Thought for the Day, St John the Baptist Choral Evensong, by Jenny Davenport, Sunday 19th March 2017
Thought for the Day, St John the Baptist Choral Evensong, by Jenny Davenport, Sunday 19th March 2017
In The
Message translation of the Bible, our reading from Joshua begins “Moses my
servant is dead. Get going!”. It ends with “Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid!
Don’t be discouraged!” This short passage then gives us two clear instructions,
neither of them easy.
The first one is about not being
paralysed by grief: “Moses my servant is dead. Get going!” In the 21st
century world of pace and achievement we often fail to acknowledge grief, and
yet it is ubiquitous. Anatole France wrote: “All changes, even the most
longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of
ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another”. The day
your two-year-old turns three will be a day of celebration, with joy, friends,
family and pictures you can cherish all your life, but you also have lost for
ever your lovely two year old and there is always some sadness there too.
But Joshua is telling us to “Get going!” How can our faith help us do
this? The answer must involve an awareness of God’s love and gratitude for all
that God has given us. So the Jewish people could be grateful for Moses’s life
and leadership but also confident in the next steps they were taking – into the
land God had promised them.
Nearly 8 years ago we lost our beloved son Cosmo. A few days before he
died he wrote “I was born to be a star but now I’m just as asterisk”. How does
one move on from grief like that? With faith. Every day I thank God for three
things: that we had him at all – and for 21 joyous years; that he is no longer
suffering and that he lives for ever in God’s love. Faith and gratitude then
are how we can “Get going” in the face of grief.
Are the same gifts also going to help us for the second of Joshua’s
injunctions: “Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid!
Don’t be discouraged!” ?
How tempting it is to shrink from risks
and play it safe – and how wrong. In Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech he
quoted Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our
deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our
darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not
to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel
insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to
make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us;
it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”
God has given us the power then to obey Joshua’s
injunctions then - “Get going” “Strength! Courage” - and we should use it.