How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
A sermon from Rev'd Canon Loveday Alexander
Every Sunday we read a different story from the Gospels as part of our worship in church. It keeps us in touch with our Christian sisters and brothers around the world — and with our forefathers and foremothers in the faith, who have been reading these stories, passing them down the generations, for 2000 years. When we read the Gospel, we’re part of a community. And we read it in a way that shows this story is special: we sing a hymn, we stand up to listen, we want to give the story our full attention.
Reading the Gospel (or hearing it read aloud) reminds us that Jesus is at the centre of our lives. We are part of the crowds who came to hear his words. We are Jesus’ disciples, listening to his voice and struggling to understand what it means to follow him in our lives today. You can read Robin’s reflection on this week’s Gospel on the church website at http://www.stphilipandstjames.co.uk.
Last Sunday we were eavesdropping a conversation between Jesus and a woman from Samaria, who came to draw water from the well (you can read the story in John chapter 4). It made me think about wells in the desert, and how important they are as places for social interaction. We thought about the Israelites trekking through the desert, and panicking because they were running out of water. We heard Jesus tell the woman that he is the source of “living water” — a secret spring, a well that will never run dry, “springing up to eternal life”. Stay connected with me, Jesus says, and you’ll never be thirsty again. That’s a wonderful promise to hold onto as we face our own “desert” of isolation in these coming weeks.
But that isn’t the end of the conversation. The woman switches tack (maybe the conversation’s getting a bit too personal) and asks a question about sacred places: what is the right place to worship God? Samaritans and Jews had different ideas about that — the Jews worshipped God in the Temple at Jerusalem, the Samaritans had their own temple on Mt Gerizim (they still do). So what do you say about that? she asks Jesus. Who’s right and who’s wrong?
The question seems even more pertinent for us this Sunday (Mothering Sunday!), when we can’t gather for public worship at all. We get very attached to a particular place (and style) of worship — to our own familiar ways of worshipping God. The place where we gather regularly to worship God as a community, where we experience God’s presence in a very special way in word and sacrament, music and fellowship, is a very precious place. So it’s natural to feel a sense of dislocation — even grief — when for the time being we have to stop “going to church”. Sunday morning feels very strange without it!
I believe Jesus would understand that feeling. He regarded the Temple as his Father’s house (John 2.16), a “house of prayer for all nations”. He wept over Jerusalem like a mother hen when he foresaw the destruction that war would bring (Luke 13.34; 19.41-44). He came from a people that knew the pain of exile— of being cut off from precious and familiar ways of worship (Psalm 137).
But that’s not the whole story. “Believe me,” Jesus says, “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. … The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4.21-24).
God is always bigger than “what we know” about him. Our ideas about God always fall short of the reality. As St Paul puts it, “Now we see through a glass, darkly — but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Corinthians 13.12). Even the best of our worship cannot match up to the glory and the majesty of God’s eternal being. King Solomon was well aware of this when he asked for God’s blessing on the original Temple: “Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you: how much less this house which I have built?” (1 Kings 8.27).
God is Spirit: more like a rushing, tempestuous wind than bricks and mortar (John 3.8). God is Spirit: it’s God who breathes life into our worship, not the other way round (Ezekiel 37). The church began with the Spirit, with a “rushing, mighty wind” filling the house and “tongues as of fire” resting on the head of all the disciples (Acts 2.2). It was several hundred years before Christians were allowed to build churches — but the church, the community of disciples committed to following Jesus and living out his Gospel in their lives, was a living, growing, Spirit-filled presence in the world. It was a real community, even without a building to meet in. And by God’s grace it will continue to be, even in the present crisis! (Check out the website for ways to keep connected — and if you’d like to receive regular updates, email me or Robin: revrobinpye@gmail.com, or loveday.alexander@btinternet.com.)
God is Spirit — which means God is with us everywhere. The psalmist realised this, hundreds of years ago (read Psalm 139.7-12):
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I go up to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in the grave, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me,
And your right hand hold me fast.
Somehow it’s easier to know that God is with us in far-flung places — but what about when we’re shut up alone at home? On Ash Wednesday we read Jesus’ words from Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 6.6): “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Make a place to pray at home: make a regular time to pray — and you’ll find God is there, quietly waiting for you to tune in. Read the psalm for the day — or just read through the psalms, one a day. Check out the Church of England website for daily prayers — and today’s Mothering Sunday service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury: https://www.churchofengland.org. Link up with our own church website for Robin’s services: http://www.stphilipandstjames.co.uk. Or find live worship being streamed from Chester cathedral at http://chestercathedral.com.
And don’t forget to put a candle in your window and say a prayer at 7 o’clock tonight (Sunday) to join in the national day of prayer!
The book of Lamentations is one of the most poignant poems of lament in the Bible, full of the pain of exile. The pain and the desolation are real — but they are never the whole story: there’s a song of hope in there too (Lamentations 3.20-22):
My soul is bereft of peace … my soul is bowed down within me:
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
His mercies never come to an end,
They are new every morning;
Great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord be with you (He will!).
God bless,
Loveday
O God,
 help me to trust you,
 help me to know that you are with me,
 help me to believe that nothing can separate me from your love
, revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.
 Amen.
For the Christian community
We are not people of fear:
 we are people of courage.
 We are not people who protect our own safety: we are people who protect our neighbours’ safety. We are not people of greed:
 we are people of generosity.
We are your people, God,
 giving and loving,
 wherever we are,
 whatever it costs. 
For as long as it takes, 
wherever you call us. Amen.
Barbara Glasson, President of the Methodist Conference