As church buildings begin to open for individual prayer and small funerals, we wanted to share with you a reflection, written in lockdown, about everyday discipleship and how we are called by the Holy Spirit to action or inaction at different times.
This reflection was written by the Revd Anne-Marie Naylor who recently became the incumbent of Astbury and Smallwood.
By Anne-Marie Naylor, May 2020
Help! - Everyday faith in a strange land
Help! I need somebody
(Help!) not just anybody
(Help!) you know I need someone
Help!Jane is anxious. Her thudding heart hammers her awake in the middle of the night as the worries she has buried – worries about the future, her job, her kids, her parents - erupt into her mind like Whack-a-Mole. While Jane is trying to cope in a strange land, she sees stories about heroes. Heroes prepared to give up their lives for others, working in care homes, hospitals, on the front line. People doing their jobs in new and innovative ways. Meanwhile, Jane feels useless, trapped and afraid; guilty that she can’t be like them. And worried that means she is not following God properly.
But everyday faith – everyday discipleship – doesn’t begin with being a hero. When we see so much good happening around us in the face of challenge, it is easy to highlight the stories of success, strength and self-sacrifice. It’s easy to praise heroes as exemplars. But though what we do is important, that isn’t discipleship for everyone. Discipleship begins with humility and giving up control to the God who invites us to lose ourselves in his mission. Yet that is not the same as a call to immediate action. Not all of Jesus’ original disciples could follow him around the Galilean countryside: some of them stayed where they were; like Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
There seem to be times in life when we are called to action, and other times when we are called to do nothing. If that seems to be you or me, what might our discipleship look like in lockdown? For the answer, let us begin by turning to the past - about 500 years ago. In Spain and Germany, there were two Everyday Faith pioneers by the names of Ignatius of Loyola and Martin Luther, who both had lockdowns to contend with.
Ignatius’ lockdown was physical. His life as a wannabe hero – a swaggering, womanising soldier ended abruptly when his leg was shattered by a cannonball. As he recuperated through several painful operations he had nothing to do for almost a year but reflect, and he started to notice what was life-giving to his soul – and through that emerged his greatest gift to the world. Ignatius underwent a complete inner transformation, and went on to develop spiritual exercises which have helped centuries of Christians to find their own truest calling – the one which is a gift to themselves as well as to others.
For Jo Oughton, a fosterer and youth worker who lives in Bowdon Vale, health concerns mean that she needs to shield herself. For Jo, lockdown has meant the suspension of almost everything she was doing to help others, and instead the time to reflect on what is life-giving for her. She says “I began lockdown feeling like the rug of my meaning had been pulled out from under my feet. I felt sorry for myself, and frustrated that I wasn’t one of the heroes. A few weeks in and I have turned down two foster placements; I have resisted the urge to sew scrubs (poorly) and to shop for others. I am not even shopping for myself! I have simply remained shielded. I’m sure God has a use for me, but it may not be my time yet. For now, I am loving caring for my own adult daughters. I hope to have my health when my calling is clearer.”
Meanwhile, in C16th Germany, Luther’s lockdown was spiritual: a lockdown of all the talents, gifts and abilities of God’s people by a church which saw them as irrelevant to the life of faith, in which only the martyrs, priests and monks counted. Luther told people that they all had a calling from God. Perhaps Luther was the first architect of Setting God’s People Free. Luther told people that their callings didn’t mean leaving where they were – they were in ordinary life situations, to exactly what they were doing, and that what mattered was how they did it.
Tom Wright wrote some time ago that discipleship was closely connected to the classic Christian virtues. Yet it is not in our power to be perfect. It is times of stress and challenge, that we are likely to see aspects of our dispositions which we have been too busy to notice. Perhaps now is the time to notice these things and work on them. It could be that our hypothetical Jane is now overwhelmed by how little thought she has given to the foodbank, but maybe she needs help to realise her own goodness – perhaps seeing how much her neighbours appreciate her care. Perhaps she might realise how time outside lifts her soul and gives her energy. Jane may need someone else’s ears to help her to hear what God might be saying. Is there a way to open up this sort of conversation with a friend, or perhaps seek the opportunity to seek spiritual accompaniment?
if we are the ones who are called to inaction, let’s not feel guilty or inadequate, but make the time to see what God wants to show us for the next season of our lives. Time spent in prayer or reflection may be our greatest gift to ourselves, and to the world in the next season of our lives.
As Mother Teresa said: “We cannot all do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Jane doesn’t need to feel guilty about not being a hero. She can focus on the needs of each day knowing that her efforts to live it faithfully and well are enough.
‘And now my life has changed in oh so many ways
My independence seems to vanish in the haze
But every now and then I feel so insecure
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before’The Beatles, 1965