Wait!

An awful lot loaded into one little word in the English language.

Wait. It's not ready yet. You’ll ruin it if you take it out now

Wait. Slow down. I can’t keep up with you. My legs are too short

Wait. We can’t rush this. I need some time to think this through.

Wait. It won’t be long now. You’ll be amazed when it gets here.

Wait. There’s nothing more we can do. You just have to be patient. 

There’s a whole lot of principles packed into those five simple examples.

They have a lot do with ‘time’ and ‘process’.

They also involve mismatched expectations and different time frames or levels of understanding.

They also imply that a certain amount of stopping or inactivity is needed for a good outcome.

This much we understand.

Waiting is very much a way of life.

It’s just that when it happens to us, and we don’t have a clear timetable on which to pin our hopes and expectations, waiting becomes difficult.

And if I think I am struggling with the concept right now, and find it difficult to wait…

Then I think then of a nine year old boy in Lisbon. 

Who’s been waiting almost nine months now for an answer.

Both his parents, after a long wait, finally got their permission to move to the UK.

But his passport together with those of his two brothers, somehow got lost in the process of having their permission to move to the UK stamped.

His mother moved to England as her visa to enter was about to expire.

And so he remained in Lisbon with his father and two older brothers.

Waiting. Three months became six months. 

No explanations. No-one to say why there was such a delay.

Eventually after almost nine months, one brother’s passport was returned. 

His father took him over to be with his mother in the UK.

So that left two brothers now at home with Dad

Then his oldest brother’s passport came, so he could go.

So he’s left on his own with Dad, wondering in his nine year old head, why me?

The Bible is often about waiting, but there the periods are even more scary.

Forty years? In the Wilderness? 

Hmm. Maybe my waiting is not so unbearable.

Trudging

Trudging.. something about that word, that sounds just .. tired. 

I’m not a mountaineer by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve been on a number of hill climbs during my life. Snowdonia, the Lake District, the Scottish hills, the northern mountains of Pakistan. In my experience, there’s something that almost always happens.

The hike starts out with anticipation, and high spirits. There’s a sense of a goal to reach for, a looming mountain on a distant horizon, perhaps. And there’s the enjoyment of small delights along the way - going up a gully by a babbling stream, spotting an eagle or a buzzard or other bird of prey. But then when you have made it up and over the first ridge, you see the peak, as far off in the distance as it ever was, and before you an endless vista of bogland and rough terrain. You get down into it, and starting trudging. It seems endless and impassable. The trek becomes a trudge. One weary foot after another. Stumbling through squelching mud. Your foot gets caught in the roots of bracken. And you just have to keep pressing on.

Since our return from Greece it has seemed like that. That burst of activity getting things sorted, so we could put things in order in Athens. But then to return, and  know that there’s a long and uncertain road ahead. So for now at least, life is about trudging through this bog, and trying to stay positive and look forward and not down.

Return from Athens B: Foxes have Holes

Last week, in the middle of the cleaning, and all the boxes, and the trudging through thick snow between the apartment we were clearing up and our friends’ house where we were now staying, another word from Jesus - 

“Foxes have holes” at one point, he said to someone who was enthusiastically declaring he would follow him wherever, “and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” **

Suddenly from the context we were living, and in the midst of all the insecurity of leaving a place we loved, and packing up with no clear idea of what’s ahead, that word carried a particular poignancy.

Here’s the Lord of all the Universe, the incarnate Son of God, the one of whom John said, in his Christmas account,** that he came and dwelt among us, or more literally, "pitched his tent" among us. And, here, he is saying, I don’t actually have a home here, you know. Of course, we understand that he had a parental home in Nazareth, where he spent his childhood and youth. But it would appear that, for much of the three years of active ministry leading up to his death on the cross, Jesus lived as an itinerant teacher, eating and sleeping wherever he found a welcome. 

That word is also a statement of his detachment from this world in which we live. He, who came from the glory of heaven, entered this world at a particular place and time, moved among his community, loved them, gave himself for them, was completely committed to them, but he never actually belonged. He never possessed a piece of land, built a house or raised a family. His was a temporary residency. 

So, when we think of all that, our own displacement from Greece back to N Ireland, pales into insignificance, and just as the “treasures in heaven” take on a new meaning, so too the idea of “I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am there you may be also,” ** becomes hugely significant for us.  

** Luke 9:58, John 1:14, John 14:3

Return from Athens A : Moth and Rust

Leaving a place, we become possessed with our possessions.

   - The things we have that we don’t want. 

   - The things we have that we can’t take with us. 

   - The things we have that we don’t want to let go.

Stuff takes on an undue importance when you’re leaving a place.

So it’s good to reminded by Jesus familiar saying, that the “stuff” we own is temporal, gets corrupted by moths and by rust, and other destructive forces. **

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, 

where moths and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” 

The thing that we often don’t think about is the corrupting power of the “stuff” itself. Or, not so much the material possessions themselves, but the effect they have on us, especially on our relationships. The ownership of things tends to play on our emotions big time, stirring up the baser instincts of our sinful selves, the envy, selfishness, the greed and jealousy.  And this is intensified at times of loss, or displacement.

On the larger scale, the destructive effect of “stuff” on relationships is seen at times when there's a death in a family, where the simple reading of a will can quite literally tear that family apart.

On the micro scale, it happens as well, with us, for example. As we sorted through, sold off, packed, or otherwise disposed of our belongings and our life over this last 18 months since arrival in Greece, there arose all sorts of minor disputes and tensions over this thing and that thing. 

This word of Jesus, then, has been so important for us these past two weeks.

Important to be reminded that, even though the “stuff” is important for us as we relocate back to N Ireland, our “heart treasures” need to be deposited elsewhere, safe from corruption and decomposition. It is that focus on the  “heart treasures” that will help heal those relationships when they become corrupted by the "stuff".

** Matthew 6:19-21

The Cross Before Me

 

The sight of the simple iron cross at the top of Korakas Hill which stands opposite our house in Athens takes me back to last year, and especially those weeks spent in lockdown when we walked in those hills. It’s a reasonably easy scramble up to the top, and once you’ve recovered your breath, you can look down over the whole city of Athens, see the Acropolis in the far distance, and down to the port of Piraeus.

It is a simple structure, this cross, just two pieces of steel welded together and wedged into the rocks, and is not obviously associated with any shrine or religious memorial. 

Often, when the weather turned wild, either with great clouds scudding across the sky or a morning mist covering the hillside, the cross would hidden from view. But you would always know it was there. 

At other times, it would suddenly emerge with the orange light of the setting sun, or in the early morning light be silhouetted against the rising sun.

Either way, it was a constant reminder of the religious foundation of this land we had come to live in. Even though Greece has become increasingly secular, there are still many indications of that strong religious heritage, and more importantly, evidence of a new emerging spiritual vitality through the work of Christian churches and mission organisations here.

For us, this cross, has been a physical marker, a reminder of God’s presence, a symbol of his constant care and protection, watching over us, as it were, from up there on the hill. 

Once again, in this evening light, I stop and give thanks for the opportunity we had to live and work here.

Then back to packing.

Where's Home?

The other day Anna said “we are travelling from a home that is not our home, but has been our home since August, out to our home that was once our home, but is not our home for much longer. After that, we return again to this home, that is not our home, but will continue to be our home until we discover the place that is to become our home”. 

What's a home then? To answer that properly, you have to set aside thoughts of geography and place, and think more relationally. Who is it that you are at home with? Where does your heart feel most at home? The well worn cliche says that home is where the heart is. Well, if that’s the case then our ‘home’ is probably somewhere south of the Thames! Or, one of any number of places where we have strong memories and where we had developed close relationships. Lisbon, Athens, Coleraine, Rahimyar Khan.

Back to our travelling out to that home in Greece this week. 

Over the next few days, we will be consumed with stuff. 

Clearing out stuff, throwing away stuff, selling and donating stuff, and also packing and shipping stuff. 

And the stuff that we will be packing and shipping will be the things we consider most to constitute our ‘home”. 

Our relational ‘Peter and Anna’ couple-home. 

And deciding what that is will be the hardest thing. 

There will be  lot of minimalising, a lot of decluttering, simplifying, or whatever you want to call it. 

And probably a lot of arguing as well. 

In a sense, we will be packing up our tent.

John, in his gospel (and still with the Christmas story) uses an interesting Greek word to describe what Jesus did when he was born in Bethlehem. It says that he ‘set up his tent’ and lived among us. The word “Εσκηνωσεν”,  comes directly from the word for tent, or temporary dwelling, and is only used in the Bible here in John, and also, interestingly, in the Book of Revelation, where it says that “the One who sits in Heaven will ‘spread his tent’ over them.”  That’s the eternal dimension of where home is, and where our future ‘campsite’ will be. 

For now, let’s find out what the temporal dimension will be for us next. 

Where next, will we pitch our tent?

** John 1:14, Revelation 7:15

Epiphany

The Sixth of January, being the Twelfth day of Christmas, is when the Christmas season officially draws to a close, and all decorations, mince pies and turkey sandwiches should all be done away with! 

Living in other countries, we’ve realised this day is a much bigger deal than it is in Ireland. 

Here it is called Epiphany. 

In Portugal (and Spain) it is celebrated as the Day of the Kings, connected with the Wise Men with their gifts. 

It was always a big holiday there, and often the giving of presents to children on this day is as important as it is on Christmas Day itself. 

In contrast, for the Greeks in the eastern Orthodox tradition, the “Epiphany” or revealing of Jesus as God has more to do with his baptism than with the visit of the wise men. It is in his baptism, and the descent of the Spirit as a dove when he came out of the water that Jesus is revealed as the son fo God. 

So, in the 6th January, all over the Greek speaking world, especially ports and harbours, the ‘blessing of the waters’ ceremony that takes place. The priest, will go down to the edge of the sea, surrounded by a large congregation, and, as part of the ceremony, he throws a cross into the sea from the harbour wall or from a boat.  The minute the cross leaves the priest’s hand, many boys and men jump into the freezing water in a race to be first to catch the cross. The one who finds it and returns the cross receives a special blessing from the priest. 

Baptism. Wise men. It seems to me that Epiphany, the revealing of who Jesus really is, is not just a single moment in time, but an ongoing process. He is revealed in the breaking of the bread (as with those two men in Emmaus after the resurrection) He is revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration, on the road to Damascus, and so many many other times. In fact when we, as Christians, like Paul says, carry about in our lives the suffering of Jesus, then his life is revealed in our mortal bodies. ** 

It is revealed in the way an Afghan believer faces up to his exile from home and family. 

It is revealed in the love of a young mother when her babies’ incessant crying tears at her heart. 

It is revealed in the compassion of volunteers as they rescue refugees from a sinking boat. 

May that same ‘Epiphany’ of the life of Jesus happen in my life today and through this year.

** 2 Corinthians 2:11