When pastoral gets tricky: Matthew 5.27 - a state of mind?

Having taken the first bite of this cherry I reckon we need to start with the biggest sex organ of all: the brain; for this seems to be, when it comes to matters sexual, the common denominator for ALL areas of concern!

One area I consistently find sexual sin rising from the waves of self-despair and imposted condemnation (if many of those I am engaged by are anything to go on) relates to Matthew chapter five and verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight:

'You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'

One of those who brought this to me came and told me that he had read a website where he had been informed that because he fantasised about a person when engaged in a solo sex act (SSA - nicer than the 'M' word methinks if only because it stops people from sniggering: Mind you the "W' word appears to cause less of a snigger and more offence, so my label of SSA is a more gentle path to labelling the act, innit?) that he was committing adultery and was destined to go directly to hell without even passing 'Go!'

So what pieces of the puzzle do we have on the board:

Adultery - the seventh commandment (Ex 20.14)

Lust - the act of looking upon something with a view to desiring it, or wanting to make it ours, that trumps the plain old coveting of the tenth commandment (ex 20.17). More than just wanting what someone else has: It has a sexual possessive air about it. After all I might covet your fast car but I wouldn't lust after it (unless we'd like to redefine autoeroticism that is!)

I recall a lecture where we were told that what this what this passage really meant contextually was to act in such a way as to get the focus of that lust to lust after them in return. I have seen this where one man has so engaged with a woman that the result was to 'make her fall in love with him and leave her marriage partner and family for him.

Covet is a possessive but lust is possessive that seeks to break bonds and attachments (often it breaks covenanta) to make what they want their own: Oddly those who lust after people often become serial sexual offenders and beget in those they have won over, and subsequently discarded, the same mindset too! It is a cancer that kills stable society and familial relations!

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Now Jesus engages in some really joined up thinking here and brings forth some extremely smart comparisons as He seeks to address the people before Him using adultery as the focus.

Can you imagine it? I can:

'Stand up all those who have never committed adultery,' says Jesus; and up stands all the self-righteous who look down upon the self-acknowledged sinners and sneer.

'Now if you have never lusted after someone sexually, keep standing,' Jesus continues, 'Otherwise sit down with the adulterers!'

'Yeah, so much for the looking down your noses at us, you're just the same as us sinners after all!' cry those already sitting!

Jesus is telling people that before the action is taken there has to be some thought process. This is why, if we follow on with the next couple of verses, that we find Jesus calling us to regard the eye, for this is what sees the object of our potential lust and the hand, which acts once the eye has seen it. Jesus is taking the absolute limit of penalty when He talks about cutting off the dodgy members. He's saying, 'Before you get to the 'chop it off' point, how's about you stop, think, and stop doing it?'

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 Let's let Him have the microphone shall we?

'If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.'

The parallel verses of Matthew eighteen adds 'foot' to the mix:

'If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.'

And in the parallel passage (we use the shorthand  // to show it's a parallel - just thought I'd mention it) that is Mark 9. 43-47, we find:

'And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell,'

What we have here is Jesus telling people to have some understanding of the elements involved in sin, and here we mean 'lust' in particular, but 'sin' is what we are concerned with and here we develop something quite universal.

Sin comes into being because we 'see' something and then 'move' towards that something so that we might 'touch' it (or have it touch us). Jesus is doing more than just laying down the law; He is trying to get us to think about things!!!

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Now if you are not married and you lust after a woman who is not married you are not, under my categories yesterday, committing adultery. How can you be, neither of you are married to another and so the breaking of the covenantal relationship that is part of adultery is missing.

There is potential for someone to be a fornicator here but as they're not having a sexual relationship the label fornicator might also be considered to be wrong too. But Jesus is telling us that doing the act and thinking about the act are one and the same thing so can we make that decision to keep wrong as being limited to the 'act' rather than include the 'thought'?

When I was a Pentecostal there were many pastors around me who would complain about, 'The jolly idiot in the car ahead!'

They would come and sadly tell me that, 'The jolly computer was broken!'

One day I turned to one of them, a really smug and self-satisfied, pious individual, and asked them why the hadn't said that, 'The f***ing computer was broken,' or look at the 'B**tard idiot in the car ahead!'

Their (shocked) response was, 'Oh, but I would never say that, I never swear!'

But of course they did, they just swore in their head and published jolly for public consumption to make them look like they were 'holy'!  Do you, or someone you know, do that I wonder?

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So here is the bottom line: If you think about committing a sin then potentially you are only a short step away from committing it. But if upon reaching that place you decide to distance yourself from an action that would be sin, and to consider Paul's words from Romans 12.2:

'Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So here's the bottom line with this one:

If you lust after someone, that, like coveting is wrong: It has to be because that's what the Bible says.

If you engage in SSA then you engage in SSA - just like so many people I have encountered - that's obvious really!

BUT if doing that damages a covenant relationship between you and another person then it is wrong.

If it leads you into looking at images or imagining situations that are wrong; if it leads you down a path where thoughts are beginning to lead you to committing stuff. If it is so controlling of you and your thought life and your actions that it is, like most sin, not a release but something that binds you in chains and debilitates you: Stop it.

If it takes your eyes of of the cross and leads you away into places, practices and thoughts that damage others: Stop it.

We are all, generally speaking, sexual people. We have needs and urges and stuff. But if in fulfilling them we damage others, damage relationships or cause ourselves to become someone we would not wish to associate with were it someone else: The wake up and remedy it.

If you believe the idiots out there who tell you that creating an imaginary focus for your sexual releases, don't give them any credence: They are as wrong about that as they are about this 'sexual sin' condemning you immediately to hell!  

Some tips: 

If you find a site which is ready to condemn you to hell at the drop of a hat  - IGNORE it!

If you find a site which is more focussed on sexual sin than it is about being a disciple, assume they have a bigger problem than you with sex, and IGNORE them!

If you are more concerned with hell (and not going there) than you are about being a follower of Jesus, the Christ, then get yourself into a proper fellowship and get yourself in the company of true believers - PICK UP YOUR BIBLE and READ IT, PRAY IT, LIVE IT!

If you struggle with sex and sin and stuff: Join the club, everyone has something they struggle with! Join a church and get yourself sorted by being with people who will love you and care for you and correct you gently. (That;s the Bible way of doing stuff!)

Sunday and its choices beckon

And, as usual, there's loads to be done and yet, regardless, it never gets to be anything but exciting.

I wonder how many of us will be getting stuck in to all the work today with just a little of the feelings of Lazarus' sister, Martha, who asked Jesus to tell Mary, the other sister, to get stuck in a bit.

Now Jesus answers Martha by telling her that there are choices to be made and whilst she has chosen to do the stuff, Mary has chosen to sit in Jesus' presence and learn. 'She has chosen what is better and it won't be taken away,' He says and this is a thought for some of those who choose to be just that little too busy working for Jesus rather that living (and working) with Him.

In my daily dealings with people I get to meet many who are so taken up with the business (and busyness) of Church that they don't get to hear sermons, or worship God through Jesus, the Christ. I meet so many who choose to be the person who makes everything happen and they, like Martha, are at times found moaning about the others doing nothing.

We make our choices and whilst we sometimes carry our loads without complaining, the reality is that we should be carrying just enough - that which is our calling, rather than trying to do it all on our own or in our own strength.

Those who seek to sit at Jesus' feet should do so remembering that what we learn there is empty unless it's put into practice and part of that is seen by us sharing the loads of others.

So today, sit in Jesus' presence as much as you can - learn from Him, emulate Him - for tomorrow, when the Resurrection has been celebrated, we are called to take up our cross, denying ourselves, and share the load with others.

Church is a team sport - isn't it?

I'm not impatient - I waited ages!

The number of people who tell me that being Christian isn't about doing stuff but about being. Now this really challenges me because recently I met someone who turned up for a service at a local church but it wasn't on because someone had got the roats wrong. Not this really challenged me and so I've embarked upon a little navel gazing which goes like this:

First select any one area of activity in the church and when it looks like whatever it is might not happen because someone hasn't turned up or has forgotten to do something. Once under way (or rather not) smile and standing back, watch what happens; for usually a few distinct groups will appear:

Absenting Folk - Who somehow manage to vanish before you've even looked up Just like the man upon the stairs - they're never there!

Tutting Folk - Who, as the name suggests, 'tut' that someone has failed to do whatever it was they were supposed to do. You'll never find them being tutted at for failing to do something they were supposed to do - often because they don't do anything!

Consuming Folk - Who come and seeing there's nothing for them to come to, leave (often mumbling about what a poor show it is that it's not happening, after all, they've been coming for years and it's 'always' happened)!

Flapping Folk - Who panic because something that apparently no one wants to do isn't happening.

If the area under scrutiny is something that's happened for years, you'll get to meet:

Traditional Folk - Who will tell you that ever since Jesus as walked the earth, St. Bumbles weekly old folk's scone and knackwurst tea dance has happened! Even through the wars!

To not happen is unthinkable - 'someone must should do it," they cry.

But who?

This is the question
for if all we are to do is to 'Be' with God
rather than 'do' with and for Him

- and there are too many who do too much and rest in Christ too little

- but if perhaps some of those who are excelling in the 'Be' areas of the Christian life
might just come and add their weight to the plough

then the furrows would be straighter
and longer
and the harvest would be bigger
and then we'd have more to celebrate
and so we could sit back
and rest in God
as more people came into the Kingdom
and,
having done nothing but love God for a while,
got up and added their weight to the plough
so that in the end there would be so many of us doing stuff
that we all be doing nothing!

And then we could look at what Jesus paid
and see that from the paucity of our little faith
we have achieved much in the world for,
through,
by
and with Him
who is the Saviour of the world!

Anyone willing to join me sow the seeds for the next harvest and reap the harvest that demands our attention today?

And the title? When I asked the person who was complaining that the service didn't happen those were the words they used:

'I'm not impatient - I waited ages... but no one came or did anything!

So I left'

Book-Aid: Our first book collection

It's been some time since we started being a collector for:

Book-Aid.org

So I thought I'd let you see how many books we have collected and encourage you to donate at the same time!  So here we go:

Twelve boxes of Christian books and Bibles - waiting for collection and a very big 'Thank You' to all who have contributed to the contents of them.

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?

Maundy (Mandatum Novum) Thursday

Maundy Thursday is more than, 'Just the day before Good Friday,' it is THE day when the Christian Church remembers Jesus washing His disciples feet; humbling himself and taking on the lowest of jobs to out into actions the words He'd been telling them for so long. Time was short and it was time to give them one last practical demonstration before the disciples graduated out into the world without Him by their side (physically).

The messy and lowest of the jobs are there for us to take and make our own and as we do, the more like Jesus we become: servant of all - living to make God and mankind one through LOVE. Now that's inclusive Church for sure ;-)

Today is a time for us to also remember the 'New Commandment' that Jesus left us with, the one that mirrors His prayer in John 17 regarding unity - for unity comes through 'loving one another' (easier when the three are one and the same ;-) ). And so the words of John 13. 34:

'A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another as I have loved you,'

And the 'Maundy' bit?

Well like Rotten Row in London ('Route de Roi') it is a corruption of the 'mandatum' written below (the John 13 verse in Latin) :

Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos

So as we think of Jesus, not just talking about servanthood but displaying it, here's a picture (one of my favourites) and some music:

I pray that you and yours have a wonderful and challenging climax to Passiontide and a blesséd Easter.