Peaceable (the calm) and Peacemaker (the unpredictable)

Over the past few months, we’ve enjoyed having an older man staying with us in community. He moved in after his elderly father (who he’d been caring for) died – partly for respite, partly out of necessity, and mainly because as a Christian he felt it was a good place to be while he considered what to do next. He moved on last week – off to live with some Mennonites in Shropshire – but we know he’ll keep in touch as he’s become like a family member to us.

We have an informal custom in our church and community of giving people nicknames based on a virtue or quality we see in them. We’d called him “Peaceable”, not only because of his Anabaptist-inspired pacifism, but also because he had a quiet, calming presence about him. We received a lot from him while he stayed with us.

One day, over dinner, “Peaceable” told a something he’d learned that day about being a peacemaker – learned, ironically, from another man who sometimes comes to our church, who struggles with anger and psychiatric issues that can make him unpredictable, even dangerous at times. Here’s what he told us, in his own words:

I was walking through town, not far from my destination, when a voice behind me called my name. There was “B” who I had not seen for months. He is what used to be called a “rough diamond” (bare knuckle rough at times). I was telling him that I was living with the Jesus Army now since my father’s death had changed my life.

But we didn’t get far with the conversation because a situation was developing behind us. Two vans had nearly collided on the side of the street. The first driver got out of his van and was swearing at the other driver. He was angry and showed no signs of calming down. The other driver took it at first, but after the third spate of swearing was about to get out of the van.

I was looking on and considering what to do and was getting round to a prayer, when all of a sudden “B” shot over to the second driver and said, “Stay in your van, mate”, then said to the first driver, “There are babies in there”, indicating the house he had just come from. (By now, I felt a bit like one of the “babies”.) Then “B” told the first driver to drive on, whilst calmly but firmly pointing out to the other driver, “Those are hazard lights” – which were still flashing on the first driver’s van. He got back in his van and all went quiet. The demon road rage fled before the Spirit of the Lord!

Reflecting on this, various thoughts arise. Firstly, we can learn from anyone: here is “Peaceable” learning peacemaking from volatile “B”. Secondly, we’re all different – strengths and weaknesses – but together can make a difference. And thirdly, I miss my “Peaceable” friend with his quiet stories and calming presence.

God, don't you care?

Okay, so a few things have happened recently that have got me down. Much as I'd like to be superpastor ('is it a bird? is it a plane? no!...), I've found myself finding it hard to believe in anything very much and fighting an 'I quit' reflex.

And to cap it all, I'm in the odd position of preparing a Sunday morning talk on faith/faithfulness (set up the topic in advance back in a sunnier spell). As someone once said, 'God must love me'...

But in the course of thinking my way through faith and realising I don't have much, I came again across the story of the stilling of the storm in Mark's Gospel.

'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' scream the terrified disciples as Jesus snores serenely 'on the cushion'. ('On the cushion'? Did Jesus take this 'snooze-through-life-threatening-scenarios' aid everywhere, or only on small boats?)

Do you not care? Fair question, I reckon. Ever known that feeling? It's all cracking off, drowning's imminent, and God's asleep somewhere on his heavenly cushion?

So, Jesus gets up, rather unreasonably tells them off  ('Have you still no faith?' - looks like he may be irritable when just woken up, too), and flicks away the storm like we might a gnat.

If it was me I'd want to finish the story (or the sermon) with a pithy, pious conclusion like: 'And they were all filled with faith and said "You are the Lord!"'.

But not Mark. His rather more realistic conclusion goes like this: 'And they were filled with great fear and said "Who is this?"'

Yup. Reading this I think 'What a relief, I am a disciple of Jesus after all. And as unbelieving, fearful, bewildered, baffled, and hard-done-by as the first lot. I'm relieved to be in the refreshingly flawed company of guys like the twelve disciples.

And I'm relieved that faith is not so much about its quality as its object.

Ethical repentance

“Jesus told us to clothe the poor…the poor are clothing us”.

This line from a blog smacked me across the face this morning. It went on to reflect on the heart-rending story of the recent disaster in Bangladesh when nearly 300 people died as the garment factory they were working in collapsed on them.

We’ve been hearing a call to repentance recently in the Jesus Army. It links to a prophetic call to be people of God’s fire, and an increased desire to receive that fire and be changed by that fire.

I’ve noticed that usually, when the call to repentance has been unpacked in our various gatherings it is couched in terms of morality.

Nothing wrong with that. Yet I’ve been increasingly aware of how biblical repentance must also include ethics as well as morality.

What’s the difference between the moral and the ethical? Wisegeek.org puts it like this: ‘Morals define personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied.’

Put another way, morality might ask ‘What do I do with my money?’ (a question that was indeed put to our local Jesus Army congregation just a couple of weeks ago). Ethics might ask ‘What do banks do with our money?’

A moral question might be ‘How can I clothe the poor?’ An ethical question would be ‘How do we ensure the poor aren’t clothing us (and dying in the process)?’

Justice and love for people, especially the poor, are close to our heart as the Jesus Army because we believe they’re close to God’s heart. It’s all over the bible. Jesus himself inaugurated his mission by quoting Isaiah’s announcement of ‘good news for the poor’.

The fire, I believe, will cause our ethics as well as our morality to be renewed. I reckon the time is coming and is now here when we need to look harder at what we eat, wear, consume, who we bank with, how we live, in ways we simply hadn’t considered before this wave of fire came.

Isaiah again. A friend pointed out to me that Isaiah 1:16-17 sums up what repentance looks like. ‘[16] Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, [17] learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.’ I note that verse 16 is mainly moral, verse 17 mainly ethical. Of course the two overlap – but I feel it’s in ethics we’ve got some real work to do.

Come fire! Change everything.