13 minute read
A Long Night’s Work and Empty Nets
By Rev. Casi M. Jones, The Union of Welsh Independents (UWI)
The Rev. Casi M. Jones is an ordained minister with UWI and is currently the pastor of Emaus Church in Bangor, north Wales. Emaus is a new, interdenominational church, comprising of two former churches, Pendref (UWI) and Penuel (BUW). Her late husband, Lloyd, was an Anglican priest in the Bangor diocese of the Church in Wales. They have two sons: Dafydd Mackenzie and Tomos Llwyd.
Earlier this year, I was invited to lead a bible study for ministers and leaders of the Baptist Union of Wales and to preach in the AGM of Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg (The Union of Welsh Independents) and managed to do both from the comfort of my own home. Preparing for these Zoom meetings inspired me to look again at one of my favourite resurrection stories from St John’s Gospel, chapter 21:1–14 and this in turn became a way of reflecting on this strange new parallel universe we were flung into back in the spring of 2020.
We join the disciples as they decide to go fishing, and hear that they worked hard all night but caught nothing.
The disciples’ frustration resonates with us as ministers and churches as we look back on a very strange eighteen months of cancelled services and silent buildings. Even when we tentatively ventured back to worship together, with masks, sitting two metres apart, and for a while we weren’t allowed to The Revd Casi Jones (centre) with Elain Edwards and Morgan Sion on Easter Sunday 2020 sing. It may sound like a cliché but as Welsh when they became the newest members of the church at Emaus, Bangor. Christians, not being able to sing hymns has been really hard for us. If doing without our buildings was a challenge, moving back to our buildings has been even more of a challenge. We’ve had to keep abreast of the constant changes in the legislation and this has meant the constant creating and amending of risk assessments. No wonder many of us are now feeling tired and anxious.
As they head for the shore, the disciples see a stranger on the beach who invites them to share their story with him. It’s the Lord but they don’t recognise him. Exhausted, and totally fed up they don’t recognise him even though they’ve travelled miles with him and shared meals with him over a period of several years.
As we look back over the months since the beginning of the first lockdown in the spring of 2020 we remember the devastating loss of lives. We as a family lost a dear husband and father suddenly and unexpectedly at a time when we couldn’t gather with friends or give and receive hugs. Even those who didn’t lose loved ones will remember the anguish of months spent apart from family members and friends and the disruption to the pattern of our everyday life. Many businesses struggled and many jobs were lost. As we look back over the last eighteen months, it would be so easy to see nothing but empty nets and fail to see Jesus at work, and fail to recognize his presence in our own trials and tribulations let alone in the wider narrative. But he was at work and is still at work if only we are willing to pause for a minute, to look up and recognise him. Where might we discern Jesus at work in his Church over the last eighteen months? As we review our own story we should be aware that not everyone has travelled the same road. Some churches here in Wales have taken the difficult decision to close forever while others feel stronger and have managed to reach new people. Many like us will feel that there have been both gains and losses along the way.
The Miraculous Draft of Fishes. Artist: Raphael (1483–1520).. Image taken by M.chohan.
After a long night’s work and empty nets, the last thing the disciples expected was a bumper catch of fish.
Tired and a little fed up, we could be tempted to give up after the struggles of the past eighteen months, but instead we should be expecting great things from the Lord, gains that have nothing at all to do with how we feel or what we have left to give but has all to do with Jesus being Lord. We know that Jesus has promised never to leave us but will need to open our eyes to the truth that he has been at work through his Church and through movements and trends in the world around us. Just as we thought that everything had ground to a halt, Jesus was in fact at work in new and unexpected ways. With hindsight we are able to sense where he’s been at work, a bit like deducing that a young child has been in a room when we find traces of glitter.
Might I suggest several ways the Church has experienced Christ at work during the pandemic? Though I’m sure you may be able to think of many more:
Shifting our focus
Over the last eighteen months, we’ve seen a total shift of focus in our churches from the chapel building to people’s homes. Some churches saw more people in Zoom services than they had seen in the chapel for years. Others have sensed more interest in spiritual matters from those who would normally have considered themselves at the margins of church life. It became more apparent to all of us, even to church leaders (who ought to know better), that the main focus of our Christian faith should be our everyday lives rather than our buildings. Instead of deciding whether or not to ‘go to Chapel’ there is more of an idea that people have a responsibility to nurture their own spiritual lives and to choose how they can best receive sustenance – perhaps by joining a service on zoom or reading devotional material at home, tuning in to television and radio broadcasts or following a live streamed service on Facebook.
Doing things differently Jesus invites his disciples to have another go at fishing, but suggests they try doing it in a different way and they manage to land a bumper catch of fish.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, as leaders and churches we’ve had no choice but to do things differently. We found ourselves thrown into a completely new ball game that meant implementing changes that were often long overdue. We had to improvise and experiment, and do things in ways that we might not have been comfortable with in the past and yet this often brought a spontaneity to what we were doing. Difficult though life has been, we have to admit that in recent months we’ve felt more purposeful and alive as churches than we have for many years and have been more prepared to listen to our church members than before, and have learnt to cater for different needs rather than offering a ‘one size fits all’ service.
Engaging with each other
In our church in Emaus, Bangor we have found it quite a challenge to keep in contact with our membership but this effort to communicate, has in itself made us feel more like a family than before. Back in the early days of Nonconformity in Wales our mothers and fathers in the faith had to meet secretly to worship in times of persecution and in better times they started ‘causes’ and built chapels from scratch. These adventures of faith must have really brought them together and bonded them. And although today many things around us seem weakened by the pandemic, the fellowship in our churches may well have become stronger because of our common journey through hard times.
From shyness to sharing
Like many other churches, we have a monthly newsletter to share information about up and coming events and services and church members can share news and stories. During the pandemic I was surprised by how keen our members were to share their memories and interests, how keen they were to send in beautiful pictures of their gardens and visiting wildlife. This new openness in people who might have counted themselves fairly reserved seems to me a true, though hidden, sign of Jesus at work.
Costly giving
Supporting various charities and fundraising activities has always been an integral part of our church life but as soon as we ceased to meet face to face and were discouraged from taking collections this became a real challenge as it did for many other churches. Just at a time when those in need were forced into even worse financial difficulties, donating money and food became more of a challenge for us. But many individuals and churches carried on supporting food banks and sending aid overseas, showing Christ’s care and compassion for the weakest and most vulnerable in a costly way.
But we shouldn’t think that Christ’s work is limited to the efforts of individual Christians and Churches. Over the past eighteen months, we’ve seen movements and trends in society amongst people of different faiths or no faith that show God’s Kingdom breaking in to people’s everyday lives and changing them. I would like to suggest a few recent trends and public debates where we might have glimpsed Christ at work, though again, you may be able to think of many more:
A change of heart
We’ve seen many people talking about and showing a certain change of heart during lockdown. One of Jesus’s first sermons was a call for people to repent, to start thinking in a new way, to listen to God’s priorities and act upon them. I’m not suggesting that
we’ve seen a great shift towards Christianity in recent months but many people seem to have felt challenged to take a good hard look at their lives. Many have spoken of their regret about taking their family and friends for granted in the past, of having been too busy to appreciate the simple things in life like homemade food and birdsong. Some have admitted that they haven’t given time to think what life is really all about and many have decided to live more thoughtful and caring lives from now on.
Challenging injustice
During the last two years, we’ve also seen injustice in our society challenged in a new way, a true sign of the emerging kingdom of God in our midst. We were all called to repent of the way that Black lives haven’t mattered to us and we were forced to face up to the truth that girls and women still suffer sexual harassment in the workplace and that many live in constant fear of being attacked on their way home. And even though our planet enjoyed a temporary kind of Sabbath due to lockdown, we’ve been forced to admit the damage we as human beings have inflicted on our planet over the last centuries and the need for a total change of mind, heart and lifestyle, a real metanoia, in order to safeguard our common home and the most vulnerable communities on earth.
These days we notice that many people who would be reticent to show any public expression of emotion have taken to miming hugs and blowing kisses as they social distance. (I’m sure that many of you reading this will wince at the thought of this kind of behaviour and would like the two metre rule to stay in place long after the pandemic!) When Jesus taught his disciples in a small group and when he preached to the masses, he was never shy of talking about love and encouraging his listeners to love each other and care for each other. Since the beginning of the pandemic we’ve seen some people beginning to lower their defences for the first time, greeting strangers, encouraging them to ‘stay safe’ and have offered to help neighbours and people in need they scarcely knew before. Paul speaks of Christ as one who has come to break down barriers between different groups, creating one new humanity from diverse and often opposing groups. And in a way, we’ve caught a glimpse of this, however fleeting and transient it may prove to be, as we begin to move towards a post pandemic society that may be tempted back to its old self-centered way of living.
Looking at our inner life
Jesus’s teaching in the Gospels includes guidance on how to manage our inner thoughts and feelings and shows a deep understanding of how our inner life is the source of our actions. It isn’t enough to hold back from killing someone, we have to learn not to hate them and not bear a grudge. It isn’t enough to decide not to steal someone else’s possessions, we need to learn not to allow our lives to be poisoned by envy and greed. Even though it may not seem to be expressed in a religious context, we do hear much more talk nowadays about mental health problems. People are encouraged to express their feelings as the first step on the way to freedom from anxiety, fear and loneliness. This quest for healing and wholeness among people of faith and those of no particular faith is surely a sign of God’s kingdom of healing and wholeness at work.
Costly sacrifice
Arguably the most central theme of the Christian faith is God’s love shown in Jesus’s death on the Cross. As Christians, we’re encouraged to lift up our cross and follow Christ, to lose our lives in order to gain them, to give without counting the cost and to deny ourselves in order to serve each other. During this pandemic, we’ve witnessed an amazing willingness by people from all walks of life and backgrounds to serve others in a sacrificial way. Some of the medical and caring professions died as they tried to save and heal total strangers. Many worked extra shifts or cancelled holidays and lived apart from their families to keep others safe. We were all called to sacrifice in small simple ways by staying at home and not seeing members of our family in order to save lives. In a society that has preached about rights and freedoms, that has encouraged us to think of our own needs first, this willingness to put others first is a true sign of God’s kingdom in our midst. As the tired fishermen drag the nets ashore, Jesus is waiting for them and invites them to join him and serves them fish that he has prepared for them. He adds some of the fish they have just caught to the meal.
As churches, we’ve learnt a lot about mission over the last eighteen months and may feel that we must put all of it to good use straight away, however tired we feel. As the exhausted disciples reach the shore they are welcomed by a compassionate Jesus who rather than wanting to be served, serves them and feeds them. He doesn’t give them a lecture on how to fish or send them straight out to share the good news but instead he attends to their needs first. We must never forget that we as churches are as much in need of God’s blessing as those we will choose to go out to bless in his name. As I write these words, the cases of Covid-19 here in Wales are rising and we may face further lockdowns between now and next spring. The Church here in Wales, and worldwide, still faces many challenges but, despite our difficulties, we need to hold on to the truth that our story is a resurrection story, a story where we encounter the living Christ and can expect to be blessed even as we carry our empty nets. We must pause, look up and see that the one who promised never to leave us is indeed with us, ready with his words of encouragement and full of compassion towards us.
