Last Sunday

As we rush headlong into Lent on Wednesday we are once again given a stark choice in our readings for today. It is really the same choice that we faced a few weeks ago, though it is set in a slightly different way. It is the choice between life and death.
You might think that being human, and knowing what we do about the survival of the fittest etc, we would always choose to survive… that we would always choose life. This however is often not seen to be the case.
Perhaps if we can for a moment see ourselves as part of an evolving and constantly creative creation, with chance and consciousness being part of the wonder, and put our relationship with God into this frame, then holding all this together is vital for our well being and life. It is “what we have been created for”. Such a picture is painted in the pages of Genesis as Man and God are seen in wonderful communion together.
Given such a picture a choice to leave God aside, is not a choice for life..
The people of Israel had ways and means of helping people realise the constituent parts of their existence. In today’s reading we hear about the Law being placed before them in every walk of life, actually quite literally! Having this reminder and living this way brought life they believed.
For us in the church today we react differently, though there are many people who choose to wear the cross or other Christian Symbol for one reason or another. Some see it as a reminder, some see it as some sort of protection.
Our gospel reading so well known today urges us to simply “Do the will of God”. If we do this then we will be like those who build their house on rock and not on sand.
But isn’t that far easier said than done??
How do we find this “Will of God”, and how do we do it?
Perhaps if we take God out of being in relationship with creation the problem will be on the one hand easier because we could think that God has a plan and we just have to find out what it is and do it. “Simple!”
There are indeed some who think that god has some sort of blueprint for us to follow, and that he holds the future in his hand.
Such a scenario often also cannot trust human instincts because they are seen as so often flawed. It becomes a weakness to follow human instincts. We simply “follow the devices and desires of our own hearts” and this is something we have traditionally been told lead us astray.
So in such a case where can the will of God be found for the Christian, we have left aside the law, and have replaced it with “The Bible”. We find the will of God in the Bible!
Again it sounds simple, though we all know I think how difficult this actually is because the Bible was not formed with this intention in mind at all. Some people still want to operate with this model when it comes to making decisions about all sorts of things, in choosing who should exercise Christian Ministry, in deciding on questions of marriage and sexuality, and even on who is right and who is wrong!
So finding out what God’s Will is still challenges us.
If however we are able to place God back in the garden, and walk with him again in the cool of the day. If Jesus is gathered with us when two are three are together in his name, then things can begin to feel a bit different, because God then becomes part of who we are, and part of what creation is and so works with and alongside it all. Not set apart.

There is, no longer, a right and a wrong way to be human, and it is not fixed in tablets of stone for all time. There is also no longer a right and a wrong way to be you, and if you miss it you have not missed your chance of fulfilment.
If we look at how the universe seems to work, we can perhaps begin to see that the will of God is something that has to be discovered, sometimes by painful trial and error. The will of God is negotiated rather than imposed, and because of this it is real, it is something we can assent to from the depth of our being, because it relates to that well of potential that we know exists within each self. It arises out of a constant dialogue between the self and its circumstances, a dialogue which God inspires and contains, but does not ultimately determine.
As someone said to me this week describing lifes challeges as if it were coming to a crossroads, “I sit and wait” (presumably a lot of thinking and calculating, measuring, praying, and many other things goes on at the crossroads) “and then I know the way I should go.”
[Everything at our disposal is held in God even the devices and desires we have.]
Angela Tilby agonised over this “choice” in her book Science and the Soul when she was a BBC TV producer and she concludes, ….
“There are many possible outcomes to the story of the self, and no single one is ever going to fulfil all the possibilities of our existence. Nor is any single one choice necessarily the right one. I think this is terribly important when listening to people who are working out their vocation in life. Some approach it as if they are doing a crossword in which all the answers have to fit. In reality, we are lucky if some of them do. The lure of God goes out to all, and there is a continuity between the fitful jumps of a sub-atomic particle and the conscious, prayerful choice of a marriage partner. Both are moments when the universe holds its breath, and the story goes on.”
Such a conclusion on how we know the will of God, may confound those who search and expect easy and straight answers, but for me the inclusion of God in my life (as best as I can can make it, responding in Angela’s words to the Lure of God going on.) makes a difference to who I am.
[if God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform, why do we so often want to put it neatly in a box]]
As we begin Lent we bring to God who we are, and he travels with us.