Journal: Can clergy be too passionate?

Yesterday I walked into a church building to be met by the comment, "Oh, here's Mr Passionate!"

I struggled to think of any time I might have shown the speaker passion, had I somehow entered into a parallel universe perhaps where I'd got drunk and lost control, or stumbled and fallen like the first Adam? Thankfully the 'passionate' label affixed to my lapel was an indicator of me and Jesus and the 'way you're always going on about Him!'.

Now to be honest, I didn't think I was going on about Him enough, so this came as a bit of a shock. To be blunt, what the blazes does a church member expect from a cleric and if they knew me at all they'd realise that this pop of theirs, for it wasn't applause, was the very opposite of what they'd appeared to have intended. It wasn't a barb but a blessing. It turned out that I'd shared Jesus with one of the speaker's friends (yeah, I'm surprised she has any too ;-) ) and they'd reported it back to them with something along the line of, "You never talk to me about Jesus!"

Of course I'm passionate about Jesus, He's the focus for everything I do and is (unless distracted by toys), and even when I am I share them with Him (sometimes)) and making Him known and introducing my big, important friend is a pride and joy. So anyway, that which someone meant for nasty, God turned to joy.

Looked at Justin's book today - it's OK and it's going to be a bestseller (obviously as so many diocesan Lent groups across the country are buying it ) - I ended up with stuff from out of left-field and so sat quietly (think I spoke but the once) and pottered around the web collecting and creating thoughts whilst listening to the thoughts of those around me. To be honest, although I've heard it before, God being the person digging up the pearl and us (I mean ME) being the pearl and Jesus being the everything that God is willing to dispose of to get ME - it's a bit up there with some of the takes on the wedding banquet and Jesus being the bloke tossed out the window, innit? Better than hearing another sermon on the prodigal's Mum and the woman's take on it all - and how I wish she'd remain as silent as the biblical account has her - innit?

It's what we choose to not to see that takes away value. We see the things that matter to us and the things that matter to us are the things that we see - which is why so many, in and out of Church, don't see JEsus and aren't 'passionate' I guess!

One of the struggles with early banknotes came in the fact that people assigned less worth to a piece of paper than to a lump of gold. Gold shines and is attractive and has substance whereas a piece of paper. . . Well it's just a piece of paper innit? Talking to a debt coach who is also a psychologist they said the problem with credit is that it is all virtual - taking a sack of cash to a shop to feed their possession addications would stop many from ever spending (well that's their view).

Substance and substantial things confer something of strength and power - what you don't see, unless it carries some implicit and understood threat, is potentially nothing to be valued or frightened of.

Seeing with Jesus' eyes helps us to see the things the world cannot see - seeing with the world's eyes causes us to value what is obvious and to dispossess and ignore that, and those, we choose to ignore - truly, a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest?

Lord, give me Your vision - Your Passion - a sense of the tangible in a world of imagination.

It ain't what you say . . .

It's the way that they hear it!

Last week, I had an opportunity to feel quite pleased with myself as one of the people who'd heard me preach on active remembrance in the Eucharist told me how much they'd learn and the difference that  'amniocentesis' had made to their communion experience!

I can honestly say that I have never, not once, mentioned the testing of amniotic fluids in conjunction with the Eucharist but realised that what they meant was 'anamnesis'.

One of the roles of the minister, especially those who wish to engage theologically at personal and congregational levels, is to take the difficult things and make them simple; take the simple things and make them commonplace and everyday realities. The problem is that we all too often simplify concepts and issues, scattering analogies and naff metaphors as we go, and leave our people with a weak and often impotent God and a flawed and failing Christianity,

God has three leaves and is green, or Mother, Wife and Daughter; the route to modalism or tritheistic stuff is now put on the spiritual GPS and and coherent understanding of the Trinity is lost (of course they could read 'The Shack I guess!). We struggle with the Vigin Birth and so we have adoptionism, Arianism or a 'normal' bloke who, 'Being filled with the Holy Spirit, is enable to be God because God resides in Him and make Him part of God!' (and I have heard that sermon on more than one occasion during my Christian life!

When I used to work with engineering apprentices,we had a large poster on the wall of one of the workshops which proclaimed:

“What I hear, I forget; 

What I see, I remember; 

What I do, I understand.”

And this was true for the apprentices (I was one, I know!) and was confirmed by the fact that out first attempts at thing often went awry but got better the more we did, and understood, the what, why and how; and is true for congregations too. The problem is this:

Many of us are not exposed to the Bible outside of the Sunday readings and sermon slot.


Many of us never get to discuss what the Bible says in an active way.

Many of us want to 'do' what the Bible says but have 'stuff' (work, hobbies, family, etc.) that get in the way and either prevent us from doing or water it down.

Many of us have a go but don't have the watchful, and corrective, eye and hand with us and so, if ut goes even a little wrong, we find ourselves withdrawing to a place of safety (ie. not doing anything or keeping to what we know we can do)!

Seems that even when we think we've said it well we find that later the people haven't perhaps heard it as well as we thought. There's more to preaching than:

Tell them what you're going to tell them

Tell them

Tell them what you've told them

We also need to show them (where possible) and then get them to explain, make, or do too!

Amniocentisis

Mind you, Parthenongenesis is the first book of the Bible that was found in the Parthenon, isn't it?