After taking time off for Thanksgiving and, previously, for various appointments/commitments, five of us met on Monday to talk about Practicing Presence.
We started with reading a part of the creation story from Genesis 1:26-28. This is a reminder that we are created in God's image. How does this play out in our lives? Though, of course, we do not have the same abilities or capacities as God has, we are called to be God's image bearers. Psalm 139: 13ff says:
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you....
Once again we are reminded that God made us. God knows what we are capable of. God walks along side us and helps us when we stumble - and wants us to do the same with people we see around us. One way we can bear God's image is to be compassionate - to walk alongside those who are hurting and want to help.
We also read Luke 6:36 - Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. We were a little confused - but if you look at the Complete Jewish Bible it translates as "Show compassion, just as your Father shows compassion". It seems that, while to many of us compassion and mercy are quite different, when translating the Hebrew word used here, they can be interchangeable.
So, basically, there is to be no more "not my problem" - knowing ourselves to be image bearers of our caring creator, we are to practice compassion and help bring others through their suffering into new life.
The second aspect of Practicing Presence that we looked at was Nurture.
Here we looked at 4 passages:
1 Thessalonians 2:7b & 8; "We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children...."
Hosea 11:3 & 4: "Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk....I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them."
Numbers 11:10-15: [Moses talking to God about the hungry Isaraelites] "...Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a suckling child.,'...."
Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you."
It is almost inconceivable to us that a mother would "forget" her child, so we thought and talked about the Isaiah passage for a while. To think that God loves us even more than we love our children is almost unfathomable - but a great thing to ponder.
The idea of God as mother was also something we discussed for a while. It brings out some different aspects of God. We talked about how this was not a super popular idea among some Christians - how inclusion of "Mothering God, you gave me birth" (HWB 482) was a part of some congregations' reasoning for not purchasing the "new" Hymnal, a Worship Book when it first came out. But the real question is, how do/should we be nurturing to those around us? So often our conversations are limited to the "Hi, How are you?" in the foyer Sunday morning. But then we spoke of mentors, older people who we picture as somehow significant to our growing up years. People who nurtured our faith in some way. We spoke of people who, even in brief conversations, could make you feel like you were the only person that mattered in that moment, that what you had to say was important. We spoke of people who have a gift/talent of bringing conversations to a deeper level. We named people we remembered as nurturing our faith in some way.
We are called to nurture each other's faith. We are called to respectful listening that helps draw out faith, that encourages growth and development. We are called to vulnerability - to open ourselves so that others feel it safe to be open with us. Through this we we are called to nurture, feed, help develop growth and wholeness for others, for our communities and for our world.
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