GOOD MORNING GOD
THREE PRIEST POETS AND THEIR MORNING VERSES
CHARLES WESLEY
"Christ whose glory fills the skies" [as well to have the texts with you.]
One of the turning points in my ill disciplined inner life was the moment I decided I must learn to pray when I wake up in the morning I cannot now remember what sparked the idea off but the instinct was valuable. It is a cliché to say the human race is divided between owls and larks but I am certainly not a lark. When super priests tell of how wonderful it is spend time with God when you wake up bright and breezy in the morning the human part of me shudders. It must be congenital in my family because my three year old grand daughter when she is staying the night climbs into our bed in the early hours and when the alarm clock goes off she covers her face and says "I'm tired. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to go to nursery." Half an hour later the balance has been restored again of course but it is reassuring to hear such a young life whose gut instinct at seven o'clock is not to welcome the new day.
The only way you can change your life pattern is by a supreme act of will sparked off in your guts. That is how I stopped smoking twenty years ago after forty years on the weed and never felt the urge again . Even now after many years I fail to remember what should be my first thoughts on waking; but mostly I manage something . That is not a matter of virtue; it is just something essential if one is not going to drift through the day and then drift through the week, the year and the life. Drifting through life is perhaps the most ruinous thing you can do for your soul - it is why sloth is one of the seven deadly sins - or as someone once translated the word "spiritual fed upness". My morning act of prayer is minimal. It consists of reciting a morning hymn and reciting a prayer. We will say that prayer at the beginning of each of my talks - as we already have done today. Then I will try to delve into the reaches of one of three morning poems written by Church of England Priests.
Perhaps the greatest morning hymn is Chas W's "Christ whose glory fills the skies". It is still sung frequently in most churches. First though a word about Charles. He tends to be a shadowy figure because big brother John was so demanding a personality. They were reared not all that far from here in the rectory at Lutterworth; and like many great characters were blessed with a strong and formidable mother. When they were young men they were for a while of a radical disposition. John is reputed to have exclaimed "Mother the voice of the people is the voice of God" "Precisely" replied Susannah W " I believe they said Crucify him"
I think the two brothers are a good example of the dictum that if you are not a radical when you are young then you haven't got a heart. If you are still a radical at middle age then you haven't got a head".
Charles lived to a ripe old age - 81 was very good for the 18th century - and was the muse of the Wesley partnership. Only recently I discovered that Chas underwent an evangelical conversion experience BEFORE John did; and it was he who encouraged his big brother to venture into that field where Christ turns your life around..
Charles was a poet - his hymns continue to be popular because they are a quality product and not just churchy verse. Mind you good hymns are not the same as good poems. There are not many if any great poems in our hymn books because hymns are didactic verse and the line between verse and poetry is an elusive one..
Verse one. This is a poem about the spirituality of weather. For Chas Jesus Christ is to the soul as the sun is to the eyes. This whole song is a prayer for the gift of illumination. The classical spiritual guides suggest three stages in our prayer life. We begin with meditation ; thinking about the faith and digesting what we learn. Jesus encouraged that. He did not typically invite us to indulge in esoteric practices. He would say to his hearers "What do you think ?" This present exercise is of that nature. Then as we persevere in prayer, at his own discretion God shines his light into our minds and our souls and begin to see spiritually. The third stage is that of contemplation where it is enough to rest in the presence of God and enjoy him/her.
We notice the phrase Son of Righteousness - the classic poets like puns. Sun is either the golden orb or the Father's child. The trouble is we sing the words and really forget. We gain a vague sense of being cheered up but in fact pay little attention to the words we sing. That is true I think of much of our church singing.
But perhaps we might think about blind Bartimaeus. He calls to Jesus for mercy and so is brought into the presence of the Master. Jesus says to him "What can I do for you" and he replies "I want my sight back" He knew what he wanted and asked for it. There is a directness here which perhaps is often missing from your spiritual life and mine.The way to enlightenment is to ask; pray that we may see in every dimension of that word. We may have to go through long tunnels. It is a pity that we do not always make it clear to folk that the tunnels are part of normal spiritual experiences - folk think that God has let them down or that they have let god down or more likely that the whole god thing is a hoax. It sounds to me as if Charles knew those tunnels. Day spring, [the dawn], from on high draw near. Daystar [sun] in my heart appear. The verdict of experience is that the Day Star does appear at some point, sooner or later in our lives .just as it does in the seasonal calendar. But we cannot command it. The promise is that one day the truth will begin to dawn upon us and as the psalm says "in thy light shall we see light"
Verse 2. What are the shadows where light is hiding ? It can be brief and simple. When Sally and I were courting I was teaching in college and S was sixty miles away. She would come over for some quality time at weekends. After Chapel one Monday morning our college organist extemporised a fugue on the words "Dark and cheerless is the morn unaccompanied by thee."
Life can be miserable when separated from our soul friend. But Chas is of course talking about life where God seems to be absent. The consequences might be that we say that God talk is an illusion and throw in the towel of faith. Or we might become clinically depressed. Clergy suffer from what they call ministry burnout. That comes from dispensing God to all and sundry at one end without knowing the input of God's love at the other. Joyless is the days return till thy mercies beams I see. Till they INWARD light import;' glad my hears and joy my heart. We are reminded that we are are really singing about the challenges to our prayer life rather than any kind of climate charge. But that our lives are subject to climate change in the spirit is well attested and we should not be surprised id God seems to be hiding under a cloud. Great spiritual writers suggest that we have to learn to get on with our lives without being constantly being held up like a swimmer with arm bands. When the God who we once rejoiced in is hiding himself then we are to bombard what is called the cloud of unknowing with our little darts of love.
So what do we want this slightly reclusive God to do for us.
Visit then this soul of mine
Cleanse it from its sin and grief.
A life that has not been cleaned up is not going to live comfortably with God. Cleanse it from its sin and grief. Two things make our life grey. One is consciousness of guilt and Deprivation of joy and happiness. Sin along with death are the two unspoken words of our days. The big mistake to my mind about all the intra church arguments about gender sex and morality is that the Christian church should be concerned about holiness of life rather than matters of public morality. In Romans 14 Paul says to Christians who are quarrelling about their interpretation of their faith "Who are you to criticise someone else's servant; especially when that someone else is God ?" It is to God we have to answer in the end and if there is one thing certain in the Gospels it is that Jesus' answer to your questions will never be the answer you expect.
In my younger days it was more common for people in one way or another to do business with God. Coming on retreat is one good method. We need to do what we can to enable God to deal with any part of our life that needs servicing. We need to do what we can to enable God to deal with any dark place in our lives where he is not welcome. That's sin. Grief ? Sad things happen and they can become a barrier. Sometimes we see it very simply. At the end of a funeral of a woman who had died of a long and painful cancer her daughter stalked past me with the words "You can't expect me to shake hands with you after what YOUR God did to MY mum"
Do we have a secret grief that is getting in the way of fellowship with Christ.
And there is a third barrier. Chas knew them all.
Come thou radiancy divine ; scatter all my unbelief.
We can recite the creed till the cows come home but it is so very easy to descend into a practical atheism. Sometimes the forecasters tell us that the summer sun will burn off the cloud covering. That is what Chas prays for. The cloud of unbelief protects us from the reality of the God in whom we once rejoiced. We go to church We say our prayers but really in the end we do not expect God to do very much about our concerns. So our hymn ends as it began and continued . It ends with the prayer
More and more thyself display
Shining to the perfect day.
Chas knew his bible - that is a quote from the book of proverbs.
O Lord look down from your eternal throne and illuminate the darkness of our night with your celestial brightness and from the children of light banish the deeds of darkness.
CHARLES WESLEY
"Christ whose glory fills the skies" [as well to have the texts with you.]
One of the turning points in my ill disciplined inner life was the moment I decided I must learn to pray when I wake up in the morning I cannot now remember what sparked the idea off but the instinct was valuable. It is a cliché to say the human race is divided between owls and larks but I am certainly not a lark. When super priests tell of how wonderful it is spend time with God when you wake up bright and breezy in the morning the human part of me shudders. It must be congenital in my family because my three year old grand daughter when she is staying the night climbs into our bed in the early hours and when the alarm clock goes off she covers her face and says "I'm tired. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to go to nursery." Half an hour later the balance has been restored again of course but it is reassuring to hear such a young life whose gut instinct at seven o'clock is not to welcome the new day.
The only way you can change your life pattern is by a supreme act of will sparked off in your guts. That is how I stopped smoking twenty years ago after forty years on the weed and never felt the urge again . Even now after many years I fail to remember what should be my first thoughts on waking; but mostly I manage something . That is not a matter of virtue; it is just something essential if one is not going to drift through the day and then drift through the week, the year and the life. Drifting through life is perhaps the most ruinous thing you can do for your soul - it is why sloth is one of the seven deadly sins - or as someone once translated the word "spiritual fed upness". My morning act of prayer is minimal. It consists of reciting a morning hymn and reciting a prayer. We will say that prayer at the beginning of each of my talks - as we already have done today. Then I will try to delve into the reaches of one of three morning poems written by Church of England Priests.
Perhaps the greatest morning hymn is Chas W's "Christ whose glory fills the skies". It is still sung frequently in most churches. First though a word about Charles. He tends to be a shadowy figure because big brother John was so demanding a personality. They were reared not all that far from here in the rectory at Lutterworth; and like many great characters were blessed with a strong and formidable mother. When they were young men they were for a while of a radical disposition. John is reputed to have exclaimed "Mother the voice of the people is the voice of God" "Precisely" replied Susannah W " I believe they said Crucify him"
I think the two brothers are a good example of the dictum that if you are not a radical when you are young then you haven't got a heart. If you are still a radical at middle age then you haven't got a head".
Charles lived to a ripe old age - 81 was very good for the 18th century - and was the muse of the Wesley partnership. Only recently I discovered that Chas underwent an evangelical conversion experience BEFORE John did; and it was he who encouraged his big brother to venture into that field where Christ turns your life around..
Charles was a poet - his hymns continue to be popular because they are a quality product and not just churchy verse. Mind you good hymns are not the same as good poems. There are not many if any great poems in our hymn books because hymns are didactic verse and the line between verse and poetry is an elusive one..
Verse one. This is a poem about the spirituality of weather. For Chas Jesus Christ is to the soul as the sun is to the eyes. This whole song is a prayer for the gift of illumination. The classical spiritual guides suggest three stages in our prayer life. We begin with meditation ; thinking about the faith and digesting what we learn. Jesus encouraged that. He did not typically invite us to indulge in esoteric practices. He would say to his hearers "What do you think ?" This present exercise is of that nature. Then as we persevere in prayer, at his own discretion God shines his light into our minds and our souls and begin to see spiritually. The third stage is that of contemplation where it is enough to rest in the presence of God and enjoy him/her.
We notice the phrase Son of Righteousness - the classic poets like puns. Sun is either the golden orb or the Father's child. The trouble is we sing the words and really forget. We gain a vague sense of being cheered up but in fact pay little attention to the words we sing. That is true I think of much of our church singing.
But perhaps we might think about blind Bartimaeus. He calls to Jesus for mercy and so is brought into the presence of the Master. Jesus says to him "What can I do for you" and he replies "I want my sight back" He knew what he wanted and asked for it. There is a directness here which perhaps is often missing from your spiritual life and mine.The way to enlightenment is to ask; pray that we may see in every dimension of that word. We may have to go through long tunnels. It is a pity that we do not always make it clear to folk that the tunnels are part of normal spiritual experiences - folk think that God has let them down or that they have let god down or more likely that the whole god thing is a hoax. It sounds to me as if Charles knew those tunnels. Day spring, [the dawn], from on high draw near. Daystar [sun] in my heart appear. The verdict of experience is that the Day Star does appear at some point, sooner or later in our lives .just as it does in the seasonal calendar. But we cannot command it. The promise is that one day the truth will begin to dawn upon us and as the psalm says "in thy light shall we see light"
Verse 2. What are the shadows where light is hiding ? It can be brief and simple. When Sally and I were courting I was teaching in college and S was sixty miles away. She would come over for some quality time at weekends. After Chapel one Monday morning our college organist extemporised a fugue on the words "Dark and cheerless is the morn unaccompanied by thee."
Life can be miserable when separated from our soul friend. But Chas is of course talking about life where God seems to be absent. The consequences might be that we say that God talk is an illusion and throw in the towel of faith. Or we might become clinically depressed. Clergy suffer from what they call ministry burnout. That comes from dispensing God to all and sundry at one end without knowing the input of God's love at the other. Joyless is the days return till thy mercies beams I see. Till they INWARD light import;' glad my hears and joy my heart. We are reminded that we are are really singing about the challenges to our prayer life rather than any kind of climate charge. But that our lives are subject to climate change in the spirit is well attested and we should not be surprised id God seems to be hiding under a cloud. Great spiritual writers suggest that we have to learn to get on with our lives without being constantly being held up like a swimmer with arm bands. When the God who we once rejoiced in is hiding himself then we are to bombard what is called the cloud of unknowing with our little darts of love.
So what do we want this slightly reclusive God to do for us.
Visit then this soul of mine
Cleanse it from its sin and grief.
A life that has not been cleaned up is not going to live comfortably with God. Cleanse it from its sin and grief. Two things make our life grey. One is consciousness of guilt and Deprivation of joy and happiness. Sin along with death are the two unspoken words of our days. The big mistake to my mind about all the intra church arguments about gender sex and morality is that the Christian church should be concerned about holiness of life rather than matters of public morality. In Romans 14 Paul says to Christians who are quarrelling about their interpretation of their faith "Who are you to criticise someone else's servant; especially when that someone else is God ?" It is to God we have to answer in the end and if there is one thing certain in the Gospels it is that Jesus' answer to your questions will never be the answer you expect.
In my younger days it was more common for people in one way or another to do business with God. Coming on retreat is one good method. We need to do what we can to enable God to deal with any part of our life that needs servicing. We need to do what we can to enable God to deal with any dark place in our lives where he is not welcome. That's sin. Grief ? Sad things happen and they can become a barrier. Sometimes we see it very simply. At the end of a funeral of a woman who had died of a long and painful cancer her daughter stalked past me with the words "You can't expect me to shake hands with you after what YOUR God did to MY mum"
Do we have a secret grief that is getting in the way of fellowship with Christ.
And there is a third barrier. Chas knew them all.
Come thou radiancy divine ; scatter all my unbelief.
We can recite the creed till the cows come home but it is so very easy to descend into a practical atheism. Sometimes the forecasters tell us that the summer sun will burn off the cloud covering. That is what Chas prays for. The cloud of unbelief protects us from the reality of the God in whom we once rejoiced. We go to church We say our prayers but really in the end we do not expect God to do very much about our concerns. So our hymn ends as it began and continued . It ends with the prayer
More and more thyself display
Shining to the perfect day.
Chas knew his bible - that is a quote from the book of proverbs.
O Lord look down from your eternal throne and illuminate the darkness of our night with your celestial brightness and from the children of light banish the deeds of darkness.
Owen
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