The Way Ahead – Week 5 - Talking with Jesus again

Of all the many bands I have seen live over the years, there is one that I have seen slightly more than the others – Marillion, who I have seen something like 34 times. In the early days their lead singer was a guy called Fish who I have also seen many times as a solo artist after he left at the end of the eighties. But I had lost touch with Fish and his music and I was aware that he had been through some difficult and trying times. So it was with delight that I discovered his new album which contains some wonderful music. But in the midst of this is one track that has really got through to me, as it speaks of the darkness of being a fifty something year old bloke who has tried it all and it hasn’t worked – and the title tells of the consequences – “Blind to the Beautiful”

If you were at our Lent group the other evening then you will have heard it as I included in our evening, but the words have made me think, and also to think about our Way Ahead material this week, thinking about how the cost of discipleship is hard because God calls us to difficult things, and how on that journey that God invites to take with him through life we will be travelling with people who may not be our first choice of companions.

In the song Fish sings:

“The bread we have broken, the wine we drank from tarnished cups,
And I stopped believing in miracles a long long time ago,
I lost my faith and I sacrificed my soul,
I worshiped fallen idols, chased false prophets to an end,
To where I just can’t see the beautiful anymore”     © Derek William Dick 2013

There is a world-weariness in here that as Christians we feel that we should not recognise, that sense of how we should have joy all the time, but I suspect that many of us feel like Fish from time to time. When I reflect on the enthusiasm with which we started the redevelopment and how long it is taken; I still fervently believe that we are doing God’s will, and that it will happen, but I never knew it would take so long. Then there was all the mess of my failure as a minister last year, the huge number of people that I was not able to be there for and just how badly I failed you all as your minister, there is a sense even though I am trying hard to come back fighting that I am still struggling with those demons. Maybe this is why I felt in the Fish lyrics something of a voice that I could understand, even if I did not agree with it all the time.

He goes on to sing:

“We should have talked about the weather a bit more seriously,
More than stocks and shares and corporate wares,
We were blinded by the skeptics and their greed
I just can’t see the beautiful anymore; I just can’t see the beautiful anymore

I howled and I cried when the melody died, the song was finally over,
There was nothing to say, words stole away, their meaning lost in the ether,
What there was left stopped making sense, a broken up alphabet, language dispersed
I just can’t hear the beautiful anymore”     © Derek William Dick 2013

The companions on the Emmaus Road probably could relate to this as well. Battered and bruised by the events of Holy Week they stagger home, all their dreams have been lost and where was the hope in the middle of all that had gone on – it was lost and trampled into the ground.

Then into the middle of this sense of it all going wrong enters a stranger who makes sense of the things that they do not understand – a stranger that starts to bring order from chaos and hope from despair. As they journey on his message so speaks to the disciples that they invite him to stay with them. It is only when he breaks bread that they realise who it is and hope is restored.

Sometimes when we are journeying with people who are feeling broken the last thing that they want is a bright and a perky companion who quotes dumb platitudes at them, sometimes they would rather journey with someone who is in the same dark place and who understands, so that together you may find the voice in your midst who brings hope.

In our desire to work with our community maybe we need to reflect on how part of what we do is to go to dark places with people and to simply be there with them. It is not always our responsibility to put things right, sometimes we just need to be there to hear the third voice along with the other person.

Our questions from the material this week are:

Thinking about the cost of discipleship

1)            Can you think of an example in your own life when sacrifice or generosity on your part led to a sense of joy and freedom?

2)            How do you make decisions about what you give?

3)            What parts of yourself or your life do you still withhold from God?

Thinking about our company on the road:

1)            How socially varied is your church community> Why is that, do you think?

2)            Can you think of an example in your own life when you shared a sense of fellowship with an unusual bunch of people?

Then:

1)            Has there been any encounter in your life as a Christian, which you would describe as an “Emmaus Road” experience?

If you would like to hear the song by Fish the link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUIifWajXU