Like black buds unfolding

“Every silver lining has a cloud.” So I remarked to a friend, in a gloomy moment recently.

But have you ever had a moment of hope? Irrational, bright, for-no-reason-and-yet? hope, like sun suddenly bursting through cloud, scattering silver like some crazed benefactor?

Ever felt that, despite everything, “all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well”? The moment may be fleeting – but it touches something real?

Some Thursday nights, we invite friends over to join in our community for the evening; we eat, talk, and laugh together.

Often, on such evenings, I read to everyone before dinner. It gives us a focal point before we thank God and eat. What I choose to read varies widely. Sometimes it will be overtly “Christian” or “spiritual” – Little Miss Sunshine or some other spiritual masterwork – sometimes less so.

Last night I read a short passage from Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning novel, Wolf Hall, which tells the story of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to prominence in Henry VIII's court.

The passage I read is from an early part of the novel. Cromwell is emerging painfully from a bleak time. His patron, influential but disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, has died. Cromwell himself may be finished. But opportunity is opening for him: if he champions the king’s prospective new wife, Anna Boleyn, there may be a future for him, a role. The passage describes the moment when Cromwell himself perceives this after his first encounter with Anne.

There was a moment when Anne gave him all her attention: her skewering dark glance. The king, too, knows how to look; blue eyes, their mildness deceptive. Is this how they look at each other? Or in some other way? For a second he understands it; then he doesn’t. He stands by a window. A flock of starlings settles among the tight black buds of a bare tree. Then, like black buds unfolding, they open their wings; they flutter and sing, stirring everything into motion, air, wings, black notes in music. He becomes aware that he is watching them with pleasure; that something almost extinct, some small gesture toward the future, is ready to welcome the spring; in some spare, desperate way, he is looking forward to Easter, the end of Lenten fasting, the end of penitence. There is a world beyond this black world. There is a world of the possible. A world where Anne can be queen is a world where Cromwell can be Cromwell. He sees it; then he doesn’t. The moment is fleeting. But insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.

I read the passage partly just for its gentle beauty, but also because it resonated with me. Here, tenderly depicted, is one of those fleetingly powerful encounters with hope. One of those almost mystical experiences that I think we all know something about.

Hope is delicate – a bird’s wing, a quaver on a stave. But it is also strong. It touches something eternal. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Death gives way to Easter. There is hope. And hope means we can go on.

The moment may be fleeting – but “you cannot return to the moment you were in before”.

May you know hope today, as a gift.

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.

Jesus: perfect? Discuss!

A friend threw me a theological poser on Facebook today. (My friends know I like such things!) Here it is:

Having a few musings today..... Jesus/God was perfect, right. Ok good, Jesus also has been through everything we go through and knows what it is like. However feelings like - envy, jealousy, pride, unforgiveness - we would consider to be sinful. So then could Jesus have ever felt those things if he was in fact perfect - without sin? Did he know what it was like to feel those things? And further is it the feeling that is sinful or in fact the action that comes from it? - Discuss.

And here's my brief reply:

Interesting question. Touches on some deep and mysterious stuff about the incarnation. If Jesus' humanness was genuine (which we absolutely believe it was), he must have had weaknesses: his 'perfection' didn't preclude them. He was afraid (Gethsemane), he was grieved (Lazarus), angry (especially with the Pharisees), exasperated (especially with his followers). He got hungry, tired, hurt. I think he must have had feelings prompting him towards envy, jealousy, pride, unforgiveness... But as you say, the crucial difference is that he didn't let the feelings (temptations if you like) harden into attitudes. As for his perfection - the book of Hebrews says he 'learned obedience', which implies his perfection was not a static state like a marble statue, but again a human reality, something he matured into as he made holy decisions.

Would you have added anything? Or said it differently? Or said something else entirely?

And here's another question for the keen. In our thoughts about Jesus, do we tend towards overemphasising his deity or his humanity (or do we get the balance right)? And what might be the implications of this (either way)?

As my friend said: 'Discuss'!

Woe is me, I'm so spiritual

It’s a miserable business being holy, isn’t it?

I remember a time, not long after I’d joined the Jesus Army, when I returned to my home town for a few days. While I was there I visited a friend, a young woman who’d played a pivotal role in my faith coming alive a few years earlier when I was 16.

She was charismatic (in both a theological and sociological sense) and attractive (ditto re theology, sociology, and let’s throw in biology for fun). A succession of guys had fallen for her (I, as it happened, had avoided this through the unforeseen and useful happenstance of falling for her sister instead).

Anyway, I wanted to make an impression. After all, had I not just discovered the best church in the nation, nay the world? I was gearing up for a life in intentional community. Hang it all, I was weighing up a call to holy celibacy. (That this didn’t come to pass was not due to my friend’s sister, I ought to say, but rather to the radiant creature who is now my wife. I didn’t know that – or her – at the time.)

I wanted to impress. I’d discovered something wonderful. I wanted her to know it. I didn’t deliberately try to look holy, I promise. But I did, nonetheless, try to look holy. My desire to convey the specialness of what I’d discovered manifested in a manner that was forcedly “spiritual”. And, with hindsight, downright miserable.

I’d wanted to foster an air of spirituality; I succeeded in coming across as depressive. My other-worldly air was woeful, my long meaningful silences stultifying. My attempt at gravitas was, in fact, just grave. Not surprisingly, my friend wrote to me not long after that visit to express some concern for me having lost my spark. She was troubled. I seemed unhappy.

I can look back and laugh now. And I think my friend has been long since reassured that I am, in fact, happy. Today, on Facebook, I saw a picture of her on some beach somewhere, the happy (if not entirely willing) subject of a photograph which I noted (thanks Facebook) was taken by a photographer with whom she is now "in a relationship". I smiled, happy for her. My memory drifted back to other happy memories, and back to that day of my forced solemnity. That’s why I write about it now.

Why is it, I wonder, that we often associate holiness with unhappiness? Misery as a measure of sanctity?

Julian of Norwich

Check out this cheerful saint, Julian of Norwich. It was once suggested to me that maybe she looks so miserable because she’s been saddled with a bloke’s name. But I suspect that hagiographers painted her sad simply because she’s a saint. Looking sad is what saints do, isn’t it?

Francis of Assisi

Check out Saint Francis, the new pope’s namesake.

Not exactly full of the joys of spring, eh? Even the bird in his hand looks like he'd rather be one of the two in the bush.

And before my dear Protestant readers spot an opportunity for controversy and start on about “Catholicism's attachment to unbiblical asceticism” or such like, check out these two Reformation pillars, Martin and John.

Martin Luther

John Calvin

Fancy an evening down at the pub with either of these two gents? (Not unless you want your party well and truly pooped.)

And let’s not even start on pictures of Jesus. Do a Google image search for “Jesus” if you dare. Once you’ve got over the fact that most of the results look like women (note to self: topic for future post) you'll notice you’re staring at a sea of miserable faces. Was Jesus, that magnetic gatherer of the common people, really so epically po-faced?

Why do these heroes of holiness all look like they could do with watching all twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers back to back? Why so miserable, Julian, Francis, Martin, John?

There is, of course, something to be said for the calling of God’s people, shaped as they are in the image of God’s Messiah, to carry the world’s sorrows. To pray with groans. To weep with those who weep. But this cannot be the whole story. Jesus skipped with delight when he saw his Father at work. Peter described a similar experience as “joy unspeakable”. Paul, writing to the Philippians, is positively bubbly (ironically, he was in prison waiting for the chop at the time of writing). We’re to rejoice with all who rejoice.

Put simply, to be holy does not mean to be unhappy. Holiness makes laughter and tears deeper. Holiness means that beyond happiness and unhappiness there is joy. The road of holiness is one along which a cross is carried, yet the destination makes the journey jubilant.

One of my favourite quotations from across the panoply of Christian saints is ascribed to Teresa of Avila – “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord deliver us!” Teresa is the same down-to-earth saint who advised her followers, if struck with melancholia and overdoing the “sighing saint” bit, to “eat a good steak and have a hot bath”.

I’m happy to be holy. But I’m not very holy, yet, which is why I’m not always happy. The holier I become the happier I’ll be – whether I’m laughing or crying. And when God wipes away every tear, I’ll be happy – because I'll be holy – forever.

And as for “rejoicing when others rejoice” – I'm so glad my friend's happy on that beach with her photographer. To her I joyfully dedicate this post.

Saint George the internationalist

Happy Saint George's Day – that day when English patriotism swells in English breasts and St George's cross (the English flag) can be seen flying from windows and fences around the nation. This the day when our Prime Minister is prompted by that Saint Georgish feeling to declare how very 'proud' he is 'to be English and British'.

Saint George, as it happens, was not English. He was Greek. He served in the Roman army. He travelled the Near East before he was martyred under Emperor Diocletian. He was nothing if not cosmopolitan.

I love this beautiful island nation, too. Yet, with cosmo George the martyr in mind, I pray that Britain's greatness will not be walled in and hoarded by the Saxo-Normans who happen to form the racial and cultural majority in our era. I pray that we can be a nation with an open welcome and a generous outlook to those of other nationalities and races – and in particular those who have suffered hardship or persecution or threat of death elsewhere.

It's what George would have wanted.

Is God a murderer?

Did God kill his son?

That was the question I had to address last Saturday night.

On Saturday nights, generally, we have a get-together in our community house; a time of singing, sharing, a zany game or two, a mug of tea or twenty. Last Saturday, one young woman led us all in a reflection on God’s forgiveness, which included reading out something she’d recently read.

It was good, edifying stuff, on the whole. But in the middle of it came this:

“When God says he forgives...he is referring to a sovereign decree of his will to extend grace to an undeserving person.

“He did this by killing his Son.

That’s a blunt statement, but it’s true.”

A blunt statement, certainly. But it isn’t true.

I grant, the wider purpose of the text was to emphasise both the steadfastness and sacrificial nature of God’s forgiveness. But to say that God ‘killed his son’ is simply wrong.

Theologians sometimes talk about a way of understanding Christ’s death called ‘penal substitution’ – that Jesus, in his death, took God’s punishment of sin instead of us. But the weakness of this emphasis is that it too easily descends into caricatures like ‘God killed his son’.

And this caricature – and others like it – often makes Christians have a hazy sense that God only loves them today because he took out his fury on Jesus yesterday.

Not surprisingly, this can leave them a tad insecure. Imagine how you’d feel if your mum was always nice as pie to you, but you knew it because she’d spent all her filicidal anger years before when she murdered your older brother.

Happy families, anyone?

There are people in my household group who I know are inclined to feel insecure like this. They know the bible says God is a God of love, that God loves them. But they’re caught up in a view of the central event of the bible as being mainly about not God’s love, but God’s anger, God’s punishment. And so in their heart of hearts, they’re not sure if they can trust his ‘love’.

At its worst, another caricature comes into play: ‘nice Jesus saves us from nasty God’.

It’s a travesty of what the Bible actually describes. God loves us. Before we care two hoots about God, God loves us. And, yes, before Jesus dies, God loves us.

And God forgives us. Yes, God's forgiveness begins before the cross and reaches its glorious climax at the cross.

It is because God loves and forgives us that he sends his son, and his son willingly comes. Forgiveness is not only the result of this rescue mission, it is what motivated the mission in the first place; the result is reconciliation. The way is opened for us to be reunited with God – even to the extent of his Spirit living within us.

It goes like this: love – forgiveness – rescue – reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a two-way process – it requires our ‘yes’ – but the good news is that the way is open back to a God who has always loved us and always will.

So – who did kill Jesus?

Sin killed Jesus. Read the Gospels. It was the corruption of Caiaphas, the apathy of Pilate, the cowardice of Peter, the bigotry of the Pharisees, the betrayal of Judas, the hypocrisy of the people... Panning wider, it was political sin, moral sin, social sin, economic sin... Or read the epistles for a spiritual take on the same answer: it was demonic sin – the powers behind human sin – that killed Jesus.

Sin – their sin, my sin, your sin, the devil’s sin, all sin – drew itself to its full height like a putrid river in flood and attempted to sweep away the son of God.

And the son of God let himself be swept away. And his Father didn't prevent him being swept away. This is as close as we can come to the notion that 'God killed Jesus' - he didn't rescue him by force: 'more than twelve legions of angels' stayed in heaven that day.

God – Father, Son and Spirit – refused to fight sin with sin, refused to fight fire with fire, to repay evil with evil. He turned the other cheek. He went the extra mile. He did not resist. He refused to keep evil in circulation. The result was that sin spent itself fully on him. Death used up its last on him. The putrid river emptied all that it had upon him until there was nothing left.

Away it flowed with him into death. And there it stayed. But Jesus didn’t. Which is why the resurrection is the first light of the dawn of a new world – a world without sin. And it offers me and you the possibility of a new life – one in which sin no longer has the final say.

Love has freed us. Freed from sin's domination. Reunited with God who loved us to hell and back.

Happy families remixed? Imagine how you’d feel if your mum was always nice as pie to you, and you knew that when you were little she'd watched your big brother rescue you from a mugger and get knifed in the process. Your brother nearly didn't make it. But he did, and you know they love you more than life.

So I had a little word with my household on Saturday night: 'God loves you' I said. 'He's always loved you; he always will. Be reconciled to God, and learn to live his way. Turn the other cheek. Walk the extra mile. Defeat evil. Walk the way of life.'

Hell of a time

Someone I respect and love a great deal wrote this in the wake of Margaret Thatcher’s death yesterday.

“Without wanting to jump on the Thatcher bandwagon... in the 80s her and Tebbit oversaw educational policy which saw me and many others sit quietly in fear while my teachers made my classmates laugh with lies (as I know) about 'queers'. I'm not negating the specific teachers’ responsibility, but Thatcher’s policies practically encouraged it. So personally, if there is a hell, I hope she's there, with other champions of hate.”

Here is another glimpse of the little-known anguish suffered by LGBT people in the recent past. The comment may offend againt the principle of 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum', but it also betokens pain and anger. Sobering thought: while I was breezing through school, enjoying every minute of it (though I did have the pretension to consider myself ‘persecuted’ when someone scrawled an anti-God comment on my desk) – at the same school here was someone experiencing the blunt end of prejudice. And it wasn’t playground taunts; it was in the classroom, from the teachers.

I can’t hope anyone’s in hell (apart from anything else, for me hell isn’t an ‘if’) – but I do thank God (again, for me not an ‘if’) that our society is moving away from such woeful ignorance and prejudice.

I hope the LGBT community can avoid the rhetoric of hate. It’s a big ask because there’s a lot of pain, and pain issues in anger, which can harden into hate. (It’s also a big ask from a Christian because the community of Christ has done so badly at avoiding such rhetoric – and that’s without having anything much to be angry about.) As my favourite gay wizard said: "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."

Only a determined effort from all to get beyond slogans, ignorance and stereotypes, to listen, to learn – only such determination can take us away from a hell of hatred that still threatens to engulf us.

On one occasion, at the aforementioned school, the Jesus Army came in for some unfair criticism at the hands of a sociology teacher. I wasn’t there, but I heard what happened. The same young gay man, who’d previously sat in fear whilst he and other gay people were mocked, took his courage in both hands and spoke out in defence of the Jesus Army. He did it because he knew me – and he knew what was being said was unfair and prejudicial.

I wish I'd known about what he was going through then so that I could have defended him. And I pray God will give me courage to speak out in his defence – and in defence of his community – now and in the future.

Waiting for Spring

Britain's waiting for Spring. Easter’s come and gone, but still snow lines the hedgerows. There’s ice on windows in the mornings. The daffodils in our verge have emerged but are shrivelling in the cold.

It illustrates, a bit, where we're at at White Stone (our community household and its wider members and friends). We hold together; we enjoyed our church’s Easter “Alive Festival”; we love having friends staying and coming round. There’s brotherhood and affection in our lives and that counts for a very great deal.

Yet our prayer is that God will rise over us like the sun bringing warmth, healing, new life and growth. "Let the long-term sick be healed; let new disciples rise; let prayers and longings be answered.

"Roll away the stone, great God. Unworthy though we’ll always be, let our faces turn from bewilderment to joy as we see You do what only You can do."

A hell of a chapter

Faced with nineteen verses of fire and damnation, I wasn’t sure what to write.

I write a weekly bible study for the Jesus Army. (The bible chapters for each week roll round on a rota, covering the whole bible every seven years or so – the New Testament, being shorter, is completed more like every three years).

What would you write when faced with Nahum chapter 3, as I was this morning? No offence to Nahum, I ought to say, as I may well meet him one day on some golden street up yonder. He had a job to do. And yet…

I’m not at ease with fire and judgement, and I’m skittish about Christians who are. It is clear that judgement, yes even eternal judgement (it’s a hell of subject) are very biblical. A God who isn’t Judge is not the God of the bible. But unlike that feisty early church theologian, Tertullian, I can’t rub my hands at the thought of sinners roasting.

To be clear, Nahum chapter 3 is not about hell. But it is about the destruction of a vast metropolis and everyone who lives in it. Nineveh’s evil, violence and oppression have overspilled the measure, and God says ‘Enough’. Time’s up. Cue fire and brimstone.

‘Will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?’ asked Abraham when faced with a similar city-becomes-bonfire scenario. And I can get where nervous old Abe’s coming from on this. Slightly worried, seeking reassurance that all the destruction is – well – right.

It was then that I noticed that the book of Nahum ends with a question. Which is unusual in the bible. In fact, a quick check confirmed there’s only one other book in the bible that ends with a question: Nahum’s prequel, Jonah.

Which got me thinking about those two questions: one  – Nahum's – about the human cry for justice (and God’s answer), the other – Jonah's – about human incomprehension of mercy (and God’s answer). And this is what I wrote. Hope it helps you, like it helped me, to understand just a little more about God – His great passion for justice, and His massive heart of mercy.

'Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder… Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord' (v.1, 5). This last chapter of Nahum paints a dramatic picture of the destruction of Nineveh, capital of Assyria (an empire whose violence oppressed the entire ancient world). After eighteen verses detailing destruction, the book ends with a question: 'All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?' (v.19) The implied answer is ‘nobody’; nobody has escaped Nineveh’s evil, and therefore everyone rejoices at her destruction.
  There is only one other book in the bible that ends with a question – the ‘prequel’ to this one: Jonah. Like Nahum, Jonah was told by God to proclaim Nineveh’s destruction (Jon.1:1). But in Jonah’s day the Ninevites repented and were spared (Jon.3:4-5). Jonah’s response to God’s mercy was to sulk, and the question that ends the book of Jonah is from God: 'Should not I pity Nineveh?' (Jon. 4:11). The implied answer is, of course, ‘Yes’.
  Nahum’s question reveals human thirst for justice, for an end to oppression. God is not unmoved by this heartcry: He will bring judgement and restore justice. Yet we must hear Nahum’s message with Jonah’s in mind, too: God’s mercy is bigger and wider than our small human hearts expect. The judge of all the earth will do what is right (Gen.18:25); and in the end mercy will triumph over even judgement (Jas.2:13).

The  questions such a passage make me ask myself are: what injustices do I long to see ended? Am I working towards that myself in my words, actions, prayers? And where might I need to have a bigger heart, and show more mercy?

The Lost Voice

A beautiful, bittersweet poem by my friend Wilf:

THE LOST VOICE (For a dead artist)
In his early days he could charm words
Like birds from a tree
Singing on his lips
Beautiful, meaningless and free,

Songs of wizards and elves
In forests full of fauns
Willow women dancing
Before the noble unicorn,

A guitar strumming
Hand drums drumming
And all the acid folk
Came tripping and running
To the king of the meaningless and free

He could have taken down
His ill fitting crown
He could have learned
He could have turned
Then his songs would have soared
From his heart and strings
To the only
One
True king

But he went down to the fairy woods
And they swallowed him up as fast as he could
A crippled fipple
A neutered flute
A ruined tune
And a voice now mute
Down in the woods
Just splinters and blood

But another song will go on without him
Ten thousand times ten thousand singing
In that new magical dawn
And though there is room in it all for him
And he like everyone is like no one else
Still the the harmony is complete.
The tears that were shed for his lost voice
Cannot diminish this song of praise
And if any dissonance is cast on account of him
God alone could hear

- Wilf, 26th March 2013

Fipple - part of the mouthpiece of a flute or recorder which makes the sound

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Correspondence with God

An 11-year-old wrote a letter to God recently. A youth leader passed it onto me and asked could I reply – on God’s behalf? Quite a responsibility! This is that letter, and my (God’s?) reply.

Dear God,
I’m kind of losing faith in You. Nothing very good has come out of my attempts to connect with You. It’s like flogging a dead horse. But I want to keep trying because I’ve heard of your effect on people. Show me something that will change my mind about You otherwise there is no point in pursuing this ‘fantasy’.
From Ashley*, still hoping.

Dear Ashley,
I don’t usually write letters to people and even this one I’m writing through my friend James. (He doesn’t always get me quite right, but I know he’ll try his best.) You told me that because I’m not always easy to find (because I don’t write letters and that sort of thing) you’re losing your faith in me. I hope this letter helps you because I made you, I love you, and I want you to have deep faith because it’s faith like that that can shape you into who you’re meant to be.

So why don’t I make myself more obvious? Why don’t I write more letters? (In fact, I have written an important letter, but I’ll tell you about Him later.) Why don’t I do lots of obvious miracles for you or send a shining angel to tell you I’m real? The reason is, like I said, that I want you to have faith. When I first made people – human beings – they turned away from me, didn’t trust me. They were faithless. That cut them off from me. It meant they couldn’t grow up into who I made them to be.

I made them to be like me: wise, powerful, creative, loving. But doubt and fear stole their destiny. To rescue my human creatures I had to give them room to have faith. If I made it too easy, if I made faith not necessary, if I just gave them certainty – they’d never grow up.

My rescue plan got going with a man called Abraham. He believed some pretty unlikely stuff that I whispered into his thoughts – about having lots of babies even though he and his wife were past the age to have children. He believed me, unlikely though it seemed. His faith joined him to me. Bit by bit, he started to become who he was meant to be. He wasn’t perfect. He struggled to believe and to understand. But he kept hold of faith in Me. Today he’s got millions of children. In fact, everyone who has faith – who believes – they’re all his ‘children’.

That was the start of My rescue plan, but it went much further than that. It breaks My heart that fear and doubt and death spoil My children. When the right time came, I did write a letter: a letter to every person, everywhere. It wasn’t a letter made out of words on a page. It was a person – Jesus. If you want to know who I am, look at Him, ‘read’ Him. (I got some other friends of mine, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write down what He said and did, and that might help.

You know about Jesus, of course. But I want to ask you to keep looking at Him, keep finding out more about Him, keep listening out for His voice. That will make faith grow in you – the kind of faith that changes you into who you were made to be.

Jesus had to have faith as well – even though He’s My Son! He had to learn how to trust Me when it was hard to understand or believe. There was one time when He was desperate and afraid. He was praying in a garden and He asked Me to change things, to rescue Him. I had to say no – and Jesus knew I’d said no. He knew He was going to be crucified. At that point He made a decision – like Abraham had, only His decision was even harder – to trust anyway. To believe anyway.

In that moment Jesus – yes, even Jesus – grew up. He became who He was made to be. And His death (and His resurrection because I didn’t abandon Him) meant that he became the Saviour of the world.

I want you to be like Jesus. You’ll still be you – uniquely you, I’ve made no-one else exactly like you – but like Jesus: grown-up in faith and love.

Then you’ll know that it’s not that you can’t see Me – but that by Me you can see everything else.

With love, still hoping,
God

*Ashley is not the 11-year-old's real name 

 

Oh Jesus, help

‘Christians! They do my head in sometimes!’ I was letting off some steam, chatting to my brother recently. ‘Gays! They do my head in sometimes, too!’ he replied (he’s gay). Just goes to show any group we belong to – even, or perhaps especially, those we derive something of our identity from – can be uncomfortable things to belong to.

I write a weekly Bible study for the members of the Jesus Army around the UK. This week I wrote about the final chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The issues threatening to tear apart Paul’s churches now seem rather remote to us – questions of Jewish law-keeping don’t generally cause too much hand-wringing in British churches today.

But that doesn’t stop Paul’s teaching, especially in this last section of Galatians, from being deeply relevant to us today when we consider some of the issues that do threaten to tear our churches up. So: read Galatians 6, and then, if you like, you’re invited to read what I wrote for the Jesus Army to ponder:

The crisis in Galatia (see Gal.1:6-7) had left the churches there deeply divided. Groups looked down on other groups as less ‘right’, even less Christian, and sneeringly condemned them. Paul has dealt with this at a theological level in the first five chapters of Galatians; now, to close, he deals with practical and heart issues surrounding conflict.

Christians’ dealings with each other should be characterised not by obsession with status or smug self-righteousness, but by a spirit of gentleness (v.1). Their heart should be to bear one another’s burdens (v.2), not to condemn one another. Ironically, self-important people make themselves the least important (v.3). Each person should take responsibility for their own life before seeking to take responsibility for others (v. 4-5, see Mt.7:3-5).

Paul urges a generous approach which focuses not on criticising and pulling down, but on giving and doing good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith (v.6-10).

In his handwritten postscript (v.11-18), Paul brings his letter to its powerful conclusion. The true marks of a Christian are not about outward status (v.12-13); they are the marks of suffering love. Paul embodied this lifestyle – so different to the world’s power-hunger – in his own suffering (v.17), as did Jesus at the cross (v.14). Suffering love brings new life (v. 15). True followers of Christ – God’s true people, the Israel of God (v.16) – will take up their cross and live lives of grace (v.18).

Such a passage leaves me asking questions like: What is the difference between having a ‘spirit of gentleness’ and just being timid? How can I show generosity of spirit to those I meet, those I know? Who am I inclined to look down on, and how can I change this? And what does it really mean to have grace flowing from my spirit?

The New Testament isn’t just a book I read; the New Testament reads me. And it invites me to be more like its main character.

Oh Jesus, help.

Chicken and egg

Warning: the following factoid (and the moral derived from it) is doubtless simplistic, trite and naive. Nevertheless, it got me thinking and I thought I'd share.

There are apparently 18.45 billion chickens on planet Earth. That's slightly more than two per human being.

If every human being actually owned two or three chickens no-one would go hungry.

As it is approximately two thirds of the world are hungry. And last night, during the Superbowl, Americans ate 1.23 billion chicken wings. (Who counted? Well, I read it on Twitter so it must be true.)

Just what can we do to right the gross injustice of the world's food resources? We can't ignore this stuff as Christians.

I believe it was Mary the mother of Jesus who looked into what her Son would stand for and sang: "He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty."

When the kingdom comes, will I be sent away?

True me or not true me?

'This above all: to thine own self be true' says Polonius, in the first Act of Hamlet. So: is Polonius right?

Thus I tweeted moments ago.

The other night, a dear friend listened to some of my stored-up disappointments, frustrations and questions, and gently asked afterwards: are you happy with who you are?

It was the right question. Behind some of my fuming was the sense that I wasn’t quite sure.

We can put up with a lot, said my wise friend, if we know we’re being true to ourselves. If we don’t know that, it doesn’t take much to get us down.

 It switched a light on for me, this did.

I know that Polonius’s famous dictum tweeted above can be a clichéd excuse for self-congratulation and pomposity (indeed, this was probably true of Polonius, and that was Shakespeare’s irony). But that doesn’t stop it being true.

I’m grateful to have such wise friends. And I’m even more grateful that this particular friend is my wife.

Learning from Margaret

Margaret, an elderly member of our church passed away just recently. She was an unforgettable real character, and much loved. If you want a snapshot of her, it might suffice to tell you that one of the main hobbies of this nearly blind yet intrepid soul was - archery. Yes, archery. She attended a class called 'Archery for the blind'. It gives you a flavour.

A thanksgiving service for her life was held last week, in which moving testimonies were shared about how much Margaret had meant to many.

For me Margaret was a fascinating friend: on car journeys to and from her house on the edge of the city, she would regale me with tales of the War, and of her experience as a nurse. Yet in recent years, since Margaret has been quite frail and ill, she ministered to me in a new, unexpected, way. Visiting her in the nursing home she was living in, she brought me peace and taught me Sabbath.

By this time her conversation was less scintillating (though not without its fascinating flashes). Memory was failing, sight had almost gone. But Margaret had a quality of 'being'. Her life had deepened as it slowed down. Once I went to see her a little desperate because of a series of discouraging events. I spent a quiet hour with Margaret, during which she listened. I remember she said 'Sometimes things go well. And then they stop. And then they go well again.' You may not think this is all that profound, but I tell you it's what I needed to hear.

Margaret's 'being-ness' brought me back to peace.

Reading something Walter Brueggemann wrote reminded me of my times with Margaret. Speaking of the commandment to honour one’s aging parents, he writes:

"[This commandment] is closely related to the Sabbath. It, too, insists that human worth cannot be assessed in terms of economic productivity. Parents who may be belittled because they are no longer productive are indeed special candidates for Sabbath, endlessly at rest, Sabbath-enacting members of the community"

We need "Sabbath-enacting members" of our community. They keep us sane.

For this, and for much much else besides, I give thanks for Margaret.

Here is a video, made by Margaret's son, Jon, to mark her passing and celebrate her life:

Oh Andy, we just...

My friend Andy commented on an old post of mine, 'Stop praying to the Lord!'

I enjoyed his comment so much - especially his mock prayer in the penultimate paragraph - that on rereading it today, I thought I'd elevate it to a post of its own:

Perhaps in this age of absentee fathers it is no longer appropriate to pray to "Father"? I'm quite sure that Jesus' audience had a very different mental image when he told them to pray to "Our Father".

Likewise, the term "Majesty" today conjurs images of pomp and circumstance rather than ultimate authority. Perhaps praying to "King Jesus" is outdated too.

On the other hand, I do think that a bit of judicious self-censoring is in order when addressing the All Compassionate Almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things. After all, if someone at work came to me with a request like this:

"Oh Andy I just want to bring to you my computer Andy. It's so slow Helpdesk man and Andy it just needs the touch of your hand. So Mighty Computer Wizard, please would you reach out and heal my computer? Yes Andy, I ask this in the name of our employer with whom you have a contract that states that you *must* fix my computer when it breaks because it's in your nature Andy and you can't help but fix a broken computer Andy because you love computers Andy. Yes Andy. Thank you Andy. In the employer's name Andy, Amen.

I think I'd probably laugh in their face! A simple, "Andy, my computer's got problems, can you help?" would probably achieve a much better result.

Fear of fire

This year, for the Jesus Army, has been dubbed the year of ‘hearts on fire’. Led by Mick Haines, our main leader, we’ve become aware again of our great need of God. At a recent leaders’ conference, Mick read this passage from early Methodist pioneer Samuel Chadwick:

The church is powerless without the fire of the Holy Ghost. Destitute of fire, nothing else counts; possessing fire nothing else really matters.

A confession: talk of the fire scares me a little. I know as a charismatic-Christian-type it should set my heart beating and my blood racing. But at the leaders’ conference I found myself feeling a reticence I couldn’t immediately explain. Was it reluctance to get into hype? That would be a safely smug conclusion – but it wasn’t, not really.

It’s God I’m afraid of. God tends to get me into trouble.

‘The fire’ led me into Christian community. It hasn’t always been easy. The fire demands I forgive those who hurt me. Those who think that is easy have never really been hurt. The fire led me to give up a job I loved. The fire demands I share all my money and most of my time. The fire led me to put hope in some who subsequently let me down. The fire insists I continue to (in Churchill’s famous phrase) move from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Some may think of the fire of God as warming, like a homely hearth. I’ve come to think of it as scary and liable to scorch.

So it was comforting to me when a friend quoted Malachi chapter 3. ‘Who can endure the day of his coming?’ asks the prophet, and I know what he means. ‘He is like a refiner’s fire’.

But Malachi adds another metaphor to fire: ‘like fullers’ soap’. The fire – burning, blazing, roaring, consuming, purging – is also soap – gentle, cleansing, soaking, renewing.

When God comes close – and we know he must if we’re to be renewed as a movement – he comes as fire and it’s right to fear him.

But the presence of God is also like a warm bath filled with cleansing soapy, bubbly, lather. Get in, get cleansed, get healed.

(As Malachi puts it, no longer say ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts?’) Let cynicism and disappointment be washed away. Be renewed. Be refreshed.

I’ll have some of that.

Conception, conversion, consummation

Three linked poems by my friend Wilf.

Conception

The flame came down encountering the lily

And both were held in awe

Innocence marvelling at purity;

The bearer of the news,

The bearer of the word

Trembling on the edge of the moment

When the seed of God would tip into our world

In the heart of a pure girl’s womb.

Conversion

When the ‘brave’ braced back bends braver

And the knee knows now to kneel.

The conquered king is caught from his castle

Hauled, galled, called to the hallowed gallows

Head held high. Clawing, gnawing, mauling;

Part lamb, beast and man;

And tears turn fears to trembling trust.

In this chaos of contrition

The seed slips silently in

And all heaven exults.

Consummation

Still, still, still the newborn earth

And heaven here is hushed

No faintest breath disturbs the air

Through which the nubile figures move.

If divinity can look with awe

Then this, this, this is the moment

For the groom has locked his gaze

Upon his bride.

She whom he has drawn from the beginning

Draws close and ever closer

The first touch,

Time and eternity meet as so many times before

Parts of the one, eternal moment

The first kiss, and then...