Happy Birthday CHS!

I describe London Baptist preacher C H Spurgeon as my ministry hero:

 

Perhaps, with due deference on his birthday, we should note how unheroically he would wish to be regarded.  Even if he is sometimes followed as an evangelical demi-god he certainly did not experience himself that way,

“It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord but that we also dream of personal greatness, we think ourselves almost indispensible to the church, pillars of the cause, and foundations of the temple of God. We are nothings and nobodies, but that we do not think so is very evident, for as soon as we are put on the shelf we begin anxiously to enquire, ‘How will the work go on without me?’ As well might the fly on the coach wheel enquire, ‘How will the mails be carried without me?’ Far better men have been laid in the grave without having brought the Lord’s work to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season we must lie upon the bed of languishing? God sometimes weakens our strength in a way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed to teach us that we are not necessary to God’s work, and that when we are most useful, He can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough schooling may be easily endured for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone be magnified.”

Charles H. Spurgeon, “Laid Aside, Why?,” The Sword and Trowel, May, 1876, London

George H W Bush

A peculiarity of  being a Pastor is that, although most days reinforce a sense of how inconsequential you are seen to be by the world, you do get to meet a disproportionate number of important, famous people.

One such for me, and whose memorial is happening today, was George H W Bush, the 41st President of the United States of America.  The occasion of meeting him - or more strictly of him meeting me - was when he visited the Church in America where I was on the staff.  He came to speak a greeting at one of the morning worship services and he was brought to meet those of us with whom he would be sharing the platform.

It was naturally a brief encounter, but it was long enough to feel the warmth of personality that has been eulogised today and which contrasts with what is sometimes experienced from lesser women and men.

But back to the meeting.  Did I meet him or did he meet me?

Well, I was at work; I was in a room that I frequented dozens of times in the course of that work and George Bush, I imagine, had never been into that room before.  He may never have been to the church premises before.  It seems to me that he met me.  I was where I would usually be and he wasn't.

Which neatly brings us toward Christmas.  For is it not one of the greatest and most wonderful things about Christmas that we do not go to glory to meet God until, first, he has come to our place - in truth somewhat beneath our place - to meet us?  We meet him because he first meets us.

The Temple of the Heart

Just round the corner near a Cornish fishing harbour is this sign.  It records that John Wesley stayed here and that the Methodists met here.  Too easily we institutionalise the way of Christ but, just as in the Holy Land, the true foundations of Christian faith are no longer present for they were the hearts that were changed, so here is a reminder that although the Church quickly becomes mistaken for buildings, publishing labels and international conferencing it is largely based in people's hearts, and therefore their homes.

Koz

Koz sat down at the end of a long, hot day.  The sun had been unusually strong, and the work very hard.  He mopped his brow and prepared himself for dinner, reminding his boys that they should clean their hands too.  Dinner would be taken as the stars began to light the dark Eastern night.  Koz was proud of his boys and expected that his family, though certainly not the one of the greatest, would have a secure and growing future.

5 Ashhur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah. 

6 Naarah bore him Ahuzzam, Hepher, Temeni and Haahashtari. These were the descendants of Naarah.

7 The sons of Helah: Zereth, Zohar, Ethnan, 

8 and Koz, who was the father of Anub and Hazzobebah and of the clans of Aharhel son of Harum.

9 Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, ‘I gave birth to him in pain.’ 

10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.

A few years one American preacher managed to build one of those embarrassing evangelical empires around two verses that shine out amid the names in 1 Chronicles chapter 4 - the prayer of Jabez (you could even buy a Prayer of Jabez key ring or mug).   Jabez is only mentioned here in the Bible but his North American attraction is that he prayed for God to enlarge his territory - and God did.  I'm mildly surprised Mr Trump hasn't referenced this but I think his marriage of convenience with the Bible probably doesn't reach as far as Jabez. 

Near Jabez's little island of meaning in an ocean of genealogical names are of course many other names and with a detailed commentary even some of these names yield fascinating details.  The one that gripped me though did so because his name seemed very 21st century (and certainly easy to pronounce) - Koz. 

He had never, and would never, be a subject of eccentric Bible entrepreneurs.  Only this could be said of him - that in his day he was a significant figure in his growing, but minor, clan and that God has arranged that, unlike any modern preacher, or Shakespeare, Nero, or Alexander the Great, Koz’s name appears in the Word of God.

I like to think that Koz and others are in Scripture precisely because their names are like a church rota.  When the story of a church is written the priests, vicars or pastors (even the naughty ones) are listed, the organist who was pulled stops for 50 years, the woman who began the Girl Guides and the local dignitary who opened the new hall.  The rest?  Well, Jesus may know his sheep by name but they are passed over on earth into congregational historical anonymity.

For all of us threatened with genealogical anonymity there is the encouraging thought that most of the names in Scripture are of people as unknown as Koz.  Yet they and we are all known and all matter to our Lord.

Needled

For those of us not disposed to being punctured by the medical profession the headlines that this year's flu vaccination is largely useless comes as a great relief.  We can forever say, "Well I don't think getting that is really worthwhile.  For example, in 2014/15 . . . ."

This may not be wise of course.

One of our main hospitals in North London has a building, formerly a smallpox and vaccination hospital, called the Jenner Building.  I often enter the hospital I visit most by the Jenner entrance/exit.

As a passing point of observation it doesn't have a Phipps Building.

The Jenner Building is so called in honour of Edward Jenner whose observational medical brilliance uncovered the way mild cowpox protected milkmaids from the far more serious smallpox.

This all brings me to James Phipps. Most of us will never have heard of him but the possibility is that, humanly speaking, we owe him our life. At the turn of the nineteenth century James, from a small Gloucestershire town, allowed a Doctor Edward Jenner to give him a disease (cowpox [vaccinia]) followed six weeks later by the deadly disease smallpox. Jenner's place in history was assured when, as he'd suspected, vaccination ('cowpoxination' never caught on!) prevented young James getting smallpox. A medical breakthrough was confirmed that still shapes much medicine today.

How often in history have ordinary people been the true glory of greater people?  It seems somewhat unfair really.  Yet it lies very close to the heart of Christian faith as John the Baptist famously introduced his Lord: I am not the Christ but I have been sent before him.  He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This, my joy, therefore is made full.  He must increase, but I must decrease.

Even the absence of a Phipps Entrance tells me something I need to remember.

Glass

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.

George Herbert is remembered today in England.  It takes a little historical adjustment and width to work out why he is so spiritually significant but he represents the highest of Christian virtues from the least likely of settings.

Most of us who seek to follow Christ in the West struggle enough with the relative riches that we enjoy over against poorer people to whom God directs our gaze through his Son who had nowhere to lay his head.

 

Herbert was simply born to be great.  In an age when connections were everything he was famously and absolutely well connected.  Yet his glory seemed to be in reverse to his earthly prospects.  As his famous poem quoted above reveals he revelled in the extraordinary glory of the ordinary.

 

Here is a picture of the Parish Church he will forever be associated with.  It is only a mile or two from the grandeur of Salisbury Cathedral where his eloquent education might have more rightly been expected to be on display.  It resembles our church's scout hut in dimensions . . .

 

Bremerton Church

Praise God that not every Christian has felt the necessity to measure greatness in terms of greatness.

 

All may of Thee partake;

Nothing so small can be

But draws, when acted for Thy sake,

Greatness and worth from Thee.

Focus

I was delighted to read that someone of international standing has recommended my car!

 

Pope Francis said: "It hurts me when I see a priest or a nun with the latest model car, you can't do this.  Cars are necessary. But take a more humble one. Think of how many children die of hunger and dedicate the savings to them."

Further investigation proves, allegedly, that he practices what he preaches. The Pope himself shuns comfortable expensive transport and when driving around his city he uses . . .

. . . a humble Ford Focus.

I was really feeling quite good about this.  Though not under Pope Francis's administration or tutelage I was conducting my ministry from the same humble transportation that he himself uses by way of example.

 

Then something bothered me.

 

When, in something of an emergency as my previous car clapped out, I bought my Ford Focus I thought it was a nice car, a good one that made me wonder whether, well, I should have bought something more humble.

 

Which only goes to show that a Pope's humility is a Baptist Pastor's luxury (at least in Britain!).

 

There again, Jesus walked . . .

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.