If you look at the cross section of a tree, you can see the rings of growth, and if you know what you are looking for, you can tell when the tree had good growing seasons or drought.
Think of the teams you have been part of at work or sport. One of the models of team development is forming, storming, norming, performing.
Forming: the team gets together at the beginning of the season.
Storming: there are lots of different ideas, maybe some forceful personalities, there’s some head-butting.
Norming: doesn’t always happen. The leader, the coach or the group work through their differences and how to make it work.
Performing: there is now good team understanding, a good team plan, people know how to work with each other, how to get the best out of each other, how to cover each other’s weak points or vulnerabilities. People feel valued, and good work gets done.
Just as there are growth patterns in trees, or for teams, are there growth patterns for our faith and our understanding and experience of God?
I believe one pattern is order, disorder, re-order and we can see that in the Psalms and in the experiences of the disciples as they go with Jesus.
1. Certainty, order. There are plenty of Psalms where everything is right and stays right. Psalm 15. ‘Who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who can live on your holy hill? Those who are blameless, who keep the faith, who do the right things by their neighbours.’ God is good. Church doctrines and teachings are all very clear, and easy to apply. We, or the Church, know it all. It’s a good world, a safe world (at least if we stick with fellow believers who are of the same mind). We teach children and teens those things. That’s what the Confirmation course is about , helping to understand good doctrine. Hopefully every Sunday here, both in liturgy, preaching and the Lord’s Supper, you are pointed to Christ who is here for us, bringing forgiveness and courage, and removing our sin and failures as pure gift.
As the disciples followed Jesus they learned about the kingdom of God, how to preach and heal, and they expected Jesus to bring in God’s kingdom in Jerusalem, by making them a great nation again. Some of them were even lobbying for the top spots next to Jesus.
2. Disorder. Our ideas about God are not God. Augustine said, ‘If I can think it, it’s not God.’ The understanding we had as a faith-filled 15-year-old or a confident 25 year old may not be the same today. If it turns out there was a whole lot of hidden pride or arrogance in getting everything right or being part of a strong church – (is that more a male thing?) then we can expect the Holy Spirit to rightfully undermine our power structures and our beautiful little self-made security towers.
We lose a job, there are health or relationship issues, things happen to people we care about or admire and we lose our sense of being in control and being able to manage everything. Whatever our faith structures or containers can’t deal with, the Holy Spirit is still at work in us. Because our picture of God is too small, that disordering – the being stretched beyond comfort, the falling apart – is a dying and is utterly painful. Suddenly, the psalms of disorder become vital, the calling out in anguish and distress, with no easy way through. ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ Psalm 22:1. When you need them, those Psalms are there, and come alive in a whole new way.
What we thought we knew and could trust, disintegrates around us. The doctrines are still true: God is love, we are forgiven, God doesn’t let go of us, there are good plans for each one of us – those are still true. But we don’t feel it, and we don’t know it, certainly not like we used to. It could be that some of our arrogance or self-assurance does need to be eroded. It could also there is not great sin on our part that needs to be fixed or left behind. It can simply be that God, in grace and mercy, is calling us into a deeper connection. Then the things we used to do, and found such comfort in, won’t work so well anymore. Prayer becomes difficult, if not impossible. Reading Scripture or worship does not refresh like it used to. Some have called this a ‘dark night of the soul’. And those who have been in this place before us say, ‘You are not a bad person, you haven’t lost your faith. God is good, and God is also in this, even though it feels terrible. You are being drawn into knowing God in a much deeper way’. So hang in there. Keep coming to receive the Lord’s Supper. Follow the deep yearnings in this time of dark, and not-knowing. Learn to trust the flow, and not micro-manage or control everything. Find helpful people to be around. Be teachable. Maybe prayer is both using those Psalm words, and silently expressing that pain and inability to pray that is inside us. Remember, Rom 8: 26: ‘The Holy Spirit prays inside us, with sighs too deep for words.’ Maybe prayer then simply becomes being quiet, and letting that deep, mysterious prayer that the Holy Spirit is already praying inside us go out from us, and be received.
Think of the huge disordering that happened for the disciples as Jesus was arrested and crucified. Think of their shock, as Jesus was laid in the tomb, and everything they had hoped and dreamed of disappeared.
Re-order. In Psalm 22, the same Psalm Jesus prayed on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ there is a change. Half way through verse 21 it all changes. Something has happened, and the Psalmist prays: ‘From the horns of the wild ox you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’
In that re-ordering, God putting things back together inside us in a new way, we come to known the Trinity in a deeper way. We are dropped down into a deeper faith space, where we don’t have to control everything. We become more permeable to love, less rigid, less excluding, less arrogant, but far more secure, drawing on a much deeper strength and truth than we were used to. There is a deep down joy at work, and maybe, just maybe, we are nicer to be around, and we don’t drain life out of others, but instead give it out abundantly, because we have now experienced that.
Think of the disciples. They had the shock of Easter, hearing about, then meeting the risen Jesus. But they had to get used to this new Jesus. He wasn’t physically see-able and touchable all the time. They had to let him ascend into heaven, and then wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, so that he could be with them invisibly all the time and in all places. They got that message, and their whole lives were turned around.
In conclusion: times of feeling like we have lost our faith are used by God to draw us deeper into knowing and experiencing grace, mercy and love in different, more inclusive ways. Let us continue to support each other, and point each other to Christ for us, and the Holy Spirit working in us. Amen.
