a rebellious repenting

So today I did a bit of a spoken word poetry in church about John the Baptist, I didn’t introduce it or explain it, I just did it as unexpectedly as I could, because John himself was unexpected as was the man he projected, and others rejected… see there I go again. The context is me hoovering. Obviously. If it’s too long for you, jump to the green bit at the end. 

…

Are you ready? Are you ready? Am I ready for what? 
I saw John the Baptiser dancing on the spot
Or not so much dancing but he’s getting excited you see
Waving his arms all enthusiastically 
Are you ready! He calls out, somebody’s coming!
You’d better have a wash then Jonny-boy cos your armpits are humming

It’s alright for you to say 
we all need to change our ways
Like it’s some kind of last days
When the valleys will be raised
Are you in some kind of crazed
Desert preacher prophet phase

Hang on there’s a car pulling up it must be my special guests 
And here am I hoovering in my pants and vest
Quickly I’ll get dressed and stoke up the fire
Because it’s my friends Elizabeth and Zechariah
I say they’re my friends, I’ve known them for years
They’re worried about their son John they’ve been reduced to tears
They knew he was special but they didn’t know why
And now he’s doing all this preaching in the public eye
And it’s not harmless stuff he’s saying; no sentimental guff
He’s a gritty young fella and he looks pretty rough

Not what they were expecting
After the angels projecting 
Their son so rejecting
And all the time expecting
A rebellious repenting 
This desert preacher prophet thing

He was so rude to all the people who had come to follow him
Like they were jumping on a bandwagon just so they could get in
To God’s good books – you know, repenting but not in their hearts
Hypocrisy was the biggest thing that wound up John by far
You brood of vipers, you liars and thieves 
With your cheap repentance the axe is coming to your trees
To cut you down and throw you into the fire 
He said it again and again like he was never going tire
But still they came what shall we do they said
Share you clothes, your lives, your love, your bread

This is a big changing
A wide and ranging
Values exchanging
Family estranging
And rearranging 
This desert preacher prophet thing

The soldiers came to John and said so tell us what you mean
Cos’ we’re in charge of behaviour here: do we need to be clean
And John was brave and bold I think he was stupid actually
And told them not to thieve and rob and act like thugs and bullies
He even said that they should be content with all their pay 
They looked him in the eye and laughed and then walked away

And then there were the tax collectors who came to be baptised
To see them talking to a prophet I’ve never been more surprised 
They asked him what they should do to repent like he was saying
Don’t take more money from anybody than the amount they should be paying
It seems obvious to us but tax collectors are hated thieves
There’s no way John’s the messiah while those people live and breathe 

So yes I can see why his mum and dad are worried 
That before long it won’t be them but be him that’s being buried 
And his cousin Jesus is beginning to hang around him
More shame on the family might be about to surround them
They’ve come to me for comfort but I don’t know what to say  
Because he’s set apart for God that John, in a funny kind of way
With his camel hair and funny diet and as tactful as a hatchet
He reminds me in distinctly of an Elijah-style prophet

Not what they were expecting
After the angels projecting 
Their son would be rejecting
And all the time expecting
A rebellious repenting 
This desert preacher prophet thing

It seems John was talking about a rebellious repenting 
And that’s why God called him to life and then he sent him
To soldiers to be different and to tax collectors the same
And to ordinary people to live in honour and not in shame
If we are serious about following the God who we profess
Then it’s not enough to come week after week just to confess
But we make serious changes to our lives and be generous all the time
Are you ready? Am I ready? To be generous with my life? 

It’s more than just a sweeping and a cleaning to look pretty
It’s more than just covering over the parts that look dirty
It’s more than just plumping the cushions and hiding the toys
Quickly running the hoover round and poshing up your voice
When your friends come round they should see you as you are 
When God comes round to live with us? I know it sounds bizarre
We show him that we love him not by following all the rules 
But by a rebellious repenting that might make us look like fools

Cos we won’t buy dodgy goods or take cash in hand on the side
And we won’t swear at our families because in our hearts we take pride
We won’t cheat the welfare system or claim someone else’s pension
We won’t do dodgy tax arrangement or things too complex to mention
When we lose our rag we apologise even though it means losing face
Then we don’t do it again – it’s called living in expensive grace 
Living life a different way – the hard way – following The Way
I think that might be Jesus, I think that’s what John’s trying to say.

…

May we be people who live differently, living lives of rebellious repentance.

advents’ unexpected journey

an unexpected journey

Advent is the season of unexpected journeys. You can take precautions against such things of course, like not listening to anybody called Gandalph, or having an emergency 50p sewn into your pocket. But epic and unexpected journeys just keep coming. And I don’t just mean hobbits, though they do have a habit of appearing during advent.

At advent we look back to God’s epic and unexpected journey through history, beginning with awkwardly naked people in a fruity garden, and taking in wife-swappers, murderers, inheritance-stealers, foreigners and hairy fox-burners, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the liberation of slaves, epic adventures, tragic failures, Boney M and prophets marrying prostitutes. An unexpected journey indeed.

Like the Jews before us, we look back at what God has done. As they looked back to the Exodus as the marker and definer of their faith, so we take in that story and the story of Jesus’ new exodus. But advent isn’t about looking back for its own sake. We look back to in order to look forward. As God has done things in the past, so God will do new things in the future. And that is the case in the epic over-arching story, and in the individual story, whether person is Elizabeth or Mary or Nora..

a young gandalph

Nora? I want to tell you about Nora. That’s not her real name though she is real. She is a lady from one of our previous churches. An extremely shy old lady, one of the few times her eyes would light up is when she told the story of coming to faith, during a Billy Graham mission in the 1950′s. This was the marker and definer of her faith. We often encouraged her to ask God to do a new thing in her, but she was happy with the memory she had, not believing God would bother to do a new thing in little her.

One day we (unusually) did a call for people to come forward if they wanted a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. I really hoped she would come. She was sat at her usual chair, right at the back. She didn’t come. Until the very end of the queue. I can’t tell you my surprise or joy seeing her shuffle up the aisle with her stick. I prayed for her. She went to sit down. It was only in the next few weeks she told us that she had felt that same feeling in church that day as she had had 50 years ago. God had done a new thing in her. She had a new story to tell. She had a new smile. 

This is the unexpected journey of advent. Re-telling old stories to remember that God will give us a new story. Old ladies making the journey up to the front to be anointed. Or giving birth to John the Baptist.

God is doing a new thing. It’s an unexpected journey. And we go together.

… [ 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.

2 fingers to the inheritance of vipers

No babes in mangers but broods of vipers. No chestnuts roasting on an open fire but the rotten fruit of the children of Abraham. No royalty privilege but repentance.

brood of vipers

The set reading for this Sunday was a bit of surprise for those who think Christmas has already started. According to the Church of Retail and Commerce, it begins in September when the suntan lotion is replaced by tinsel and baubles. But according to the Church of England lectionary (like Pictionary only without the giggles), we are still firmly in advent. So, for us this week there were no shepherds or kings, no stables or donkeys. Instead, some fiery John the Baptist having a pop at his own followers.

The crowds follow him, as he preaches his message of repentance. He spots a bit of hypocrisy. Some people coming who are in it for the ride, going through the motions, don’t fully get it. He doesn’t have a quiet word. “You brood of vipers!” Wow. These are the people who are coming to him; not the classic scary street preacher having at go at those who don’t come. Why does he do this? Because repentance is a serious business. There is no room for elitism. And definitely no room for hereditary holiness: “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our Father’”. To a nation and belief system based on the assumption that they were the chosen ones and therefore were ok, this is big stuff.

We, of course, would never fall into that trap. We, the Church of England, the ‘proper’ church. We would never be arrogant enough to assume that we had it right. That all others were a pale reflection of proper worship, proper repentance, proper priesthood. Would we? We, the nation of the United Kingdom, a ‘proper’ country, would never assume we have a right to be healthy, wealthy, rich and comfortable at the expense of any others. We are the good people.  Aren’t we?

christmas crunch

When questioned, John goes on to give examples of living out true repentance, rather than paying it lip service. “Anyone who has two shirts should give to one who has none. Anyone who has food should do the same.” Here comes the Christmas crunch. In a time of excess of things and food, we are called to share. Our food our clothes our presents our chocolate our families our wealth. Not just some loose change as an after-thought.

This is bigger than you, me and our next-door neighbours. A global economy means global consequences. Who makes the clothes we wear? Who makes the chocolate we eat? If we close our ears to those difficult, very un-festive questions we are no better than a brood of hypocritical vipers looking for a salve to our conscience without a change to our lifestyle.

know this logo

Did you know that if your chocolate isn’t marked as fair-trade, then there is no guarantee the farmer was adequately paid? Or that slaves were not used in its production? Slaves! Often children. Most of our cheap chocolate comes from the Cote d’Ivoire, where use of chocolate slaves is rife. Now, thankfully there have been some significant victories in the world of chocolate production recently. Some of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars are now Fairtrade. Nestle have recently announced that their 4-finger Kit Kat bars will be Fairtrade from January. These are big hitters and this is big news. It is an encouragement to people who have been campaigning for years. But it is still a tiny proportion of the market.

christmas crunch

If we want to take seriously John the Baptist’s challenge; if we want to take seriously the true, raw, honest and painful meaning of Christmas; if we want to be followers of Christ and not the crowd, then we must act differently. It may make us unpopular. Our families may not like us only buying fair-trade chocolate as presents. It is more expensive, so we buy less. (Why is it more expensive? Ask Tescos why they cannot absorb the extra cost into their vast profits.)  Our families and friends may not like us turning our lives around to fit Jesus in rather than just turning the lounge around to fit the tree in.  Tell them why.  And tell Cadbury’s, tell Nestle. Thank them for the fair-trade 4-finger Kit Kat, then give them 2 fingers, and ask them why not that bar too. Because we have no inherited right to chocolate produced in the dark, underbelly of slavery. We have no inherited right to have 2 shirts when others have only 1. We have no inherited right to speak of repentance if it does not impact us where it hurts.

Now that is a Christmas message. And John ended up dead for it. Nice.

For more information on these issues go to the Stop the Traffik campaign, the Fairtrade Foundation, visit your local Oxfam shop, and remember to always ask for Fairtrade coffee in in your local coffee shop. Contact Cadbury’s,  Nestle and Mars here to thank them and ask them for more Fairtrade products.