Reflection, Prayers and more!
Dave Kitchen
I am who I am
Before anyone did anything, anywhere,
There was someone who did everything:
The painter, sculptor, writer of our lives;
A creator who put the jig-saw pieces together,
Who whispered: Love this place, don’t break it,
For it was carefully made.
And there we were,
Unexpectedly in a garden of delights,
A paradise, perhaps without fully realising it
Or caring enough if we did.
But heavenly, it was.
And every lark that sang,
Every creature that ran:
They were his.
The four winds, seven seas,
The furthest lands, countless stars:
All his.
Before anyone ruined anything, he was there.
And it was good.
So, in the midst of the bombsites of our lives
He waits,
Hoping that, at long last,
We will ask him about the way back to the garden.
Let us pray
Lord of power and love,
Help us to keep in mind what you wanted for this world when you created it for us.
May we never forget that you are creator of each new morning,
You have brought us safely to the beginning of this day
And you wait patiently to lead us onward.
Forgive us for trying too hard rather than letting your love direct us.
Forgive for driving ourselves into the ground in the pursuit of good causes.
When we do that, we’re trying to do the right thing but we are not letting you take the lead.
Help us to understand we are your followers and not your executive committee.
Make us make time for ourselves as well as for others.
Prod us if we become lazy but make us people who have enough space to appreciate your mind-boggling creation.
You know us in a way we will never know ourselves and appreciate things about us that we will often miss.
In spite of how we sometimes are, you love us and want us as your followers.
So we say together the prayer you taught your first disciples, the Lord’s Prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Introduction
The service is called “I am who I am”. It’s an opportunity for me to ask who we are and who is God?
Who we are only becomes clear across time. It was a similar story with those who met Jesus and not everyone felt comfortable with what they found.
John chapter 6 describes a time of miracles. After the feeding of the 5000, people want more – one free meal is never enough! Then, Jesus starts talking about who he is – the bread of heaven and the crowd think it’s some sort of reference to the manna that was given to the people when they were in the desert in the time of Moses. Jesus tries to put them right.
Bible Reading: John 6, 32 to 38 and 41 to 42
So they know Jesus as Joseph’s son but not as God’s son.
They don’t consider for a moment that he might be both.
They do what most human beings do: they pigeon-hole him.
It’s interesting to remember how often the miracles in the New Testament do not lead people to faith.
What creates faith is the penny dropping about who Jesus is.
And the reference in John 6 to Moses should send us scurrying back to an Old Testament encounter which raises a similar question … which we’ll get to after our prayers for ourselves and others.
Prayers
Heavenly Father, who has promised to hear us when we call, we pray for those who feel weighed down by the concerns of life. May what we say and what we do lighten other people’s burdens rather than adding to them.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
We pray especially for those who keep the light of hope shining in the darkest corners of the world. For those who work in war zones, for those who cannot be sure where tomorrow’s meal will come from, for those whose faith is met with persecution. May kindness, mercy and common sense always outweigh the effects of selfishness and hatred.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
We give thanks for those who seek out the ways by which our footsteps may tread more lightly upon this earth. We think of those who use technology to help vision become a practicality and fairness an actuality.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
We pray for all who struggle with ill health. Be their strength, Lord, and their help in times of trouble. We pray, too, for those who grieve. Be their comfort, Lord, their refuge in the darkest hours.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
We remember also those who do not know what to believe or, indeed, who to believe. May they be able to seek out your calm and quiet voice amongst all the noise of this world and, hearing it, feel brave enough to act upon it.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
Finally we pray for ourselves, that we may be your hands and hearts in this world, not just praying for things to be better but getting up and doing whatever we can to make it happen.
Lord, in your mercy … hear our prayer
We ask this through Jesus Christ, whose death and life makes all prayers possible. Amen
Bible reading: Exodus chapter 3, 1-14
Reflection
So here we have the call of Moses by God and the start of his worries about the job he’s taking on – some might call them excuses. There’s plenty more as the story develops so please read on in your own time: Exodus 3 and beyond. It’s a great read. Now one of the first problems that Moses brings up is how he will describe their God in a time of a thousand and one gods. It is actually a fair point.
And God says: I am who I am.
That’s a brilliant answer but it leaves some people wondering what it means. Which is the first great thing about it – God doesn’t do all the work for us. We’re supposed to think.
God doesn’t say I’m like the most powerful man you’ve ever met or the cleverest woman you’ve ever known. Gender doesn’t get a mention, nor does strength, nor intelligence. God doesn’t make something here out of what makes him different from other so-called gods. I AM WHO I AM is all we’re told.
For me, it suggests consistency. However you look at God, wherever you may be, whatever times you may live in, he is still who he was, is and always will be. There will never be a horrible surprise where you discover that God does something to you that is unfair or unkind or just plain thoughtless. That’s simply not who he is.
And, of course, we’ve increasingly used that phrase from Exodus 3. When people challenge us, we say: Well, I am who I am. The trouble is that this often means we are excusing ourselves. When Alison says you haven’t hammered that nail in straight, I tell her I’m a poet. What did she expect? I’m declaring I am who I am and you get what you get. These days, even our children don’t allow me anywhere near practical tasks in their own houses unless it’s of the most basic sort. I’m not to be trusted. Bristol. Mr Drippy
Now there’s some truth me telling my family that’s just how it is with me – I’ve got a poor-ish level of hand eye co-ordination and my upper body strength was always well below average. But being not very good reduces people’s expectations of you and that’s rather nice. In reality, some practical tasks, I complete relatively well – mowing a lawn is one of them. So watch for the person who ducks out with a blanket excuse.
But I am who I am also has another effect on people. We look at others who do things well and we think: “Well, it’s all right for them – that’s who they are. I could never do it.” And, in saying that we start assuming these things are easier for them than us.
Often it’s not true. People’s lives are generally much more difficult than we imagine. Their skills do not come easily or without lots of problems along the way.
I love leading worship and it’s a pleasure to be with you now but, across the years, people have said: well, it comes naturally to you. I’m flattered that people think that but it actually isn’t true. Unlike God, I am not solid through and through. I didn’t get to where I am now easily. In fact, I nearly didn’t get anywhere at all.
The London Smog of December 1951 had a good go at making me one of its statistics. I was 18 months old and for several years suffered from asthma, sometimes still do. The doctors were concerned that I wasn’t “thriving” and I was marked down on my medical notes as being “delicate”. Observe that they said delicate not subtle – no one has ever called me subtle.
There were advantages. The clinic provided powdered orange juice for me and my mother bought Radio Malt which I got by the spoonful on a daily basis. Delicious! Think it was also marketed as Virol. But the truth of it is that I was a bit weak and I know very well there were questions about whether I’d make it to adulthood.
Going to school didn’t help the impression I made on the world. In my Infants class I was the second slowest at running. All the girls could beat me and only one of the boys trailed in behind.
The point was emphasised when I was with my friend Sharon, one of the few people in the class who were shorter than me. Climbing trees was her thing and we started doing this together. She could get twice as high in the branches as me and leapt back to the ground with the agility of a cat. I struggled up and clung on desperately as I slithered down.
Being this feeble probably wouldn’t have mattered if I had been intelligent. But I also struggled with learning to read. When we moved from infants to juniors, I was put in the slower-learning set rather than the group that would eventually be coached towards grammar school over the next few years. So I was already being written off
When you look at me today, that’s probably not how you imagine my early years in school. But it’s true. It wasn’t dreadful. I made a few friends, went to Jeremy Gathercole’s birthday party and discovered that this was the portal into the world of jelly and ice cream. But I knew I wasn’t very good. At anything.
And, even when I started to read better and got promoted to the higher group, I was more aware of my shortcomings than my achievements.
So the first big thing about church for me was that I was accepted. Sunday school didn’t operate with the rough and tumble of the playground or the cut and thrust of the classroom. No one was telling me how I was doing. We just all mucked in together.
Church was a place of zero expectations about me. Given the way that church people sometimes create the impression that they’re on a desperate self-improvement drive, it may sound like an unexpected feeling.
But the thing about Sunday Schools is that they often have a much stronger grip on the Christianity’s basic theology than the main part of the church. Both here and especially in America, the message to the pew is time and again about Victorious Living – being better, stronger, greater, and in some cases richer. It’s okay if you’re one of the fit and fantastic but it’s a confirmation of failure for those who are struggling.
In Sunday School, I learnt that it doesn’t matter, what you are like or what you’ve achieved, you’re accepted by God. Of course we need to say sorry for the things that hurt others – but I knew that anyway. Of course we need to try better: that’s blindingly obvious. But at the heart of everything is a God who wants to be our daddy – that’s my preferred translation of abba.
As some of you know, I’ve become not a dad but a grandad in lockdown and it’s great … although Reuben is surely doubling both in weight and length every time I see him. Now, when our daughter Rhiannon got back from her first day out since our grandson Reuben was born, like all new mums, she wondered what she would find. Her partner Ash had been left in charge. He’s a plumber so he’s used to taking on a wide range of jobs but usually with an £80 call-out charge plus a serious hourly rate.
How did he cope? Was the baby be neatly tucked up in his cot? Absolutely not. Instead dad was fast asleep on their massive sofa with Reuben safely tucked alongside him, fast asleep as well. Not textbook care but lovely nonetheless. And, if God as our father means anything, it does not mean he’ll tuck us safely away in some well-organised place for our own good, it means he will be there with us. If we fall asleep on the sofa, he’ll tuck himself alongside us and keep us safe.
And, somewhere along the line, I found out through the people I met in our church that I was accepted, I was loved and God could even use someone like me. So that’s who I am. I did crack the learning to read eventually and the learning to write. I never did sort out the climbing trees very well but I got to realise that Sharon was my friend however well or badly I did the tree thing. We’re all different but we are all loved. Amen
Blessings
Spirit of life, quicken us; Spirit of power, renew us;
Spirit of truth, inspire us; Spirit of holiness, purify us;
Spirit of love, open our hearts;
The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all evermore. Amen