hindsight and the deathly hallows

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It makes things nobody can foresee seem blindingly obvious. Like watching a repeat of a penalty shoot-out, it’s obvious which way the keeper should dive when you’ve seen the end.

I’ve been trying to get into the minds of Jesus’ disciples as we’ve been reading through the final days, and trying to imagine what they were feeling without the advantage of hindsight. They knew – knew! – the Messiah couldn’t die because God wouldn’t let that happen, and certainly not like a common criminal. So they would have always thought Jesus had a plan, another plan, a better plan. As the hours passed from the final supper to the garden and the arrest and their hopes for this plan b began to fail… what was going through their minds?

And then I was reading a book this afternoon and there was a chapter which brought to mind something of the conversations the disciples would have been having after Jesus resurrection. You know, that really awkward bit after the Mary’s have said they’ve seen Jesus, and then Peter says the same… but they can’t make the pieces fit together. Would you?! I imagine these conversations where they argue – ARGUE!! – using words the NIV certainly wouldn’t translate.

I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know, I’m a few years late in discovering it’s actually a really good story! In chapter 22, entitled The Deathly Hallows, Harry is beginning to piece together the story; he has discovered new information and that enables him to begin reinterpreting what he already knew. Stories from the past, prophecies they never knew existed because you wouldn’t until you have hindsight. 

Like the disciples, poring through the Scriptures (our Old Testament) and seeing references to the details of Jesus’ life that they couldn’t have known before. Being brave enough to think their thoughts out loud, thoughts they knew sounded ridiculous and like they were trying to force Jesus into a story… what if… what if…

What if Jesus is the Messiah, what if when he talked about being raised in 3 days he actually meant it… what it the temple he talked about was his body… what if he has brought the resurrection forward to now… what if he is the one the prophets talked about… what if he is the suffering servant from Isaiah… maybe this is the new covenant from Jeremiah…

Thomas, what do you think?

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.Pictures

When Harry began to piece the story together he was met with scepticism, but he had to stick it out. Trust. It seemed unbelievable. When the disciples began to piece the story together they were met with scepticism, but they had to stick it out. Trust. It seems unbelievable. When we begin to piece the story together… it must seem unbelievable.

To me, it does. If it ever isn’t, we’re missing something. But hindsight shows us that Jesus did have a plan, that there is an ending. Sometimes you have to die to get there.

But thankfully it’s Jesus, not a stone, that brings resurrection. Hallowed be your death. And your life. 

… [ waiting ] …

I wonder what your symbol of waiting is. The bus stop, train station, school gate; red brake lights, red traffic lights; the egg timer on the computer, the slow-boiling kettle, the long-winded preacher…

We spend a lot of our time … waiting.

I struggle to enjoy waiting. Some might take the opportunity whilst stuck in a traffic jam to pray or worship or something equally holy. I just get cross and put the Foo Fighters on.

Advent is about waiting.  Advent isn’t just ‘that bit before Christmas’, like the check-in desk is to a holiday. And advent isn’t Christmas itself, whatever the shops would have us believe.

Advent is when we remember that the people of Israel waited for their expected Messiah for a very very very long time. And we remember that we are waiting for that Messiah to return again and finally and once and for all sort everything out. So advent is definitely not just the bit before Christmas.

There’s a lot of biblical precedent for waiting. Noah waited. Abraham waited. Moses waited, Joseph waited, Ruth and Naomi waited. David waited, the prophets waited. All these different people pleaded and begged and bribed God to do things at their speed, rather than his, and all failed. Because God will not be rushed.

As we wait for Jesus to come again, I wondered which biblical characters we might find ourselves behaving like.

The story of the golden calf tells us a lot about waiting. Moses had gone up the mountain and had been gone ages. Aaron and the people got fed up with waiting. Things were better in Egypt, at least there we could do things to make the gods work for us – rituals and sacrifices and we could touch and see the Egyptian gods because they were made of real stuff. So instead of waiting for God, they made their own out of gold.

A lot of people have got fed up with waiting for God and decided to make their own. Or to go back to their old ways. Or make church like the golden calf – familiar things, familiar rituals, that feel like they are achieving something. But God will not be bribed with ritual.

Maybe we find ourselves waiting like the zealots or Pharisees of Jesus’ day. Two very different groups that both wanted to make the Messiah come quicker because he would overthrow the Romans. So they busied themselves with forcing God to act quicker – the zealots with violence and the Pharisees with holiness.

It can be very tempting to try and rush God. How many times have you heard people say that once everyone in the world has heard the gospel Jesus will come; or if we all say the right prayer;  or return the Jews to Israel; or believe the same things about Jesus or moral and ethical issues… then Jesus will be forced to return because we’ll have done our side of the bargain. I’ve done a, so will you do b. Bargaining with God. We always try it, but he doesn’t do it.

The prophets had a lot to say about waiting. They were constantly addressing a people who were waiting. And their message I think is the same as the message to us as we wait.

Wait patiently. And while you wait, be faithful. And by faithful I mean worship God even when he doesn’t work at your speed; submit to God even when he doesn’t do what you want when you want; and serve God even when it feels like a waste of time. 

There is hope.

Jesus will come again. That is our hope. We will meet him and welcome him here to earth where he will renew all things. In the meantime we live lives in which we do not get distracted into making our own gods or bribing or bargaining with God but in which we wait expectantly, live hopefully, and serve faithfully.   It won’t make him come any quicker, but the waiting will be much better, and allowing God to break into our lives like he did at Christmas is the best type of waiting there is.

still.born.lament

Designing Christmas flyers. Planning Sunday’s service. Taking the funeral of a still-born child. Helping at the youth club. Just an ordinary day in vicar-land.

One of the privileges and responsibilities of being Anglican is the funeral ministry, which goes largely unseen by the majority of people. A funeral can contain a variety of emotions, most of which we British attempt to stifle in an attempt to show some decorum and not upset Aunty Rita.

Generally speaking we the public don’t know what to do with funerals. We have a picture in our mind that they should be ‘proper’, sort of ‘churchy’, i.e. straight-laced and a bit dull, and preferably cold. But if mentions of God could be kept to minimum because we’re not really religious, please.

Last week I took the funeral of a still-born child, and there isn’t much that sums up sadness like a mum & dad grieving for the loss of a child they were never able to parent. There isn’t much that sums up hopes being dashed than the death of a child before it is born. Usually in a funeral you can at least call it a celebration of life, you can remember some good things even in the bleakest of lives; but not here. Only hopes, never to be realised.

I told someone I was taking the service, and they said “I wouldn’t know where to start. What on earth do you say?” That is an excellent place to start, I said, because the Bible is not a textbook of trite answers to life’s problems and we are not inadequate if we have nothing to say. That is when we lament.

So I thought I would offer what I did say in my address to this young couple grieving the loss of their first child and so much more. Maybe it’s not what you would have said. It’s not a treatise on death and maybe it’s too simple. But it’s a start. I began by reading Psalm 139.1-18. 

I wonder what you might want to say to God at a time like this. And I wonder what God might say back to us. Much of the Bible is a record of people’s conversations with God, and you may be surprised to know that there is an awful lot of ranting at God, and an awful lot of lamenting. Lamenting when things have gone wrong, grieving for things that have been lost. The Psalms are full of people opening their hearts boldly before God. This shows us that this is a good thing. God is not fragile, and God knows that you are hurting. And he encourages us to get those feelings out into the open.

The bible also tells us God’s response to our lament, which isn’t to tell us to ‘pull ourselves together’, ‘deal with it’ or ‘move on’. No, God’s response is one of love. God’s response is what we remember at Christmas – that God is not a distant God who remains distant, but God became a human, yes even a fragile human baby – so that he could dwell with us in amongst our pain and our sorrow.

When Jesus grew up, we read about him at the grave of his friend Lazarus, where Jesus wept. Jesus knew sorrow. Jesus saw pain and sorrow all around him and Jesus knows that not every story has a happy ending. This is how realistic our faith is. There is no escapism in trusting Jesus. As Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus, so he weeps with you.  

But as Jesus stands with us in our pain Jesus also leads us through the pain of death to the hope beyond. As Jesus died and was raised to life, so we believe that we die and we are also raised to new life. Baby x has gone from this life, which is what we are here to mark and that hurts; baby x is with God. But may it be some comfort for you, and give you some hope, that God is with you right now. There is a hope for you two, for your lives together and for your love for each other which baby x will always be part of; hope that comes from Jesus who is the way the truth and the life, and who offers us life in this world and the next.

So there we are. I’m big on lament. One of church’s lost disciplines.

shrinking your camel

A turn of the page couldn’t reveal two more different approaches to the good news. I was reading the latest edition of Christianity Magazine and p18 had an article about the so-called Machine Gun Preacher, a hard-core Christian who uses machine guns to rescue stolen African children in Uganda/Sudan in the name of Jesus, and is the subject of a recent film of that name. Controversial, obviously.

The previous page had a simple interview with an ‘ordinary’ person with an even more controversial theology yet one that slips under the radar of respectability.

The interview was with the top man in RK Capital Management LLP, which runs one of the biggest industrial metals hedge funds in the world. He is known as Mr Copper because of the fund’s significant role in the copper market. He attends St Helen’s Bishopsgate. All fine so far.

© 2011 Thomas Lekfeldt/Moment/Redux

It is well-known that conditions in Zambian copper mines are not good; many are run by Chinese-state companies that routinely flout labour laws, according to Human Rights Watch. So he was asked whether, as one of the biggest buyers of copper in the world, he could influence conditions of workers in the mines in a country where copper is 75% of the country’s exports and 2/3 of Government revenue. Surely the workers would be pleased to have a Jesus-following Bible-believing man of influence on their side?

No.

He washed his hands of any responsibility for their working conditions, saying that if he were to do anything, it would be to import “God-fearing gospel-believing ministers into Zambia, because once hearts are changed, improvements are made.”

Unless it means him, of course. Has his heart been changed, so improvements can be made?

Perhaps even more distressing was the fact he made claim to Jesus’ encounter with the Rich Young Ruler as a way of reconciling his wealth and inaction. Somehow he came to the conclusion that money is neutral.  He has completely missed the point. This is an extremely wealthy man who makes his money, in part, gambling on the future of copper mined in extremely dangerous circumstances. Were people like him to have a direct encounter with Jesus in the manner of the rich young ruler, I do not think they would get away with claiming their wealth was neutral and their hands clean.

There is a problem with City of London ghetto theology that justifies turning blind eyes, washing of hands and hiding behind claims to “preach gospel” before improving living conditions for copper slaves . I’m sure we can guess which one the workers would call good news. “Thinking of the cross at the beginning of the day”, as he says he does, makes no difference to their lives. Few can influence copper mines. When you are one of the few who can, yet hide behind “the gospel” as an excuse for inaction, the Jesus movement  is in a sorry place.

Money is not neutral. Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  This is a challenge to little me, but surely a massive challenge to to Mr Copper and the many who work in the City and think like that: shrink your camel.

Because that needle is gonna hurt.

the b word

When you ask a vicar how they are, chances are they will reply ‘busy’. I have always tried to avoid answering this question with that word, either by cocking my head to one side and earnestly saying “it’s not about me; how are you?”, by playing to the (always hilarious) joke that I only work one day a week and saying “pretty free til next Sunday actually, it’s an easy life this one”, or by saying “crap actually, can we talk about it” simply because it is a hobby of mine to create awkward silences and hold them for as long as possible. Usually we call it prayer.

However at this time I am actually very busy, what with my co-vicar being on maternity leave and 20,000 hungry parishioners (as opposed to Parisiens) needing souls cured, booklets photocopied and the heating switched on and off according to the whims of Mother Nature. So, because despite my magical (sorry, miraculous) powers I cannot squeeze any more time out of the day, and because I will not sacrifice my family or my sanity on the altar of ‘doing everything’, I have decided there must be cuts.

So here are 7 things I will no longer be doing:

1. I will no longer read commentaries whilst preparing sermons. Live text on BBC Sport is finally to be considered a distraction and I will switch it off.
2. Updating my Facebook status will no longer be considered a spiritual discipline. If God wants to know what I am up to, he can email me, which I will leave marked as unread until I have time to respond.
3. I will no longer keep my office tidy. Jesus came into a messy world to redeem it, so I will wait for him to do the same to my office.
4. Whilst I can see the benefit of reading the Bible, there is never anything new in it and it is awfully long. I will stick to whatever Scriptures I can find on bookmarks, posters and other people’s Facebook pages, as they are presumably the most important ones.
5. I shall no longer prepare services. It seems a lot of work to do essentially the same thing every week. Following the example of the X-Factor and Strictly, we will use the same script every week, manipulate the odd drama and throw someone out according to votes cast in the offering bags.
6. Instead of feeling guilty about not having planned things that are coming up (like Christmas, or tomorrow’s assembly), I will make it a deliberate policy not to plan anything until the day on which it happens. After all, it’s God’s reputation on the line so it’s up to him to step in with last-minute inspiration, and he ought to be able to operate the photocopier by now.
7. We will no longer hire out the church hall in an organized way, but simply leave it open as a ‘community space’. This way we don’t have to worry about keys or rent, we just let the Big Society sort it out for themselves. This is called empowering the community. In fact, we will no longer lock away the church tea and coffee. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

With these changes in place, I am hoping that I will no longer find myself scrabbling for euphemisms for the b word, and will be able once again to the play on the Playstation during the day. Sorry, pray station.

stuck

Stuck. Stuck in a scene of judgement, stuck with the finger pointed at you. Caught in the act and waiting for punishment. Stuck.

The woman was brought him. Caught. Bound, bleeding, shamed. Shamed. The price for quick sex, dirty sex. Or for being caught in the religious power play. It is the temple courtyard, the Pharisees’ turf. The woman is brought, crawling, bound and struggling, fearing for her life. The Romans look on, ready to pounce on any disturbance. The people look on, knowing that yesterday they were cheering Jesus and today… who knows.

This is a scene of judgement. This is a scene where those in power are using their position to emphasise their authority. The woman is just a pawn in their power game. The crowd watch as the leader of the Pharisees accuses her before Jesus: this woman was caught in adultery. Moses commands us to stone such women. What do you say?

The woman trembles. Jesus pauses. He writes something in the sand. The people clamour to see. Luke doesn‘t tell us what he says, but from what happens next, we can guess: stone her. Panic reaches the woman’s face as she realises her last chance is gone. The angry mob get twitchy fingers and begin to search for stones.

Stuck. Stuck in a scene of judgement, stuck with the finger pointed at you. Caught in the act and waiting for punishment. Stuck.

How many of us live our lives there. We are stuck there. Our relationship with and understanding of God is based on feeling like we have been caught and will be – or are being – punished. We are the woman. God is the angry mob.

Then Jesus cuts through all of it with a stroke of revolutionary genius. This is the method of execution:  Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Would you be the first? You will be arrested for inciting a riot and maybe for murder. But more than that, you will break the very law you are abusing the woman with to test Jesus. Because the law says none of us are without sin. Clever.

The people look to the Pharisees for what to do. The eldest was always the most important – and the eldest walked away. One by one they followed. Humiliated. The whole scene has changed. The stage is empty except for the woman and he who is without sin. When Jesus bends down to write again she probably thinks he is going to get a stone.

Stuck. Stuck in a scene of judgement, stuck with the finger pointed at you. Caught in the act and waiting for punishment. Stuck.

Instead Jesus walks on the knife-edge between condemning her on one hand, and overlooking her destructive lifestyle on the other. “Neither do I condemn you”, he says. “Go, and do not sin again.” The key here is that Jesus recognises her sin, and he holds her to account – but he removes the penalty for that sin. She is guilty, but she will not be killed. He did not condemn, but neither did he condone. The challenge to her was to change. For how many of us is changing harder than being punished. We want to be punished. We do not want to change. 

In our little church we are beginning a series on grace. Why? Because I think so many of us are stuck with this idea of God as the harsh religious leader who must enforce the law; but Jesus shows us a grace which see the person to be embraced not a problem to be erased.

The abused woman in this story we hope was able to find healing. We hope the community was as ready for repentance and forgiveness and new beginnings as Jesus was. Jesus did not get stuck at condemnation.

Let’s pray we don’t get stuck there either.

…

This story can be found in full in John 8.1-11. 

stink

A woman arrived at the party.  This was a fragrant gathering, there were fresh-cut flowers, a novelty in such a desert place. Fragrant because the people there were important, and wanted to leave the dirt and grime and smells of the outside world behind them. Feet washed, hands scrubbed. Separation complete. All was good.

Except the woman was not invited. Neither was she welcome. An imposter, bringing with her the stink of dirty sex into a gathering of the righteous. Anyone who recognised her would not acknowledge her. Certainly not here. But they knew her. They knew what she stood for. She stank, in every possible way. She contaminated their world in the way she contaminated their dinner party. She had to go.

But she is not done yet. From her dirty bag she took the most unlikely of gifts. Perfume. She washed the feet of the man she had come to see. She didn’t have a lot, but what she has she risked for Jesus’ stinky feet. Feet the host should already have washed. But he had not. 

This woman knew what she was. Jesus knew what she was. But more than that he knew who she was. A woman worthy of dignity and respect. A woman loved and not a woman to be scorned. Unlike everyone else at Simon the Pharisee’s house, she had no position of power or respect to protect, she had no reason to seek Jesus out except to show love. Maybe a desperate love, but love nonetheless.

Jesus honoured that. He honoured that because when they left the party, they smelled the same. Jesus – rabbi, incarnate Son of God, Lord and King – and a dirty, stinky prostitute. Now, they smelled the same. The stink of dirty sex to the fragrance of forgiveness.

That feels like a challenge. To respectability, to formulas of salvation, to the efforts we go to to protect ourselves from the stink of everyone else. That feels like a challenge to me who stinks a challenge to approach God and allow him to pronounce me clean, and for him to walk proudly with me. Smelling the same. The same? THE SAME?

Surely such a God would be insane. It certainly stinks of something.

copyright for this artwork is unavailable.

Read the full story from Luke 7.36-50.

mixed up / passion

There is power in old stories being told over and over again. With the passion story, there is always something new, something fresh, something living; there is creativity in a story that could decay, there is resurrection in the tomb of death.

But we jump ahead. Today, we re-tell death. Today death has the last word.

Today death has been remixed by my friend Lee. 

controlled by cookies

They know. They are clever. And they never forget.
They remind you. They prompt you. They stalk you.

Do you fear them?

Or do we embrace them?

After all, there is nothing to fear. All they are doing is saying if you liked that, you may also like this. You bought this album, you may like this one. How very lovely, we think, I’ll give it a go. Have a cookie. Thanks for the thought.

boxed in

My recommendations from Amazon are sometimes very useful, sometimes way off the mark (80′s rom coms are not really my scene, it was Fran’s birthday…) (honest). But they are always based on my previous purchases, or things I have shown an interest in. Do they show me anything new? Or do they simply affirm my tastes and keep me in the same box? Does the shuffle on iTunes play things I have played more recently based on what I have played recently, so that gradually the net shrinks and it shuffles the same songs?

I was imagining a Bible app that would do the same. Maybe there is one. You know, one that says

• ‘as you like *Isaiah 61*, you may also like *Luke 4*’,
  
• ‘as you like *Acts 2* you may also like *Joel 2*’ or my favourite,
  
• ‘as you like to *misinterpret metaphor in Genesis* you may also like to *misinterpret metaphor in Revelation*’.

Then I thought, don’t we already do that. Don’t we already self-select the books we read, the Bible passages we read, the podcasts we download. Don’t we already take recommendations from our friends who we agree with, and in so doing affirm our own rightness by listening/reading/watching stuff we know we will agree with? I was struck by Nick Baines (not literally) a few weeks ago when he said that he doesn’t read books by people he knows he will agree with, because what’s the point? I guess that’s great for an avid quick reading academic like him, but is it realistic for the rest of us? I am about to start a Tom Wright I bought in 2008. That’s how behind I am with my book pile, and that’s mostly books I know I will like. Though it does include a John MacArthur (I was lent that one).

Given the choice, I will read Rob Bell not John Piper. Given the choice and limited time I am unlikely to critically engage in a meaningful sense with someone I am likely to disagree with. Which is exactly what I criticized people for doing with Rob Bell’s new book, people who slandered it before it was even published.

A challenge for me as part of the affirmation generation, who buy/listen/read things based on computer-generated consumption assumptions and tweets from our global ministry heroes is to break out and break free from being controlled by cookies. To try something new. To read someone I don’t agree with and find something good in it.

As Spring Harvest looms, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity…!

Meanwhile here are a few more ideas for my ‘affirming your own beliefs’ Bible app. Do add your own..!

• as you like *sporadically applying Levitical laws when they suit you*, you may also like *The Pharisees*
• as you like *Luke 10*, you may also like *Deuteronomy 6*
• as you like *denying bodily resurrection and the new creation*, you may also like *The Sadducees*
• as you like *sending non-believers to eternal physical torment in hell*, you may also like *Matthew 25.31-46*
• as you like *to write long letters to church leaders* you may also like *Paul*

wonky donkey

look who's talking

There was a man riding on a donkey to a certain place. I say a man, more of an ogre, I think. He was certainly large, and green, and was constantly plucking the wax from his ears. So I think this fits the description of cartoon ogre. We’ll call him Sherk. That was, after all, the name on his ill-fitting waistcoat.

So he there was riding, and all of a sudden, the donkey veered suddenly to the left off the road and into a field. Sherk, who was not paying attention because he was singing ‘one man went to mow’ and dreaming of gingerbread men fell off the donkey. He cursed the donkey. He beat the donkey with a large stick to get it back on the road. Donkey, unusually, stayed quiet. He had, after all, just seen something quite frightening.

They continued on their journey, and were walking a narrow path between two walled vineyards. The donkey once again saw something and just stopped. He then tried to turn around. In doing so, he crushed Sherk’s foot against the wall.Sherk was not pleased.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” yelled Sherk, angrily. He beat the donkey, and they carried on their way. Donkey, unusually stayed quiet. He has, after all, just seen something quite frightening.

They carried along their way, Sherk no longer mowing meadows in his mind and donkey feeling the weight of his ogred burden. As they were edging slowly around a narrow ledge on the hillside, with no room to turn left or right, donkey dropped. He just, sat. Sherk was so angry that he beat donkey once more.

pardon?

“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!” yelled Sherk.

“AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!” yelled the donkey.

Sherk looked confused. The donkey was usually silent, with the occasional braying. That was not a bray.

“AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!” yelled Shrek again, a little more tentatively.

“AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” yelled the donkey, louder.

“AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” yelled Sherk, now in genuine terror.

“Cut it out”, said Donkey. “What have I done that you are beating me so, you horrid and violent ogre? People think ogres are so cute and lovely ever since that silly film about your cousin. You are certainly not.”

Sherk was dumbstruck. Not only an obstinate donkey, but a talking donkey? Maybe his cousin had been right all along. He must email him to say sorry for accusing him of making the whole thing up. Then he remembered he was angry.

“You have made a fool of me with all this stopping!”, he shouted at the donkey. “I keep falling off and people will think I am clumsy! Ogres are not all clumsy! If I had my sword I would kill you now!”

Donkey sighed. Ogres were so touchy, so worried about their cartoon image. “Am I not your faithful servant. Do I usually behave like this?” he asked.

“Yes you are, no you don’t.” replied Sherk, confused. “What’s your point? Don‘t tell me, you’re distracted because you are about to make weird hybrid donkey babies with a pink dragon?”

he called me a noble steed!

“No,” donkey replied, though he did fondly remember a brief liaison with a lovely looking dragon. But babies? No, that would be wrong.

At this point the angel of the Lord opened Balaam’s Sherk’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord, standing with his sword drawn.

The angel said to Sherk, “Why have you beaten your noble steed 3 times? He has saved your life! You are going against my will and it is only this talking donkey that has saved you.”

The angel left them, amused at the things Yahweh sometimes sent him to do. And thinking, wow, when Christians read this story in a few thousand years time they are gonna think it’s some kind of April Fool.

And so the angel put on his red hood, climbed into bed, and carried on with his knitting.