Connections

So, is it really "in there" or am I simply reading it that way because that's how I've been thinking lately?

I think that's a perennial question preachers have to ask themselves as they approach the readings each week and try to prepare a sermon. The weekly conversation between Scripture and preacher and congregation and God has to include the preacher, but it can't be about the preacher. So I worried a little this last week when all three lessons seemed to be about where I was at - and seemed to reassure me as I struggled with fears about my sabbatical (fears such as: what kind of a crazy idea have I gotten myself into anyway???)

I had been seeing my sabbatical time as a time of reconnection for me. A time to pay close attention to the connections that are vital for myself, and for my ministry. It is so easy to get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent, in the midst of a job that is never "done". And over the years, I have tended to let slip important time for connection - with God, with myself, with my family and friends, and with the wider community.

So I heard, in the Gospel of John, Jesus' assurance to his disciples of a connection with God. Created, not out of their own doing, but out of God's gift. "I am in my father, and I in you, and you in me." A connection created through the gift of the Spirit. Not being left orphaned (unconnected!) when Jesus wasn't there anymore, but instead being brought into the midst of the very mystery of the relationality of God's being. And a call to live fully into that connection. To live in love, responding in love, loving the world - which looks like following the Way of Jesus. Connection with God.

And I heard, in the 1 letter of Peter, the call to be connected to the hope within myself. A hope placed there, no matter the circumstances of the world around me, by my connection with God. A hope that should be spoken of.

And then in Acts, I was pleasantly surprised to be hit with the realization that Paul did a 'walkabout' in Athens. (Another 'Richard of Chichester' moment.) He got connected with that community. Listening to the seeking of their hearts. The questions of their souls. Being willing to engage them using their language and their patterns of thought.

So I preached about the richness of the layers of connections that God calls us to. And the gift that those connections are to be for the world around us (after all, being followers of the Way of Jesus is never about what's in it for us!).

And I am once again feeling deeply blessed to have the opportunity to focus on those connections. To spend June on my own community walkabout - getting reconnected with community in ways that I don't spend much time doing while immersed in the life of a particular congregation. To spend July focused on listening to family and friends, and to reconnect with that part of my own personal community. And then to spend that time alone in August, trying to listen to God help me put it all together in new layers of rich connection that I can bring back to my ministry in September.