Today my church has it's first night for the 2015-16 Cambridge Churches Homelessness Project. This is a project that runs through the winter, with a different church volunteering it's space and volunteers each night of the week to offer a hot meal, some friendly faces and a sheltered space to sleep for some of Cambridge's homeless people, referred to the project by Jimmy's Night Shelter and other organisations within the city. My church - Castle Street Methodist Church - has Wednesday as its night and last year I really enjoyed being part of this; meeting new people and hearing about the experiences they'd had over dinner, singing songs and playing on the piano with one of the guys who had a guitar he often used for busking, and, of course, staying up half the night (generally finishing off some work or something!) followed by "4 hours" sleep laid out on some of the chairs! I really love this project because it sees the person behind the need. It gives me the opportunity to interact with and relate to these people whom I probably just otherwise wouldn't. I don't like talking to people I don't really know who are in the same class as me; nevermind those I occasionally walk past in the street. And I find it really difficult to know how I can actually help homeless people. We've all be told not to give money out on the street - I recall our first year talk when the policeman came in when I first started at Magdalene... But there's a fine line between being sensible and just being the Priest or the Levite who walks on by disregarding the robbed and half-dead man lying on the street beside them. And as Christians, are we not called to be compassionate to exactly these people? Those who are most in need and most vulnerable? But short of very occasionally buying food for someone, I don't feel I help, or care, or see them at all. This project enables me to care; to talk to these people, share food and time with them, and learn from them. This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday in Advent and in our church I think we'll be looking a bit at the prophets. The prophets, throughout the Bible, challenged the ways people lived and the assumptions societies made. Perhaps this advent, I need to challenge the way I live, and the assumptions I condone. There are so many false ideas about homelessness in the UK, and without breaking those down we can't begin to actually see homeless people as fellow human beings who need help, care, dignity, community and respect.
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= La Sagrada Escritura I came to do my devotional Bible reading thing this morning, for the first time in a couple of weeks (oops!) - so I'm still in the Psalms - and as I read through the passage (Psalm 119.89-101, 105) and the devotional content, I had a vague feeling that I'd read this before! When I turned to my notebook to jot down some of my ideas, I found that I hadn't actually moved my bookmark forwards when I did this page last time, so we then had "Day 92 - revisited!". And at the bottom of that page, the notebook had a little printed sentence saying, "God wants to continually add to us, to develop and enlarge us - always building on what he has already taught us and formed in us." And that sentence is certainly true for me today! Through this same passage, all that time ago, God is building on what he had previously taught me, and speaking to me in a completely different way. This is what Scripture is - the Word of God which can speak to us again and again, in so many different ways. This led me to reflect on my relationship with the Bible. And I think - if I'm honest - my relationship with Scripture has been being transformed for a while now; through studying theology and various other things, but particularly so over these last few weeks. So here are those reflections: Before university - before doing theology - the Bible was just true. I didn't have to think about in what way it was true or anything like that; it was just true! I had the faith of a child that when I read it, it was just true. And there was nothing wrong with that - IS nothing wrong with that. I still explored Scripture and still wanted to know more of God, but when I came to the Bible, I came to it as it was JUST true. Then I chose to enter this world called 'theology'! And parts of it were the same as I'd been doing anyway - living a life (trying to be!) alongside God IS doing theology! But other parts were looking at the writers of the books in the Bible - looking at their motives and audiences. Answering a question about why a certain feature of a gospel is written that way with 'because that's how God wanted it' isn't going to get you very far in a theology exam! And as I was constantly looking at this human side of the forming of the Bible, I started to come to it almost seeking for it to prove itself as relevant to me before I accepted it as "just true"! Of course, any time spent with Scripture and God did prove this to me - but it was a different relationship. But then recently, God's been making me think more about what I really think of Scripture, and reflect on whether that is good enough or not. And so many things have contributed to my new-found relationship with the Bible that I couldn't possibly note them all here, but I'll try to give an overview!
Going back to my relationship with Scripture then; I am back to immediately trusting it when I come to it again. But no longer blindly. I can now look at it and see it for what it is now - God's ever-living Word - and what it was when it was written - a whole variety of scrolls and letters written for different people and different purposes - but ALL FOR GOD! At it's heart, Scripture is God's Word and interaction with us - humans. It is a message of love and hope and redemption. And it is EXCITING! It is comforting and challenging, it is provocative and enlivening, it is beautiful and heart-wrenching - but it is ALL GOD. = Las Sacudidas If you're wondering what 'The Bumps' means, or why I have a photo of 9 crazy women in purple lightning leggins in front of a river; well don't worry! All will become clear! For people outside Cambridge, 'Bumps' is just a word; probably bringing to mind something lumpy, or an old, rural road in dire need of a resurfacer! But students, rowers or townspeople who live near the river can't help but know about 'The Bumps'! Bumps is THE rowing races of the year - there is a smaller one at the end of Lent term (now!) and then another at the end of next term (around June when the weather is usually much nicer!) which gets visitors and spectators in their hundreds, if not thousands! And basically, what happens is that for 4 days in a row, all the Cambridge colleges have their crews line up along the river (in varying divisions throughout the day) with 1.5 boat lengths between them, then a big canon goes off and everyone starts, trying to "bump" the boat in front of them, before the one behind them catched them! And it is GREAT fun!!! This is my crew and I above, and we've just finished our Bumps run for this term! Amazingly, we "bumped" in all our races except one - amazing because Magdalene (my college) W1 (my boat) hasn't had a single bump since 2011!!! And we all had such a good time together. Our crew family came together and made a gruelling sport into the beauty that it really can be! There's something to say to our churches from that, I'm sure... ;-) #MisforMassive = Para Deleitarse en el Señor This morning I was reminded of a plan I had for this term - I'd decided I needed a particular focus for my spiritual journey with God, and that this term, I would focus on delighting in the Lord. The way I figured, it's just like rowing; you can only actually remember one thing at one time, so you focus on them all independently, until they all come so naturally that you can do them all together. Life is a lot like this - we have to develop skills individually, and only then can we make sure they work altogether. Well anyway, this morning we had the College CU prayer breakfast. We basically turn up on a Friday morning, somebody sorts breakfast for that week, somebody else a thought and we spend some time praying together generally and then sharing what in our lives we'd like others to share praying for; ourselves, friends, good things, bad things, etc. This morning, the thought shared was a section from a book called Incomparable by Andrew Wilson (which I have just ordered from Amazon to read over Christmas!), which was looking at Revelation 1.14-17. And it was talking about how if you ask a 3-year-old child to draw a picture of their Dad, they will draw a picture which is much more simplified, contains misunderstandings, has parts missing (it was always necks and ears that I forgot as a child!), is 2D, etc. And often, when we're asked to paint a picture of who Jesus is, we too tend to give an over-simplified version, one with misunderstandings and parts missing. We sometimes picture the baby in the manger (particularly THIS CLOSE to CHRISTMAS!!!), or the teacher on the Mount preaching to crowds of people, or the sorrowful face looking down from the cross. But Wilson points out; if we asked John, one of Jesus' closest friends who ate with him, rested with him, saw him in all his humanity - he paints us this picture. A man who's "face was like the sun shining with full force". The sun that is SO MUCH bigger than us; gives out SO MUCH more energy in each and every second than humans have made in the history of humanity; and that brings life where earth is cold and barren. And yet Jesus is even bigger than that, and gives out more energy than that, and brings more life than that. And this reminded me; how can I NOT delight in the Lord. So I've been feeling ill, and I have loads of work to do, and I am exhausted - but even just Jesus' face, shines like the sun with full force; in ALL its brilliance. In that I gain perspective; in that I gain energy; in that I gain renewed life - and in this I do delight. = Está bien Recordarse de Cosas que Sabemos I just had my first lecture of the year; on Paul! I'm doing a module on 'The Letters of Paul', and as it was the first lecture, it was more of an introduction to what makes Paul interesting (and difficult!) to study and his main ideas, etc. Anyway, the lecturer said something really interesting. Dr. Simon Gathercole is lecturing for this module and he is GREAT - his speaks clearly and like he genuinely enjoys his subject and he's very talented in the world of New Testament studies! I even wrote about him in my personal statement when I applied; well... I thought I'd better find someone who's work interested me at the university I was applying to! ;-) But because we're going to be studying Paul as a theologian - looking predominantly at his ideas and his additions to the intellectual history of Christianity, Dr. Gathercole wanted to highlight to us that there is a danger in that you can start to think of Paul just as a head - just a brain; just thinking. But he’s not. He’s a man with passions and he was a Christian. A lot of the time, we treat ideas as if they come from a vacuum and aren't the product of people with passions, but that makes no sense, because we know they are. And he pointed out that Paul was both an itinerant missionary (going from place to place, preaching the Good News) and a missionary pastor, remaining in one place for a number of years and leading the Church to grow there. His life was characterised by movement and settlement, movement and settlement, etc. The point being, Paul didn't sit in a state of prayer, solely seeking after knowledge of God all the time. Paul actually DID thing. He went out into the world and told people about Jesus, told people of God's glorious grace, and showed them God's love for ALL people. And something I only really realised that I had realised today, when I was responding to an email regarding my recent mission trip, was that going away to the DR and spending time with Christians who have given up so much to follow God and love the people he has called them to love, reminded me that if you truly love God, you simply CAN'T do nothing when you see someone in need. Doing Theology at Cambridge is great; I'm learning so much and delving further into the Bible, God, Christianity and so on, more than I ever thought I would! But occasionally, you get hooked into academic ideas and the importance of what you think on certain technicalities of Christianity - for example. My trip brought me back into the real world! Christianity isn't a set of ideas, it's a life lived in love; God's love for us and God's love for other people. I cannot love God and not love other people. I remembered something I have known all along but had been pushed out of the forefront of my mind; that to love God is more than just what you think and the theology in your head - it means actually, truly, holistically, genuinely and sacrificially loving people as well. And you can't do this if you know there is a need but refuse to do anything to help. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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