True knowledge

‘The Hebrew language does not recognize any distinction between knowledge that is an accumulation of information and knowledge that is personal acquaintance. For the Hebrews, all true knowledge is based on experience. Therefore, when the prophet speaks here about the “knowledge of the LORD”, he is not speaking primarily of knowledge about the Lord but of the insight into reality born of a close and intimate relationship with him. The Messiah will make it possible for all people to know God intimately.’

John N. Oswalt, NIV application commentary on Isaiah, p189 (On Isaiah 11.1-9)

Mystery and new creation - the Easter story

Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: "He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory."

- 1 Timothy 3:16

When you think about it the Christian faith is pretty weird. If you've grown up within it you may never have seriously considered how 'out there' it all is. We believe that God fully revealed Himself in flesh through Jesus. We believe that although he died that he was bodily raised. This was not merely a 'spiritual' reality but a fully physical one. Indeed it was more physical than anything we have ever seen. We then believe that he ascended to be with the Father, taking up the place that always belonged to him, as Lord of everything that he had made in the first place.

God come to earth, living, dying and rising for us. Weird. Crazy, unless true.

This Easter we are confronted once again with a decision to make. Firstly, will we believe in these events? Will we believe that they happened and that they show us something deeply true about the world that we are in? Namely, that it contains mystery, that which is infinitely explainable, but which always escapes mere doctrinal assent. That which always provokes wonder and faith. Can we allow these Easter events to leave us in awe this year? Will we embrace reality and faith that goes beyond the checklist?

And secondly will we also choose, once more, to let these events that can't ever be fully explained away but yet which are rooted in historical fact to shape the way that we actually live in the 'here and now'? Will we choose this year to become resurrection people, who hope not only in Jesus' resurrection but in our own which is to come and in the resurrection and renewal of everything God ever made?

Will we begin working for that future reality right now, because that is what is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus. The fact that the greatest event in eternity happens within human history means that we must begin building the new heavens and the new earth right now. Let's get to work!

John 21 - Jesus and Peter

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." (John 21.15)

Simon Peter is on the rebound. He has ridden the rollercoaster of following Jesus all the way to the bottom, denying Jesus in his time of need. He has nothing left to give, nothing to boast about. There is no way back for him except by the grace of Jesus. Is there a way to be good again?

Jesus meets him in his time of need as they sit down for breakfast on the beach. Peter is desperate for reconciliation and Jesus doesn’t disappoint him. But it’s the way that Jesus does this that interests me.

Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"

It is Simon’s love of Jesus that has been tested and found wanting. The denial episode has shown him and Jesus what was really going on in his heart all along. His answer to the question is, of course, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

Jesus asks him the same question three times, once for each denial. Each affirmation of love heals the wound of previous betrayal. And the love that Simon affirms is linked to his calling. Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

And that’s the point. Simon’s only capability in his calling is his love for Jesus. His only preparation for being useful in the plans of Jesus is his relationship with the one he loves. The situation is no different today. We become useful to Jesus when we fall in love with him. It’s not about our gifting, our striving, our savvy, our training or anything else. It’s not a matter of whether we love going to church, reading our bible, teaching people about God, or anything else. It doesn’t matter whether we want to build his Kingdom by working in church, Starbucks, Costco or anyplace else.

It all means nothing unless we love.

We are only useful to Jesus if we truly love him. This is the one and only qualification Jesus asks for in Simon and it is what he asks for in each of us too.

Do you love him?

Jesus' Grandfather

Check out this interesting blog on the differences between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke's gospels, posted on the 'Christianity Today' website.

http://bit.ly/6JpClY

Do you find this convincing? How else would you explain the differences in the accounts?

Faith: Part 3

This is my third and final post on faith. In these posts, which focus on the calling of Peter and his friends, I have been trying to assert is that faith is never merely about what we 'believe', as if belief in something can be limited to the intellectual sphere. No - faith must necessarily spill over into what we do, into the essence of who we are as people. This is the lesson of Peter's encounter with Jesus. So how can we become the kind of people who are filled with that kind of faith?

The extent to which we respond in faith will always be the extent to which we know the risen Jesus. We cannot be filled with faith unless we know Him for ourselves and are filled with his Holy Spirit. Derivative knowledge will not do. Our churches are filled with people who leach their pastors faith, believing that they can live 'through' their pastor. They can't and this is why many church-goers' lives look no different to the world's lives. Vicarious knowledge of Jesus is not enough.

But how can we develop such a knowledge of Jesus? Firstly, we need to learn to be in Jesus’ presence. Just to sit with him. We need to become more and more familiar with him through any and every element of our lives. We need to get familiar with him through reading the bible, through developing an active prayer life, through talking with other Jesus followers and through acting on what we think he might be saying. We need to encounter Jesus on every level of the human experience and we need to do it often. We cannot survive on our 'conversion experience' alone. Every day God is waiting for us to meet Him afresh. Faith in God which does not engage the daily experience will soon become academic and stale, losing its vitality.

Jesus himself says this to his disciples in Luke 18.

"¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Persistence in prayer is one of the key ways we develop faith, because through it we find out about who God is what He is like.

We learn something more on this subject from Simon Peter. In verse 8 we see Peter’s response to the miracle he has just witnessed. He says “go away from me , Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This is typical of anyone who has come into the presence of the living God. Peter sees Jesus for who he really is and in so doing he recognizes who he really is too, a sinful man.

Peter's analysis of the situation is quite wrong at this point. He thinks that his sinfulness means that Jesus won’t want to associate with him. In reality, quite the reverse is true. Simon’s sinfulness is exactly the reason Jesus wants to associate with him. Jesus has come to 'seek and save what has been lost' and that begins with Simon and will eventually be done through Simon. Jesus knows there is something in Simon that is totally untapped and unrealized, and he wants to bring it out of him. He wants Simon to be his disciple. He thinks that Simon can become like him because Simon has the X-Factor - faith and humility. In other words Simon knows what he lacks and what he needs.

Jesus, in interacting with Simon in this way, is saying that Simon is up to the job of becoming just like Jesus. This, too, is his promise to us.

In verse 10 we see that Jesus sees beyond Simon's fear into his heart and ultimately into his future. He calls him, redefining what he has always done and re-directing it for the greater purpose of the Kingdom of God. That’s how Jesus wants to work in our lives too. He takes what we have and directs it for his greater good. Our job is simply to submit and obey. Jesus is not asking us to put a mask on before we come and serve him. In fact quite the opposite is true. He wants us to come just as we are and he will use what we have and multiply it.

Simon's response says it all. He is the representative of his accomplices here, making the same decision they all choose to make. This is the hinge point of their lives. They have seen Jesus do amazing things before this, but they have not yet made the key decision to follow. Here, they unmistakably and irrefutably do just that; “they left everything.” This is the true response of faith and also the test of faith. You know when someone has really given themselves over to Jesus because they choose to leave everything for Jesus.

It’s pretty amazing to think that Simon leaves even the catch of fish, which would have been worth a heck of a lot of money, as well as his business and family behind in order to follow this guy he has only recently met. Simon knows that the financial value of the haul, even the total value of the business is nothing in comparison with the value of being around Jesus. The young men don't even bother to sell the fish!

Simon has been made aware of the fruit of obedience and now he chooses to follow with everything he has. He, John and James now know that it will be totally worth their while. Meeting Jesus has put everything else in perspective for them. Even their livelihood has now taken second place to the call of Jesus. Their faith in them has led to greater obedience to what he wants for them. They could not bear to be without him after what they have seen.

What impact must this have had on the crowd watching? Surely it shook them to their core? What impact would it have on the places we live and work if we were known as people who would gladly follow Jesus even if it meant leaving behind all the trappings of the world? What kind of world would we inhabit have if those of us that believe in Jesus gave up everything for him, even the things that hold us back and stop us from being totally abandoned to Jesus? What would our gospel look like if we held it out especially to those who are fully aware of their inability to make it on their own - to the least and the poorest?

Jesus used these fishermen to change the world! He can do the same with us!

How much are you willing to give up for him to do that?

Faith is an event and a process; it is a departure point and a journey. Some of us have set off on the journey and are now walking with Jesus and keeping in step with His Spirit. For us, we need the encouragement to keep on walking and obeying as we go. Others have not yet set off. We need to make the decision to begin walking and trusting in Jesus with all we have, knowing that He will bring along what we lack. Others have walked with him before but have stopped walking. They need to begin again, knowing that there is enough grace for them to stand up and re-start the journey.

There is room for all of us in a story as big as this and there is grace for all of us too. Jesus says the same thing to one and all, 'come and follow me'. This is our duty but it is also our destiny. Only in following him do we discover who we are and what we were born to do.

Faith: Part 2

In verse 4 we see that Jesus finishes teaching. He hasn't finished working though. In fact, the greater work of testing and calling Simon is only just beginning. Jesus is not content merely to work in the supposedly 'spiritual realm', with things like teaching crowds. No, he is innately relational. There is as much in that sphere for him as in any other element of his ministry. He is perfectly well balanced in his priorities. No one element of his work takes precedence over the other and all are in submission to his relationship with God the Father. This is the model he lays down for the lives of all who follow him. 

Yet this will involve a certain amount of laying down other priorities, processes, even relationships if we are to re-order our lives in line with his. We will often need to learn to say 'no' before we can properly say 'yes'. This will come as each of us make the step of personal obedience to listen to God and to obey what says. 

This is exactly the same attitude that we see in Simon, Jesus’ first disciple. After Jesus has finished speaking he looks to Simon and asks him to begin fishing. Where does Jesus get this idea from? It must be that he has heard it directly from the Father, otherwise it is lunacy. There is absolutely no worldly sense in this request. There is no reason whatsoever that Simon should obey him, other than through recognising who Jesus really is by faith. Faith is the only reason that Simon would even allow Jesus to say something so preposterous. How can a carpenter advise a fisherman on fishing? Simon has been fishing all night – which is when you fish – and has caught nothing. If nothing has been caught at night then fishing in the day is hardly going to help.

But this act is not merely about Simon’s faith, it is about Jesus’ faith. Jesus is the one who has started this event through his hearing God and knowing that God was not finished with him once the sermon had ended. Jesus obeys what he hears his father saying. And it Jesus’ obedience that gives Simon the model for his own obedience.

Simon knows that what Jesus is asking him makes little sense, and in a gentle way he tells Jesus so. “Master…” In spite of this Simon doesn't ask for a sign or even an explanation, he simply obeys.

Jesus’ authority comes from knowing that his Father has told him to do this. Jesus is perfectly obedient to what God is asking of Him…and so is Simon. He knows it doesn’t make any sense to do what Jesus is asking Him but he trusts it all the same, simply on the basis of his faith in Jesus. He doesn't even know Jesus that well. But he trusts on the basis of what he does know, and he does not allow what he doesn't know to stand in his way. Simon has already seen his mother healed and he trusts that something good will come of this even if he doesn’t know what. He doesn't know everything but he knows enough, and this is enough for him for now.

And here is the crucial element, he acts. Much of the church has tried to separate faith and action as if they could be held apart. They can’t. To have faith in Jesus is to trust in what he is saying and to demonstrate that by following him. Sometimes that means that we will end up doing some really stupid things. Sometimes we won’t have a clue about the outcome until we are halfway through the story. Sometimes we won’t know how God has used us until afterwards. Sometimes we will have to wait until heaven!

“Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Simon’s trust is not in the advice Jesus gives but in the person who is giving it. He has faith in Jesus and he acts out that faith.

And the fruit of obedience is abundance. Simon’s nets are so full that he has to bring his partners James and John into the equation to help. Even then both boats are sinking under the load of the haul of fish.

What has happened here is in no way normal. What has happened here is totally miraculous. Simon has learned a key lesson through this; when we are fully obedient to the powerful words of Jesus we see our lives bursting with fruit. There is nothing that can stand in the way of the obedient disciples of Jesus. This has to be true for us too. Sometimes the blessing of faith, the abundance, will be the faith itself. Sometimes it will be material. We don't choose. All we can do is receive and be thankful.

Those of us who follow Jesus know that what we want to see happen in the world is so much greater than anything we could imagine on our own and anything we could grow. It's an agenda born out of hope, not rationale or even experience. We want to see this creation transformed by the love of Jesus. We want to see God’s Kingdom spill out of us and touch the world that we encounter day by day. We want to see people fall so deeply in love with Jesus that their lives are changed forever. We want to see addictions forgotten, demons cast out, people healed and the name of Jesus become synonymous with our city, state and country – and we want to see radical faith filled communities sending other churches out into the world for this to happen elsewhere.

 We are only ever going to see this happen if we hear and obey the word of Jesus. There is no short cut to this. Hear and obey. Hear and obey. We believe in the one who has all we need because we know we can't do it on our own.

In the final blog in this series we will look at how we can position ourselves for this kind of life.

Faith: Part 1

How do we follow Jesus into the job of changing the world? What do we need in our proverbial locker if we are to see God’s Kingdom come to change and heal this hurting and broken world through us? We need to have an intimate relationship with the living God by His Holy Spirit for one. This will lead us to a genuine love for others too, which is crucial; but we also need faith - and lots of it.

Despite his many shortcomings, I see Peter as a fine model of faith in the gospels. He gets some things wrong but he gets a heck of a lot right too, so I thought I would spend the next few blogs going through Luke 5.1-11, where we see Peter being called to follow Jesus. This is how the story goes...

1One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, 2he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

 4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

 5Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

 6When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

 8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" 9For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,10and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.

   Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." 11So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him."

We begin with a description of the scene, but without much of an explanation for it. Why was Jesus standing by the lake? The implied explanation given is simply that he was there to teach. That is what his ministry is about in some part. He has just laid out the multi-faceted nature of his ministry in Luke 4 - his own manifesto as it were - drawn from Isaiah 61, and now he has begun to work it out in public. He has already healed one man with an unclean Spirit, a woman ( Simon's mother) from a fever and has cast out many demons - no sickness is too big or too small for Jesus - and now he continues to teach. His teaching can never be separated from his healing and vice versa. They are inextricably linked as they both form a part of his composite announcement of the reality of the Kingdom, which has drawn near in his own self.

The crowd is pressing in on him. They know why they are there. They have seen something in him up to this point that they have never witnessed in anyone before this point. Even in this short time of his active ministry they know that this man Jesus is unique and they want more. They want to hear what he has to say. There is something about this man that marks him out from the others, even in an age where there are many opinions and leaders. 

He has authority (Luke 4.36).

What the crowd see is a man filled with the Holy Spirit (4.1) and empowered by the Holy Spirit (4.14) to do the very works of God. How could the crowd fail to see that? They can! That’s why they’re there. His teaching is different (4.15) because it is active and it draws people. This is reminiscent of Paul's approach in Corinth (1 Cor 2.1-5). It is the only sound basis for the preaching of the gospel. 

"1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

This kind of preaching, in itself, requires great faith. Jesus has that kind of faith and he inspires it in those he meets.

Jesus observes the situation he is in and he sees more than meets the eye. An opportunity not simply to teach the crowd but to draw disciples to himself. Jesus is able to focus on the large scale and the small scale at the same time. He does not get so enamored and distracted by the crowd that he loses his focus on the individual. Nor does he become so intrigued with the personal that he withdraws from the corporate. He has bifocal vision. He sees the purposes of God in both and has a big enough picture to honor God in both.

He climbs aboard and begins to teach the crowds. He does not ask permission, he simply does it. He is demonstrating his authority in action. He has also 'paid his way' in some measure by healing Simon's mother in the  previous verses. There is some relationship already stirring between Simon and Jesus. 

Jesus is totally free to ask Simon to do what he says. He has no fear of offending Simon, no worry about putting him out. Simon obeys him word for word by 'putting out a little way from the sure'.  Jesus is 'testing the water' of Simon's heart, so to speak. He is working out whether this is the kind of guy he would like to have with him. Simon doesn't know he is at a job interview, which makes his obedient response all the more impressive. 

Notice this. Simon does not alter Jesus' request at any point. He simply hears and obeys. This is the response of faith, that we hear and we obey. Simon is about to demonstrate this again, although he does not know it yet. 

We'll move onto this in the next post.

Sharing

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be ... Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land."

Deuteronomy 15:7-11

Sharing trumps giving because when we share we don't get to stay in control of our stuff. When we open up our lives to sharing with our community we allow others to invade our space and take what they need. We don't get to choose when and what we give, we give as there is need.

We get the same benefits in return too. There is a mutuality to sharing that is not present in the same way through giving.

The freedom of obscurity

"For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3.3

The gospel is first about death, Jesus's death and then our death. We enter into the story of the gospel through the cross of Jesus, which demands that we die. When we begin this journey of following Jesus we say 'no' to those things that used to drive us forward and instead choose to follow Him.

Our life is no longer our own, it is now hidden in His life. We no longer have a life apart from Him but our life is derived from His life. This is what it means to be hidden in Him. It's no longer about us. We're not the central figure in the play - Jesus is.

The advantages of this are obvious. Jesus is now with God. He enjoys all the benefits that being in the presence of God allow. He has intimacy with the Father and He knows the will of the Father. Through Jesus we now have access to all of these benefits which were once beyond our reach. We participate in the very life of God. This is the life after the death.

Peter puts it like this;

"His (Jesus') divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he (Jesus) has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." 2 Peter 1.3-4

All this means that we must become hidden, obscure and discounted. It's not about us. We are freed from the need to be at the center of the story. It can't be about us any longer. It has to be about Him if it's going to work as it should. This truth has obvious implications for how we function as followers of Jesus. A sure sign of the authenticity of our faith will be our humility. We will live as if we are nothing and He is everything. We will get out of the way.

How often can we say this is our reality? How often are we actually more concerned with being noticed and approved of? I can say for myself that this is a big problem. I think the culture of Christian celebrities is one of the biggest signs that we have missed the gospel and one of the reasons we see so little of the power of God in our midst. We have made it about us and none of us has anything to offer.

Our job is to point to Him. To become hidden that He might be revealed. Are we ready for this? Are we ready to die again? There's nothing I want more but nothing I feel less able to do.

This is why John the Baptist is so amazing. What a humble man it takes to say
"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3.30

A meditation on a Psalm

"The Lord is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his
anointed.

O save your people, and bless your
heritage;
be their shepherd, and carry them
forever."

Psalm 28.8-9 (NRSV)

Jesus is the strength of the church, which is his people. There is no other strength in the church than that which comes through and from Jesus. Everything else is weakness. Only he can provide the salvation of God that the church is called to receive and then offer to the world. No well-thought-through strategy can offer this; no perfectly designed sunday service; no conference, no gifted teacher and no celebrity pastor. No-thing.

Only one person. Jesus Christ.

He is not only the salvation but also the refuge of his people. "The name of the Lord (Jesus) is a strong tower. The righteous run into it (him) and they are safe (Prov 18.10)." Salvation and refuge are closely linked in Jesus. He is our salvation because he is our refuge and he is our refuge because he is our salvation.

We cannot ever be safe without him. Individually we must foster our relationship with him so that he becomes the place we run to for safety and salvation instinctively. Corporately we must do the same. Those of us in leadership within his people must learn that we cannot do anything without first submitting it to his will. We can only expect the cover and safety he promises us if we are walking in his will - walking in his path - as the sheep follows the shepherd.

We must ask him to pick us up and carry us forward. This will mean we have to stop trying to walk on our own and in our own strength. How might this happen?

Prayer. Prayer has to be the bedrock of everything we do. When we pray we await his direction and submit to it. We do not do what we want and then pray that it will work out - 'Lord bless this mess' - we ask him what he wants and then we do it. This must be our rule of life if we are to be effective in carrying out his work.

Resurrection

I am reading a book on the resurrection by Peterson (below). He writes that resurrection always happens at the fringes of things. Jesus was raised from the dead in the quiet of a garden with nobodies (Mary Magdalene etc.) there to witness the aftermath and no-one there to see the event itself.

This is a deep truth.

As Christians who want to make a difference in and to the world we must position ourselves on the fringes of things - this is where the life is. I think this is where God would have us be. It is in some ways a dangerous place to be. A cliff edge has drawbacks and great dangers attached to it, but I feel that God would rather us live there with the associated risks than in the certainty and boredom we often choose. He hates lukewarm, remember?

Why are our churches so boring? Perhaps because we are boring and safe. Is God bored? I think He might be.

"When the son of man returns will He find faith on the earth?"

better world or better church

I'm really excited about the focus on mission within the global church at the moment. Whilst there is certainly a lot of guff and spin flying around, the essence of the situation is this; the church has recognised that it hasn't done a great job of representing what the gospel is and actually getting that message to the people who need to hear it.

This cultural basis for 'mission shaped living' - fancy way of saying 'being a Christian' - is joined with strong biblical evidence too. In each of the gospels Jesus makes it his final priority to remind his disciples that the good news about his death and resurrection leaves them with an obvious imperative - go and preach the good news to all the nations. Get out there, tell them about what this all means and show them the evidence at the same time. Pronounce that the Kingdom has come and do it with all the resources that I am about to send you by my Spirit.

This mission is not an add on to the gospel message, but something very central. Just as the purpose of the Old Covenant was that the nations would be blessed through the seed of Abraham, so the New Covenant has the same aim. Jesus came to fulfill the Old and to bring the New whilst continuing the same thread. The difference of course between the two Covenants is that the New includes all who believe on Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile. Secondly, and as evidence for the first, there are new resources given for this work - namely the Holy Spirit! Those who have received the Holy Spirit are now God's people in the world, called to do the work of building His Kingdom and inviting others to do the same.

The point is this. The mission of the church is not to build a better church but a better world. Whilst the latter will obviously include the former, what history has shown us is that those that concentrate on the former never get much further. Instead our starting point as Christians is worship which flows out into Mission, not into ecclesiology (talk of the church). We will of course finally get round to talking about how the church should be shaped in the light of all this but it must never be our starting point.

Where hope can be found

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?

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.

Matthew Chapters 1-2

I had never before realised how prominent a figure Joseph is in the early gospel story, as recorded by Matthew. He is, in fact, significantly more prominent than Mary who is only mentioned explicitly twice (vv18 & 20) and twice more implicitly (vv21 & 22). Even when Mary is mentioned explicitly she is always referred to in relation to Joseph or in relation to her task. In verse 18 she is 'engaged to Joseph', in verse 20 she is Joseph's 'wife'. There is no doubt that Joseph is the hero of this early story. He is the recipient of the vast majority of the divine interaction; he is witness to two Angelic apparitions (1.20 & 2.13) in his sleep and two further instructive dreams (2.12 & 2.22), which guide this fledgling family on their way.

Perhaps the fact that he is the recipient of such divine help is only an indication that he needed it more than the others. Putting myself in his shoes I can see why that might be the case. What would he be feeling? His wife-to-be had only 9 months previously broken the news to him that she was pregnant and he was not the father! Since then he had travelled to Bethlehem, Egypt and now to Nazareth, a backwater town, in fear of his life and the life of his family. He had the responsibility of caring for his young wife and his young son Jesus, who is to 'save his people from their sins' (2.21). I would imagine he was asking some serious questions of God; what did I do to deserve this? Why choose me? He is in awe. He must be frightened, terrified in fact. This must have been something akin to a waking dream, perhaps a nightmare at times. But yet in the face of all of this he consistently makes the right decision, to be obedient to God.

Much has been made in the history of the church of the heroism of Mary, and yes, she is worthy of much of it. But Joseph is without doubt a hero too. On him rested the massive responsibility of keeping this vulnerable troupe alive and he responded with great courage and distinction. But the same thing that marked Mary out as a heroine marks him out as hero - he was obedient. He said yes. Again and again and again, he said yes.

And that is the challenge for each of us too. Will we be people who say 'yes'? People who surrender our agenda to God and in so doing allow Him to make something more of our lives than we could ever make under our own steam? If we do we can be certain that this will lead us into a story far bigger than us, the same story that Mary and Joseph stepped into when they said yes to receiving the Messiah Jesus, the Saviour of the world.