A Lenten Walk Through Redhill – A Different Sort Of Lenten Meditation…..

From Fr Andrew – February 2010

Luke 14:16 Luke 14:30 Luke 5:2  Matt 9:36 Matt 19:27 Mark 10:21 Matt 7:14

So come with me out of the church and on towards the town.  But before we get to the shops we’ll turn right into St Matthew’s Road, probably one of the least interesting roads in the parish sadly, but we’ll wander down it until we come to the pub on the corner of the Cromwell Estate. It was called The Dragon when I arrived. It’s had three owners in three years and so far and none of them have been able to make a go of it. We’ll press our noses up against the window and look in. it’s called Le Papillion now, Indian and French cuisine, quite a mixture. There’s not a customer in sight. There are fresh flowers at every table and candles are lit too, but no one goes in to eat, and the waiter continues to polish the brand new glasses and plates. These must be anxious days for them. I do wish them well

I think of the story Jesus told about a man who threw a great banquet, everyone was invited, but nobody came along. The tables would have been empty forever had he not sent his servants into the town to bring in the sort of people who would never have had an invitation to anything much before. I think of Jesus inviting us to draw closer to Himself this Lent.  Laying a table and lighting a candle for the two of you. Standing there, waiting to serve, hoping he might get the chance. I think of the way he is continuously offering us a welcome and hospitality, but we think we are unworthy of it and keep our distance, making him like the lonely waiter in this pub, praying for custom.

We come back up our road and walk down to the precinct and there is the mess of that building site. Where Lidl’s used to be. Now there’s all those girders and scaffolding. All that dust and damp. They’ve been working a bit in the past weeks, but what will it end up looking like. Will anyone want to live there? We look up at all that work in progress and shudder.

I think of the story Jesus told about a man who set out to build something without finalising his plans first or having sufficient resources to finish the job. The world is a big and complex place, and sometimes we think we have to have some great scheme in mind to be any good. But I think it might be the simple task we ought to concentrate on even if it costs us a bit, and challenges us too. A vision we can go for and make something of.  Doesn’t the Gospel show us time and again how the offering of our little things can be turned into a great miracle by him. Scaffolding and girders. Work in progress. Nothing to be ashamed of if your Christian life’s like that.

We’ll walk on through the precinct till we get to the open square just by Lloyds Bank. It’s a cross in the centre of our town isn’t it?  One of many crosses in Redhill. Four directions of railway line. Four directions of motorway. Four directions of shopping precinct here. The heart of Redhill is cross shaped.  Sometimes there’s a colourful market here, once I saw street theatre. Quite often there are people in brightly coloured bibs trying to draw you into conversation about a worthy cause.  There are people who sit here who look lost and lonely, and young people in gangs, looking a bit threatening.

So I think of Jesus on the cross and how through this experience you can’t keep anything away from him. He not only sees it all. He has felt it all in his heart too, and we have to have the faith to offer ourselves as we are, as Redhill is. His complete identification with us, Lent has to lead us to realise that more and more. 

Just beyond the cross you come to the MacDonald’s. Open 24 hours a day and whenever I go past there I look at the faces of those sitting by the windows. Toddlers with tomato ketchup everywhere. Mums on their mobiles. A man just staring disconsolately into his Happy Meal for one and a chap who’s always there, nearly every time I pass, muttering to himself, making one coffee last for hours.

I think how Jesus often picked people up when they had nowhere much to go, nothing much to do, no great expectations. Fishermen mending nets.   Tax Collectors at their booths. So I just pray for all those faces., especially because quite often, they look so sad and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd. I think of our street pastors hovering about just here, in the cold, seeing if something might turn up.

We cross the road and look up at the station entrance and the ticket barriers just inside. I love a train ride and I know it’s silly, but I always feel a rush of excitement when I put my ticket in there and make my way up to the platforms. I’ve always been fascinated by people setting out on journeys and I  think of all the people going into the station and wonder where they’re all going.

There were people who failed to follow Jesus because they were being distracted by the wrong journey. “I will follow you Lord..but first of all I need to..” I will follow you Lord, but I’ll be bringing my possessions with me….” Wherever we’re going, have we made room for Jesus to come along too, or better still can we set out…., like Abraham did….not even knowing where he was going…letting God take the lead…that’s a hard thing to do….but it’s very faithful.  If I were to purchase a ticket which defined my faith,  it would have to be a life time Rover.

Under the bridge we go now, where everything sounds twice as loud. A bit of a climb until we turn left into Cavendish Road. There are a few parishioners round here who might give us a cup of tea, but we must walk right to the end of this road, where, just as it bends left, you come across the railway line straight ahead. This is the line that by passes Redhill and the trains come screaming out of the tunnel just below you and make you jump out of your skin. We’ll stand for a moment and wait for the next one.

When it does, see if you can think of it as a “darkness to light” moment.  I think of miracle moments in the Gospels where one who could not see suddenly emerged from a life of darkness to the glorious light and for the first time could see where he was going., where one who could not hear, suddenly felt the rush of the wind, like this train, and a bit like Easter morning, the risen Lord bursting from the tunnel like tomb and off, ahead of us all into the world , to awaken it with his new life.

There’s a bridge to cross and it takes me to my favourite spot on this walk, the wooded path beside the railway line.  It’s not so lovely when I went there on Friday. It’s like a wilderness. It’s a good place to go if you want to walk your Lent. There is no sign of spring here, It’s more like Autumn. The woods are spindly, dry and broken. All is brown. The fence has been pulled down and just lies there untended. There’s an old cooker just thrown into the undergrowth.  There are puddles and potholes along the path. You’d wonder what I see in this desolate scene if you went there now.

This little rough path cutting its way between the railway line and the refuse site reminds me that Jesus tells us the way along which he points is narrow and sometimes unpromising. Disciples who had given up everything to follow him and hoped for a great deal from their sacrifice. We have left everything to follow you – they say to Him at one point – what shall we have. And to us it can seem as if the way is drear and cold and colourless and you have to have courage to keep on going. I tell you I have seen this path as pretty as a picture, and the time will come when it will once again be green and sunlit.

The path opens up into a little nature reserve and there’s a path you can take all the way round it, but this week it’s under water. It’s become a deep lake. A public footpath sign pointing to left and right is drowning in this water. It’s up to its waist now! It’s mast shaped and it’s cross shaped..at one and the same time.

I think of Jesus asleep in the boat and disciples trying to wake him up “Do you not care if we drown” they cry as they shake him awake.  It’s when things are getting on top of us, like this poor footpath sign, that we wonder about God’s love for us, and our usually polite prayer – becomes a shout of protest. Yet his presence is cross shaped – it is the only sign of life out here in the nature reserve as everything else is drowned. Again, it’s trusting in him at the hardest times. That’s when our faith can grow.

It seems to have got a bit bleaker as we’ve walked together, but I don’t want you to be downcast. It’s about knowing that Jesus walks with us, even at the hardest times, and that should put a bit of a spring in our step.

 Anyway,  just come a little further, round the next corner and see how  the view opens up before us. Fields between here and Merstham.  Beyond that traffic on the motorway . but also the North Downs Way and snaking its way through there somewhere is the pilgrim way that would take you all the way to Canterbury.

Some of us will have walked bits and pieces of that path, few of us will have walked all the way, and that reminds me of the way Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. He taught it as something to aim at, something to keep before you. He never expected that the likes of you and me would get there tomorrow or even next year, but that we would keep it in our sights.

Maybe that’s what we’re about together – keeping the kingdom in our sights – pointing the way and not feeling a failure if the fullness of it is miles distant. We could keep going for a while longer if you’d like to – or maybe return to the town – and warm ourselves up with a cup of something.