Supernatural

“The heavens are telling the glory of God… day after day pours forth speech…” (Psalm 19)

Supernatural… The other evening I was in an interview and I was asked what I understood by the idea ’supernatural’ ! Now I knew how I was supposed to answer but for a few moments my mind went blank. I was stuck ‘between’. I was thinking, “Why can’t I say something ?” Then in the expectant silence I realized I had moved on.

In the West we make a distinction between the natural and the supernatural worlds. The natural world is that which is – those identifiable rhythms that are part of the whop and weave of everyday life. The supernatural, on the other hand, implies a rather more occasional intervention on the part of a rather more distant God, like something from the twilight zone.

The problem with this dualism is that from our rational scientific viewpoint the supernatural becomes a rather exceptional blip on the horizon… a way of explaining the unexplainable. The supernatural ends up becoming a test for the true believers… those who embrace the superstitious and the magical !

Yet the Scriptures continually speak of the ‘Godness’ of the world… the intimate care and ultimate involvement God has with us and around us. I like what the prophet Hosea says. He says, “Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; for his appearing is as sure as the dawn”.

The possibility of knowing God isn’t exceptional. It is certainly God’s initiative but his ‘appearing’, his presence resonates with the rhythms of the natural world itself. That God would make himself known, that God would make himself available to us is as sure and consistent and wondrously filled with possibility as a new day dawning. There is nothing supernatural about that but it’s certainly not ordinary either.

The idea of responding in awe and wonder is the idea of heightened awareness of being overwhelmed by moments, by experiences, by phenomena, by encounters that are supercharged. But isn’t that the journey of a disciple… the idea of perceiving the world with new eyes and new ears ?  This is an intensifying of everyday experience. In God’s reality the world sparkles & glistens… it is all supernatural !

Outwards and downwards.

Unless You Become Like Children

Becoming like a child… Recently, I had the opportunity to sit and listen to my wife explain to my 4 year old son – Dawson – about the mysteries of communion…

With children everything is so literal… When Dawson started eating the wafer, he turns to my wife and says, “This doesn’t taste like Jesus’ body !” And Elizabeth quietly explains, “No… it’s not meant to taste like Jesus body… it helps us to remember him.” To which Dawson replies, “I can’t remember Jesus’ body because I don’t know what he looks like !” Elizabeth starts becoming more directive, “Look up at the Cross and imagine Jesus on the Cross”. So Dawson looks up at the Cross for a bit and then he turns to my wife and says, “I’m just going to remember him as a circle !”

A little while later the little cups of juice were given out and I see my wife take a breath. Before Dawson drinks he is asking, “Is this going to taste like blood ?” To which Elizabeth replies, “No, it will taste like juice”. “What kind of juice ?” asks Dawson. Elizabeth answers patiently, “Grape juice !” And Dawson says, “No, I want apple juice.”

‘Unless you change and become like children you can never enter the Kingdom of heaven…’ 

Hasidic Storytelling

One morning, the Rabbi was walking through an uninhabited region with his disciples. “I am thirsty,” complained one of the young men, “I am burning, I am dying of thirst.”

The countryside was like a desert. There was no sign of water anywhere.

“Don’t worry !” said the Rabbi, “When God created the world, He saw your thirst as well as its remedy.”

Shortly afterwards they came upon a peasant. He was balancing two pails of water on his shoulders.

“My Lord has gone mad,” grumbled the peasant, “this morning he sent me here to walk backwards and forwards with this load of water – just like that, for no reason at all.”

“You see,” said the Rabbi to the thirsty student, “when God created the world, He arranged all this madness, so you might quench your thirst.”

Life Stories

I can remember as a boy, standing next to my grandfather in church and being a little embarrassed because his voice would boom out louder than anyone else’s when we sang hymns. And when we prayed, he would turn around and kneel on one knee facing the pew and fill the silence all around with ‘amen’s’ and ‘hallelujah’s’. At the time I used to think his behaviour was a bit odd because no one else did what he did. Now as a man, I love the memory of it because I know my Grandfather loved his Lord.    

As a boy I also used to love hearing stories from both of my grandfathers. One Grandfather, my Little Grandpa… would tell me stories about being a Salvation Army officer in the days before most people had cars…

One day he was riding down the street in his horse and sulky, when suddenly heard a voice say, “Stop and visit that house across the street !” Now my Grandfather looked about for the voice and saw no one. Then my grandfather looked across the street and didn’t recognize the house, so he went to move the horse on again.

Again he heard the voice say, “Go to that house across the street”. Little Grandpa said it was then that he realised, it was the Holy Spirit who was speaking to him… so he went. And sure enough there was a widowed woman and her family who were in great need. And my Grandfather was able to help that family. My Little Grandpa said the Holy Spirit often used to prompt him to do such things.

Then I also had a Big Grandpa. Now Big Grandpa used to tell me stories about being an Salvation Army Officer during the Great Depression. One the things that made me laugh & laugh was him describing how he used to have to use strips of old War Crys as toilet paper. Then he would get serious. He would say, “In those days we used to have to pay all the church bills before I could draw my pay. Often there wasn’t enough money, and sometimes we would run out of food”. And I would say, “What did you do Grandpa?” And he would say, “We prayed and God provided the food we needed”.

Sometimes a lady from the church would come to the door and say, “I was just doing some baking and I thought of your family”. Or, another would come and say, “I was down at the butcher and I thought I should buy another leg of lamb”. Occasionally whole boxes of groceries would appear – anonymously – on the back doorstep. My Big Grandpa would always finish with, “God is always faithful !”

As an adult I find these stories from my grandparents becoming more & more important to me. I find these stories are wonderfully centering. They say, ‘this where you have come from & this is who you are’. Sometimes they even say, “This is what you must do !”

It’s interesting… as my relationship with the Scriptures develops there is also now a number of passages & stories that resonate strongly within me. And from time to time I like to check in with them to see how I am doing. They are stories that anchor me, stories that say, “God is always faithful” & this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Outwards & downwards…

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me

The good news of the Kingdom is that God wants us to participate with him… God didn’t just send Jesus to save us as individuals. God’s plan is much, much bigger. Jesus stood up and read from the scroll of Isaiah in the Synagogue in Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”  (Luke 4:16-30) because that’s God’s model for redeeming creation.

Jesus says, “You know all those things you have been longing for in a Messiah ? Today, those things you have hoped for begin with me. God’s reign isn’t just still coming, it’s here right now. And I want you to follow me, so by an effort together we can begin repairing a hurting world. We can participate with God in putting it all… back… together”. 

That’s the way that God is choosing to work in our world. It’s mostly anonymously and invisible and below the radar. You see when our actions on behalf of justice and mercy resonate in tune with the purposes of God, they become so much more. They ripple out in all directions.