The place to be

Sunday was a food day!

Our morning communion service finished with the church being invited to join in with Jesus’ last supper, eating bread and drinking wine together as we remembered His supreme sacrifice for us.

Following the service some people went on to eat cake at a celebration hosted by a family whose child had just been dedicated

Others joined the Street Team taking the church onto the main high road where we gave people free hot drinks and cakes ... food again! All accompanied with live music- it was a party in the street!

After popping home for lunch, a large crowd turned up for tea and cakes and to raise support for our friends working with the Street Children of Mexico.

And then we turned our evening service into a ‘mission focused’ service concentrating on our friends who live and serve God in North Africa.   In order to create the right ambience we had tables festooned with North African themed food; pitas, hummus, olives, halva, dates, sweets. It was colourful and delicious and a great way to focus our minds on a part of the world that needs prayer and support.

Yesterday Upton Vale really was the place to be if you like food.

It was also a great day to think about people that are in specific places for specific purposes, people that are in the right place at the right time.

We are all aware of the political turbulence and civil unrest in so many North African countries at the moment, such as Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.  When our friends moved into that area they had no idea that these disturbances would break out so dramatically and violently.  Yet our friends stay in this area of potential risk, danger and uncertainty because they believe they are in the right place at a very strategic time for the gospel and the church.

Our friends from Mexico will return home in early June. Their vocation is with Street Children and abandoned people whom many would shy away from. Yet they know they are in the right place at a significant time to help these overlooked and victimised people.

Moving to a different setting and context, the Street Team prayed with many people yesterday, and for that hour we were clearly in the right place at the right time

There’s a link to be made of people realising that they are often in a significant place at a significant time, or for a significant reason but it doesn’t have to be somewhere dramatic like Mexico, North Africa or outside Primark, Torquay!  Another way to look at it is to think of God using you for something good wherever you are.

In the Old Testament there’s a great story about a nameless servant girl, kidnapped/abducted in a village raid, she ends up working as a servant in a military commander’s house. This powerful leader suffers with a terrible skin condition to which he can’t find a cure.

On one occasion this servant girl speaks up and suggests that her boss should go and see the local prophet Elijah who could cure him. The commander finds Elijah, follows his instructions and is healed.  But pivotal to the whole story is the slave girl who was in the right place at the right time.

I reckon if we’re bold and brave enough to think about it, we might begin to see that God can use us wherever we are. And if God can use us wherever we are, then where we are really is the place to be.

Donkeys, Tyres, Singing Stones and Tears

In Albanian the word for ‘donkey ‘ is  ‘Gomar’  which is very close to the word for tyre ‘Gomë’.  A foreign missionary was preaching for his first time in Albania about Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem but he made a mistake and said Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a tyre instead of on a donkey.  His main point was all about the significance of the tyre. He couldn’t understand why everyone was laughing all the way through what was a very serious sermon.

Donkeys are not what we expect a king or messiah to use; why not a large horse or even a carriage? A donkey is a small poor animal, we used to see them in Albanian villages pulling carts but not pulling kings.

As Jesus enters the city crowds are singing and shouting and people start laying their cloaks down on the road for Jesus’ donkey to walk on. In the other gospel stories people cut down branches from the trees and waved them in celebration

And yet in all the celebrations, not everyone is happy. The Pharisees (the baddies of the story) are anxious and want the crowds to stop cheering.  Jesus humours them, ‘If the crowds stopped cheering – the stones on the floor would start ‘

Stones are very stone like – they usually don’t make much noise,  so it seems a strange thing to say. Jesus’ point was that his entry into Jerusalem was so significant to humans and the whole of creation that the very rocks of the earth join the celebration

As we journey with Jesus in our preparation for Easter and arrive in Jerusalem with him, we need to ask ourselves some difficult questions:

• Are we only with Jesus because we hope that he will fulfil and give us our dreams and desires?
• Are we ready to sing aloud songs of praise and worship but only while Jesus seems to be doing what we want?
• What are our motives for following Jesus in the first place?
• Are we ready, not only to lay our cloaks on the floor in front of him when we are with crowds of other believers, but when we are with people who disagree with us, challenge us and oppose us. Are we ready to follow Jesus into controversy, trial and death?

The story continues with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Often we think of tears as a sign of weakness but Jesus’ tears are at the core of the Christian gospel. This was not a moment of weakness, but something much deeper.

Jesus weeping over Jerusalem can teach us how we should pray about our town, city or the area in which we live and even for our country. It must always start with the desire that God’s peace might transform where we live.  Our prayer should also be a desire that the eyes of our friends and neighbours are opened to the presence of Jesus in his people and in his church.

I was talking about this story with my old church in Albania a few years ago. We brought in a load of daily newspapers and cut out the stories that we believed made Jesus weep. Then with the collage of pictures and articles stuck around the walls of the church we prayed for our town and country.

What would Jesus weep over in Torquay if he were to visit our town and church today?  It’s a good question to ask yourself next time you flick through the Herald Express or watch the local news. It’s a good question to ask as we journey through this Easter Week

Graham