Renew Your Mind

Why should we be interested in what happened to Abraham thousands of years ago? It might not even have actually happened, of course- does that make it even more irrelevant?  If we do believe it matters, it is still so hard to make the leap from the life of a middle eastern nomad to our own comfortable, settled lives today. Just because God called Abraham to a life as a traveller doesn't mean He still calls His people to travel today, does it? In Deuteronomy, we read an early creed. God's people came before God in worship with these words: " A wandering Aramean was my ancestor..." Deuteronomy 26:5 Their story begins with   the travels of Abraham, and somehow the fact that he was a traveller is significant. Maybe it mattered because the people who heard this were still on a journey, out of Egypt. And maybe that's why it continues to matter. Even if we are not on a physical journey from one place to another, we often use the metaphor of travel to make sense of...

Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar.  He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. T hen she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she   began to sob. God heard the boy crying,  and the angel of God  called to Hagar from heaven  and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid;  God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.   Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. ”  Then God opened her eyes  and she saw a well of water.  So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.  God was with the boy  as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.   While ...

The whole life of faith involves tension- between now and not yet, between promise and reality, between travelling and arriving. The writer of Hebrews explores this tension through Abraham's experience: By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance,  obeyed and went,  even though he did not know where he was going.   By faith he made his home in the promised land  like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents,  as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.   For he was looking forward to the city  with foundations,  whose builder and architect is God  Hebrews 11:8-10 Abraham was called to be a traveller, and we have asked whether this is significant- does God require that as His followers, we have a nomadic mindset, not requiring physical, geographical or social roots but rather finding our security in Him? But here in these verses we see that Abraham travelled w...

The Lord had said to Abram “Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you." Genesis 12:1 Abram is called to obedience, and that obedience is demonstrated by his willingness to travel. God seems to be asking him to find himself not in his place in a family, a tribe or a community but simply in his willingness to obey. Abram became known as righteous, a richly textured word which is hard to define until we look at the decisions Abram makes, beginning here with his decision to let go of all that is certain to go on a journey of no more than a promise. Now faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

One of the earliest stories in Genesis is the puzzling tale of Cain and Abel Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering- fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Genesis 4 Why did the Lord look with favour on Abel? Richard Giles writes in 'Repitching the Tent' that Abel and Cain represented the two rival communities of nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers, and that at the time the nomadic lifestyle was seen to be a sign of independence and prosperity. This is in such contrast to our culture, which sees owning property as a sign of stability, wealth and success, and where our experience of those without homes is limited to negative stereotypes of squatters, homeless peop...

Some journeys begin with excitement- we look forward to travelling, we anticipate encountering new things, the destination beckons us on with promise of something better. But some journeys are forced upon us. We have to travel, because we can no longer stay where we are. We move away from what is know, what is familiar, what is secure into a future which is unwelcome, unwanted and unasked for. The journey becomes a burden, taking us further and further away from what had anchored us and sustained us. The first journey recorded in the Bible was like this. Genesis begins in a garden, where everything is good- but in the space of a few chapters Adam and Eve are on the move. "The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man...."   Genesis 3:23, 23 This journey begins   with disappointment, with sadness and shame, with promises of hard work, pain and struggle ahead. We struggle to make sense of journeys l...

Why is the idea of dwelling on our failures, our mistakes, our sins is so unpleasant? We convince ourselves that it is not healthy, that we are becoming too introspective, that guilt and shame are not helpful emotions. Yet this reluctance is a recent thing- not that long ago, Lent was a familiar season and still in many countries Mardi Gras is a major celebration before the serious business of Lent begins. Even the atheist Alain de Botton acknowledges that the idea of penitence has value "A period in which human error is proclaimed as a general truth makes it easier to confess to specific infractions. It is more bearable to own up to our follies when the highest authority has told us that we are all childishly yet forgivably demented to begin with. So cathartic is the Day of Atonement, it seems a pity that there should be only one of them a year. A secular world could without fear of excess adopt its own version to mark the start of every quarter." Religion for Atheists ...

Lent's journey begins today in ashes. Ashes are traditionally a sign of mourning and penitence. The Prayer Books urges us to "worthily lament our sins". But how often do we start a journey like this? Usually our journeys begin full of optimism. We live in a culture which believes in success, and if we experience failure we immediately look around us for someone to blame. Our parents; the government; others' stupidity, greed or ignorance. Looking at ourselves instead of at others could be difficult, alerting us to things about ourselves we'd rather ignore. So we avoid it.....rushing to get on with the next part of the journey. Ash Wednesday tells us that there is a time for self-reflection, and that time might just be today. 'My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.'  Psalm 51:17

This year during Lent I want to read again some of the stories of God's people. It is as we tell our story that we begin to understand who we are, where we have come from and where we are going, and as we listen to others's stories we hear echoes of our own. So much of my story involves travelling, because I am an Expat who has lived now in three countries, and those around me are often asking questions about the journey that we find ourselves on. Travelling can reveal so much about who we are, through both the challenges and the excitement that it brings, and I find it inspiring that so often the stories of God's people are of people on the move- from the journey of Adam and Eve out of Eden, to the foundational Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, and Jesus' own journey towards Jerusalem and ultimately the Cross. So as I look forward to this season of Lent, I begin with some questions- Did God mean for his people to be always on the move? Is there something i...