inspiral blog

This is what we did this week:

The Kingdom of God – an exercise in discernment

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to catch a glimpse of what Jesus might have meant when he began preaching that “The Kingdom (Reign, Economy, Commonwealth, Empire) of God is near”.

You will have half an hour to wander the streets of Brunswick. This is a to be a prayerful, reflective experience, so take your time. Use all of your senses, and keep your mind open for what is happening all around you. Spend your time noticing and accepting rather than making judgements. Open yourself to being led by the Spirit. Allow yourself to linger, and to be surprised.

Some questions to help you reflect:
* Where is God? Where is the Reign of God? How is it near?
* What do you feel connection to in the area? What do you feel alienated by?
* What does repentance (turning around and going the other way) have to do with the Kingdom of Heaven being near?
* How might we invite others into such a space (become “fishers of people”)?

Take a pen and track your progress on the map. Note down any significant experiences with an x. When you return, we’ll hear each others’ stories.

Which seemed to work well…people told the stories of their journey upon their return, and then we unpacked some of what had happened, asking questions like “how hard was it not to judge?” and, “where do your ideas about what is and what isn’t the KOG come from?”

As I was leading at Brunswick Baptist this week I put together seven stations that we then shared with inspiral. Seemed to work really well I think, inviting people to “come and see” instead of “sitting and hearing”, and people had the time to reflect deeply on some of the questions.

It was based on the four lectionary readings for this week. Unfortunately I took the pictures halfway through packing them up, so most of them are half what they began as, but you’ll get the gist.

Station 1: What are you looking for?
When Jesus realises John’s disciples are following him, the first question he asks them is “what are you looking for?” It’s a good question to ask ourselves as we come into church…

Station 2: Confession
Unfortunately I’d already taken this down before I remembered to take photos, but basically it consisted of a pool of water around which was scattered some river stones. People were encouraged to take a stone and feel its weight, and liken that weight to their sin or any burden they were carrying. Then, symbolically “baptising” the stone they were to drop it in the water, liberating themselves from their burden.

Station 3: Prayer station
Based on Psalm 40 (and with U2′s ’40′ being played in the background) people were asked to write their prayers on prayer flags and hang them on the string provided. Ended up looking fantastic (when I took the photo there were only two of the three strings remaining).

Station 4: Come and See
People were invited to reflect on the times in their lives when they’d taken up Jesus’ invitation to “come and see”.

Station 5: Recognising God
John recognises Jesus by a spectacular sign but most of us don’t get spectacular signs, so people were asked to use the art supplies to draw where they recognise God is in their world.

Station 6: Letters to inspiral
The NT reading this week is the beginning of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, so it talks about what he knows about them. So this station asked people to write a letter, as if from Paul, about what they thought he would write about them or inspiral. Then they were to post it in the mailbox provided.

Station 7: Light to the nations (with my own two hands)
The Isaiah reading says that we are not merely to get our own mob right, but to be a light to the nations. People were encouraged to listen to the Ben Harper/Jack Johnson version of “With My Own Two Hands” which makes numerous suggestions for how we might be a light to the nations (make peace on earth, clean up the earth, comfort you, etc). Then they were encouraged to make their handprints as a commitment to be a light to the nations with their own two hands.

People seemed to really enter into it all, which is the only way something like this is useful, so I think it worked well.

The reading this week was Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan, so we talked for a while about Baptism, the different types, what it means and why you’d do it, and then about Walter Brueggemann’s 19 theses, which talk about the type of life into which you’re baptised. A useful discussion, though most of us were very tired.

We started today talking about what epiphany means – to be revealed – so the mystery of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, God remains mystery. So we talked through the history of the feast, and then onto the significance for us.

So we came to incarnation – the idea that God was made flesh, that God reveals Godself through the physical. We get a lot of descriptions by Jesus of what the kingdom of God is like, and it’s never disembodied ideas like, “it’s like unconditional love” or “it’s like universal justice”. Instead Jesus says, “it’s like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with flour.” Or “it’s like like a mustard seed that a guy planted and watered.” Or it’s like wheat, or a coin, or whatever. These are not disembodied concepts, they’re very earthy. In other words, God is incarnate in the world; we get to know what God is like through the world.

And so I decided that as we celebrate Epiphany, it’s important that to see God revealed we don’t just sit and talk about disembodied concepts. It’s important that we get our hands dirty; that we begin know in a different way than just a head knowledge. It might just be that we can begin to know God with our bodies, with our hearts, without knowing with our heads.

So we made bread.

And a pretty good job we did too.