Head in the Heart

One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart – intelligence and goodness – shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.

- Martin Luther King Jr.,
from Strength to Love, a collection of Dr. King's sermons.

God is slippery

One of the things the dawn of post-modernism is teaching us in the church is that truth is slippery; that although God has most certainly made himself known to us, He has not placed Himself in a neat, gift-wrapped box that we can take home and open on Christmas day. This is most certainly not what the incarnation is about. Remember Jesus only ever answered 2 direct questions in his time on earth.

This is not to say that there are no absolutes. This part of post-modernism cannot and should not be swallowed whole, but we do need to distance ourselves from the belief that complete knowledge of God is attainable instantaneously or at all. We won't get that kind of knowledge this side of the resurrection of all things. God is mysterious, He is bigger than any mind could contain. If you think you've got Him down then you've already missed Him. If there aren't any unanswered questions in your life then you don't have enough faith.

If truth can be read off the tin, as it were, I would suggest we are not discovering God but merely the projection we are most comfortable with. This is a challenge to the 'enlightened' and mainstream protestant tradition that I come from.

The Personal God as Holy Spirit

It matters that God as Holy Spirit is a personality rather than an object not merely for doctrinal reasons, but for practical ones too. In John 14 Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit with the personal pronoun and in doing so broke the rules of greek grammar - the 'spirit' in greek should be neuter - so it must matter!

When we treat the Spirit as an object we fall into some equal but opposite heresy. Either we fear the influence of the Holy Spirit or we concentrate too much on His benefits, loving the power instead of the Person. Both the fascination with the power of God in the charismatic church and the relegation of the Holy Spirit to less than God is in the conservative church are unhealthy and unbalanced. 

They arguably come from the same place too; a failure to recognise that the Holy Spirit is a Personality who is God Himself.

Interesting picture

Have a vision bigger than your life

I just read something which made me think about how I live my life. Here it is:

"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." Hebrews 11.13

'These all' refers to people like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah. In other words biblical heroes. These were people who acted on faith, which is here defined as the assurance of things unseen. What that means is that they lived their lives based on what they thought God was leading them into. They didn't know for sure but they followed their best instinct and relied on it for their lives. So often we describe faith as something we know, but it would seem that it actually has far more to do with what we don't know and how we live in that place of unknowing.

More than that though, these people had a big vision. In fact that vision for life was so big that none of them lived to see it happen. It says instead that they died 'not having received the things promised'. I live the majority of my life for such small things and with such small vision. How different it would be if I lived for something bigger than I could ever achieve within my lifetime. What would that something even be? I would certainly need a different perspective to even imagine it.

These people recognise in their lives more than their words that they are 'strangers and exiles in the earth'. That is to say that they're able to live for something bigger than themselves because they know that they were made for something bigger than they would ever be able to experience in their lifetime.

Jesus says that to live like this is to 'store up our treasure in heaven'.

War and Peace

"Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come"

Carl Sandburg

Fishermen

"Follow me and I will make you fish for people..."

Is this word given to Peter an absolute command or a personal one? In other words is Jesus saying something directly to us here or is this word uniquely tailored to Peter? I would venture to suggest we should be taking this as a direct command to us, a statement on the way things are, rather than just bait to get Peter on the hook (pun intended).

This means that if we follow Jesus we should naturally find ourselves fishing for people. We all fish in different waters of course, but we fish nonetheless. There are even different ways and means to fish. Some of us are deep sea fishers, others are restricted to rock pools. But we all fish. 

If we're not fishing in some way we must ask ourselves this question; how well are we following?

Barriers to faith

I have a hunch that the greatest barriers to faith are not what we think they are. From what you read in the press and hear in your churches you would think that sexual preference was the greatest barrier to knowing God in a transformative way. I happen to think that's a false assumption, one that Jesus would happily disabuse us of if we would allow him.

The greatest malaise towards God is to be found within the middle classes, who would prefer to consume than be transformed. This is my group so I know this by looking within myself. It's so hard for those of us with 'everything' to recognise our need for anything. But I would suggest we have become slaves to comfort and a misrepresentation of freedom. We think we are free but really we are more enslaved than ever.

I pray that God would set me free from the need to pursue comfort and security anywhere other than from Him. I encourage you to do the same.

Consumption

Consumption and discipleship don't mix. They're like oil and water. You can't get from one to the other. If you attend church to 'get fed', you will get sick. If you spend your time critiquing the 'worship experience' then you've missed the point. You've become a consumer. The tragedy is that the vast majority of the churches I have seen have been set up to point you in this direction. Why? Because they were set up by consumers who were happy to be the ones doing the feeding. That's the position of power after all. It's how I have spent almost all of my Christian life.

Jesus was the ultimate anti-consumer. He NEVER consumed in the way we do. Mark puts it this way.

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10.45)

If he didn't come to be served then why do we? Think of the way your church is physically arranged. I bet all the chairs point to the front where the experts put on the show. You may even be familiar with seeing their faces on the screen. Is this not a tragic symptom of consumerism gone mad? You come, get what you are given and then you leave. This format does not promote engagement with God or with the world. It's no surprise that the institution has grown fat, lazy and irrelevant.

Jesus calls us all to action, to a specific kind of action called service. This is where we recognise that church is not somewhere I go to receive, but the community I give myself away to. It's not a place I get fed but a group where I continually die for others.

Most churches aren't really serious about creating such communities - or at least they don't know how to - and so the quantity of people being discipled is at an all time low in both the UK and the USA. A new form is required, centred around service and a corporate expression of faith. 'More of the same' just won't work, neither will 'the same but better'.

Entrepreneurial spirit is required to re-birth the church and catapult it into the next generation. People need to be sought out and discipled where they are. The church as we know it may not survive for more than one generation, so we had better get finding some solutions, and fast.

Organisation or Transformation?

Organisation is OK, but it's not the goal of the Church that Jesus came to build. He set his life on transformation. I'm not even sure he gave much thought to how his band of merry men would be organised at the outset. In the gospel accounts it seems more like he just got on his way and collected people as he went. It's a beautifully uncomplicated way to live.

I'm not against organisation. I would rather have it than chaos, which I don't think is a particularly good thing, but I also see that there is no life in a clean stable. I'd rather have some mess around and lots of transformation going on. After all, transformed lives are what this is all about.

This perspective is a challenge to many churches, which pride themselves on excellence. Once again I think excellence is a wonderful value to aim for. We should seek to glorify God by doing our best in all things, but if we are squeezing out life as we do it we have utterly missed the point and we need to go back to square one again.

On Christ the solid rock I stand...

...all other ground in sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.

One thing that moving to the USA is teaching Amy and me is that it is so easy to try and play the game of desperately scrambling for some identity, something to hide the nakedness with and cover up under. But the trick is to recognise that the only truly safe place to find who we are is in God and in who he says we are, rather than who the world would have us be.

For once I am not talking about theory but about practice. We're really doing this and it is so freeing.

MLK otra vez

"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."

Martin Luther King Jr...who else?

Conflict of interests

"There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."

Freya Stark - The Lycian Shor

Bob Dylan - To Ramona

Ramona, come closer,

Shut softly your watery eyes.

The pangs of your sadness

Shall pass as your senses will rise.

The flowers of the city

Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.

And there's no use in tryin'

T' deal with the dyin',

Though I cannot explain that in lines.

Your cracked country lips,

I still wish to kiss,

As to be under the strength of your skin.

Your magnetic movements

Still capture the minutes I'm in.

But it grieves my heart, love,

To see you tryin' to be a part of

A world that just don't exist.

It's all just a dream, babe,

A vacuum, a scheme, babe,

That sucks you into feelin' like this.

I can see that your head

Has been twisted and fed

By worthless foam from the mouth.

I can tell you are torn

Between stayin' and returnin'

On back to the South.

You've been fooled into thinking

That the finishin' end is at hand.

Yet there's no one to beat you,

No one t' defeat you,

'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.

I've heard you say many times

That you're better 'n no one

And no one is better 'n you.

If you really believe that,

You know you got

Nothing to win and nothing to lose.

From fixtures and forces and friends,

Your sorrow does stem,

That hype you and type you,

Making you feel

That you must be exactly like them.

I'd forever talk to you,

But soon my words,

They would turn into a meaningless ring.

For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.

Everything passes,
Everything changes,

Just do what you think you should do.

And someday maybe,

Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you.
Copyright ©1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music

Bring down the walls

"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

In the light of the above, I wonder why we maintain so many of the false boundaries we do. Questions such as 'can women serve in the church?' seem to me to be totally ignorant of the meaning of this passage. Here we are TOLD that now that we are in Christ Jesus, all the things that once made us distinct have been ameliorated. Our only identity is now in him. The self we once laid claim to has been crucified with him and he now lives in and through us.

So, women in leadership? Heck yes. Taking this issue specifically, I have heard it said that men are to be the leaders of the household/churches in the same way Christ is to be head of the Church. Yes, but in Christ leadership looks completely different. You want to lead like Jesus did? Then give your life up, be crucified, lay down your life for the others who have no life. Serve and don't look to be served. Can women lead in this way? I would suggest they are naturally better predisposed to it than men are!

God is a Lover, not a lawyer

The classic caricature of the evangelical message for conversion seems to me to be almost entirely useless. What I mean is the idea that when we come to know Christ our past, present and future sins are in some way obliterated and we can then carry on just as we were and expect to find ourselves in heaven when the whole thing is done. Behind this is the idea that God is merely a judge. Whilst this is certainly one metaphor to employ for God there are better.

I would suggest that a better and more basic metaphor is to see God primarily as lover particularly when we are dealing with conversion. We must recognise that sin is a state before it is an action. The good news is that we can be made new, that this fractured state will be gradually but inevitably reversed as the fruits of the spirit are unveiled in our lives. This is loosely speaking a Kingdom theology.

Firstly, the problems with the God as judge position...

1) It flattens out the concept of sin, making it 2-dimensional when in fact it is 3-dimensional. In other words it treats sin as a series of actions rather than as a state that leads to the actions. Whilst I recognise that the actions and the state are linked, I believe that the link exists in the state-action direction rather than the opposite way. The irony is that those that preach this message purport to be treating sin seriously but in fact are doing just the opposite. A doctor who only treated symptoms and never bothered with the root cause would be struck off before long.

2) Secondly and perhaps more importantly, I do not believe that the evangelical position deals with reality as people experience it. Does anyone ever really observe their sin being forever removed before God? No, of course not. What someone does experience at conversion is 'falling in love' with God and life and a corresponding knowing that life is good and that they are OK. This is my experience anyway.

3) Thirdly, the Kingdom approach is far easier to communicate to people who don't understand the outdated understanding of sin pedaled by the strict evangelicals. I think it makes more sense to this generation of people.

4) Fourthly, only the second approach is able to create a rich enough understanding of salvation. Salvation, as Dallas Willard says, 'is a life'. It's about the whole of our beings finding regeneration through meeting God in mind, body and spirit. It is not about some legal transaction in a far off and distant place, which we have no control over. Salvation is always something that is happening here and now or it is not happening at all.

Generally speaking, I think the gospel that Jesus preaches has more to say to the question 'who are we' than 'what are we doing'. Both matter, but he deals with the heart before the symptoms.

Do we still sin in the sense of committing sinful acts after we meet Jesus? Yes. But we recognise that as time passes we are being converted into the increasing likeness of God in Christ. In some ways this second approach is less neat and tidy but I reckon it fits the facts of experience far better. God is a lover before a lawyer.

Worry

The way to beat anxiety is to first detach and then attach. We need to learn to detach from the things we're holding too tightly to and instead attach to Jesus. This is something of what I think Jesus is getting at in the following;

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The idea of a yoke is interesting as it implies that when we come to Jesus with our burdens he will place another different burden on us in its place. The difference is that his burden is light and we can carry it. A yoke also implies that Jesus will be directly guiding us along our way as we walk with him.

Love and Community

The goal of life is to have a real and authentic spiritual journey, to be transformed. In the New Testament the destination of this transformation is the person of Jesus.

Nakedness is the goal of the spiritual journey. What we see in the fall metaphor in Genesis is that our separation from God comes with a corresponding 'covering up'. This is regression. To progress towards God again we must be unclothed. We must remove all that has come in the way of our relationship with God, our pride and shame. God, for His part, promises to wear these clothes on our behalf, which is what happens on the cross. The God-Man, who we believe was perfectly united with God in all he did, wore the disgrace that we have become used to. He stepped into the breach in that event. He does that for each one of us again and again.

To experience this transfer we must join in with some form of community of like-minded people. This is otherwise known as a church. When we are loved in this context we come to understand what God's attitude towards us is and 'when we go to our brother and confess, we go to God' (Bonhoeffer - who else?). This has been my experience at a group I have belonged to for the last 9 months or so. We meet monthly and talk about who we are and what we're up to. We let each other in and in some small way we become naked with one another. That last sentence is in no way to be understood literally.

In doing this I have learned so much about God, my brothers and me. It has been a total privilege to have been trusted and divulged to and it has changed me in so many ways. It is for this reason that I highly recommend you do the same. Get together with some people you can be honest with and start doing just that, being honest before each other and God. It will change your life - I guarantee it.

Symptomatic vs. Systematic

To be a prophet is to look beyond the symptom and to see the failing of the system.

Some thoughts on power

I have noticed that we often ask God to fill us with his power when we pray but I have a growing suspicion that we might be asking for the wrong thing. I can't think of a single occasion where Jesus asked God to be filled with power, although I could be wrong. He certainly asked for courage to be obedient to his Father's will, but power? Maybe it is a semantic thing, but is this pursuit of power - even God's power - not open to abuse? The recent fall of those in charge of seemingly 'powerful' ministries would seem to suggest this is the case.

Perhaps we would be better to ask God to fil us with His powerlessness, as this is the form that his power so often takes. In Jesus' life we see that God chooses to reveal himself more often than not in powerlessness. If you don't agree take a look at the cross! Yes, there are great miracles and works of power but even they are often done in the secret place. Even the resurrection, the greatest single event of power in history, is done in secret and only after the humiliation of the cross.

When Jesus receives the Spirit of His Father during his baptism (Mark 1.9ff), he is sent into the desert place to work out what this event means. He is tempted by the devil (Matt 4) and in this temptation he is offered ultimate power over the world. Three times he chooses powerlessness over power. This surely is a foretaste of the ultimate choice of powerlessness which leads him to the cross three years later and is also the perfect contrast to Peter's threefold denial.

As a brief aside, I mentioned this to my dad who said that it was interesting that in the acts of the apostles the disciples never asked for power but instead for boldness. Why was this? Was it not that they already knew that they had received God's power so they didn't need more, just the boldness to lean back onto what they already had.

Finally, Paul surely sums it all up for us in 2 Corinthians 12.10;

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Or to put that last line another way, "when I am weak, then I AM is strong."

Idolatry

All sin is the sin of idolatry.

Idolatry is when we let the means become the end.

There is only one proper end in all the universe; God alone.

The reason we have messed this world up so badly is that we have exchanged God for something less than God. We have fallen in love with the process and let go of the destination. This is as evident within the church as it is without, perhaps even moreso. We love all our shows and grand events. We love sunday church and massive healing spectacles but we need to ask ourselves whether we love these more than we love God. How much of this is just entertainment with a spiritual twist?

We simply must stop taking ourselves and our actions so seriously, particularly our religious ones. Only God is to be taken seriously. Paradoxically, when we do this will we really have the great joy in us that Jesus promises.

Paul puts it like this...'they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.' (Rom 1.25)

Richard Rohr says that we end up loving the container (style) more than the contents (substance - God). He is right isn't he? We need to be so careful that what we think we are doing for God doesn't really become about fulfilling our needs.

The Third Way

"The church ... cannot be content to play the part of a nurse looking after the casualties of the system. It must play an active part both in challenging the present unjust structures and in pioneering alternatives."

Donald Dorr - Catholic missionary priest

Information = rubbish

Information cannot make us better people. This truth came as a disappointment to me when I realised it very recently, as I have spent the great majority of my life so far (25 years and counting) ammassing more and more information; some of it useful, most of it banal and redundant. I even went to a University to learn about God. As if I could learn much about God through a degree!

Most of us have idealised the faculties of knowing. It makes us feel good when we know something as it gives us an immediate ego reward. Those of us of western extraction have placed the rational on a pedestal. We want to know where someone went to school before we trust them in any major office.

The same is true in the church. The protestant tradition has taken this to the extreme with a huge emphasis on preaching. Now I think preaching is a very good thing, but true preaching is not the mere discussion or transmission of ideas and ideals. True preaching and true faith is a life lived towards God with all of our being.

The New Testament shows us both the limited importance and the limitation of head-knowing. Jesus works as if his actions are as important as his words. In fact, his verbal preaching was often simply an explanation of what he was doing. Paul puts it more directly;

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Phil 3.7-9)

In comparison to 'knowing Christ Jesus' all things are to be considered rubbish. Whilst we should continue to seek to know about God it is far more important that we know God. This kind of faith requires all of our faculties to be presented to God as one.

Where do we meet God?

We can only meet God when we come to Him as who we are. That's the power of realising that we are 'sinners', or that we're lacking something substantial which we could never make up for on our own. When we realise this deep truth we are able to meet God for the first time and in doing this we also meet our own selves.

We must always resist the temptation to try and 'be holy' for God. He doesn't want us to strive to make ourselves holy people as in doing that we will simply seperate ourselves from Him. HE wants to make US holy. It's his job in us, not ours. It's not about attacking ourselves either. We need to see our faults and accept them so that He can come and change them.

We meet God at the place where all striving ceases and we can simply be ourselves. Nothing more and nothing less will do.

Making sense of Jesus

Jesus says in Matthew 13:14-17;

"In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

Jesus' life and teaching was an assault on the senses. The senses needed to be assaulted before they could be healed and renewed. And this is just what Jesus came to do, to make new that which had become old and to uncover that which had been covered. Jesus came to give us new eyes and ears. Physical eyes, yes, but way more than just physical eyes. Jesus came that we might see the world in a completely different way. The physical healings always pointed to something greater, that the Kingdom of God had come near in Jesus. In other words, God's reality was 'here and now'.

He came carrying this message;

"'The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.'" (Mark 4.18-19)

Jesus identifies the core of his life and work to be the bringing of freedom to people in captivity and the recovery of sight to those who are blind. But we're all blind until someone shows us how to see. The real meaning of the fall story in Genesis is that there is a blindness at the core of who we are as humans which has been there from the beginning (Dawkins take note -it's not a science textbook!). Something fundamental has gone wrong with humanity and it is this that Jesus comes to restore. He comes to mend this dislocation between us and God, by being both us and God.

When we enter into a relationship with him we find that our sight begins to come back to us. We should find that we have love and compassion for others, the like of which we could never have previously imagined. We should love nature and art more than ever too, as we find God in and through his creation. The idea is that we then are drawn into the kind of life that Jesus lived. We take on his mantle and spend ourselves in releasing the prisoners and bringing recovery of sight to the blind.

Now that's what I call good news!

The Cross

"The cross is a symbol reminding the world that God is at God’s strongest when God seems to be at God’s weakest."

Choan Seng Song - Taiwanese theologian

Bring on the reformation

"Christianity ... is always in need of re-simplifying, going back to its origins, ridding itself of the excessive superstructure it has acquired through history."

José Comblin, Catholic theologian in Brazil

Darwin - Friend or Foe?

Below is a link to an excellent blog written by Libby Purves on the Times website. The subject of this entry is a TV program hosted by Richard Dawkins on Darwin. She writes a very balanced critique of Dawkins habit of over-reaching from science into philosophy/theology, using Darwin as supposed evidence for the validity of atheism.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article4474112.ece

The True Self

"God is the only one we can surrender to without losing ourselves. It's a paradox. When Jesus says those who lose their life will find their life and those who let go of their life will discover their life, obviously he's talking about life in a different way than you and I experience it. We think life is the thing that we've got to protect. He's saying, No, the true self needs no protection: It just is."

Richard Rohr - from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations

It's not what you know, but who you know

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." (1 Corinthians 2. 1-5)

There are two types of wisdom which Paul compares and contrasts in his letter to the Corinthians. The first is 'wordly' and the second 'Godly'. Wordly wisdom is espoused in our centres of learning and throughout the media. It's the type of wisdom we most often glorify as it depends on the sophisicated telling of 'experts'. It makes us feel good when we hear and understand it because we are part of the select few who 'get it'. It builds our self-esteem and we can quickly become addicted to it. But this kind of wisdom, intellectual and rational, is not the best basis for faith. Despite what the intellectual movement of the enlightenment would have us believe, our heads are not the best place to begin when seeking to know God. We cannot function as isolated intellects.

Unfortunately, much of the theology ('words about God') we hear is only wordly wisdom dressed up in holy clothes. Godly wisdom begins and ends with the power of God, seen through God's action in human history. But the best theology is always an affair of the heart as much as it's an affair of the mind. Real faith is more about having an encounter than simply amassing greater head-knowledge. So how can we begin to meet the God who acts in human history again and again?

I would suggest the bible is a good place to start as it is the record we have made of God's story. How he made a beautiful creation then chose a nation. And how he then spent himself in reversing the tendency of his creation to harm itself, culminating in the cross. We find there that man chooses to destroy God's work of creation, then chooses to destroy the climax of his creation, His own Son Jesus.

Paul says in the above passage that he is only interested in looking to God's action in the story of Christ's death and resurrection. This story is the only proper basis for faith in God. Head knowledge is useful, but the rational will let us down when it comes to God. Someone will always have a better argument or more sophisticated philosophy. Head knowledge can't bear the wait of faith, whilst the cross can.

The key thing about encounter is that when we meet someone, we involve our whole selves, our minds and intellects as well as our emotions and our senses. So let us take Paul's advice and seek to know God with everything we have. It is this that Jesus is pointing at when he tells the teacher of the law that the greatest commandment is to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' (Matt 22.37)

Peter and maturity

"I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, Follow me!" (John 21.18-19)

I think this text - which comes directly after Jesus' re-instatement of Peter - teaches us something about the journey to maturity for each one of us. As we grow older (and hopefully wiser) we make an increasing number of committments. We may choose a university, a job, a home, a spouse, to have a child or some other such life-changing decision. Such commitments bring us great life, but they also have a cost attached. Their cost is that we are not able to follow our own path so rigidly as we once were. We get swept up into the paths of others. In other words, we are brought into community as we commit.

This is life as God would have it and this is the type of life that Jesus is showing Peter he will lead from that point on. Martin Luther-King famously said that the one thing he would like to leave behind was 'a committed life' and I think this should be our aim too. But as Jesus shows us here, we don't need to worry about what we will commit too or where we should spend our energies. As we follow him He will direct our paths and lead us into the freedom that comes from mature commitment.

The Word of God

Richard Rohr again...sorry...Just save yourselves the effort and buy the books.

"I believe that the religion of the middle class was always tempted to use Scripture primarily to dispense consolation. But the Word of God, like a mirror, must first confront us with ourselves. Second, it has to challenge us to live in a new way, to lead a life of authentic brotherliness and sisterliness...Only after the Word of God has confronted and challenged us do we have the right to take consolation from the Word of God as well. But we've drawn consolation from the Bible before we've changed our lives! The Christian nations are among the greediest and the most intent on security of any in the world, while they maintain that Jesus is their Lord and their security."

Taken from Simplicity again.

On holiday

I am on holiday until August 7th in ITALIA. I will hopefully be able to blog in the meantime, albeit less frequently.

Strength and honour.

Maximus.

Critique of the Charismatic # 1

The charismatic gifts are important and we should pursue them. However, they are certainly never to be described as the most important elements of the Christian faith. They are gifts for sure, but they are not the main gift.

At the centre of the gospel is the cross and resurrection. This is the main story. All the other stuff is a sub-plot, an important one at that, but still a sub-plot. There is more correction given to people who over-do the use of these gifts (tongues, prophecy, healing etc.) in the New Testament (see 1 Corinthians) than to those that under-do them. That is in part because it is assumed there that Christ followers will naturally be well versed in the practice of such gifts. It should be the same today, but I repeat they are not the centre of the gospel as I read it.

The cross of Jesus shows us what God has done for us and what He would do to us. We must come to the cross and die just as Jesus did. In return for our death, we receive His life. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me and is the meaning of Jesus' resurrection. This life exchange happens here and now, not in some future event, although that is promised too. This god-life within us is described as eternal life in the New Testament.

And this is where the charismatic gifts come in. They are evidence to us and for us that God has given us His life and that his Kingdom has come in our lives. They naturally spill over in the life of those who have received the life of God in exchange for their own death. But they are not to become the focus of our walk with God. The focus is the cross and the empty tomb.

"Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matt 6.33).

False Religion

"False religion is present when people say, 'Thy Kingdom come,' but don't immediately add, 'My Kingdom go.' And we Christians have believed that we could both say, 'Jesus is Lord!' and go on being the lords of our own lives."

Richard Rohr - Simplicity.

What a profound quote! Costly grace is where we choose to let go of our Kingdom and let God's reign and rule fill the void. Cheap grace is what Rohr describes here as false religion. I think we have done such great harm to Jesus' message not because we have failed to say 'Jesus is Lord!', but because we have failed to live as if he truly is Lord of our lives. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans;

'You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Romans 2.23-24)

As a good friend of mine often says, 'either He is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all!'. How different our churches would look if we had lived in this way. But we can! This is why He has given us His Spirit. Not so we can shake and fall down, but so we would stand up to the call placed on our lives and live as Kingdom people.

We need to learn to live a different way. We need to go back to living simply and following Jesus' commands. We need to learn a total obedience to his message. We need to fall in love once more with who He is and what he has said. A group of people who loved God and each other radically. Now that sounds more like the Church, more like the body of Jesus. Bring it on and let His Kingdom come.

Can we imagine such a reality as this?

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

- Romans 12:8-10

Nothing to report

As my good friend Iain pointed out, I have not written anything on here for a week or so. This is simply due to the fact that I can think of nothing worth saying. There will be more to come in due course I would think. Jonny

My Hero

This is one of my heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I encourage you to find out about his life as it will inspire you no end. I have already quoted him a number of times on this page, but wanted to add an excerpt from one of his poems ('Stages on the Way to Freedom') as it arrested my attention this morning.

'ACTION

Choose and do what is right, not what fancy takes,
not weighing the possibilities, but bravely grasping the real,
not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is there freedom.
Come away from your anxious hesitations into the storm of events,
carried by God's Command and your faith alone.
The freedom will embrace your spirit with rejoicing.'

Belonging

This is a photo of me and my entourage before my wedding (my dad is partially obscured on the right). We look good don't we? I was looking through some of these pictures the other day and I realised that this picture describes something of what every person needs; good people to stand behind them and support them in what they're doing and who they are.

It is because of friends like these guys that I was able to do what I did that day. I wouldn't have been able to do it without them as I wouldn't have been the kind of person who could.

This is really what the church is designed to be. A group of people who stand up for the one who falls, picking them up when they fall and shouting them on in encouragement when they need it. When the church does this well it is bound to be a place where there is life and growth. Thank God for His vision of the church and for every place that it is being lived out.

Oh to be a Free Radical

Free radicals are known in chemistry as atoms or molecules with unpaired electrons on them. Electrons most 'comfortably' exist in pairs, but in these radicals they are alone. Because of this, they are a highly reactive bunch. They're always looking to complete the pair you see.

I'd like to be a free radical, to be highly reactive in this way. Augustine defines freedom as to only be able to do the good; free will put to good use as someone else put it. And to be radical is to be someone who gets to the roots of a thing (radix = roots in latin). So to be a free radical is to be someone who is singular in their pursuit of most essential type of good, God Himself.

If this is what we pursue, we can be sure this is what we will find.

MLK

"...In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson, and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust…”

Taken from Martin Luther King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail and sent to me by Katherine Dunn

Laying it on the line

The God revealed to us in the New Testament is a God who lays it all on the line, a God who can't help but roll up his sleeves and get involved; A God interested in providing solutions, not focussing on problems.

It is this facet of God's nature that gives us our mandate to be world changers and Kingdom bringers. We are to be people who lay it all on the line. Just as God has done, so we must do for the world, irrespective of whether those we help acknowledge God or not.

Jesus is what it looks like when God lays it all on the line and it is God's intention that we become like Jesus in every way.

Unity of purpose

If we are to be really effective in living for God we have to find a unity between our means and our goal. That is to say that we must match up our ultimate purpose with our values. Too often there is schism between where we eventually want to end up and how we percieve we might get there. Either the goal is lovely and the means awful, or the goal is greedy and the means nice and fluffy.

Neither situation is capable of bringing the Kingdom of God in the context of our personal or professional lives. Our goal for everything must be as godly as the means by which we achieve it. This is Kingdom living through and through.

What am I to you?

Who am I to God?

Not what can I do for God or what are my gifts, but who am I to God? Who am I when I am nothing but me, when I am naked and vulnerable before God? Not what does the world say that I am, but who does He say that I am?

Jesus was asking this very question and he received the definitive answer at his baptism. We can be confident that the same answer will be given to us, that we are his 'sons and daughters, in whom He is well pleased.'

Gospel Entrepreneurship

You may have noticed the change in emphasis in the tag line at the top of my blog. I have - as you can see - chosen to describe myself as a gospel entrepreneur (in the making). It's a term I haven't heard before, which is partly why I am using it. I think it also has some value to it too.

You may have heard of or even know a social entrepreneur. For those still in doubt, this is someone who makes it their business to use business for good ends. Somebody who delivers services often given by charities through entrepreneurial means, rather than by writing off for donations. The results are often broadly the same as those of the third sector, although they should also be self-sustaining. Therein lies the genius of social entrepreneurialism.

However, I don't think it goes quite far enough. I don't think social entrepreneurialism yet embodies the fullness of the gospel call. I think that taking care of the poor is wonderful and is right at the heart of the gospel, but there is more too. Jesus quotes Isaiah in Luke 4. 17-19...

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

I want to find ways to do all of this stuff using all the tools in the box, including enteprise, but not exclusively enterprise. I believe that what Jesus said of Himself here is true of me and you too. So, I want to make it my aim to fulfill it all and to be as artistic and creative as I can along the way. I haven't attained any of it yet, but I really want to.

If we start doing more and more of this stuff in new ways, we will truly "rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated...renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations." (Isaiah 61.4)

Nothing else is a big enough aim for the God filled life. God Himself is the end, everything else simply the means.

Being a control freak...

"We create artificial fullness and try to hang on to that. But there's nothing to hold on to when we begin to taste the fullness of the now. God is either in this now or God isn't at all.

As we grow older, we tend to become control freaks. We need to control everybody and everything, moment by moment, to be happy. If the now has never been full or sufficient, we will always be grasping, even addictive or obsessive. If you're pushing yourself and others around, you have not yet found the secret of happiness."

Richard Rohr - Everything Belongs

The Least and the Last

The health of any society is best described by how it treats the least and the last within it. Most often the least will be the elderly and the poor, although there are certainly other categories which would fit quite readily within this description, not least the unborn and uneducated (see 2 posts previous).

This test can in fact be applied to any group of people and also to the individual. In fact, this is what Jesus is getting at when he brings up the startling story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew's gospel (Mt 25.31-46). In this story, Jesus tells one group that they have been made right with God because; 'I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

The righteous respond with genuine surprise to this. They don't remember responding to the King's need in this or any other way. The King replies; 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

The converse is also true. What we fail to do for the least in our midst, we also fail to do for God. If Jesus really meant this, and we should assume that he did, we need to start praying for his compassion and love for the poor. When our lives are weighed at the end of all things, the powerful works we have performed will count for nothing, the rousing speeches we have given will be weightless and the most detailed and impassioned prophecies will no longer count for anything. All that will remain is the love that we have shown to each other.

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor 13.13)

The Hoff

"The world is overcome not through destruction, but through reconciliation. Not ideals, nor programs, nor conscience, nor duty, nor responsibility, nor virtue, but only God's perfect love can encounter reality and overcome it. Nor is it some universal idea of love, but rather the love of God in Jesus Christ, a love genuinely lived, that does this."

Dietrich BonHOeFFer - Meditations on the Cross

Abortion

There are many arguments for and against abortion, which I don't want to get into now. Leaving these aside, the tragedy is that abortion takes the most sacred of things (life) and can make it out to be something disposable.

God has lovingly given us the right and responsibility to procreate, to participate in his creation and re-creation of the world, and we must take this seriously. The consumeristic attitude of "If I don't like it, I can just take it back" just isn't right when applied to human life. Of course there are complicated reasons for people making the decision to abort their child and life is never that simple. The thing is, there are no receipts. This is human life. This is God's gift and these things can't be undone.

In this sense, I don't see how abortion could possibly be the best course for creation. However, those of us that like to talk about such matters should start providing some alternatives and quickly. We must be part of the education process and offer solutions for mothers who wish to bring their children into the world but don't feel able to do it alone.

Meditation

http://www.mindandsoul.info/Publisher/Article.aspx?id=116107

See this link for some ideas on meditation. It is basically an extended email conversation I had with Rob Waller of the Mind and Soul website. Trawl through the website while you're there. It's a great resource in spite of my contribution.

Community

"Christian tradition has defined God as "Trinity", or vulnerability, communion, and mutuality.

Until and unless God is someone happening between people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until he is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness, through bonds of union, I doubt whether he is passed on at all.

But history has shown that individuals who are confirmed in their individualism will never create community, except after the model of a service station: they will use it as a commodity like everything else."

R. Rohr (again) - Near Occasions of Grace

Learning the lessons of history

"He who marries the spirit of the age will soon become a widower." (Dean Inge of St. Paul's Cathedral)

I am by nature a reactionary person. That is to say I define what I am for by pointing out what I am against, often throwing the baby out with the bathwater if I find even the smallest offence. Anyone who has read this pithy page will already know this for themselves. I think many of us, if not all of us, can behave in this way. We know where we belong by stating where we don't. The problem here is that once we have started down this road it can be hard to know where to stop.

History is replete with movements which are defined in contrast to the preceding movement. Think of the transition from modern to postmodern for a simple example, although I am sure you can think of many more. This goes all the way down in our society too and has even infected some of our churches and I sense we will be in danger of becoming bitter people and a bitter church if we don't learn to celebrate what is different from us and what has come before us. A great deal of wisdom and introspection is needed before we are to 'critique' someone else's way of doing things and it is often sadly lacking (Matt 7.3-5). Of course we have to be able to stand up against injustice when the situation calls for it, but I'm talking about something different as I hope you can appreciate.

As I have said before here, unless we are able to love and forgive our parents/church/boss/spouse/siblings etc we are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Moreover, we have to learn to love those who choose to do things in a different way to us, even if we can't understand why they would do such a thing! A failure to do this will end in disaster and isolation. Isolation from the blessing that God is busy offering elsewhere to those that will 'bless what He is doing' regardless of how uncool, ugly and stupid it may appear. How tragic! When Paul would have us 'building one another up in love', we revert to the opposite.

We need to be careful that we don't take our deconstruction too far, lest we find ourselves sitting alone surrounded by the pile of rubble we have created.

Restoration

All Progress is restoration

Kabaddi as Mission

Kabaddi is a game which originated in the Indian sub-continent. Any readers familiar with the TV program Trans World Sports will already be familiar with it. The game consists of two teams of seven players occupying opposite halves of a field, roughly half the size of a basketball court.

The teams take turns sending a "raider" across to the opposite team's half, where the goal is to tag or wrestle ("confine") members of the opposite team before returning to the home half. Tagged members are "out" and are sent off the field. Whilst on a 'raid', the raider has to hold his breath and mutter the word 'kabaddi' to show that he is not cheating by breathing.

I think this is exactly how the church conducts almost all of its mission/evangelism.

We leave our ground and cross the sacred/secular dividing line, a line totally of our own imagining. We carefully move onto the world's territory, whilst holding our breath so that we don't catch anything nasty. We then isolate the weakest member of the pack and return to our side with the spoils. Once on our territory the prey will learn to talk, walk and think just like us. We call this success.

This is completely the opposite of the message of the incarnation. Jesus didn't hold his breath when he came to us. Instead he was at pains to associate with the dirtiest and lowest, probably the smelliest too. He was born in a manger after all. He died in poverty and disgrace. How often, I wonder, did he get to wash?

We have to find new ways to be in the midst of the world daily as the church. Only when we can do this will we be able to transform the evil we see there. We can't export it to our ground and nullify it. We have to do this work in the midst of the world. I think this calls for a completely different organisation of what we know as church, moving away from the Sunday gathering. I am suggesting something a lot more like a virus is necessary.

I will explain this more in my next posts.

Don't believe what you read

We live in the age of suspicion. If you don't believe me, just read the daily mail. Almost everything we read, hear and see re-enforces the idea that the world is, beneath it all, a dangerous place to be. I think the media is responsible to a large extent for propagating this idea. Much of today's media will, I think, be subject to the judgement Jesus alludes to in the gospels for 'causing these little ones who believe in me to stumble' (Matt 18.6, Mark 9.42, Luke 17.2).

The trouble is that cynicism as a wordview makes faith impossible. Jesus' message is that there is good news for the ones who can dare to believe that God and life are good and true at their core. To these ones he will give the 'abundant life' that he talks about in John 10.10. I think that one of the biggest reasons for us rejecting Jesus, whether in a moment's decision or as the lifestyle stance, is that his teaching is 'too good to be true'. I think we've started to believe this in the church too, to the extent that we have stopped preaching the good news, choosing instead to focus on a teaching which is merely a christianised rendering of bad news. If you don't believe me, ask any of your non-christian friends what they think of the church's message.

The gospel is good news for us sinners and we have to start reminding ourselves of this crucial fact. A start would be for the church to admit its faults, to lower its walls and to go into the world in repentance and contrition. We also need to go to God anew and ask Him to show us His goodness towards each one of us, His beloved sinners. We will never be able to offer to the world what we have not received for ourselves.

Jesus, give us your spirit that we might be your good news in the world today and forever. Help us to stop believing what we read in the media and start to believe what we read in your word.

The Kingdom of God & Business

Something I have been giving a lot of thought to recently is the Kingdom of God and the place of business within it, more specifically the place of business as an agent in bringing it. I think that there is a very significant movement which is coming from within the business community which is on this same train of thought. There are already a few organisations which exist to make this happen, but I sense this is going to be a really grass roots thing; At least I really hope it is. The Kingdom always comes at the grass roots (think Jesus' preaching on the mustard seed etc.). Sadly this is something which is less and less obvious from the preaching of the church, which too often relies on the 'big event' to make things happen.

Anyway, there is good theology behind the place of business in bringing God's Kingdom, but to see what it is we have to go back to the role of the church. Bonhoeffer said that 'the church is only the church when it exists for others'. Some other chap said that the church is the only organisation which exists for those who are not yet members. This is all to say that the church should live to serve the world, and if it is not doing this then it is not the church. This is actually the point of the whole gospel, that we find meaning, wholeness and life through serving God, our neighbours and enemies in the same way as our Jesus did. This may lead us to our death in one sense or another.

To a large extent we have stopped doing this in the church, with the consequence that our preaching is now completely irrelevant in the world. Just look at the church attendance figures if you want any proof. The church as we know it is dying and it needs to find another way to function, or it needs to rediscover the old way. This is where business has some fruitful involvement.

Good business functions on the premise that there is a need in the world that can be fulfilled, a service which can be provided. Sound familiar? Whilst business is functioning well it will always be trying to serve its customer base better, providing for their needs more efficiently and accurately. It doesn't always do this, but when it does it is fulfilling the same calling as the church, at least to the extent that its 'product' is wholesome and holy.

I'm not saying business is the answer to all our questions. It is responsible for many of the worlds problems too, when it is subverted by greedy people. But isn't this the same as the institutional church? What I am saying is that business' goals are not in opposition to the church's goals. In fact they are concordant. I am also saying that the church as we know it is not any more valid as a tool for ushering in the Kingdom of God than business. There is nothing divinely ordained about the way we do church. There are elements within the churches life which are divinely ordained, but these can be expressed in any environment. In fact, I am suggesting that they must be expressed in many other environments, if we are to be faithful to the gospel and if we are to share the good news with the world into the next generation.

More to come on this. Have a great weekend. Jonny x

Good quote

"I don't care if you're dead! Jesus is here, and he wants To resurrect somebody."

- Rumi

Ignorance ain't bliss after all

Ignorance does not result from what we don't know, but from what we think we do know. Similarly, faith is not about what we know - despite the post-enlightenment suggestion to the contrary - but about trust in the presence of what we don't know.

A faithful person will never profess to have all of the answers, although certainly they will continue to ask the difficult questions. We need to be people who can balance knowing with not knowing. Both are needed today.

"Being willing not to know, because God knows, is a great gift." R. Rohr

Transformation quote

"A disciple once came to Abba Joseph saying, 'Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, my little fast, and my little prayer. And according as I am able I strive to cleanse my mind of all evil thoughts and my heart of all evil intents. Now, what more should I do?' Abba Joseph rose up and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He answered, 'Why not be totally changed into fire?'" (emphasis mine)

Taken from 'Prayer' by Richard Foster.

I'd take that, wouldn't you? Have a good weekend. x

Julian of Norwich

"And thus I understood that any man or woman who deliberately chooses God in this life, out of love, may be sure that he or she is loved without end. This endless love produces grace in them. For God wants us to hold trustfully to his: that we be as certain, in home, of the bliss of heaven while we are here as we will be, in fact, when we are there. And always the more delight and joy we take in this certainty, with reverence and meekness, the better it pleases God."

Religion

Religion has a bad name. Nowhere is this more evident than within the church. I think this is wrong though and I'm going to try to explain why.

Religion is simply the symbol and metaphor we use to relate to God. It's the way we do things, the form of our worship. It's the style we have and as such is completely unavoidable. The problem comes with our use of religion, not with religion per se. Too often we have treated religion as the end rather than the means. We have settled for the style rather than the substance. This is the beginning of all idolatry, but we are arrogant to think that we can avoid this simply by deconstructing the old way of doing things. We need some form of religion to allow us to express our love to God.

There is no such thing as an 'irreligious church', despite the protestations of many a pastor. In fact, seeking to be an 'irreligious church' is a potentially dangerous pursuit. How can we be sure we won't throw the baby (Jesus!) out with the bath water? What makes us think we know more about God than those that have gone before? Many churches believe that the way to be radical is to do away with tradition and religion. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The word radical comes from the latin word 'radix', which means roots. So the only really radical people are those who recognise their roots and traditions. We need to love our traditions to become the radicals we want to be, although of course we must mould, shape and re-interpret them too. Merely throwing them out of the door won't do though. It is intellectually lazy and arrogant in the extreme. It is the child who rebels the hardest who often most closely represents his parents in the end.

Let us be a church which learns to take the narrow road of re-interpretation rather than the wide road of deconstruction, where everything old becomes evil. Let us learn that we cannot avoid being religious or traditional and nor should we want to. Let us also never settle for the means rather than the end, which is God himself.

Good news

"Nothing can seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." (Rom 8.38-39)

The good news is simply this, that we are loved and forgiven by God as we are. All we have to do is accept it. We must simply bring ourselves before God in whatever state we are and receive his love. This is the gospel that Jesus proclaims and it really is good news.

I don't know about you but I hardly ever live as if this is what I believe. It's too hard to accept and it doesn't fit with everything the world has taught me, that I get what I deserve. It is too good to be true. Many of my problems come when I transfer my wordly ideas onto God, as I very often do. This leads me into a judgemental, jealous and possessive frame of mind which is not God's best for me. If I have to win God's favour then everyone else does too! This is a complete reversal of the truth, but it is so prevalent in church today, not least in me.

I cannot do anything to win God's favour. He gives no notice to my education, my performance at work, my looks, my abilities in sport or music, my spiritual performance, my sexual orientation, my fame or lack thereof or anything else for that matter. The only way for me to place myself outside of his blessing is to attempt to win it from him, or to present an image of my self that I hope to be rather than who I am in this moment. Even then He will restore and forgive me and bring me into right relationship with myself and with Him again.

Incarnation and Resurrection

A fundamental meaning of the incarnation and resurrection is that the material world is good, but not as good as it will be. Jesus' 'enfleshment' is God's ultimate 'yes' over what He has made. We can and should remain skeptical about materialism as a worldview, but we must never stop believing that what God has made is good and worthy of love. As Christians, we should be the most hopeful people around. Someone told me last night that when Desmond Tutu was asked if he was an optimist, he replied 'no, not an optimist, but I am very hopeful.'

This is where the resurrection comes in. Matter as it is opposes God's final purposes for the world, hence Jesus is crucified. But the story does not end there; it is only just beginning. Jesus' new life shows us that what will be is even better than what we have now. We have to hold these two truths in tension if we are to be true to the Jesus story.

The outworkings of this tension are of great value. Firstly, this is where a true and pure concern for the environment begins. If matter is good and of God then we had better keep it in good order. The resurrection shows us that God builds on what we have here with his new vision of creation. We are to be in love with life and the gift of God in this very moment. The failing of much of the environmental movement at the moment is that at its root it does not affirm life at its core. Consequently people end up blowing up other people in the name of animal rights!

Secondly, this tension helps us to love humanity as it is, whilst also recognising that it is not fully as it should be. As believers in the Christ story, we will be able to tread the fine line between pessimism and denial. We need to hear God's 'yes' over each of us before we can hold these two truths together. If we are OK, then it is just possible that everything and everyone around us is too.

"The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." (Psalm 24.1)

Revival, whatever that means.

I have heard the concept of revival mentioned so many times around churches in the last decade or so, but without anyone being able to tell me what it actually is. From what I have gathered though, I surmise that it is a re-awakening which comes from a fervour for God and results in many people coming to know God.

My thoughts are thus. When one breaks apart the word revival one is left with 're' & 'vival'. The second half of this word clearly comes from the root word 'to live' (vivre = french, vivir = spanish). So, revival is the process of being re-lived or re-born. If we are to see this re-birth in the wider world - which Jesus tells Nicodemus is essential for all of us (John 3) - it has to begin in the church, that is within the people of God. If we want to see revival, we first have to be revival.

How do we do this? True religion is a matter of awareness, of seeing God in the midst of everything and everyone. This is why Jesus exhorts us to be like children and why he tells us to remove the log from our own eyes before attempting to see other's sins (Luke 6). When we do this we are getting closer to fulfilling Jesus' command for us to love our enemies.Transformation comes in our lives when we see God in a new way and in new people. So, if we wish to see the world change we must first pray to be that change. In other words, we must embody the change we wish to see in the world. Ask God to give you his heart and his eyes and you will be on your way.

Isn't this the very meaning of the incarnation? Isn't this what Jesus' life and death show us? Yes, he shows us that God himself embodies the change he wishes to see in the world. Instead of critiquing and judging he rolls up his sleeves and chooses to get involved. This is likewise to be our attitude to the world. Then, my friends, we won't be able to stop the revival!

Being in LOVE

I am convinced that God intends that we are 'in love'. This is our highest calling. Not just to be in love though, but to be in love with everything and everyone, even our enemies. Where we draw distinctions and boundaries between groups of people we become unable to love them and we fail to fulfill God's will for our lives. This is judgement and Jesus says we are to have no part in judging other people. No part whatsoever.

The Christian should be the most loving person. Isn't this what Jesus is getting at in John's gospel?

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13.34-35)

How can we attain this? There is only one way to attain this, which is not to attain it at all but to realise that we are the BELOVED of God. That means that God is in love with you! When we know this we become free to love everything in the same way that God does. Do you know that your very existence in this moment is all down to the fact that God is willing you to exist right here and now? That means he is for you and he is on your side and that He LOVES you!

"The great commandment is not 'thou shalt be right.' The great commandment is to 'be in love'...As others have rightly said, all that is needed is surrender and gratitude." (R. Rohr - Everything Belongs)

Forgiveness

Here is a great quote on forgiveness. My thoughts are below, for what they are worth. Note the name of the author too...Classic.

"Forgiveness is giving up the right to retaliate. Forgiveness is the willingness to have something happen the way it happened. It's not true that you can't forgive something; it's a matter of the will, and you always have the choice. Forgiveness is never dependent on what the other person does or does not do; it is always under our control. Forgiveness is giving up the insistence on being understood.... Jesus forgave those who crucified him. This is a radically new way of thinking. For those who accept and practice this discipline, there is a release of energy and a sense of freedom."

Pixie Koestline Hammond - For Everything There Is a Season

What do you find most difficult to forgive? For me it is being misunderstood. I simply must be heard and understood by people. Anything less than this makes me really angry. I was thinking about this whilst away with Amy on holiday and I realised that I am this way because I have put way too much value on my opinions and my voice. Education has taught me that I am intelligent and of value if I can pick something apart and critique it. But I want to be just the opposite and I am in fact called to be just the opposite. I want to be someone who is known for building up and not tearing down.

I am trying to bring these things before God so that he may take them and fill the vacuum with Himself. God help me not to need to be right anymore! Help me be free from my need to be heard and affirmed. Forgive me for when I have forced my opinions on you, and for doing in here and now.

Back with a vengeance

For all (both?) of you that read this, I am back with a vengeance after a week on holiday. More will follow.

"Those who have created the evil are those who have made possible the hideous social injustice our people live in. Thus, the poor have shown the church the true way to go. A church that does not join the poor in order to speak out from the side of the poor against the injustices committed against them is not the true church of Jesus Christ."

Oscar A. Romero - The Violence of Love

God help me to look out for the poor.

A Poem by Richard Rohr

Let us be present to the now.
It's all we have
and it's where God will always speak to us.
The now holds everything, rejects nothing and,
therefore, can receive God, too.
Help us be present to the place
we're most afraid of,
because it always feels empty,
it always feels boring,
it always feels like it's not enough.
Help us find some space within
that we don't try to fill with ideas or opinions.
Help us find space so you, loving God,
can show yourself in that place
where we are hungry and empty.
Keep us out of the way,
so there is always room enough for you.
Amen.

Not escapism but engagement.

The gospel is not escapism but engagement. Engagement with the needs of the world we live in. Not hiding away in ivory towers or even church buildings, but living in the midst of the world and thanking God for giving this opportunity to us. We are to share the good news, yes, but we must be good news too, which means being in the midst of the mess.

We need to love life to be good news. In Bonhoeffer's words, we need to 'drink the dregs of this world'. That is to say that we must 'taste and see that the Lord is good'. It's time that the lot of us bucked up our ideas and started talking up and believing in the world as it is. Only when we see God's blessing in what is will we be any use in bringing in what it should be. When we recognise that we the church are here to serve the world not to judge it, we will be truly relevant again and maybe we will see the Kingdom coming in greater power.

On Science and Religion

An interesting article in The Times today and well worth reading...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article673663.ece

A study in grace

Whilst on the bus reading the well known story of Mary and Martha(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010.38-42;&version=47), I realised that what Jesus is giving us here is a case study in grace.

Picture the scene. Someone VERY important is coming to town for their dinner and you have the responsibility of hosting. "Quick, get the hoover out, clean the lounge, pick up the clothes from the bedroom floor, make sure you get in Tesco's 'finest'. We simply must make a good impression. He's arriving now, get the red carpet out. Did you scrub it love? Now sit down over there sir, make yourself at home."

This is Martha's response and it is one of activity. Even when Jesus has arrived she is too busy preparing to enjoy the real gift on offer; his presence. It says in the text that "Martha was distracted with much serving." How often are we like that? How often do we get so wrapped up in what we can do for God that we forget what really matters to him, just that we would let him teach us.

Jesus sees right through her doing to her being. She is not serving him from a place of love but from one of anxiety. He says "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary." Martha can't sit still because she is anxious and divided. She has too many things going on but all Jesus requires is one thing. Her response only enforces her anxiety. Rather than ask Jesus to heal this wound in her soul she fills it with doing and activity. This leads her into resentment toward her sister and bitterness toward Jesus. Do you know someone like this? I do; me!

But grace is not earned, it is recieved by faith.

There is a better way and Mary has chosen it, which is to simply sit at Jesus' feet. Sitting at Jesus' feet is a sign that we have taken our place as his disciple, allowing him the place as teacher and Lord. The one thing necessary is Jesus and him alone. Only he will do. Mary has chosen to listen to him, to be with him and to follow him. To let her wounds be healed by his words. To allow him to speak to her soul by giving him the space he deserves. Jesus sums it up when he says "Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Yes indeed, Mary is the one who has chosen what is right, good and proper. Martha thinks Mary is lazy, but Jesus is saying she is wise. The challenge for us is clear. Where we feel anxiety, bitterness and resentment and are placing these things on to God, we need to STOP and LISTEN. We need to learn to sit at his feet once more, to let his words percolate down to the deepest parts of our being. To allow him to tell us who we really are in the essence of our being, rather than being distracted from it by our doing. We must eschew the many things to choose only one thing, Jesus himself. When we are in this position every single act of our being is worship to God.

The world in our image

Health and safety executives are the Pharisees of our day, make no mistake about it. It would seem that they are completely and utterly devoted to squeezing any and every joy and freedom out of everybody’s existence, for the expressed purpose of making the world ‘safer’. Ironically, we are no safer than we have ever been. We have promoted a world in which we abdicate our responsibility, instead relying on legislation to keep us safe. We have become idiots. It seems to that we have created a world where we are no longer able or even permitted to make significant decisions for ourselves, rather we have to abide by the rule book.

But this is not the fault of the H&S man/woman. This is in fact symptomatic of society’s wider plight and our divorce from God. Without him in the frame we have made a world in our image rather than his, projecting a number of our insecurities onto it. Let me explain.

You see, God is concerned with creating people in his own image; people who are able to take responsibility through love for themselves and for the world, even for their enemies (Luke 6.35). This is in fact our divine mandate as we see in Genesis 1.28.

‘God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."’

This ‘ruling over’ is not to be interpreted as an aggressive subjugation of the world in acting as moral conscience, as perhaps our friends in America have seen it. It is not a moral crusade first and foremost. It is the wholesale application of the way of service and love to every living thing in all places. We are to love beings into being. It is from this place that the authority to speak of morality comes and not vice versa. This ruling is not characterised by aggressively ‘lording it over others’, in fact it is quite the opposite. As Jesus says to his disciples, the way of ruling is now the way of service (Mark 10.42-45).

‘Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."’

Moreover, salvation is the process of taking responsibility for ourselves, for who we have become and what we have done with our lives, before handing it all over to God. Before God can redeem our lives we have to admit our sin, which begins by taking responsibility for who we have become, without judging ourselves for who we have become. Until we do this there is no real salvation. In return for this we are given the fullness of life as a promised gift and as a gift in the here and now.

What I sense is that in throwing God out the house has left a gaping hole which cannot be filled. Where we once followed God’s rule - whether explicitly referring to him or not - we now come to some other source for ‘moral’ guidance. Much of this vacuum has been filled with the notion of human rights. Unfortunately this is in itself is not a godly pursuit, unless it is coupled with the equally important notion of human responsibilities. If we won’t become responsible for ourselves and the world, how can we expect anyone else, even our government, to do so for us? The Judaeo-Christian story is one of God acting in our world in creation and redemption. His way of redeeming the world is to become a part of it, to get his hands dirty, to take responsibility for all things. We must do the same if we are to follow his example. We must become responsible people before God. This is what it is to be truly human.

Finally, I wonder how much of this preoccupation with health and safety actually has to do with a fear of death. Are so afraid of dying that we are forced to try to make the world as safe as possible? When we know God we can live in the tension of knowing that the world is not entirely safe but that He is entirely good.

The Sabbath, as it should be

"Sabbath ceasing [means] to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation, and finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is pursued without the Lord at the center of it all."

Marva J. Dawn - Keeping the Sabbath Wholly

Pain

"If we don't transform our pain we will most assuredly transmit it." R. Rohr

The spiritual life - Input versus Output

My wonderful wife said something last night which caught my ear. She mentioned that we focus so often in the Church and in our spiritual lives on what we put out, which is to say the 'fruit' of what we do. I'm thinking of what we contribute to the world and the church. The problem with this mindset is that it can lead us to make our spiritual lives - which Jesus tells us are about receiving God's gift for us - into another race for success, albeit with an outwardly 'valuable' goal.

That got me thinking. Would we be better to focus on input rather than output? What is input? To my mind this would be things like the spiritual disciplines; study, prayer, meditation, solitude, service, silence, giving etc. If we secure our input then surely our output will take care of itself? This is perhaps a better place to be but it is still short of where we should be.

An inappropriate fascination with both input and output can lead us into the same trap, that of seeking to earn our place with God. We end up making a spiritual quest into yet another rat race. We start with faith and end with works. Only when we focus on God's will alone will we properly unite both input and output.

Bonhoeffer says this when he suggests that both the question 'how can I be good?' and 'how can I do good?' are the wrong ones for us to ask. Principally this is because behind these questions lies a decision to locate reality in us and not God. These questions actually have 'me' at the centre. The correct question is 'what is the will of God?' as this locates all reality in God rather than us. The benefits of doing this are not merely theoretical, they are completely practical. Only when we ask this question, seek the answer and obey the one who answers will we unite input and output. Moreover, when we seek the answer to this question we unite ourselves with the source of all being, life Himself, and are then able to truly become alive.

First things first.

Welcome to any and all who will read this. I am planning to use this space to keep in touch and to write down my thoughts in a place where they can't be erased by my hard drive. All comments welcome, at least in principle.