News from the Team  

 

Revd Pete Butchers

SEBA Moderator
 

We have been running a series of ‘Life’s Big Questions' groups at the church where I serve over the past few weeks. They have been really fruitful and very rewarding as we see people engage with Christian faith and move closer to allowing God’s rule and reign to break into their lives. It is wonderful to be a part of those groups, and, when ministry drains or frustrates, meeting with those who are genuinely seeking God and being able to help them on their spiritual quest is life-giving for us too. 

Encouragement from ‘Life’s Big Questions’ has been especially valuable for me in this season because I have not yet taken my usual post-Easter break. No need to feel sorry for me; the chances are by the time you get to read this I will be sunning myself on a Greek island. My holiday is coming very soon, I just had to postpone it for a number of reasons. However, I know I need a break, and I am grateful it is not far away. 

‘Life’s Big Questions’ engaged us in plenty of conversations about the existence of evil in the world, the person and work of Jesus, the place of prayer or the importance of personal faith. I was ready for those questions. But among the questions asked was a question that no one had ever asked me before, although it is a question which is in my mind every Christmas and every Easter: ‘in all the work that you have to do over Easter, when do you get to celebrate Easter?’ 

It is a good question, and one that I ask myself every season. I do not think I gave a very convincing answer! When do we celebrate as those serving our churches and communities, or in chaplaincy placements? In all the preparation, the planning, the moving of chairs, the sorting out of services, the extra visits and all the myriad other things that are expected of us over the Easter season; when do we find time to celebrate? And what does celebrating even look like for those who serve over those extra busy seasons? I wonder what answer you would have given. 

When Paul is writing to the church in Philippi, from prison, he likens his life to a drink offering. The practice found in the Hebrew scriptures of pouring wine beside the altar to symbolise the dedication of a person in worship to God. He says, 
 
‘Libation’ may not be a word we use much nowadays, the NLT says ‘pouring my life out like a liquid offering to God’ perhaps makes more sense to our modern ears. But it is a powerful image; Paul sees his life, in his case writing from prison, as being poured out on behalf of others for the glory of God. His very life is an act of obedient worship to God. 

I resonate with that image somewhat when I think about my offering at Easter, Christmas, or even more generally in what we might call ordinary time. My life is being poured out as an offering. The stresses and strains, the joys and sorrows, the prayers uttered, the hopes longed for, the dreams (some fulfilled, some that fall by the wayside). Maybe it is in those little acts of preparation, faithful service, loving presence, and the ‘keeping on keeping on’ in ministry, is like a life being poured out as an offering to God. It is in the act of handling holy things carefully, lovingly and thoughtfully that we become ourselves an act of worship in the way we minister and serve. 

Irish poet and author John O’Donohue writes, “We seldom notice how each day is a holy place where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, transforming our broken fragments into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”  

Maybe you can identify with some of that in your own life, church, or ministerial setting. Furthermore, the wider Baptist climate is fragile and fractious at the moment. It is like our lives are being poured out. Paul might say, poured out, maybe, but poured out as an offering. Our lives, our work, our ministries are living, present acts of worship, serving God’s people and bringing glory to God’s name. Such a simple question, asked in innocence, stirred something powerful in me as I reflect on my life as an ongoing offering, a holy place where the eucharist of the ordinary happens in a thousand different ways each and every day.