2026-06-07 (Elizabeth White) Empty and Full

Empty and Full 7th June 2026




Let’s hear the sound of the singing bowl again… an invitation follow the tone into silence, as we tune the ear of our heart into Gods heart for us

….




We play this bowl at the start of each service as a call to worship




And in our story Jesus ‘called’ Matthew from his tax collector’s booth with the words ‘Follow Me’. and Matthew got up and followed him.




I wonder what made Matthew get up and follow?

What did Matthew have to leave behind - have to empty himself of - in order to follow?

And what made him willing to do this?

Our bowl here - sings when its empty… and yet it is full of sound and tone and vibration

I wonder if we are willing to be emptied – so that we may be full of the sound of the Spirit?

Some of us are bruised from encounters with the kind of religiosity the Pharisees esteemed; some are bruised from keeping up with life or from busyness. All of us need emptied – emptied of the false idols of trying to fix ourselves, numb ourselves, or secure ourselves.

This week I’ve been listening to - and living with - the words of a song called Turn Me Tender… it spoke to me about emptiness as a pathway to God, – it’s by Martyn Joseph – here’s the words of the refrain




Turn me tender again

Fold me into you

Turn me tender again

And mould me to new

Faith lost its promise

And bruised me deep blue

Turn me tender again

Through union with you




Turn me tender again

Fold me into you

Turn me tender again

And mould me to new

Faith lost its promise

And I stand here deep blue

Turn me tender again

Through union with you







Maybe tender is another word for empty, open, receptive, humble, trusting, expectant, softened

In our reading today ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The meaning of the Aramaic word for Sin that Jesus used is not about moral codes or right/wrong actions, it is about the untying of inner knots, our confusions and blocks that take us down dead ends, the things that stop us being truly free. As ‘sinners’ we need mercy, grace, compassion – not punishment.




In great tenderness, God calls us to be on the journey of emptying ourselves of all that entangles and holds us back from being who God dreamt us to be




Are we ready to notice when we are unfree? Are we even aware that we are often caught and entangled? It could be by old family scripts, or the pressure of the world’s value systems, our own self condemnation, our self-righteousness, our need to know, grasp, understand or disappear. So many ways we self-protect – Richard Rohr says "I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona”




Turn me tender

Turn me tender

Turn me tender again




In our human lives, we are often full of debris, dis-ease, ‘sickness’. When the Singing Bowl of our lives is full it still sounds, but it is not a true sound or a full sound… not unless we are continually being humbled and emptied…




Are we asking for – or do we want - help to clear out the debris and tangles? Do we want to soften, become tender, for one good humiliation a day – and to work with our response to it…




To come to know our need of God? It’s a brave prayer…

Our Recovery community here at St James knows this as the first step - to admit our powerlessness — that on our own, our lives have become unmanageable, our own internal habits, certainties, passivities, shadows, sense of shame




Maybe Matthew had come to that place – we don’t know, maybe life was no longer working for him or there was an inner restlessness – often it takes a crisis or loss or rupture to jolt us onto this spiritual path of descent, of emptying, of dis-orientation before there is re-orientation.




I lost touch with my sense of beloved-ness (again) for a while this week, entangled down a blind alley of an old but familiar story of trying too hard, followed by disappointment with myself and others - and SO weary with it.. And yet – this is not a failure – noticing the blind alley yet again - is not failure - its awareness – and it’s an opportunity to choose, to turn my life over again and again, to surrender, to admit my powerlessness, to empty and re-orientate.




Turn me tender again

Fold me into you

Turn me tender again

And mould me to new

Faith lost its promise

And bruised me deep blue

Turn me tender again

Through union with you




The words of this song brought me back to my ache for something more, they made me weep that somebody (.. the song writer.. God) gets me, that I’m not alone.. in the bruising that can be part of life – and in the tenderness - the emptying out that it took me to – there was a fullness - or at least a flicker of hope, a next step of healing.




How are you called to follow? Do you want to be emptied of small selves? Are you willing to be transformed? What needs untangled? How do you soften? How do you open to the energy, calling, healing around you?




Iain spoke of hospitality a week or two ago, he also spoke of everyday mysticism – direct experiences of God, day to day – are we open, humble, hospitable to ourselves and each other in this journey, in our great need of God? Are we ready for the beauty and the bravery of partnering with God’s work in us every day, to be on the road of transformation – as Matthew was?




When we hear the singing bowl each week may it be a reminder that Jesus says be still, ‘follow me’, become empty, let me work my freedom and fullness in you.




Turn us tender again

Fold us into you

Turn us tender again

And mould us to new

Faith lost its promise

And we stand here deep blue

Turn us tender again

Through union with you