By the Rivers of Babylon

I woke this morning with a deep and profound feeling of, almost, depression. A formidable cloud hung over me; optimism was lost; a feeling of gloom pervaded my awakeness. I turned to self-examination and repentance, but, although I said Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner, this was not in itself the cause. I read my morning psalm, 98, but this was no help. There is little point in reading a 'kingship psalm which highlights the victory of God' (Jewish Study Bible) when there is no feeling of being in a victory.

I felt more like I was lost in Psalm 137,

By the streams of Babylon,

there we wept at the thought of Sion.

How can we sing the Eternal's songs,

here, in a foreign land?

[Psalm 137:1, 4 Moffatt]

Up until yesterday there were early roses in my spring garden, metaphorically, and bees, birds and flowers besides, literally. The jubilee of COVID-19 shut-down had produced a feeling of being gently and calmingly shalom-filled.  Until this morning when the storm broke over me.

But, what was the issue that was troubling me? I turned to prayer for the Church in our land, as I ever do after reading my morning Psalm - remember, the kingship psalm that had resounded like a broken bell?  I just could not pray; I had nothing to say or speak over God's Church in my land. So, I defaulted to my prayer for the terminally hopeless: Lord have mercy on ...

Around a quarter of my way through, which was taking a lot longer than usual, a rhythm emerged. As I prayed for each person and place, a picture of that person and a feeling for their circumstances emerged to drive the prayer. The prayers were identical in words, whether for a Christian or not, but the effects were individual. And the reasons behind my gloom - now turned to calmness - had merged from the dark early pre-dawn mist.

Only prayer can do this. Only time set aside regularly to step radically into God's presence. Only the emergent need to understand what God had been saying to us can draw us nearer the Father heart of God.

The Church in Scotland is dying.

I was praying recently with one of our local priests. We were reminiscing about the visit of Pope John Paul II to Glasgow in 1982. '350,000 people attended', I reminisced. 'We'd be lucky to get 100,000 today' my brother responded. A drop of 250,000 serious members in under 40 years. Many churches of all denominations boast a deeply skewed demographic, mainly composed of over 60's. Numerically, few churches have people aged under 40. Growth is through transfer, rarely by conversion. Baptisms and marriages are few. If there is an emphasis it is upon maintenance rather than new growth.

As I sat quietly pondering with my after-prayer cuppa, I saw in my mind's eye, a huge rugged rocky mountain. It was as if I had emerged from my bivouac tent, unzipped the front, stuck my head out and - there it was in all its awesome terror. All my easy boasts of creating new growth and new life into God's failing Church in my land were as I was to this mountain.

The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, famously met the Irish President, Eamonn DeValera and said, 'the situation today in Britain is serious, but not hopeless'. De Valera replied, 'And the situation in Ireland is hopeless but not serious."  I think that this morning God said to me, 'the situation for the Church in Scotland is both serious and hopeless.'

I feel that since my conversion in 1982 I have tried every human trick in my knapsack: spiritual warfare, church-planting, even taking on the human powers-that-be in the Church. These have varied from at best ineffective to at worst catastrophic. I could spend the last of my three score years and ten repeating this nonsense - but it is all human stuff.

It is time for me to rely totally on God and see if he has any new ideas and plans that are better than mine have been. That will probably take a period of more contemplation, repentance, prayer, and patient waiting.

Brother John,
St Annan's Chapel.