Tag: Faith

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February 2016

February 12th 2016: Galatians 3:1-14

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

Did you get it yesterday?

One of Paul’s favourite writing traits is to repeat himself. If a point’s worth making, why not make it over, and over, and over, and over again? As one of the first great evangelistic Christian preachers, Paul wanted to leave his hearers, those who had his letters read to them, in absolutely no doubt whatsoever: the law of the Old Testament does not save anyone. It does not provide a path to salvation. It only brings the possibility of fallure, of death, ultimately. Jesus, the Way, the Truth, the Life is, in his very nature, the answer to this problem. He is where life is. He is its source, it flows from him, into the lives of all who will receive it. I’m challenged again and again in recent times, is my faith in my relationship with God, a relationship which was made possible by Jesus Christ, or is it in an idea, a set of morals, a way of living? There’s nothing wrong with living well, seeking to honour God, love others and love ourselves, but if loving Jesus and making him known is not at the heart of it, we’re the ones who are missing out. Fight against any instinct or temptation to be ensnared in law or legalism. Embrace love, embrace Jesus as he opens his arms of love to you today.

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February 2016

February 11th 2016: Galatians 2:11-21

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

If you’re a Christian, and you have been for any length of time, you’ll probably know this passage. It’s one of Paul’s most famous ‘explanations’ of the insufficiency of the Old Testament Law for salvation. I use inverted commas because his explanation is closely-argued and takes some teasing out. It’s a rich banquet of hope which reveals more and more tender morsels of delight with each fresh reading. This is definitely not a passage to skim read once and move on!

As I reflect on it today, the challenge it presents to me is this: I’ve been freed from the demands of the Old Testament law, because they were fulfilled by Jesus. I’ve been freed, made new, made alive, by the Spirit of God, which dwells within me. All things are possible with God. All things are permissible, even as many things are not helpful for me, for all people.

So, I need to stop living as if there is any other law but love. I do not benefit from exchanging one crippling law code, the one of the Old Testament, for another, the weight of expectation I place on myself and allow others to place on me. In fact I suffer. Grievously. So, more to the point, do those around me. Even more to the point, this was never, as far as I can see, God’s intention. Freedom is freedom. Freedom with caveats or constraints is no kind of freedom at all, it is the exchange of one set of barriers for another. That’s the point of the good news Jesus came to tell and to live out for us. Every barrier between God and man is now broken down. We might try and build them up again to make ourselves more comfortable – after all, most of us like to, actually, give control to others, most of us are used to and prefer to carry an element of caution in the way we live, which quickly morphs into fear and anxiety if given the chance. Freedom is freedom is freedom is freedom, is….freedom. Jesus did not die and rise that we might seek to enslave ourselves again.If our approaches to faith, the way our Churches or faith communities function, force us into a way of being and existing which stipulates the possibility of condemnation, we have missed the point. Where the spirit of the Lord, there is freedom.

Of course, we are to live responsibly in the way we love God, others and ourselves. We’re to make good use of the gifts we are given in seeking to serve others, build others up, building the kingdom of God. By no means do we have carte blanche to live just as we please to the detriment of anyone else. We are freed for lives of joyful obedience. Obedience to the law of love, to live the way of the master, the way of the cross, the way that leads to life, the way that glorifies God.

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February 2016

February 9th 2016: Galatians 2:1-10

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

As I read this passage first, it seemed complicated and convoluted. Paul, continuing to tell the story of his journey in faith and, as seems common with him, working hard to justify the vaunted position that he claims for himself as an apostle. If we were doing an in-depth, line by line study of this passage, I’m certain that there would be much for us to chew over about the claims Paul makes, what God has done for him, in him and through him, and the fruit that bore for the Church then, and continues to today.

But then I read it again, and my heart soared. I actually found myself rejoicing. Here is Paul, a pillar of the faith, discussing Peter, the rock on whom Jesus said he would build his Church, and other early followers of Jesus, and what are they ultimately doing? They’re trying to work out what it means to follow Jesus, to be the Church, where they find themselves. They were in at the beginning of the Church, before structures and traditions had taken hold, and they didn’t know what to do. However much we look to them as people who set the tone for the life of faith and were examples to follow, and they were, these were not faultless perfect people who never made mistakes, said the wrong thing at the wrong moment, or dishonoured God. These were broken, honest, real people, called by God to follow him, lead his people and give their lives for his good news, just as he asks us today. As we try and work out what it means to follow Jesus, be comforted that none of us has ever done it perfectly before, but we are still beloved, called, equipped and sent, just as Paul was.

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February 2016

February 8th 2016: Galatians 1

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

We live in a world that seems to be, at least to me, starved of good news. It’s as if, somewhere in the ether, an agreement has been reached that good news will only be shared in a time of extreme emergency. If you’re like me, you end up feeling so in need of something positive that you’ll look all over for it. I’d get a lot more done if I didn’t spend so much of my time scrolling through social media feeds looking for something positive to improve my mood or my day.

Have I, then, lost sight of the same thing as the Galatians Paul is writing too here? They have the good news. The good news. The GOOD news, the kind that really is good, does not disappoint or let down and does not fade away after one glorious moment or cycle. Jesus is alive. He did to free us from sin, defeated death by rising again and calls us to spread the news abroad: hope is here, freedom is here, joy is really, really possible. Peace can be yours, mine, everyone’s. All things are possible, through him.

So why do I feel so short of good news? Why did the Galatians, apparently, go looking for a good time elsewhere, very soon after hearing and accepting this gospel of Jesus? It’s a mystery isn’t it. The most exciting news that there could possibly be, and we have a tendency, a desire even, to consume it, like anything else we scroll past online, and then forget about it, almost as soon as we’ve seen it. Or maybe that’s just me.

Don’t get tricked in to thinking that we need more good news than we already have. Life can be hard, impossible even, but we have an unchanging God, whose unchanging love for humanity led him to dwell amongst his people and pursue relationship with them unendingly until he had succeeded. We are not alone. Life is not all bad news. Rejoice today!

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February 2016

February 1st 2016: Matthew 27:11-26

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

I talk too much. Especially under pressure. Especially when I’m under pressure and I think that the pressure being placed upon me is unjust, or has put me in danger, even the kind of danger that will end up with me looking stupid. I’ve never been in the position of having to defend myself for the sake of saving my life. I’ll be bluntly honest here and say I hope I never will be either. I can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like. Much is made of Jesus’s silence as he stands before Pilate here. He gives nothing away. He does not identify himself, he is not charged with anything, he does not accept or deny anything. He just is. In this moment of almost complete powerlessness, when the very real temptation to seek a way out must have been somewhere nearby, light shone simply by accepting what was to come.

What can I learn from this? I want to be less defensive. I want to be more positive. I want to be more aware, more confident in who I am, because of who God is and what Jesus did in going through this event and what was to follow. I want to keep things simple. I want to think and worry less. I want to be where I am and let God bring about what God is bringing about, even if it’s only through my obedience.

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Disability

#fullaccesschurch – An Impossible Dream?

This past week, Disability and Jesus lead David Lucas declared a day of social media action with regard to disability and access to Church. It seems to have been an extremely fruitful and wide-reaching demonstration of unity and desire for change amongst those with an interest in disability and Church, along with a much-needed poke to people at all levels of Church life to think about whether the Church of which they are part is a provider or denier of access. Even General Synod got in on the act tweeting its support for the campaign. One can only hope this is followed by action. If you want to learn more about what was said, the stories that were told on the day, the conversations that sprung up, and some of the hopes that there are for what is to come, you can follow the hashtag for the day here. Much was achieved in a short space of time. Much more may be to come.

Naomi Jacobs has written an incisive and constructive response to the day here. I’d encourage you to read it.

Over the last few months, as I’ve spent my first prolonged period in full-time Christian ministry, one of the key areas that I’ve found myself struggling with is that of authority and control. As a Church of England (Assistant) Curate, there are some people that would defer to me in a lot of things. Thankfully not many of them are in my Church! Some people like to be under authority, they like to know where they are. They like boundaries, a sense of what is right and wrong, what or who is allowed in, and who should be kept out. Some people are, naturally, quite the opposite, straining against any boundaries that you might set as a leader, and indeed questioning what right any leader might have to set those boundaries in the first place. I’ve written before on the question of who, and what kind of person, do we want to be led by. Another way of putting it is, who do we want to submit to? Some of us want to say that we submit to God, but I myself find that a daily, or several times daily, decision that I have to make. Others are happy to submit to authority exercised by government (Jesus seems to have told us to do this, but what does it look like in our lives and in our society?)

We want to accept that God has us in the palm of his hand, that nothing can take us from his hand because we have been given to Jesus, as today’s lectionary gospel reading tells us. To do this, we work towards accepting that we are part of a new family, we have been adopted in to God’s family. We were adopted not because we chose to be, because we satisfied some criteria of suitability, but because God desired it to be so. We are his. All of creation is reconciled to God in and through Jesus. We have been brought together. It has happened. We are no longer strangers to the arms of God, as an excellent recent Vineyard song puts it. We might feel like it. You might not even think that God exists (well done for reading this far if that’s your point of view). We have, though, been included in God, and in his family. We are invited to lives of full participation. Full participation in what God is bringing about. For some reason best known to himself, he wants to partner with us in bringing hope, joy and peace to the poor, the widow and the orphan, the dispossessed, the unjustly treated, those who treat unjustly (or, to put it another way, everyone). This is the holy improvisation that we are invited to. None of us know how to do “Church” well, and what is Church anyway? All we’re called to do is love God with as much as we can, love ourselves, and love our neighbours. If we do this, if we believe in Jesus, the one he has sent, then we are doing what we’re supposed to. Jesus said so.

And so, and here’s the kicker, it troubles me when all we seek is inclusion. For inclusion and exclusion to exist and be exercised, there has to be someone making the decision to include or exclude. Someone, somewhere, has to have been given, or taken for themselves, the power to decide who is in and who is out, what is acceptable and what isn’t. A lot of our society is built on premises like this. I’m not sure that God designed it that way. Perhaps it was designed that way. There’s every chance I’m wrong and I’m speaking out of turn, but is it enough to give “power”, “control” and “authority” to the Church to include or exclude according to theology, economic “realities”, buildings or anything else, when the actual possibility of hope is not just to be included in something I was previously excluded from, but to participate in the way of life all of creation was originally designed for? There’s not a person alive, or an institution in existence which is able to reverse God’s declaration of life, hope, and a future over the creation he has reconciled to himself. I can preach up a storm, theologise (entirely speculatively I might add, just as I’m doing here) until I’m blue in the face. I can lock a certain group out of my building or my community life (literally or figuratively). I can validate this with all the proof-texting, systematic theology and apparent tradition and reason in the world, but that does nothing to diminish the power of what God has said and what God has done. All are welcome, all are welcome. All have a part to play. There’s not a Christian in the world who doesn’t have a ministry of some kind. There’s not a person that God does not want to be part of his family.

To simply ask the Church for inclusion ascribes the Church with too much power, I suppose is my point. What actually needs to happen, in my view, is that all of us who lead Churches at any level need to humble ourselves. The Church is God’s. It is not ours to maintain. He is growing it. He is extending its borders. It’s not ours to include or exclude. It’s ours to acknowledge that all are “included”. No-one is in the kingdom of God to passively watch the show as it unfolds though. We are making the show, with God as our director. He’s calling us to improvise our parts after the pattern of what we see him doing. To limit the scope of the Church to that of an ever-expanding club is to miss the point entirely. God is far ahead of us, preparing a place for all of us. Do we really want the Church to contain and belong to all of us? Or just some of us?

#fullaccesschurch already exists? Do we want it to or will we continue to think we have the power and the authority to pretend it doesn’t? Is it an impossible dream or a reality that we deny at our peril?

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Faith

The Seduction of Difference

This is a tentative post. I know I’m not much known for being tentative in what I have to say. Sometimes it would probably help me if I was a bit more restrained. That said, what I am sharing this morning has been on my mind for a number of weeks and it just won’t go away, so, in a sense, I need to write it, even if you don’t need to read it. That’s most of the reason people write and say things anyway isn’t it, the faintly ridiculous conception that what we have in our minds is so crucial, so necessary for the future of mankind that we have to get it out immediately. I’m fairly sure that most of my opinions, including this one, have been written and talked about by other people in the past. They must have been. After all, if nothing else, theological college taught me there’s no such thing as an original thought. So, with various caveats in place, and having lowered your expectations of the quality of this piece sufficiently, here goes…

I think as a society we have fallen for something which I’m grandly (see, it is capitalised, that makes it grand) calling The Seduction of Difference. Just this morning, I heard UKIP’s Health Spokeswoman (apparently they have one, although it has to be said it sounded as if she’d just got in from a heavy night out) declaiming loudly that we don’t want “Health Tourism”. “We” in this case is us, you and me, right-thinking British people, unsullied by foreign genes or history, unless they “add” something to society (the “adding” is a nebulous concept. I think we all get to collectivise together and decide just how much “adding” is sufficient in order to pass go, collect £200 – but not Universal Credit, oh no not that for Johnny Immigrant, unless they pass a test, which we set, naturally – and keep Pall Mall to ourselves). We wouldn’t give a Work Visa to someone with a pre-existing health condition. Nobody wants this. Apparently. Well, I for one have never thought about it, but on reflection, as I sit here with my pre-existing health condition (the mind boggles at what a post-existing health condition might be, I suppose that’s death, unless we’re being eschatological this morning) I am not sure that I want to be disqualified from anything simply on the basis that my health might have some impact on my productivity, should I ever wish to emigrate. That day marches ever closer. House for Duty Priest in the Bahamas I’m looking at your job description.

So far so flippant. But is it?  You see, it is logical to say that someone who doesn’t “add” to society shouldn’t find a welcome in it. After all, if they’re foreign, they have a society of their own. Apart from those who are fleeing persecution, genocide or other things like that. Seems to me they are of no fixed societal abode. But where does it stop? If we keep out those who are not indigenously British, and have a pre-existing health condition, isn’t it logical to extend the exclusion to those who are British and have one? After all times are hard for the economy. We all pay our taxes. We don’t want our taxes to support anyone but us. We don’t want to consider ourselves a society, least of all a compassionate one. It’s survival of the fittest dontcha know. And any time it feels like we might not be the fittest, the goalposts must be moved, so that we can feel good about ourselves again. Until our world becomes so small, so inward-looking, our perspective so warped, that we consider ourselves the centre of the universe, and all other people merely irritations in our glorious orbit.

Fortunately I’m a Hard Working Man, from a Hard Working Family. Some days I think I might count as a Real Person (seriously, that’s a slogan being used in the election rhetoric. What’s an Unreal Person? Boris?) so I’ll probably be ok, but we’re on a slippery slope that I’ve written and spoken about before. We are Seduced by Difference. We are fearful of the other. We want to protect ourselves, more than caring for the poor (who will always be with us, someone famous said that once). We want to protect ourselves, only seeing others flourish if we can flourish along with them, or at least on their coat-tails. We are told we deserve this. We are told, therefore, that anything that stops us flourishing must be quashed, squashed, eradicated. Scared of homeless people? Ignore them. Want an excuse for your  lack of contentment? We’ll find one. It’ll probably be economic. Want a vision for a better, brighter future? We don’t really have one of those.

Except we do. Some of us at least. We just celebrated Easter. The recognition that someone who was so radical, so different, so uncontrollable that the authorities of the day had him killed, changed the world, the entire course of human history. Jesus stood up to the injustices meted out against humanity and defeated them. He also took the consequences of any just judgement which might be counted against us. He did this so that we, you and I, might have life, have it to the full (what an idea), and that we might share that life with others. Sure, Christians bang on about eternal life all the time, but what’s the good of that? Well, in my opinion, eternal life starts now. We’re called to a life of holy improvisation. God has shown us how to live. We’re to love him with everything we have, whatever that looks like for each of us. We are to love others, putting them before ourselves, to be a compassionate society, to suffer with those who suffer and rejoice with those who rejoice. What would society look like if we did that? If we committed to the “other” in the full and certain knowledge that we are exactly the same “other” to someone else. What would it be like if we drew that “other” closer, rather than pushing them away? If we were brave, believing that all people are of equal value, regardless of ability or lack of it, economic contribution, education, ability for self-knowledge and awareness or lack of it.

After all, what makes us human? It is that God pursues us as his beloved creation, constantly, consistently and without reservation. He did this to the extent that he died for us. He didn’t die for us that we might impose strictures on anyone else, elevate ourselves above them so that we feel like we have power or authority which has been ours all along. No, God calls us to a radical kind of self-love which has at its core an awareness that without God, and without others, we are not ok. It is only when we love God and others that we can truly love ourselves, because we see ourselves in the context of God’s passionate love for us. We are important, because he says so. So is everybody else. Because he says so.

So health tourism? What nonsense. Oh for a nation which puts the needs of others before its own. A nation that truly understands what a privilege life is, so much so that it shares that privilege as widely as it possibly can. Let’s not live fearfully. Let’s not vote fearfully. Let’s hope and pray for local and national leaders who rise above the petty, the soundbite and who ignore the temptation to score cheap points with policies bred on fear, which only spread its power.

So it’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about us. What are we going to do to share life, love and hope together? That’s a question worth asking, and answering in the way that we live our lives, today and tomorrow. A day is coming when there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering, no more death. It is. Honest. I know it doesn’t feel or seem like it, but it is. In the meantime, we have God, the Holy Spirit to be our friend, guide, counsellor. We have ourselves, and we have each other. I’m more confident standing with you than against you. Can we do that? Can we stand together?

 

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Christians on the Left

Safety

Earlier this month I wrote some new words for my friends at Christians on the Left. If you’ve not had a chance to read them yet, now you can.

Safety

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

September 25th 2014: Acts 15:1-21

Read Acts 15:1-21 here

Wasn’t Church great when it was an exclusive club of people just like us; people who had no problems, people who behaved themselves, people who didn’t disagree, who only ever did what we all agreed we saw the Father doing, who understood everything there was to understand about the faith, who were careful to only allow in those who passed all our tests of intellect and understanding? Does this sound like your Church? Does this sound like anything in your heart or mind? Do you long for the days of purity? Do you wish that the people with alcohol problems, or body odour problems, or drug problems, or relational problems would leave your Church and not come back? Do you wish that we could all talk in an erudite fashion about mono-theistic religion and orate with panache on why we’ve found the answer to the question of the Trinity?

If yes, then you must have a different vision of Church, life, and hope than me. Perhaps yours is the right one (I’m usually wrong). I pretty strongly agree, though, with the disciples here, who at the end of a fierce debate about the entry requirements for Gentiles in to the faith (which is carried out for very legitimate reasons of tradition and practice) it is decided to not make it difficult for the Gentiles to enter. It’s a good job for us that this decision was taken. Especially for those of us who are men.

We’re not in the journey of faith to build an exclusive, elitist social club full of educated, well-to-do people. The disciples were far from this themselves. They got in to trouble in passages like today’s because they wanted to honour God, and their vision of what it was to honour God was being forcibly enlarged, almost by the minute. Is our vision of what it is to honour God open to the same enlargement? Personally I crave a Church where the only entry qualification is an interest in building a relationship with Jesus, going on with Him, and getting to know some of His people. I really do believe all the rest will follow, and that it isn’t ours to worry about.

I know, I’m naive.

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Christians on the Left Faith

Agents For Change

I recently made my debut writing for Christians on the Left. You can read my first column, about the recent Greenbelt-hosted debate on the forthcoming general election, here:

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Haydon Spenceley writes from Greenbelt where the motion “This House Believes The 2015 Election Will Make No Significant Difference to the Future of Britain” was being debated. Haydon reminds us of the importance of the coming election and that however broken the system, it is better to be involved. 

Greenbelt is traversing its third afternoon in the beautiful surroundings of new home Boughton House (beautiful, that is, aside from the molehills, but I think that is a particularly wheelchair user-centric concern). A heartening huge body of people have gathered together around the motion “This House Believes The 2015 Election Will Make No Significant Difference to the Future of Britain”. Arguing for the motion are Louise Donkin of SPEAK and Martin Newell of the Catholic Worker Network. Their opponents in this gladiatorial contest are to be the Labour MP Gavin Shuker, and Pippa Morgan of the Lib Dem Christian Forum. It is noteworthy that the Conservatives are not represented, in spite of repeated requests to provide a contributing speaker. One can only speculate as to why, but the lack of a viewpoint from the Tory side of things is arguably to the detriment of the otherwise-useful conversation which unfolds. Interestingly, the room is split fairly evenly when asked to vote on the motion at the beginning of the debate. Will things change?

Arguing for the notion, Louise and Martin speak with considerable and commendable passion and insight, both offering radical alternative approaches to the future for British politics and for Britain as a whole. Their contention, again and again, is that the systems which British politics and British life, indeed, are built on, are intrinsically broken and need to be not just brushed up, but renewed, remade and begun again. The strong suggestion of the cancelling of Trident as both a peace-facing and economically sensible move gains considerable acclaim. Perhaps less so the suggestion of the eradication of the armed forces.

On the other side of the debate, Gavin and Pippa are, perhaps unfairly, forced to defend the notion that elections and conventional democracy bring about change and a better future. Both sought to encourage and challenge their listeners to engagement over and against apathy. When challenged by a question on the possibility of eradicating “the whip”, Gavin spoke forthrightly of the many changes and developments which have been good for all which have come about because of parties working to enforce their whip, and both Gavin and Pippa spoke well of the need for agents of change to be at the heart of the policy and decision making processes in political parties.

Without meaning to sound trite, it was inspiring to see the sincerity and integrity of faith of all four of the speakers on the platform (Ok, that does sound trite, sorry). There was a unity, even in disagreements over policy and process, between all the participants which can so often appear lacking in the heavily edited political discourse most of us are party to. Proof that Christian faith is not limited or contained to a particular party political ideology or set of policies, that the values of the kingdom which is come, and yet still to come too, transcend the archaic controls we attempt to place upon how we communicate ideas. We can agree, and disagree, robustly. We can cry out against injustice, we can dance upon it. We can accuse political adversaries of propagating it, but surely we will all be changed, all of us, without exception.

As the debate drew to a close and those in attendance were asked to vote once again, it became clear that a larger proportion of the room were convinced of the crucial importance of the coming election. Most of all though, it seemed that many of us had been convinced that, however broken our system might be, however much we relate to one another in a broken fashion, it is better to be involved, working and praying for redemption than to wash our hands of the time and circumstances we find ourselves in. Radical change is coming, we can be sure of that. We can only hope, work and pray that it might come sooner, that justice might flow as a mighty river, through our society, but this justice God’s justice, will come, finally. We can be sure of that.