What do we want to know?

This is a reflection on a week of great floods in Australia and will be the substance of my Sunday sermon. A reflection on the Lectionary readings for this Sunday, 16th January 2011 is below..What are you looking for?

As I began to think about what we want to know at a time of great human catastrophe

I started to draw a mind map (above)

to give some framework to what I might even begin to say

it quickly became apparent that we have a lot of questions

and all sorts of things are flying around our minds

at this time.

So I won't even attempt to address all the questions.

Simple answers to difficult questions

There are many difficult questions aren't there?

Why do some people survive and other people die?

Why does a once-in-a-100 year flood happen two years in a row?

Where, we as people of faith might ask, is God in all this?

One of the problems is that these questions are difficult questions

so we wouldn't and shouldn't expect that the answers are any less difficult.

Indeed, in the book of Job, where this whole question is teased out

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Part of the answer that is given there

is that we cannot fathom the complexity of such situations

and that we do not know the mind of God.

This does not mean that we should not seek understanding

but we should proceed with caution

and with the humility

that we may not comprehend everything

and indeed we will never know all the answers.

Important versus impotent

I wrote also to someone who is involved in the CFS

that I spent my wakeful night hours praying for this disaster

and often as I have thought of this young man

I pray for him when he is out fighting fires.

I also made the observation:

that this often seem impotent

Though I am a firm believer in prayer

it doesn't often seem to do what we want.

(Often we want far less than God wants to give)

But I also observed that feeling powerless, impotent

is an important understanding about how people must be feeling at this time.

And maybe prayer is not so much an exercise in

getting God to do our bidding and fix things up

as it is a statement of solidarity

with those for whom we pray.

Be they the sick, or the needy

or even those who celebrate and when we give thanks

Prayer opens up a way to stand alongside others

and this, it would seem to me,

is probably the most important thing we can do.

As we look at what God is doing in Jesus

when he dies on the Cross

he does not take suffering away

so much as stand alongside us

in solidarity.

When we are praying for others

we need also to recognise this solidarity is an important stance

and so alongside the important prayers we offer

there is another question to answer

and how might I act in solidarity with my neighbour

Solidarity

Most of us will struggle with that one.

We will often know that solidarity

is about giving of ourselves

Jesus gives himself

That may mean time, energy, an ear

Sometimes all we can do is give money.

I urge you to be generous.

In the weeks to come there will also be the need for us as the Church

to think about how we can help our sister churches in these affected areas.

We don't need to solve that today

but I flag it for the future.

This is an important and sad time for our nation.

There are no simple answers to the difficult questions

There is a call to stand in solidarity with those those in need

-- through prayer

-- through practical action

There is a call to be generous.

May we respond well to these challenges.