Over Lent 2021 We will explore there four themes of the God for All vision
Wednesdays at 11am on Zoom

Week 1 Intro

God-for-All-GRAPHIC-THEMES-LAN


Talk by Graeme Skinner (14th Feb 2021) 18 minutes
Introduction to the God for All vision

Bishop Emma's sermon (ext below)
Introduction to the God for All vision

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Here are some words for  personal refection.
You could arrange to phone a friend in church to talk through your thoughts.

Mark 1.9-15 - The Temptation of Christ
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Questions for reflection
Which word or phrase immediately strikes you about that passage? Why? 

What questions does the passage immediately raise for you? 

‘Being in the wilderness’ is common in the experience of the Christian life. What does the phrase mean for you and how might Jesus’s experience resonate with yours, or differ from yours?

“He was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him”. What do you think this phrase tells us about Jesus’s relationship with the earth and all its inhabitants, and about his relationship with the ‘heavenly realms’?

After Jesus’s testing in the wilderness, he went out to proclaim the good news of God. Try to summarise what, for you, is ‘the good news of God’. You could each try expressing the Gospel (good news) in 6 words. It’s a challenge, but try it!

Spend some time reflecting on Jesus’s words: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ What do you think this means - for you? For your church family at this time? For your local town, village or community? For Cumbria? For the UK? For the world? Share your thoughts and ideas together.

The summary of the refreshed vision is “to release the whole people of God for the whole mission of God for the transformation of Cumbria in the name of Jesus”. What does that mean to you? What do you see as the opportunities a) for you b) for our churches c) for our communities? What are the challenges it holds out?

Share with each other one area of your church, your wider community or your own life that you would love to see transformed. Perhaps commit together to pray for these situations/suggestions during Lent. • Pray for each other (either with words or in silence), then close by praying the Vision Refresh Prayer together:

Sermon +Emma
Today is the first Sunday of Lent when traditionally we focus on Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, as a model for our own overcoming of temptations, whatever those might be. Sometimes on the first Sunday of Lent, the lectionary reading is from Matthew or Luke, where we have a much longer account, with details of the three temptations Jesus faced and how he dealt with each one. But this year it is Mark, with its short and stark description of Jesus, the wilderness, the wild beasts, and the angels.

Right at the start of his ministry, Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is part of his training for ministry to come, an intense time, a time of endurance, of isolation. It’s no coincidence that the word quarantine’ literally means ’40 days’.

Satan’s intention was to tempt Jesus away from the mission that God had given him, to question his identity as the Son of God, and to try to divert him with offers of quick and glittering success rather than the hard task of saving the world that he had been sent by God to fulfil. So this was ‘quarantine’ for Jesus - alone in the wilderness with the trainer from Hell. Literally.

In the Bible, the wilderness has always been a place of encounter with God. God’s people Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Elijah spent 40 days in the wilderness and had there his most profound encounter with God.

We have become familiar with our own kind of ‘testing in the wilderness’ experience over the past year due to the suffering and restrictions of the the Covid pandemic. Although not comparable with Jesus’s desert temptations, ‘isolation’ has been a very real concept for many - not being able to access all the things that bring us comfort, enjoyment, consolation, life. In the Biblical narrative the wilderness was alien and inhospitable to humans, the opposite of the sort of place where you would want to settle down or stay for any length of time. ‘When will this all end?’ is a cry we have heard so often during the lockdown period.

But this wilderness, we’re told by Mark, although hostile to human habitation was home to other kinds of creatures - wild beasts. Mark says of Jesus that he was ‘with the wild animals’.

Anyone who has read the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak knows that it’s often tricky to tell whether the beasts are on your side or not. They are wild and untameable. They were not pets, or course, but Jesus doesn’t seem to be threatened by them. Perhaps the wild beasts show us that mission in God’s Kingdom will never be safe or predictable. There may be a rumpus. But the wild beasts can become your friends if like Jesus (and Max), you are not afraid.

Also in the wilderness, Jesus encounters angels who minister to him, as they did to Elijah when he fled to the wilderness. Even this place, devoid of comfort and all the things most necessary for human life, is not without God’s provision.

So I wonder what this short and sharp description of Jesus facing temptation in the wilderness might offer to us in the way of comfort and direction this Lent? Lent is a wilderness season - a time when we are confronted with our own weaknesses but invited also to spend focussed time - alone and together - reflecting on who we are, deepening our walk with God, hearing his voice of affirmation calling us into the walk of discipleship, ministry and mission he has for each of us.

It is also a time when we are reflecting on, and launching our refreshed God for All vision: a vision “to release the whole people of God for the whole mission of God for the transformation of Cumbria in Jesus’s name”. Under that overarching vision sit 4 simple themes - to follow daily, speak boldly, care deeply, and tread gently.

What might Jesus’s testing in the wilderness show us about each of these?

Firstly we might notice that it was only after this time in the wilderness that Jesus began his mission of announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. My prayer through this whole Covid pandemic has been that out of this time of severe testing God might bring something new and fruitful; a new sense of purpose, a fresh sense of vocation after the stripping away. I pray that might be true of us as a diocese, as a Church of England, as a whole church of many different denominations. As we emerge from this wilderness experience we may be tempted to head off in all sorts of different directions that may be tempting, but are not God’s will for us. And so we need a clear sense of vision to know how and where God is calling us to minister for him in the weeks and months ahead. That may be true of us as individuals too. What is God bringing out of this time of trial for you in terms of a new sense of direction, calling, ministry? Perhaps a new call to ‘follow daily’ in every day life?

Secondly Jesus’s time of testing in the wilderness might cause us to examine our relationship to the wild beasts, whether that’s the metaphorical wild beasts that we are afraid might stand in the way of our being able to fulfil something for God -perhaps the wild beasts of fear, or cynicism, or apathy. How can we learn to tame our fears, to make friends with the things that scare us most, so we can be as free as Jesus was to live out his mission the world? And how might Jesus being with the wild beasts cause us to think about the way we are with God’s creation in the natural world? The bible tells us he was with the beasts in the same way he was with his disciples. Perhaps God’s creation is more of a partner in mission than we ever allow ourselves to realise. As we seek to ‘tread gently’ in the world this Lent, perhaps we might see the natural world as a significant part of that.

And thirdly perhaps we will find reassurance that even in the most difficult times, God sent his angels to ‘care deeply’ for Jesus, and he does for us too. This Lent I pray that we might each and as mission communities and churches become more and more aware of God’s day by day provision for us - the unobtrusive ministry of the angels. We are never alone. As a whole people of God we are called to echo the care God has for us in our care for each other, to 'care deeply’ for each other and for the communities in which he places us. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, whose angel can I be today?

And from that point of quarantine, after his testing in the wilderness ,after his choosing to follow God, not the temptations of satan, Jesus bursts back on to the scene, fulfilling his mission, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, speaking boldly, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

That is what we are called to do too, to ‘speak boldly’ of all that God has shown and taught us. To speak boldly about the coming of his kingdom, a kingdom of justice, peace wholeness and flourishing for all people and the created world. Over this coming Lent let us pray that God would open our eyes and enlarge our hearts to see the possibilities of proclaiming in the power of the Holy Spirit, the good news of his Kingdom.

The Vision refresh prayer
Living Lord,
as we offer to you our common life,
refresh our vision
that we may know your will
and seek to follow in all your ways.
May we follow daily as your disciples,
care deeply for one another in community,
speak boldly your gospel words of love,
and tread gently as faithful stewards of your goodness.
We ask this in the power of your holy name,
as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of our lives,
today and for ever.
Amen.