Each week I write a Pastoral Letter to those who are part of our church community in Montrose. I thought I would share the latest one here. It says some of what I feel and think as, like everyone else, I come to terms with this world become strange; and do so as a Christian whose answers raise questions, and whose questions have learned to trust some of the answers.
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The other night I watched a programme on the story of the Hubble telescope. Some of the images of deep space were amazing, scary, wonderful, beautiful, awesome, and utterly unlike anything we could ever see without the marvels of technology, and the intelligence of those who make it all work.
Then I remembered we are in the middle of the kind of crisis that puts us in our place as human beings. We can see light years into the universe, but we are threatened by an invisible and deadly virus.
We now live in a world where, as human beings, we are being reminded that we are human, not divine. We are here by God’s creative grace and purpose as stewards of creation, not its owners; we are guests not hosts; we can control much, but not everything; our life is precious and so is everyone else's; our life is for a time, but God is forever.
It’s easy for us to see human beings, even ourselves, as the centre of the universe. But the Hubble telescope tells us something very different. We are small and insignificant, tiny specks of dust afloat on the cosmos. But two thousand seven hundred years ago, a singer songwriter stood looking at the night sky and felt small, awed to silence, and prayed:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
any one of us that you care for us?
Yet you have made us a little lower than God
and crowned us with glory and honour. (Psalm 8.3-5)
It takes great courage, and faith, to look into the infinity of space, and gaze at the vastness of a universe so beyond our knowing we have no words to describe it, no numbers to measure it, no map to interpret it. But the Psalmist long ago got its measure all right. It is the work of God’s fingers; God’s glory is set above the heavens. And us? Human beings with a life span measured in decades? What about us? The Psalm writer says God is mindful of us, and cares for us. Unbelievable! But true.
Seven hundred years ago, a young woman from Norwich, called Julian, had a vision of God’s love. Here is how she described it.
“God showed me a little thing, the size of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand… And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And God answered, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.”
Think of the Psalmist looking at the night sky; imagine a young woman recovering from life threatening illness and holding up her the hazelnut against the vast night sky. Both of them are rejoicing that this is God’s universe! Think of it. The ludicrous insignificance of humanity in a universe exploding outwards and away from all that we know. But God has made us, is mindful of us, and cares for us.
Denise Levertov wrote about that vision of the hazelnut, and her poem ends:
All that is made;
A little thing, the size of a hazelnut, held safe
In God’s pierced palm.
I think all of us are feeling the weight of these days and weeks that are becoming months. We live in a world that is frightened and seems now unsafe. “But the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” What are human beings, folk like you and me that God should care for us? We are beings for whom Christ died. Our worth is indexed to Calvary. God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” We are each a little thing, held safe in God’s pierced palm.
This is a God-loved world. All the suffering and loss that we are now so aware of, it is known to God; all the grief, borne on the heart of the Father; all that is made held safe in God’s pierced palm.
How then do we as Christians live out that faith in the holding love of God? We are called to help out own communities to recover, even rediscover, the truths that make human life and our future possible. That our significance is not in our possessions, our future is not in our own power, but in the power of God’s love. Renewed by that love we are called to become again carers of creation, lovers of humanity, builders of peace and conduits of hope.
It will be a while yet before we are able to meet again safely and freely as a community of Christ’s people. But in the meantime, it’s important to remember whose we are, who is mindful of us, and in whose hands our lives are held. There are cords of love and affection, of memories and shared worship, of burdens carried and blessings enjoyed, of prayers for each other and times we’ve been there for each other; these are woven together in all that we share in the fellowship of Christ.
Until we are able to gather again, we are scattered. But the God who calls out the stars and names them, whose glory is set in the heavens, and in whose hands he holds all that he has made, including us, is mindful of us, and cares for us.
Grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
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