Isaiah 40.21-31

RECHARGING THE BATTERIES

I want this morning to give you two texts upon which to focus your attention.

The first one comes from lsaiah 40.31:

'Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.'

And the second text comes from from St Mark 1.35:

'In the morning, while it was still dark, (Jesus) got up and went out to a desert place, and there he prayed.'

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l started my ministry, some 44 years ago, as a curate of an inner city parish in Liverpool.

It consisted of some 25,000 souls, served by a Rector and three or four curates. We all lived together in the Rectory, cared for by a ferocious, resident housekeeper and a daily who came in each morning.

Each day started with the Rector bringing to us curates a cup of tea at 7 am. By 7.30am we were expected to be in church for the daily Eucharist followed by Morning Prayer. On Wednesdays, this was preceded by each of us taking the Reserved Sacrament to the patients in the nearby hospital at 6.30am.

Breakfast was at 8.30am, and by 9am we were in our bed sits doing correspondence, preparing for services and talks, reading and interviews. This was interrupted for fifteen minutes at 10.45am when we had morning coffee together. However, on Tuesday mornings, we all went to the church school to teach Religious Education for an hour.

Lunch was served at 1pm at which there were often guests present. Between 2pm and 2.30pm we had a chance for secular reading & maybe a snooze. But at 2.30 pm we were expected to be out visiting all new admissions to the hospital in our respective wards, and parishioners in their homes, and woe betide the curate who was still in the Rectory at 2.35pm.

Following the visiting we met again at church for Evening Prayer, though one person was always on duty for Churchings at 5.30pm.

Our evening meal was served at 6.30pm, and by 7.30pm we were out again visiting the many parish organisations that were meeting, or again the homes of parishioners, or attending meetings. When I was planning the building of an Open Youth Centre, it was not unknown to have three meetings in one evening, the first starting at 7.30pm, the second at 8.45pm and the final one at 10pm!

This daily pattern of work was interrupted every six months with crematorium duty, and every six weeks with cemetery duty, whereby we conducted all the funerals. I recall one particular flu epidemic which saw us starting at 8am and finishing at 6pm with a

cremation every twenty minutes in order to cope with the deaths! In addition, we were called out two or three times a week to conduct an Emergency Baptism at the local maternity unit.

We were entitled to one day off a week. Much of this was often spent catching up on our sleep. Being able to go out anywhere was severely limited by finance available after we had paid for our keep, since Liverpool paid its curates only 435 pounds as

compared with Durham which paid 650 pounds per annum.

In short, the work was extremely demanding, but it was tremendous fun, and I would not have had it otherwise. Fortunately, we were all bachelors. We seldom went to bed the same day that we got up.!

The one thing that kept us sane was the hour and a half we spent each day in prayer. This was the springboard of our ministry. No wonder Canon Law in its wisdom lays down that every clergyman should say the two Daily Offices in church every day, causing a bell to be rung, unless prevented by an emergency. In the saying of these Offices one recharges one's batteries, giving one strength to face the future.

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I can therefore appreciate the need that Jesus had to get up early, when it was still dark, and go out into a deserted place to pray, as we were told in Mark 1.35. After all, on leaving the worship of the synagogue the previous day he had gone to the home of Simon Peter, where he found Peter's mother-in-law sick and he healed her. The news of this quickly spread, and we are told that at sundown, the people; brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. In fact we are told that 'the whole city was gathered at the door'. Jesus must have been not only physically exhausted, but also spiritually exhausted. No wonder he needed to recharge his physical and spiritual

batteries first thing in the morning.

In Isaiah 40, we find the Jewish nation living in exile in Babylon, cut off from their homeland. In their disappointment, they began to think that God had forgotten them and that they would never see Jerusalem again.

Instead of running around like headless chickens and complaining, the prophet encourages them to turn to God in prayer and not lose heart. He assures them that

'those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.' [40.31]

And as you know, God did hear their prayer and they returned to Jerusalem with their batteries recharged, some fifty years later.

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And what of ourselves?

In your endless activity and rushing around, do you forget God?

As J E Southall reminds us in his book, The Power of Stillness: 'We cannot go through life strong and fresh on a constant express train; but we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength,

and learn to mount up on wings of eagles, and then to come back to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint'.

Now that is easier said than done, as I discovered when I tried to put those words into practice as a teenager at school. As soon as one settles down, the telephone rings, someone knocks at the door, or the TV adverts (which always appear louder that the film one is watching) interrupts one's concentration.

Furthermore, one can always find something which needs doing NOW.

However, the solution for me was to cycle in my school lunch hour to St Mary Le Tower Church, and sit in church initially at least fifteen minutes. Soon those fifteen minutes became twenty minutes, and those twenty minutes became twenty five minutes, and those twenty five minutes became thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of pure relaxation in the presence of God.

Having disciplined my body and mind to be still, I used to use a simple pattern of prayer called ACTS, rather than just day dream.

A = Adoration of the beauty and majesty of God who has called little me to follow him.

C = Confession, when I looked back over the past twenty four hours and recalled all those things which I had said or thought or done which had marred the image of God within me.

T = Thanksgiving as I recalled all the blessings of life.

And finally, S = Supplication when l brought before God those people or situations which were uppermost in my mind.

A, C, T, S. I believe it is essential, if we are to use the precious time profitably, that we have some simple structure in our time of quietness, else we shall just waste away those precious minutes.

In his book, Searching for God, the late Basil Hume, talks about the 'market place' and the 'desert place'. The 'market place' represents our involvement in the world, and the 'desert place' represents our withdrawal from activity in order to meet God. Sadly, as he acknowledges, there is always a tension between the two and it is therefore important to get the balance right. So often we flee from the 'desert' because we are fearful of solitude, or of the demands that God might make upon us. But, as Basil Hume points out: 'We shall never be safe in the market place unless we are at home in the desert'.

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And so I urge each one of you to ensure you have a regular 'desert place' in your daily life, when you can recharge your batteries through prayer.

If it was necessary for Jesus, it must surely be necessary for you and for me.