The Distillery Church

Tonight we spent time thinking about rest.

We read three Bible passages to help us understand what rest looks like in the Kingdom of God and what it means: Exodus 20:8-11, Hebrews :1-11 and Matthew 11:28-30

Rest is important, important enough that God modeled it for us and included it in the commandments he gave his people. We have been created with an inbuilt need to rest.

In Exodus 20, we are set an example by God of work followed by rest. Amongst other things, that rest allows time to look back and find satisfaction in what has been accomplished, just as God looked at what he created and saw that it was good. In this passage we also see a community being encouraged to rest together.

In the Hebrews passage, however, we see a deeper meaning to the rest we are promised. This rest is about being at peace with God. We no longer have to work to earn God’s favor. We can rest in the salvation he has given us.

Also, we can rest because we can come home. We do not need to keep wandering and searching just as the Israelites did in the desert. Rest is available to us. However, we are reminded that it is a choice and we need to “make every effort to enter that rest”. For, as St Augustine puts it, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you”.

In the passage from Matthew, Jesus offers rest to the weary and promises that his yoke is easy and his burden is light if we will walk alongside him.

God has given us eternal rest but as we continue to live in the “now”, we still need to remember to stop, rest and be restored.

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Sunday’s gathering was another example of God’s faithfulness and desire to meet with us (everyone, not just those who attend the Distillery). We began with worship, lead by Carolyn and Martin. As the children participated with us, things were lively and full of energy! After communion the children went to their church and we continued worshipping in song.

We moved from singing to seeking God in discussion, although this week was less a discussion and more of an invitation to allow God’s passion for us to be found. We looked at Simeon, who is briefly mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. He wanted to see the Christ prior to leaving this world and God, having great love for Simeon, honored his desire. So it was, when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple for his required dedication at eight days old, Simeon having been informed of this by the Holy Spirit went to the temple and held the Messiah in his arms. In his delight, Simeon proclaimed God’s salvation for the world through Jesus! God’s love for Simeon and all of us was on display.

In addition, we looked at Song of Solomon which tells of the passionate love between the Bridegroom and his beloved Bride. As an allegory, this “song” demonstrates the passionate love of God for his people. Although difficult and temperamental, God loves us and stands by us, longing to be with us in a full and honest relationship. In both these accounts, we see God’s passionate love for us and it’s with this understanding we went to prayer. Our desire was to be “naked” before God, anticipating His coming to us and drawing us to Him. Indeed God was faithful and as one member put it in a later discussion, “yea God!”

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We read the second half of Matthew Chapter 6 as the focus of our discussion about simplicity yesterday. We were asking ourselves and each other whether the amount of stuff we have or wish we had is contributing to our worry and getting in the way of our seeking first the kingdom of God.

I wonder how different our lives would be if we were better at living in the moment – not so focussed on future possibilities (whether good or bad) that we miss the wonder of our existence, God’s bountiful goodness to us and the world around us. We reflected on the wasted hours and energy put into things outside our control – whether some earlier carelessness had already caused unseen damage to some property, whether we would be picked for a promotion or a new job after our part in the process was finished. We thought about the times we have been concerned not for the reality of our need or situation, but for others perception of it – image, status and power.

The difficulty is, of course, finding the line between care for ourselves, others and the world around us that can lead to positive action and the wholly destructive worrying when nothing can be done. Whichever side of that line we are Jesus’ message is clear: first – before acting or worrying or losing sleep – seek the kingdom and righteousness. Seek it – not wish, hope or wait for it, but seek it out, find out how God kingship over the community of believers can transform the situation.

Finally, we looked at the list of suggestions made by Richard Foster in the chapter on simplicity in his book A Celebration of Discipline. Many of us resonated with the idea of buying things for usefulness instead of status and we wrestled with the practicality of rejecting anything that breeds the oppression of others. As Westerners, our whole economy is built on the oppression of others to some extent – can we realistically reject it all? Maybe not, but we agreed that we can consume less that we do not need, be aware of the issues surrounding the things that we buy and the places we buy them and proceed carefully – not seeking first to get the best bargain or to have latest and greatest – but seeking first God’s kingdom in our lives and our world.

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We began our discussion this week by watching an interview blogged on Kathy Escobar’s website, titled “Christian“.  This interview was with John, a member of Kathy’s community, who was so disillusioned with the established church and felt so at odds with the views of conservative Christianity, that he felt compelled to stop calling himself a Christian.  He made the comment that Christians are not following Christ but Paul’s interpretation of Christ.

As a community, we could understand his sentiments, we could sympathize with his discomfort over some of Paul’s teachings or, at least, at the way some of them are applied but it seemed to us that John had just given up on the church, that for him the church was broken beyond fixing and that all he could do was start over.

We have seen this pattern before.  Much renewal in the church has been driven by dissatisfaction with the establishment of the day but as in the case of John, this results in division.  Is this God’s desire for his church?

We read Ephesians 4: 1-16 and considered what God’s desire for his church might be.  We should be “bearing with another in love” and aiming to “keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace”.  The passage reflects on the many different parts there are to the body of Christ, the church.  The church is characterized by diversity but should not be marked by disunity.  This is a struggle when we find ourselves in opposition to other Christians but always we need to keep our eyes on Jesus as the unifying force for the church.  God does not give up on his church, nor should we.

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With the recent earthquake in Haiti in our minds and recent discussions about why God allows bad things happen to good people, we turned our thoughts to the question of suffering this evening.

We started by remembering that easy answers are rarely what we find when we look at issues such as this and I shared the cartoon graph from nakedpastor. So is that to say that we cannot have anything to say on this topic? Next we shared some of the ways we or others have, in the past, explained away the apparent inaction of a powerful and loving God when people are suffering. In this we touched on the beliefs of many that all suffering is punishment from God – and reflected on the way the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis is used as a basis for believing this can apply to whole communities or nations as well as to individuals. Then we turned, with the help of Nooma 24: Whirlwind to the story of Job. Although we acknowledged that the story has many different elements and paints a curious picture of God at times, I – along with Rob Bell on the video – encouraged us all to look at the story from Job’s perspective. He was a good man, bad – apparently random – things happened to him. He asked God for an explanation and God just said (in a nutshell) I am God, you are not, who are you to think you could understand or make the decisions I make?

We ended with a reminder that these issues only come to life when we apply them to reality in our lives – many of us can testify to God being with us, alongside us in suffering, most of us have been able to support or comfort others by doing the same. Words are easy to throw around, but as God teaches Job, sometimes we need to be quiet and accept that we are not the ones in control.

An old friend, far away, posted this on her blog, struggling with the same issue:

…all I know is that I was fully aware of suffering before I became aware of God, and so the two have to live alongside each other. I also know that prayer changes me and hopefully I become more compassionate and reach out to help alleviate or perhaps simply weep over some of the shit that happens.

So, I hope that we can put aside the need to find answers and to embrace our call as children of the God of love to mourn and weep over the suffering we see and help where we can to put broken lives back together wherever we encounter them.

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