I followed this scheme on Wednesday after Alison sent me our scripture readings and, as I did, I noted first a verse from each of today’s three readings touching on the unconditional love of God.
Here they are: ‘I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself’. Exodus 19:4b
‘God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us’. Romans 5:8
‘Jesus had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless’. Matthew 9:36a.
Inspired by these texts I picked up The Times and this passage leaped out at me under the pictures of two fine looking young people, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar (show):
‘The residents of Ilkeston Road, a built-up and busy student area of Nottingham, were used to the raucous night-time sounds of drunken revellers and police sirens. But the scream that cut through the heavy summer air in the early hours yesterday was clearly more sinister. Two university students, set upon and stabbed as they returned to their digs after a night out, were the first victims of a 90-minute rampage that resulted in a third killing elsewhere, three more people injured in a vehicle ramming attack, and a city in shock.
‘Ilkeston Road was relatively quiet at 4am when there was a “blood-curdling” scream and the two young victims, who attended the University of Nottingham, were seen tussling with a black man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a hood. Barnaby Webber, 19, a cricketer who previously attended Taunton School, was stabbed multiple times before he died in the street. His female companion, named locally as Grace O’Malley-Kumar, also 19, screamed “help” before staggering to a nearby house and collapsed at the front door. They had been returning from an end of term party and were just a few minutes walk from their homes’.
The tragic loss of two lovely young people of immense potential vexed my spirit. I found myself praying for Barnaby and Grace and another older victim, Ian Coates, with prayer fuelled by the scripture passages for Trinity 2 that had just impacted me, part of the three passages we have just heard in St Mary’s as preparation for pleading Christ’s Sacrifice at the parish eucharist.
‘That blood curdling scream, Lord, echoes in my heart’ I prayed. ‘That loud cry you made upon the Cross out of fear and pain, may it avail for Barnaby and Grace, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ You prove your love for us in dying for us. Jesus have compassion on them and their families and Nottingham and all impacted by this news report for we feel harassed and helpless in the face of this event. You, Lord, are mightier than the eagles so bear their souls as on eagles’ wings to bring them to yourself. Amen’.
That prayer flowed out of my immersion in both scripture and Wednesday’s news and it is a privilege to pray it with you. Maybe it will inspire your own prayer in the challenging situations you meet day by day not least through news media. Scripture, because it has a particular authority as 'the Word of God' is a particularly 'graced' servant of prayer. The very existence of Scripture is evidence of dialogue between human beings and God. To pray with Scripture can be, quite simply, an entering into that conversation, as demonstrated in the Book of Psalms.
As Our Lord voiced the dereliction he felt upon the Cross using the opening verse of Psalm 22 so we can use bible passages we identify with to lead us into dialogue with God, engaging him with our circumstances and the circumstances of others, be they uplifting and joyous or sorrowful and challenging such as those of Barnaby, Grace and Ian recorded in Wednesday’s paper.
We all benefit when we’re told we are loved and the Scriptures act as a wonderful reminder of God's love for us as we find especially in today’s readings.
St. Teresa of Avila taught people to pray in this way. "Imagine", she said, "that you see Jesus standing before you. He is looking at you lovingly and humbly. Prayer comes as you notice he is looking at you lovingly and humbly". The circumstances on the front of Wednesday’s paper seemed to me initially a long way from that loving gaze of God until they took me to the horrendous killing of his Son and that scream on Mount Calvary which is one with that of Barney, Grace and the cries of so many down the ages. ‘That loud cry you made upon the Cross out of fear and pain, Lord, may it avail for Barnaby and Grace, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’
Peter Abelard, controversial 11th century theologian, is the subject of a brilliant novel by Helen Waddell. One scene from her book has the theologian living in disgrace in a forest with his young friend Thibault. Abelard and Thibault hear a terrible cry in the woods. At first they think it is a child in agony, but they discover this terrible cry comes from a rabbit caught in a cruel trap. I quote from the book: ‘Thibault held the teeth of the trap apart, and Abelard gathered up the little creature in his hands. It lay for a moment breathing quickly, then in some blind recognition of the kindness that had met it at the last, the small head thrust and nestled against his arm, and it died. It was that last confiding thrust that broke Abelard’s heart. He looked down at the little bedraggled body, his mouth shaking.’ ‘Thibault,’ he said, ‘do you think there is a God at all? Whatever has come to me, I earned it. But what did this one do?’ Thibault nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Only - I think God is in it too.’ Abelard looked up sharply. ‘In it? Do you mean that it makes Him suffer, the way it does us?’ Again Thibault nodded. ‘Thibault, do you mean Calvary?’ Thibault shook his head. ‘That was only a piece of it – the piece that we saw – in time. Like that.’ He pointed to a fallen tree beside them, sawn through the middle. ‘That dark ring there, it goes up and down the whole length of the tree. But you only see it where it is cut across. That is what Christ’s life was; the bit of God that we saw.’ ‘Then, Thibault,’ said Abelard slowly, ‘you think that all this,’ he looked down at the little quiet body in his arms, ‘all the pain of the world, was Christ’s cross?’ ‘God’s cross,’ said Thibault. ‘And it goes on.’
‘I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself… God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us… Jesus had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless’ we read in today’s scripture pointing back to the cry of the Saviour on the Cross. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and always. With us he hears the death cries we hear or read of. ‘This is my body which is given for you… this is my blood which is shed for you’. As we take broken Bread and Wine from crushed grapes we take with them the invitation to be alongside the agonies of those in our circle and reported to us in the newspapers.
Let us take the preacher’s lesson holding the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, putting faith in a God whose love exceeds all we can imagine, whose ears are never deafened to human anguish and who expects nothing of us that he has not been prepared to endure himself.
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