The challenge of preaching the Gospel in a Secular World
My God and King In All Things Scientific
Preaching the Gospel in the Context of Science
“What do you make of it?” I could have ducked the conversation, it was my day off and I was after all enjoying a browse in the Cheltenham Science Festival bookshop. I had enjoyed two of his other books, but had no inclination to buy this one. I had seen the TV programme and could tell from the blurb and a glance through the contents that it would irritate me immensely.
In that instant I decided not to duck the conversation but in Peter’s words to give an account of the hope that is in me.
The book in question, The Good Delusion. The author who would be along later to do his book signing Richard Dawkins.
Twenty minutes later I emerged from an exhilarating but draining conversation about faith and the God I believe in.
When I preach I do not think of myself as preaching ‘to’ the church where I am called to a preaching and teaching and pastoral ministry. I think of myself as one of the members gathered together that day who needs that preaching as much as any other. In my preaching I seek by prayerful and careful study of the Scriptures to listen out for what God is saying to all of us in that place at that time.
Preaching for the most part twice a Sunday in my own church, I get to know the context of the people I share that experience with. I am more and more conscious that we all of us live in a secular world. In the last ten years or so against the backdrop of the rise in fundamentalisms and in war and tensions in the middle east fuelled by fundamentalisms in so many religions, there has been an upsurge in strident atheism fuelled by science writers like Richard Dawkins.
There’s the 95 year old who is deeply troubled in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and all that is happening because her daughter is quite adamant that that demonstrates there can be no God. She asks me how she can respond to such atheism.
A sprightly grandmother, for such I now recognise there can be!, is deeply troubled because her grand daughter sitting a GCSE RE exam can’t be bothered to work at it because religion doesn’t matter and isn’t true. How does she respond to such atheism?
If we in the church are to be ready to make our defence to anyone who demands from us an account of the hope that is in us, our preaching needs to take into account four key things.
First, preachers must seek an understanding of science from scientists and those who popularise science from within the world of science so that when in our preaching we allude to the world of science we do so in a properly informed way.
Second, preachers must have an understanding of the relationship between science and religion so that their preaching is done in the context of science and not in conflict with science
Third, preachers must share their understanding of faith with those in the world of science whose misunderstandings fuel the false perception of conflict between science and religion
Fourth, preachers must declare their understanding of what is at the heart of their preaching so that what they preach in a secular age shaped by science is indeed Gospel, Good News.
First, preachers must seek an understanding of science from scientists and those who popularise science from within the world of science so that when in our preaching we allude to the world of science we do so in a properly informed way and demonstrate that we share their sense of wonder and awe at the world we live in.
One of our organists, who spent a life-time working for GCHQ in the field of computer science has introduced me to popular science writing and got me hooked … quite an achievement for one who went to a grammar school where I opted for arts and not science at the age of 12.
Simon Winchester’s account of William Smith and the first Geological Map of England and Wales in The Map that Changed the World, led me on to Peter Toghill’s Geology of Britain, to Richard Fortey’s The Earth, an Intimate History and on to regional geology guides.
I have an overwhelming sense of awe at the sheer scale of geological time. I stand on the Cotswold Escarpment above Cheltenham and look over what is a failed rift valley towards all that remains of a line of volcanoes in the Malvern Hills and I look back 650 million years. It is this very sense of awe and wonder I feel when I read Psalm 121 and lift up my eyes to hills.
And then I move on to Richard Fortey’s Trilobites, and the writings of Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould and I look down at my feet on that escarpment, pick up some of that limestone rock and it comes apart in my hands to reveal a mass of sea shells no human has ever seen. And my mind goes back to that first occasion way beyond the Malverns on the West Coast of Wales at Clarach Bay when I split open a piece of shale to uncover the fragment of a trilobite. And I wonder in all that immensity at the way these individual creatures left such a mark long ago that I can discover them – and my thoughts go to Matthew 6, Jesus and the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.
I turn to cosmologists and read Bang! The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott and I marvel at the sheer scale of the universe. I watch and then read Brian Cox on the Wonders of the Solar System and then the Wonders of the Universe and I marvel at the stars and their beauty – and I think of Job being forced to contemplate the immensity of the world as he is questioned by God. The fascination of light and dark, sun and moon and stars from Genesis 1 through to the Psalms is a fascination I share as I look at Orion and see in the Orion Nebula stars being born, and then the contrasting blue of Rigel, bottom right and of the Red Giant Betelgeuse, top left and I marvel at the speed of light, and then I notice in Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion’s Collins Guide, Stars and Planets that the star on the right of Orion’s belt is 2,000 light years away. And I think that the light that is entering my eye was actually generated at around the time of Christ’s birth – that is mind-blowing and fills me with the very awe and wonder I guess the Magi had in the ancient world as they observed the heavens above. I notice Brian Cox speaking of the nature of light and my mind goes to that verse in 1 John 4 God is light and in him is no darkness at all … and I read it in a new light:
This first light is called the cosmic microwave background or CMB. This first light, this CMB … fills every part of the universe. Every second light from the beginning of time is raining down on the surface of the earth in a ceaseless torrent. If my eyes could only see it then the sky would be ablaze with this primordial light … both day and night.
I marvel with Martin Rees in his book Just Six Numbers that the whole universe can be described in a surprisingly small number of equations … and what’s more they are beautiful equations. I read John Polkinghorne and he reflects on how remarkable it is that the whole universe can be described using the language of Mathematics, a language the human mind is capable of understanding. This accords with the conviction in Genesis 1 that humanity is made in the image of God, it accords with the Quaker thinking that there is that of God in everyone. We bear the imprint of the mind of God … and that is what enables us to understand the workings of God’s creation.
The world of science is full of a sense of wonder and awe at the world we live in that is the very wonder and awe that people of faith from the writers of Genesis, the Psalms, the book of Job and indeed Jesus have passed on down through the ages to me.
Second, preachers must have an understanding of the relationship between science and religion so that their preaching is done in the context of science and not in conflict with science.
I have never sensed a conflict between science and religion. Stephen Jay Gould articulates the gut feeling I have in a set of essays he has brought together in a little book called Rocks of Ages..
He advocates the NOMA principle. Non-overlapping magisteria.
A magisterium is a field of study. The field of study of science has to do with questions like how? What? When? Religion addresses a different set of questions around the question ‘Why? Stephen Jay Gould suggests that scientists and people of faith should respect those different sets of questions and acknowledge they are at work in quite separate, non-overlapping magisteria or areas of study.
In the Epilogue to Bang! The Complete History of the Universe. Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott are very clear:
“We the authors, … feel that if the workings of the Universe, in all their beauty, are properly appreciated, there is no conflict between Science and Religion; they merely deal with different areas.”
There are places where the two magisteria touch – there are moments when people of faith have the same awe as people of science and there is a moment of accord. How science is put to use is an area where again one’s faith or world-view will have a bearing.
The preacher needs to be clear about these different realms of study. Where they touch in wonder and awe that can be celebrated, where the world-view of a person of faith impacts on the use science is put to that can be challenged. But in our secular world that must be in an informed way.
Third, preachers must share their understanding of faith with those in the world of science whose misunderstandings fuel the false perception of conflict between science and religion.
Science writers who are vehemently atheist often impose on us who have faith their perception of what we believe in. We must correct their false perceptions of our faith.
In arguing against ‘creationism’ they imply that it is impossible to believe in ‘creation’
We must refuse to accept that view and be clear in our use of terms.
‘Creationist’ applies to those Christian thinkers who maintain that certain passages of the Bible, most notably Genesis 1-11, are written as a scientific account of the creation of the world in six days 6,000 years ago and what happened immediately afterwards.
Creationism is a view that has emerged since the enlightenment and the advent of modern science and fails to do justice to the text..
Preaching in this secular world has to be clear about the nature of |Genesis 1-11 and what kind of writing is contained there. The rhythms of the writing and its poetry, indicate that these are larger than life stories about the beginnings of things that communicate truth to every generation. This is not scientific writing about the beginnings of things but insightful writing that communicates truth and fills us with wonder at the world as it is.
In the preface to the Wonders of the Universe Brian Cox notices that the very first astronauts who circled Planet earth read from Genesis 1 as the emerged from the dark side of the planet into the sunlight once more, because its poetry evoked the wonder they felt, in a way no scientific explanation could. Likewise he put his carefully prepared script describing the science of the Aurora Borealis to one side as he spoke to camera on witnessing the dancing Northern Lights and recounted an ancient Scandinavian story about their origins simply again because it evoked a sense of wonder and awe.
A second false perception atheistic science writers have about us who are of faith is that we subscribe to a set of clear unchanging propositions that define our faith. Scientists, on the other hand, are always open to the possibility that a new way of thinking may emerge that will force them to completely re-think their views.
The process of theological thinking is much closer to scientific thinking than those atheistic scientists allow.
For the scientist ‘the universe’ is the given and scientists seek an understanding of that universe that is always liable to be challenged and to have to be re-worked in the light of discoveries.
For the Christian preacher the given is the universe as the creation of the God who is revealed in Christ and in the Christian Scriptures.
Discoveries not least in the world of science prompt Christian thinkers to think differently about the world of God’s creation.
The historic creeds of the church have to be understood against the backdrop of the world of Greek and western thought in which they emerged.
In response to Newtonian physics William Paley developed a deistic theology that sees God as the watchmaker, the original designer. That’s the theology Darwin reacts against.
Many Christian thinkers were with Darwin and against Paley. We can be too.
Christian preachers who seek to accept evolution as an explanation of the mechanism of creation must be careful to move away from the non-biblical, Paley-esque language of ‘design’.
I would point to other more helpful ‘theologies’ that we might explore as we seek an understanding of God.
Against the vastness of geological time and cosmic space maybe it’s useful to return to Anselm and the ontological argument and think of God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”
In the randomness of evolution that might go in one way or in another way, we might return to George Herbert, translator of Francis Bacon, and his poem The Elixir. There he displays a fascination with alchemy and the beginnings of Chemistry and with the newly invented telescope or ‘glass’ and sees God not so much as ‘the designer’ as the one who is ‘in all things’
Teach me, my God and King in all things thee to see.
In the counter-intuitive thinking of Einstein and quantum mechanics we might turn again to theologians influenced by the Process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead seeing the world and God as continually in a process of becoming.
There may be a new attractiveness about Tillich’s view of God as Being, Being Itself and the Ground of all being.
Interestingly, John Polkinghorne in his recent book, Theology in the Context of Science, seems to combine those two ways of thinking as he proposes thinking of God as ‘One who is the ground of the fruitful order that makes any process possible at all.”
Atheistic science writers seem to want to tell us where we must begin to give an account of our faith. If we are to preach the gospel in the context of the world of science we must not allow them to set the agenda.
In very recent years David Attenborough has entered into the fray more openly. His objection to faith is one shared by many an atheist in the context of science. It is the objection to faith that so worried the elderly person in my church in the wake of the Japanese earthquake.
How can a God who is supposed to be all powerful and all loving allow an insect in the jungles of Africa to destroy the insides of a baby, or an earthquake to destroy so much human life?
That brings me to the fourth and most important observations I want to make.
Fourth, preachers must declare their understanding of what is at the heart of their preaching so that what they preach in a secular age shaped by science is indeed Gospel, Good News.
In our preaching we must not allow atheistic science writers to tell us where to start in talking about God.
They start from first principles God is all powerful, God is all knowing, God is all Loving and ask the impossible question, how can such a God allow such things to happen?
That is not the starting point for our faith as people called to preach the Gospel in a secular world.
In the wake of the Japanese earthquake I found myself revisiting Shusako Endo, a Japanese novelist I read about ten years ago. I found it quaint then that so many of his novels spoke of volcanoes and earthquakes, and that so much Japanese art has at its centre a volcano. Now I realise that Japanese people live constantly with the threat of the destruction of the volcano and the earthquake.
Born in 1923 Shusako Endo became a Christian in his teens, studied in Paris and returned to Japan disturbed by the way the triumphalist image of Christ as Pantocrator espoused by the missionaries to Japan had failed to catch the people’s imagination.
In his novel, Volcano, he tells of an encounter between thr religion of a de-frocked priest and the science of a seismologist. In his preface, Richard A Schuchert, comments that for Endo “the quintessence of Christianity lies in God’s loving compassion for his wretched children, His willingness to share with us in our suffering. The Japanese heart and mind seek a merciful mother-image of God, rather than the stern, demanding, threatening father-image which (in Endo’s opinion) has been unduly emphasised by the missionaries and which accounts in great part for the failure of Christianity to strike deep roots in the ‘swampland’ of Japanese culture and religion. Endo is attracted to Jesus the suffering companion of all men and women, more than to Jesus the wonder-worker; he is obsessed with Jesus the human reject eventually crucified, rather than with Jesus the glorious pantocrator.”
That’s it. That’s the heart of the gospel we have to preach in a secular age.
We do not start from the first principles identified by those atheistic science writers. As Christians we start with Jesus Christ. His teaching maps out a way of love for neighbour and for enemy too that can make a world of difference in our secular world. Where he encounters hurt he seeks to bring healing. That is our task too. As he goes to the cross he opens up for us an insight into God as the God who is alongside us in a suffering world, sharing the pain of those who suffer in that world, and opening up a way into a relationship with the God who is with us through the valley of the shadow of death and shares with us life in all its fullness.
To preach the Gospel in a secular world we must start with Jesus, the Suffering Servant, who introduces us to the God who shares in our suffering so that we may share in the fullness of life that is not bounded by death. Preaching that is focused on this Jesus Christ will use the kind of observational, analytical skills scientists can teach us to explore the Jesus of History and the impact this God has made on people just like us whose story is told in the pages of the Christian Scriptures.
As we seek an understanding of science, have a clear understanding of the relationship between science and religion, share our understanding of faith with those in the world of science, and declare our understanding of what is at the heart of our Christian faith, Jesus Christ and him crucified, we shall rise to the challenge of preaching the Gospel in a secular world. We as preachers and those who share with us in that preaching experience will be better able make our defence to anyone who demands from us an account of the hope that is in us.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
No one comes to the Father except through me
I moved away from Maidenhead when I was 18 months old, which was when I met up with Felicity who at the time was 2 and a half. Ah … I remember it well!!!!
Among the many stories I grew up with was one that seemed when I heard tell of it to be from a distant, far-off age and almost another age. Such are the tricks time plays on the very young! I now realise the story must still have been very vivid in the minds of my parents, for it had happened only five years before I was born.
After all, Maidenhead was just outside London, and very much en route. I wish now I had taken more notice of the stories my father told. But it must have been very exciting when my parents joined the crowds to see the Olympic Torch carried aloft on its way.
8,000 miles from Land’s End to the Olympic Stadium is quite some journey, taking in most towns and cities in the country. But when they announced the Olympic Torch would be stopping over night in Cheltenham and we had been designated one of the special centres, I have to say I felt just that touch of excitement.
I’m glad that only a couple of weeks ago I signed up for a meeting in Bristol by morethangold – an initiative to get churches to play their full part in the Olympic excitement that will sweep the country, not least as in one year’s time on 23rd May the torch arrives here in Cheltenham.
Usually I would wish someone staying overnight in Cheltenham a good night’s rest in the hope they would ‘go out like a light’ – maybe we can hope such a thing does not happen on this occasion!!
There’s something about the Olympic Games that makes it special. Tarnished and commercialised it may have become. But there has to be a buzz as sports men and women of all abilities gather from every part of the globe in a festival of sport.
The five interlocking rings in all the colours of the rainbow bringing the five continents of the world together as one in a festival of sport.
The Olympic Ideal.
But of course the nearer we get to the Olympics the more we will be reminded of all that calls the ideal into question, of the many fault lines and fractures that tear the world apart. There will be the cartoons of the broken rings.
However much we rise to the challenge and get involved in the Olympic excitement as churches, there’s one thing we cannot get away from. All too often we have been part of the problem and not part of the solution.
One set of those fault-lines and fractures undoubtedly has to do with ‘religion’.
In the very week of the Queen’s historic visit to Ireland, surely one of the great personal triumphs of her reign, comes news of an increase in sectarian, Catholic Protestant violence in Scotland.
But more significantly what do we make of what is going on in the Middle East. Excitement at moves to freedom right through the region. But an excitement tempered by foreboding at what is happening between the three great religions of the Middle East.
Since our pilgrimage to the Holy Land I have received regular prayer requests from Middle East Concern.
There was euphoria in Egypt at the overthrow of somenone who this week was described as the last of the Pharaohs. Wonderful to see Christians and Muslims side by side demonstrating for freedom. And then consternation at the news of the bombing of a church and of worshippers. And then hope at the news of Muslims standing with Christian believers in the face of the attacks on their churches.
The prayer requests that come from people caught up in what amounts to persecution are deeply disturbing.
Helping Christians Facing Persecution
Persecution takes many forms – from oppression and discrimination to denial of constitutional and internationally acknowledged freedoms. Essentially, persecution is the deliberate suppression of an idea or belief.
Christians in the Middle East North Africa region have been discriminated against, marginalised, detained, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. Often theirs is a silent suffering – cut off from family and Christian fellowship and vulnerable to abuse by State security forces and extremist groups.
At MEC we believe that as Christians we are called to stand with those who are persecuted. Persecution is essentially unjust. Therefore, the Christian concerned for God’s justice will either face persecution him/herself, or be faced with having to respond to the injustice visited on someone else. Dealing with injustice is part of the calling of the Christian life. By their very relationship with God and the world, Christians will be faced with injustice.
The Middle East is not the only place, the faultlines between Islam and Christianity not the only fault-lines. It is not long since our CWM Inside Out carried that awful supplement chronicling the experiences of the Christian churches we are partnered with in North East India at the hands of Hindu fundamentalists.
Hatred is shown on the part of some Christians no less. One cannot help but fear that those underneath the bombing that we have been involved in in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya will interpret it as the bombing of the Christian west, not least when bombs had their Christian texts printed on them.
I believe that in this fractured world our attitudes count. Our attitudes matter. Because among our neighbours are Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and people of many, many different religions.
What attitude do we have towards other religions?
As it happens the plans we laid down for the themes for the summer take us today to a verse that in my view can be part of the problem and can equally be part of the solution.
‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus maps out a way for his followers to take that involves blessing those who persecute you, loving those you perceive to be your enemies.
Jesus was and remained always Jewish. We who are Christians need always to remember that. But there were fractures and fault lines as much in his day as in ours. There were all sorts of different ways of ‘being Jewish’. For Jesus the heart of his Jewishness lay in love for God and love for neighbour which he extended to love for enemies. IT was a Jewishness that entailed blessing those who persecuted.
There was one particularly difficult fault line between first cousins – with the Samaritans. When they would not receive his disciples, the more belligerent of them wanted Jesus to summon fire and brimstone to come and destroy the whole village. Jesus would have none of it, adamant that the Son of Man came not to destroy but to bring salvation and life. Whether it was the one leprosy sufferer among the ten, the woman at the well or the Good Samaritan – Jesus bridged that divide.
The really violent fault lines lay between Jewish people and the Roman state, a Roman way of life rooted in the religion of the Roman pantheon of gods and in the cult of the Roman emperor. Again, Jesus built bridges, accepting Gentile as well as Jew, declaring forgiveness from the cross such that the Roman Centurion who was steeped in a Roman religion that recognised the Emperor as Son of God, saw in Jesus truly the son of God. It was a fracture Jesus sought to heal and a fault line Jesus again sought to bridge.
So what attitude should we have?
In following the way of Christ there is an over-riding focus on Love, it seems to me.
There is also something unique about our Christian faith.
I want to be firm in my Christian faith in God and in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. It is a faith that I want to share with everyone.
But at the same time I want to have a respect for people of other religions, and indeed for people of no religion. I believe in sharing my faith with others the love I have for them can enable me to find common ground. And in all of those great religions there is common ground to be found.
This remarkable verse in John 14 goes to the heart of it for me in perhaps an unexpected way.
It captures the uniqueness of what my faith in Jesus Christ opens up for me about God.
But at the same time it shows me how I can honour and respect those of different faiths.
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.
I want to begin there. In the context of our relationships and our attitude to people of other faiths fear plays a big role. I say that with some certainty, because as I see what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East it is a feeling I have felt. In the covering letter he sent with his gospel John speaks of God as the God of love, of Christ as the one who embodies perfect love. And he speaks of perfect love driving out fear.
Believe in God, believe also in me.
Or ‘you believe in God’.
I find that an interesting starting point. Jesus is speaking to people who believe in God and he is inviting them now to believe in him also.
He then goes on to speak of his Father’s house and the way to his Father’s house, prompting a conversation on the way and the comment: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life …
No one comes to the Father except through me.
What Jesus opens up for those who already believe in God is the way into a relationship with that God that recognises God as Father in the most intimate of ways.
That for me is the key to getting a balance. On the one hand, I want in my relationships with people of other faiths to recognise in some way a shared sense of believing in God in some way, believing in the divine, in that Something Other.
I feel a fellow feeling with people of other faiths in that sense of having a religious dimension in our lives, a sense of God in some way.
That respect, that honouring enables me to seek to find common ground, maybe supremely in the golden rule shared by so many of the world’s great religions, Do to others as you would have others do to you.
But at the same time, I am a Christian. I am one of those who has followed The Way – I love the way the very first name for the church and those who followed Jesus in Acts is ‘the Way’. I sense truth in Jesus Christ. And I am convinced that in him is a newness of life that begins now in all its fullness and is not bounded by death.
I want to respect people of other faiths and say, ‘You believe in God’.
But I passionately believe that Jesus has opened up a way to follow, a truth that goes to the heart of life and indeed brings life in all its fullness, and so I want to share the story of Jesus with people of other faiths. Jesus is unique in bringing about a relationship with God as Father. And so with no disrespect to people of other faiths, I want to take my stand on the conviction that Jesus expressed so powerfully, that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Among the many stories I grew up with was one that seemed when I heard tell of it to be from a distant, far-off age and almost another age. Such are the tricks time plays on the very young! I now realise the story must still have been very vivid in the minds of my parents, for it had happened only five years before I was born.
After all, Maidenhead was just outside London, and very much en route. I wish now I had taken more notice of the stories my father told. But it must have been very exciting when my parents joined the crowds to see the Olympic Torch carried aloft on its way.
8,000 miles from Land’s End to the Olympic Stadium is quite some journey, taking in most towns and cities in the country. But when they announced the Olympic Torch would be stopping over night in Cheltenham and we had been designated one of the special centres, I have to say I felt just that touch of excitement.
I’m glad that only a couple of weeks ago I signed up for a meeting in Bristol by morethangold – an initiative to get churches to play their full part in the Olympic excitement that will sweep the country, not least as in one year’s time on 23rd May the torch arrives here in Cheltenham.
Usually I would wish someone staying overnight in Cheltenham a good night’s rest in the hope they would ‘go out like a light’ – maybe we can hope such a thing does not happen on this occasion!!
There’s something about the Olympic Games that makes it special. Tarnished and commercialised it may have become. But there has to be a buzz as sports men and women of all abilities gather from every part of the globe in a festival of sport.
The five interlocking rings in all the colours of the rainbow bringing the five continents of the world together as one in a festival of sport.
The Olympic Ideal.
But of course the nearer we get to the Olympics the more we will be reminded of all that calls the ideal into question, of the many fault lines and fractures that tear the world apart. There will be the cartoons of the broken rings.
However much we rise to the challenge and get involved in the Olympic excitement as churches, there’s one thing we cannot get away from. All too often we have been part of the problem and not part of the solution.
One set of those fault-lines and fractures undoubtedly has to do with ‘religion’.
In the very week of the Queen’s historic visit to Ireland, surely one of the great personal triumphs of her reign, comes news of an increase in sectarian, Catholic Protestant violence in Scotland.
But more significantly what do we make of what is going on in the Middle East. Excitement at moves to freedom right through the region. But an excitement tempered by foreboding at what is happening between the three great religions of the Middle East.
Since our pilgrimage to the Holy Land I have received regular prayer requests from Middle East Concern.
There was euphoria in Egypt at the overthrow of somenone who this week was described as the last of the Pharaohs. Wonderful to see Christians and Muslims side by side demonstrating for freedom. And then consternation at the news of the bombing of a church and of worshippers. And then hope at the news of Muslims standing with Christian believers in the face of the attacks on their churches.
The prayer requests that come from people caught up in what amounts to persecution are deeply disturbing.
Helping Christians Facing Persecution
Persecution takes many forms – from oppression and discrimination to denial of constitutional and internationally acknowledged freedoms. Essentially, persecution is the deliberate suppression of an idea or belief.
Christians in the Middle East North Africa region have been discriminated against, marginalised, detained, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. Often theirs is a silent suffering – cut off from family and Christian fellowship and vulnerable to abuse by State security forces and extremist groups.
At MEC we believe that as Christians we are called to stand with those who are persecuted. Persecution is essentially unjust. Therefore, the Christian concerned for God’s justice will either face persecution him/herself, or be faced with having to respond to the injustice visited on someone else. Dealing with injustice is part of the calling of the Christian life. By their very relationship with God and the world, Christians will be faced with injustice.
The Middle East is not the only place, the faultlines between Islam and Christianity not the only fault-lines. It is not long since our CWM Inside Out carried that awful supplement chronicling the experiences of the Christian churches we are partnered with in North East India at the hands of Hindu fundamentalists.
Hatred is shown on the part of some Christians no less. One cannot help but fear that those underneath the bombing that we have been involved in in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya will interpret it as the bombing of the Christian west, not least when bombs had their Christian texts printed on them.
I believe that in this fractured world our attitudes count. Our attitudes matter. Because among our neighbours are Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and people of many, many different religions.
What attitude do we have towards other religions?
As it happens the plans we laid down for the themes for the summer take us today to a verse that in my view can be part of the problem and can equally be part of the solution.
‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus maps out a way for his followers to take that involves blessing those who persecute you, loving those you perceive to be your enemies.
Jesus was and remained always Jewish. We who are Christians need always to remember that. But there were fractures and fault lines as much in his day as in ours. There were all sorts of different ways of ‘being Jewish’. For Jesus the heart of his Jewishness lay in love for God and love for neighbour which he extended to love for enemies. IT was a Jewishness that entailed blessing those who persecuted.
There was one particularly difficult fault line between first cousins – with the Samaritans. When they would not receive his disciples, the more belligerent of them wanted Jesus to summon fire and brimstone to come and destroy the whole village. Jesus would have none of it, adamant that the Son of Man came not to destroy but to bring salvation and life. Whether it was the one leprosy sufferer among the ten, the woman at the well or the Good Samaritan – Jesus bridged that divide.
The really violent fault lines lay between Jewish people and the Roman state, a Roman way of life rooted in the religion of the Roman pantheon of gods and in the cult of the Roman emperor. Again, Jesus built bridges, accepting Gentile as well as Jew, declaring forgiveness from the cross such that the Roman Centurion who was steeped in a Roman religion that recognised the Emperor as Son of God, saw in Jesus truly the son of God. It was a fracture Jesus sought to heal and a fault line Jesus again sought to bridge.
So what attitude should we have?
In following the way of Christ there is an over-riding focus on Love, it seems to me.
There is also something unique about our Christian faith.
I want to be firm in my Christian faith in God and in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. It is a faith that I want to share with everyone.
But at the same time I want to have a respect for people of other religions, and indeed for people of no religion. I believe in sharing my faith with others the love I have for them can enable me to find common ground. And in all of those great religions there is common ground to be found.
This remarkable verse in John 14 goes to the heart of it for me in perhaps an unexpected way.
It captures the uniqueness of what my faith in Jesus Christ opens up for me about God.
But at the same time it shows me how I can honour and respect those of different faiths.
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.
I want to begin there. In the context of our relationships and our attitude to people of other faiths fear plays a big role. I say that with some certainty, because as I see what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East it is a feeling I have felt. In the covering letter he sent with his gospel John speaks of God as the God of love, of Christ as the one who embodies perfect love. And he speaks of perfect love driving out fear.
Believe in God, believe also in me.
Or ‘you believe in God’.
I find that an interesting starting point. Jesus is speaking to people who believe in God and he is inviting them now to believe in him also.
He then goes on to speak of his Father’s house and the way to his Father’s house, prompting a conversation on the way and the comment: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life …
No one comes to the Father except through me.
What Jesus opens up for those who already believe in God is the way into a relationship with that God that recognises God as Father in the most intimate of ways.
That for me is the key to getting a balance. On the one hand, I want in my relationships with people of other faiths to recognise in some way a shared sense of believing in God in some way, believing in the divine, in that Something Other.
I feel a fellow feeling with people of other faiths in that sense of having a religious dimension in our lives, a sense of God in some way.
That respect, that honouring enables me to seek to find common ground, maybe supremely in the golden rule shared by so many of the world’s great religions, Do to others as you would have others do to you.
But at the same time, I am a Christian. I am one of those who has followed The Way – I love the way the very first name for the church and those who followed Jesus in Acts is ‘the Way’. I sense truth in Jesus Christ. And I am convinced that in him is a newness of life that begins now in all its fullness and is not bounded by death.
I want to respect people of other faiths and say, ‘You believe in God’.
But I passionately believe that Jesus has opened up a way to follow, a truth that goes to the heart of life and indeed brings life in all its fullness, and so I want to share the story of Jesus with people of other faiths. Jesus is unique in bringing about a relationship with God as Father. And so with no disrespect to people of other faiths, I want to take my stand on the conviction that Jesus expressed so powerfully, that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Sunday, May 15, 2011
What it takes to be a Good Shepherd
It is one of the loveliest of all images.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
It’s lovely to use as we welcome friends into church membership.
I am the Good Shepherd.
It brings to mind the 23rd Psalm and the power of its comfort.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He restoreth my soul
It takes us into the fields and the pastures, the strength and the gentleness of the shepherd tending the sheep.
It is one of the loveliest of all images. And it is one of the most challenging.
I am the good shepherd
Becky and I had mapped out our readings and themes for this summer session well before I had a look at the Christian Aid material for this year. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover that today of all days when we had chosen to focus on the Good Shepherd, the readings for today’s service at the start of Christian Aid Week point point us to this wonderful saying of Jesus.
As do we all, I know the passage so well. I have read it so many times. But only reading the notes for today’s service did I notice something that hadn’t occurred to me before.
The chapter division is in a very arbitrary place.
Take away the chapter division and the narrative of the Gospel flows on from chapter 9.
That’s all about a man who was born blind being healed by Jesus on the Sabbath of all days. What was worse was that Jesus called in question one strongly held religious view of the time that the man’s blindness must prove he or his parents had done something dreadfully wrong. Not a bit of it, was Jesus’ observation.
But that was something those hidebound by that particular religious way of looking at things couldn’t stomach. As the story comes towards an end they drive the man out.
Jesus, on the other hand, seeks the man out. And elicits a wonderful statement of faith from that man, who makes that very simple confession of faith that for us is still very much at the heart of belonging to Church. “Lord, I believe.” He says, and he worshipped him.
He goes straight on to talk of sheep and shepherds. In particular he draws a stark contrast between the thieves and robbers who only break in and steal, and the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep, and cares for them to such an extent that he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep.
I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
It is wonderfully comforting. But remarkably challenging.
To that blind man in 9:35 Jesus had spoken of himself as ‘the Son of Man’. That phrase is used in the Old Testament in two particular books of significance to Jesus. One is Daniel the other is Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the book that contains one of the great passages about Shepherds in the whole of the Old Testament.
It is not comforting at all. It is challenging in the extreme.
Ezekiel thinks of the rulers of the people, the great Kings of Israel and of Judah as ‘shepherds’.
The tragedy is that too many of those who had been king, too many of those in positions of leadership and authority had been such bad shepherds they were more like thieves and robbers.
Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.
What an indictment.
Writing at a time when the last of those shepherd kings had been defeated, the kingdom laid waste, and the people carried off into exile in the far-off land of Babylon, Ezekiel held on to a conviction that God was still shepherd of his people, that God’s Kingdom would prevail.
He Ezekiel looked to God as the Good Shepherd.
But for Ezekiel the Good Shepherd acted in a particular kind of way.
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
I am the Good shepherd, said Jesus.
In him God’s Kingdom has come. And this is what God’s rule is like. In Christ God himself is the shepherd of the sheep – he has come to seek the lost, to bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and to strengthen the weak.
Maybe the next words make you feel uncomfortable.
It was the way Jesus echoed those words in the way he so forthrightly rejected the religious way of thinking of those who had driven out the blind man. In the way he condemns that view it is as if he sets his stall out to bring down the fat and the strong. His task is to feed them with justice.
Those religious leaders recognised the allusions.
They are divided. Many of them considered Jesus demonic because of these words about being the Good Shepherd. Others said, that someone who was demonic would not have treated the blind man in that way.
The whole story then coes to a climax as Jesus speaks of the life he will share with his sheep –
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
And in case anyone has not got it yet - he makes it clear that he and the Father are one.
Those who had a vested interest in the power they had and the control over people’s lives that they exercised, the very ones who had driven the blind man out take up stones to stone Jesus, tried to arrest him again – but he escaped. And the whole narrative that had begun way back with the story of the blind man comes to its climax.
Many are convinced. ~They believe in Jesus. But those who are against him do all they can to destroy him.
The story of Jesus now gathers momentum. He confronts death itself in the next story of the death and raising of Lazarus.
Then he enters into Jerusalem, shares in that last meal with his followers, is betrayed, arrested, three times denied by the closest of his followers Peter, taken out and executed on a cross.
And on the third day he is raised.
Then it is that Jesus comes back to the shepherd imagery in that wonderful encounter with Peter on the shores of the sea of Galilee.
Three times he asks that question …
Do you love me? Feed my sheep.
Through those words comes the great commission Jesus gives.
That we who follow the Good Shepherd, are called in turn to feed the sheep – to be the Good Shepherd to others.
Of each one of us it can be said,
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Christian Aid is not a separate charity.
It is not an add-on to the churches.
It is unique in that it is the ‘international development and aid’ arm of all the major denominations of the UK. That’ why we are involved in Christian Aid. And through our Congregational Federation we have just completed one partnership with One Respe and the Dominican Republic and as of yesterday have launched a new partnership with the people of Nicaragua.
Christian Aid video.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
It’s lovely to use as we welcome friends into church membership.
I am the Good Shepherd.
It brings to mind the 23rd Psalm and the power of its comfort.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He restoreth my soul
It takes us into the fields and the pastures, the strength and the gentleness of the shepherd tending the sheep.
It is one of the loveliest of all images. And it is one of the most challenging.
I am the good shepherd
Becky and I had mapped out our readings and themes for this summer session well before I had a look at the Christian Aid material for this year. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover that today of all days when we had chosen to focus on the Good Shepherd, the readings for today’s service at the start of Christian Aid Week point point us to this wonderful saying of Jesus.
As do we all, I know the passage so well. I have read it so many times. But only reading the notes for today’s service did I notice something that hadn’t occurred to me before.
The chapter division is in a very arbitrary place.
Take away the chapter division and the narrative of the Gospel flows on from chapter 9.
That’s all about a man who was born blind being healed by Jesus on the Sabbath of all days. What was worse was that Jesus called in question one strongly held religious view of the time that the man’s blindness must prove he or his parents had done something dreadfully wrong. Not a bit of it, was Jesus’ observation.
But that was something those hidebound by that particular religious way of looking at things couldn’t stomach. As the story comes towards an end they drive the man out.
Jesus, on the other hand, seeks the man out. And elicits a wonderful statement of faith from that man, who makes that very simple confession of faith that for us is still very much at the heart of belonging to Church. “Lord, I believe.” He says, and he worshipped him.
He goes straight on to talk of sheep and shepherds. In particular he draws a stark contrast between the thieves and robbers who only break in and steal, and the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep, and cares for them to such an extent that he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep.
I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
It is wonderfully comforting. But remarkably challenging.
To that blind man in 9:35 Jesus had spoken of himself as ‘the Son of Man’. That phrase is used in the Old Testament in two particular books of significance to Jesus. One is Daniel the other is Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the book that contains one of the great passages about Shepherds in the whole of the Old Testament.
It is not comforting at all. It is challenging in the extreme.
Ezekiel thinks of the rulers of the people, the great Kings of Israel and of Judah as ‘shepherds’.
The tragedy is that too many of those who had been king, too many of those in positions of leadership and authority had been such bad shepherds they were more like thieves and robbers.
Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.
What an indictment.
Writing at a time when the last of those shepherd kings had been defeated, the kingdom laid waste, and the people carried off into exile in the far-off land of Babylon, Ezekiel held on to a conviction that God was still shepherd of his people, that God’s Kingdom would prevail.
He Ezekiel looked to God as the Good Shepherd.
But for Ezekiel the Good Shepherd acted in a particular kind of way.
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
I am the Good shepherd, said Jesus.
In him God’s Kingdom has come. And this is what God’s rule is like. In Christ God himself is the shepherd of the sheep – he has come to seek the lost, to bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and to strengthen the weak.
Maybe the next words make you feel uncomfortable.
It was the way Jesus echoed those words in the way he so forthrightly rejected the religious way of thinking of those who had driven out the blind man. In the way he condemns that view it is as if he sets his stall out to bring down the fat and the strong. His task is to feed them with justice.
Those religious leaders recognised the allusions.
They are divided. Many of them considered Jesus demonic because of these words about being the Good Shepherd. Others said, that someone who was demonic would not have treated the blind man in that way.
The whole story then coes to a climax as Jesus speaks of the life he will share with his sheep –
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
And in case anyone has not got it yet - he makes it clear that he and the Father are one.
Those who had a vested interest in the power they had and the control over people’s lives that they exercised, the very ones who had driven the blind man out take up stones to stone Jesus, tried to arrest him again – but he escaped. And the whole narrative that had begun way back with the story of the blind man comes to its climax.
Many are convinced. ~They believe in Jesus. But those who are against him do all they can to destroy him.
The story of Jesus now gathers momentum. He confronts death itself in the next story of the death and raising of Lazarus.
Then he enters into Jerusalem, shares in that last meal with his followers, is betrayed, arrested, three times denied by the closest of his followers Peter, taken out and executed on a cross.
And on the third day he is raised.
Then it is that Jesus comes back to the shepherd imagery in that wonderful encounter with Peter on the shores of the sea of Galilee.
Three times he asks that question …
Do you love me? Feed my sheep.
Through those words comes the great commission Jesus gives.
That we who follow the Good Shepherd, are called in turn to feed the sheep – to be the Good Shepherd to others.
Of each one of us it can be said,
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Christian Aid is not a separate charity.
It is not an add-on to the churches.
It is unique in that it is the ‘international development and aid’ arm of all the major denominations of the UK. That’ why we are involved in Christian Aid. And through our Congregational Federation we have just completed one partnership with One Respe and the Dominican Republic and as of yesterday have launched a new partnership with the people of Nicaragua.
Christian Aid video.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Heaven, Salvation and Being Saved
What is the really big religious question for us as Christians?
What is the really big religious issue for us as Christians?
Let me stick my neck out and say it is all to do with heaven, with salvation, and with being saved.
Big words. Big concepts. What do they mean?
Jacob has a vision, a wonderful vision: he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven … there was a wonderful promise of blessing from God, and those remarkable words: Know that I am with you. When Jacob awoke he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
In the scary world Jacob lives in he has found something that will enable him to get to the place of safety where all is warm, all is well, he’s found the place where there’s a ladder to heaven.
It’s a wonderful image taken up by Jesus … I am the Gate for the sheep; … I am the Gate; whoever enters by me will be saved.”
In a scary world Jesus is the gate, the point of entry into the safety and the security of the sheepfold where all is well and nothing can destroy.
Salvation an escape from the world, the means of getting to heaven. In a horrible world we need a stairway to heaven – great to find a gateway that will lead us from the awfulness of the world around us to the security of heaven – and the gateway to heaven and salvation is Jesus Christ.
See it that way and you have missed something in Jacob’s dream and in Jesus’s saying. What’s missing for me turns upside down and inside out heaven, salvation and what being saved is all about.
Look carefully at the text.
Jacob dreamed there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. The promise of God to Jacob and his descendants has to do with here on earth as they spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed. When Jacob wakes from his sleep he is taken aback and says, “Surely the Lord is in this place … and I did not know it. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”
It is a scary world that Jacob is confronting, but what makes all the difference for him is not a ladder that takes him up to the safety of heaven, but a ladder that brings heaven down to earth. Such was the awfulness of the world around him that before he could not bring himself to believe that God was really with him. After his vision and dream he now knows that God is with him where he is, here on earth – and this is nothing less than the house of God, the gate of heaven.
It is not so much the gate through which he can escape to the safety of hevaven, but rather the gate through which heaven comes down to earth and then through him spreads out to the east and the west, to the north and the south bringing blessing to all the families of the earth.
Who said heaven was a place of safety, warm and secure? Maybe better to think of heaven as the domain where God’s rule of justice and mercy prevails, where God’s will is done. Savlation is not about finding the gateway through which we can escape the horrors of the world and get to heaven, but rather us finding the gateway through which heaven comes down to earth and makes a difference here and now.
What about Jesus’s saying. Let’s look more closely at that.
I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Jesus is the gate – whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
Being saved does not involve escaping from the world, but rather going AND also going out. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it abundantly. And that life is not something simply in the future when you get to heaven. That life is something here and now and it is something to be lived to the full.
Being saved and salvation has then to do with life, finding pasture, and living life to the full.
Put these thoughts together with the preayer Jesus taught us to pray. And we begin to have a very different way of thinking about heaven, salvation and what it means to be saved.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
There’s a massive clue there about heaven – not so much a place to go to – but the domain where God’s kingdom is supreme, where God’s will is done. God’s kingdom is all about justice, mercy, faith – the very essence of God is light and not dark, God is love.
So the big religious questions are about heaven, salvation being saved.
Through Jesus we can enter into the rule of God, the will of God, the justice of God, the love of God now – and then through Jesus we take that rule of God, that will of God, that justice of God, that love of God into the world around us. Through us God’s love reaches out to west and to east, to north and to south, to be a blessing for all the families of the earth. We find a pasture where we can live that love of God out in the living of lives here and now.
Being saved, salvation, heaven is about living life to the full God’s way – and that way is not bounded by death for it is a life that nothing can destroy in the present or the future, in life or in death.
Jesus is the gate through which heaven comes to earth and spreads out to east and to west, to south and to north as a blessing for all the families of the earth – he is the one who invites us to pray Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
That has implications for what we do in the world and why we support Christian Aid that has the wonderful slogan We believe in life before death.
This way of understanding of heaven, salvation, being saved is something that impacts on our attitudes.
Heaven, salvation and being saved is not so much to do with us getting to heaven, as to do with heaven getting into us, making a difference to us and then enabling us to live life to the full here and now in the knowledge that such life is not bounded by death but is wrapped up in the eternal love of God.
I’ve invited Sharon to share something with us … in a new ‘Real People – Real Lives’ slot.
Sharon spoke of her involvement in Highbury over the last seven years with her family and over the last year as a Deacon.
She went on to speak of doing a job at St Luke’s, our local Anglican church, as PA to the vicar and helping in the parish administration. A good point of contact with St Luke’s as Highbury and St Luke’s do a lot together.
Sharon then spoke of her plans to go to the University of Gloucestershire in the Autumn to do a degree in Religious Studies, Philosophy and Ethics. Ten years ago, Sharon had done an access course to go on to University but then had a family. She now felt it was the right time to do such a course. She had chosen the course she was going to do as it would help her to develop an analytical way of thinking. She was not the kind of person who simply read something in the paper and thought it was true. She wanted to find out whether it really was true. Sharon felt that developing that kind of approach to thinking would stand her in good stead in all sorts of different settings, not least in church where she may some time want to share in preaching and the like.
Sharon went on to say how this week she had found herself as a Christian very disturbed by some of the scenes on the news this week … and it prompted quite a lot of thinking … She spotted something on Facebook that made her think and want to share it with her children. Someone had made a comment and then went on to quote from Martin Luther King, and it somehow spoke to Sharon and was something she felt she wanted to pass on.
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Sharon: ....because I can't say it better myself and am sickened by the triumphant baying to which my kids are subjected every time they turn on the TV or radio. I read this to them this morning.
Another response … I too have been sickened by those of us who hated the crowing of some when the towers were attacked, now crowing because we have revenge. "Vengeance is mine says the Lord".
Sharon … "....If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Another response … Glad to know I was not the only one who felt a bit uncomfortable about all this. I agree with MLK. Well done for posting it.
What is the really big religious issue for us as Christians?
Let me stick my neck out and say it is all to do with heaven, with salvation, and with being saved.
Big words. Big concepts. What do they mean?
Jacob has a vision, a wonderful vision: he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven … there was a wonderful promise of blessing from God, and those remarkable words: Know that I am with you. When Jacob awoke he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
In the scary world Jacob lives in he has found something that will enable him to get to the place of safety where all is warm, all is well, he’s found the place where there’s a ladder to heaven.
It’s a wonderful image taken up by Jesus … I am the Gate for the sheep; … I am the Gate; whoever enters by me will be saved.”
In a scary world Jesus is the gate, the point of entry into the safety and the security of the sheepfold where all is well and nothing can destroy.
Salvation an escape from the world, the means of getting to heaven. In a horrible world we need a stairway to heaven – great to find a gateway that will lead us from the awfulness of the world around us to the security of heaven – and the gateway to heaven and salvation is Jesus Christ.
See it that way and you have missed something in Jacob’s dream and in Jesus’s saying. What’s missing for me turns upside down and inside out heaven, salvation and what being saved is all about.
Look carefully at the text.
Jacob dreamed there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. The promise of God to Jacob and his descendants has to do with here on earth as they spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed. When Jacob wakes from his sleep he is taken aback and says, “Surely the Lord is in this place … and I did not know it. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”
It is a scary world that Jacob is confronting, but what makes all the difference for him is not a ladder that takes him up to the safety of heaven, but a ladder that brings heaven down to earth. Such was the awfulness of the world around him that before he could not bring himself to believe that God was really with him. After his vision and dream he now knows that God is with him where he is, here on earth – and this is nothing less than the house of God, the gate of heaven.
It is not so much the gate through which he can escape to the safety of hevaven, but rather the gate through which heaven comes down to earth and then through him spreads out to the east and the west, to the north and the south bringing blessing to all the families of the earth.
Who said heaven was a place of safety, warm and secure? Maybe better to think of heaven as the domain where God’s rule of justice and mercy prevails, where God’s will is done. Savlation is not about finding the gateway through which we can escape the horrors of the world and get to heaven, but rather us finding the gateway through which heaven comes down to earth and makes a difference here and now.
What about Jesus’s saying. Let’s look more closely at that.
I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Jesus is the gate – whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
Being saved does not involve escaping from the world, but rather going AND also going out. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it abundantly. And that life is not something simply in the future when you get to heaven. That life is something here and now and it is something to be lived to the full.
Being saved and salvation has then to do with life, finding pasture, and living life to the full.
Put these thoughts together with the preayer Jesus taught us to pray. And we begin to have a very different way of thinking about heaven, salvation and what it means to be saved.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
There’s a massive clue there about heaven – not so much a place to go to – but the domain where God’s kingdom is supreme, where God’s will is done. God’s kingdom is all about justice, mercy, faith – the very essence of God is light and not dark, God is love.
So the big religious questions are about heaven, salvation being saved.
Through Jesus we can enter into the rule of God, the will of God, the justice of God, the love of God now – and then through Jesus we take that rule of God, that will of God, that justice of God, that love of God into the world around us. Through us God’s love reaches out to west and to east, to north and to south, to be a blessing for all the families of the earth. We find a pasture where we can live that love of God out in the living of lives here and now.
Being saved, salvation, heaven is about living life to the full God’s way – and that way is not bounded by death for it is a life that nothing can destroy in the present or the future, in life or in death.
Jesus is the gate through which heaven comes to earth and spreads out to east and to west, to south and to north as a blessing for all the families of the earth – he is the one who invites us to pray Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
That has implications for what we do in the world and why we support Christian Aid that has the wonderful slogan We believe in life before death.
This way of understanding of heaven, salvation, being saved is something that impacts on our attitudes.
Heaven, salvation and being saved is not so much to do with us getting to heaven, as to do with heaven getting into us, making a difference to us and then enabling us to live life to the full here and now in the knowledge that such life is not bounded by death but is wrapped up in the eternal love of God.
I’ve invited Sharon to share something with us … in a new ‘Real People – Real Lives’ slot.
Sharon spoke of her involvement in Highbury over the last seven years with her family and over the last year as a Deacon.
She went on to speak of doing a job at St Luke’s, our local Anglican church, as PA to the vicar and helping in the parish administration. A good point of contact with St Luke’s as Highbury and St Luke’s do a lot together.
Sharon then spoke of her plans to go to the University of Gloucestershire in the Autumn to do a degree in Religious Studies, Philosophy and Ethics. Ten years ago, Sharon had done an access course to go on to University but then had a family. She now felt it was the right time to do such a course. She had chosen the course she was going to do as it would help her to develop an analytical way of thinking. She was not the kind of person who simply read something in the paper and thought it was true. She wanted to find out whether it really was true. Sharon felt that developing that kind of approach to thinking would stand her in good stead in all sorts of different settings, not least in church where she may some time want to share in preaching and the like.
Sharon went on to say how this week she had found herself as a Christian very disturbed by some of the scenes on the news this week … and it prompted quite a lot of thinking … She spotted something on Facebook that made her think and want to share it with her children. Someone had made a comment and then went on to quote from Martin Luther King, and it somehow spoke to Sharon and was something she felt she wanted to pass on.
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Sharon: ....because I can't say it better myself and am sickened by the triumphant baying to which my kids are subjected every time they turn on the TV or radio. I read this to them this morning.
Another response … I too have been sickened by those of us who hated the crowing of some when the towers were attacked, now crowing because we have revenge. "Vengeance is mine says the Lord".
Sharon … "....If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Another response … Glad to know I was not the only one who felt a bit uncomfortable about all this. I agree with MLK. Well done for posting it.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
God is light and in him is no darkness at all
You can do it in story-telling.
It’s great to play around with light and dark and tell the story of creation, the birth of Jesus, crucifixion and resurrection as into the dark comes the wonder of light. Eyes tight shut. Eyes wide open. And the marvel of light as the darkness goes.
You can do it in music. Haydn’s creation captures the darkness In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the music is dark, filled with gloom, apprehension.
Then into the darkness, into the chaos comes God’s word. And God said, Let … and the music still has the darkness.
Let there … and the darkness seems almost to intensify
Let there be … in the darkness of the music there is yet an expectation
Let there be LIGHT and as orchestra and voices all combine there is an explosion of light.
You can do it in worship. How wonderful, at least for us in the Northern Hemisphere, to be able to have our carols by candle light service. It is special at our Christingle service to turn the lights out in the darkness of mid winter and then welcome the Peace Light that has come all the way from Bethlehem. One so vulnerable flame flickering in the darkness, and yet dispelling the gloom. And from that one flame first one Christingle, then another, and another until the church is encircled with light.
IT is the sadness and the darkness of holy week speaks so powerfully to me. The supper over, they sing a hymn and go out into the darkness of the night. It is in the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane that Christ pleads with God to let him escape the deep darkness that is to come.
But he is arrested, that night held … in the darkness of a cell, or was it a dungeon.
And at noon the next day?
Darkness covers the face of the earth.
And it is in deep darkness that he breathes his last.
And it is in the darkness of the tomb that he is buried.
For me … there is a darkness on Good Friday.
I capture it in a silly way. A potato. Buried in the soil.
And then you can capture it on Easter morning. Tom, Nicky, Eleanor and Harry were on Bredon Hill for dawn. We chickened out and met twenty minutes later. But it grew lighter slowly. No instant transition. A getting lighter as dawn was breaking.
I noticed in John 20 that Mary Magdalene reaches the tomb ‘while it is still dark’. By the time Peter and John race there it’s getting lighter. When Mary looks in to the darkness of the tomb it is two angels in white that she sees. With gentleness in their voice they ask why she is weeping. But they give her no answer.
She emerges from the tomb. And by now it must be light … and yet even then she mistakes him for the gardener. Again there is gentleness in his voice as he asks the same question, why are you weeping?
Even though it is light, her tears make it feel as if it is still dark.
Then he speaks her name. She looks and sees.
The other gospels speak of it as ‘dawn’ or better still ‘daybreak’.
The stories unfold – some in the darkness of evening, some in the light of day … all in the light of the risen Christ shining in the darkness.
So many signs done in the presence of his disciples.
But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name
Light into darkness.
Life into death.
Life in his name.
In this resurrection season one saying of Jesus comes to my mind …
‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
That’s it. Living an Easter faith we have nothing less than the light of life.
It’s the light of life that has been there from the beginning. It’s the light of life that was made real in Jesus Christ – and John knew it. He had seen it with his own eyes, looked at it and touched it with his own hands. Wow – no wonder he wants to share it. It fills him with joy. And he wants us to share in the joy as well.
Then John goes on to make an audacious claim.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
Is this the Easter hope?
That God is light … and in him there is no darkness at all.
Well of course, there is still day and night.
We can still close our eyes and be in the dark.
Things happen – we are still in the dark.
We do things that are pretty dark.
But the Jesus who burst from the tomb has overcome the darkness. … and we now look to the God who is light and in him there is no darkness at all!
We’ve had a wonderful week at our Minsters’ conference in the company of Roberta Rominger, General Secretary of the URC – that was pretty special – healing going on! IN the company of one David Cook who in a life time working with the United Bible Societies has had a hand in the translation of the Bible into 64 different languages. We had the wonderful company of Bob Harman, the story teller extraordinaire who through his Story Teller Bible is the inspiration behind Open the Book taking Bible stories into schools. And we had the company of Cheryl a molecular biologist working in a Bible Society project, who is going to be Jonathan Rowe’s administrative assistant as he takes up his new post in Truro.
She was prompting us to delight in the wonder of science. So we had everyone watching out for the International Space Station with its enormous solar panels reaching out into the sky and reflecting the light of the sun back down to us on earth. It was gratifying to be asked by some of the older teenagers to go out into the dark and do one of the scariest things imaginable – lie on your back suspended underneatht the planet looking down into the infinity of space with nothing holding you to the surface but for gravity.
And I come back to ask what is light – particles or waves. And I couldn’t help but think of Brian Cox and the Wonders of the Universe.
Isn’t that interesting!
It’s one of those wonderful moments when maybe the insights of science and that sense of wonder accords with the insights of my faith …
This first light is called the cosmic microwave background or CMB. This first light, this CMB … fills every part of the universe. Every second light from the beginning of time is raining down on the surface of the earth in a ceaseless torrent. If my eyes could only see it then the sky would be ablaze with this primordial light … both day and night.
Wow.
Let’s take that insight into the nature of light. And return with fresh eyes to those words of John.
God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
That’s quite some thought.
In the face of the darkness that can threaten to overwhelm, the darkness is not darkness at all to the God we believe in with our Easter faith.
Let’s hold on to the joy of Easter – with the eyes of faith in the risen Lord Jesus let’s look to the God who is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
But that has practical implications for the things we are going to do this coming week.
There is still night as well as day. There is still dark as well as light.
So, if God is light, and we look to him, and through this risen Christ find ourselves in a relationship with him, and God in a relationship with us, if we have fellowship with this God, then we are deceiving ourselves if we walk in the darkness, with priorities shaped not by God but by the world and its values. We must be people who walk in the light?
That means seeking forgiveness from God when we let him down and fall short of his way for us … and then drawing on the risen presence of Christ to live in the light.
We do that as we live in love for God and in love for one another. That’s what John goes on to say over and over and over again. It’s what he had heard from the very start of Jesus’ ministry – it’s an age old insight from the ancient writings of the ancient scriptures … and yet for John and for all us as Easter people it is something wonderfully new and fresh each day.
I am writing a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, I am in the light while hating in whatever form hating might take, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves … in the care for the one who is lonely, or the deed of kindness for the one in need of a visit, or the act of compassion for the one who is filled with sadness, or the stand taken on an issue of justice and peace, whoever loves lives in light.
God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
Or put that another way, as John comes on to do … God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.
It’s great to play around with light and dark and tell the story of creation, the birth of Jesus, crucifixion and resurrection as into the dark comes the wonder of light. Eyes tight shut. Eyes wide open. And the marvel of light as the darkness goes.
You can do it in music. Haydn’s creation captures the darkness In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the music is dark, filled with gloom, apprehension.
Then into the darkness, into the chaos comes God’s word. And God said, Let … and the music still has the darkness.
Let there … and the darkness seems almost to intensify
Let there be … in the darkness of the music there is yet an expectation
Let there be LIGHT and as orchestra and voices all combine there is an explosion of light.
You can do it in worship. How wonderful, at least for us in the Northern Hemisphere, to be able to have our carols by candle light service. It is special at our Christingle service to turn the lights out in the darkness of mid winter and then welcome the Peace Light that has come all the way from Bethlehem. One so vulnerable flame flickering in the darkness, and yet dispelling the gloom. And from that one flame first one Christingle, then another, and another until the church is encircled with light.
IT is the sadness and the darkness of holy week speaks so powerfully to me. The supper over, they sing a hymn and go out into the darkness of the night. It is in the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane that Christ pleads with God to let him escape the deep darkness that is to come.
But he is arrested, that night held … in the darkness of a cell, or was it a dungeon.
And at noon the next day?
Darkness covers the face of the earth.
And it is in deep darkness that he breathes his last.
And it is in the darkness of the tomb that he is buried.
For me … there is a darkness on Good Friday.
I capture it in a silly way. A potato. Buried in the soil.
And then you can capture it on Easter morning. Tom, Nicky, Eleanor and Harry were on Bredon Hill for dawn. We chickened out and met twenty minutes later. But it grew lighter slowly. No instant transition. A getting lighter as dawn was breaking.
I noticed in John 20 that Mary Magdalene reaches the tomb ‘while it is still dark’. By the time Peter and John race there it’s getting lighter. When Mary looks in to the darkness of the tomb it is two angels in white that she sees. With gentleness in their voice they ask why she is weeping. But they give her no answer.
She emerges from the tomb. And by now it must be light … and yet even then she mistakes him for the gardener. Again there is gentleness in his voice as he asks the same question, why are you weeping?
Even though it is light, her tears make it feel as if it is still dark.
Then he speaks her name. She looks and sees.
The other gospels speak of it as ‘dawn’ or better still ‘daybreak’.
The stories unfold – some in the darkness of evening, some in the light of day … all in the light of the risen Christ shining in the darkness.
So many signs done in the presence of his disciples.
But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name
Light into darkness.
Life into death.
Life in his name.
In this resurrection season one saying of Jesus comes to my mind …
‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
That’s it. Living an Easter faith we have nothing less than the light of life.
It’s the light of life that has been there from the beginning. It’s the light of life that was made real in Jesus Christ – and John knew it. He had seen it with his own eyes, looked at it and touched it with his own hands. Wow – no wonder he wants to share it. It fills him with joy. And he wants us to share in the joy as well.
Then John goes on to make an audacious claim.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
Is this the Easter hope?
That God is light … and in him there is no darkness at all.
Well of course, there is still day and night.
We can still close our eyes and be in the dark.
Things happen – we are still in the dark.
We do things that are pretty dark.
But the Jesus who burst from the tomb has overcome the darkness. … and we now look to the God who is light and in him there is no darkness at all!
We’ve had a wonderful week at our Minsters’ conference in the company of Roberta Rominger, General Secretary of the URC – that was pretty special – healing going on! IN the company of one David Cook who in a life time working with the United Bible Societies has had a hand in the translation of the Bible into 64 different languages. We had the wonderful company of Bob Harman, the story teller extraordinaire who through his Story Teller Bible is the inspiration behind Open the Book taking Bible stories into schools. And we had the company of Cheryl a molecular biologist working in a Bible Society project, who is going to be Jonathan Rowe’s administrative assistant as he takes up his new post in Truro.
She was prompting us to delight in the wonder of science. So we had everyone watching out for the International Space Station with its enormous solar panels reaching out into the sky and reflecting the light of the sun back down to us on earth. It was gratifying to be asked by some of the older teenagers to go out into the dark and do one of the scariest things imaginable – lie on your back suspended underneatht the planet looking down into the infinity of space with nothing holding you to the surface but for gravity.
And I come back to ask what is light – particles or waves. And I couldn’t help but think of Brian Cox and the Wonders of the Universe.
Isn’t that interesting!
It’s one of those wonderful moments when maybe the insights of science and that sense of wonder accords with the insights of my faith …
This first light is called the cosmic microwave background or CMB. This first light, this CMB … fills every part of the universe. Every second light from the beginning of time is raining down on the surface of the earth in a ceaseless torrent. If my eyes could only see it then the sky would be ablaze with this primordial light … both day and night.
Wow.
Let’s take that insight into the nature of light. And return with fresh eyes to those words of John.
God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
That’s quite some thought.
In the face of the darkness that can threaten to overwhelm, the darkness is not darkness at all to the God we believe in with our Easter faith.
Let’s hold on to the joy of Easter – with the eyes of faith in the risen Lord Jesus let’s look to the God who is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
But that has practical implications for the things we are going to do this coming week.
There is still night as well as day. There is still dark as well as light.
So, if God is light, and we look to him, and through this risen Christ find ourselves in a relationship with him, and God in a relationship with us, if we have fellowship with this God, then we are deceiving ourselves if we walk in the darkness, with priorities shaped not by God but by the world and its values. We must be people who walk in the light?
That means seeking forgiveness from God when we let him down and fall short of his way for us … and then drawing on the risen presence of Christ to live in the light.
We do that as we live in love for God and in love for one another. That’s what John goes on to say over and over and over again. It’s what he had heard from the very start of Jesus’ ministry – it’s an age old insight from the ancient writings of the ancient scriptures … and yet for John and for all us as Easter people it is something wonderfully new and fresh each day.
I am writing a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, I am in the light while hating in whatever form hating might take, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves … in the care for the one who is lonely, or the deed of kindness for the one in need of a visit, or the act of compassion for the one who is filled with sadness, or the stand taken on an issue of justice and peace, whoever loves lives in light.
God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
Or put that another way, as John comes on to do … God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Jesus - the suffering companion of all men and women - on the Road to Emmaus
What do you do when everything goes horribly wrong?
That’s a massive question … and it is one I have found myself reflecting on in the past few weeks. It is a question I want to reflect on this evening.
As far as those two friends on the Road to Emmaus were concerned something horrible had happened. They had pinned their hopes on someone they thought would change the world. For a while he had changed their way of looking at things. For a while it felt as if he was going to sweep people along with him.
Nazareth was a pretty unimpressive place … so unprepossessing that when recently the eggheads on the TV quiz show of that name were asked which village Jesus came from in Galilee they couldn’t come up with an answer.
Nazareth was as little known then as it seems to be little known now in the world of TV Quiz shows.
Jesus of Nazareth had spoken out so powerfully. He had held the powers that be to account in just the way his ccousin John the Baptist had done a while before. This Jesus really had been a prophet the like of which hadn’t been seen for five centuries at least. He matched his actions to his words. And he had made a difference. He spoke out powerfully against the abuses of the religious rulers – how they were absorbed in the minutiae of religious practice – tithing mint and cumin so carefully and neglecting the weightier matters of the Law, Justice and Mercy and Faith. He spoke out against the abuses of the state authorities and challenged people to turn the other cheek when they were threatened not to retaliate.
And with this Jesus it hadn’t just been words. He matched actions to the words he used. Where people were hurting he healed them … he preached acceptance of all and of everyone and he ate with tax collectors and sinners, and what’s more he even touched people suffering from leprosy.
He truly was a prophet mighty in deed and word.
He had said it would turn out this way. But no one had really believed him, not least his closest friends. But that’s exactly how it had turned out.
And it had been horrible.
To see him betrayed. Him of all people! Betrayed and handed over to the authorities, the religious authorities the state authorities. Condemned to death and crucified.
It had been horrible to see.
So, what did those two friends do when the unimaginable happened.
I want to home in on the first couple of verses of this familiar passage.
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened …. they were talking and discussing,
What do you do when something horrible happens?
That’s what you need to do.
Don’t cut yourself off. You need someone to talk to. Someone to listen. And that’s exactly what these two friends found in each other.
It has been a strange period since Christmas.
There have been wonderful things that have happened. And there have been horrible things that have happened. I have been close to people who have gone through horrible times since Christmas. Difficult to know what to do.
And since Christmas much has happened in our world. Egypt, Tunisia, … but then Libya. The family whose nephew was about to go on their third tour of duty to Afghanistan. A veteran. And only 23.
We touch horrible things.
I don’t know about you, but I found what happened in Japan, and continues to happen, horrible. Difficult to cope with. All sorts of questions.
What do you do?
First and foremost. How vital it is to talk. To come together. To be a support to each other. Don’t bottle it up in the face of horrible things that happen close to home. It is important to come together. To talk things through. To talk and discuss.
It’s been great to welcome the CF Youth Easter event this weekend. 40 years ago Felicity and I were among the group that started those events off … with an Easter Youth conference here at Highbury. Great to welcome the young people back this weekend.
Great connections to be made at such event.
Following this afternoon’s decision at the Open Meeting of CF Youth, CF youth is being wound up, or better, it is morphing along with the other CF youth organisation into CF Extra. A new youth thing in our churches involving everyone in our churches who is 10 and older. Sad to see these Easter youth conferences finish as they began here at Highbury. But exciting to have the prospect of something new happening.
That’s what happens with youth events. Wind the clock back 50 years and you reach the days of the Livingstone Fellowship. That was a youth movement among our Congregational churches that came into its own in the fifties and lasted into the sixties. And was strong here at Highbury.
As happens at such events people meet, they fall in love, they marry. It worked for Felicity and me … and it worked for Dick’s brother John Adams who married Elizabeth Harding.
I pricked my ears up when I read about Elizabeth Harding’s nephew, Daniel Harding. He has become one of the country’s leading conductors.
On 11th March 2011 Daniel Harding found himself in Tokyo, scheduled to conduct the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler’s 5th Symphony. What had happened was so unimaginably horrible, what should they do?
He consulted with the Orchestra. Collectively, they came to the decision that they would carry on with the concert and play that evening.
They did.
On Twitter, subsequently, Daniel Harding tweeted, “Would have played just for the 69 year old who walked 4 hours across Tokyo to make it to the concert! That's dedication to music!!
Just played Mahler 5 for the 50 who made it… Hope the other 1750 are all ok. Wonderful atmosphere on strangest of days.” (http://www.classicalmusic.org.uk/2011/03/orchestras-caught-up-in-japan-earthquake.html)
As soon as I read that story, I went to the CD shop behind the Brewery, was treated to a 30 minute conversation with the guy behind the counter on Mahler, and ended up purchasing the Simon Rattle performance of Mahler’s 5th recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic. Not an inappropriate choice as Simon Rattle was the one who took Daniel Harding under his wing at an early stage in Daniel Harding’s career. I learned first in that conversation, and since have come to hear for myself, how moving that symphony is. Emerging from a life that not least in death and bereavement had experience pretty horrible things, it explores musically the two themes of death and resurrection. How moving it has been to play that music as we have laid out our own walk to Jerusalem in the footsteps of Jesus this Holy Week.
What do you do? It was good simply to come together. To be a support to each other. And in that music share the sadness of death but also share the hope of resurrection.
Those two on the Road to Emmaus found that evening that something happened as they talked and discussed with one another.
While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them,
I don’t want to dwell on the rest of the story, how Jesus explained the messiah to be messiah had to be a suffering messiah who experienced the most horrible of horrible suffering himself, and only then come through to resurrection victory beyond. I just want to focus on those words,
“Jesus himself came near and went with them.”
In the face of horrible things that happen. That is what I find so precious about my faith, my Christian faith. Faith for me isn’t about arguing about the existence of God, much as I enjoy doing that. It isn’t about trying to figure out how God allows things to happen. Much as my questioning mind finds itself asking those enormous, unanswerable questions.
The great thing about faith for me is that it focuses on the God who in Jesus Christ comes alongside us in our sufferings and walks with us along the way.
When that Japanese earthquake struck I found myself turning to a Japanese, Christian novelist I had first read ten years ago. At that time I found it quaint to see how often earthquakes and volcanoes figured in the writing of Shusaku Endo. Just like that quaint Japanese art with the ever present Mount Fuji in the background. Now I realise it is not quaint at all. It reflects the fact that Japanese people live always very close to death and destruction by the forces of nature. I re-read Shusaku Endo’s novel, Volcano, though the novel I would recommend is Wonderful Fool, written at the same time. It was the translator of Volcano, Richard A Schuchert, who reminded me what it is about Shusaku Endo that for me goes to the heart of the Christian faith.
Born in 1923, he had become a Christian in his teens. After studying in Paris, he returned to Japan where he found him self frustrated at the way westerm missionaries presented Christianity with a triumphant victorious Christ.
That was not the Christ Shusaku Endo had found. The Jesus Christ who was so important to him was very different.
For Endo … the quintessence of Christianity lies in God’s loving compassion for His wretched children. His willingness to share with us in our suffering. The Japanese heart and mind seek a merciful mother-image of God, rather than the stern, demanding, threatening father-image which (in Endo’s opinion) has been unduly emphasised by the missionaries…. Endo is attracted to Jesus the suffering companion of all men and women. (Richard A Schuchert in the Introduction to Shusaku Endo, Volcano (Sceptre, 1978, originally published in Japanese in 1959)
That’s it!
That’s the heart of the Christian faith for me.
That’s what made all the difference to the two on the Road to Emmaus.
“Jesus himself came near and went with them.”
Shusaku Endo later published A Life of Jesus. He reflects on the hard lesson the disciples had to learn that in Jesus the Messiah is not ‘glorious’ possessed of power, full of majesty … but a suffering servant, a man of sorrows.
“There is probably no passage in the whole New Testament which better portrays the disciples’ mood than the episode of the travellers to Emmaus.
“What emerges clearly,” for Shusaku Endo, “in that evening’s touching so try is the image of Jesus as ‘companion’.
What do you do in the face of something horrible?
Find someone to talk to. Share the burden. Be a support to each other.
And then discover in Jesus the God who is alongside us in the pain, sharing the suffering, walking with us along the way, our companion for the journey.
As they talked and discussed and supported each other, as Jesus joined them on that journey, something prompted those two to do something themselves.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them.
They felt compelled to do something. To offer hospitality to this stranger.
Maybe that’s where our faith is propelling us. Strengthened by the talk, strengthened by the presence of the companion, then we too can DO something. Practical response to help those who face times of difficulty.
That’s a massive question … and it is one I have found myself reflecting on in the past few weeks. It is a question I want to reflect on this evening.
As far as those two friends on the Road to Emmaus were concerned something horrible had happened. They had pinned their hopes on someone they thought would change the world. For a while he had changed their way of looking at things. For a while it felt as if he was going to sweep people along with him.
Nazareth was a pretty unimpressive place … so unprepossessing that when recently the eggheads on the TV quiz show of that name were asked which village Jesus came from in Galilee they couldn’t come up with an answer.
Nazareth was as little known then as it seems to be little known now in the world of TV Quiz shows.
Jesus of Nazareth had spoken out so powerfully. He had held the powers that be to account in just the way his ccousin John the Baptist had done a while before. This Jesus really had been a prophet the like of which hadn’t been seen for five centuries at least. He matched his actions to his words. And he had made a difference. He spoke out powerfully against the abuses of the religious rulers – how they were absorbed in the minutiae of religious practice – tithing mint and cumin so carefully and neglecting the weightier matters of the Law, Justice and Mercy and Faith. He spoke out against the abuses of the state authorities and challenged people to turn the other cheek when they were threatened not to retaliate.
And with this Jesus it hadn’t just been words. He matched actions to the words he used. Where people were hurting he healed them … he preached acceptance of all and of everyone and he ate with tax collectors and sinners, and what’s more he even touched people suffering from leprosy.
He truly was a prophet mighty in deed and word.
He had said it would turn out this way. But no one had really believed him, not least his closest friends. But that’s exactly how it had turned out.
And it had been horrible.
To see him betrayed. Him of all people! Betrayed and handed over to the authorities, the religious authorities the state authorities. Condemned to death and crucified.
It had been horrible to see.
So, what did those two friends do when the unimaginable happened.
I want to home in on the first couple of verses of this familiar passage.
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened …. they were talking and discussing,
What do you do when something horrible happens?
That’s what you need to do.
Don’t cut yourself off. You need someone to talk to. Someone to listen. And that’s exactly what these two friends found in each other.
It has been a strange period since Christmas.
There have been wonderful things that have happened. And there have been horrible things that have happened. I have been close to people who have gone through horrible times since Christmas. Difficult to know what to do.
And since Christmas much has happened in our world. Egypt, Tunisia, … but then Libya. The family whose nephew was about to go on their third tour of duty to Afghanistan. A veteran. And only 23.
We touch horrible things.
I don’t know about you, but I found what happened in Japan, and continues to happen, horrible. Difficult to cope with. All sorts of questions.
What do you do?
First and foremost. How vital it is to talk. To come together. To be a support to each other. Don’t bottle it up in the face of horrible things that happen close to home. It is important to come together. To talk things through. To talk and discuss.
It’s been great to welcome the CF Youth Easter event this weekend. 40 years ago Felicity and I were among the group that started those events off … with an Easter Youth conference here at Highbury. Great to welcome the young people back this weekend.
Great connections to be made at such event.
Following this afternoon’s decision at the Open Meeting of CF Youth, CF youth is being wound up, or better, it is morphing along with the other CF youth organisation into CF Extra. A new youth thing in our churches involving everyone in our churches who is 10 and older. Sad to see these Easter youth conferences finish as they began here at Highbury. But exciting to have the prospect of something new happening.
That’s what happens with youth events. Wind the clock back 50 years and you reach the days of the Livingstone Fellowship. That was a youth movement among our Congregational churches that came into its own in the fifties and lasted into the sixties. And was strong here at Highbury.
As happens at such events people meet, they fall in love, they marry. It worked for Felicity and me … and it worked for Dick’s brother John Adams who married Elizabeth Harding.
I pricked my ears up when I read about Elizabeth Harding’s nephew, Daniel Harding. He has become one of the country’s leading conductors.
On 11th March 2011 Daniel Harding found himself in Tokyo, scheduled to conduct the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler’s 5th Symphony. What had happened was so unimaginably horrible, what should they do?
He consulted with the Orchestra. Collectively, they came to the decision that they would carry on with the concert and play that evening.
They did.
On Twitter, subsequently, Daniel Harding tweeted, “Would have played just for the 69 year old who walked 4 hours across Tokyo to make it to the concert! That's dedication to music!!
Just played Mahler 5 for the 50 who made it… Hope the other 1750 are all ok. Wonderful atmosphere on strangest of days.” (http://www.classicalmusic.org.uk/2011/03/orchestras-caught-up-in-japan-earthquake.html)
As soon as I read that story, I went to the CD shop behind the Brewery, was treated to a 30 minute conversation with the guy behind the counter on Mahler, and ended up purchasing the Simon Rattle performance of Mahler’s 5th recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic. Not an inappropriate choice as Simon Rattle was the one who took Daniel Harding under his wing at an early stage in Daniel Harding’s career. I learned first in that conversation, and since have come to hear for myself, how moving that symphony is. Emerging from a life that not least in death and bereavement had experience pretty horrible things, it explores musically the two themes of death and resurrection. How moving it has been to play that music as we have laid out our own walk to Jerusalem in the footsteps of Jesus this Holy Week.
What do you do? It was good simply to come together. To be a support to each other. And in that music share the sadness of death but also share the hope of resurrection.
Those two on the Road to Emmaus found that evening that something happened as they talked and discussed with one another.
While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them,
I don’t want to dwell on the rest of the story, how Jesus explained the messiah to be messiah had to be a suffering messiah who experienced the most horrible of horrible suffering himself, and only then come through to resurrection victory beyond. I just want to focus on those words,
“Jesus himself came near and went with them.”
In the face of horrible things that happen. That is what I find so precious about my faith, my Christian faith. Faith for me isn’t about arguing about the existence of God, much as I enjoy doing that. It isn’t about trying to figure out how God allows things to happen. Much as my questioning mind finds itself asking those enormous, unanswerable questions.
The great thing about faith for me is that it focuses on the God who in Jesus Christ comes alongside us in our sufferings and walks with us along the way.
When that Japanese earthquake struck I found myself turning to a Japanese, Christian novelist I had first read ten years ago. At that time I found it quaint to see how often earthquakes and volcanoes figured in the writing of Shusaku Endo. Just like that quaint Japanese art with the ever present Mount Fuji in the background. Now I realise it is not quaint at all. It reflects the fact that Japanese people live always very close to death and destruction by the forces of nature. I re-read Shusaku Endo’s novel, Volcano, though the novel I would recommend is Wonderful Fool, written at the same time. It was the translator of Volcano, Richard A Schuchert, who reminded me what it is about Shusaku Endo that for me goes to the heart of the Christian faith.
Born in 1923, he had become a Christian in his teens. After studying in Paris, he returned to Japan where he found him self frustrated at the way westerm missionaries presented Christianity with a triumphant victorious Christ.
That was not the Christ Shusaku Endo had found. The Jesus Christ who was so important to him was very different.
For Endo … the quintessence of Christianity lies in God’s loving compassion for His wretched children. His willingness to share with us in our suffering. The Japanese heart and mind seek a merciful mother-image of God, rather than the stern, demanding, threatening father-image which (in Endo’s opinion) has been unduly emphasised by the missionaries…. Endo is attracted to Jesus the suffering companion of all men and women. (Richard A Schuchert in the Introduction to Shusaku Endo, Volcano (Sceptre, 1978, originally published in Japanese in 1959)
That’s it!
That’s the heart of the Christian faith for me.
That’s what made all the difference to the two on the Road to Emmaus.
“Jesus himself came near and went with them.”
Shusaku Endo later published A Life of Jesus. He reflects on the hard lesson the disciples had to learn that in Jesus the Messiah is not ‘glorious’ possessed of power, full of majesty … but a suffering servant, a man of sorrows.
“There is probably no passage in the whole New Testament which better portrays the disciples’ mood than the episode of the travellers to Emmaus.
“What emerges clearly,” for Shusaku Endo, “in that evening’s touching so try is the image of Jesus as ‘companion’.
What do you do in the face of something horrible?
Find someone to talk to. Share the burden. Be a support to each other.
And then discover in Jesus the God who is alongside us in the pain, sharing the suffering, walking with us along the way, our companion for the journey.
As they talked and discussed and supported each other, as Jesus joined them on that journey, something prompted those two to do something themselves.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them.
They felt compelled to do something. To offer hospitality to this stranger.
Maybe that’s where our faith is propelling us. Strengthened by the talk, strengthened by the presence of the companion, then we too can DO something. Practical response to help those who face times of difficulty.
Never alone - thoughts for Easter
40 years ago this year Felicity organised an event here in Cheltenham for young people, a couple of years later she and I were part of the group that organised the very first CF Youth Conference here at Highbury.
It’s great to welcome CF Youth to this Easter event this year again at Highbury, as you this afternoon will be making plans for something new and exciting in the future.
Through the week the church has been open and we have been invited to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as his journey took him to Jerusalem, to the cross and to resurrection.
When I have been in the church I have been playing one piece of music that I chose to play specifically for this Easter. It was Mahler’s 5th Symphony. I chose it for a very specific reason.
Many of the older people who have been at Highbury for a long time will remember an earlier youth organisation in our Congregational churches. It was called the Livingstone Fellowship. Diana and Dick were among those who were very involved. Dick’s brother, John married another of those who was very involved, Elizabeth Harding. Interesting isn’t it what involvement in church youth organisations can do for you – Felicity and I are still going strong 40 years on!
Elizabeth Harding’s nephew Daniel has in recent years become one of the country’s leading conductors.
On 11th March he was scheduled to conduct Mahler’s 5th Symphony. The orchestra he was to conduct was the Philharmonic Orchestra of Japan. The concert was in Tokyo.
Should they or shouldn’t they carry on? They felt it best – because it was good in those circumstances to get together, to be a support to each other. It was a remarkable evening. Mahler’s 5th Symphony had an appropriateness to it for two themes run right through the Symphony – Death and Resurrection.
We’ve been telling the story of Christ’s journey to Jerusalem, a journey that took him through death, a cruel, painful death, to resurrection. The Way he took, opened up a way that his followers have taken ever since, a way of love for God, of love for one another, that does not enable us to avoid the awful things that life and this world, nature itself, sometimes hurls at us. But it does offer us a Way through the pain of death to a resurrection victory we too may share.
In a strange way this weekend walking in the footsteps of Jesus, listening to that music perhaps prompts us to realise something very special about being people who follow the way Jesus has opened up for us.
We need never feel alone. There are always people there for us. Some things change, new, exciting challenges come along, and the presence of God’s love is always with us, come what may. Through death to resurrection the way Jesus invites us to follow is a way trodden by so many down through the years, and a way that draws us into the eternal love of God.
It’s great to welcome CF Youth to this Easter event this year again at Highbury, as you this afternoon will be making plans for something new and exciting in the future.
Through the week the church has been open and we have been invited to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as his journey took him to Jerusalem, to the cross and to resurrection.
When I have been in the church I have been playing one piece of music that I chose to play specifically for this Easter. It was Mahler’s 5th Symphony. I chose it for a very specific reason.
Many of the older people who have been at Highbury for a long time will remember an earlier youth organisation in our Congregational churches. It was called the Livingstone Fellowship. Diana and Dick were among those who were very involved. Dick’s brother, John married another of those who was very involved, Elizabeth Harding. Interesting isn’t it what involvement in church youth organisations can do for you – Felicity and I are still going strong 40 years on!
Elizabeth Harding’s nephew Daniel has in recent years become one of the country’s leading conductors.
On 11th March he was scheduled to conduct Mahler’s 5th Symphony. The orchestra he was to conduct was the Philharmonic Orchestra of Japan. The concert was in Tokyo.
Should they or shouldn’t they carry on? They felt it best – because it was good in those circumstances to get together, to be a support to each other. It was a remarkable evening. Mahler’s 5th Symphony had an appropriateness to it for two themes run right through the Symphony – Death and Resurrection.
We’ve been telling the story of Christ’s journey to Jerusalem, a journey that took him through death, a cruel, painful death, to resurrection. The Way he took, opened up a way that his followers have taken ever since, a way of love for God, of love for one another, that does not enable us to avoid the awful things that life and this world, nature itself, sometimes hurls at us. But it does offer us a Way through the pain of death to a resurrection victory we too may share.
In a strange way this weekend walking in the footsteps of Jesus, listening to that music perhaps prompts us to realise something very special about being people who follow the way Jesus has opened up for us.
We need never feel alone. There are always people there for us. Some things change, new, exciting challenges come along, and the presence of God’s love is always with us, come what may. Through death to resurrection the way Jesus invites us to follow is a way trodden by so many down through the years, and a way that draws us into the eternal love of God.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Ideas don't exist unless you do something!
It’s lovely to welcome Emily and Rosie to today’s service, and Chris’s father, John and stepmother Joyce. . Our thoughts and prayers have been very much with Chris ever since we heard of her illness and all through the time she has been at Sue Ryder home. It was lovely to share a very real celebration of her life at the Crematorium last Tuesday and it seemed right to mark Chris’s life during our service today. So Emily and Chris have brought along some cakes to have over coffee after the service.
Chris has had a love of this place, and has done an immense amount for us over the years. She worked with the children, and as a Deacon – she would take the minutes at Deacons meetings. All her working life Chris worked in scaffolding, so Chris played a key part in the maintenance of the building for a while, acquiring scaffolding for some key jobs. She has helped edit Highbury News for many years working with Stefan and with Desiree, and latterly with Diana. Chris loved her garden, flowers, and all things floral and so one of the things she brought to the magazine was the pictures and clipart and the often floral designs and flourishes.
But that wasn’t all Chris brought to the magazine. Chris had a passion for helping other people and for social justice. That meant that for a number of years Chris was our Christian Aid organiser, organising the Christian Aid week collection that happens in the second week of May each year. Chris would add in fillers for the magazine that came from Christian Aid – stories the need for justice and to work for justice. Our Congregational Federation has a Peace Fellowship: Chris was a keen member of that as well. That commitment to peace and justice came out in her choice of fillers to put into the magazine.
So for a few minutes on this Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week I want to bring together that passion for social justice and caring for other people with one particular picture that I think would have appealed to Chris. And I want to link that with the story of Jesus and Holy Week, and that great story of the foot-washing.
It’s a beautifully colourful picture that depicts the crucified Christ.
That goes to the heart of what my faith is about. I don’t start with some theoretical idea of God is all powerful, all loving. When I do start there I end up with all sorts of massive questions about why such awful stuff should happen in the world with all its injustices, and the kind of unwarranted suffering that sometimes comes very close to home.
My faith starts with Jesus. He came as a servant to serve other people and wherever he saw people hurting he brought healing, and wherever he saw injustice he stood for justice and made a difference. He couldn’t escape the suffering that came to him, instead he went through it … and as we will celebrate on Easter Sunday next week won a victory that we can share. He opens up for me the God I believe in as a God who comes alongside us in our suffering, remains with us through it all and draws us home to his eternal love.
And he does come alongside us in our suffering.
Look again at the picture and it is a black Jesus depicted in this stained glass window. The window is in the 16th Baptist Church of Birmingham Alabama in the States.
In a moving radio programme a couple of weeks ago, journalist Gary younge told its story.
On the morning of 15th September 1963 a bomb planted in the church by four men from a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan exploded taking the lives of three fourteen year old girls, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Me Collins and one 11 year old girl, Denise McNair.
It shocked the world and galvanised support for the Civil Rights campaign of Martin Luther King.
John Petts, a Welsh artist in stained glass heard the news of this atrocity in the small Carmarthenshire village of Llansteffan. In that instant he had an idea. He determined to offer his skills as an artist in the reconstruction of the church.
He said something then that is very powerful.
“An idea doesn’t exist unless you do something about it,” he said. “Thought has no real living meaning unless it’s followed by action of some kind.”
He rang a friend, David Cole, editor of the Western Mail, the national newspaper of Wales. An appeal laws launched. But it was an appeal with a difference. He did not want some rich benefactor to give all the money. The maximum anyone could give was half a crown 2 shillings and six pence. 12 pence today.
The appeal caught the imagination of the people of Wales. And soon the money was raised, the window designed and installed as a gift truly from The People of Wales.
Look again at the design. It is the suffering Christ who comes alongside people wherever they are – so in the window it is a Christ who for the people worshipping in that church is one with them, it is a black Christ.
One hand is held out as if calling a halt to the injustices of the world, and the sheer awfulness of the racism that was plaguing America and the world. You have made my Father’s house a den of thieves.
But the other hand is open and reaching out as if in forgiveness. “Father, forgive them …” were the words Jesus shared from the cross. And into that world of hatred Jesus brings the forgiveness that makes all the difference.
The words etched into the glass at the bottom of the window are words inspired by Matthew 25.
You do it to me.
How powerful that quotation is.
I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me.”
Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,
you did it to me.
There is a wonderful comfort in the faith we share that focuses on the God who through Jesus Christ shares with us in our suffering, remains with us come what may and leads us through to his peace and his love.
But faith that looks to Jesus Christ as the suffering servant is faith that has to heed the challenge of Jesus’ words.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in that moment which we are going to remember as we share around this table.
And during supper Jesus … got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
Then comes the moment when Jesus shares his great idea.
So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.
What a great idea … that we serve one another.
That is the way the love Christ shows to us becomes a reality in the world around us.
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
That’s the great idea.
But as John Petts saw …
“An idea doesn’t exist unless you do something about it.”
Chris got something of that idea … that’s what prompted her to help other people, all the way through even at the Sue Ryder home; it’s what prompted her to have a passion for justice and peace and to work for Christian Aid.
I guess the question for each of us is … what are we going to DO about it?
Chris has had a love of this place, and has done an immense amount for us over the years. She worked with the children, and as a Deacon – she would take the minutes at Deacons meetings. All her working life Chris worked in scaffolding, so Chris played a key part in the maintenance of the building for a while, acquiring scaffolding for some key jobs. She has helped edit Highbury News for many years working with Stefan and with Desiree, and latterly with Diana. Chris loved her garden, flowers, and all things floral and so one of the things she brought to the magazine was the pictures and clipart and the often floral designs and flourishes.
But that wasn’t all Chris brought to the magazine. Chris had a passion for helping other people and for social justice. That meant that for a number of years Chris was our Christian Aid organiser, organising the Christian Aid week collection that happens in the second week of May each year. Chris would add in fillers for the magazine that came from Christian Aid – stories the need for justice and to work for justice. Our Congregational Federation has a Peace Fellowship: Chris was a keen member of that as well. That commitment to peace and justice came out in her choice of fillers to put into the magazine.
So for a few minutes on this Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week I want to bring together that passion for social justice and caring for other people with one particular picture that I think would have appealed to Chris. And I want to link that with the story of Jesus and Holy Week, and that great story of the foot-washing.
It’s a beautifully colourful picture that depicts the crucified Christ.
That goes to the heart of what my faith is about. I don’t start with some theoretical idea of God is all powerful, all loving. When I do start there I end up with all sorts of massive questions about why such awful stuff should happen in the world with all its injustices, and the kind of unwarranted suffering that sometimes comes very close to home.
My faith starts with Jesus. He came as a servant to serve other people and wherever he saw people hurting he brought healing, and wherever he saw injustice he stood for justice and made a difference. He couldn’t escape the suffering that came to him, instead he went through it … and as we will celebrate on Easter Sunday next week won a victory that we can share. He opens up for me the God I believe in as a God who comes alongside us in our suffering, remains with us through it all and draws us home to his eternal love.
And he does come alongside us in our suffering.
Look again at the picture and it is a black Jesus depicted in this stained glass window. The window is in the 16th Baptist Church of Birmingham Alabama in the States.
In a moving radio programme a couple of weeks ago, journalist Gary younge told its story.
On the morning of 15th September 1963 a bomb planted in the church by four men from a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan exploded taking the lives of three fourteen year old girls, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Me Collins and one 11 year old girl, Denise McNair.
It shocked the world and galvanised support for the Civil Rights campaign of Martin Luther King.
John Petts, a Welsh artist in stained glass heard the news of this atrocity in the small Carmarthenshire village of Llansteffan. In that instant he had an idea. He determined to offer his skills as an artist in the reconstruction of the church.
He said something then that is very powerful.
“An idea doesn’t exist unless you do something about it,” he said. “Thought has no real living meaning unless it’s followed by action of some kind.”
He rang a friend, David Cole, editor of the Western Mail, the national newspaper of Wales. An appeal laws launched. But it was an appeal with a difference. He did not want some rich benefactor to give all the money. The maximum anyone could give was half a crown 2 shillings and six pence. 12 pence today.
The appeal caught the imagination of the people of Wales. And soon the money was raised, the window designed and installed as a gift truly from The People of Wales.
Look again at the design. It is the suffering Christ who comes alongside people wherever they are – so in the window it is a Christ who for the people worshipping in that church is one with them, it is a black Christ.
One hand is held out as if calling a halt to the injustices of the world, and the sheer awfulness of the racism that was plaguing America and the world. You have made my Father’s house a den of thieves.
But the other hand is open and reaching out as if in forgiveness. “Father, forgive them …” were the words Jesus shared from the cross. And into that world of hatred Jesus brings the forgiveness that makes all the difference.
The words etched into the glass at the bottom of the window are words inspired by Matthew 25.
You do it to me.
How powerful that quotation is.
I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me.”
Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,
you did it to me.
There is a wonderful comfort in the faith we share that focuses on the God who through Jesus Christ shares with us in our suffering, remains with us come what may and leads us through to his peace and his love.
But faith that looks to Jesus Christ as the suffering servant is faith that has to heed the challenge of Jesus’ words.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in that moment which we are going to remember as we share around this table.
And during supper Jesus … got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
Then comes the moment when Jesus shares his great idea.
So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.
What a great idea … that we serve one another.
That is the way the love Christ shows to us becomes a reality in the world around us.
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
That’s the great idea.
But as John Petts saw …
“An idea doesn’t exist unless you do something about it.”
Chris got something of that idea … that’s what prompted her to help other people, all the way through even at the Sue Ryder home; it’s what prompted her to have a passion for justice and peace and to work for Christian Aid.
I guess the question for each of us is … what are we going to DO about it?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
A Baptism on Mothering Sunday
Today is one of those special days when we have an opportunity to treasure something of great value and of great importance. On Mothering Sunday, Mothers Day and on the day when we join in the baptism of Silvia it’s a great opportunity for us to celebrate the importance of family.
It was great meeting up with Alan and Daniela – and it really was one of those classic occasions. The conversation goes something like this …
Oh, so you’re from Wales!
That’s right!
Which part of Wales?
South Wales.
Where in South Wales?
Near Cardiff.
Where near Cardiff?
Just up the valley from Pontypridd.
That’s the Rhondda.
That’s right.
So, where in the Rhondda?
Porth …
Well my mother was born in Porth – it’s at this point that things can become really exciting were it not for one small thing.
The fact that my mother was a Jones from Porth as well .. does not necessarily mean it was the same Jones family.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing family history, tracing the family tree.
There’s something about doing family history that is very fascinating. Doing a family tree really only works backwards.
You can start with yourself and trace the family tree back. I can go back on my father’s side of the family to the 1600’s. On my mother’s side of the family we don’t go quite so far back.
It is not possible to pick an individual in the 1600’s and then build up a family tree forwards. The problem is that you go wider and wider and wider. So the individual you choose in the 1600’s would have so many descendants by now it would not be possible to trace them all.
Tracing your family tree gives you a sense of who you are … this is where I have come from. Be it Wales, Italy or wherever … and it’s precious.
In our service today we celebrate the possibility of belonging to another family too. The family of God’s people, the family of the church. Inside that family there is a very real sense of belonging. The very real sense of belonging that we have comes from tracing that family back.
We welcome Silvia today into the whole family of the church wherever it may be … but we do that here in this particular church. Silvia is in a line of people who have been baptised here and welcomed into that church family. We have our baptismal role on the wall taking us back 50 years and more. From our archive we have earlier rolls, called a Cradle Roll – they go back a lot further. These are all people who have been welcomed into the family of the church here in Highbury.
But our church goes back to 1827 – but we go further back still.
Our family tree is taking us back and back and back – until we reach one point in particular and one person in particular – until we reach Jesus.
It is in the love God has for all that can be seen in Jesus that we find our roots.
Jesus uses this same kind of picture of a tree with roots as a picture of his family as it extends through the years to us.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him will bear much fruit.
Being part of the family gives a sense of rootedness, but it is also a network of support that is valuable, a sense of identity that makes us the people we are.
The network of support of the church family is something invaluable as it gives us a way of supporting each other.
But through that support there is so much of value to be gained by looking to Christ.
I found myself in conversation recently with a colleague who had been out in New Zealand when the earthquake struck. The rector of the church where they were staying had to travel to the other island where a little one in his own family had died in the earthquake.
We were sharing with each other the difficulties there are in having faith in the face of difficult times. He spoke of an interview where John Humphreys was questioning Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, about God in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
“When such things happen, how do you believe in God?” There was seemed like an endless pause, then Rowan Williams replied … “only just.”
There is an honesty in that response, that is an honesty we who value the importance of faith would do well to seek.
Believing in God can be difficult in the world that these little ones are growing up into.
For me as a Christian I don’t want to start with some philosophical idea of God.
I want to do the family tree thing … and go back to Jesus. He teaches a way of life based around love and concern for others that makes a world of difference in every generation – that’s something I want to pass on to these little ones entering into this world.
Where he is confronted by suffering he brings healing. But there are times when that suffering gets the better of him and at the death of his friend Lazarus he weeps.
In Christ there is something of God that is different from the philosophical idea of God so many people who don’t feel part of the family have. This God is the one who is with us through the dark times, who comes alongside us when things are at their worst and stays with us. There is no escaping the valley of the deepest darkness – but the God Jesus makes real for us is the God who is with us through that valley.
Let’s hold on to the God Jesus opens up for us – let’s feel part of that family tree going all the way back to Jesus – for as we are in him we will bear much fruit.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.
The Jesus we look back to is the Jesus who went to the cross, and through the suffering of the cross came through to a resurrection we can share. His presence is with us enabling us to live the kind of life that can make a positive difference to others. He will be the strength alongside us that we need for the living of our lives.
This is the Jesus at the root of the family tree we celebrate being part of today.
Jesus knew full well that this image of the tree, the vineyard was one that reached back into the mists of time. I want to finish with a very short reading that contains a wonderful promise. It comes from Isaiah 27 verse 2-3.
This is God’s promise to each of us as we are part of the family tree of Jesus – as we are the branches and he is the vine.
If we are going through difficult times, if we are conscious of the sadnesses around us in our world, then this is a promise to hold on to. But it is also a promise to hold on to as we think of Silvia, of Luca of all the little ones who are part of our church family looking into the future.
On that day the LORD will say of his pleasant vineyard, 3 “I watch over it and water it continually. I guard it night and day so that no one will harm it.
It was great meeting up with Alan and Daniela – and it really was one of those classic occasions. The conversation goes something like this …
Oh, so you’re from Wales!
That’s right!
Which part of Wales?
South Wales.
Where in South Wales?
Near Cardiff.
Where near Cardiff?
Just up the valley from Pontypridd.
That’s the Rhondda.
That’s right.
So, where in the Rhondda?
Porth …
Well my mother was born in Porth – it’s at this point that things can become really exciting were it not for one small thing.
The fact that my mother was a Jones from Porth as well .. does not necessarily mean it was the same Jones family.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing family history, tracing the family tree.
There’s something about doing family history that is very fascinating. Doing a family tree really only works backwards.
You can start with yourself and trace the family tree back. I can go back on my father’s side of the family to the 1600’s. On my mother’s side of the family we don’t go quite so far back.
It is not possible to pick an individual in the 1600’s and then build up a family tree forwards. The problem is that you go wider and wider and wider. So the individual you choose in the 1600’s would have so many descendants by now it would not be possible to trace them all.
Tracing your family tree gives you a sense of who you are … this is where I have come from. Be it Wales, Italy or wherever … and it’s precious.
In our service today we celebrate the possibility of belonging to another family too. The family of God’s people, the family of the church. Inside that family there is a very real sense of belonging. The very real sense of belonging that we have comes from tracing that family back.
We welcome Silvia today into the whole family of the church wherever it may be … but we do that here in this particular church. Silvia is in a line of people who have been baptised here and welcomed into that church family. We have our baptismal role on the wall taking us back 50 years and more. From our archive we have earlier rolls, called a Cradle Roll – they go back a lot further. These are all people who have been welcomed into the family of the church here in Highbury.
But our church goes back to 1827 – but we go further back still.
Our family tree is taking us back and back and back – until we reach one point in particular and one person in particular – until we reach Jesus.
It is in the love God has for all that can be seen in Jesus that we find our roots.
Jesus uses this same kind of picture of a tree with roots as a picture of his family as it extends through the years to us.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him will bear much fruit.
Being part of the family gives a sense of rootedness, but it is also a network of support that is valuable, a sense of identity that makes us the people we are.
The network of support of the church family is something invaluable as it gives us a way of supporting each other.
But through that support there is so much of value to be gained by looking to Christ.
I found myself in conversation recently with a colleague who had been out in New Zealand when the earthquake struck. The rector of the church where they were staying had to travel to the other island where a little one in his own family had died in the earthquake.
We were sharing with each other the difficulties there are in having faith in the face of difficult times. He spoke of an interview where John Humphreys was questioning Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, about God in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
“When such things happen, how do you believe in God?” There was seemed like an endless pause, then Rowan Williams replied … “only just.”
There is an honesty in that response, that is an honesty we who value the importance of faith would do well to seek.
Believing in God can be difficult in the world that these little ones are growing up into.
For me as a Christian I don’t want to start with some philosophical idea of God.
I want to do the family tree thing … and go back to Jesus. He teaches a way of life based around love and concern for others that makes a world of difference in every generation – that’s something I want to pass on to these little ones entering into this world.
Where he is confronted by suffering he brings healing. But there are times when that suffering gets the better of him and at the death of his friend Lazarus he weeps.
In Christ there is something of God that is different from the philosophical idea of God so many people who don’t feel part of the family have. This God is the one who is with us through the dark times, who comes alongside us when things are at their worst and stays with us. There is no escaping the valley of the deepest darkness – but the God Jesus makes real for us is the God who is with us through that valley.
Let’s hold on to the God Jesus opens up for us – let’s feel part of that family tree going all the way back to Jesus – for as we are in him we will bear much fruit.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.
The Jesus we look back to is the Jesus who went to the cross, and through the suffering of the cross came through to a resurrection we can share. His presence is with us enabling us to live the kind of life that can make a positive difference to others. He will be the strength alongside us that we need for the living of our lives.
This is the Jesus at the root of the family tree we celebrate being part of today.
Jesus knew full well that this image of the tree, the vineyard was one that reached back into the mists of time. I want to finish with a very short reading that contains a wonderful promise. It comes from Isaiah 27 verse 2-3.
This is God’s promise to each of us as we are part of the family tree of Jesus – as we are the branches and he is the vine.
If we are going through difficult times, if we are conscious of the sadnesses around us in our world, then this is a promise to hold on to. But it is also a promise to hold on to as we think of Silvia, of Luca of all the little ones who are part of our church family looking into the future.
On that day the LORD will say of his pleasant vineyard, 3 “I watch over it and water it continually. I guard it night and day so that no one will harm it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
A Promise and a Principle for the Jounery Ahead
The story of Moses is one of the most inspirational of all time. An initial reluctance overcome by a sense of God’s presence and a helper to be alongside him in the person of Aaron, Moses in the great story of Exodus prevails upon Pharaoh to ‘let my people go’. After much heartache Moses leads the people towards freedom only to find that their journey will take them through the wilderness. It’s a story that has been the inspiration of the Jewish people ever since. It won’t be long before the Jewish people will once again mark the Passover and the moment of Exodus. It’s a story that was the inspiration for Jesus. We have taken that last Passover meal he shared with his disciples and made of it something new and no less powerful an inspiration for us. Exodus and the cry, Let my people go, has been the inspiration for generations of people as they have sought liberty and freedom. It was the inspiration of the Pilgrims on board the Mayflower as they settled and established the land of the free. It was the inspiration of the abolitionists as they sought the end of slavery, and even more powerfully the inspiration of the slaves as they sang in longing for their own freedom. Let my people go. It was the inspiration of Martin Luther King. One secular biographer of Martin Luther King, Stewart Burns[1] ‘argues that King saw himself as a reluctant, unworthy, and sinful messiah, mandated by God to free his people from the slavery of racial oppression and to rescue Amercia from the cancer of racism and discrimination that was destroying its soul. His models were Moses and Jesus.” In these troubled times as what has been described as the most radical change to the infrastructure of our society begins to take a hold next week, and as our military involvement in the Middle East extends from Afghanistan to Libya, it is tempting to look for another Moses figure to lead us through what feels like a wilderness time to a promised land beyond. I believe that is a temptation we should resist. More important is that we look afresh to Moses and to Jesus and find in their stories bearings to help us as we embark on the journey ahead of us. First, to Moses. I want to pick up a moment in the story of Exodus when it seems as if everything has gone wrong, when the people are up in arms against Moses, and when at first sight it seems as if God simply provides, but on closer inspection we find that God provides in a very particular kind of way. Reading: Exodus 16:1-5 and 13-21 16The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’ 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. 5On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.’ 13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’* For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. 16This is what the Lord has commanded: “Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.” ’ 17The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. 18But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed. 19And Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over until morning.’ 20But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them. 21Morning by morning they gathered it, as much as each needed; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. The miracle of God’s provision experienced by the people in the wilderness is rooted in phenomena that can be observed. I tracked this down in a Jewish Heritage Website[2] Prof. Jacob Milgrom offers us a scientific explanation:The manna has been identified with a natural substance formed in the wilderness of northern Arabia. There is a type of tamarisk plant, which is often attacked by a particular type of plant lice (Trabutina manniara and Najococcus serpentinus). When the insect punctures the fruit of the tree, it excretes a yellowish-white flake or ball formed from the tree's sap. During the warmth of the day, this substance melts, but it congeals when it is cold. It has a sweet taste. The natives gather these pellets/cakes in early morning, and cook them to provide a sort of bread. The food decays quickly and attracts ants. The annual crop in the Sinai Peninsula is exceedingly small and some years fails quickly. The description in Exodus 16 corresponds remarkably: But the actual provision of God is not the focus of the story. Rather, God uses the provision he makes as a measure of the people’s willingness to live their lives within God’s framework for their lives. This is what the Lord has commanded: “Gather as much of it as each of you needs,” … 17The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. 18But when they measured it those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed. 19 There is here at the heart of this story a Promise and a Principle that can be for us an inspiration at this time. The Promise is one to hold on to ‘God will provide’. The Principle is one to take to heart ‘God will provide each according to their need.’ The Promise and the Principle are both to be seen as much in Jesus as in Moses. John 6 begins with echoes of the Moses story. Jesus is up a mountain, and the Passover festival of the Jewish people is near. He is confronted with a large crowd and nothing to eat. Philip is shocked that even six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” Andrew it is who notices a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish. And then he laments, ‘But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus gets the people to sit down. He takes the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them, so also the fish. That’s the Promise. God will provide. Then comes the Principle. He distributed the loaves and then the fish to those who were seated ‘as much as they wanted until they were satisfied. The Promise and the Principle are encapsulated in the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. The word translated in English versions as ‘daily’ Is a one-off word that doesn’t appear anywhere else in Greek. It is a puzzle to know how to translate it. And so clues are found in the very earliest commentators on the Greek text. They suggest two sets of meanings. Epiousios could refer to time and refer to the bread of today or the bread of tomorrow. Give us this day the bread we need for today, or possibly the bread we need for tomorrow. But the word epiousios could refer not to time but to amount. Give us this day just enough bread to keep us alive, and no more … Give us this day the bread we need. The Promise that God will provide is one to hold on to. The Principle that God will provide to each according to their need is one to reflect on and to struggle with and to seek to put into practice. It is a principle to govern life-style. We should seek what we need, enough and not plentiful riches. It is a principle to relate to provision in our society. We should seek a society in which the needs of each are met, and excess is held back. It is a principle to relate to provision across the world. We should recognise our responsibility across the world and seek to meet the needs of each. It is a principle to relate to climate. If each sought only what they need, our consumption of energy could be better shared. The challenge is for us to respond each of us individually. There is, however, in the story form Exodus a twist in the tale, that seems to me to be of great significance for us to reflect on too. The people do not measure up to God’s expectations. They try to gather in more each night than they need and everything turns bad. What’s even worse, in spite of having double on the day before the Sabbath, some still go out on the Sabbath wanting more and more for themselves. The response God makes is I believe absolutely fascinating. Within a couple of chapters Moses goes up on to the mountain top and receives the Ten Commandments. The bulk of the remainder of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are devoted to Law Codes. Those law codes provide a framework for individual living and a framework for the people to live together in society. All sorts of provisions are made. Jesus holds light to the ritual provisions. Puts people first. But still values the notion of ‘law’ providing structure for people to live together in society. That too it seems to me is vital for us to take seriously. The Promise is one we can lay claim to. But left to their own people will not live by the principle. People need a proper framework of law that seeks to enable that principle to hold so that each will receive according to their need. To carry out that Principle we need not only to take individual action, but we should also seek structures in our society that will provide the framework for the needs of each to be met. We should engage in those structures too. On Friday the Churches of Cheltenham are invited to Christchurch to meet with Martin Horwood and explore what the Big Society will mean for Cheltenham. If anyone wants to join me there I would be delighted. If what is meant by Big Society is dismantling structures so that individuals are to work on their own to ensure that the needs of each are met … I fear it won’t work. The Big Society needs also to put in place the structures that will ensure that needs of each are met. Do we look to another Moses figure to inspire us? No that’s a temptation to resist. Jim Wallis quotes a passionate street organiser called Lisa Sullivan who followed in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, but died of a cancer when in her early forties.[3] “We are the ones we have been waiting for!” Let’s hold on to the Promise, that God will provide. Let’s hold on to the Principle, that God will provide to each according to their need. And let that principles shape the lives we lead individually and the society we seek to shape together. [1] Stuart Burns, To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr’s Sacred Journey to Save America 1955-1968 Quoted in Jim Wallis, God’s Politics (Lion, 2005), 215 [2] http://www.jhom.com/topics/bread/manna.html [3] Jim Wallis, op.cit., 374
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