February 6, 2010
Who thought that these words were good ones to sent a baby to sleep?
Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
All ok so far – the baby gets rocked slowly to sleep….
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
uh oh – getting a bit scary now
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Hmm.. Methinks there’s not much chance of sleep when the baby has crashed back down to earth.
February 5, 2010
2 Kings 17 describes the final days of the northern nation of Israel in the 7th century BC, as it was overpowered by the nearby superpower of Assyria. Hoshea, Israel’s last king, attempts to deceive the King of Assyria. On finding out, Assyria lays siege to Israel, it’s people are scattered in the nations around them, and people from surrounding nations such as Babylon and Cush are moved in to the now abandoned cities in Samaria to settle there.
But the author of 2 Kings doesn’t attribute the demise of Israel in those days to the rise of superpower nations around them. He gives a theological perspective that began centuries earlier. He attributes it to Israel turning away from the LORD to instead worship and sacrifice to idols – the same idols that surrounding nations had worshipped. They were wupposed to be God’s holy and chosen people but instead…
They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. (2 Kings 17:15)
The act of worshipping created and worthless idols caused them to become worthless themselves. They had rejected the LORD who gave them worth, in whose image they were made and by whose loving kindness, they were chosen.
Humanity, made in the image of God is created to worship that God. In doing so, we become more like the one whom were worship. Likewise, when the worship of God is substituted for the worship of and idol, we begin to become more like the idol that we are worshipping. In contemporary terms, if we worship money, money starts to define us. We see our own worth in relation to money and our relationships too become defined by it – rich or poor, debtor or creditor. If we worship success and status, we get our self-worth from those things and again, we only consider those who are similarly statussed or successful as worthy of our attention.
Is this why our society is becoming so fragmented? We can only relate to those in a narrow age range or interest group around us because we are now defined by what we do, wear, think and are involved in. Instead, we should be defined by the God in whose image we are made.
January 30, 2010
This is an advert for road safety done by the local government in Sussex, UK.
No blood, no guts, no gore. Just an enduring message of what is important to him. Small actions (such the act of wearing a seat belt) seem obvious when weighed up against what there is to live for. Wonderful.
January 16, 2010
Breakout, by Mark Stibbe and Andrew Williams is the account of how a large charismatic evangelical church turned from being inward looking to outward looking. St. Andrew’s, Chorleywood (not a church I’ve ever visited) was by most accounts, successful, but they had reached saturation point with the ‘come to us’ method of evangelism. It was a consumer church. Congregants would come and enjoy the great worship and teaching, but, in general, were not plugged in to using their own gifts and creating their own ministries.
When a new vicar, Mark Stibbe, arrived and was closely followed by a new Associate Minister, Andrew Williams, the whole outlook of the church changed. Instead of meeting around one centralised worship event with anything up to 1000 people attending, they created Mid-Sized Communities (MSCs – later renamed Mission-Shaped Communities). These were groups of up to 50 people who met in a particular area or around a particular interest which could more easily serve the wider communities in which they were based. To quote an analogy which Stibbe and Williams use in the book, the church went from being an ocean liner, to being a group of smaller lifeboats, more easily able to change course and react to what is around.
There are better books to read which outline the theology and practicalities of smaller church groups which aim to reach the community. The fresh expressions literature has a lot of information and examples of new churches springing up in new contexts, and Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester (which I have talked about in depth before) covers all the necessary ingredients of reaching society with the gospel in contextually-appropriate ways without losing the clarity of the gospel message. There is also a book called Clusters, by Bob Hopkins and Mike Breen (which I haven’t read yet) which covers the same ground)
Breakout is still an interesting read as it tells the story of what can happen when one person with a clear vision communicates that vision clearly, gets people behind him, creates a clear strategy, listens to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and allows the spiritual gifts of the congregation to grow and be used. Although this example is in a charismatic church, there is no reason why churches of other persuasions cannot act on the call to spread the gospel in similar ways. The book does begin to meander and lose it’s way a little in the second half as the authors try to insert some theology into what is essentially a narrative, but it is still worth a read. You have to admire Mark Stibbe for his leadership and praise God for what he has done.
January 15, 2010
In his book ‘Surprised by Hope‘ (which I am still reading!) N.T. Wright offers a concise account of the interpretations of the doctrine of Hell and offers his own account (pages 187-198). He categorically rejects universalism as a product of the liberal theology from the first half of the 20th century. However, he also has issues with the traditional interpretation of hell as an ‘eternal torture chamber’, saying that this comes from a medieval ideas of heaven and judgement.
You’d have thought, then, that he would therefore accept the other fairly mainstream interpretation of hell of annihilationism, where, at the judgement, those who have not aligned themselves with Christ simply cease to exist. Wright, however, rejects this view as neglecting parts of the new testament which clearly allude to an ongoing state of existence for those who reject Christ.
Instead, he opts for an interpretation which takes the best arts of both views (whilst acknowledging that, like all interpretations of the doctrine of hell, there is a certain amount of theological conjecture that necessarily goes on!). He argues that human beings, made in the amge of God but flawed through sin, can choose to worship whomever and whatever they want. As they do so, they become more like the person/thing that they worship. So, those who worship, say, money start to define themselves and others in terms of money – as partner, debtor, creditor etc. Consequently, the image of God in them is further diminished. Those who worship God wholeheartedly will become more like Him, as the object of their worship. Wright then applies this to the state of existence after death. Bearing in mind that the whole of creation will be restored under Christ’s rule, those who follow him will be restored into the perfect image of God. Those who do not will get what they wanted too, the image of God in them will be diminished and removed. They will, Wright suggests, continue in an eternal state of existence but in that state the image of God in them will be less that what it should be. They will be permanently less than human. Again, Tom Wright is clear to say that this is his conjecture!
This is the first time I’ve heart such an argument, and I’d have to look into more to comment more fully. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that, as Wright mentions later on, the questions “Who is going to heaven or hell?” and “What is it like?” are not really the right questions t be asking. As God’s salvation plans includes individuals but extends to all creation, the right question is “How is God’s plan of salvation panning out in individual’s lives and in the world as a whole?” or “What is God doing now?”. I’m sure God sees the issue of eternal like and separation from him as much more continuous than our more usual categories of before death/after death.
January 8, 2010
It’s a strange sensation naming someone. At the birth of our son, we were handed a little big ball of skin and bones who had been gently developing inside his mother. Although we had poured a lot of thought into his name, and we knew when he was born what that name would be, it was still strange naming him. He has to get used to his name, but so do we. Just minutes into his life I was handed my son for a little father-son time, I repeated his name to him and to me – from now on this child will be known as Matthew Joshua.
Everyone else you meet in life comes with a name already attached. “Hello, my name is… such-and-such”, and from that moment on that is what we call them. With Matthew it was different. We were given the responsibility of deciding on his name, and we will teach him what his name is.
In the second chapter of Genesis, Adam is given the responsibility by God of naming the birds and plants and animals. He later names his wife ‘woman’ (Gen 2:23) because she was taken out of man, and ‘Eve’ (3:20) because she will be the mother of all people. Their responsibility is not just to name, but to reproduce and name. This is not quite co-creation, but in God’s goodness he allows people made in his image share in the creativity of creation as they go on creating more ikons of God. Each of these will be named in turn.
Matthew means “Gift from God” from a Hebrew root. His middle name, Joshua, is again from a Hebrew root and means “God is salvation”. Our responsibility to name and reproduce comes as a gift from the source and sustainer of all life.
December 22, 2009
A sermon I gave today at a lunchtime carol service for business people.
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Cecil Francis Alexander was an Irish poet who lived in the Victorian Era and was the wife of a bishop. However, she is perhaps most famous for writing the words to the popular CHristmas carol, “Once in Royal David’s City”. You might have thought that having a bishop in the house would have helped her with getting the words right! I have issues with verse 3 of “Once in Royal David’s City” which speaks of the childhood of Jesus.
Jesus as we’ve heard in our reading is described as Saviour, Christ (which means anointed one), Son of God, King of the Jews, Word of God (which means God’s presence and action) and Immanuel (which means God With Us)
Let me read this controversial verse from Once in royal that we have just sung.
And through all His wondrous childhood
He would honour and obey,
Love and watch the lowly Maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
All ok so far – Jesus would have grown up as a normal Jewish child and would have learned from his parents and obeyed them. But here’s where I start to have problems…
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
My problem with this is not only that it is a completely unrealistic expectation – we’re never going to be as obedient as God-made-flesh Jesus. My problem is that these lines completely misunderstand what Jesus came to do.
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
It is a common misconception that God will only love us if we are good. Some people go through their whole lives working on that basis. God will only like me if I follow the rules. God will only like me if I get good grades and university and get a good job. God will only like me if I give lots of money to charity. Some people go through their whole lives believing that for every good thing they do, God puts a tick, or a gold star next to their name, and for every bad thing they do God puts a black mark that he will hold against us.
If we live by this scale, we are just going to feel more and more dissatisfied with ourselves. I give to charity… but them I’m rude to my wife. I work hard and provide for my family… but then I neglect to spend time with them. I try and care about the environment.. but then I do nothing about the homelessness in my own city. For every good thing we do, a bad thing comes along right behind it. We’re all going to get black marks against us, because we all slip up and fail.
The Bible is quite realistic about this. In the New Testament, in the book of Romans, the author, Paul, says this -
Rom 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
Surely we all deserve to be separate from God because we just can’t be good enough for him.
But the coming of Jesus is Good News. It is news that can give us hope, and let us know that we are loved and accepted by God despite the fact that we slip up so frequently.
Jesus did not come to give us a standard to live up to, - God knows that that would not be possible. Jesus came to be that standard for us. So yes, he lived that perfect life. He was good, sinless. He spent time with those that no-one else cared about. But what did he get for it? He was put to death. He died a death that he didn’t deserve. But then raised to life again. Even death couldn’t separate him from God because He was God. He was perfect.
How is that good news for us? The Apostle Paul also wrote this in Romans
Rom 3:21- 22 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, [without needing us to do good things]… 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
The good news of Christmas is that God does not need us to work our way to him by doing good things. God has come to us, become human in Jesus. God accepts us regardless of what we have done or how we have lived, because he has sent Jesus. Jesus has lived that perfect life for us.
So, Jesus invites us to come to him, place our faith and trust in him, to put our lives in his control. And when we do that, he takes our failures and inadequacies and sins, and overlooks them.
God looks at us, and sees Jesus’ perfection. Jesus is the only way we can come to God because he is God.
The Chrsitmas carol said:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.?
No. Christian children all must trust in Jesus, because he is perfect, and he has made it possible for us to be accepted by him. Those words may not scan into the carol, but it is certainly good news.
John 1:12 Yet to all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Amen.
Our next carol is one I have no problems with!..
O Little Town of Bethlehem.
December 11, 2009
Last week my wife and I stayed in and watched a movie on DVD. The movie was “Gran Torino” – an oscar nominated film from last year starring Clint Eastwood. Spoilers follow.
Clint plays a rather crotchety old man called Walt Kowalski, an old blue collar former Ford- auto-worker from Detroit. Walt has been living in the same neighbourhood for most of his life. He is also a Korean War veteran. Walt is generally disgusted with most things in life, but he becomes especially dismayed as gradually, his neighbourhood is taken over by immigrants. People of Hmong descent have moved in, whilst most of the white people have moved out. The Hmongs are Vietnamese, but for Walt, that is close enough to Korea to be bad. Nevertheless, Walt stays.
They other thing that has grown up in the area is gang culture. One of the Chinese gangs are hounding the Hmong family who live next door to Walt in order to get the young boy, Thao, to join. One day, Walt stands up for their daughter against some belligerent gang members and takes her home. Whilst the girl starts to befriend him, Thao is bullied into trying to steal Walt’s pride and joy, his 1972 For Gran Torino, as an initiation rite to the gang.
Thao does not succeed, but is caught by Walt. As the family try and atone for the young boy’s behaviour, he is drawn towards them. Thao is loaned to Walt as a worker to work of the debt, and, as Walt spends time with Thao, he begins to act as a father figure to him, to protect him and draw him away from the gang.
Joining this gang would get Thao into a lot of trouble – robberies, murders and so on. It would scupper Thao’s chances of having a decent life, going to college and would push him down the life of crime. Thao doesn’t want this either and needs the direction of a father figure.
Towards the end of the film Walt decides to do something about this gang which has been plaguing the neighbourhood. He goes round to their house late one evening and confronts them. He pretends he has a gun (but actually only has a cigarette and a lighter). As he pretends to draw this non-existent gun (but is actually reaching for the lighter), he is shot. The gang is immediately arrested and jailed, out of Thao’s life.
Walt’s sacrifice saved Thao from the gang. It dealt with the trouble and allowed the him to live a decent life. Oh, and Thao got left the Gran Torino.
There are many religious overtones in this film, made obvious but the inclusion of a young Catholic priest who strikes up a friendship with Walt. For me, the most powerful metaphor was that of the sacrifice which gave life. Walt’s sacrifice was necessary to free Thao from the burden of the gang.
The obvious comparison is with Jesus. The Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, speaking against all the sin and corruption of his nation, had warned of judgement. However, in the same breath, he also said this:
Be silent before the Sovereign LORD,
for the day of the LORD is near.
The LORD has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited. (Zeph 1:7)
The apostle Paul sheds more light on the needs for such a sacrifice:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Rom 3:23-25)
All fall short of God’s standards, yet can be brought to God nevertheless. This reconciliation needs a sacrifice to redeem (pay for) the sin. The purpose of this is to give life and enable all to reach their God-given potential. Jesus said:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
A great Christian metaphor from an excellent film.
December 9, 2009
After reading Peter’s excellent blog post on Christmas Carols, it reminded me of this article I wrote recently talking about some favourites and not-so-favourites of my own….
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It is Christmas time again, therefore we have an opportunity to get out and dust off all of our favourite traditional carols that we reserve for this time of year. Many of them are magnificent descriptions of God’s in-breaking into humanity through the incarnation of Christ and they have similarly stirring tunes which remind us of this glory all the more.
Take, for example, one of my favourites, O Come All Ye Faithful. The words, written by John Wade in 1742 are timeless and inspiring, and almost straight out the first chapter of John’s gospel. Come! Faithful people in joy, it begins. Come and see Him! Who are we coming to see? The God of God (John 1:1), and Light of Light; ‘the true light who gives light to every man was coming into the world (John 1:9). The Word of God, his very presence and action became human on Christmas morning.
Magnificent stuff. But there is something that has been bothering me in recent years. It all began with the supposed children’s favourite, Away in a Manger. Verses one and two are anonymous although they are often erroneously attributed to Martin Luther. Verse three is a later addition by John T. McFarland. I have two issues with this carol. The first is in the second verse: ‘The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes, But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes’. This is a mistake and consequently, I don’t believe Luther could have written this. Exceptional though Jesus was, he took on the fulness of humanity in order to redeem and restore it. He identified fully with the strains and weaknesses of the human body. I’m fairly sure therefore, that Jesus cried as a baby. After all, it is a natural part of being human (as I’m about to find out next month).
Also concerning is what is in verse three: “Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and fit us for Heaven to live with Thee there”. To say that Jesus died and rose again and is is currently at the Father’s side in heaven in correct. But that is not where we will ultimately be going. The climax of the Biblical salvation story pictures heaven coming to earth. Jesus will return at the end when our universe will be transformed with all the bad bits made good, and our physical selves will be changed too. Our eternal dwelling place will be here, in a renewed creation. And, more importantly, God will dwell with us:
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21:2-4)
In another Christmas carol, Edmund Sears gets it right in verse five of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, written in 1871:
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
The age of gold, the new age that Christ will bring when he returns will be experienced here. His peace will cover every part of creation in one final in-breaking of God into human history. Then, the whole world will be able to praise and worship like the angels do, in God’s full and manifest presence. What God will accomplish in the future is yet another reason to celebrate the incarnation.
November 21, 2009
A new exhibition in Plymouth explores through photographs the things that young migrants from Poland consider to be sacred or spiritual. Fourteen Polish people in their 20s were each given a digital camera and asked to take photos of what represents something sacred to them. They were then interviewed about the photos.
Some of the photos are what you might expect – photos of Catholic church buildings, statues of Mary (there are a number in Plymouth that I had never noticed) or other things obviously associated with religion. Other photos, however, were more surprising, such as a mobile phone with showing an incoming Skype message or a photo of friends on a picnic. One person simply took ten photos of his wife.
These things, although not obviously spiritual, offer a connection to their families and the traditions that have been left behind. For some, finding equivalent outlets offer the support and connection to home. So, a picnic with friends, for example, is not the same as a traditional family meal but it suffices as a substitute. Practising their religion here is also different. Catholicism is a way of life in Poland and is done almost without thinking because it is so steeped in the culture. In the UK, where religion is no longer as embedded in people’s habits, church is a conscious choice. For them, it reminds them of what it means to be Polish.
The exhibition, entitled “Why Religion Matters To Young Polish Migrants”, runs in Plymouth Catholic Cathedral from 21st November for two weeks.
I’ll post up some photos when I can.
A Christian minister from the UK reflects on what he is reading, thinking and doing.
 | Logic Midi on Gran Torino |
 | Tanya Marlow on Christmas Carols |
 | lovebug35 on Sacred Images for Polish young… |
 | Peter Ould on You can’t help who you f… |
 | tallandrew on You can’t help who you f… |
