Happy Christmas!

Bedlam

Is there time to write a blog today?  Has anyone time to read it?  The last working/full shopping day before Christmas weekend.  It's bedlam!

But then Christmas always is bedlam [a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion].  The roads are bedlam, the shops are bedlam, the church is bedlam and the home is bedlam!

Though in a way the problem is that they are not bedlam.  The word's association with chaotic situations derives from the Bethlem Hospital in London which was, in fact, a lunatic asylum of such grandeur that it became a tourist attraction.  Unfortunately it was not an attraction for those confined within and their miserable environment was both the voyeuristic draw and the derivation of the name for chaos as bedlam. 

Originally it began as Christian foundation and the Order that ran it was named, of course, after the place and the event that the other sort of late-December bedlam ostensibly celebrates but more often buries beneath its confusion.

Thus the answer to Christmas bedlam is, well, Bedlam.  Caught neatly, I think, in the folk carol Joly Wat that feels more like the first Bedlam where the Prince of Peace was found.

Whan Wat to Bedlem cumen was,

He swet, he had gone faster than a pace;

He found Jesu in a simpell place,

Betwen an ox but and an asse.

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy.

‘Jesu, I offer to thee here my pipe,

My skirt, my tar-box, and my scrip;

Home to my felowes now will I skip,

And also look unto my shepe.’

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Departed

He died last week.

He'll be sadly missed by those who loved him.  Already I've seen real tears at his loss.  I suppose one must admit that he never showed any belief in God who created him.  His life was consumed with material things rather than spiritual.  Not for him the real meaning of Christmas or Easter, not for him any interest in the words of Scripture, the promises of hope.  He lived his life for this world only.  And now he's gone.  Missed by some, a gift to this world from his Maker, but apparently oblivious to this.  He died without hope.

Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong il died last week too.  I was not writing about them but about our much-loved guinea pig Alfie yet the observable parallels are alarming as their souls await their next appointment.  Alfie, meanwhile, has just become part of the back garden (and our memories). He rests in peace (except he doesn't because he's gone).

Advent

Just a minute

Sermons don't come much shorter than this.

I would be a rich man if I had been given a donation every time someone made a comment about long sermons in my hearing or reading with the implication that a shorter sermon would obviously be better (see previous blog regarding a disappearing newspaper's editorial, for example). 

As I did not attend the service I cannot confirm directly the success of this attractive advertisement for brevity but I was outside not long before the service was due to commence and there was no queue!  I did some further investigation on the Church's website however.  Websites, for all their techno wonder, are often more out of date than a good old fashioned notice and thus I read an earlier version of the service there:

1.10 pm Holy Communion (said) (lasts twenty-five minutes), with two minute sermon.

Aha!  I have, then, discovered that if I get my sermons down to two minutes I will find that is way too much to bring them in - exactly 100% too much in fact.  Thoughts race round my head - what if the new one minute version is also unsuccessful?  Half a minute - would that work?

The good news is that, given restraining circumstances, a preacher can make a decent fist of it in about five seconds, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31).

Except that we are told that the apostles then spent time telling the family the Word of the Lord.

And if Jesus had not taught all afternoon long there would never have been the feeding of the five thousand who had listened and learned hour after hour.  Indeed, they would have never been fed at all - which is rather the point.

Baptist Times

The news that the Baptist Times is to be published no more after 2011 struck me is a similar way to that described by Catriona Gorton; I'm somehow sadder than I expect to be.  Steve Holmes has written a good blog on why it probably matters.

The Baptist Times has not played a large part in my life.  Apart from a supplement where our Church was featured my only appearance in the paper was for one of my inductions to a Pastorate: a couple of weeks later a more famous Baptist minister (also called John Roberts) arranged for a rebuttal to assure his friends that he had not, in fact, been called to the church that I'd been called to!

Oh, and when I was a student I had a letter published too.  It was about the ecumenical movement and somebody took it and turned it into a pamphlet which was my introduction to the fact that once your words are out there you have little control over them - a helpful lesson ahead of blogging!

The predominant effect of the Baptist Times over the years has been to irritate me.  So, true to form, before I read the announcement of its closure (I never read papers and magazines from front to back and the announcement was near the front), it irritated me again.

Often it is the pretentious letters (and that happened again) but there was also the editorial.  This was mocking refreshments after services and (of course) the length of sermons.  The editorial was headed 'First Impressions' and was alluding to the woeful ones that Baptist Churches allegedly give.  But you know what?  Scarcely ever - in any of the churches I've served - have I heard first-time or relatively new  unchurched people complain about the refreshments (which is unsurprising if you've visited a hospital, travelled on a train or sat in an airport lately).  More astonishingly they scarcely ever complain about the length of services or even sermons.  No, the complaints - if they come at all - come from people who have been going to church for years (and frequently on behalf of their growing children who are in the process of deciding that the Christian faith may not be for them.  I think we Christian parents have to accept that the coffee is unlikely to be the major factor there . . .)

I wouldn't greatly respect these potshots on any week but they had a special irony on a week when the paper itself was seen to be a failed enterprise after 156 years.  Statistically the fall in BT circulation is catastrophic compared to the decline in Baptist Churches.  Maybe if they'd offered coffee/biscuit vouchers and free sermon DVDs . . .

Gold in Concrete

As things turned out (see last week's blog), Jimmy Savile's coffin was encased in concrete to prevent thieves stealing some of his extravagant jewellery which was not inside but might have been (or indeed investigating whether the coffin was real gold . . . Tutanjimmy's tomb as it were.)

All that concrete is going to make it very difficult on resurrection day. 

Like moving a stone I suppose.

Happy Hallowe'en!

This seems like a good day for a dose of John Bunyan.

Hallowe'en is a helpful annual reminder of why it is a good thing to be progressing through this world rather than belonging here - something well worth celebrating!

Young

Yesterday we had an Evening Service where the average age of the participants was under 20 years old.  And no-one was as old as half my age.  I like that.



I thought about it when I read about the UK Youth Parliament.  I think that is a great idea too.  But what I noticed about that is that it is three days - not three full days mind - in the summer hols.  I am confident no young person I have met even knows it exists.  I am not entirely convinced that most politicians know it exists.

Here's the blurb: 'For the last ten years MYPs from all across the UK have come together to take part in workshops, debates, and develop the UK Youth Parliament’s campaigns for the year ahead at our annual summit.'

Laudable, but definitely not powerful.

When young people - indeed when children - lead times of worship and reflection on the much greater things of God the amazing thing is this: they are often more able and powerful than adults.  And certainly, as heaven looks down, heaven does not think,

'Oh, it's just a Youth-led Service tonight'

Dentist

Yesterday I went to the dentist.

My official position on this is that 'I hate the dentist'.  I am not alone in thinking that of course.

This is wrong in a number of ways. 

For a start, my dentist is very nice.  She's funny and, as far as I can tell, she's good at her job.  So I don't hate my dentist at all.  Perhaps, instead, I hate going to my dentist.

But that is wrong-headed too.  I'm afraid my teeth are not in the condition of the ones in the mirror above but at least this time there was no work to be done.  To find that out, and have them cleaned, and come away with change from a £20.00 note - it's hardly the worst thing in my week.  Perhaps I hate being treated by my dentist.

This too is crazily wrong.  Frankly, I have had most of my dental treatment at short notice when I have been desperate to be treated by my dentist.  It is closer to the truth to say I hate not being treated by my dentist - the kind of dread that comes with a worrying crunch on something hard when away on holiday.  Perhaps it's just the thought - I hate the thought of being treated by my dentist.

But no.  That thought is a great privilege as I walk past my dentist's surgery as I often do.  Along the road from her is my doctor's surgery, down from there the hospital (just past the pharmacies).  To walk to all four and home again would be about two miles.  How many places in the world is that possible?

I don't hate my dentist at all.  I hate having bad teeth sometimes.

And when somebody says the hate God or Jesus (or probably even the Church) they probably mean they hate not being righteous - only they never think about it long enough to work it through.

Off-Road

Some years ago I visited Rhode Island and saw this historic Church - the first Baptist Church building in America.

Yesterday we had an awayday for our leadership at this Baptist Chapel:

It's not very big, and its not as old as the one in Providence, Rhode Island.  More pointedly it is situated behind a Post Office and a Public House.  Is this typical of the Brits, we ask?  Americans (even early ones) give themselves a prominent landmark, we put ourselves out of the way in, effectively, someones back garden.

History tells a rather different story.  Chapels were built off road because in their founding day their founders were lucky if they were allowed to build at all.  Indeed, there were times when, in England, a body of believers outside the establishment could only meet - as would today be true in some other lands - in private houses.

It isn't getting any easier to witness publicly for Christ in 21st Century Britain.  But it's immeasurably easier than it's been for many of our forebears and many of our brothers and sisters through the world. 

Teenager

So Google is thirteen today!

And yet it is so hard to remember life without Google.  Was there a time when a whole day passed and nobody, nobody in the wide world said, "Just google it"?  How did you find the Stagecoach timetable?  How did people find Luther's 95 theses?  Is it possible that Alexander the Great conquered the world and it wasn't mentioned on Google?  Could Methuselah have lived 969 years and not used Google even once?

The preposterous thought that Google has become what it is in such short order is a solemn sign I think.  Could one entity rise to prominence in a world of billions of people as the Biblical prophecies suggest?  Can the whole world really be part of anything when there are billions of us that will never meet each other?

Google is, methinks, not the Beast!  But perhaps it reminds me how plausible the previously implausible has become.  In no time we could be at the end of time. 

Expensive

Dietrich Bonhoeffer died at the end of World War II in a Nazi Concentration Camp after his willingness to challenge the Nazis.  He wrote

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.



Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake of one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. 

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "you were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . . 
         

Book Review - Love One Another

Love One Another

Becoming the church Jesus longs for

By Gerald L. Sittser

IVP 188 pp £8.99

This is a reworked version of Sittser’s 1994 book Loving Across Our Differences. Sittser’s book deserves respect because its original version was born out of immense family tragedy in which he lost his wife, daughter and mother in a car accident. The pastoral care that he and his remaining family received from his church gave him the passion for the subject of this work.

Sittser has written a straightforward, readable and useful book on pastoral and fellowship issues in the local church. There is much illustrative material but the chapters of the book are built around the ‘one another’ sayings in the New Testament. From these sayings he is able to address areas such as Comforting One Another, Being Subject to One Another, Forgiving One Another, Encouraging One Another and even, though with understandable difficulty, Admonishing One Another.

Sittser’s expositions of Paul’s pastoral thinking are often insightful and almost always helpful. It might form a supporting text for a local church studying what the Bible says about Christian fellowship or pastoral care. It would also provide encourage warmth and breadth for the thinking of Pastors, Elders or Deacons, possibly on a retreat.

Never Once

Book Review: The Priority of Preaching

This little book derives from the author’s spoken contributions to the 2008 Evangelical Ministry Assembly. The Biblical focus is on parts of Moses’ addresses recorded in Deuteronomy. Its origins as Assembly material mean that it is more a structured defence of consecutive expository preaching than an example of it. It also has the style of a transcript but has good readability.

The reader can well imagine how the arguments graciously delivered here would have encouraged listening preachers. There are many insightful moments that will certainly elevate the preacher’s sense of responsibility while, hopefully, keeping him humbled by the Word.

Valuable distinction is made between teaching and preaching.  They are not the same thing and teaching, for all its discipling value, cannot be the main agency for winning hearts to the Lord Jesus.  The book also offers a strong defence of local church ministry – all over the world the local church is a counter-cultural sign in a fragmented world that reassembly is taking place . . .  The podcast is not the point.

Anyone – inside or outside the faith - who has wondered why so many often small local assemblies of believers and enquirers sit listening on a Sunday to a man speaking what appears to be a monologue and puzzle as to its value should read Christopher Ash’s book. It matters more than the world can imagine, more than the world can know (unless it listens).

The Priority of Preaching by Christopher Ash is published by Christian Focus Publications 122pp £7.99

"Pardon?"

The telephone is a boon to people who are deaf, I've been told.  I know friends who find a voice on the telephone easier to hear than one in real life.  But there comes a point where this is no longer true because the deafness is profound.  I had to give on on such a call this past week and it brought to mind one of the most difficult pastoral conversations I have ever had.

Few if anyone who reads this blog would ever have met the lady but I'll call her Mary.  Mary lived on her own but had a son David living locally who never came to our Church.  I had never seen her there either but I had met her in hospital and her husband when he'd been alive so had kept, so to speak, in touch.  She had another son, John, in South Africa.  And that's where the call headed:

"Hello, Mary"

"Hello.  Hello, who's that? Is that you, John?"

"It's John Roberts from the Church"

"How are things with you, then?  I hope everyone's well"

"Yes, thank you.  But how are you?"

"Yes, the leaves are falling here.  What's the weather like there?"

"IT'S JOHN FROM THE CHURCH, MARY"

"It's getting colder now too.  The night's are drawing in.  I expect it's warm there already, is it?"

"I'M JOHN ROBERTS FROM THE CHURCH, MARY, I'M RINGING TO SEE HOW YOU ARE."

"Yes, it will soon be winter now.  The leaves are beginning to fall, you know.  How is everyone anyway?"

(Giving up) "We're fine, thank you"

"David's very good, you know.  He does all that needs doing" (Oh dear.  Was that a pointed comment?  I didn't know.  I didn't like being a surrogate telephone son).

The phone call eventually ended - though that wasn't easy to achieve given that I was cast in the role of ringing from South Africa to check on my mother.  I hoped that John's wife and family were indeed alright as I had answered for them! 

And I realised what my prayer times must seem like from heaven's perspective.

John Stott

John Stott's death yesterday ends a wonderful life in this world that made the Bible live for generations of us.  As a young professional in London I can remember hearing him expounding the Word of God, in those days as Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church, Langham Place.

Expounding the Bible is not the Baptists' strongest point.  A testimony here, a thought there, a cup of coffee, a prayer meeting for revival . . . I think I would have never understood the richness of Bible exposition were it not for those days in All Souls.  My Council Estate ears struggled with his Queen's Chaplain voice but that was a small discomfort in return for understanding that the Bible speaks when the preacher allows it to do so.

Thank God that today there are others of influence, not least in North America, who are dedicated to letting Scripture speak.  Blessed indeed is the Church that, although it has different expositors, only ever has one speaker - the Word of God.  And in John Stott's ministry All Soul's was extraordinarily blessed over a generation, and so were countless others throughout the world.  I thank God for him.

Duilisc before Carcair

Activist Christianity struggles to grasp this but, honestly, the work and worship of God transcends filled diaries. Look at this section from a wonderful old Celtic prayer-poem, attributed (possibly correctly in this case) to Columba;

At times kneeling to beloved Heaven -

At times psalm singing;

At times contemplating the King of Heaven

Holy the chief;

At times at work without compulsion

This would be delightful.

At times plucking duilisc from the rocks

At times at fishing;

At times giving food to the poor;

At times in a carcair:

The poem pictures a life devoted to God in which formal worship is offered at times to the Chief of Heaven. But there are also times to pluck duilisc.

Although beaches often feature in today's commercials the people on the beach are almost always running or jumping (or surfing, or horse-riding, or driving).  Even the sea edge has become a busy place in our society.

Columba, in common with all Celtic saints, knew that God would not be neglected by taking time to enjoy his handiwork. Thus we imagine the breezy summer Atlantic shoreline and a man in a habit plucking juicy seaweed (duilisc) from the rocks just because he can, and it's free, and God is there. Duilisc washes in on the tides from June to September; you won't get to pluck any in January even if you can stand upright on the windswept, gloomy, wave-lashed shore. Get plucking because there are also times in a carcair.

We don't know exactly what carcair meant for Columba. A carcair was a prison - it may have meant the enclosed hermitage or imprisonment by hostile communities. But either way it was a great loss of the freedom that the seaweed-plucker enjoys!

We are wise to remember how, a little further inland, the Lord said in his greatest discourse, 'Consider the lilies of the field how they grow'. He credited us with the intelligence to realise that such consideration would only happen by taking the opportunity while it blooms and before the carcair, or in his case the cross, at a time yet to be.

Natural Wastage

There's nothing like a Church committee as a setting for making bizarre new theology.

The Daily Telegraph carried a report on the General Synod at which a member was quoted as follows:

“The perfect storm we can see arriving fast on the horizon is the ageing congregations,” he said. “The average age is 61 now, with many congregations above that.  … 2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of natural wastage, that is people dying."

The Salvation Army coined the term 'promoted to glory' for its members passing through death to life everlasting (a vertical contradiction of falling through the floor).  The Apostle Paul liked the phrase fallen asleep in Jesus.  John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress famously described arriving in a Celestial City:

Now, while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them: to whom it was said by the other two shining ones,

"These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world, and that have left all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy." Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, “Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.” Rev. 19:9.

There came out also at this time to meet them several of the King’s trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment, who, with melodious noises and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting and sound of trumpet.

This done, they compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, and some on the left, ... And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they came to it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their melodious notes. Here also they had the city itself in view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there with such company, and that for ever and ever; oh, by what tongue or pen can their glorious joy be expressed!

Alternatively, you can call it natural wastage . . . 

Christians would be wiser to value older people and reach them with the Good News of eternity in glory with Jesus than, "Hey, join us and soon become our natural wastage".

Cats and Dogs

A king can see a cat but a cat can never see a king.

This famous saying refers to the issue of perception: the cat sees a king but not as a king, the king sees the cat as a cat.

Dogs don't see kings either though they have no proverbial saying to say so.  I heard a preacher refer to his dog as a ministering angel.  He had been in a time of quite deep despair in which nobody he felt understood him.  Except his dog.  It, he said, looked at him and ministered to him as others couldn't.

Preachers think too hard sometimes.  Instead of seeing the proverb in the dog he saw an angel there.  The despairer saw the dog but the dog did not see the despairer. 

But this is not the good news.  The good news is that the One who loves us best sees us the most clearly!  God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were sinners Christ died for us.  He knows me and he loves me.

Preparation

The season starts here.

This is the week when the players return for preseason training, something that largely determines where they get to in the football season to come.

It is 30 plus degrees today.  It is a long way from a winter's night in Hartlepool.

There is grass, but goalposts and lines will be replaced with cones and slalom posts.

No crowd roars, cheers or jeers.  Maybe an odd(!) chaplain stands and watches sympathetically (not empathetically).

In itself it is pointless.  Grass, running, a field, sweat.  It is all about the prize of victories (and bonuses) in the autumn, winter and spring.

The work of God's people on earth is not the end but a means to an end.  Making disciples really means calling people to pre-season training!

Paul wrote: I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.  Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Duke

Congratulations to the Duke of Edinburgh who was 90 yesterday.  Is he really 90?  I fear he looks no older than me . . .

He tried to sound 90 in his interview,

"I reckon I've done my bit so I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say," he said. "On top of that, your memory's going - I can't remember names and things."

In the light of which it is somewhat strange that his wife bestowed upon him a new name/title to remember - that of Lord High Admiral, a title that was hers until yesterday. 

Isn't that marriage?  You get to your 90th birthday and for a present the wife decides you should be doing one of her chores to help her out . . .

Time

The British (though strangely no individual Briton I have met) are quite keen on ancient peculiarities.  We had a dose of them at the Royal Wedding recently when the Archbishop, dressed in finery that threatened to outshine the bride but bespeaking some other century, led the couple in thees and thous, past a betwixt and a wedlock and generally reminded us of the glories, if such they be, of ancient Church of England liturgy. 

You can get an ancient peculiarity daily in Oxford Cathedral (which, were I an Anglican, would be my diocesan mother church).  For Oxford cathedral keeps Oxford time, not Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time like the rest of the nation.  So the 11:00am service starts at 11:00am Oxford time, which was five minutes later than London.  So, unless you've adjusted your watch, it will be 11:05 to you.

It's all a bit of odd fun, isn't it?

Mmm.  Yet in the field of human life there are few things more important than than marriage, the public commitment of a man and a woman to stay together faithfully until parted by death.  If there is something more important it might be a service of worship at which humans gather to address, and be addressed by, their God and Saviour.  So why, I wonder, are these things the ones that are anachronistic?  Why make these the museum pieces?

Although, of all the things that happen in Oxford, only the worship of almighty God is stuck in this time warp the real peculiarity is this - that worship of almighty God is the only thing happening in Oxford that will also happen in a New Order of things when time itself is history . . .

Buttons

That morning Hudson Taylor had donned his customary frock-coat, as befitted a Victorian English gentleman, and started another day of brave, even reckless, Christian ministry. Here he was in the depths of China, a place forbidden to foreigners, far beyond the reach of consular support. Yet as he preached in town after town along the inland waterways he found that his foreignness guaranteed him an audience. And that, after all, is what every preaching missionary needs.

Irritatingly his foreignness seemed to be more alluring than the message itself. And on this, as it was to be, historic day pairs of eyes were transfixed upon him. Before the question, the wonderfully polite man had explained that they understood the usefulness of the strange things (buttons) on the front of his jacket. They were there to go through the holes and somehow hold the clothing together in the cold wind. But, the foreign teacher was asked, "What can be the meaning of those buttons in the middle of the honourable back?"

A lesser missionary might have laughed off the question about his decorative buttons. Hudson Taylor was not such a man. The question haunted him as he made his way to the next location. He resolved to dispense with the niceties of western regalia and adopt clothing, and habits, that were the best suited for his purpose of pointing the people of inland China to Jesus.

What a different place the world would be if Christians and their Church had more frequently dispensed with ornamental buttons!

Help!

Stretch out thy hand, victorious King;

My reigning sins subdue.

Drive the old dragon from his seat,

With all his hellish crew.

Ah, we don't sing verses like that often (at all, actually)!

Um.  We don't win battles like that often either unfortunately.  I wonder if there's a connection?

Today

"Quick!"

According to eccentric old Harold Camping you only have 60 seconds left - no less than that . . . . .

"No, Wait!!"

No, wait a minute - or more - Harold is over in Western America.  Phew! 8 hours more!

"No, don't wait!!!"

You and me both - we can't see 60 seconds ahead ever.  So old Harold was not right on two counts:  he was too early regarding the Lord's return, and he gave us too long - the time to make Christ Lord of our lives is always NOW.

Ranks

I paid a visit to Eton College Chapel as I was passing by yesterday.  Maybe it was because it was Friday 13th and I was hoping for some shaft of blogging light, but it was not to be.

Instead of light I was reminded of one of the weirdest hymns I have ever sung.  Apparently this was the hymn in Chapel on Monday - Ye watchers and ye holy ones. 

To say that this hymn is not often sung in Baptist churches is like saying that Hillsongs don't often lead worship at the British Humanist Association's annual meeting.  That is why I once had the experience that is much rarer for a Pastor than most people of being in a service where a hymn left me so bewildered in its first verse that my spinning mind failed to give the rest any attention . . .

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,

Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,

Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!

Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,

Virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Subsequent investigation suggested my problem was a lack of identity with Dionysius the Areopagite fed by that general Baptist malaise of Church history beginning with the previous Spring Harvest, New Wine or random other Christian Conference.  For here the hymn writer has somehow managed to get all nine ranks of angels into one verse.  Which is clever.

But then people at Eton College are clever, so it was understandable that they sung such things.

Whether identifying nine ranks of angels is clever is another matter entirely.  I suppose there is the prospect of having a very long time to sort this kind of thing out in eternity (as in "Excuse me, are you a Virtue or a Throne?  Oh, a Princedom - I can see you're busy.  Can you have a [fairtrade] coffee in about a thousand years and tell me what a Princedom is then? Thanks.  Oh, okay, two thousand then.")

For the rank ignorant Baptists there is always the consolation of the hymn we'd sung the previous Sunday which describes Jesus taking his human identity to the grave and then . . .

Humbled for a season, to receive a name

From the lips of sinners unto whom He came,

Faithfully He bore it, spotless to the last,

Brought it back victorious when from death He passed.

Bore it up triumphant with its human light,

Through all ranks of creatures, to the central height,

To the throne of Godhead, to the Father’s breast;

Filled it with the glory of that perfect rest.

Ranks of heavenly beings may be a clever study, but its spiritual worth is no more than that of studying cloud formations as your plane transports you across the world to see your closest friend.

Gone

History will not easily forget Osama Bin Laden.  Any attempt to describe the first decade of this century will almost certainly feature his name and in his death he has comfortably dislodged the Royal Wedding from the front pages.  

His infamy hasn't stopped the American government acting to try to make his name and reputation disappear as soon as possible following his killing by a Special Forces raid in Pakistan.  They opted to remove his body and dump it (I suppose the official version is bury it) in the Arabian Gulf.

In one way this reminds me of the Roman authority's Easter Guard, positioned in front of the tomb to make sure that the dead died.  It is a curiously fearful thing to do, a superpower vs. one man.

On a more heartening note it reminds me of God.  The prophet Micah describes God dealing with his people's sin; You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19)  Sin is God's enemy and he doesn't want it coming back to haunt us.

Rest Home to Royalty

A day of days in our nation!

While crowds risk their lives in the political turmoil of the Arab World in this undeservedly blessed land we crowd to see a glorious celebration of human love at the centre of our national life.  We have every reason to give thanks to God as we observed the elevation of Kate Middleton to the heart of the Royal Family.

And in it all one Scripture Reading.  It was beautifully read and a majestically suitable passage for a marriage.  And a great deal else.  For just yesterday afternoon I was reading that same Scripture from Romans 12 and from my point of view it had made a journey at least as dramatic as Kate Middleton!

The setting I read it in had been a little different: the hearers were in single figures, one was in not the transcept exactly but in her bed with the door open next door, their average age at or around 90 years and more, and walking frames replaced State Coaches while a CD recording replaced the Westminster Abbey Sub-Organist, choirs, fanfare trumpeters and the English Chamber Orchestra.  Yet to these elderly saints in the rest home as we shared Communion the apostle's words were still rich and replete with meaning and significance.

I won't forget today anyway, but if I were to do so Romans 12 would always remind me of God's timeless word, a victory of faith over fashion.

Happy Easter!

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Tractate LV.

But why should we wonder that He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments, who, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation?    Literally, “emptied Himself,” as in the Greek.

And why should we wonder, if He girded Himself with a towel, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of a man?  Phil. ii. 6, 7.

Why wonder, if He poured water into a basin wherewith to wash His disciples’ feet, who poured His blood upon the earth to wash away the filth of their sins?

Why wonder, if with the towel wherewith He was girded He wiped the feet He had washed, who with the very flesh that clothed Him laid a firm pathway for the footsteps of His evangelists? In order, indeed, to gird Himself with the towel, He laid aside the garments He wore; but when He emptied Himself of His divine glory in order to assume the form of a servant, He laid not down what He had, but assumed that which He had not before. When about to be crucified, He was indeed stripped of His garments, and when dead was wrapped in linen clothes: and all that suffering of His is our purification.

When, therefore, about to suffer the last extremities of humiliation, He here illustrated beforehand its friendly compliances; not only to those for whom He was about to endure death, but to him also who had resolved on betraying Him to death. Because so great is the beneficence of human humility, that even the Divine Majesty was pleased to commend it by His own example; for proud man would have perished eternally, had he not been found by the lowly God. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.     Luke xix. 10.

And as he was lost by imitating the pride of the deceiver, let him now, when found, imitate the Redeemer’s humility.

Franklin

Approaching the Royal Wedding fixes our thoughts on Westminster Abbey and marriage.  A marriage with an extraordinary end is commemorated there and today is important in the story.

Among the very many monuments in what is our National Shrine is a monument to Sir John Franklin - 'This monument was erected by Jane, his widow, who after long waiting and sending many in search of him, herself departed to seek and find him in the realms of light.'

Today is his birthday and his birth is a lot easier to understand than his death.  For sure his remains are not in the Abbey.  Indeed they are somewhere quite unknown and very, very cold.

Born on April 16, 1786, John went to sea at age 15 with Admiral Nelson. He survived the Battle of Copenhagen then returned to England only to leave again, this time on a voyage to chart Australia. He next joined the Battle of Trafalgar, and later the attack on New Orleans.

He fell in love with Arctic exploration, and when the ships were forced to return to England, he joined another expedition to chart the northern coasts of Canada.

One of his crew wrote of him, "We have church morning and evening on Sunday. The men say they would rather have him than half the parsons of England."

In 1845 he sailed from England to look for the Northwest Passage and to explore the Arctic. Two letters came from him, then news ceased. Years passed.  His beloved wife Jane spent a fortune searching for him. Finally a boat was found frozen in the north complete with two of the crew's skeletons  - and Sir John Franklin's Bible.

Psalm 139.9,10 was underlined: If I. . . dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 

A hand that reaches further even than the hand of a loving wife.

Fore!

Today I feel impelled to tell the story of one of golf's most famous words, aptly pictured here:

The game of golf as we know it developed amid the coastal sand dunes of Eastern Scotland.  St Andrews is enshrined as the town most associated with the development of the sport that now spans the world.  And with it the shout, "Fore" as the now traditional warning.

At the beginning of April in 1877, Alexander Kilcallon was playing on the Royal  course when, like many before and since, he was struck by a ball 'inflicting a wounde grievusse'.  What was to make Alexander's story amazing was that exactly a year later to the day - this day - he was struck by another golf ball in a very similar way.  The duality seemed too much of a coincidence and he consulted the Minister of the Kirk (Church).  The Minister, Rev. Hamish Kincaird, was not at all sympathetic.  He despised the worldly pleasure of sport and pointed Alexander to a Biblical Proverb that occurs identically twice (in Proverbs 22:3 and 27:12) - identical verses for identical incidents. In the King James version it reads

A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.

Perhaps it was the way that the Reverend Kincaird pronounced the word foreseeth to make his point, but Alexander Kilcallon took the word back to his golfing party as a cry of warning.  Presumably it was quickly reduced to the one syllable that any passing walker is wise to observe!

Not the intended application of the Proverb but very useful and undoubtedly the most shouted Biblical syllable on the golf course - though perhaps others are sometimes used in anger as well . . .  

Lent

Ball Skills

Does a Football Chaplain need ball skills?

I've been asked a few questions about being a Sports Chaplain, but never that one.  Yet only last week I was in action with the ball yet again.  And when the ball comes to me I must, of course, make a judgement as to what move to do next, whether on the training field or, as Saturday, during a game.

Could it be that in these straightened times Chaplains are being drafted to make up the numbers?  Well no.  The ball skill I refer to is the equivalent of those demonstrated by the pet dog with the stick - the skill to catch or fetch.  Whether standing by the training field or watching, say, the youth team play there are times when in the absence of a ball boy there is a Chaplain!

The Chaplain-cum-Ballboy must do his retrieval without fuss, equipping the right player with the ball so that the player can use his abilities in the real contest.  Notwithstanding the video above, I help but do not score the goals!

In this respect, a Football Club Chaplain is very much like a Church Pastor.  As a Pastor I return the ball of ministry every time I close a meeting or complete a visit because it is the congregation who spend most of their time in the centre of the challenge in the everyday world.

Love wins (one thief or two)

The Baptist Times devoted its centre page spread to defending the cause of Universalism last week.  Why?  It is timed to chime in tune with Rob Bell's new book Love Wins - a splendid title after which things deteriorate rapidly.  There is not a lot of point in a small town British pastor answering an American Megachurch Medialogue so I defer to Al Mohler's blog.  Still, no-one looks evangelically trendier than Rob Bell - it would give our church a real street cred boost if Rob (and his specs of course) applied to join us . . .  So shucks - now he can't.  (Here's part of our church's basis of faith: The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.)

Leaving Rob Bell to Al Mohler, I feel no such qualms about addressing the centre spread of the Baptist Times, the disappointing mouthpiece of the fellowship of churches that I serve.   Robin Parry, the article's writer, is a pleasant enough chap I'm sure; he has cut out for himself (once he emerged from a pseudonym) a reputation as an evangelical universalist.  The difficulty with labels is that when someone sticks two on themselves - in this case evangelical and universalist - and then turns round and says, "See, they go together!", it seems mean-spirited to try and tear one off and say "No they don't".  After all, they stuck their own labels on themselves.  If I want to say I am an Islamic Baptist or a Sinn Fein Monarchist who are you to tear one of my labels off?

Parry cites seven myths (by which he appears to mean lies) about univeralism (which he defines as the view that, in the end, God will redeem all people through Christ.)

Myth 1 : Universalists don't believe in hell

'Most universalists believe that hell is not simply retributive punishment but a painful yet corrective/educative state from which people will eventually exit (some, myself included, think it has a retributive dimension, while others do not).'

But what Parry describes is not hell, but closely akin to purgatory, 'an intermediate state after death for expiatory purification; specifically : a place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God's grace may make satisfaction for past sins and so become fit for heaven'

The Biblical metaphors for hell are darkness -  the absence of light - or the landfill site (gehenna) or fire where waste is disposed of.   Every metaphor shouts 'no hope'.   No metaphor remotely whispers, 'Here comes Jesus to teach you and save you'.

Based on this evidence the myth is completely true.

Myth 2: Universalists don't believe the Bible

'The question is not 'Which group believes the Bible?' but, 'How do we interpret the Bible?' The root issue is this: there are some biblical texts that seem to affirm universalism (e.g. Romans 5:18; 1 Corinthians 15:22; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:11) but there are others that seem to deny it (e.g. Matthew 25:45; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9; Revelations 14:11; 20:10-15).'

Four texts on each side.  Seems a fair debate.  Except that these are strangely chosen texts:  Matthew 25:45 is no proof text for hell but it does come at the end of three whole stories in which Jesus plainly teaches the final division of humankind at the judgment.  By contrast the texts that seem to affirm universalism do not do so at all really - for example the universal acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11) is not in the context of salvation but exaltation, Romans 5:18 is previously qualified by addressing the reader (5:2) as standing in that grace 'by faith in Christ'.

The whole witness of Scripture is to a messianic faith-salvation for those who believe.  There is no balance of proof texts but an overwhelming story which is believed or rejected.

Furthermore, it is a logical fallacy to imply that because something is an interpretation of the Bible it is worthy of a balanced debate in the community of faith.  There are many interpretations that can be summarily dealt with as off-centre and discredited long ago and universalism is one of them.  When people complain that universalists don't believe the Bible they do not mean that universalists necessarily think that they don't believe the Bible.  They mean that they are looking at a Rembrandt painting and interpreting it by concentrating on the frame.

Myth 3: Universalists don't think sin is very bad

Rather the objection is that the universalist doesn't think sin is very judged.  You'll have to look hard in the article to find God judging, the fundamental verb that joins with the nouns sin and hell.

Myth 4: Universalists believe in God's love but forget his justice and wrath

 '. . . all of God's actions [are] motivated by 'holy love'. Everything God does is holy, completely just, and completely loving. So whatever hell is about it must be compatible not simply with divine justice but also with divine love. Which means that it must, in some way, have the good of those in hell as part of its rationale.'

I guess that here we hit the Bell interpretation of Love Wins.  The fatal flaw shouts loudly - 'whatever hell is about' - as if we have no guidance regarding this.  Hell is the judgement of God on sin.  Hell is not intended to be experienced as an invitation to know God's love any more than it is experienced positively as a revelation of God who is light. God is all light; hell is all dark.

Aha, but what do things look like if we emphasise that the God who judges sin is the God who is love?

The Scriptures are plain enough about that, aren't they?  It looks like Easter.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The cross is is Love's provision on the road to hell. For whoever.

Myth 5: Universalists think that all roads lead to God

Parry complains that universalists still believe Jesus is the means of salvation - just that he saves everyone in the end somehow.  This simply means 'all roads lead to Jesus' which is the supposed myth rewritten but identical in content.

Myth 6: Universalism undermines evangelism

Parry might worry that he has to dig as far as Elhanan Winchester for an example of a universalist evangelist, not a name that rings loudly through the annals of missionary endeavour.  It is a poor judgment of human nature to imagine that the church is going to risk all for something that is going to happen anyway.  There are people who parachute out of planes for the fun of it.  But not many.  I've always waited for the guy in charge to bring us all safely in without doing a thing.  I always will.

Myth 7: Universalism undermines holy living

This is not traditionally a strong complaint against universalism though it renders many New Testament things meaningless.  Why try so hard in the Letter to the Hebrews to stop believers falling away when on this account they are just taking a diversion?  Why make any effort in church discipline?  Does it really matter if you take the road to forever life with Jesus through the chapel while I take it through the brothel?

________________________

One day an astonishing throng of the redeemed will gather round the throne of the Lamb, lives it scarcely seems possible could be cleaned will wear the washed robes.  This every believer believes.

One dying thief.  But the universalist believes two.  Mary Magdelene but also, the universalist believes, Judas Iscariot.   Those shaking their heads at the wonder of the love and grace that sought and saved them but, the universalist believes, accompanied incongruously by people who never wanted - of their volition - to be there; sinners kidnapped into a forced marriage by an  anti-volitional, disregardingly predestinating and dehumanising Universal Love.

I don't think so.  Like Christopher Hitchins (I don't write that often), I hope not.

Tides

Looking at the wreckage - physical, psychological, economic - from the great tsunami tide in Japan my memory triggered a strangely reminiscent picture that I saw in the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.  It is called 'Waiting for the Tide'

In Hoodless's painting all the big things - the river, the steamer, the famous waterfront buildings - are peripheral to a chugging tug and a pile of stuff that is just lying there, as on docksides things do.  Waiting.

While the tsunami leaves everything washed up and waiting - waiting to be found, waiting to rebuild, waiting to return - other tides are waited for.

This is why, in so much Biblical imagery, the overwhelming wall of water that has so devastated thousands of lives is, rather, a picture of blessing - he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of Yahweh drives along.  The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares Yahweh.

There is a flood that rescues as well as a flood that destroys.

Forfeit

Sword drill.  Ah, those were the days.  For my daughter, church youth is about conferences and  worship bands that imitate the third support act in a gig with Christian multi-media half-whizzy imitations of secular videospeak. 

But I had sword drills.

Perhaps it is wise that in an era when religion is the more associated with acts of violence there are no longer sword drills.  But I should point (sorry!) out that these exercises did not take place in open fields behind the church building skewering dummy infidels.  Rather it was a reference to the Bible - the Christian's sword - and a hunt for words in a given chapter.  

"1 Chronicles 6 and the word is bias".  (Difficult one that actually).  Whoever shouted out the right verse number got a point.  Such innocent, non-techy pleasures . . . .  All of which introduced me emphatically to the Bible as a weapon, the alarming results of which are visible in this photograph.

What good is it for a man to gain the world but forfeit his very soul?  So reads the text.  And beneath it the squashed remains of the irritating fly that made preaching a misery for the short time before it innocently landed on the page carelessly misreading a combatant preacher honed from a young age to using the Bible as a weapon.

Though as I best recall the idea was that the Bible was only a weapon when it was opened.  I can now confirm it is also a weapon when shut - rapidly.