BEATRIX CALOW - Blog

Jesus of the Stockroom

22/6/2019

I used to work in a clothes shop.  It sold overpriced shirts and the sizing didn’t go above a UK 14 for women.  I used to resent the pretence you had to put on for every customer.  The mantra went: the nicer you were the more you sold.  You still had to be nice even if a purple-faced customer told you between clenched teeth that it was unacceptable that you’d run out of gift cards. Or when you’re angrily told that “it’s the most embarrassing that’s ever happened to me” when they set the security alarm off because you accidently left a tag on one of their purchases. For all the masks that were worn upstairs however, there was a rawness and a realness that happened in the basement stockroom.  Amid the graffiti-strewn walls, the bi-monthly infestation of clothes moths and the damp air was where Jesus hung out in conversations, questions and tears.

During one busy Christmas period me and a couple of other women were unpacking new stock down in the basement.  Standing around a large table we ripped open the thin plastic bags which encased each fresh item, folded them up and stacked them in neat piles ready to be stored away on shelves before they were needed on the shop floor.  We’d been chatting a bit about Christmas parties and boyfriends and reaching a soft lull in the conversation, one of the girls asked ‘how did you become religious Bea?’.  Slightly stunned, I knew I had a few options with which to answer.  Do I correct her use of the word ‘religious’ because I like to think I follow a man rather than a religion (decided that this would not be helpful).  Or do I tell her that I was once a sinner but Jesus came as an atoning sacrifice for my sins and now I get to go to heaven (I thought about this for a bit longer than the first option, but decided that it would be equally as unhelpful).  I looked at the girls around me as I unpacked a particularly silky t-shirt from its plastic wrap.  Girls with dysfunctional families, girls who hated being the dress size they were, girls who had been mistreated by boys, all whom are beautifully made in the image of God.  “Erm” I said, “well I kind of accidently started going to church when a university friend brought me along to a service one afternoon at the church she attended. I guess that I just always knew that God was real.”  A bit flustered by the pressure of the moment I blurted out “I used to be anorexic you know, because I hated so much about myself.  But God has been helping me to love myself.  A relationship with him is pretty healing”.  Feeling awkward and exposed I grabbed another item, this time a heavy woollen coat and busied myself with pulling bits of protective paper off the buttons.  One of the girls picked up the train of conversation “wow, I wish I could experience something like that”.  “You can” I added before the conversation landed on another topic.

As I thought about this small interchange later on in the day, I felt annoyed with myself that I hadn’t been more explicit, more doctrinal, or asked more questions.  It felt like an opportunity missed.  Reflecting since that stockroom conversation however, I have come to realise that Jesus rarely turns up in neatly, plastic-wrapped answers.  When we offer well-rehearsed platitudes I think it is often because we are scared of the messy reality of life.  I think Christians are hesitant to agree and say ‘life is crap’.  As if by admitting it, you are doubting God’s power and goodness.

Paul said that “to the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). Like Paul, I think it’s more about agreeing with the ‘life is difficult/unfair/a struggle’ statements that people make and then holding out our own healing wounds as an offering to others.  Sharing Jesus becomes a communal ‘me too’ rather than a power-play between ‘saved’ and ‘unsaved’.  At the end of the day, Jesus became all things to all people by becoming a person.  God doesn’t offer shrink-wrapped theological answers via a booming voice from heaven, he dirtied the hem of his robes by stepping down into the world.  He hung out with sinners, broke religious and gender taboos, used dirt to heal a man’s eyes, sweated, cried, bleed and felt pain. He wasn’t scared to speak out loud the harshness of life to those around him.  He demonstrated the biggest ‘me too’ the world has ever seen.  His wounds become the source of our ultimate healing. And just as he stepped down into the dusty streets of first-century Israel, I’m pretty certain he also walks into the filthy shop stockrooms through quiet conversations.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

#blessed

7/6/2019

If you do a search of the tag #blessed on social media, you'll find pictures of large family gatherings, new-born babies, couples on holiday, large hauls of birthday presents artfully arranged to show off to the online world…

...you get the picture (literally).

But what happens if you’re not in a position to receive any of these ‘blessings’? Or life just seems like one difficulty after the next?  You hardly ever see these sort of captions on posts:

My husband/ wife went off with someone else and now I live alone.
#blessed
I can never have children due to infertility.
#blessed
I’ve just been declared bankrupt and I’m going to be thrown out of my flat next week because I can’t pay the rent.
#blessed
I’ve been pushed out of the church I’ve faithfully served in for years for coming out as gay.
#blessed
I’ve been diagnosed with a long-term illness which has meant that I can no longer do the job I love anymore.
#blessed

One of my favourite bits of the Bible is Jesus’ ‘Sermon on the Mount’, a talk given up on a mountainside near the Sea of Galilee, as recorded in Matthews account of Jesus’ life.  There is much of it that I struggle to get my head around.  It is challenging yet comforting and simple yet paradoxical.  In a section commonly called the ‘Beatitudes’, he talks about those who are blessed in the Kingdom of God.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    For they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    For they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    For they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    For they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    For they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
    For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.

You won’t find these things posted on social media either.

Jesus’ version of those who are blessed is subversive and revolutionary.  Prior to this, people saw things such as financial success, the number of children in a family and victory over one’s enemies in battle as markers that God was with someone.  Lack of these therefore meant that God had turned his face from someone or that they were being punished by God for some sin or act of rebellion. Arguably, it’s still a very easy mindset to fall into.

I’ve wrestled with this way of thinking in various seasons of my life.  Last year I went through a breakup of a long-term relationship, which left me deeply wounded and hurt.  On the same day, my grandma died.  All the while I was in the throes of job hunting with months of being unsuccessful.  Half a year later, my parents decided to separate.  All those things I saw on social media and all the things I heard my friends talk about which constituted ‘blessed’, I didn’t have.  I became angry towards God.  I felt hurt and neglected by him.  If he was a loving father, then why wasn’t giving me good gifts like the Bible told me he would.  Truth be told, there are still days when I feel and think these things.  There are days when I become anxious that I’ve unwittingly committed some terrible sin and God is withholding his blessing from me to teach me a lesson.  There are days when I sit in the bath and cry out to my four walls because I’m not sure that God even exists.  There are days when I serve at church when teaching about God is the last thing I want to be doing.

But I don't think God’s love for us can be measured in career success, or financial success, or how ‘Christian’ your marriage is, or even how well you preach on a Sunday morning.  God’s love for us is seen in the healing, in the picking up of our shattered lives, in the never-ending forgiveness when we mess up because we are hurting.  It’s in the tiny provisions when you’ve been crying out for a breakthrough, it’s in strength to go on when you are grieving, it’s in the hunger to see a better world in the face of abuse.

I am slowly learning that the real blessings are found in the breaking.

Jesus knew this when he was condemned to die a criminal’s death on the cross.  He knew it when his friends abandoned him when he needed them most.  He knew it when he was charged as guilty when he was really innocent.  He knew this when his hands were torn apart by blunt nails. He also knows it when his body is broken again and again every Sunday morning and is eaten by hurting and broken people.

Reflecting on Communion over the past few months has been incredibly eye-opening for me. Often I turn up at the rail and kneel down on the rough, maroon carpet feeling so far from God.  Yet, I find real comfort in that his body had to be broken in order to bring new life.  It gives me hope that my wounds can also bring restoration to others.

Precisely where I feel my poverty is where I discover God's blessing.
-Henri Nouwen