Psalms in Lent: Psalm 105 - Lockdown Anniversary

The past week marked a year since the UK went into full lockdown.  Nothing in any living Briton's experience of life in the UK prepared us for that day and its subsequent year.

It also marked a year since our household went into lockdown when our nurse daughter came home from hospital with Covid symptoms.

We celebrated the unwelcome anniversary with an Indian curry and a sense of quiet gratitude to God for a year of provision and safety in the storm.

Psalm 105 seemed an apt place to be one day last week in our Lent readings.  In it the story of Israel is recounted, and the providence of God celebrated, which I abbreviate below.  Just one line at the end is, however, significant - that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

When the Lord is merciful to us, it is incumbent on us to respond in faithfulness back to him.  And if not - as Israel was later to discover - it all happens again  . .

O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: 

. . . He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth.

He hath remembered his covenant for ever,

the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

When they went from one nation to another,  from one kingdom to another people;

he suffered no man to do them wrong:

yea, he reproved kings for their sakes;

Joseph, who was sold for a servant:

whose feet they hurt with fetters:

he was laid in iron:

until the time that his word came:

the word of the Lord tried him.

The king sent and loosed him;

even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.

Israel also came into Egypt;

and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

And he increased his people greatly;

and made them stronger than their enemies.

He turned their heart to hate his people,

to deal subtilly with his servants.

He sent Moses his servant;

and Aaron whom he had chosen.

They shewed his signs among them,

and wonders in the land of Ham.

He brought them forth also with silver and gold:

and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.

Egypt was glad when they departed:

for the fear of them fell upon them.

He spread a cloud for a covering;

and fire to give light in the night.

The people asked, and he brought quails,

and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out;

they ran in the dry places like a river.

For he remembered his holy promise,

and Abraham his servant.

And he brought forth his people with joy,

and his chosen with gladness:

and gave them the lands of the heathen:

and they inherited the labour of the people;

that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

Praise ye the Lord.

An Inspector Calls

Recently returning from a couple of Study days in Wiltshire I sat reading on the Waterloo-bound train.  It had begun its journey out west in Exeter.  We were travelling in Wessex, so it was appropriate that I was reading Thomas Hardy, a respite from theology and the like.  I was perhaps too engrossed when a man breezed past.  He was the ticket inspector.

I missed what he said, but it was something like, "Any tickets from Salisbury?".  Yes, me (following in the wake of some infamous Russians earlier in the year). I fumbled around and eventually found my ticket when he was half way down the carriage away from me.  I left my ticket in my pocket.

Andover . . .  Basingstoke . . .  After Basingstoke he returned and I was more attentive.  "Anyone from Basingstoke?  Tickets please"  he said.  I wasn't from Basingstoke but dutifully put my hand toward my pocket again.  He was off, gone to an older lady in mid carriage who gained his attention after getting on the train relatively recently.

This is what I wondered.  Why is he inspecting tickets by request?  If I had no ticket would I be likely to speak up - "Excuse me sir, I boarded at Andover without a ticket.  Would you kindly fine me now?"

I figured this is a little like the way people approach the Judgment Day (if, they muse, it ever comes).  God the Inspector walks among the millions - "Anyone here who shouldn't be?  Any sinners to go to the Other Place?  Anyone want to confess anything?".  The silent hordes let the Day pass and quietly slip through the gaping net into the Everlasting Rest of the Blessed.

As if.  The South West Trains ticket inspector may have imperfect knowledge, limited time and lazy technique but this isn't going to be the experience of meeting the omniscient, eternal God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Good and Bad

This has been a challenging week in London with the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack, an attack perpetrated by a man who we now seem to know more about than we do about members of our own family.  A little late though.

It was also the week when Martin McGuiness, former IRA Commander yet peacemaker was laid to rest - a man who died as an awkward kind of hero, a key to the Peace process that he had earlier been a key figure in making necessary.

These two men who died challenge our assessment of human goodness and badness. 

It is clear that those who knew Adey the youngster often (but not always) regarded him as incapable of anything like what he did on Wednesday.   Somewhere he seemed to have gone bad.  Yet even that doesn't quite work as the hotel he stayed in the night before the atrocity found him to be a very pleasant guest.

As a youngish man Martin McGuiness was certainly marked out by many outside his immediate community as a great deal of trouble.  To what extent he was directly or indirectly involved in acts of terrorism eventually became a subject off limits.  Yet most saw in his championing of the Northern Ireland Peace Process (at considerable personal risk and cost) something heroic or at least laudable.

The easy thing to say is that there is bad and good in all of us.  The harder thing is how we judge it.  The best thing to say is that we really can't and that the Judge of all the earth (Genesis 18:25) will need to be left to do what is right.

It's Missing 2. On the Brink

The Church has many reasons to be thankful for Matt Redman.  Matt has gone far past many contemporary worship lyricists in incorporating ancient words and biblical truths, some of which sit uncomfortably in the mindset of flashing lights, flashing teeth and flashing sales commercials which can substitute for true worship and togetherness.  I'm especially excited that the worship leader in our church loves this song because it is based on an amazing devotional poem by Robert Murray McCheyne.

McCheyne was younger than Matt Redman when he died and (I'm sure Matt wouldn't mind me remarking) made an even bigger impact in the terms of his day, especially in Dundee.  Like any devotional poem, not every verse should be sung.  In this poem - which is McCheyne's imagining of what he'd be grateful for when he reached glory - the second verse was included in only a few hymnbooks.  Unsurprisingly Matt (if he knew it existed) left it out of his consideration:

1. When this passing world is done,

When has sunk yon glaring sun,

When we stand with Christ in glory,

Looking o’er life’s finished story,

Then, Lord, shall I fully know—

Not till then—how much I owe.

2. When I hear the wicked call,

On the rocks and hills to fall,

When I see them start and shrink

On the fiery deluge brink,

Then, Lord, shall I fully know—

Not till then—how much I owe.

3.When I stand before the throne,

Dressed in beauty not my own,

When I see Thee as Thou art,

Love Thee with unsinning heart,

Then Lord, shall I fully know—

Not till then—how much I owe.

[continues]

There are three possible reasons to leave verse 2 out of hymnic consideration.  

The fact of hell.  That's enough for some, perhaps.  Yet if we only sing about spiritual positives we neuter those positives to an extent - verses 1 & 3 seem more worshipful to me in the light of this verse in between them.

The description of hell.  It is true that this is plucked straight from the church's tradition of horrors, though also from the words of the Lord Jesus . . .  Hell being eternal separation from God means that even the grimmest descriptors - far from exaggerating it - inevitably underplay what hell is really like.

The description of the saved.  This seems to me to be the best reason to leave the verse out.  Much as I admire McCheyne it is hard to see much Biblical justification (there is a little at a stretch) for a heavenly audience thankfully feasting on the spectacle of the lost on the brink of judgment.  I suppose that on the cross Jesus could have said to the repentant thief, referencing the unrepentant one, "You and I will be fine - wait 'til you see what happens to him".  But instead Jesus united the repentant thief to himself in paradise and the other was silently lost (as he shouted his insults) to the eternal salvation story.

If you have a life-saving hospital treatment you do not need to visit the mortuary to be any more knowledgeably grateful.

Rowan

Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams announced his resignation from that role as of the close of this year.

An atheist of Jewish heritage said, "He has done a very, very difficult job and seen the church through difficult times in a very skillful way. But most of all has shown himself to be someone of the deepest conviction and the deepest values and all my good wishes go with him."

A fellow Anglican Archbishop wrote, 'Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002 when it was a happy family. Unfortunately, he is leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized . . .'

Rowan Williams is a very reflective and prayerful man with a great mind.  But I doubt he can make any sense of those reactions on the public record.

Let us ask with Paul (Romans 14)

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”  So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer,

As a Football Chaplain it is amazing to see how football can publicly unite in support of its own, but the Church cannot.  Amazing, and frankly embarrassing to its Saviour and Head.

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).

Morons of the Oxy kind

As a former foster parent who also believes and - horror of secular horrors - teaches the Bible I am singularly unimpressed by the supposed wisdom of Messrs Munby and Beatson in their judgement against the Johns released today.   The case was not necessarily wisely brought either but it deserved better than it received.  How can highly-paid judges use a non-word like Pentecostalist?  Or make daft statements like this nation has an established church which is Christian when they presumably mean religion not church?  Or state that they are thoroughly secular and then declare Religion – whatever the particular believer's faith – is no doubt something to be encouraged.  Even religious people couldn't agree with that never mind atheists!

In the words of Robert Pigott (BBC), . 'Today the message was that courts would interpret the law in cases like the Johns' according to secular and not religious values.' People 'with traditionalist Christian views like Mr and Mrs Johns' might well not make good foster parents.

We have moved steps nearer a day when, in the United Kingdom, 'Christian Foster Parent' is an oxymoron [a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms] 

Mind you, while I'm on the oxymoron theme, Munby and Beatson also declared,  We sit as secular judges. 

But if the much-maligned Bible is true there's also coming a day when 'secular judges' will itself be an oxymoron: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

I've a feeling that Day might go somewhat better for Mr & Mrs Johns.  And I hope, for their sake, that Messrs Munby and Beatson find out what church really means before then too.

Spending Review

Pipes

On Monday I went to the funeral of a lady who had been involved with our church many years ago.  The service was in a little village chapel.  The chapel was in a little village lane (we were directed to park in something between a car park and a farmyard).  The chapel looked like a house (as all good old-fashioned non-conformist chapels do).  There was ice on the roads and as it didn't, from the outside, look like a building that had benefited from heavy investment I feared there might be ice on the pews. (It was pleasantly warm in fact). 

We walked in.  The entrance was sufficiently narrow to make me grateful I'd lost weight recently, not a funeral director's favourite kind of entrance.  But on this occasion I was congregation not platform participant and as I finished squeezing into the pew, designed for that earlier generation that was rather less than my 6 foot plus, my eyes were transfixed by the pile of metal material in the corner of the room.

My initial thought was that a local farmer may be using that corner to store old pipework.  Pipes stood behind the single keyboard organ as if they had been thrown there.  Some were straight others at various angles, there were gaps where pipes seemed to be missing, some looked kind of rusty.  Perhaps an old space satellite had landed in the village punching a hole in the chapel roof which was now repaired.  However, in the end, I was forced to conclude this pile of pipes had really been the organ, uncased, disused and left in miserable decay in the corner of the chapel.

An older lady stood up.  Well she stood more than stood up on account of not being young enough or tall enough to do the 'up'.  She had a music bag!  And then the horror dawned.  She was making her way to the pile of pipes!!  I braced myself.  Here I was, with a grieving family and some thoughtful and kind members of my church sitting beside me and I was about to hear the most pitiable example of what passes for church music played on an instrument that the local museum would laughingly refuse to consider as a free gift.

Christine climbed and sat on the organ stool.  She spread out her music. She began to play.  A J. S. Bach prelude floated from the corner.  There were no missing notes.  There were no missed timings.  There seemed, after all, no missing pipes.  Simply masterful music beautifully played by a more-than-able musician on an instrument that my ears told my eyes was not as ugly as my eyes had imagined.

Some chorales and hymns later I was remembering not only a lady I had often visited but (thanks to Christine) also the words of the Lord Jesus,

Stop judging by the way things look, but judge by what is really right.         

Mayor

Wycombe has little to distinguish it from any other English town these days. Except that it weighs the Mayor!

The idea is that by being weighed at the beginning and end of the year it can be established whether he/she has become fat at the expense of the townsfolk.

It's a fun tradition.

Yet there was a king who was weighed by God.

The writing was certainly on the wall for Belshazzar! And Daniel explained it.

Tekel: You are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting.

For all of us who lead, for all of us who live, that's not funny at all.