the process, we seek to become a bridge that enables people to encounter Jesus.

We do this for two reasons. First, we do this because we seek to become like Jesus and to follow His example in everything we do: in the way we work, the way we rest and enjoy ourselves, the way we live out our family lives, the way we live together as a community, and the way we relate to others. Second, we do this because we are convinced that what will attract people to Jesus is not what we say, in the first instance, but what we do, the way we demonstrate Jesus’ love and compassion in concrete, practical ways.

We are by no means the first people to seek to do this. A book in the Bible called the Book of Acts, which records what the very first followers of Jesus did, describes how they lived their lives in exactly this way. Read with me in Chapter 2, from verse 42:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2: 42 – 47

Ever since then, followers of Jesus have been inspired by their example to make space for God in the middle of their lives.

Perhaps the most successful people to create bridge building communities that spread the good news of Jesus and expanded God’s Kingdom were monks and nuns. That doesn’t really fit with the stereotype of monasteries being reclusive communities cut off from the world, spending their time contemplating God.

As the book “Punk Monk” makes clear, these early Celtic and Roman Catholic and Orthodox men and women founded monastic communities on the crossroads of major trade routes all across Europe, in the middle of the hurly-burly of everyday life.

The monastery up in Iona, for example, which is famous now for being a tranquil refuge from the world, was founded there in 563 AD because the island was a crossroads for major trade routes from Ireland to the British Isles and the North of Europe. People stopped off there all the time to rest and to restock their boats. The modern-day equivalent would be building a monastery in a service station on the intersection of the M1 and the M62.

These monks and nuns made deliberate choices about the way they lived life and set their priorities in order to honour Jesus and to bring people closer to him, and it was that way of life that drew people in and convinced them to change. In the process, they changed irrevocably the cultures of an entire continent. People saw the way the nuns and monks lived and thought, “I want to live like that. I want to have what they have.” As they set about discovering what made these monks tick, people came face to face with the one the monks followed, Jesus Christ. And the more they encountered Jesus, the more they fell in love with Him, until they made the choice to trust Him and to surrender their lives to Him.

The book “Punk Monk”, written by Pete Greig and Andy Freeman, describes how the 24-7 prayer movement used these early monastic communities as an inspiration to create modern monastic communities that make space for God in the middle of everyday life and build bridges into their cities and towns and villages. While we aren’t founding a monastic community, at least not yet, I think we can gain some insights from them about how we go about building bridges to bring Jesus to people, and to bring people to Jesus. We have copies of the book on the resources table, by the way, if you want to pick it up. It is well worth your time.

Today I will look at how we make space for God in the middle of our lives and in the middle of our community, and what the result of that can be. In the next few weeks, Sally Wallace and Kate Newman will pick up this theme of making space for life in more detail.

The thing to remember is that we are just ordinary people, with ordinary abilities and gifts, trying as best we know how to follow an amazing and extraordinary person, Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth. It is Jesus who is able to do immeasurably more than we can hope for. It is Jesus who brings life and restoration and peace and mercy to us and through us into our neighbourhoods, our workplaces, our schools, our families. All we can do is to make space for Him.

Therefore, we first fix our eyes on Jesus. We take our identity from him. We want to become like Him. We want to be transformed by Him. Because we are fascinated by Him, we pray. We pray alone, we pray in small groups, we pray together at weekly worship, in housegroups, or at the prayer and worship evenings. We pray for each other, for those going out on mission trips, for healing, for inspiration, for comfort and encouragement. But above all, we seek out Jesus because it is great to hang out with Him. We have no other purpose than to be with Him.

As a staff team, we’ve been setting aside time every day during work hours to pray, and it has made a difference. I have found that I am less likely to get swamped or stressed by work, because every time I enter our prayer room, I am reminded of who I am, a child of God, and why it is that I do my job – to the glory of God and to build His Kingdom. And I realise again that, in the end, it is not down to me to ensure that things work well. Instead, it is God who makes my work fruitful.

So, when will be the next time you just hang out with Jesus, outside of weekly worship that is, with no agenda, nothing to ask for, just to spend time together? Because to hang out with Jesus is good.

As we spend time with Jesus, as we make space for Him in our lives, we begin to change. For one thing, we become more and more aware again of His majesty, and of the beauty of His creation, and the urge grows in us to worship Him, and to praise Him for it. We begin to unfold our creativity in celebration and praise of the wonderfully creative God we follow.

And He is amazingly creative, isn’t He? Just one look at the complex universe He created shows us that. We will never be as creative as God is, but nevertheless we express our faith and love in every way we can, in music as we did this morning, in art, in dance, in cooking, in every activity that has no other purpose than to multiply joy and increase celebration. That is what God is about. God loves His creation, He has always thought that it is good.

Therefore, we have begun to set up our prayer room at the Vineyard Centre as a creative and worshipful place, and when you come to visit it, whether during a 24/7 prayer day or just on the spur of the moment during office hours, you will see some wonderful examples of creative worship and praise.

So, when next will you walk through whatever part of this earth that is your favourite place, the countryside, or the city, or a mountain or a forest or a street, and just marvel at it? And what will you do to mark the beauty of it all?

As we praise God for the beauty of His creation, we almost inevitably become more aware of those parts of His creation that are broken, that are no longer as beautiful as they could be. We become more aware of the people who are lost and alone, who have had joy taken from them by addiction, by oppression, or exploitation, or violence, by greed, or pain and suffering. And our hearts are broken by the injustices of this world. A few weeks ago I described how that happened for me in South Africa.

We begin to burn with what Bill Hybels has called “holy discontent”, a just and right anger at an injustice we see, whether that is seeing people live in poverty in the heart of our city, or families trapped in debt, or young people marginalised by our school system. And we find that we can’t stand by and watch anymore, we feel that it would be criminal and immoral not to act. Something must be done, someone must intervene. We confront exploitation with justice, but we respond to guilt with mercy.

The important thing is that we do not take matters into our own hands. In our discontent, we call out to God for intervention. And we find that God replies, “I see what you see, and I will do something about it, through you.” As we pray for God’s justice and mercy to pour out into our neighbourhoods and workplaces and our city, we find that we often become the answer to our prayer. And so we find ourselves doing something that is so crazy it might just be God, like starting a Friday night club for teenagers in the Vineyard Centre, who most of the time are off the wall crazy, but who are also lost and alone. And every so often they encounter Jesus, and give their lives to him.

So, what burns in your heart? What is your holy discontent? What would happen if you took that to God and then let Him show you what He will do about it, through you, and through us?

As we become more aware of the suffering of people in our city, we begin to see those who suffer in a different light. We begin to see the homeless, the lost, the broken as our brother or sister in Christ. We begin to recognise in the face of the unloved and socially excluded the face of God’s beloved child. So we begin to open our hearts and our homes to others. We become hospitable, as individuals and as a community. We invite people in and make them feel at home, at formal events like weekly worship, or in our housegroups, or in informal gatherings of friends in our homes.

Because inviting people in, sharing a meal together has become a rather radical thing to do. Just a week ago I listened to a Radio 4 programme on how so many people today live isolated and alone. It is easier than ever to have hundreds of friends on facebook and yet have no-one to go out for a cup of coffee with. Something powerful happens when we invite people in and share food and time and our home with them. Sharing a meal together builds relationship in a way that nothing else does.

So, how can you welcome your neighbours and colleagues into your house? Could you invite people round for a bbq, or watch the World Cup together, or else invite people round to get away from all this football stuff and talk about the film “Sex and the City 2” instead?

As we seek to bring justice and mercy to people, and to address their physical and emotional needs, we become aware of their need to meet Jesus, who alone, in the end, can be the answer to human need. Because we will always be finite. Our ability to care and to go out will always be limited. We will get tired, some day. But Jesus does not get tired. His power to change people and to transform their lives for the better remains undiminished.

Therefore we will seek to bring Him to people. We set out to meet the lost where they are, on the streets, in Cafe Nero, in front of the school gate. We seek them out to bring them love and compassion and mercy, and through us comes Jesus. That is why we get to proclaim freedom to the imprisoned, healing to the sick, and peace to those in conflict, because we bring Jesus.

A few weeks ago, I was on my way home in a taxi from the New Wine leaders’ conference. It was late, past 11 o’clock at night, and I was tired. As we drove along, I asked the driver how business had been, knowing that taxi drivers are struggling in the current economic climate. And sure enough, my driver had made barely enough to cover his costs despite working the whole day.

As he was telling me this, I could see something else was up, and I thought, “Oh no, I don’t have the energy for this”. And finally it came out. He seemed to kind of give himself a shake and then began to tell me about how he’d been kicked out of his house by his wife because they’d had a terrible row. I thought, “Oh.” Then he told me that he had hit her, and I thought, “Oh dear!”, and that he was now due to appear in court and wasn’t allowed to speak to his son or wife or come anywhere near his house. I listened to him and I thought, “What do I do with this?” I’ve got nothing. So when we got home I offered him the one thing I had, God. I asked him, “Is it okay if I pray for you right now.” He said okay, so I just put my hand on his shoulder and asked Jesus to intervene.

I have no idea what is happening to the driver now. I gave him my phone number but he hasn’t been in touch yet. But I know that God is on his case. And I know that he has encountered Jesus. Not because I’m particularly holy, but just because I was there and was willing to talk. We are good news, not because we are special but because from the moment we surrender our lives to Jesus, we carry Him in us. So when people meet us, they meet Him. And encountering Him is the best thing that can happen to you.

So, have you felt God nudge you to be good news to someone? Has God nudged you to have a little bit more courage in sharing Him with someone?

As we go out to serve people and to demonstrate the love of Jesus to them in actions and words, we become aware again of our need to keep filling up with God’s word, to replenish and to deepen our understanding of Jesus, of who he is and how he acts, and how we relate to him. So we come back to our community, to housegroups, to weekly worship and the Gathering, to the School of Ministry courses, to hear God’s truth proclaimed and to explore it together with others.

We come back to reading our Bibles, to immerse ourselves in God’s story with His people. We seek to develop our abilities and skills to serve God and serve others better. We seek to learn from others and about others, and we seek to learn about ourselves. We try to learn from our experiences, good ones and bad ones. We seek to learn not for its own sake, but so that we become more effective in bringing God’s Kingdom into the world.

I have been teaching a course called The Ministry of the Kingdom over the past few weeks, and it has been a privilege to get to watch as people have re-discovered what it is that we do when we do ministry. No-one on the course, so far, has said, “Oh I had no idea about that.” But people have remembered what ministry is about, why it is that we pray for people, how God freely and abundantly distributes the gifts of His Holy Spirit to empower us and what we do. And they have felt encouraged to try out ministering to others.

We as a community have been blessed by the learning people have done in the Leadership School, where they have become aware suddenly what they are capable of, where their potential to serve and to come up with new ideas has been unleashed. It’s been great to watch people just go for doing new things.

So, what will you learn, over the next week, the next month? What will you learn from your colleagues, your kids, your neighbours? What will you learn from God?

Finally, we do all of this as a community, as people living and working together under the authority Jesus. When the apostle Paul, one of the leading thinkers of the early Christian community, described the church as a body, he did so because when we come together we demonstrate Jesus most powerfully. As the community of faith that is Wharfedale Vineyard, we get to live out a different way of living together. We get to demonstrate what it is like to love one another and to care for one another in practical ways. That has a powerful impact on people who encounter us.

It is also as a community that we become able to do things we would never achieve alone. This counts in simple practical ways. On Wednesday, I was able to donate a mattress to someone in need. The only reason I had it was because one of us, a member of this community, first donated it to our Store.

It counts in spiritual terms as well. Jesus said, “Where two or three of you come together, there I will be also.” Most often, that verse is used as a way to make up for poorly attended church meetings. We may only be two people who came to the service, but hey Jesus is here nevertheless.

That isn’t what Jesus meant. What he meant was that wherever two or three of us come together, in the street, in the office, in school, in prison, there He is present in power. That’s where the Holy Spirit begins to move, and where His power turns our human prayers and actions into tools that transform the world. One of the reasons we offer to pray with you during ministry time is that we have discovered the power of two people praying for something together. Community works.

Let me recap then. In order to build effective and lasting bridges, we as a community of faith can do the following things:

First and foremost, we pray. We spend time with Jesus because to be with him, to love Him, and to know His love for us is the chief, even the only, purpose of our lives.

Second, we use our creativity to worship and praise God. We respond creatively to His awesome act of creation when He set this universe in motion.

Third, we respond to the brokenness of this world with justice and mercy. We seek justice for the oppressed and the down-trodden, we counter guilt and shame with mercy.

Fourth, we are hospitable, seeking to make a home for the homeless, to befriend the lonely and the outcast, to feed and clothe the hungry and the poor.

Fifth, we seek out new and concrete ways to share the good news of Jesus’ love with people, to proclaim freedom to the captives, bring healing to the sick, and peace to those in conflict.

Sixth, we seek to learn every day, about God, about our world, about other people and about ourselves. We learn from everyone we encounter, we learn from experience and we learn from God.

Seventh, we do this as a community, because together we will always be able to do more than even the most gifted of us can do alone.

And God promises that if we live like this, then we will make a difference. Let me take you back to the passage out Isaiah 58 which we read earlier. This is God’s promise to us:

This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
...
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community liveable again.
Isaiah 58: 6 – 9 and 10 – 12

And so, may we become and continue to be a community of prayer, of creativity, of justice and mercy, of hospitality, of mission and of learning. May we become more than Jesus’ representatives on earth. May we become His face, His hands, His feet, may we become good news for our world, because in us and through us, people will encounter God.

Erik Peeters, 03/06/2010

Making space for life 1: Making space for God

Erik Peeters

Using early monastic communities as an inspiration, Erik looks at how we make space for God in the middle of everyday life, and what can happen as a result.

Downloads:	2383
Recorded:	06/06/2010
Length:	29 minutes
Reference:	Acts 2:42-47

Listen

Download

MP3 Audio (64Kbps, 13.7MB)