God saw everything he had made
Matthew 28;16-20
God saw everything that he had
made, and indeed, it was very good.
Couldn’t we just….?
It’s a phrase which has dogged me since the beginning of my ministry. A service with different parts to it: Couldn’t we just simplify it?
A meal with different components: Couldn’t
we just have soup and bread and then get on to the meeting afterwards a bit
quicker or get the children home a bit earlier.
There’s homework, after all.
Couldn’t we just sing verses 1, 3 and 5?
Keep it simple. Say the minimum. Don’t wander.
Find a single point of agreement.
Arrive at a lowest common denominator or an agreed-upon consensus. Contain the chaos.
I’m a fan of minimalist composers – sometimes. Maybe you are too: Arvo Pärt,
Philip Glass, Michael Nyman. If you
don’t know them you can google them - they’re worth a listen. A skeletal structure – often repeating - with
just a little flesh on it. It’s
refreshing. It appeals to the part of me
that likes to see things plainly. It’s
clear - like a well-executed line drawing.
But after a binge of minimalism you positively hunger for something glorious
and romantic and colorful - a musical “full monty”. Richness and excess,
colour and complexity – they all make sense and accord magnificently with the
full range of what life has on offer – in nature, in the multiplicity of
peoples and in the cascade of experience which human beings both suffer and
enjoy. Life is rich and complex. Simplicity is often an escape. The Church is a place we often want to escape
to.
In last year’s reading for Trinity Sunday, Nicodemus was made to understand
that the history of God is fuller and richer than what he can fit into his
tradition and between his ears. Like
Job, in the Old Testament, he was humbled with the idea that God is abroad –
that the Spirit, like the wind, “blows where it will”. At the heart of the Triune God – Father, Son
and Holy spirit – there is, above all, love and boundless energy beyond human
comprehension and ability.
This year, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples are gathered
together on a hillside. Jesus sends them
out into a world which is beyond the reach of their language, bigger than them
and beyond where they have ever travelled.
“Go”, he says, “…and make disciples of all nations”. Like Nicodemus and Job of old, the
disciples are told that God is already there – abroad as he has always
been. And in that rich and complex world
– the political world, the conflicted and ambiguous world – Christ will be with
them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the
age.”
Prepare
your children – prepare yourselves – to accept the broadness of God’s horizon
and to widen your own.
