Funeral of My 94 y.o.Uncle

My uncle R was a clever man. Although, starting his working life at 14 road-making with his father, he worked out how to build a lawn-mower from scratch. That is, he made each part of the mower!! Nor did his abilities stop as he got older as shown in the fact that he built two computers before the time one could buy such things for a reasonable price at a local shop.

Another major thing that left an impression were the words of his son who mentioned that he was only in the position he was today -- an oceanographer -- because of the encouragement of his father. This generous son confessed that his father was probably a lot brighter than he was but had not had the opportunities that he, the son, had had.

A son-in-law at the funeral spoke of my uncle in terms of G-s; I don't remember all of them but some were gentle, generous, genius and godly. The last challenged me because I had seen this old man of 94 only a week before his death and felt, despite all his obvious inabilities at that time, that I was in the presence of a man who had used all his abilities to serve and honour his Lord.

                             Rest in peace, my dear uncle, rest in peace.

Commandments One and Two

Seeing the Sadducees had been silenced on their question about death and resurrection, the Pharisees sent a lawyer to test Jesus concerning what was 'the great commandment' (Matthew 22.35, AV). Jesus replied by quoting the Shema (Deut 6.4). Love the Lord your God from the heart, the inner core of your being.

To this commandment, Jesus added a commandment that is 'like the first': 'love your neighbour as yourself'. In the latter, Jesus was quoting Leviticus 19.18 which, one source translated as 'You are not to take-vengeance, you are not to retain-anger against the sons of your kinspeople—but be-loving to your neighbor (as one) like yourself, I am YHWH [the LORD]!'

The gloss in brackets (so), which I have seen elsewhere, puts a different complexion on usual interpretations of the verse because it takes away our selfish fixation about self-love. I doubt the verse has anything to do with loving ourselves as such although it is sometimes 'exegeted' as if without proper self-love we cannot love others. In any case, the be-loving to your neighbour is set within the context of not taking vengeance, not retaining-anger against one's kinsfolk which, makes that interpretation foreign to the setting.

Jesus' view of neighbour was broader than that of Jewry and the love commended is action that wishes good towards any we come in contact with. It has little to do with sentiment or even liking the neighbour; biblical love is wanting the best for the neighbour and doing good to the neighbour as the Good Samaritan did.

Herman Dooyeweerd the great Dutch jurist and philosopher said that these two commandments are a supratemporal unity that is differentiated or particularised throughout the temporal world. So, we face the call to be-loving of God and neighbour at every turn in temporal existence. This ubiquitous law is not displaced by love because the undifferentiated meaning of law is love. To love Christ is to keep his commandments (Jn 14.15, 23) and the commandment is to love another (Jn 15.12-13) as we have been loved.

Accepting the Invitation Matt 22.1-10

I'm often struck by the avoidance of the unpopular and awkward in bible texts by preachers and speakers. I'm sure I do it too! Recently i heard presentations on this passage above and noted how the acceptance and non-acceptance of the invitation was lost sight of and the text got turned into a social gospel apologia! 'Do good works and you will get into the feast'!!

Of course, the background is Jesus' struggle with the chief priests and the Pharisees (21.45f) who perceived that Jesus' parables were about them but who couldn't arrest him because they feared the people. They are the ones who are initially invited to the marriage feast of the King's son. The point is, they refuse to come showing their disdain of the king by even killing his servants. And the king angrily destroys both them and their city.

Since those who were originally invited refuse to come, the king invites all, both good and bad, as many as can be found. and of course, they respond to the invitation and come and fill the wedding place. To be there at the wedding begins with the king's (God's) invitation and follows with our acceptance. We don't just fall into the kingdom, we respond to the Lord God who is always drawing us in mercy to come.

The landowner and the labourers

I was at church today unexpectedly. No priest to consecrate the elements so we used the reserved sacrament. No priest to deliver the sermon so a Warden gave the sermon. The landowner and the labourers. It never ceases to amaze what God can bring out of His word when we least expect it. Whenever I had reflected on this parable on earlier occasions I had always focussed I think on the payment of the workers, or more especially, the 'unfairness' of the workers who had worked all day. But, the most wonderful word that occurs in this passage is 'generous'. God is a generous God and treats all of us generously. Not because of the level of our work or because of our status but because it is his nature to be generous with us..

Sundays After Pentecost

The Church's year begins with Advent leading to Christmas to Epiphany. Then Lent prepares the Church to mark Easter, which leads on to Pentecost. All the Sundays following Pentecost are Ordinary Sundays. However, ordinary in this context means 'in order' or 'counted'. The Sundays after Easter are counted in order to the end of the Church's year.

During this period after Pentecost, the liturgical colour is green, which denotes newness and growth. "The Sundays after Pentecost link the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to the celebration of the final Advent . . . when Christ will come in glory. This leads into a celebration of the first coming of Christ at Christmas and the cycle returns to its beginning. It is in these Sundays after Pentecost that we actually live - that is, in the period between the incarnation of God in Christ and our future life with God in heaven" (http://www.pauanglican.org.nz/churchseasons.php).

He Breathed On Them

The day of Pentecost was 50 days after Resurrection Sunday so how does John manage to speak of the coming of the Spirit in his gospel account (20: 19-23)? Are these two accounts to be harmonised somehow are just recognised as contradictory?

I wouldn't accept either of these approaches. Both are concerned to bring everything in the Scriptures under the rubric of historicity when the Scriptures evidence in many instances a lack of concern for historical exactitude. The Scriptures were not primarily given to tell us about history. They are intended to "open the mind to the salvation which comes through believing in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15, Phillips). To understand both St John and St Luke's differing accounts, we would have to examine their different renditions of the coming of the Spirit in the context of their gospel accounts.

Despite the differences in timing, both connect the coming of the Spirit with the mission of the church. According to one writer, John's language is heavily freighted with the middle-eastern patronage system in mind: patron, brokers, and clients. (God the Father is the patron, who has all the goods necessary for life; Jesus is the broker, who dispenses those goods; and humanity is the client, who receives those goods and returns loyalty to the patron through the broker.)

Additionally, St John mentions many times that Jesus is sent by the Father; now, he sends the disciples as he has been sent. And breathes -- only used here in the NT -- on them, connecting their mission with the forgiving and retaining of sins. This passage tends to be avoided by Protestants because it raises embarrassing questions about its meaning. Is this a power that the Church has or individual Christians, or the institutional church?

This gospel does not major on the forgiveness of sins as such, which is not specifically mentioned in John except here (although,the idea of forgiveness is implied when Jesus was first revealed in chapter 1 as "the Lamb of God").

Like many others, I know, I have struggled over the issue of forgiveness: some Christians believe that we should forgive anyone who sins against us regardless of any show of repentance. These Christians interpret all the forgiveness passages of Scripture consistently with that view. However, I stand with those who say that forgiveness is ideally a relational process between people leading to reconciliation. In scripture, forgiveness between Christians is usually on the basis of repentance or being asked for it (see Luke 17:3-4). Even the well-know sections in Matthew (18:15-35), both presuppose repentance or lack thereof.

I do also accept that Jesus forgave his tormentors from the cross because of their ignorance and blindness and that that provides us with a model for forgiveness of a certain offence in certain situations. Nevertheless, Christians are not to harbour retaliatory thoughts towards those who have wronged them because the Lord is the Judge of us all (Rom 12:19).

This Is Life Eternal

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (Jn 17.3). I have always been attracted to this passage for some unknown reason. One cannot argue that it is even the burden of the passage (vv1-5). Rather, it is explanatory as C. K. Barrett says of the 'eternal life' mentioned in verse 2.

It is also a text that is a battleground between Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian views with some arguing that Jesus Christ cannot be God because Jesus says that the Father is the 'only true God'. However, this position avoids the embarrassment found in considering that eternal life is found in knowledge of God the Father and in Jesus Christ. The simple but powerfully evocative bracketting of the two speaks volumes re the status of the Son (quite apart from many other passages of scripture).

Knowledge of the Father and the Son is eternal life; in this, St John is stating what every Jew knew about God. To acknowledge or know (so the literal sense according to Barrett) God is to experience his direction of one's paths (Prov 3.6).

In St John chapter 20 (v31), believing is related to life through his (Christ's) name. Barrett ties believing and knowing together by saying that they are not to be pitted against each other but are to be understood as correlated.

Eternal life is equated with knowing the only true God and his apostle, Jesus Christ, and that knowledge is experiential, personal and intimate brought about by the Holy Spirit enlightening the eyes of the understanding captured by obedience to his word.

The Importance of Ascension Day

Why is the Ascension of Christ so important? Significantly, Psalm 110 (particularly verse 1) is the most quoted passage in the NT and typically it is referred to the Ascension. 'The LORD says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool". St Peter applied this verse to the Ascension of Christ in Acts 2 (vv34-35) noting that the verses could not be definitively applied to David because he did not ascend into the heavens! The full meaning of Psalm 110 is found in the Ascension to (and present Session of Christ at) the Father's right hand.

The Ascension concerns authority, Christ's authority; for Jesus Christ ascended after the resurrection to where He is at the right hand of God "with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him" (1 Peter 3. 22). Significantly again, Hebrews 1, which also quotes Psalm 110 (v1), speaks of Christ's ascension by implication (1.3) but adds that Jesus the Son, sat down 'at the right hand of the majesty on high'. Sitting down indicated the status of the Son. No one sat in the presence of the King except the King's heir; here Jesus sat down to point to his rank. According to Psalm 110, he is now waiting until all his enemies recognise his rightful place as Lord of the heavens and earth.

It's important for us to recognise afresh the place of our Lord at the right hand, the favoured place beside the Majesty on high, to bow our hearts before Him and continually to reverence Him in our hearts.

And, he is doing something remedially as his enemies are subdued; of course, it often does not look like it but to urge the problem of evil as an argument against the existence of the God revealed through the Christian scriptures does not work. It does not work because, as is now accepted more and more, man cannot stand in a position with regard to the whole universe so as to be able judge the plans and purposes of God.

However, apologetics aside, mankind can reflect on the fact if it will, that full humanity now dwells in the heavens with the King of the Universe. We note that in Luke's account (ch24), Jesus eats before his disciples, showing thereby his humanity but then a little later parts from them and is taken up into heaven (following the KJV text). Hebrews reminds us that this Son in the heavens who intercedes for us is able to do that effectively because he knows what it is to be human, to be tested, tried and tempted (2.18). So, are you in pain, need, sickness or any other kind of trouble; the Man in the heavens knows what that is like and sympathises with your condition not necessarily leading to our being lifted out of our condition but strengthening us in the condition.

Holy Spirit Friendly

I saw this marvellous little piece on a blog today (http://illuminations.blogs.com/illuminations/) and share it in the light of the church's focus on the Holy Spirit as we lead up to Pentecost:

"We live in an age when all of the marketing and focus of the media is about ME and what I want. As a pastor, I too am regularly tempted to try to do all I can to make our church comfortable and pleasing to those who might attend. While I think it is OK to be a little "SEEKER FRIENDLY", we must fight to truly make our churches more Holy Spirit friendly, and be a place that is welcoming to God and his Presence. We must also contend to do all we can to not feed the selfish tendencies of fallen human nature."

The Question of Judas

John 14, is overshadowed by Jesus', "where I am going you cannot come" (13: 33) and then with the issue of Peter's predicted denial. The chapter begins with the promise of Jesus' preparation of a new home in heaven for them, of his coming to take them to himself and of his being himself the very Road to the Father's house. He moves to the idea that the Father is in him and he in the Father. The works of the Son are the works of the Father but then the works of the disciples are going to be greater 'because I go to my Father.' Then comes the wonderful promise of the Holy Spirit, the other Counsellor/ Comforter/ Advocate, who is another, 'just like' (so the Greek) Jesus. This Counsellor will strengthen them when they are brought before tribunals to bear witness to the Resurrection and will be not only with but in them. Jesus then said that he and the Father would love the one who has and keeps Jesus' commandments, which is equated with loving Jesus and having Jesus manifest himself to the disciples.

Then Judas (not Iscariot) asks, 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?' (Jn 14. 22). What a wonderful, probing question from Judas who was obviously following carefully what Jesus was saying. Jesus repeats the issue of obeying his commandments out of love and then says, "and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make home with him".

Ah, so now the disciples are going to have Father and Son residing within by the power of the Spirit and this residence will be a manifestation of the presence of the Lord to us all. This is experiential, inner knowledge of the Lord God.

Road to God: Uniqueness of Jesus 2

St John 14 (1-14) among other things is Jesus' preparing of his disciples for his going away both at Calvary but also post-Calvary. With regard to the first, they have just heard the distressing news that Peter will betray the Lord three times before the cock crows. No wonder their hearts are troubled!

However, St John, by the Holy Spirit, is also telling his readers more about the uniqueness of Jesus, the 'road' to God. In a sense, this theme has dominated his work from chapter 1. "No one has seen God at any time. The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known" (v 18).

Our Lord directs their faith, not to Peter's predicted failure but to God and himself, to the road He will travel in order to go and prepare a place for them. Beautifully the writer transitions from this going with the theme of Himself as the Road, the unique Road to God.

First, Jesus tells them to their consternation I suspect that they know this way he is about to take. Dear Thomas then asks the question on all of their hearts I suspect, "Lord, we don't know where you are going and how can we know the way?" Jesus answers, "I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me" (v 6).

"I am the road" is the translation given by J B Phillips and I think it a singularly helpful one for it gives us a word-picture. Just as a pathway, a footpath, a road allows us to get somewhere, Jesus is the One who leads to the Father. This revelation is profound because it means that our whole lives need to be lived upon the roadway which is Jesus, who is truth and life.

Shepherd Sunday: Uniqueness of Jesus 1

I found it interesting that in Eastertide we have Shepherd Sunday (John 10. 1-18). One compelling reason is that the Shepherd discourse brings to the fore the qualities of our Saviour as the One who suffers for his sheep and lays down his life for his sheep.

This is the Easter message in the context of the middle-eastern shepherd who lies across the doorway of the sheepfold, who puts his body 'on the line'. By being the One who lies in the doorway, He is able to say, 'I am the door to the sheepfold' and 'I am the door. By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture'.

But more than that, St John wants to impress upon us that Jesus is unique as the door in that this shepherd not only lays down his life for the sheep but then is able by the authority vested in Him by the Father to take that life up again. No one took his life away from him. He voluntarily laid it down so that he might take it up again for all his sheep. Was there ever a shepherd like this that even death was unable to hold him fast on the third day? Of course not! No holy man or woman has ever defeated death in that way Jesus Christ did! No wonder St John urgently sets him forward as the Good Shepherd.

The Ministering Unknown Christ

Hearing the Emmaus story read again today, I became aware of the graphic picture it presents of the Christ ministering to us in all our troubles, griefs, sicknesses and problems: the Christ we see but do not recognise!!

And the fact that we do not recognise Him does not make his ministry to us any less potent. The Lord seemed content to minister to Cleopas and his companion without their knowing who He was. So often in life, we only realise much later that it was the Lord serving us, upholding us, supporting us and teaching us at a particularly dark time.

Perhaps the Emmaus story, along with many other of its facets, reminds us that our Lord is always with us because He has purposes to perform in our lives that will be achieved despite our spiritual blindness and sometime lack of zeal.

Words on the Wall

Christian groups 'dress to impress' these days with their song words on walls. We usually don't stop to think about this development but go along with it as the latest thing. However, may I just point out some aspects of this development that should give us pause for thought? With every use of newer technologies our lives are being subtly and sometimes not so subtly changed leaving us forgetting that 'the medium is the message'.*

First, the medium of data projection means that words cannot be meditated on or scanned before viewing by a congregation. Nor can an arresting phrase in any already sung verse be looked at again because the congregation is now onto the next verse. The simple use of hymn books allows those activities to be done.

Second, the congregational worship is always controlled by the click of the controller of the data projector. One could say that congregational worship in song moves according to the rhythm of the person with the mouse! I wonder whether we should much rather having that rhythm being established by a musician sensitive to the leading of God's spirit. Projectionists may well have that sensitivity but then we would have the need for three offices to become aligned: projectionist, worship leader, and musician.

Third, despite the usual assumption that newer technologies aid the church in adding to the number of disciples of Christ, no evidence exists that supports any link between changing the content of services and increase in church numbers. On the contrary, in the UK, the two appear to be negatively associated (http://xrl.in/2bg) for the Church of England at least. Astronomical sums in the billions spent in the US on upgrading technologies and using new programs in one year (2006?) in fact resulted in negative growth in US church numbers!! (See also http://xrl.in/2bj)

Last, data projection is a post-modern technology because post-modernism highlights the ephemeral, which precisely fits with data projection. One could say, post-modernism makes an absolute of the passing away of 'reality'. The latter is ephemeral, transient, here this second but gone the next. I don't think the church would want this notion to become embedded in its worship forms but it could be accepting that definition without much awareness that it is happening.

*A helpful article by Mark Federman @ http://xrl.in/2bk helps to explain what Marshall McLuhan meant by his popular but misunderstood phrase, 'the medium is the message', a process that the church would do well to remember.

We who don't see yet

Thomas wanted to see as the fellow disciples of Jesus had seen. I don't think we can blame Thomas for his wish and in so wishing/acting he demonstrated the true bodiliness of the crucified, now risen Jesus. (An important theme for the Spirit speaking through St John.) However, Thomas missed out on something less tangible but most important for all who would come later.

Thomas missed out on being the one of the disciples who would believe without having seen and hence become -even if for the short time - one of the fathers (St John being the other) of all those that have not seen and yet have believed.

This not-seeing state of faith is the one we live within for this time as expressed by J. R. Peacey (1896-1971) in these words:
O Lord, we long to see your face,

to know you risen from the grave;
But we have missed the joy and grace
of seeing you, as others have.
Yet in your company we'll wait,
And we shall see you, soon or late.

This waiting without seeing is also captured in 1 Peter 1: 8

Whom having not seen, you love;
in whom, though now you see him not,
yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

In any case, seeing can only be true seeing when attended by believing. Seeing is not always believing! Jews watched Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and immediately thereafter plotted how they might kill Jesus!! Their seeing did not mean believing. Unless our seeing is mixed with believing invariably our seeing is corrupted.

Emmaus

During this Easter week, among other stories of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, we have heard the account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-27).

For me, this drama-narrative can be understood in two acts. Act 1, Sorrowfully Not Seeing and Act 11, Ardently Coming To See.

The two disciples are walking along conversing and debating about what had happened to Jesus animated by a spirit of defeat, crushed hopes and puzzlement. "We had thought that our Lord would be the redemption of Israel but he was crucified, dead and buried. Now some who visited his tomb say they found it empty and saw angels declaring that Jesus is alive. But, these women didn't actually see him."

Jesus joins these sorrowing disciples who are mourning the loss of their Lord but their eyes 'are holden [held or restrained] that they should not know him' (KJV). They cannot see what is before their eyes. Their eyes are prevented from seeing and knowing Jesus.

I'm sure this has happened many times in my life. Jesus has been with me walking alongside me but my eyes have been 'restrained' from seeing him. In my case, my sin has had a large part to play in that failure to see. What this restraint was is not altogether clear. Did their sorrow mean they were prevented from seeing the Lord or did God purposely prevent them from seeing for his own purposes?

Could be. God's purposes are often beyond us. "As high as the heaven are above the earth" (Isa 55:8-9) and all that. Just because things appear to us to be without purpose or meaning it does not mean that they are without meaning. Think of young children who have to have some painful procedure carried out. They have no understanding of its purpose and why father and mother allow this to take place. As adults we know why but the immature child can't fathom it. Sometimes this situation may also happen with God and us. The Cross event is perhaps a good example of that same thing.

But, it's exhilarating to hear them say that it is now the third day since the crucifixion because in this day is embedded the hope of Israel, the hope of all creation, Resurrection day. And Jesus has already mysteriously alluded to this day (13:33)!! (The expression is used numbers of times in the Scriptures.)

But, these disciples are not living the the reality of the third day yet. So Jesus expounds the Word 'concerning himself'. What a bible lesson that must have been with the written word being opened up by the Word Himself!! Their hearts begin to burn within them. They urge Him to stay with them and as he takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, their eyes are opened and they recognise him. The burning in their hearts has created such an ardency (derived from Latin meaning burn) that despite the time of the day/night they return to their brethren and tell them what has happened.

The same third day will always suggest the first day of shameful death but 'in the third day' lies the hope of all mankind.

CHRIST IS RISEN! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia

Charles Wesley, a genius for expressing a heart-deep Anglicanism, wrote over six and a half thousand hymns that cover the Christian year. This verse below is a typical Wesley stanza for Easter, Resurrection Day.


Come, let us with our Lord arise,

our Lord who made both earth and skies,
who died to save the world he made
and rose triumphant from the dead;
he rose, the prince of life and peace,
and stamped the day for ever his.

What struck me on hearing this hymn was the first and last lines. I love the force of the word 'stamped' because it conveys the power of His Resurrection to set aside that first day of the week as a regular Resurrection Day for the church and the world. This day, this time has His seal, his imprimaturial ownership upon it. The stamp upon this day pervades all time, which has become redemptive time, the Day that the Lord has made, the Day of Deliverance, the end of any pretensions of darkness and death to be the final word. God's final life-giving word is now fully revealed in the Risen One, Jesus Christ.

'The Water of Life' is Thirsty for God!

Good Friday service centred around the seven sayings from the Cross. The saying that struck me with great force was Jesus' words, 'I thirst' recorded in St John's account.

Jesus gives his mother into John's care and following this action it is recorded: And Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), 'I thirst'. The ordeal of crucifixion tries every tortured body to this place of thirst. Painful seconds have turned into minutes into hours and the throats of the hanged are dry and without moisture. And like any man, Jesus is thirsty.

We see now the great humility of our Lord who submits himself to great thirst when he is the giver of the Water of Life, the very Water of Life itself!

However, it has also been suggested that our Lord's cry is a thirst for God Himself as in Psalm 63.

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee,

my soul thirsts for thee;
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

If that be so, and it would fit well with St John's style of always saying much more than appears to be being said at face value, it would also remind us of St John's ongoing theme that Jesus is always in step with his Father, always dependent on the Father and always seeking the will of his Father.

Shame & Glory

Isa 50:4-9a; Ps 70; Heb 12:1-3; John 13:21-32

These passages are a study in shame and glory! Jesus, our Lord, 'endured the cross, despising the shame' because of 'the joy set before him', the glory of being the vindicated One exalted at the right hand of the Father and thereby bringing glory to the Father by bringing many sons and daughters into glory too!

St John's account of Jesus' dismissal of Judas precipitates a Satan-inspired betrayal which will be a means of bringing shame upon Jesus for death by Roman crucifixion is death in shame. Yet, Jesus, after the dismissal, immediately speaks of glory for both himself and God. The shame accompanying the finishing of his mission --'It is finished' -- lifts up the name of God!

But, how can such evil glorify God? We only know by faith that it does. Just as the man born blind was not a result of immediate sin, said Jesus, but an occasion for the manifestation of the 'works of God' so the shame of Messiah works to the redemption of all people.

It was moving to hear the German Chancellor speak to the Israeli Knesset identifying the Shoah (Holocaust) as Germany's shame. However, God does not want for our acknowledgment of our complicity in the death of his Son as much as our simple acceptance that He died for our sins.

Waiting on and for God

Waiting.
Waiting is a decided feature of everyday life, however, much we try to avoid it. We wait to get results from medical tests, from academic examinations, from appeals against various rulings. We wait for courts to decide on certain matters, for the cabinet of government ministers to make decisions affecting our lives. We wait in queues, in peak traffic, in doctors' surgeries, in hospital corridors and schools. We wait for the evening meal to cook and be served. Waiting.

Waiting is also very important in our walk with God. It can often be construed as passive but it is also active according to scripture. The idea of waiting on God is an active process where we are desiring to know what God wants of us next. In Psalm 130 the writer talks of waiting for God more than watchmen who wait for the morning (repeated).

I imagine these watchmen staying up all night for their shift and eagerly scanning the heavens for the first signs of light so that they can finish for the night! The psalmist says that he is doing this and more. His eagerness to see the signs of God's gracious presence is greater than these watchmen looking for the beginnings of dawn. In Psalm 123, servants and maids look to the 'hands' of their masters and mistresses to see what is to be done for them. Waiting in these contexts is active.

But, waiting is often just sitting quietly, patiently with God, sometimes feeling nothing, receiving nothing, hearing nothing. I heard a story recently from the experience of a Dr Beuttler, who told of a pastor who heard the Lord tell him to go to his church down the street, in the dead of a snowy night. In obedience he went there and sat on the platform and waited for God. Nothing happened. No religious feelings, no voices, no revelations but he just stayed there until he felt released later that morning to go home.

At the next Sunday service, during the general hubbub that can occur before the start of Christian worship services, suddenly a hush came over the congregation as if the noise switch had been turned off. The pastor preparing some items on the platform looked up and saw a figure walk in through the church doors dressed in white. He walked down the left side aisle, touched a person that had a gift of speaking of tongues but hadn't been used in that gift for a long time who immediately began to speak in tongues. The figure continued on down the aisle, came to the front of the church, paused, looked up at the pastor as if in recognition, continued on and walked up the other side aisle and touched another person who was an interpreter of tongues but hadn't been used for some time in that gift. By that stage, the first speaker had stopped and the second began to interpret. The figure continued up the aisle reaching the front doors of the building and left. At the conclusion of messages, the 'power of God hit the place', and service went on for 3 hours! Oh, that we would listen when the Lord asks us to wait because he who calls has already planted the desire to wait in our hearts in the first place.

Waiting in suffering

Our four bible readings for Lent 5 had many themes binding them together but the one that first came to me was waiting in the midst of suffering.

In Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones vision, the people of God have been waiting for salvation for 70 years and now the Lord purposes to rebuild the nation. In Psalm 130, the lines 'I wait for the Lord' is announced 'out of the depths'. Romans 8 (vv5-11) contrasts those with their inner hearts captive to the 'flesh', human nature that remains in rebellion to God to those living according to the Spirit. Verse 11 may suggest the present or the future or perhaps both. The Spirit dwelling in the Christian means life now and in the future; but in the now, we wait while the Spirit and the flesh struggle within and cause us to suffer (vv 18-25).

And the gospel is according to St John 11, the raising of Lazarus. We note that first Jesus waits two days more after he hears the news that the man whom he loves is dying!! By the time Jesus gets to Lazarus, he has been buried for four days. Suffering is evident in Martha and Mary who question Jesus about his lack of speed. 'Lord if you had been here . . . . . . !

Have we not said that to God in our depths experience? Lord if you had done something differently! If only you would rearrange the universe to suit me! Lord, you ought to be a god who obeys my bidding!! After all, I give to the church and I even go to church! And now I ask for this one thing, and you deny me.

With all these questions we reveal that we still have a long way to go. Interestingly, two of these passages mention the important thing that needs to be driven deep into our hearts but against which our whole socialisation rebels. We are not the centre of the universe. I am not the centre of the universe. We are not what it's all about!! The whole of creation is not about our glory or aimed at getting glory for man.

It's about God's glory! (Man's glory is a derivative of that glorifying purpose!) In Ezekiel 36 (v32) the text says, 'it is not for your sake that I will act'. In John 11, Lazarus' raising is explicitly said by Jesus to be 'for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it' (v 4).

Meanwhile we wait suffering and in our suffering we are changed if we allow God into our suffering. Of course this is hard. Soul-making is hard for us but necessary if we are to be redemptive world-makers.

Anaesthetising ourselves to death

When the Orwellian 1984 arrived, said Neil Postman, people breathed a sigh of relief thinking all is well because we were not oppressed by any 'Big Brother'. But, the earlier prophetic voice of Aldous Huxley had argued in Brave New World (1932) that people would finally choose to be anaesthetised rather than face reality.

And, one of our great modern methods of anaesthetising ourselves against reality is entertainment or in Blaise Pascal's word, diversions. For Pascal, diversions were one way mankind avoids thinking about the reality facing it at death. And the most pervasive entertainment diversion of this age is television. Neil Postman said in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985),

"It is my object in the rest of this book to make the epistemology of television visible again. I will try to demonstrate by concrete example ... that television's conversations promote incoherence and triviality ... and that television speaks in only one persistent voice — the voice of entertainment. Beyond that, I will try to demonstrate that to enter the great television conversation, one American cultural institution after another is learning to speak its terms. Television, in other words, is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. This is exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago."

I am not against television per se. Rather, I fear that our uncritical watching of the magical screen is gradually by stealth squeezing us into the mold of the world by the spirit of this age and deadening us to the urgent, on-going need to be remolded in our inner lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Non-Christian prophets warned us that this was coming but we seem to be oblivious to the juggernaut of entertainment.

We get our news through TV, our 'reality' through TV, our politics through TV, our language through TV but fail to take account of the issue that it wouldn't be on the screen if it didn't entertain. Think of all that has had to be edited out to make sure the final presentation entertains and holds our easily divertible attention. And further, don't we realise that our hearts, our inner selves are being shaped by this form of communication?

The other effect is how this addiction to entertainment works in supposedly non-entertainment spheres such as church meetings. Much complaint about these meetings pivots on the sometimes unspoken assumption that such meetings ought to entertain the faithful. I wonder whether we ever stop in our narcissistic ramblings to realise that the church service is not about us. It's a divine service because in the service we serve the divine. It's entertainment for God if one likes but our entertainment is secondary.

I am not arguing for the inherent piety of boring services because boring preachers (and others) are often afflicted with narcissism. They're boring because they won't shut up, listen to God for a change and die to self. That aside, our primary way of judging church should never be, was it entertaining? To do so, is to have fallen captive to the spirit of entertainment that now holds terrible sway over western culture.

Making a redemptive difference

Interesting modern phrase is expressed in the desire 'to make a difference'. Being somewhat skeptical of all catch phrases, I have regarded this one as something akin to human hubris. We put huff and puff into our work imagining that it matters a damn in the total scheme of things. When we really subject our vaunted imaginings to the rule of sober judgement do we imagine that our dust-like temporality makes a difference in a world beset with the problems this world experiences?

And, what type of difference are we talking about? Is it a difference that we imagine will establish an 'immortality project' that will mean we deny death as the lawful end of this mortal life?

I was at a funeral today and realised again how the liturgical tradition to which I belong stemming from the old catholic faith mentions repeatedly the certainty of death for this present life. Yet, modern man does all it can to avoid this unpalatable fact and instead seeks 'to make a difference in this life' because otherwise, what else is there?

Christians unfortunately are caught up by the same spirit. Funerals ought to be attended more because of their rude reminder that 'in the midst of life we are in death': funerals should shock us into living as if this life were a dress rehearsal not the actual play.

The ancients knew this truth whereas we tend to hide from it. Even the Anglican Church of Australia's prayer book of 1995 no longer has a funeral service within it while the 1978 edition of the prayer book did. No doubt various reasons relating to space will be advanced for this omission but it's interesting that it is the funeral service that is deleted.

However, my cynicism about the phrase 'making a difference' is tempered by the fact that I do think that people are in the world to make a difference, a 'redemptive' difference: redemptive gives change some direction and reduces man's tendency to take prideful centre stage. For if we yearn for redemptive change, then it is the Spirit of God yearning together with our spirit that promotes this desire. This understanding cuts down our tendency to elevate ourselves above our station and calling.

En [light] ed Suffering

The readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, the morning Eucharist, were focussed on light and sight. From the Old Testament reading in 1 Samuel, we see the choosing of David as the next king to replace Saul, how 'man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart'.

The reading from St John's gospel account (ch 9) tells of the healing of the man born blind. The blind man receives his sight but he becomes enlightened over and above the ecclesiastical leaders of the day who are revealed as truly blind as to whom Jesus is. But, to be enlightened costs the once blind man his place in the synagogue. To be enlightened is not to enter a suffering-free zone but to enter into suffering with one's eyes open.

At Evensong, we hear the cries of pain of the Hebrews in Egypt as their burdens are increased because of the promise of deliverance! Later in Matthew 27 we watch the betrayed and abandoned Jesus arraigned before Pilate. Pilate's wife suffers in her dreams. Judas suffers for betraying innocent blood. Pilate washes his hands of 'the blood of this innocent man' and suffers the agony of knowing that he has condemned a righteous man to death. So much for Roman justice! Jesus suffers rejection, flogging and finally condemnation to the cross.

This strange juxtaposition of light and darkness, seeing and not seeing, deliverance and suffering, reveals the life we now live. A surd of joy and sorrow it has been called. Surds cannot be resolved 'rationally' they can only be accepted as part of existence. We can along with all sufferers sigh but we sigh knowing the outcome of all suffering ends in perpetual joy.

Jesus at Jacob's well in Samaria

Many levels are evident in this account. Unfortunately, the story is very often imagined to be just a personal conversion incident. However, much more lies within its lineaments. Too often we focus on the woman. What if we rather look at Jesus, see what he is doing for a change, see what the Father is doing, and understand the significance of what they are doing.

Jesus 'must needs go through Samaria'. A strange statement because most Jews must needs never go through Samaria. If you were a pious Jewish Rabbi, you went the long way around Samaria and avoided going through the accursed place. Samaritans were heretics and accursed! Jesus waits in the heat of the day for a woman, this woman who is going to be bear testimony to his character in the city of Sychar, a ritually unclean place. But, this Rabbi, was concerned always to be doing the will of the One who sent him (v 34).

Jesus asks for a drink, which on the surface of things seems so pedestrian and trivial. However, with St John, every detail is important. The seen and the unseen things are intertwined but it is the unseen (the spiritual, the things of the Spirit) that one must understand in order to comprehend what Jesus is doing.

Jesus innocently asks for water but he quickly moves to distance his request from the water in Jacob's well. The water is Jesus Himself who is the salvation of the world (including accursed Samaritans in Sychar). The woman's attempts to treat him like a crazy Jew who doesn't know the proper manners of the time and embroil him in a Jewish-Samaritan argument gets derailed with Jesus moving from water to truthful worship that eclipses either Samaritan or Jewish worship. He then moves further when she asks about Messiah to reveal himself as that One.

The growing spiritual awakening of this woman prompts her to go and share what she knows with those in the city. A correspondent recently, quoting William Law, said that Christians are those who have died, gone to heaven and returned with good news!! It seemed the case with this woman. She had experienced the true living water with Jesus, the heavenly water, and went off impelled to share what she now had experienced.

Many of the Samaritans came to believe in our Lord as the Saviour of the world firstly because of the testimony of the woman but eventually because of hearing Jesus' own words during the two days he stayed with them. So the Word made flesh 'tabernacles' as the true temple of God with these outcast people bringing Himself as their salvation because God wants all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Sleeping in busyness

The paradox in the Western business mindset, where so many things, if not everything temporal, is governed by a market mindset, is that the West is asleep in its busyness! William Law (1686-1761) wrote the classic, The spirit of prayer: or, The soul arising out of the vanity of time into the riches of eternity begins with man slumbering in darkness.

[Pryr-1.1-1] The greatest Part of Mankind, nay of Christians, may be said to be asleep; and that particular Way of Life, which takes up each Man's Mind, Thoughts, and Actions, may be very well called his particular Dream. This Degree of Vanity is equally visible in every Form and Order of Life. The Learned and the Ignorant, the Rich and the Poor, are all in the same State of Slumber, only passing away a short Life in a different kind of Dream. But why so? It is because Man has an Eternity within him, is born into this World, not for the Sake of living here, not for any Thing this World can give him, but only to have Time and Place, to become either an eternal Partaker of a Divine Life with God, or to have an hellish Eternity among fallen Angels: And therefore, every Man who has not his Eye, his Heart, and his Hands, continually governed by this twofold Eternity, may justly be said to be fast asleep, to have no awakened Sensibility of Himself. And a Life devoted to the Interests and Enjoyments of this World, spent and wasted in the Slavery of earthly Desires, may be truly called a Dream; as having all the Shortness, Vanity, and Delusion of a Dream; only with this great Difference, that when a Dream is over, nothing is lost but Fictions and Fancies; but when the Dream of Life is ended only by Death, all that Eternity is lost for which we were brought into Being.

Pausing in silence

We are less inclined these days to repress our sexuality-consciousness but wholly given over to repressing our 'God-consciousness' (Viktor Frankl). Not that that is new in our era because mankind has always be active in the wilful suppression of the truth (St Paul). One way we avoid God and the truth of God is by busyness. Carl Jung was held to have said, 'busyness is not of the devil; it is the devil'!

Even in church, congregants keep themselves busy by 'redeeming the time' (!), by doing things that keep their attention diverted from what God might be saying to them at this time. They talk and socialise before the service in such a way that God may be kept out of their conversation.

Churches can be known for rushing through services and denominations once known for the ability to pause during the service, so that people may remember what they are doing, are perhaps doing this less today. We think we will be heard by God for our much talking and noise. We forget that God is interested in teaching us to be present to Him.

Pausing is a vital activity for churches to do. Take time to pause after the sermon, for example. Perhaps, people are thinking, Thank God that's over! Now we can get on to the next thing. But, God is waiting for us to say, Speak Lord for your servant is listening. Few sermons or bible readings do not have the potential for God's present word to us to be conveyed.

The audience of ONE

I remember seeing a Roman churchman being assailed by a gushing, smart Alec interviewer on some issue that involved his having taken some action that would displease many Australian people. 'Aren't you afraid that doing such a thing will cause you to be seen by others outside the church in a negative light?'

'I have only one primary commitment, he said, and that is to please the One who is the divine head of the Church. I am much more concerned about His opinion of us than of any other person or group of people in Australia or anywhere else.' The reporter suddenly lost all her gush! I suspect this occurred because this churchman wasn't playing by the normal rules the media operates with: that self-presentation (Goffman) or 'impression management' is always centre stage and therefore every word and gesture is calculated to put one's self in the best light. But, what do you do with someone who has a higher calling than that?

On another occasion I heard a Cistercian monk being interviewed about the work of his particular abbey and being asked, 'Do you make cheese, honey, plough the land and grow crops?' 'No, said the monk, we simply pray.' The interviewer was entirely thrown by this answer because to 'simply pray' didn't fit into his notion of proper work. The monk went on to say, sensing the young man's puzzlement, 'that we believe that all of the energy of the good work done in the world comes via prayer!'

And, I sometimes wonder with the world's ability to squeeze the Church into its mold (Rom 12: 2, Phillips) http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/JBPNT.htm, that we have lost a pervading sense of the divine 'audience of One' (Os Guinness) http://tinyurl.com/ysa6kq who calls us for His glory and His pleasure alone.

church boredom and how not to think about God

Church services are invariably connected with boredom. Growing up in Pentecostalist circles, the services I attended were sometimes boring because of the number of words spoken, mainly by persons other than the people of God!! And there was nothing to look at, no pictures, no symbols, no smells to enjoy as in Orthodox worship for example, little sound (except that of the preacher's voice), no colours or candles. Being partly sensory, children especially need the sights and sounds of the Faith enacted before them. We all do. Holy sensory-rich rituals arising out of living faith is most necessary and each is dead without the other.

When we get bored, though, maybe we should just learn to sit with our boredom and not try to use the modern panacea of entertainment to suppress it. Sometimes, the Lord is in the midst of boredom and we may miss Him if we try to avoid it.

Nowadays, it seems that churches are so overly sensitive to what outsiders think that they have to adopt the modes and manners of the current 'plausibility structure' (Berger), which in part has led to the model of church services as entertainment. We are frightened are they that people will get bored with 'normal' church services that we forget that primarily the church is here not to entertain or soothe people's fears. The congregation assembles to proclaim and listen to the Word given by all available means participating in the drama of redemptive love outpoured.

The blindnesses we Christians don't see

A good friend of mine recently said to me, 'see your blindness'.

Paradoxical words because how can the blind see? It's like a Zen koan, an insoluble puzzle that forces discursive reason to be silent and stop its incessant chatter. Only the Holy Spirit of Truth can cause us to 'see our blindness' and then heal us.

The third chapter of Jonah revealed a blindness to me: when the people of Nineveh heard that judgement was coming upon their city, they began to amend their lives! They were sorry, yes, but it was a sorrow, borne out of a change in attitude, in heart, which issued in action.

The Reformers, Luther and Calvin, believed that the Christian life began in repentance and was to continue in repentance, a continual renewing of the mind or understanding; not merely an intellectual approval of interesting proposals but a divinely, initiated spiritual work involving the deep heart.

'Be not conformed to this world': I was educated early in Pentecostalism and Brethrenism - a strange mixture - but both emphasised the dangers of conformity to the world. Of course, my early education was about girls not wearing lipstick, young people going to dances and the cinema, drinking alcohol, coarse language and playing cards.

A Pentecostal preacher once shattered my easy complacency about standards by sharing that Pentecostals throughout the world had wildly divergent ideas about 'worldliness'. He joked that in one place in the deep south of the U.S. when he asked for a cup of coffee, he was told, "Coffee, coffee, down here we don't even drink whiskey!" What the preacher explained was that we always have to be aware of worldliness but we also have to be aware that the 'world' changes and that 'worldliness' in one generation or in one country may not be 'worldliness' in another. Some preaching about 'worldliness' is close to stupidity.

The Church at many levels has now become openly conformable to the present age. This situation is not because church members wear lipstick, dance, go to the pictures or say 'bloody'.

We must ask God to show us our blindness, our willingness to compromise with the spirit of the age so that our lives are little different from those outside the church. Our virtual atheism as defined by John Wesley, where we can consider anything as outside the superintendence of almighty God, is our biggest compromise with the world. Too many swallow camels but choke on gnats!

Christian Atheism!

"The great lesson that our blessed Lord inculcates here...is that God is in all things, and that we are to see the Creator in the glass [mirror] of every creature; that we should use and look upon nothing as separate from God, which indeed is a kind of practical atheism; but with a true magnificence of thought survey heaven and earth and all that is therein as contained by God in the hollow of his hand, who by his intimate presence holds them all in being, who pervades and activates the whole created frame, and is in a true sense the soul of the universe."

These pungent words were given to me by an overseas correspondent and come from a sermon by John Wesley (1748) on the 'Sermon on the Mount'. Part of the context for his words apparently were that Wesley originally baulked at the idea of preaching in the open air until he realised that the Lord Jesus had preached outside! But, more especially for our edification is that Wesley fixed on the truth that nothing is separate from God and that to so regard any thing as if it is separate, is to practise 'a kind of practical atheism'. What a challenging word!

Herman Dooyeweerd, a Reformed Dutch philosopher of genius, could be said to have built his life and philosophical endeavour around the revelation that creation is meaning and only God has being. And, he made the further point that because of the solidarity of all in the apostasy of primal mankind, all experience to some extent, 'the emptiness of an experience of the temporal world which seems to be shut up in itself.' Because of the inroads of 'Humanistic existentialism' he said, we all experience creation at times, as if it were disconnected from God and without meaning. However, the Christian also is made aware that such an experience is untrue.

Ronald Rolheiser (The Shattered Lantern) raised the issue of 'unbelief among believers' and argues that 'our own [Christian] consciousness borders on agnosticism'!! Christians give God a certain area within our church buildings but a confined space or even no space everywhere else. 'Business is business' it will be said, with the idea that the 'religious stuff' is just for Sunday worship. And, now even there, we have the market analysts reigning. This situation arises said Rolheiser because 'God is always partially obscure and we are always partially blind.' He argued that we need to wake out of our deadly sleep for God is present to us but we are invariably not present to him because our hearts are cluttered by trivial pursuits.