The Hurt And The Healing

This evening I have been to watch a contemporary dance performance which considered the themes of loss and reconstruction following loss.

 

It was a fascinating portrayal of how loneliness can feel and how other people are essential in carrying us through times of bereavement and in helping us to restructure our lives.

 

There were six dancers in the piece and each one of them, at one point in the performance, was the 'odd one out' - the one by themselves.  The one dancing alone.  The one who was experiencing loss of some kind.

 

They each had a moment of dancing solo.

 

But then the other five would come and gather around them and physically support and strengthen them.  They would dance alongside them and lift and carry them.

 

It was a beautiful image.

 

And it was another wonderful picture of what God imagines the church to be like.

 

Paul writes,

 

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t.  If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.  If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance."

 

[1 Corinthians 12:25-26 MSG]

 

I love that line: every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. 

 

In the same way that the dancers in tonight's performance were all involved in each other's hurt and healing, this is what God envisions and longs for in His church.

 

 

 

 

Losing Faith

It's another Gilmore Girls evening for me.

 

In the episode I've just been watching, one of the characters fears that she has lost her faith, so her friend goes round to give it back to her.

 

It's an interesting concept: losing your faith.

 

No matter what we believe, there are always moments when we question our beliefs.  There are moments when we wonder if what we believe is really true, when we doubt ourselves and our faith.

 

But doubt is not the opposite of faith, or the absence of faith.  It is an integral and inseparable part of faith.

 

In fact, even if you lose faith in something and stop believing it, you will unintentionally and automatically start believing in something else.  We all have faith in something: God, religion, science, nature, ourselves ...

 

Faith is believing in things that we can't see, or don't know for sure.  If it could be proved indisputably, it would be fact.

 

The Bible says,

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

 

[Hebrews 11:1 NIV]

 

Doubting is not the absence or loss of faith, but rather the strengthening of it.

 

Without questioning and doubting and wrestling, our faith never grows or develops.  It is through this doubting and refining and redefining that our faith is strengthened.

 

We cannot have faith without doubt. 

 

 

Everyone Likes A Bargain

When we were growing up, we used to listen to the 'Just William' stories by Richmal Crompton on long car journeys.  One of our favourite family quotes, which is still used today, is one of the characters overhearing another saying, "Wasn't it a bargain?" (with "bargain" being pronounced as a rather bunged-up "bargun").

 

Whenever I am in charity shops, or at jumble sales, I enjoy rifling through clothes and books and crockery etc. and I am always secretly hoping that I will find something valuable which has gone unnoticed and has been given a price which doesn't really reflect its true worth.

 

I am always in search of a "bargun".

 

On a few occasions, I have been in luck. 

 

And when I have struck gold, I haven't minded how much I've paid, because I know it's worth more than the price on the tag.

 

I read this verse this morning and it reminded me of this "bargun hunting":

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

 

[Matthew 13:44 NIV]

 

 

To everyone else, this man must have seemed mad.  To sell everything he owned in order to buy this field.  But he was willing to give up everything else to gain this treasure.  He had understood its worth.

 

He had found a bargun.

 

But I know that my reaction to God's Kingdom is so rarely the same as this man.  I am not willing to give up everything in order to gain the treasure.  I don't want to give up my dreams, or ideas, or priorities, or hopes, or opinions, or values, or time, or money.  I want to hold on to them.

 

But in so doing, I cannot 'gain' the treasure: the man in the parable had to sell all that he had in order to buy the field and get to the treasure.  He couldn't have them both.  And so he gave it all up.

 

But to this man, what he gained far surpassed what he lost.

 

Had Richmal Crompton retold the parable, I imagine she might have allowed the man to say of the field and of the treasure, "Wasn't it a bargun?"