Beginning and End (and in between)

Many a time I have sat by the bed of someone who was soon to leave this world of ours and been challenged by the family members who clung so hard to them.

Many a time I have urged people to let go of their struggles with others and choose a path of peaceful coexistence, even when it means moving away from them.

Many a time I have sat with, and prayed for, couples as they come to terms with the loss of a baby.

Often in these encounters I find myself drawn back to the words of Psalm 139 and the strength, comfort and direction that is found in this piece and the thoughts it contains.

Psalm 139

Lord, there's nothing you don't know about me: Beginning to end and all that's in between.

You know my thoughts, my deeds and more besides.

You know where I've been, what I've seen and what I'm going to as well.

You know what I've said before I say it (and how you wish I wouldn't).

Where can I go that you're not?

How can I avoid your gaze?

No matter where, or how, I can't give you the slip.

Darkness hides me from men, but not from you;

Holes in the ground or high in the peaks and there I am alone, except for you!

Morning, noon and night; 

Seven by twenty-four by three sixty-five - there you are alongside me!

Before my first scan you saw me and knew me,

My whole life story; triumphs and sadness, challenges and trials,

There they were, all my choices (not sadly yours), all my deeds!

From the womb to the tomb (and beyond) as I grew and blossomed,

Blossomed and decayed.

Your words, You hopes, Your love;

Surrounding and a finger tip away.

Would that perhaps I had realised this and acted better;

Made the right choices; done the right thing; been the better man!

If only you'd have got rid of the really wicked people,

Stopped the bloodshed, stayed the wars, protected the innocent;

If only you'd change your mind and act on the earth once again,

Forgot the rainbow and down down and dirty with the down and dirty people!

How I wish you'd check me out and see what bits of me are wrong.

What thoughts, deeds and plans deny you and damage us both,

And those around me too!

Find them and work on them with me,

For you doing it without me would mean nothing, would it?

Make me the man I can be, should be, rather than the man I am;

And wait for me with everlasting life at the journeys end.                                   ©VicVDB2013

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

Out the window at the wedding feast

Yesterday we had the parable of the Wedding feast (Matt 22) and the story touched me greatly in the parallels and instructions contained within it.

First the Father invites the guests to His Son's wedding feast - but they don't come.

Then He send out messengers and they are abused and killed.

So, He invites the rest of the people 'Good and bad' to the feast.

Then, arriving at the feast, seeing someone incorrectly dressed, the King has the man bound and thrown out the window into the darkness where there is a weeping and wailing and a gnashing of teeth!

Now the parallels between the Jews and the Gentiles, the former being invited first and failing to arrive and the later being invited as substitutes, is obvious and much like the vineyard owner story last week, must have caused som angst amongst the religious at the time.

BUT

1. EVERYONE is invited to the banquet. This is because Jesus died for EVERYONE!

2. The person who turns up and is improperly dressed is ejected from the party into the outer darkness.

Now point the first seems to say that we need to adopt universalist thinking, because ALL are invited. But the second says that unless we turn up properly dressed, wearing the garments of righteousness, then we are not going to get in! It seems to me that this passage tells us that we need to respond (getting clothed properly is a response, isn't it?) in the right way to live within the salvation that was won on the cross (the invitation is the Cross isn't it?).

So, my previous thinking which was:

Jesus dies for ALL and ALL are therefore given access to heaven - we just need to walk up to Him, look Him in the eyes and take our ticket from Him seems to have yet another confirmation in the Matt 22 parable.

So here's today's big question:

Are we sowing seeds of righteousness today, seeking to clothe ourselves with righteousness or are we going to live our own way trusting in a God who, father Christmas-like, will just open the doors to all?

Mmmmmm!

Happy Monday

“The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!
4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.
7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honour. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”