As Scott Peck says at the start of his wonderful book 'The Road Less Travelled', "life is difficult". This is self-evident. We've all had times of plenty but they don't seem to last very long. They seem sometimes to be only short breathers amidst the real stuff, the hard stuff. Sometimes life gives less reason for hope than for hopelessness. Less reason for faith than cynicism. Less reason for love than for hatred.
Yet the marks of the christian are "faith, hope and love" (see 1 Cor 13 esp.). How can we be people marked out by these three when the tide of the world drags us to another place? I think that part of the answer has to do with where we are looking for our faith, our hope and our love.
If we look to the things of the world to provide our hope we will soon end up without any. If we base our love for others on what they can do for us and what we can do for them we will not love long. If our faith depends on how we perceive the world is responding to us, even to God, in this or that instant we will not be faith-filled for long.
No, the only appropriate source and destination for our faith, hope and love is God Himself. Everything else will let us down, confuse us or depress us. Nothing else is faithful. Only God will never lie to us, disappoint or cheat us. Only God will not ever let us down. Only God never defaults on his loans!
I have spent a great deal of my life trusting in the church and its leadership to give me hope and railing against it the minute it fails to do so. But no person, institution or movement can provide or sustain what really matters in life. To look to them for it will only lead us away from God.
The prophet Jeremiah puts it this way;
Thus says the LORD:"Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit."
(Jer 17. 5-8)
Who or what are you looking to for faith, hope and love?
Friday 22 May 2009
Tuesday 19 May 2009
Home and Away
"At the moment what this team needs is the support of the fans. I must say there is a massive difference between the away fans, who are absolutely fantastic, and the home fans."
The above words were spoken by Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal Football Club, one of England's best clubs. His team has come under fire recently for not having the guts to compete when it really matters most. His comments got me thinking about what kind of supporter I am, specifically what kind of supporter/follower of Jesus I am.
There are, as Arsene knows only too well, two kind of supporters. The home fans and the away fans. Home fans turn up when the going is good. They sit in the nicest parts of the stadium. They know the best way to get to the ground and they leave before then game is finished so they can get home for dinner. They come expecting entertainment and when they don't get what they want they make their feelings abundantly clear - even before half time. After all they have paid good money for those seats haven't they? Home fans come to be receive something.
Away fans often travel hundreds of miles to get to the ground braving all kinds of public transport. They are usually seated in the worst parts of the ground, pushed around by the police and treated with suspicion, being made to wait to leave the ground after the final whistle so that they don't disturb the peace. Still, they normally make more noise than the home fans whose ground they are visiting, though they are only a fraction of the number. They have a collective identity. They are not just individuals in a sea of other individuals, they are a group who have come together to do something - to support their team. Away fans come to give everything.
It's not too different when it comes to faith in God. There are those of us who treat our allegiance to Jesus as something we do on a weekend, a strand of entertainment in the rich tapestry of our lives. Some who come to be given something to take away, muse upon and discuss with friends .
Then there are some who come to give not just something but everything to the cause. Nothing is too much to ask of such people. Spend all day traveling the length and breadth of the globe to support the team? Sure. Give extortionate amounts of money to the cause? Of course. Such as these bear the burden when things aren't going well because it is something they must do. To do any less would be totally alien to them. They have made a decision to follow their team and now are living that out.
And it makes me think, will Jesus recognise me as an away fan when he walks out on the pitch again?
The above words were spoken by Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal Football Club, one of England's best clubs. His team has come under fire recently for not having the guts to compete when it really matters most. His comments got me thinking about what kind of supporter I am, specifically what kind of supporter/follower of Jesus I am.
There are, as Arsene knows only too well, two kind of supporters. The home fans and the away fans. Home fans turn up when the going is good. They sit in the nicest parts of the stadium. They know the best way to get to the ground and they leave before then game is finished so they can get home for dinner. They come expecting entertainment and when they don't get what they want they make their feelings abundantly clear - even before half time. After all they have paid good money for those seats haven't they? Home fans come to be receive something.
Away fans often travel hundreds of miles to get to the ground braving all kinds of public transport. They are usually seated in the worst parts of the ground, pushed around by the police and treated with suspicion, being made to wait to leave the ground after the final whistle so that they don't disturb the peace. Still, they normally make more noise than the home fans whose ground they are visiting, though they are only a fraction of the number. They have a collective identity. They are not just individuals in a sea of other individuals, they are a group who have come together to do something - to support their team. Away fans come to give everything.
It's not too different when it comes to faith in God. There are those of us who treat our allegiance to Jesus as something we do on a weekend, a strand of entertainment in the rich tapestry of our lives. Some who come to be given something to take away, muse upon and discuss with friends .
Then there are some who come to give not just something but everything to the cause. Nothing is too much to ask of such people. Spend all day traveling the length and breadth of the globe to support the team? Sure. Give extortionate amounts of money to the cause? Of course. Such as these bear the burden when things aren't going well because it is something they must do. To do any less would be totally alien to them. They have made a decision to follow their team and now are living that out.
And it makes me think, will Jesus recognise me as an away fan when he walks out on the pitch again?
Saturday 16 May 2009
The sword and the staff
"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ". (Eph 4.11- 15 NIV)
There is so much to see in this passage that entire books could be filled just working out what it all means, but what I want to focus on is the relationship that is proposed here between truth and love.
Four different kinds of giftings are mentioned here - apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers - all of which have the same aim, to prepare God's people for a different kind of living, a holy oneness where we all pull in the same direction and increasingly resemble Christ's character. This is a great statement of unity in diversity. It should be possible within the body of Christ to exhibit the kind of unity that is seen nowhere else. A unity which is not based on uniformity, on us all being from the same place, but which comes from the fact that we are all going in the same direction - that is toward Jesus Himself. Perhaps the lack of such a unity in the church merely shows how little we have loved our saviour.
What stands out to me here though is one particular gifting, that of the pastor-teacher. The pastor-teacher is at once a shepherd and a warrior. She has to delicately balance caring for the sheep and fighting off the wolves, just as King David did all those years ago. The pastor must hold the tension between truth and love and constantly find the middle ground. It is not enough to simply be 'right', because rightness without love is not right at all. Neither is it enough to be 'loving'. There is no real love without truth. The pastor-teacher must find a way to hold both the sword and the staff at the same time with the same goal in mind, the advancement of the flock.
Perhaps the fact that this is such a difficult dance explains why so few even attempt it these days. We have our great teachers of course, but so many of them have withdrawn to the ivory towers of academia, caring little for the cold, hard realities of day-to-day life. We prefer to be purists, ever narrowing down on our subject so that we know all there is to know about one thing. Perhaps we avoid the human for this very reason - it is too complex. Humans don't sit still on the page as words do. Sadly we see this in the church as much as we do in the academy. Leaders who have chosen to withdraw from the day-to-day work of loving other people as Christ loves them. It is no surprise that their 'truth' is not really transformative. It may be academically sound and well researched, but it will not ever resonate or change us. It is no surprise that the best 'theologians' of every generation are pastors too (think Barth, Bonhoeffer, N.T. Wright).
There are also those who would prefer to police others instead of pastoring them. They have the title of the pastor but none of the love to go with it. They are managers of people but not shepherds and once again, their example will never lead others into maturity in Christ Jesus (see http://jonnyhughes.blogspot.com/2009/03/pastors-or-police.html)
On the other hand there are those who 'just want to love' those around them, without telling them what they need to hear. Out of a fear of offending, a fear of man, they end up blessing any mess and sacrificing their sheep on the altar of tolerance. I admit that I tend toward this end of the extreme, which is perhaps why I love to be around people with the guts to tell people the truth.
What is needed are those people and those communities that hold the tension between truth and love. Those who know that truth and love are not alien concepts but fraternal twins, different sides of the same coin. Jesus did this and if we are to grow into his likeness as mature followers we need to be around those who also do this. Yes we need prophets, apostles and evangelists too, but I sense our faith is lacking more from a lack of truthful love than it is from vision or evangelistic zeal.
Perhaps the answer is for us all to discover the place within us where we can hold the sword and the staff simultaneously. To practice loving people into truth. Wherever we find ourselves from day-to-day, I believe we are demanded to be the sorts of people who live in this tension wherever we go and whatever we are doing.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ". (Eph 4.11- 15 NIV)
There is so much to see in this passage that entire books could be filled just working out what it all means, but what I want to focus on is the relationship that is proposed here between truth and love.
Four different kinds of giftings are mentioned here - apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers - all of which have the same aim, to prepare God's people for a different kind of living, a holy oneness where we all pull in the same direction and increasingly resemble Christ's character. This is a great statement of unity in diversity. It should be possible within the body of Christ to exhibit the kind of unity that is seen nowhere else. A unity which is not based on uniformity, on us all being from the same place, but which comes from the fact that we are all going in the same direction - that is toward Jesus Himself. Perhaps the lack of such a unity in the church merely shows how little we have loved our saviour.
What stands out to me here though is one particular gifting, that of the pastor-teacher. The pastor-teacher is at once a shepherd and a warrior. She has to delicately balance caring for the sheep and fighting off the wolves, just as King David did all those years ago. The pastor must hold the tension between truth and love and constantly find the middle ground. It is not enough to simply be 'right', because rightness without love is not right at all. Neither is it enough to be 'loving'. There is no real love without truth. The pastor-teacher must find a way to hold both the sword and the staff at the same time with the same goal in mind, the advancement of the flock.
Perhaps the fact that this is such a difficult dance explains why so few even attempt it these days. We have our great teachers of course, but so many of them have withdrawn to the ivory towers of academia, caring little for the cold, hard realities of day-to-day life. We prefer to be purists, ever narrowing down on our subject so that we know all there is to know about one thing. Perhaps we avoid the human for this very reason - it is too complex. Humans don't sit still on the page as words do. Sadly we see this in the church as much as we do in the academy. Leaders who have chosen to withdraw from the day-to-day work of loving other people as Christ loves them. It is no surprise that their 'truth' is not really transformative. It may be academically sound and well researched, but it will not ever resonate or change us. It is no surprise that the best 'theologians' of every generation are pastors too (think Barth, Bonhoeffer, N.T. Wright).
There are also those who would prefer to police others instead of pastoring them. They have the title of the pastor but none of the love to go with it. They are managers of people but not shepherds and once again, their example will never lead others into maturity in Christ Jesus (see http://jonnyhughes.blogspot.com/2009/03/pastors-or-police.html)
On the other hand there are those who 'just want to love' those around them, without telling them what they need to hear. Out of a fear of offending, a fear of man, they end up blessing any mess and sacrificing their sheep on the altar of tolerance. I admit that I tend toward this end of the extreme, which is perhaps why I love to be around people with the guts to tell people the truth.
What is needed are those people and those communities that hold the tension between truth and love. Those who know that truth and love are not alien concepts but fraternal twins, different sides of the same coin. Jesus did this and if we are to grow into his likeness as mature followers we need to be around those who also do this. Yes we need prophets, apostles and evangelists too, but I sense our faith is lacking more from a lack of truthful love than it is from vision or evangelistic zeal.
Perhaps the answer is for us all to discover the place within us where we can hold the sword and the staff simultaneously. To practice loving people into truth. Wherever we find ourselves from day-to-day, I believe we are demanded to be the sorts of people who live in this tension wherever we go and whatever we are doing.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Death and all his friends
My dad once said that all fear is linked to the one ultimate fear - death itself. Having spent some time in the dentist today I have to say that I think he is right. I have had a fear of the dentist for a long time now, ever since I felt that deep shame which can only be experienced when a dental practitioner peers inside your mouth, inside YOU, and disapproves of what she sees. It's a shame that sticks, especially when the experience often costs significant money.
Behind this shame is a deeper fear in my case. The real pain of seeing the dentist is not of the financial sort but is the nagging realisation that in seeing the dentist I am forced to come into contact with my own mortality. Most days I can hide from the cold, hard truth that I will one day die. I feel pretty healthy most of the time and so I don't experience the shadow of death following me around. Except when I see the dentist.
The dentist teaches me that I am not perfect, that I only have a very limited time on this earth. In fact, I am not physically capable of living for a very long time. My teeth won't allow it. At this rate I won't have any beyond the age of 50, or so I am led to believe. Either way I cannot escape the truth that I am not going to be here forever. This is no trivial reality. We all have to get there at one time or another and it is not a very pleasant place to live.
The question is what do we do with this new information? Do we run from it by getting all the treatments that money can buy; new teeth, new boobs and a new hair cut? Do we buy a new wardrobe to hide some of the imperfections? Or do we face it head on with God?
I want to choose the latter. My teeth are not perfect and one day I will die, but in the midst of this crisis I want to choose to be thankful for what I have been given, rather than ruing what I wish I was. I don't have the perfect anything, certainly not the mind or body that I wish I did, but God has made me this way and I can be no other.
The good news of course is that one day I will get another run at this thing called life and I will be given a totally new body and a totally new set of pearly whites, which will never decay. Perhaps they're made from the same stuff they make the pearly gates from, who knows? Either way, God has a plan to resurrect me and place me back on this earth with the kind of body that Jesus got after his dying and rising. This truth - for those willing to accept it - is the end of fear.
God will not abandon us to the grave. We were made for eternity and we will one day live within it. Amen.
Behind this shame is a deeper fear in my case. The real pain of seeing the dentist is not of the financial sort but is the nagging realisation that in seeing the dentist I am forced to come into contact with my own mortality. Most days I can hide from the cold, hard truth that I will one day die. I feel pretty healthy most of the time and so I don't experience the shadow of death following me around. Except when I see the dentist.
The dentist teaches me that I am not perfect, that I only have a very limited time on this earth. In fact, I am not physically capable of living for a very long time. My teeth won't allow it. At this rate I won't have any beyond the age of 50, or so I am led to believe. Either way I cannot escape the truth that I am not going to be here forever. This is no trivial reality. We all have to get there at one time or another and it is not a very pleasant place to live.
The question is what do we do with this new information? Do we run from it by getting all the treatments that money can buy; new teeth, new boobs and a new hair cut? Do we buy a new wardrobe to hide some of the imperfections? Or do we face it head on with God?
I want to choose the latter. My teeth are not perfect and one day I will die, but in the midst of this crisis I want to choose to be thankful for what I have been given, rather than ruing what I wish I was. I don't have the perfect anything, certainly not the mind or body that I wish I did, but God has made me this way and I can be no other.
The good news of course is that one day I will get another run at this thing called life and I will be given a totally new body and a totally new set of pearly whites, which will never decay. Perhaps they're made from the same stuff they make the pearly gates from, who knows? Either way, God has a plan to resurrect me and place me back on this earth with the kind of body that Jesus got after his dying and rising. This truth - for those willing to accept it - is the end of fear.
God will not abandon us to the grave. We were made for eternity and we will one day live within it. Amen.
Thursday 7 May 2009
Better to be free than good
Jesus does not come just to make us 'good people'. His demands on us reach much further than that. He comes to set us free from any law of prescriptive behaviour, from any moral code which we might wish to chain ourselves to. He comes to make us 'people', real human beings who love the world into existence. The Christian claim is that without his help we fall short of what it is to be human and we will fail to fulfill this mission of re-creation and redemption. It won't happen in us and so it won't happen through us either.
Yet there is a great deal of confusion over this issue both within and without the church. Within it we act as if everything will be OK as long as we behave ourselves, quit our drinking, stop smoking, stop swearing and having sex with the wrong people. Although these things aren't good for us, this approach of dealing with symptoms stops pitifully short of the truth. Outside the church people often reject the good news Jesus brings on the grounds that they are 'already a good person'. Both of these attitudes miss the essential purpose of Jesus' mission on the earth. The Christian one simply enslaves us to another master - moral perfection and a corresponding pride - and the outside perspective fails to realise that 'moral goodness' is not the goal, but true freedom and humanity.
So why this perception outside the church? I feel it must have something to do with the fact that the church spends much of its time harping on about whether this or that behaviour is morally acceptable and not enough time loving the world in spite of its behaviour, which is exactly what Jesus instructed it to spend its time doing. This has led to a misunderstanding of the good news of Jesus in the world and many have rejected it on this account.
Yet there is a great deal of confusion over this issue both within and without the church. Within it we act as if everything will be OK as long as we behave ourselves, quit our drinking, stop smoking, stop swearing and having sex with the wrong people. Although these things aren't good for us, this approach of dealing with symptoms stops pitifully short of the truth. Outside the church people often reject the good news Jesus brings on the grounds that they are 'already a good person'. Both of these attitudes miss the essential purpose of Jesus' mission on the earth. The Christian one simply enslaves us to another master - moral perfection and a corresponding pride - and the outside perspective fails to realise that 'moral goodness' is not the goal, but true freedom and humanity.
So why this perception outside the church? I feel it must have something to do with the fact that the church spends much of its time harping on about whether this or that behaviour is morally acceptable and not enough time loving the world in spite of its behaviour, which is exactly what Jesus instructed it to spend its time doing. This has led to a misunderstanding of the good news of Jesus in the world and many have rejected it on this account.
Monday 4 May 2009
The heart of the matter
I'm sick of theology. Sick of hearing about what I should be thinking about God. Sick of being told what the correct doctrinal stance is on this or that matter. What God thinks about money. What God thinks about Homosexuals. What God thinks about salvation. I think God might well be sick of it too. If He had wanted theologians He wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of compiling the Bible, but would have written a text-book instead. I think He might be far more interested in LOVERS.
The Bible is no textbook and to treat it as such is to bastardize it. It's a compilation, a best-of if you like, of the God who goes after the hearts of His people, the God who chooses encounter over information. God wants to encounter each of us all the time. Do we want it though?
Sometimes I think that we would much rather have the information. It keeps us safe. We know where we are with information. Encounter, well, it's too scary. I mean we might not end up in the driving seat and then where would our theology be? We might end up in a (holy) mess.
Theology, then, can be the biggest barrier to knowing God. It can be the biggest obstacle to encounter, unless it is submitted to the heart. Unless our thinking comes out of the love affair with God we are in, then I think we will always end up in idolatry of vacuous ideas and theological systems.
Jesus saw it like this;
"You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men." (Matt 15.7-9)
I want to honour God with my heart. Do you?
The Bible is no textbook and to treat it as such is to bastardize it. It's a compilation, a best-of if you like, of the God who goes after the hearts of His people, the God who chooses encounter over information. God wants to encounter each of us all the time. Do we want it though?
Sometimes I think that we would much rather have the information. It keeps us safe. We know where we are with information. Encounter, well, it's too scary. I mean we might not end up in the driving seat and then where would our theology be? We might end up in a (holy) mess.
Theology, then, can be the biggest barrier to knowing God. It can be the biggest obstacle to encounter, unless it is submitted to the heart. Unless our thinking comes out of the love affair with God we are in, then I think we will always end up in idolatry of vacuous ideas and theological systems.
Jesus saw it like this;
"You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men." (Matt 15.7-9)
I want to honour God with my heart. Do you?
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