I was extremely taken up by the readings in the communion service this morning for in one people were in the presence of God and yet saw a mere man whilst in the other we had men and were invited to see God.
Let's unwrap this by starting with the Gospel passage first (Luke 4. 14 - 22):
"Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
He began by saying to them,
‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.
So here we are, imagine the scenario before us for what we have is God's people (the Jews, the 'chosen' ones, call them what you will) and there, in their very midst is God made man - Jesus! And they not only missed it; but very soon after (if we were to read on from vv23 - 40 ) we find that it wasn't long before they were not only up in arms over Him and His words but were heading for a cliff to throw Him off!
Yes indeedy - God was in their midst and they missed Him!
Now compare this with the New Testament reading from 1 John (4.19 - 5.4):
"We love because he first loved us.
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
And he has given us this command:
anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
This is how we know that we love the children of God:
by loving God and carrying out his commands.
In fact, this is love for God:
to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the wo
rld, even our faith."
We love because he first loved us, or for those of you out there who think it's only 'theology' when it has proper 'theological' words, 'the ethical imperative is based upon the soteriological indicative!'
(Now we can all relax and consider what I'm writing to be proper!)
What this passage tells is that we only need to look at the human person before us to see the invisible God made visible and if we claim to love this invisible God - how on earth can we hate the image of him before us? How amazing that when we have mere mortals before us we can, if we look with right eyes and hearts) find the very God we love unveiled before us? How odd that the Jews in Nazareth had that same God incarnate and saw despicable (and church of the cliff-worthy) man!
The 1John passage is what the Church needs to hear, live and then, in those before them, see - it is what we are called to be: Inclusive and welcoming!
We need to work so that those who see in us the image of the invisible God made visible and we need to work to find the same in others; and this is not always an easy task for so many of us are unloveable!
So many of us are broken, flawed, disobedient, cruel, spiteful and condemnatory (I know - I've seen some of the letters that get written!) and even worse than those things listed - and yet we need to keep an eye open for the God revealed in the person before us. We need to be working to help others see the same in us and - if someone comes in to your church and reads the Isaiah 61 passage that Jesus did in our Gospel - don't panic, you'll recognise Him next time (and it won't be Him) so you can welcome them and seek the image of God in them (for they ain't God) - better still, no need to chuck him (or her) off a cliff.
Thank you for helping me see God made visible :-)
Showing posts with label loving one another. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loving one another. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Friday, 15 June 2012
Christianity - Not about being right
But about being righteous!
This week has been one of those ups and downs weeks where people have wanted to engage with me over the CofE's statement on same-sex marriage and generally wanted to put the world right in oh so many ways that it has left my head spinning. What was odd though is the fact that the general tone was a 'well done' and not one of the 'ordinary folk' I engaged with saw the position taken as anything other than right. Still they probably weren't gay or members of the clergy!!!
I have engaged with people who appear to be resigned to a declining church and are looking to cut their cloth accordingly. Better to have what we can pay for that something big and missional that might pay for it but will take energy, effort and faith appears to be their (oh so frustrating) subtext. We appear to live in this happy world where we speak mission but live maintenance and have put aside the word of God for the Gospel according to Excel. I go out speaking of MAPs (Mission Action Plans) and walk places looking at the potentials for mission and fresh expression whilst others plot to live as they always have and conspire to sell stuff to balance the books until the day dawns when, family silver gone, they merge or move away. This is the stuff my nightmares are made of (well that and clergy (and others) who can't get off their bottoms to do stuff!).
I have met people who complain that 'the church' isn't doing enough in their area of need and yet, in the same breath, have told me that 'people' (this generally means someone other than them and is often transformed into 'the state') need to be paying for us to be doing if we can't. Then the conversation turned to ways of getting money to do stuff. Amongst the many suggestions (none of which included them putting their hands in their pockets) were the local council, the government, charities, the bishop and the pinnacle of all suggestions, the Queen. "After all," they said, :She is the head of the Church of England so it was only right that she should pay! I said it then and will say it now, the funding should come from the people and if it doesn't perhaps we need to ask where their heart is (for that's where we will find their treasure I'm guessing!).
The previous conversation makes the next one rather interesting as they took time to tell me that 'the church' is "A bunch of ponces!" Seems we are always out there with our begging bowl or making people feel guilty about little starving black kids and building wells. They told me all this in order to ask if I might be able to let them have some money as they were skint. Of course whilst I gave them no money I did buy them a coffee and received the almost obligatory cry of those who are in need: "Thank you Vicar, you aren't like the rest of them hypocritical money-grabbing B's!" (Thanks be to God :-) )
The prize encounter of the week had to be the person who told me that being 'religious' was irrational and that such people needed to be locked up as they were delusional. They went on to explain that in the secure unit they'd been in there were 'loads of religious nutters'. I merely agreed that this was my experience too and left them to go on their (to be honset, rather menacing) way.
The key to the many encounters we have as Christians is to not struggle to be right but to keep our feet firmly on the rock. The urge to defend when we need to listen and respond by action and prayer, loadsa prayer, is often overwhelming but we need to be able to turn cheeks, bless when a curse would be easier to find on the shelf of the life and faith store that is us. To be reason where there is no reason, love when there is hatred and bitternes, and a listening ear when we feel the need to stick our fingers in our ears and sing (loudly).
But it is the way we listen, engage and show love that makes us look, smell and act like Christ - that ability of putting off being right and become righteous in the face of all we encounter.
Pax
This week has been one of those ups and downs weeks where people have wanted to engage with me over the CofE's statement on same-sex marriage and generally wanted to put the world right in oh so many ways that it has left my head spinning. What was odd though is the fact that the general tone was a 'well done' and not one of the 'ordinary folk' I engaged with saw the position taken as anything other than right. Still they probably weren't gay or members of the clergy!!!
I have engaged with people who appear to be resigned to a declining church and are looking to cut their cloth accordingly. Better to have what we can pay for that something big and missional that might pay for it but will take energy, effort and faith appears to be their (oh so frustrating) subtext. We appear to live in this happy world where we speak mission but live maintenance and have put aside the word of God for the Gospel according to Excel. I go out speaking of MAPs (Mission Action Plans) and walk places looking at the potentials for mission and fresh expression whilst others plot to live as they always have and conspire to sell stuff to balance the books until the day dawns when, family silver gone, they merge or move away. This is the stuff my nightmares are made of (well that and clergy (and others) who can't get off their bottoms to do stuff!).
I have met people who complain that 'the church' isn't doing enough in their area of need and yet, in the same breath, have told me that 'people' (this generally means someone other than them and is often transformed into 'the state') need to be paying for us to be doing if we can't. Then the conversation turned to ways of getting money to do stuff. Amongst the many suggestions (none of which included them putting their hands in their pockets) were the local council, the government, charities, the bishop and the pinnacle of all suggestions, the Queen. "After all," they said, :She is the head of the Church of England so it was only right that she should pay! I said it then and will say it now, the funding should come from the people and if it doesn't perhaps we need to ask where their heart is (for that's where we will find their treasure I'm guessing!).
The previous conversation makes the next one rather interesting as they took time to tell me that 'the church' is "A bunch of ponces!" Seems we are always out there with our begging bowl or making people feel guilty about little starving black kids and building wells. They told me all this in order to ask if I might be able to let them have some money as they were skint. Of course whilst I gave them no money I did buy them a coffee and received the almost obligatory cry of those who are in need: "Thank you Vicar, you aren't like the rest of them hypocritical money-grabbing B's!" (Thanks be to God :-) )
The prize encounter of the week had to be the person who told me that being 'religious' was irrational and that such people needed to be locked up as they were delusional. They went on to explain that in the secure unit they'd been in there were 'loads of religious nutters'. I merely agreed that this was my experience too and left them to go on their (to be honset, rather menacing) way.
The key to the many encounters we have as Christians is to not struggle to be right but to keep our feet firmly on the rock. The urge to defend when we need to listen and respond by action and prayer, loadsa prayer, is often overwhelming but we need to be able to turn cheeks, bless when a curse would be easier to find on the shelf of the life and faith store that is us. To be reason where there is no reason, love when there is hatred and bitternes, and a listening ear when we feel the need to stick our fingers in our ears and sing (loudly).
But it is the way we listen, engage and show love that makes us look, smell and act like Christ - that ability of putting off being right and become righteous in the face of all we encounter.
Pax
Monday, 5 December 2011
'H' - the defining Christian sin!
Yes, I've come to the conclusion that the 'H Word' is indeed the worst, perhaps being THE defining, Christian sin that there is!
It is to be found at the root of schism and self-serving thinking.
It is the reason that there is so much grief in the Church.
It is the principle reason that the world judges the Church badly.
It is something that we need to deal with NOW, decisively and at all levels (beginning with me and you - we can deal with the others later!).
I am surrounded with various theologies and am faced with so much sound evangelical teaching on sexual issues and just as much more, but in an opposite direction, from our liberal-minded brethren (and sistren too!). So what are we going to to with the 'H Word'? How are we going to legislate such that those who embrace it are forced to recant of are expelled from our congregations because of their thinking and the resultant actions?
Yes indeedy folks, it is time to make a stand. So let's decide that we are going to stamp out 'Hardheartedness' in our own life, the life of our church and across the whole Church once and for all.
And then we can start with the world hoping that they will like what they see and rush to emulate us!
Pax
It is to be found at the root of schism and self-serving thinking.
It is the reason that there is so much grief in the Church.
It is the principle reason that the world judges the Church badly.
It is something that we need to deal with NOW, decisively and at all levels (beginning with me and you - we can deal with the others later!).
I am surrounded with various theologies and am faced with so much sound evangelical teaching on sexual issues and just as much more, but in an opposite direction, from our liberal-minded brethren (and sistren too!). So what are we going to to with the 'H Word'? How are we going to legislate such that those who embrace it are forced to recant of are expelled from our congregations because of their thinking and the resultant actions?
Yes indeedy folks, it is time to make a stand. So let's decide that we are going to stamp out 'Hardheartedness' in our own life, the life of our church and across the whole Church once and for all.
And then we can start with the world hoping that they will like what they see and rush to emulate us!
Pax
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Alert, Loving and Reconciling Watchmen
All too often we find the Matthew passage used as an almost legalistic procedure for bringing a member of the community that is Church to book and yet it is not condemnation and expulsion (as we also find in 1 Corinthians 5) but reconciliation that is the focus. Why? The Ezekiel passage demonstrates the results of sin on person, community and nation. The call to repentance and the call to act as watchmen for one another, lest we all perish, is clear.
If we were to examine the Ezekiel we see it sandwiched between judgment (1) and restoration (34) calling us to look at our response rather than God’s, as is this whole book and these are to be watchmen for the whole and repentance in the individual 9and also of course, corporately, the whole).
So we are first to be WATCHMEN – a sentry or lookout to warn of approaching danger. For a watchman to miss the enemy was for people to perish – it might be one, it might be all – but their blood were on the sentry’s hands. So to is it if we permit others to act in such ways as they lose their lives through enemy action, and we know who the enemy is and what his weapons are, don’t we?
Of course, when we see it and we warn them, how do we convince them of the danger? Living in Libya and seeing a column of dust approaching makes it easy to warn people of approaching danger. But the app on your phone that calls you to gamble, the magazines on the top shelf that cause your eyes to wander, the many possessions calling out to possess you. Not such an easy task.
But God takes great pleasure in repentance and reconciliation, He’s not about punishing, but will if there is a need for this is justice. So we need to be ALERT – Romans calls us to wake from our slumbers and be alert to the fact that the day of judgement is nearer now than when you got out of bed and put our houses in order. To put aside those things that bring us to destruction and live our lives openly in the light – for it is only those things that are wrong that we choose to do under cover of darkness. But time is ever growing shorter and so the need surely becomes ever greater?
So we must work hard to RECONCILE ourselves to one another, for this is one of the ways that we demonstrate God’s love – see how these Christians LOVE one another – and must cry out our warnings to those who are under threat from the enemy.
We do this by the process in Mathew. Interestingly (well I think so) the passage is stuck between the shepherd who leaves his sheep to recover the lost member of the flock (parallels with Ezekiel and the shepherd prophecy perhaps) and the ‘unforgiving debtor’ (you know, the 70*70 forgiveness bit). Reconciliation is about dialogue, awareness, forgiveness and concern and some comments lead people to think it is OK to condemn ‘sinners’ and exclude them, for Jesus uses the examples ‘Tax Gatherers’ and ‘Gentiles’ but I have to ask how He treated these people? Is this not an example that we need to follow rather than stick with the crowd?
It is too easy to leave the lost ‘lost’ and remain in our holy huddles (in empty buildings). It is too easy to engage in righteous anger and conflict. We seek to bring a peace that is more than an absence of conflict – it is the Shalom of God.
May we, and those with whom we live with, worship with and proclaim Christ as Lord together always experience this shalomyness through the Grace of God and our humble desires to live the life that Christ has won for us through the Cross and lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Pax
Ezekiel 33: 7 - 11
“Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself.
“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?
Romans 13: 8 - 14
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 18: 15 – 20
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you:
If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
If we were to examine the Ezekiel we see it sandwiched between judgment (1) and restoration (34) calling us to look at our response rather than God’s, as is this whole book and these are to be watchmen for the whole and repentance in the individual 9and also of course, corporately, the whole).
So we are first to be WATCHMEN – a sentry or lookout to warn of approaching danger. For a watchman to miss the enemy was for people to perish – it might be one, it might be all – but their blood were on the sentry’s hands. So to is it if we permit others to act in such ways as they lose their lives through enemy action, and we know who the enemy is and what his weapons are, don’t we?
Of course, when we see it and we warn them, how do we convince them of the danger? Living in Libya and seeing a column of dust approaching makes it easy to warn people of approaching danger. But the app on your phone that calls you to gamble, the magazines on the top shelf that cause your eyes to wander, the many possessions calling out to possess you. Not such an easy task.
But God takes great pleasure in repentance and reconciliation, He’s not about punishing, but will if there is a need for this is justice. So we need to be ALERT – Romans calls us to wake from our slumbers and be alert to the fact that the day of judgement is nearer now than when you got out of bed and put our houses in order. To put aside those things that bring us to destruction and live our lives openly in the light – for it is only those things that are wrong that we choose to do under cover of darkness. But time is ever growing shorter and so the need surely becomes ever greater?
So we must work hard to RECONCILE ourselves to one another, for this is one of the ways that we demonstrate God’s love – see how these Christians LOVE one another – and must cry out our warnings to those who are under threat from the enemy.
We do this by the process in Mathew. Interestingly (well I think so) the passage is stuck between the shepherd who leaves his sheep to recover the lost member of the flock (parallels with Ezekiel and the shepherd prophecy perhaps) and the ‘unforgiving debtor’ (you know, the 70*70 forgiveness bit). Reconciliation is about dialogue, awareness, forgiveness and concern and some comments lead people to think it is OK to condemn ‘sinners’ and exclude them, for Jesus uses the examples ‘Tax Gatherers’ and ‘Gentiles’ but I have to ask how He treated these people? Is this not an example that we need to follow rather than stick with the crowd?
It is too easy to leave the lost ‘lost’ and remain in our holy huddles (in empty buildings). It is too easy to engage in righteous anger and conflict. We seek to bring a peace that is more than an absence of conflict – it is the Shalom of God.
May we, and those with whom we live with, worship with and proclaim Christ as Lord together always experience this shalomyness through the Grace of God and our humble desires to live the life that Christ has won for us through the Cross and lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Pax
Ezekiel 33: 7 - 11
“Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself.
“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?
Romans 13: 8 - 14
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 18: 15 – 20
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you:
If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Friday, 6 May 2011
Madness and the believer
I find the issues around the subject of mental illness and Christians rather disturbing. Because of this, here's one of the things that appeared in our parish magazine this month:
Loving as Christ Loved Us
The subject of mental illness has cropped up a lot recently and I am saddened at the response of many to this subject.
People have used words like ‘locked up’ or ‘managed’ I get the feeling that this is an area many of us struggle with. And as we struggle, I get the feeling that a man, somewhere in time, is holding a scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and reading thus:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn; giving them beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified."
If we cannot stand with those who know the Lord and have broken minds;
If we cannot stand with those who know the Lord and have broken lives;
If we cannot weep with those who weep, grieve with those who grieve, love those who are unloveable and yet know the Lord, what hope is there for the lost?
What hope is there for the Church?
Who can be saved?
What reason is there for His rising up today?
I wonder what the response will be?
Pax
Loving as Christ Loved Us
The subject of mental illness has cropped up a lot recently and I am saddened at the response of many to this subject.
People have used words like ‘locked up’ or ‘managed’ I get the feeling that this is an area many of us struggle with. And as we struggle, I get the feeling that a man, somewhere in time, is holding a scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and reading thus:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn; giving them beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified."
If we cannot stand with those who know the Lord and have broken minds;
If we cannot stand with those who know the Lord and have broken lives;
If we cannot weep with those who weep, grieve with those who grieve, love those who are unloveable and yet know the Lord, what hope is there for the lost?
What hope is there for the Church?
Who can be saved?
What reason is there for His rising up today?
I wonder what the response will be?
Pax
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