i-Llan: 16th March 2025 – Trusting God in a Tangled World

Reflection on trusting God prompted by the readings for the second Sunday in Lent.
Genesis 15. 1-12, 17, 18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3.17 -- 4.1
Luke 13. 31-35
This Sunday’s readings are here.

A poem by Charles Causley, I am the Great Sun, from a Normandy crucifix of 1632 echoes the mood of the gospel. You can read it here.

A helpful prayer of trust from Thomas Merton starts:
 My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
 I do not see the road ahead of me. . .
 and the fact that I think I am following your will
 does not mean that I am actually doing so.
You can read it in full here. 

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Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting faith, life and scripture. This episode, on the second Sunday in Lent,  is about trusting God in a tangled world.

As a child, did you play Cat’s Cradle? You place a simple loop of string over your hands and, by manipulating it with finger and hand movements, produce a sequence of complicated patterns. The game ends when you make a mistake or no further patterns can be made. 

The world today feels to me rather like that, except that the cat’s cradle has become a tangled knot which is hard to unpick.

At first sight, this Sunday’s readings don’t appear to give much comfort or clarity! 

The first reading tells of a mysterious ritual of smoking pots and sacrificed animals as God makes a covenant—a treaty—with Abram. Underlying it is the promise of a land to be claimed, a land which is still in turmoil today.

The Psalm says 'though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear'. To be honest, I suspect that residents of war-torn cities today would find that a platitude; that just getting through from one horrific moment to the next takes all the courage they can muster.

St Paul writes to the church in Philippi that the lifestyle of those who ’live as enemies of the cross of Christ’ will ’end in destruction; . . . their minds are set on earthly things’. But, so often, those people seem to flourish.

And, in the gospel, Jesus is warned that Herod Antipas (son of the Christmas Herod) is out to kill him. Despotic rulers have always gone in for political assassination, and those who try to live according to their religious understanding, so often meet opposition.

So, where does that leave us? 

If one looks harder, there is a strand that runs through the readings: trust. Trust that enables us to face the inevitable opposition and obstacles to faith. Trust that God is working; that, in the words of Jesus in the gospel, he desires to gather his children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. 

So, Abram ‘believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness’. 

The Psalmist prays: Teach me your way, O Lord;
 lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And St Paul advises: ‘therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved’.

Turning from Cat’s Cradle to tapestry, those paintings in thread which adorn the walls of palaces: in Europe, traditional weavers work behind the tapestry which is set up on a vertical loom. They see the mess of knots and snipped off threads, the myriad spools of colour hanging down waiting to be brought into play again. It is from the front that the whole unbroken design is seen.

I believe that, in the tapestry of world affairs, God sees the whole complicated picture and works through individuals, working our mistakes into his design. It’s our job to be open to his direction, ready to weave our bit of the design according to his guidance. 

To that end, prayer is not telling God what to do but voicing our horrified compassion for the oppressed, acknowledging our own unwitting and unwilling complicity in unethical behaviour (political, economic, social), begging for wisdom for those who are in a position to influence matters, and asking for guidance as to how we can best play our part. 

That guidance can come when we sit in silence, waiting on God’s gentle nudge. It comes through studying the word of God in Scripture and in the lived experience of others in the faith community. It comes from trusted friends who walk alongside us in the faith.

We don’t know what the future holds and we can only act in the present. But we can choose to live each day as a friend rather than an enemy of Christ, and to walk one step at a time trusting that God will guide us. And that is enough.

This week’s collect prayer expresses it:
Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant that all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
may reject those things that are contrary to their baptism,
and follow in the way of Jesus Christ our Lord.

And my prayer: 
May God gather you under her wings  
and guide your steps as you seek to walk in his ways. Amen.