Originally posted on 6th March 2008
I'm reading Laurance A. Turner's commentary on Genesis and it's just turned up a very provacative question.
In Genesis 4:1 The first instance of human parenthood occurs after Adam 'knows' Eve and she gives birth to Cain. Now most Bibles describe this in an uncontroversial manner saying that Eve declares that she has created life with the help of the Lord.
But is Eve's cry in 4.1 actually a sinful cry of pride? Turner suggests that it should (or at least could) be translated 'I have created a man as well as the Lord'
This is very different from the NRSVtranslation: 'I have produced a man with the help of the Lord'; or 'with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man' (NIV) or 'By the Lord's help I have acquired a son' (Good News); 'I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help' (WEB); 'I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah' (ASV); or 'I have gotten a man from the Lord' (KJV)
None of these translations makes Eve anything other than humble and gracious in granting the true power of creation to God. But, according to Turner, this could in fact be evidence that the serpent's recent influence is lingering around her, still tempting her to become 'like God
'Obviously, (he points out), she could not be saying that she has created the Lord, but she could be suggesting that she is equalling God in having created a man. '
Now the suggestion that parenthood brings with it some sort of sinful pride, even a feeling of God-like power, will be offensive blasphemy to many. Many parents say that on becoming parents they feel humble, unworthy and daunted, quite the opposite of God-like.
But it's also true (uncomfortably so) that for many people becoming a parent means acquiring authority, status and dominion. How many people see the duty to provide for their children as an excuse to abdicate all other morality towards others? We like to think that parenthood makes people behave better but for some cowards and bullies it sets them up as gods in their own home.
I think parenthood does carry with it a temptation to set yourself up as a god, to know better than anyone else what to do with your children and to be immune from criticism. Ask any teacher who tries to speak to the parents of disruptive children!
Parents have 'sacred cow' status - it's the height of bad manners to suggest that someone is not a good parent, but there is a lot of terrible parenting out there. If there weren't society would be a lot nicer than it is.
And perhaps one of the causes of bad parenting is the all too human temptation to think that by creating life you become slightly God-like? Perhaps it's something that good parents recognise but bad parents give in to?
Monday, 9 March 2009
Saturday, 19 July 2008
Grace and Perfection
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men— robbers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
How might we re-tell this story for today?
Two mothers were talking about a third parent listing all the ways in which the other mum was ruining her children's life - and by implication praising their own perfect parenting skills. The other mum was indeed a bad mother, she wasn't as organised and disciplined as the others, she often lost her temper, she had smoked while pregnant and she sometimes hit her children after drinking too much. But instead of looking for someone worse than her to slag off she instead cried out to God 'Oh Lord, I must be the worst mother in the world, I don't deserve to live'. And God was greatly pleased with this mother but not with the other two.
Two Christians were sitting in church listening to the preacher whose theme was the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. One of them thought to themselves 'That's right, I undertstand this parable pretty well and I'm thankful that I often bear it in mind. Thank God I'm so humble'. But the other Christian was thinking 'Oh my God, that's what I've been doing. I've been sitting in church thinking about how good I am (of course I give God the credit for that) but now I see that makes me out to be like the pharisee not the tax collector'. And it's obvious which one's prayers made a real connection with God there and then.
As far as personal humility is concerned we know not to boast. If we want to show off we have to be really subtle about it and if we want attention (which we all do) the best way to get it (like power) is to appear as though you have not sought it at all. But we all know the truth: we like to be praised and we can't stand to be criticised.
But if we want our worship to make that real spiritual connection with God then it must include confession. And if we want to feel part of that connection for ourselves then we must, in our hearts, unburden ourselves of the illusion that we are without sin.
God is perfect, we are not. Jesus is perfect, you are not. The Holy Spirit is perfect, the church is not. And yet we limit what we can achieve in our lives, in every venture whether it's a career or a relationship, we limit what we can achieve because we don't imagine that we get anything wrong.
Parents are a good example in illustrating the theme of this parable, because being a parent means being tormented by visions of perfect parents and perfect children. Some parents pretend, to others, that they are perfect parents when there is no such thing. From before your children are born until the day you die you will make decisions that could be right or could be wrong. Over time this inevitably builds up a mass of wrong decisions - things you chose, things you did that you could have not done, things you didn't do that you should have done - that have effected your children. That have harmed them, limited their opportunites, upset them, damaged them.
Every parent experiences guilt. But some parents are in denial about this. They pretend that everything is perfect when the world outside, their children and God Himself see all too clearly that this is not right.
There's another trick that parents who can't fact the inevitable guilt of parenthood sometimes pull. That's to say that the things they have done, the choices they made over the years may have been wrong - but it was never my fault. I had no choice - 'I had to take that job that meant I would never see them because we needed the money.' 'I never showed them any love because that's not how I was brought up'. 'I fed them on junk food because no one ever taught me how to cook'. Deep down they must know that this isn't good enough.
Every single parent is plagued, at times, by feelings of regret.You can't get out of this by pretending that you were some sort of moral robot without the ability to make independent moral choices. The heavy burden of being a parent is that you must make moral choices and you must live with the consequences of these choices. You can't opt out of this universal truth by lying to yourself that you never made any mistakes, or by believing that you only ever did what you had to do and never made choices for which you were responsible.
So given that the guilt is crushing and utterly unavoidable isn't it wonderful that there is a way to be free of it. And that's to be like the tax collector and to freely and honestly admit all your shortcomings without making excuses. Now this situation is clearly seen with the example of parents, but actually it describes the human condition full stop. We are all tax collectors so we should not pretend to be pharisees.
The person who approaches God in this way, aware of all that they do wrong, receives a wonderful response from God. They don't just get a tick against their name, being right with God means receiving his forgiveness there and then. In power and in the spirit.
You can be forgiven. What's more you can feel like you've been forgiven. Tax collectors, unfit mothers, those we like to take comfort from being better than - they may well be much closer to God than we are.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men— robbers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
How might we re-tell this story for today?
Two mothers were talking about a third parent listing all the ways in which the other mum was ruining her children's life - and by implication praising their own perfect parenting skills. The other mum was indeed a bad mother, she wasn't as organised and disciplined as the others, she often lost her temper, she had smoked while pregnant and she sometimes hit her children after drinking too much. But instead of looking for someone worse than her to slag off she instead cried out to God 'Oh Lord, I must be the worst mother in the world, I don't deserve to live'. And God was greatly pleased with this mother but not with the other two.
Two Christians were sitting in church listening to the preacher whose theme was the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. One of them thought to themselves 'That's right, I undertstand this parable pretty well and I'm thankful that I often bear it in mind. Thank God I'm so humble'. But the other Christian was thinking 'Oh my God, that's what I've been doing. I've been sitting in church thinking about how good I am (of course I give God the credit for that) but now I see that makes me out to be like the pharisee not the tax collector'. And it's obvious which one's prayers made a real connection with God there and then.
As far as personal humility is concerned we know not to boast. If we want to show off we have to be really subtle about it and if we want attention (which we all do) the best way to get it (like power) is to appear as though you have not sought it at all. But we all know the truth: we like to be praised and we can't stand to be criticised.
But if we want our worship to make that real spiritual connection with God then it must include confession. And if we want to feel part of that connection for ourselves then we must, in our hearts, unburden ourselves of the illusion that we are without sin.
God is perfect, we are not. Jesus is perfect, you are not. The Holy Spirit is perfect, the church is not. And yet we limit what we can achieve in our lives, in every venture whether it's a career or a relationship, we limit what we can achieve because we don't imagine that we get anything wrong.
Parents are a good example in illustrating the theme of this parable, because being a parent means being tormented by visions of perfect parents and perfect children. Some parents pretend, to others, that they are perfect parents when there is no such thing. From before your children are born until the day you die you will make decisions that could be right or could be wrong. Over time this inevitably builds up a mass of wrong decisions - things you chose, things you did that you could have not done, things you didn't do that you should have done - that have effected your children. That have harmed them, limited their opportunites, upset them, damaged them.
Every parent experiences guilt. But some parents are in denial about this. They pretend that everything is perfect when the world outside, their children and God Himself see all too clearly that this is not right.
There's another trick that parents who can't fact the inevitable guilt of parenthood sometimes pull. That's to say that the things they have done, the choices they made over the years may have been wrong - but it was never my fault. I had no choice - 'I had to take that job that meant I would never see them because we needed the money.' 'I never showed them any love because that's not how I was brought up'. 'I fed them on junk food because no one ever taught me how to cook'. Deep down they must know that this isn't good enough.
Every single parent is plagued, at times, by feelings of regret.You can't get out of this by pretending that you were some sort of moral robot without the ability to make independent moral choices. The heavy burden of being a parent is that you must make moral choices and you must live with the consequences of these choices. You can't opt out of this universal truth by lying to yourself that you never made any mistakes, or by believing that you only ever did what you had to do and never made choices for which you were responsible.
So given that the guilt is crushing and utterly unavoidable isn't it wonderful that there is a way to be free of it. And that's to be like the tax collector and to freely and honestly admit all your shortcomings without making excuses. Now this situation is clearly seen with the example of parents, but actually it describes the human condition full stop. We are all tax collectors so we should not pretend to be pharisees.
The person who approaches God in this way, aware of all that they do wrong, receives a wonderful response from God. They don't just get a tick against their name, being right with God means receiving his forgiveness there and then. In power and in the spirit.
You can be forgiven. What's more you can feel like you've been forgiven. Tax collectors, unfit mothers, those we like to take comfort from being better than - they may well be much closer to God than we are.
The Perfect Law
Psalm 19: 7-14
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring for ever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from wilful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer
We live in a post-Christian country. This means that a lot of the ideas, beliefs and policies of our nation have their roots in a time when most of us were Christians. One example of how a Christian belief has mutated into a secular belief would be the question of judging others. The religious context in which Jesus told us not to stand in judgement over others has been jettisoned however and what we are left with is what we now refer to as 'relativism'.
Questions such as how much flesh we should display or how we should eat our food can actually only be answered relative to a particular culture. In some cultures it is not inappropriate to gather provisions stark naked, in others it would be considered provocative, indecent or offensive.
We all understand that many judgements can only be made relative to the time and place in which they arise. Relativism, though, goes one fatal step further and makes a dogma out of a sensible but limited idea. Relativism decrees that to make an absolute judgement about anything is a sin.
When I worked for Southwark social services in the 1990s I came across a departmental briefing sheet on different cultures. It stated 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Not 'in your official role you should treat different cultures equally' but 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Now every group has a culture, its own languge, morals and customs, not just countries. According to this disastrous way of thinking the culture of paedophiles, SS officers, and football hooligans, cannot be said to be inferior to the culture among people who work for oxfam, care for the sick or perform open heart surgery.
Post-Christian relativism retains what Jesus told his followers about judging others but discards the context that made sense of it. Jesus said we should not judge but he did not say that there was no judgement, quite the reverse.
There are absolute standards of right and wrong, the law of God. It's written in the scriptures and its written in our hearts. And following every regulation in the Old Testament is not enough to be said to have kept the law, we must see the spiritual side of the commandments. So, external acts like adultery and murder cannot be separated from internal states such as lust and anger. When Jesus tells us not to abolish all anger from our hearts and all lust from our minds he is telling us to do something that we can't do - to make a point.
The point is this. The law is hard, in fact it's even harder than us religious people think it is. There is a system for dealing with the fact that it is so hard that none of us can obey it, but that system does not involve getting rid of the law, of its standards of absolute truth, of right and wrong.
As the psalm says: the Law of the Lord is perfect. Moral relativism in which no moral action can be criticised does not understand this. It's next to impossible prove to secular relativists that there are absolute laws of morality - but we do not believe in God's perfect law because of a series of abstract intellecutal proofs. We believe in God's perfect law because it has been revealed to us through the prophets and explained to us by the Messiah.
Being Perfect
When I was about nine years old I was sitting at the table waiting for my tea and I promised myself that I would remember that moment for the rest of my life. There was nothing special about the moment but for some reason I decided to remember it. This was a curious but pointless thing for me to do, but if I could get any nine year old to make the same committment to remember what I'm about to say for as long then it really could transform their life.
The message I wish I could get over, to myself and to everyone I meet, is that you are not perfect. God is perfect, human beings can't be. Jesus is perfect, you are imperfect. The holy spirit is perfect, but the church is very far from perfect. Heaven will be perfect but this world cannot be so.
We bandy about the word 'perfect' to describe a child's score in a maths test for example. But getting full marks doesn't make you perfect, because a good teacher will keep setting you new harder tests - and you will find your limits, even if you're a brilliant mathematician there will always be a point beyond which you cannot go. You cannot be perfect.
Children of divorcing parents sometimes think that if only they could become perfect then their parents would stay together. Adults stay with abusive partners believing that if only they could be the perfect wife or husband then their partner would stop abusing them and everything would be alright. I remember as a child making the promise that I would be so astonishingly good that my Dad wouldn't ever be cross with me again. But I couldn't be perfect and neither could he - God is perfect, humans aren't. Jesus is perfect but we're not. And the holy spirit is perfect but the church it calls into being is not and never will be.
There are two ways to get into God's good books. One is to be perfect, the other is to know that you are not perfect. There's nothing that can't be forgiven by God - but what seems most unforgiveable from God's perspective, from the point of view of the Father who is perfect and stands in in judgement over humanity is not that human beings are imperfect - it is that human beings think they are perfect.
Thinking you could be perfect is guaranteed to make you unhappy. Thinking you are perfect is guaranteed to make everyone else unhappy. And what makes us unhappy in this purely secular sense is not unrelated to what puts up barriers between us and God. Perfection is like a beautiful sunset - we gain immesurably from being aware of it but we will destroy ourselves if we try to own it or to be it.
God is perfect, humans are imperfect. Jesus is imperfect, you are imperfect. The Holy Spirit is perfect, but individual Christians and Christians gathered together as the church are not perfect and never will be this side of the Kingdom of God.
The message I wish I could get over, to myself and to everyone I meet, is that you are not perfect. God is perfect, human beings can't be. Jesus is perfect, you are imperfect. The holy spirit is perfect, but the church is very far from perfect. Heaven will be perfect but this world cannot be so.
We bandy about the word 'perfect' to describe a child's score in a maths test for example. But getting full marks doesn't make you perfect, because a good teacher will keep setting you new harder tests - and you will find your limits, even if you're a brilliant mathematician there will always be a point beyond which you cannot go. You cannot be perfect.
Children of divorcing parents sometimes think that if only they could become perfect then their parents would stay together. Adults stay with abusive partners believing that if only they could be the perfect wife or husband then their partner would stop abusing them and everything would be alright. I remember as a child making the promise that I would be so astonishingly good that my Dad wouldn't ever be cross with me again. But I couldn't be perfect and neither could he - God is perfect, humans aren't. Jesus is perfect but we're not. And the holy spirit is perfect but the church it calls into being is not and never will be.
There are two ways to get into God's good books. One is to be perfect, the other is to know that you are not perfect. There's nothing that can't be forgiven by God - but what seems most unforgiveable from God's perspective, from the point of view of the Father who is perfect and stands in in judgement over humanity is not that human beings are imperfect - it is that human beings think they are perfect.
Thinking you could be perfect is guaranteed to make you unhappy. Thinking you are perfect is guaranteed to make everyone else unhappy. And what makes us unhappy in this purely secular sense is not unrelated to what puts up barriers between us and God. Perfection is like a beautiful sunset - we gain immesurably from being aware of it but we will destroy ourselves if we try to own it or to be it.
God is perfect, humans are imperfect. Jesus is imperfect, you are imperfect. The Holy Spirit is perfect, but individual Christians and Christians gathered together as the church are not perfect and never will be this side of the Kingdom of God.
Friday, 18 July 2008
Calamity
This blog is all about me exploring what I consider to be a call to ministry so I can't not record the following: I've recently been to a selection weekend with the pastoral care board of the congregational federation and they've rejected my application for training.
It's a devestating blow as I felt so certain that I was suitable. There is an appeal process so it's not definitely the end of the road, and I can still apply next year, but even so it's hard to take. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what went wrong and what my appeal is going to say since it's ongoing.
What I will say is that over the past week I've had the opportunity to ask myself some searching questions like how much do I really want to do this and do I really believe I'm cut out for it?
There's also some uncomfortable truths to face which are that although some people are hostile or mocking when they discover your ambitions for ministry there are others who give you an exaggerated respect - and of course it's very flattering. How much, I've asked myself, did I like the idea of being a minister because of the status that (for some) comes with the title?
There's also the question of money - I wasn't intending to do unpaid ministry and theological training does not lead to many other work opportunities. I thought my CV looked pretty good for ministry, it doesn't look that good for other careers.
But I'm still convinced that I'm called to be a minister and I still want desparately to pursue it as a vocation. Hopefully I'll get there either on appeal or next year.
It's a devestating blow as I felt so certain that I was suitable. There is an appeal process so it's not definitely the end of the road, and I can still apply next year, but even so it's hard to take. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what went wrong and what my appeal is going to say since it's ongoing.
What I will say is that over the past week I've had the opportunity to ask myself some searching questions like how much do I really want to do this and do I really believe I'm cut out for it?
There's also some uncomfortable truths to face which are that although some people are hostile or mocking when they discover your ambitions for ministry there are others who give you an exaggerated respect - and of course it's very flattering. How much, I've asked myself, did I like the idea of being a minister because of the status that (for some) comes with the title?
There's also the question of money - I wasn't intending to do unpaid ministry and theological training does not lead to many other work opportunities. I thought my CV looked pretty good for ministry, it doesn't look that good for other careers.
But I'm still convinced that I'm called to be a minister and I still want desparately to pursue it as a vocation. Hopefully I'll get there either on appeal or next year.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Why Should I Become a Christian?
You should become a Christian because Christianity is true. Some truths we can't avoid, like the truth of the law of gravity but others we can, like which fuel to put in your car. Christianity's like the latter, it's the truth about what human beings are, how they work, what's best for them, where they come from and where they're going. You don't have to follow the truth but it's obviously better if you do.
To say that it's 'better' to follow Christianity is perhaps an understatement given how much Christians talk about being 'saved' - that would seem to suggest that there's something rather more essential about becoming a Christian. There's a great debate about what it means to be saved: what is that we are saved from? Meaningless, lack of joy, existential inauthenticity or hell fire? And who exactly is saved and who is damned?
Lets put this debate to one side. For now I want to stick with the idea that if Christianity is true it is objectively, and obviously, better to be a Christian than not to be. Some people object that they don't like the idea of becoming a Christian out of fear of the consequences of not believing: this is a serious objection which I will deal with seriously elsewhere, but for now lets say simply that if Christianity is true then it is 'better' to be a Christian than not.
Don't forget what it means for a religion to be true. It doesn't mean that it's nice, or praiseworthy, or is a wise and practical way of living. It means that it is in harmony with the ultimate origin and purpose of the universe. It's a massive, huge claim. If we understand that then it should be perfectly obvious that if (and it's a very big if) something really is in tune with the answer to all these eternal mysteries it is clearly better to be with it rather than without it.
It might be an obvious thing to say that you should become a Christian because Christianity is true but there's an enourmous amount of lazy thinking about this. So many people confuse the question of its truth with what they think of its claims. If it is true then saying you don't approve of it does not make it less true.
What most people probably mean when they talk like this is that they don't think it's true, because something about it seems unreasonable and making unreasonable demands or claims indicates that a religion is false. This is a reasonable line to take, if something about Christianity is illogical or reprehensible then it's hard to see that the religion is based on truth.
But I have never thought that you can prove, in our normal, earthly way, that Christianity is true. The limits of what we can do intellectually is to conclude that certain interpretations of Christianity could be true - there is nothing in faith that can't be challenged but there are some things that can't be entirely demolished. There is a case for Christianity, but it can't be proved like a mathematical formula or a scientific experiment.
Note that I say 'some interpretations of Christianity'. One lazy assumption that many people make is that whatever they hear said and done in the name of Christianity is Christianity. It isn't, any more than a football club is identical with the actions of all of its supporters, a business with its employees or a shop with its customers (the list could go on, of course none of these is exactly the same as the relationship between Christians and Christianity)
Too many people believe that they know what Christianity is and what Christians believe when in fact all they have is a collection of half baked ideas from a handful of vague encounters. The sad fact is that Christians can't agree among themselves on what Christianity is, the only people that seem to be able to sum it up perfectly are ill-informed and have closed minds. Some of them claim to be Christians, some of them claim to be atheists.
Jesus says we should know a tree by its fruit, so if Christianity is true there should be some sort of consequence of Christianity that allows for it to be true. There must be something that Christians do or are that indicates that there is something in what they believe.
But again the evidence is mixed. There are some Christians of whom we would say 'if they were all like that then I'd be inclined to think that it was true' but there are also liars, hypocrites, even murderers who claim to be good Christians.
But lets not mince words on this. When we take the actions of some people within a group and make a judgement on everyone else in that group we call this prejudice. Prejudice is wrong when it's to do with race, gender, sexuality, disability and it's also wrong with religion. Unfortunately a lot of intelligent people who claim to hate prejudice are themselves completely prejudiced when it comes to Christians and Christianity. Because Christianity was, for many years, associated with the upper classes, those in authority, and colonialism it has become thoroughly acceptable to display prejudice towards Christians.
And this prejudice leads people to reject the truth of Christianity based on the actions of Christians that they don't approve of. This is no more logical than it is to say that because some Christians are virtuous, just and loving then Christianity must be true.
We can't prove the truth or falsity of Christianity on the evidence of what its followers do any more than we can using abstract logic. But we can't disprove it either. There is enough Christian behaviour which is attractive and worthy to suggest that it could be inspired by something more than an idea, by something real.
So we should judge Christianity on whether we think it is true or not. Part of that judgement includes the question of whether its teachings are logical or impressive since it would be odd for something true to include completely illogical or horrible teachings.
But are we able to make such a blanket judgement on Christianity without considering the many different versions of Christianity? Is it not possible that some of these versions are more reasonable than others. There may be things asserted by individual Christians that we meet or those Christians who claim to speak for others that we find obnoxious and stupid - but please do not assume that Christianity is what any Christian happens to claim it is.
I am a Christian because of a combination of experience and intellectual struggle. I've had a number of experiences which attract me to the idea that there is truth in what Christians have claimed over the centuries. Intellectually I have discovered a range of theological positions that I believe do not require me to abandon common sense or rationality in order to believe this. But the intellect alone will never prove Christianity, the rational mind's role is to create the space in which the heart and soul can operate. One of the obstacles I've had to overcome in order to have faith are not intellectual at all, I've had to abandon assumptions and prejudices, and I've had to attempt to sort the good from the bad, the believable from the absurd, the Christian from the unChristian.
By far the biggest obstacle of all was not the complexity of ideas and attitudes towards God, theology, churches, individual Christians or anything else external to myself.
The biggest obstacle to belief in God, and to God in Christ is our belief in ourselves and other things that are not God. We won't be able to believe in God until we confront and abandon all manner of illusions about ourselves and the world that we create that we believe in stubbornly, and without even recognising them as beliefs. If we see ourselves as we really are, and our situation as it really is then it really isn't hard to believe - it's easy and natural. But it's not easy to give up the false Gods and illusions that stop us from doing this. All the brokenness and unsatisfactoriness of life should be leading us in the right direction, but it generally doesn't.
We can't search for faith without honesty. We don't just need intellectual honesty (which is important) we need emotional, psychological and ethical honesty. And this honesty needs to be applied to ourselves (as subject) every bit as much to the object of our enquiry (Christianity).
You should become a Christian because Christianity is true. But this is something that we believe, we can't prove it. Some Christians put forward beliefs that can be disproved when interrogated with intellectual rigour. In my opinion there are versions of Christianity that can stand up intellectually as well as spiritually, but they will never convince using the intellect alone.
In formal intellectual terms I would not go further than to say Christianity could be true. I happen to believe, however, that it is. If Christianity is true, then Christians are able to go with the grain of the universe, with the forces of love, redemption and justice against the forces of sin, meaningless and despair. And if it is true and you are not a Christian then could there be anything bigger to miss out on?
To say that it's 'better' to follow Christianity is perhaps an understatement given how much Christians talk about being 'saved' - that would seem to suggest that there's something rather more essential about becoming a Christian. There's a great debate about what it means to be saved: what is that we are saved from? Meaningless, lack of joy, existential inauthenticity or hell fire? And who exactly is saved and who is damned?
Lets put this debate to one side. For now I want to stick with the idea that if Christianity is true it is objectively, and obviously, better to be a Christian than not to be. Some people object that they don't like the idea of becoming a Christian out of fear of the consequences of not believing: this is a serious objection which I will deal with seriously elsewhere, but for now lets say simply that if Christianity is true then it is 'better' to be a Christian than not.
Don't forget what it means for a religion to be true. It doesn't mean that it's nice, or praiseworthy, or is a wise and practical way of living. It means that it is in harmony with the ultimate origin and purpose of the universe. It's a massive, huge claim. If we understand that then it should be perfectly obvious that if (and it's a very big if) something really is in tune with the answer to all these eternal mysteries it is clearly better to be with it rather than without it.
It might be an obvious thing to say that you should become a Christian because Christianity is true but there's an enourmous amount of lazy thinking about this. So many people confuse the question of its truth with what they think of its claims. If it is true then saying you don't approve of it does not make it less true.
What most people probably mean when they talk like this is that they don't think it's true, because something about it seems unreasonable and making unreasonable demands or claims indicates that a religion is false. This is a reasonable line to take, if something about Christianity is illogical or reprehensible then it's hard to see that the religion is based on truth.
But I have never thought that you can prove, in our normal, earthly way, that Christianity is true. The limits of what we can do intellectually is to conclude that certain interpretations of Christianity could be true - there is nothing in faith that can't be challenged but there are some things that can't be entirely demolished. There is a case for Christianity, but it can't be proved like a mathematical formula or a scientific experiment.
Note that I say 'some interpretations of Christianity'. One lazy assumption that many people make is that whatever they hear said and done in the name of Christianity is Christianity. It isn't, any more than a football club is identical with the actions of all of its supporters, a business with its employees or a shop with its customers (the list could go on, of course none of these is exactly the same as the relationship between Christians and Christianity)
Too many people believe that they know what Christianity is and what Christians believe when in fact all they have is a collection of half baked ideas from a handful of vague encounters. The sad fact is that Christians can't agree among themselves on what Christianity is, the only people that seem to be able to sum it up perfectly are ill-informed and have closed minds. Some of them claim to be Christians, some of them claim to be atheists.
Jesus says we should know a tree by its fruit, so if Christianity is true there should be some sort of consequence of Christianity that allows for it to be true. There must be something that Christians do or are that indicates that there is something in what they believe.
But again the evidence is mixed. There are some Christians of whom we would say 'if they were all like that then I'd be inclined to think that it was true' but there are also liars, hypocrites, even murderers who claim to be good Christians.
But lets not mince words on this. When we take the actions of some people within a group and make a judgement on everyone else in that group we call this prejudice. Prejudice is wrong when it's to do with race, gender, sexuality, disability and it's also wrong with religion. Unfortunately a lot of intelligent people who claim to hate prejudice are themselves completely prejudiced when it comes to Christians and Christianity. Because Christianity was, for many years, associated with the upper classes, those in authority, and colonialism it has become thoroughly acceptable to display prejudice towards Christians.
And this prejudice leads people to reject the truth of Christianity based on the actions of Christians that they don't approve of. This is no more logical than it is to say that because some Christians are virtuous, just and loving then Christianity must be true.
We can't prove the truth or falsity of Christianity on the evidence of what its followers do any more than we can using abstract logic. But we can't disprove it either. There is enough Christian behaviour which is attractive and worthy to suggest that it could be inspired by something more than an idea, by something real.
So we should judge Christianity on whether we think it is true or not. Part of that judgement includes the question of whether its teachings are logical or impressive since it would be odd for something true to include completely illogical or horrible teachings.
But are we able to make such a blanket judgement on Christianity without considering the many different versions of Christianity? Is it not possible that some of these versions are more reasonable than others. There may be things asserted by individual Christians that we meet or those Christians who claim to speak for others that we find obnoxious and stupid - but please do not assume that Christianity is what any Christian happens to claim it is.
I am a Christian because of a combination of experience and intellectual struggle. I've had a number of experiences which attract me to the idea that there is truth in what Christians have claimed over the centuries. Intellectually I have discovered a range of theological positions that I believe do not require me to abandon common sense or rationality in order to believe this. But the intellect alone will never prove Christianity, the rational mind's role is to create the space in which the heart and soul can operate. One of the obstacles I've had to overcome in order to have faith are not intellectual at all, I've had to abandon assumptions and prejudices, and I've had to attempt to sort the good from the bad, the believable from the absurd, the Christian from the unChristian.
By far the biggest obstacle of all was not the complexity of ideas and attitudes towards God, theology, churches, individual Christians or anything else external to myself.
The biggest obstacle to belief in God, and to God in Christ is our belief in ourselves and other things that are not God. We won't be able to believe in God until we confront and abandon all manner of illusions about ourselves and the world that we create that we believe in stubbornly, and without even recognising them as beliefs. If we see ourselves as we really are, and our situation as it really is then it really isn't hard to believe - it's easy and natural. But it's not easy to give up the false Gods and illusions that stop us from doing this. All the brokenness and unsatisfactoriness of life should be leading us in the right direction, but it generally doesn't.
We can't search for faith without honesty. We don't just need intellectual honesty (which is important) we need emotional, psychological and ethical honesty. And this honesty needs to be applied to ourselves (as subject) every bit as much to the object of our enquiry (Christianity).
You should become a Christian because Christianity is true. But this is something that we believe, we can't prove it. Some Christians put forward beliefs that can be disproved when interrogated with intellectual rigour. In my opinion there are versions of Christianity that can stand up intellectually as well as spiritually, but they will never convince using the intellect alone.
In formal intellectual terms I would not go further than to say Christianity could be true. I happen to believe, however, that it is. If Christianity is true, then Christians are able to go with the grain of the universe, with the forces of love, redemption and justice against the forces of sin, meaningless and despair. And if it is true and you are not a Christian then could there be anything bigger to miss out on?
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Does child mortality really shatter faith?
I've just walked the dog in a historic cemetery in inner Sheffield. The cemetery was built when the population Sheffield was rising dramtically during the industrial revolution and too many people were dying for the parish graveyards to cope with. It's impossible not to be moved by what you see written on the gravestones - epitaphs to children who never became adults - and adults who never became old. The conditions in which the first steel workers lived and worked were grim and deadly and many died early and painful deaths.
Many people will look at these gravestones and ask themselves how there can be a God when ten year old children die. Theologically it's hard work, there's certainly no glib answer to this and we must take people seriously when they make this objection.
But if child mortality is so deadly to faith then why is that in the days when so many more children did die so many more people believed in God? When virtually every working class family was touched by this sort of tragedy why did the people then not say en masse, there can be no God in heaven!
And in those parts of the world where many children still die before ever growing up faith is strong. It's only in those parts of the world that have made child mortality very rare that the idea of child mortality makes people doubt whether there can be a God. The idea of child mortality certainly makes us question our faith but the reality of child mortality doesn't seem to have any such effect.
Why can this be?
Many people will look at these gravestones and ask themselves how there can be a God when ten year old children die. Theologically it's hard work, there's certainly no glib answer to this and we must take people seriously when they make this objection.
But if child mortality is so deadly to faith then why is that in the days when so many more children did die so many more people believed in God? When virtually every working class family was touched by this sort of tragedy why did the people then not say en masse, there can be no God in heaven!
And in those parts of the world where many children still die before ever growing up faith is strong. It's only in those parts of the world that have made child mortality very rare that the idea of child mortality makes people doubt whether there can be a God. The idea of child mortality certainly makes us question our faith but the reality of child mortality doesn't seem to have any such effect.
Why can this be?
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Do parents think they are like God?
I'm reading Laurance A. Turner's commentary on Genesis and it's just turned up a very provacative question.
In Genesis 4:1 The first instance of human parenthood occurs after Adam 'knows' Eve and she gives birth to Cain. Now most Bibles describe this in an uncontroversial manner saying that Eve declares that she has created life with the help of the Lord.
But is Eve's cry in 4.1 actually a sinful cry of pride? Turner suggests that it should (or at least could) be translated 'I have created a man as well as the Lord'
This is very different from the NRSVtranslation: 'I have produced a man with the help of the Lord'; or 'with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man' (NIV) or 'By the Lord's help I have acquired a son' (Good News); 'I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help' (WEB); 'I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah' (ASV); or 'I have gotten a man from the Lord' (KJV)
None of these translations makes Eve anything other than humble and gracious in granting the true power of creation to God. But, according to Turner, this could in fact be evidence that the serpent's recent influence is lingering around her, still tempting her to become 'like God'
Obviously, he points out, she could not be saying that she has created the Lord, but she could be suggesting that she is equalling God in having created a man.
Now the suggestion that parenthood brings with it some sort of sinful pride, even a feeling of God-like power, will be offensive blasphemy to many. Many parents say that on becoming parents they feel humble, unworthy and daunted, quite the opposite of God-like.
But it's also true (uncomfortably so) that for many people becoming a parent means acquiring authority, status and dominion. How many people see the duty to provide for their children as an excuse to abdicate all other morality towards others? We like to think that parenthood makes people behave better but for some cowards and bullies it sets them up as gods in their own home.
I think parenthood does carry with it a temptation to set yourself up as a god, to know better than anyone else what to do with your children and to be immune from criticism. Ask any teacher who tries to speak to the parents of disruptive children!
Parents have 'sacred cow' status - it's the height of bad manners to suggest that someone is not a good parent, but there is a lot of terrible parenting out there. If there weren't society would be a lot nicer than it is.
And perhaps one of the causes of bad parenting is the all too human temptation to think that by creating life you become slightly God-like? Perhaps it's something that good parents recognise but bad parents give in to?
In Genesis 4:1 The first instance of human parenthood occurs after Adam 'knows' Eve and she gives birth to Cain. Now most Bibles describe this in an uncontroversial manner saying that Eve declares that she has created life with the help of the Lord.
But is Eve's cry in 4.1 actually a sinful cry of pride? Turner suggests that it should (or at least could) be translated 'I have created a man as well as the Lord'
This is very different from the NRSVtranslation: 'I have produced a man with the help of the Lord'; or 'with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man' (NIV) or 'By the Lord's help I have acquired a son' (Good News); 'I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help' (WEB); 'I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah' (ASV); or 'I have gotten a man from the Lord' (KJV)
None of these translations makes Eve anything other than humble and gracious in granting the true power of creation to God. But, according to Turner, this could in fact be evidence that the serpent's recent influence is lingering around her, still tempting her to become 'like God'
Obviously, he points out, she could not be saying that she has created the Lord, but she could be suggesting that she is equalling God in having created a man.
Now the suggestion that parenthood brings with it some sort of sinful pride, even a feeling of God-like power, will be offensive blasphemy to many. Many parents say that on becoming parents they feel humble, unworthy and daunted, quite the opposite of God-like.
But it's also true (uncomfortably so) that for many people becoming a parent means acquiring authority, status and dominion. How many people see the duty to provide for their children as an excuse to abdicate all other morality towards others? We like to think that parenthood makes people behave better but for some cowards and bullies it sets them up as gods in their own home.
I think parenthood does carry with it a temptation to set yourself up as a god, to know better than anyone else what to do with your children and to be immune from criticism. Ask any teacher who tries to speak to the parents of disruptive children!
Parents have 'sacred cow' status - it's the height of bad manners to suggest that someone is not a good parent, but there is a lot of terrible parenting out there. If there weren't society would be a lot nicer than it is.
And perhaps one of the causes of bad parenting is the all too human temptation to think that by creating life you become slightly God-like? Perhaps it's something that good parents recognise but bad parents give in to?
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Is the Bible the Word of God?
We may as well cut to the chase here. If you believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal word of God you may as well know that I don't. I believe that the Bible is the witness of revelation, not revelation itself.
I believe that we live in a fallen world, separated from God by Sin and that we are redeemed from this estrangement through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is how God communicates to us, by making these things happen – the Incarnation, the Resurrection, Pentecost – these are where we see God at work. God has done all this and he will do more, I believe in eternal life, I believe that his Kingdom will come. God has acted, he acts and he will act. The Bible is the human record of witnesses to this divine action. That means that it must be read with the utmost seriousness so that we may, as Barth puts it, discover the Word in the words. But it is the record of revelation, not revelation itself.
This doesn’t mean that it can be read in the same way as any other human text. We must take seriously that it is written by men who have heard or seen the Word of God but that does not make their own words divine. We need to reach beyond the words of Paul to the Word of God that was spoken to Paul. We must read the Bible with reverence and with faith but we must not make an idol of it. I don’t wish to insult those who believe in the doctrine of inspiration, what they believe is possible since all things are possible with God but I don’t think that it is necessary or even likely.
All of which makes me perfectly placed to be shot by both sides in the current theological climate. I take the content of the Bible far too seriously for most liberals but I know that evangelicals will find me equally suspect for not believing in total inspiration. The accusation will be that I don’t accept ALL of the Bible because I want to pick and choose from what God has to say to me. My answer would be that I am afraid that by reading the Bible in that way I would actually be importing human ideas into the Word of God by concentrating more on what is said by the apostles and prophets than on what is done that they witness. God acts and humans witness this. God’s ‘speech’ is in the events of revelation not in the texts which describe them.
Ultimately the Bible is important because Jesus is in it, not the other way round.
My view on this, as with many things, is broadly taken from Karl Barth, himself far too evangelical for the liberals and too liberal for the evangelicals. He commented "Were I driven to choose between the historical-critical method and the venerable doctrine of inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, more important justification. Fortunately, I am not compelled to choose between the two."
I believe that we live in a fallen world, separated from God by Sin and that we are redeemed from this estrangement through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is how God communicates to us, by making these things happen – the Incarnation, the Resurrection, Pentecost – these are where we see God at work. God has done all this and he will do more, I believe in eternal life, I believe that his Kingdom will come. God has acted, he acts and he will act. The Bible is the human record of witnesses to this divine action. That means that it must be read with the utmost seriousness so that we may, as Barth puts it, discover the Word in the words. But it is the record of revelation, not revelation itself.
This doesn’t mean that it can be read in the same way as any other human text. We must take seriously that it is written by men who have heard or seen the Word of God but that does not make their own words divine. We need to reach beyond the words of Paul to the Word of God that was spoken to Paul. We must read the Bible with reverence and with faith but we must not make an idol of it. I don’t wish to insult those who believe in the doctrine of inspiration, what they believe is possible since all things are possible with God but I don’t think that it is necessary or even likely.
All of which makes me perfectly placed to be shot by both sides in the current theological climate. I take the content of the Bible far too seriously for most liberals but I know that evangelicals will find me equally suspect for not believing in total inspiration. The accusation will be that I don’t accept ALL of the Bible because I want to pick and choose from what God has to say to me. My answer would be that I am afraid that by reading the Bible in that way I would actually be importing human ideas into the Word of God by concentrating more on what is said by the apostles and prophets than on what is done that they witness. God acts and humans witness this. God’s ‘speech’ is in the events of revelation not in the texts which describe them.
Ultimately the Bible is important because Jesus is in it, not the other way round.
My view on this, as with many things, is broadly taken from Karl Barth, himself far too evangelical for the liberals and too liberal for the evangelicals. He commented "Were I driven to choose between the historical-critical method and the venerable doctrine of inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, more important justification. Fortunately, I am not compelled to choose between the two."
Sunday, 2 March 2008
One of these quotes is published satire, one is an apocryphal quote and one was spoken on a radio phone-in the other week. There's not much between them, answers below.
A "If English is good enough for Jesus Christ it's good enough for me"
B "...when Jesus Christ founded his church in Canterbury..."
C "...with church leaders like that, Jesus Christ would be spinning in his grave"
Answers: A = apocryphal, B = from "The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold" column by Craig Brown, C = Caller to Radio 5 live on the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments on Shar'iah law.
A "If English is good enough for Jesus Christ it's good enough for me"
B "...when Jesus Christ founded his church in Canterbury..."
C "...with church leaders like that, Jesus Christ would be spinning in his grave"
Answers: A = apocryphal, B = from "The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold" column by Craig Brown, C = Caller to Radio 5 live on the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments on Shar'iah law.
Friday, 29 February 2008
The Road to Hell is Paved With Reasonable Comfort
When I woke up this morning I didn't feel great but then again I didn't feel too bad. Some mornings I've been waking up in physical discomfort with trapped nerves, aching muscles and stiff joints, short of sleep and feeling pretty rough. Very occasionally I wake up feeling totally refreshed and comfortable. This morning I was sort of OK.
It wasn't as bitterly cold as it has been recently but then again it wasn't exactly warm. The news on the radio wasn't exactly good news, it never is, but nothing really grabbed me.
I found myself without any particular short term obligation or need. Over the past week or so as I've been feeling better (with expert physio help) I've been getting done all the things that were piling up: sending off my theology assignments to be marked; answering emails, doing personal admin tasks and generally making arrangements.
So while I wasn't exactly bursting with health, life and motivation I couldn't complain either.
I wondered to myself what Jesus Christ meant to me on such a day, in such a mood and in such a condition. The answer was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Could it be that the only life Jesus doesn't touch is a life that isn't being lived?
We hear a lot about people losing their faith when bad things happen. But perhaps more deadly to faith is the pereception that sometimes nothing happens?
Of course that's not the reality. The idea that nothing in my life, in my relationships, in my family or community, nothing in the world in which I live in has any claim on me is just an illusion. But it's often how we feel.
Jesus Christ is an every present reality, an endless resource, an eternal challenge for every second of our life. But quite often we pretend not to be alive. Being 'dead in our sins' doesn't just mean active and conscious wickedness - it includes a self-numbing indifference, our giving in to the temptation to disengage from our life and the world around us.
Everything isn't fine in my life so the feeling that nothing matters this morning isn't particularly helpful.
I think I need to find the time to read Kierkegaard on authenticity. But before I do that I need to return to my real life where Jesus will be waiting for me. Just like it says in Ephesians 2: 1-5, we are made 'alive in Christ'.
I'm not sure what I believe about hell. I don't know whether it is a place of flames, torture, and damnation. But a good preparation for hell would be an earthly life of mild comfort with neither pain nor pleasure, joy nor sorrow. Of course life on earth isn't like that at all; the idea that it is comes from within us, it is an illusion. Pay any sort of proper attention to your life and it will not be bland and average. It might not be comfortable, it might not be joyous, but Jesus remains relevant and available to every life that is being lived.
It wasn't as bitterly cold as it has been recently but then again it wasn't exactly warm. The news on the radio wasn't exactly good news, it never is, but nothing really grabbed me.
I found myself without any particular short term obligation or need. Over the past week or so as I've been feeling better (with expert physio help) I've been getting done all the things that were piling up: sending off my theology assignments to be marked; answering emails, doing personal admin tasks and generally making arrangements.
So while I wasn't exactly bursting with health, life and motivation I couldn't complain either.
I wondered to myself what Jesus Christ meant to me on such a day, in such a mood and in such a condition. The answer was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Could it be that the only life Jesus doesn't touch is a life that isn't being lived?
We hear a lot about people losing their faith when bad things happen. But perhaps more deadly to faith is the pereception that sometimes nothing happens?
Of course that's not the reality. The idea that nothing in my life, in my relationships, in my family or community, nothing in the world in which I live in has any claim on me is just an illusion. But it's often how we feel.
Jesus Christ is an every present reality, an endless resource, an eternal challenge for every second of our life. But quite often we pretend not to be alive. Being 'dead in our sins' doesn't just mean active and conscious wickedness - it includes a self-numbing indifference, our giving in to the temptation to disengage from our life and the world around us.
Everything isn't fine in my life so the feeling that nothing matters this morning isn't particularly helpful.
I think I need to find the time to read Kierkegaard on authenticity. But before I do that I need to return to my real life where Jesus will be waiting for me. Just like it says in Ephesians 2: 1-5, we are made 'alive in Christ'.
I'm not sure what I believe about hell. I don't know whether it is a place of flames, torture, and damnation. But a good preparation for hell would be an earthly life of mild comfort with neither pain nor pleasure, joy nor sorrow. Of course life on earth isn't like that at all; the idea that it is comes from within us, it is an illusion. Pay any sort of proper attention to your life and it will not be bland and average. It might not be comfortable, it might not be joyous, but Jesus remains relevant and available to every life that is being lived.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
But I don't like Anne Atkins!
'Thought for the day' had already started when I turned on the radio this morning but I soon tuned in to what the speaker was saying and it did what it says on the tin - it gave me something to think about throughout today.
The speaker was describing her life in a barely populated village and questioning the orthodoxy about the population 'explosion'. Do we really not have room for everyone? Or isn't the problem that everyone now wants to live further and further away from everyone else? She had a point, cities have a lot to be said for them - particularly when it comes to learning to live with (and tolerate) your fellow human beings. How many, seemingly idyllic, villages are actually places where ignorance and prejudice fester without ever being challenged? I was particularly impressed that she linked this idea to CS Lewis's 'The Great Divorce' (Hell is a place where people get further and further away from each other) and how she talked about the difference between the simple garden of Eden in Genesis and the vision of the heavenly city, brimming with people, in Revelation.
She was also right to point out how families divide themselves up into separate houses and flats more and more. She's right about this but I this isn't something I'd like to change. Like most people I think I'd rather eat my own limbs than live in a house with three generations of the same family. The old deference and conservatism doesn't last long when it becomes economically possible to live a more independent life. Don't get me wrong, I think families are great, and big extended families do a much better job of bringing up children than smaller ones (there's always someone to talk to who is a little bit, but not too much, older than you) but all living under one roof often destroys relationships that could thrive given more space.
Overall it was an impressive and thought provoking little talk. The only problem was about half way through I started to recognise the voice of the speaker. 'Oh no, it's Anne Atkins' I said. 'But I don't like Anne Atkins!'
She's really annoyed me in the past by mixing the attitudes of the Daily Mail with scripture into one distressing and smug monologue. But I have to admit she was pretty good today.
It's true, isn't it? We find it hard to separate the message from the messenger. How many times, I wonder, have I rejected something good because I don't like the person saying it? And how many times have I persuaded myself that black is white because of warm feelings towards the person saying it?
Which makes a real problem for the church. A lot of people don't like Christians and to be honest a lot of Christians are not very likeable. Many people find the Christians that they meet smug, arrogant, irritating, bland, unattractive, weird... (I could go on for a very long time)
We fall into a trap of thinking that people aren't Christians because they haven't heard about Jesus. But very often the opposite is true: some people are not and never will be Christians because they have heard about Jesus, and they didn't think much of the person they heard it from.
The speaker was describing her life in a barely populated village and questioning the orthodoxy about the population 'explosion'. Do we really not have room for everyone? Or isn't the problem that everyone now wants to live further and further away from everyone else? She had a point, cities have a lot to be said for them - particularly when it comes to learning to live with (and tolerate) your fellow human beings. How many, seemingly idyllic, villages are actually places where ignorance and prejudice fester without ever being challenged? I was particularly impressed that she linked this idea to CS Lewis's 'The Great Divorce' (Hell is a place where people get further and further away from each other) and how she talked about the difference between the simple garden of Eden in Genesis and the vision of the heavenly city, brimming with people, in Revelation.
She was also right to point out how families divide themselves up into separate houses and flats more and more. She's right about this but I this isn't something I'd like to change. Like most people I think I'd rather eat my own limbs than live in a house with three generations of the same family. The old deference and conservatism doesn't last long when it becomes economically possible to live a more independent life. Don't get me wrong, I think families are great, and big extended families do a much better job of bringing up children than smaller ones (there's always someone to talk to who is a little bit, but not too much, older than you) but all living under one roof often destroys relationships that could thrive given more space.
Overall it was an impressive and thought provoking little talk. The only problem was about half way through I started to recognise the voice of the speaker. 'Oh no, it's Anne Atkins' I said. 'But I don't like Anne Atkins!'
She's really annoyed me in the past by mixing the attitudes of the Daily Mail with scripture into one distressing and smug monologue. But I have to admit she was pretty good today.
It's true, isn't it? We find it hard to separate the message from the messenger. How many times, I wonder, have I rejected something good because I don't like the person saying it? And how many times have I persuaded myself that black is white because of warm feelings towards the person saying it?
Which makes a real problem for the church. A lot of people don't like Christians and to be honest a lot of Christians are not very likeable. Many people find the Christians that they meet smug, arrogant, irritating, bland, unattractive, weird... (I could go on for a very long time)
We fall into a trap of thinking that people aren't Christians because they haven't heard about Jesus. But very often the opposite is true: some people are not and never will be Christians because they have heard about Jesus, and they didn't think much of the person they heard it from.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Does the earthquake mean that God is angry with us?
When the brain encounters something that doesn't make sense it tends to use a template of what it has already encountered or thought about to explain it. So when the earthquake hit Sheffield at 1am last night I immediately thought that the house was being shaken as though it was wrapped in a giant hand. My wife heard a great noise but I have no memory of it, just my perception at the time of the house being in a giant hand and being given a gentle shake.
In the Bible, in the past and still in some parts of the world an earthquake is interpreted as God's anger with humanity. Of course we're far too sophisticated to think like that now - but even without us thinking that this is direct retribution for specific acts we might still ask how we fit the fact of earthquakes into our Christian view.
At the beginning of Genesis God brings order to a previously chaotic scene. Random, meaningless and formless nature is composed into a harmonious and purposeful world. The universe seems to be full of planets where this chaos still reins and life is not possible and I find this a great source of faith - it makes it seem all the more incredible that the earth is set up as it is - and while it's possible, I suppose, for this to be random it seems much more likely to be as a result of some sort of design. The idea that this is random, while possible, involves a certain commitment to a certain way of looking at the world, just as my own view that God created the world does.
Throughout the Old Testament there are references to natural disasters in which the peace and harmony God brings about in the creation of the world seems to be sneaking back into the picture. Unsurprisingly the religious imagination responds to these events with a religious interpretation - God is angry.
But there are no earthquakes in the Garden of Eden, and there will be no earthquakes in the Kingdom of God. This is a fallen world where eternal life, complete peace and harmony, and an unbroken relationship between creature and its creator have been disrupted. Even so the glass is more than half full. Even in a world where death and destruction are able to make their mark they are rare compared to the peace and stability that the creation provides for most of us most of the time.
But the earthquake can remind us that God is angry. Disease, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, all these things should help us to remember that we live in a corrupted universe in which humans have turned away from God. And these things become to us God's wrath when we do not comprehend them. God's wrath is, according to Karl Barth, 'the questionableness of life is so far as we do not apprehend it....the whole world is the footprint of God; yes, but, in so far as we choose scandal rather than faith, the footprint in the vast riddle of the world is the footprint of his wrath.'
We were created to live in a perfect world in obedience and harmony with God, receiving his eternal protection and blessing, but we chose freedom from God. Eventually we will return to God and there will be no more earthquakes, no more disease, and no more tsunamis. These things are a source of existential terror to those without this faith but the terror can be overcome by faith here and now even if we have to wait for the rest.
In the Bible, in the past and still in some parts of the world an earthquake is interpreted as God's anger with humanity. Of course we're far too sophisticated to think like that now - but even without us thinking that this is direct retribution for specific acts we might still ask how we fit the fact of earthquakes into our Christian view.
At the beginning of Genesis God brings order to a previously chaotic scene. Random, meaningless and formless nature is composed into a harmonious and purposeful world. The universe seems to be full of planets where this chaos still reins and life is not possible and I find this a great source of faith - it makes it seem all the more incredible that the earth is set up as it is - and while it's possible, I suppose, for this to be random it seems much more likely to be as a result of some sort of design. The idea that this is random, while possible, involves a certain commitment to a certain way of looking at the world, just as my own view that God created the world does.
Throughout the Old Testament there are references to natural disasters in which the peace and harmony God brings about in the creation of the world seems to be sneaking back into the picture. Unsurprisingly the religious imagination responds to these events with a religious interpretation - God is angry.
But there are no earthquakes in the Garden of Eden, and there will be no earthquakes in the Kingdom of God. This is a fallen world where eternal life, complete peace and harmony, and an unbroken relationship between creature and its creator have been disrupted. Even so the glass is more than half full. Even in a world where death and destruction are able to make their mark they are rare compared to the peace and stability that the creation provides for most of us most of the time.
But the earthquake can remind us that God is angry. Disease, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, all these things should help us to remember that we live in a corrupted universe in which humans have turned away from God. And these things become to us God's wrath when we do not comprehend them. God's wrath is, according to Karl Barth, 'the questionableness of life is so far as we do not apprehend it....the whole world is the footprint of God; yes, but, in so far as we choose scandal rather than faith, the footprint in the vast riddle of the world is the footprint of his wrath.'
We were created to live in a perfect world in obedience and harmony with God, receiving his eternal protection and blessing, but we chose freedom from God. Eventually we will return to God and there will be no more earthquakes, no more disease, and no more tsunamis. These things are a source of existential terror to those without this faith but the terror can be overcome by faith here and now even if we have to wait for the rest.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Shari'ah Law in the UK
My MA tutor and most of my fellow students were Anglicans, it was 1997 and they were discussing who would be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Someone suggested Rowan Williams and the tutor, a professor who holds doctorates in both theology and sociology couldn't help laughing. "That would be wonderful, I'd love it to be Rowan Williams but it never will be" he said.
Well it was and it is. The idea of a first-rate academic theologian leading the national church is something that many educated Christians thought could never happen, but now that it has the idea of going back to someone not quite so bright is depressing.
It's been said in the recent furore over his comments on Shari'ah law that it's his massive brain that is the problem - that he doesn't understand the difference between the role of an academic theologian and a church leader, but that's unfair.
Theology is difficult and so unsurprisingly his theological works are complex and not always easy to follow. But he has used a different voice as archbishop, particularly in the media -twice in the last few months I've heard him on the radio using brilliant soundbites. He talked about people "looking at the Christian story and saying 'I'm going to make that story my story'" - a brilliant way of capturing narrative as a theological device. And when talking about the duty of those in the worldwide Anglican communion with problems over homosexuality not to boycott the Lambeth conference he said that if they refused to meet with their opponents they would be "walking away from the cross".
This is brilliant stuff. It shows that he has the ability to think deeply AND express himself clearly.
So I take issue with all those who criticized him for opening his mouth on the subject of Shari'ah law in the UK, I think he has a duty to raise pressing and uncomfortable questions and to start a debate.
But while I'm glad he's spoken out, and I hope he contineus to do so, I do think he's wrong about this.
He is interested in the idea of how religious laws can co-exist with the laws of the state. The headlines were all about Islamic law but really I think he was concerned about the preservation of Christian law but then conceeded that it would be wrong to protect Christian law without affording the same rights to Muslims. It's a very fair point in that respect, his bishops sit in the house of Lords and before too long that privlege is going to have to be withdrawn or extended to other denominations and faiths.
I suspect that we might be seeing here a rerun of the debate between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Or to attempt a pithy soundbite worthy of Dr Williams it's a debate about whether our faith is 7 days a week or just for sundays.
We should resist the idea that the laws of our land are disconnected from faith communities. All the laws that have been passed with the aim of countering injustice, promoting equality of opportunity, inclusion and support for the vulnerable: are we not justified in saying that these laws, in so far as they meet these aims, are Christian laws? Equally Muslims can and should describe as Islamic all those aspects of British law, all those activities of the British state which meet Islamic objectives (Compassion, Justice etc.)
And our faith, whatever religion we are, gives us beliefs and a duty to promote them. If our beliefs have any sort of value then we must argue for them to become part of UK law not simply to be kept by our own kind but ignored by others. If our faith tells us that it is important to combat poverty and protect children then we must, as electors and as citizens play our full part in bringing about and supporting laws that achieve this. These are Christian laws and these are Islamic laws. They are also Humanist laws.
And if our faith leads us to beliefs that are rejected by mainstream society then can we ask the state to fund, support or enforce such laws? As consenting adults we can agree to be bound by such rules but religious laws don't tend to make such a distinction.
Children whose parents believe they are demon posessed (not Islamic I realise, often African Christians) are sometimes mistreated for religious reasons. But those reasons, however devoutly held by the parents are so completely rejected by the rest of us that we do not allow sincerely held religious beliefs, in these instances, to override the rights of the individual.
Once we accept this principle there can't be any grey areas. Vulnerable members of all faith communities rely on the law of the land to guarantee their rights as individuals. And if our beliefs have no persuasive force in the democratic law making process then they should not have any other sort of force. Ultimately a law has to be enforceable or it is meaningless. All religious believers have the opportunity and the duty to persuade society that its laws should take account of our beliefs and values. And if we really believe them why should we keep them to ourselves?
Finally it's worth emphasising that many Muslims were aghast at the suggestion that Shari'ah law could be given any formal status in British law. I'd particularly recommend the work of Tariq Ramadan who argues that Muslims in Europe should be claiming all those aspects of European culture (human rights, the welfare state) as being Muslim concepts.
Well it was and it is. The idea of a first-rate academic theologian leading the national church is something that many educated Christians thought could never happen, but now that it has the idea of going back to someone not quite so bright is depressing.
It's been said in the recent furore over his comments on Shari'ah law that it's his massive brain that is the problem - that he doesn't understand the difference between the role of an academic theologian and a church leader, but that's unfair.
Theology is difficult and so unsurprisingly his theological works are complex and not always easy to follow. But he has used a different voice as archbishop, particularly in the media -twice in the last few months I've heard him on the radio using brilliant soundbites. He talked about people "looking at the Christian story and saying 'I'm going to make that story my story'" - a brilliant way of capturing narrative as a theological device. And when talking about the duty of those in the worldwide Anglican communion with problems over homosexuality not to boycott the Lambeth conference he said that if they refused to meet with their opponents they would be "walking away from the cross".
This is brilliant stuff. It shows that he has the ability to think deeply AND express himself clearly.
So I take issue with all those who criticized him for opening his mouth on the subject of Shari'ah law in the UK, I think he has a duty to raise pressing and uncomfortable questions and to start a debate.
But while I'm glad he's spoken out, and I hope he contineus to do so, I do think he's wrong about this.
He is interested in the idea of how religious laws can co-exist with the laws of the state. The headlines were all about Islamic law but really I think he was concerned about the preservation of Christian law but then conceeded that it would be wrong to protect Christian law without affording the same rights to Muslims. It's a very fair point in that respect, his bishops sit in the house of Lords and before too long that privlege is going to have to be withdrawn or extended to other denominations and faiths.
I suspect that we might be seeing here a rerun of the debate between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Or to attempt a pithy soundbite worthy of Dr Williams it's a debate about whether our faith is 7 days a week or just for sundays.
We should resist the idea that the laws of our land are disconnected from faith communities. All the laws that have been passed with the aim of countering injustice, promoting equality of opportunity, inclusion and support for the vulnerable: are we not justified in saying that these laws, in so far as they meet these aims, are Christian laws? Equally Muslims can and should describe as Islamic all those aspects of British law, all those activities of the British state which meet Islamic objectives (Compassion, Justice etc.)
And our faith, whatever religion we are, gives us beliefs and a duty to promote them. If our beliefs have any sort of value then we must argue for them to become part of UK law not simply to be kept by our own kind but ignored by others. If our faith tells us that it is important to combat poverty and protect children then we must, as electors and as citizens play our full part in bringing about and supporting laws that achieve this. These are Christian laws and these are Islamic laws. They are also Humanist laws.
And if our faith leads us to beliefs that are rejected by mainstream society then can we ask the state to fund, support or enforce such laws? As consenting adults we can agree to be bound by such rules but religious laws don't tend to make such a distinction.
Children whose parents believe they are demon posessed (not Islamic I realise, often African Christians) are sometimes mistreated for religious reasons. But those reasons, however devoutly held by the parents are so completely rejected by the rest of us that we do not allow sincerely held religious beliefs, in these instances, to override the rights of the individual.
Once we accept this principle there can't be any grey areas. Vulnerable members of all faith communities rely on the law of the land to guarantee their rights as individuals. And if our beliefs have no persuasive force in the democratic law making process then they should not have any other sort of force. Ultimately a law has to be enforceable or it is meaningless. All religious believers have the opportunity and the duty to persuade society that its laws should take account of our beliefs and values. And if we really believe them why should we keep them to ourselves?
Finally it's worth emphasising that many Muslims were aghast at the suggestion that Shari'ah law could be given any formal status in British law. I'd particularly recommend the work of Tariq Ramadan who argues that Muslims in Europe should be claiming all those aspects of European culture (human rights, the welfare state) as being Muslim concepts.
Monday, 25 February 2008
The Christian View of Human Nature - Reality TV
If the Bible doesn’t persuade you to take the Christian view of human nature, though, try thinking about Television. I don’t mean that you will learn the truth about human nature from the content of TV programmes, but the type of programmes that get made and are successful tells you an awful lot.
The top TV producers are so successful because they know what makes us tick. They know what we’re like, how we respond, what we’re drawn to.
This is particularly true of what’s come to be known as ‘reality TV’. This sort of programme is everywhere now and it seems that people can’t get enough of them. Shows like Big Brother and wife swap. A lot of these shows, I have to say, are so successful because the people who make them understand perfectly well just how rotten human nature can be.
These shows are full of conflict and humiliation. They call them reality but they’re not reality really, they select people and edit the action in such a way to bring out the worst in people. So many of the scenarios of these reality TV programmes are designed to get people to disintegrate, to fall out, to behave really badly. They are looking for conflict, they are engineering it. They thrive on getting desperate people to embarrass themselves.
And we love it, don’t we? We lap it up. Look at these programmes and you’ll see how they exploit the very worst instincts of viewers like you and me. Just like people used to flock to watch public executions so today we can sit at home and watch real people suffering in ever more bizarre ways.
They titillate and exploit the bit inside us that gets a kick out of the suffering of others. They titillate and exploit our instincts that attract us to gratuitous and selfish lust and greed. These awful programmes are so successful because Christianity is right when it tells us that there is something unpleasant under the surface in human nature.
But there’s another type of reality TV programme that I like much more: the makeover. There’s all sorts of these, like Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in which the charismatic and famous chef goes into a failing restaurant and turns it round. Or Faking It, where someone is taught to do something that’s utterly alien to them, like conducting an orchestra or managing a football team and they then have to pass themselves off as the real thing. There’s ‘It’s me or the dog’ where Victoria Stillwell, a dog trainer, goes to families, couples and individuals who can’t control their dog. The family always think that the dog’s the problem but she always shows them that they are the problem, and she gets them to change their ways and the dog becomes a lovely pet.
There was one particularly good one called ‘Would Like to Meet’ where people whose love life is going nowhere are taken in hand by psychologists, body language experts and fashion gurus and become transformed into someone that people want to go out with.
These sorts of shows are the opposite of Big Brother and Wife Swap. In Big Brother and Wife Swap everything starts off all nice and pleasant with everyone on their best behaviour and the deteriorate to despair. With makeover programmes it’s usually the other way round: an unhappy situation is turned into a happy one. People who are struggling are helped to overcome themselves and their problems.
Like the more negative programmes they’re successful because they tap into something deep within our nature. Although we are fallen, we are irresistibly drawn to the idea of changing things for the better. We have it in our nature to be fascinated by the suffering and humiliation of others but we also have it within ourselves to be inspired and enthralled by positive transformation.
These programmes are so popular because Christianity is right when it says that we have within us a deep need, a deep yearning to change, to transform the negative into the positive.
So we see in TV programmes the two sides of human nature as diagnosed by Christianity.
But it’s not enough for us to enjoy watching makeovers on television. Jesus expects us to be made over ourselves, in our day to day lives.
Lets remember what Paul says: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How does this renewing work? For us Christians it works in the same way that it works in makeover reality shows.
The first thing Gordon Ramsay does is have a good hard look at the people working in the restaurant. Then he tells them about it, in a brutally honest way. Their transformation starts with a good hard look at themselves. With a reality check. They must be able to see themselves not as they would like to be seen but the cold, harsh reality that other people see.
Jesus knows what we do. We can’t lie to Jesus. We can’t believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and still think that we can hide anything in our lives. We can’t pretend that our faults and failings aren’t there. Christian belief and Christian transformation must start with a reality check. We are sinners. If we think we’re not then there’s no hope for us. If we can see where we’re going wrong then we’ve made the first step to putting it right. Being a Christian shouldn’t just make it unavoidable to look at ourselves like this. It should make it easier too.
In ‘would like to meet’ the people who aren’t getting anywhere in their love life get told some pretty tough home truths. How their behaviour, is driving people away, how their appearance is making themselves unattractive to others. It must be very hard to hear these things and to accept them. But there’s no other way of changing the situation and they are prepared to go through it because they trust the person who is telling them these home truths. They trust that what they’re saying is true, and that they will be able to help them change.
Before Jesus gets to talking about forgiveness he spells out what perfect behaviour is, what it really means to keep the law. It’s not enough not to hit people, we mustn’t even get angry with them. It’s not enough to be faithful to your wife or husband – you mustn’t cheat on them in your secret thoughts. It’s the cold, hard, reality check that he delivers in the Gospel. He tells us ‘this is what’s expected of you, and this is what you are failing to do’
This would be a pretty unpalatable message if it weren’t for the next bit. It’s ok to fail, as long we know that we’re failing. It’s ok not to be perfect as long as we don’t think that we’re perfect. Not only is it ok. Once we admit that we can’t be perfect, and that we need to change, and we can’t make that change happen on our own, then and only then he steps in and he helps us. Always. Guaranteed.
Christianity is a makeover programme, day in day out, 24/7 and for your whole life. It’s not acceptable for a Christian to say ‘I’m a bad person in this regard and I’ll never get better’. It’s not acceptable to be so stuck in your ways that you’re not always taking part in some sort of makeover process.
It’s not acceptable to say that all the relationships in your life are never going to get any better and there’s nothing you can do to improve them.
It’s not acceptable to say that you are never going to change. If you think that then either you think that you’re perfect, a wicked and terrible heresy, or you think that Jesus has no right to expect anything better from you, an equally appalling idea.
Life’s full of makeovers. Opportunities to change things. To get more justice. To become better people. To be more like Christ. And Jesus is the makeover king. He doesn’t just tell us to change, he shows us how and he makes it possible.
I’d like to close by reading again Paul’s words about the old and the new human nature that Christ is all about. It’s the ultimate makeover.Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved
The top TV producers are so successful because they know what makes us tick. They know what we’re like, how we respond, what we’re drawn to.
This is particularly true of what’s come to be known as ‘reality TV’. This sort of programme is everywhere now and it seems that people can’t get enough of them. Shows like Big Brother and wife swap. A lot of these shows, I have to say, are so successful because the people who make them understand perfectly well just how rotten human nature can be.
These shows are full of conflict and humiliation. They call them reality but they’re not reality really, they select people and edit the action in such a way to bring out the worst in people. So many of the scenarios of these reality TV programmes are designed to get people to disintegrate, to fall out, to behave really badly. They are looking for conflict, they are engineering it. They thrive on getting desperate people to embarrass themselves.
And we love it, don’t we? We lap it up. Look at these programmes and you’ll see how they exploit the very worst instincts of viewers like you and me. Just like people used to flock to watch public executions so today we can sit at home and watch real people suffering in ever more bizarre ways.
They titillate and exploit the bit inside us that gets a kick out of the suffering of others. They titillate and exploit our instincts that attract us to gratuitous and selfish lust and greed. These awful programmes are so successful because Christianity is right when it tells us that there is something unpleasant under the surface in human nature.
But there’s another type of reality TV programme that I like much more: the makeover. There’s all sorts of these, like Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in which the charismatic and famous chef goes into a failing restaurant and turns it round. Or Faking It, where someone is taught to do something that’s utterly alien to them, like conducting an orchestra or managing a football team and they then have to pass themselves off as the real thing. There’s ‘It’s me or the dog’ where Victoria Stillwell, a dog trainer, goes to families, couples and individuals who can’t control their dog. The family always think that the dog’s the problem but she always shows them that they are the problem, and she gets them to change their ways and the dog becomes a lovely pet.
There was one particularly good one called ‘Would Like to Meet’ where people whose love life is going nowhere are taken in hand by psychologists, body language experts and fashion gurus and become transformed into someone that people want to go out with.
These sorts of shows are the opposite of Big Brother and Wife Swap. In Big Brother and Wife Swap everything starts off all nice and pleasant with everyone on their best behaviour and the deteriorate to despair. With makeover programmes it’s usually the other way round: an unhappy situation is turned into a happy one. People who are struggling are helped to overcome themselves and their problems.
Like the more negative programmes they’re successful because they tap into something deep within our nature. Although we are fallen, we are irresistibly drawn to the idea of changing things for the better. We have it in our nature to be fascinated by the suffering and humiliation of others but we also have it within ourselves to be inspired and enthralled by positive transformation.
These programmes are so popular because Christianity is right when it says that we have within us a deep need, a deep yearning to change, to transform the negative into the positive.
So we see in TV programmes the two sides of human nature as diagnosed by Christianity.
But it’s not enough for us to enjoy watching makeovers on television. Jesus expects us to be made over ourselves, in our day to day lives.
Lets remember what Paul says: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How does this renewing work? For us Christians it works in the same way that it works in makeover reality shows.
The first thing Gordon Ramsay does is have a good hard look at the people working in the restaurant. Then he tells them about it, in a brutally honest way. Their transformation starts with a good hard look at themselves. With a reality check. They must be able to see themselves not as they would like to be seen but the cold, harsh reality that other people see.
Jesus knows what we do. We can’t lie to Jesus. We can’t believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and still think that we can hide anything in our lives. We can’t pretend that our faults and failings aren’t there. Christian belief and Christian transformation must start with a reality check. We are sinners. If we think we’re not then there’s no hope for us. If we can see where we’re going wrong then we’ve made the first step to putting it right. Being a Christian shouldn’t just make it unavoidable to look at ourselves like this. It should make it easier too.
In ‘would like to meet’ the people who aren’t getting anywhere in their love life get told some pretty tough home truths. How their behaviour, is driving people away, how their appearance is making themselves unattractive to others. It must be very hard to hear these things and to accept them. But there’s no other way of changing the situation and they are prepared to go through it because they trust the person who is telling them these home truths. They trust that what they’re saying is true, and that they will be able to help them change.
Before Jesus gets to talking about forgiveness he spells out what perfect behaviour is, what it really means to keep the law. It’s not enough not to hit people, we mustn’t even get angry with them. It’s not enough to be faithful to your wife or husband – you mustn’t cheat on them in your secret thoughts. It’s the cold, hard, reality check that he delivers in the Gospel. He tells us ‘this is what’s expected of you, and this is what you are failing to do’
This would be a pretty unpalatable message if it weren’t for the next bit. It’s ok to fail, as long we know that we’re failing. It’s ok not to be perfect as long as we don’t think that we’re perfect. Not only is it ok. Once we admit that we can’t be perfect, and that we need to change, and we can’t make that change happen on our own, then and only then he steps in and he helps us. Always. Guaranteed.
Christianity is a makeover programme, day in day out, 24/7 and for your whole life. It’s not acceptable for a Christian to say ‘I’m a bad person in this regard and I’ll never get better’. It’s not acceptable to be so stuck in your ways that you’re not always taking part in some sort of makeover process.
It’s not acceptable to say that all the relationships in your life are never going to get any better and there’s nothing you can do to improve them.
It’s not acceptable to say that you are never going to change. If you think that then either you think that you’re perfect, a wicked and terrible heresy, or you think that Jesus has no right to expect anything better from you, an equally appalling idea.
Life’s full of makeovers. Opportunities to change things. To get more justice. To become better people. To be more like Christ. And Jesus is the makeover king. He doesn’t just tell us to change, he shows us how and he makes it possible.
I’d like to close by reading again Paul’s words about the old and the new human nature that Christ is all about. It’s the ultimate makeover.Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved
The Christian View of Human Nature - Scripture
If you treat the Bible as a science book or even as a history book you will inevitably be disappointed. But I’m not so interested in using the Bible this way. The thing that hits me whenever I read the Bible is that it explains brilliantly, and accurately exactly what human beings are like. Not on the surface but deep down, when we have our backs to the wall, when we’re in trouble. And that’s what today’s readings are about.
The first one is from Genesis, just before the flood, it describes what God sees when he looks at the human race:
Genesis 6: 5-8 –
From God’s point of view human nature is bad
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD
We might consider dismissing this as one of those rather weird, difficult to take seriously, possibly mythological statements from Genesis. Except we can’t, there’s a pattern throughout the Bible confirming this idea that human beings are not naturally that nice.
It’s confirmed at the end of the story of the flood: God says Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
This is Moses, in Deuteronomy, addressing his people, predicting that they will break the covenant and turn to other gods. "I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath."They may be the chosen people but as far as Moses is concerned the Israelites are every bit as afflicted with this bad side of their nature as anyone else.
The Genesis story of the fall of man is taken seriously by Paul, it’s central to his understanding of who and what Jesus was.
· In Romans 5: 12 he says 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world.
· And then in Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
And this picture of human nature is acknowledged by Jesus in Mark 7: 20-23"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
And yet this rather gloomy, pessimistic view of human nature that we see throughout the Bible isn’t the full story. Christianity teaches that our disagreeable nature, our sinful, fallen state is our starting point but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can change.
This good news, is made abundantly clear by Paul in these two passages:
Ephesians 2
Made Alive in Christ
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Romans 12
Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The Christian view of human nature, that it has a natural tendency to be rotten but it can be transformed into something wonderful, is unique.
It’s different from Islam. The Qur’an, like the Bible, features the story of Adam and Eve but with a crucial difference. In the Qur’anic version Adam and Eve are forgiven by God, there’s no original sin. Islam does not recognise any sort of in built tendency to the bad in human nature. According to Islam humans are morally neutral and rational. God gives us laws and there is no excuse for not following them.
When I was teaching in schools and explained to pupils about the difference between Christianity and Islam in this respect their first reaction is always more favourable to the Islamic idea. After all it sounds very negative, even a bit hostile to say that we are all born in original sin, with a tendency towards selfishness and badness. But then I ask them ‘imagine you got caught shoplifting what sort of magistrate would you prefer to appear before: one who believes that all human beings are subject to temptation, who thinks you’re a sinner but so is he; or would you rather come before someone who believes that there is no excuse for going bad – that every human being is equally capable of either doing good or bad.’ They start out thinking the Islamic idea is kinder, but once they think about it they quickly see the advantages in the Christian view of human nature. Original Sin means that we’re all sinners, your teachers, your parents, those in authority over you are sinners too and where this is recognized authority tends to be administered a bit more fairly.
The Christian view of human nature is different from the secular political thinking of the extreme left and right wings. The thoroughly right wing view of life agrees with us that all people have it in them to l be lazy and dishonest, even cruel given the chance. But they ignore the other side of it, they have no faith that people can change, can be good,
The left wing view also only understands half of the Christian view. Socialism has a thoroughly optimistic view of human nature. According to this view people’s rotten behaviour doesn’t come from within them like Jesus says in Mark 7. People are only bad because they are trapped in unequal or unjust economic relationships. Stop oppressing people and their natural goodness will come out of them and we’ll have heaven on earth.
We’ve seen where this view gets us. Whether it’s bringing up children, schools, businesses, places of work, or our approach to law and order. If we dismiss the very idea that people can be bad, if we only ever assume the best in people we get into some very messy and unpleasant situations.
So Christianity has a unique take on human nature. This more than anything else in the Bible convinces me that it is a true religion. I look at the world around me and it seems to be true. And if it were a view that were more widely shared, perhaps even by Christians themselves, the world would quickly become a much better place.
The first one is from Genesis, just before the flood, it describes what God sees when he looks at the human race:
Genesis 6: 5-8 –
From God’s point of view human nature is bad
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD
We might consider dismissing this as one of those rather weird, difficult to take seriously, possibly mythological statements from Genesis. Except we can’t, there’s a pattern throughout the Bible confirming this idea that human beings are not naturally that nice.
It’s confirmed at the end of the story of the flood: God says Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
This is Moses, in Deuteronomy, addressing his people, predicting that they will break the covenant and turn to other gods. "I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath."They may be the chosen people but as far as Moses is concerned the Israelites are every bit as afflicted with this bad side of their nature as anyone else.
The Genesis story of the fall of man is taken seriously by Paul, it’s central to his understanding of who and what Jesus was.
· In Romans 5: 12 he says 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world.
· And then in Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
And this picture of human nature is acknowledged by Jesus in Mark 7: 20-23"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
And yet this rather gloomy, pessimistic view of human nature that we see throughout the Bible isn’t the full story. Christianity teaches that our disagreeable nature, our sinful, fallen state is our starting point but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can change.
This good news, is made abundantly clear by Paul in these two passages:
Ephesians 2
Made Alive in Christ
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Romans 12
Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The Christian view of human nature, that it has a natural tendency to be rotten but it can be transformed into something wonderful, is unique.
It’s different from Islam. The Qur’an, like the Bible, features the story of Adam and Eve but with a crucial difference. In the Qur’anic version Adam and Eve are forgiven by God, there’s no original sin. Islam does not recognise any sort of in built tendency to the bad in human nature. According to Islam humans are morally neutral and rational. God gives us laws and there is no excuse for not following them.
When I was teaching in schools and explained to pupils about the difference between Christianity and Islam in this respect their first reaction is always more favourable to the Islamic idea. After all it sounds very negative, even a bit hostile to say that we are all born in original sin, with a tendency towards selfishness and badness. But then I ask them ‘imagine you got caught shoplifting what sort of magistrate would you prefer to appear before: one who believes that all human beings are subject to temptation, who thinks you’re a sinner but so is he; or would you rather come before someone who believes that there is no excuse for going bad – that every human being is equally capable of either doing good or bad.’ They start out thinking the Islamic idea is kinder, but once they think about it they quickly see the advantages in the Christian view of human nature. Original Sin means that we’re all sinners, your teachers, your parents, those in authority over you are sinners too and where this is recognized authority tends to be administered a bit more fairly.
The Christian view of human nature is different from the secular political thinking of the extreme left and right wings. The thoroughly right wing view of life agrees with us that all people have it in them to l be lazy and dishonest, even cruel given the chance. But they ignore the other side of it, they have no faith that people can change, can be good,
The left wing view also only understands half of the Christian view. Socialism has a thoroughly optimistic view of human nature. According to this view people’s rotten behaviour doesn’t come from within them like Jesus says in Mark 7. People are only bad because they are trapped in unequal or unjust economic relationships. Stop oppressing people and their natural goodness will come out of them and we’ll have heaven on earth.
We’ve seen where this view gets us. Whether it’s bringing up children, schools, businesses, places of work, or our approach to law and order. If we dismiss the very idea that people can be bad, if we only ever assume the best in people we get into some very messy and unpleasant situations.
So Christianity has a unique take on human nature. This more than anything else in the Bible convinces me that it is a true religion. I look at the world around me and it seems to be true. And if it were a view that were more widely shared, perhaps even by Christians themselves, the world would quickly become a much better place.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
I'm back, and this is why I've been away
When I started this blog, along with the website I said I wanted to know if I could manage the discipline of producing at least a sermon each week. Well given that I've not posted anything for the last month I think we know the answer to that one.
I do have my excuses ready, however. I'm suffering from a muscular skeletal disorder which throws my spine out of alignment and at times causes instability around my shoulder and arm which is severely aggravated by typing or using a mouse. I've had surgery on both feet to correct a structural problem (my feet were so flat footed that my ankles were collapsing and making my whole body out of kilter) but for some reason this wasn't sorting out the problem. I took my muscle strengthening and stretching exercises very seriously, in fact I was spending four or five hours a day on them, but to no avail.
I went to my orthopaedic surgeon ready to say that the surgery obviously hadn't worked and would he please chop the foot off if it would mean that the rest of the body would become stable and I could get on with my life. He surprised me by saying that in terms of bones everything was fine and he was referring me to a neurologist. The neurologist told me that he didn't believe I had any nasty or sinister condition but he would send me for an MRI scan just in case. While thoroughly relieved to be told that I probably didn't have a degenerative disease I was once again distressed by the fact that basically no one knew what the hell was wrong with me.
Then I saw a very good physiotherapist, to review some exercises that she had given me previously. She discovered, and has I think demonstrated, that this is actually all to do with my nerves. Years and years of my body being twisted out of shape has, in her words, stretched my central nervous system. Nerves are getting somewhat obstructed around the spine and are causing muscle tightness and general physical instability around the body. She did some manipulation to start to release them and the results were dramatic, all tightness and imbalance disappeared. It's going to take some time with this treatment and with new exercises specifically targetted at releasing the nerves and I'm suffering with trapped nerves on and off quite a lot. But I'm on my way now, the exercises that I do are properly targetting the problem and I'm not doing unnecessary muscular work.
It had got to the stage where the slightest amount of time on the computer would throw my whole body out and cause horrible irritation in the spine, the shoulder and the buttock. And that's why I stopped writing on this blog and on the website for this period of time. I'm hoping to train for the ministry and I had essays to complete for my distance learning theology course and ministry application forms to complete and it was an almighty struggle to get those done leaving nothing over for anything else.
It's been a tough time but I feel pretty optimistic now. I'm back and hopefully won't have to go missing like this again! Hopefully I'll be posting much more regularly now.
I do have my excuses ready, however. I'm suffering from a muscular skeletal disorder which throws my spine out of alignment and at times causes instability around my shoulder and arm which is severely aggravated by typing or using a mouse. I've had surgery on both feet to correct a structural problem (my feet were so flat footed that my ankles were collapsing and making my whole body out of kilter) but for some reason this wasn't sorting out the problem. I took my muscle strengthening and stretching exercises very seriously, in fact I was spending four or five hours a day on them, but to no avail.
I went to my orthopaedic surgeon ready to say that the surgery obviously hadn't worked and would he please chop the foot off if it would mean that the rest of the body would become stable and I could get on with my life. He surprised me by saying that in terms of bones everything was fine and he was referring me to a neurologist. The neurologist told me that he didn't believe I had any nasty or sinister condition but he would send me for an MRI scan just in case. While thoroughly relieved to be told that I probably didn't have a degenerative disease I was once again distressed by the fact that basically no one knew what the hell was wrong with me.
Then I saw a very good physiotherapist, to review some exercises that she had given me previously. She discovered, and has I think demonstrated, that this is actually all to do with my nerves. Years and years of my body being twisted out of shape has, in her words, stretched my central nervous system. Nerves are getting somewhat obstructed around the spine and are causing muscle tightness and general physical instability around the body. She did some manipulation to start to release them and the results were dramatic, all tightness and imbalance disappeared. It's going to take some time with this treatment and with new exercises specifically targetted at releasing the nerves and I'm suffering with trapped nerves on and off quite a lot. But I'm on my way now, the exercises that I do are properly targetting the problem and I'm not doing unnecessary muscular work.
It had got to the stage where the slightest amount of time on the computer would throw my whole body out and cause horrible irritation in the spine, the shoulder and the buttock. And that's why I stopped writing on this blog and on the website for this period of time. I'm hoping to train for the ministry and I had essays to complete for my distance learning theology course and ministry application forms to complete and it was an almighty struggle to get those done leaving nothing over for anything else.
It's been a tough time but I feel pretty optimistic now. I'm back and hopefully won't have to go missing like this again! Hopefully I'll be posting much more regularly now.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Looking to the Future
In terms of the Christian calendar there's no particular reason why we should start the new year a week after Christmas. In some ways it would make more sense if it came after Easter Sunday when we remember the resurrection; or whit sunday when we remember God's Holy Spirit being poured out into the church and the world and into our hearts. But as it's turned out Christmas and New Year go together very well indeed.
Because after Christmas we all have a great big list of things that we wish were different.
Over the past few weeks we've been in the company of others a lot more than some of us are used to and it isn't always easy. Christmas is a time spent at the coal-face of Christianity with almost constant opportunites to be judgemental about the people we're thrown together with.
When visiting relatives we can't help noticing how they don't do things the way that we do: whether it's how they prepare a meal, or how they hold their knife and fork. We find ourselves disapproving of people, don't we? Of how they talk to their children, or how they don't recycle enough: in countless ways we find that the company we've been keeping doesn't behave in the way we would prefer, And with every opportunity to pass judgement has come an opportunity to forgive, to rise above it, and to remember our own faults.
So over Christmas we find it hard, very hard, not to throw the first stone. And we come out the other end of it feeling pretty bad about ourselves.
So that would be a good very new year's resolution, to forgive rather than condemn, to judge ourselves not others, not to throw the first stone.
Christmas has shown us how some of our relationships are just not what they could and should be. If you feel you ought to buy a present for someone, but you have no idea what to buy them what does that say about your relationship with that person? So that would be another good new year resolution - to get to know people a bit better, so we know what present to buy them next year because we know what they've been up to and we know what they like and dislike.
And what has this Christmas taught us about our relationship with money? Some of us will be starting the new year in debt because of what we've spent on Christmas. Did we really need to spend that much? Have we fallen into the trap of thinking money can make us happy, that material possessions will make other people like us? Many of us will be making new years' resolutions to do with money: not to spend more than we earn, not to throw our money away on things that don't make us happy. Some of us will have spent more than we can afford over Christmas because we're concerned about what people will think of us. This should tell us that something isn't right, there's something in us and in our relationships that isn't right. Lets fix it in this coming year.
There's a lot of fun to be had at Christmas but a lot of work too. Have we done our bit? Or did this Christmas confirm the fact that things aren't very fair in our home and the burden always falls on the same people. We could resolve to change that in the coming year.
And Christmas makes us painfully aware that as a society and as communities we don't manage to look after everyone. There have been people sleeping rough this Christmas; many people have been alone and unloved over Christmas; and many people have lived with disease and poverty while we've been opening presents and eating Turkey.
But lets be honest. Whatever our good intentions right now we know that come next Christmas we'll still find other people annoying, we'll still struggle to buy presents for people because we don't know them as well as we should and we'll still spend too much. And things probably won't be any fairer next Christmas than they were this year. Which is why some people only ever make one new years' resolution - not to make any resolutions.
But that can't be us. Resolving to change, to do better, is what we're all about. New Year's day is when the rest of the world does what we do every week. Every time we worship we confess our sins from the past week, we receive forgiveness and we are compelled to try again. Every time we say the Lord's prayer we go through this process of dealing with what's gone before and then looking to a bright future. So we should not be shy about joining in with everyone else and making some new years' resolutions.
Some people find it hard to think about the future. They're so depressed, so fearful about what seems to be on the horizon that they daren't hope any more. Or their aspirations are so vague and so unrelated to any practical steps that they might take towards them that it amounts to the same thing as not hoping at all.
But Christians should always hope, should always be looking to the future. Some of us worship in very old buildings, and some of our congregations are quite elderly. We read from a book the last bit of which was written nearly two thousand years ago. And yet our faith is not about the past, it's about the future.
The Kingdom of God that we pray for each week is not a golden age in the past, it's our future. The resurrection happened once two thousand years ago as a sign that it will happen to EVERYONE in the future. The cross isn't a memorial to what happened, it's a statement about what will happen in the future.
I've talked before about how Christianity has a beginning a middle and an end, a past present and future that is so at odds with Buddhism. For Buddhists time is something that goes round and round not forward but for us we must always be focused on the future.
Traditional African religions are all about the past, all about ancestors, being worthy of them and seeking protection from them.
The most civilized pagans in the Roman Empire thought Christianity abhorrent because to them the most you could say about the future was that it might be the same as the past. But ours is a tranforming faith, believing as we do in a resurrected Christ that announces to the world that it will be changed. What happened on easter day was not a one off piece of God showing off, it was a mighty sign that our whole world will be transformed, that the Kingdom of God will come to us. The resurrection is a wonderful sign, it's our redemption in the future. The risen Jesus is a bit of tomorrow today. Jesus is in the Kingdom of God and the redemption that he's working in us is like a gravitational pull towards the future, towards restoration, perfection, unity, towards heaven.
So in this drama we all have a part to play, and it's not generally a part that we get to choose.
The Israelites led by Joshua thousands of years ago in our Old Testament reading were part of the same drama, the same story, that we are performing in right now. Even then everything was going in one direction, towards the Kingdom of God.
They already had an illustrious past to inspire them, their liberation from slavery was a recent memory, but they were seized by a task to be performed in the present that was to bear fruit in the future. The book of Joshua is the first book after the pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible. They already had an ancient history in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Noah, the tower of Babel, a religion could be based on just the first book of the Bible, couldn't it? But not only did they have their ancient history, their book of origins, but they also had their recent history, the story of how God had liberated them from slavery, of how the great Moses had formed them into a people and led them, how God had inspired him and produced mighty miracles along the way.
This could be seen as sufficient for a religion. They could have become at that point a people who, like many other cultures, live in the past. Always talking about their golden age, wishing for nothing more than to return to those days. But that wasn't what God had in mind for them.
They were the chosen people and they were marching towards a promised land, their faith was calling them into the future. And the goal they had in mind, of a promised land flowing with milk and honey, in fact, wasn't the final destination many of them will have thought it was. That land was to produce many generations of prophets and eventually would be the setting in which, through which the redemption of the whole world would take place.
So Joshua had to win that battle, didn't he? God would make sure that the Israelites prevailed. In our reading we hear about how God tells the soldiers in advance that he will be with them and he will cause them to be victorious. Joshua thought that winning that battle would be a stepping stone towards the promised land. In fact it was a stepping stone towards the Kindgom of God. Those soldiers waiting to go into battle, no doubt full of fear, what effect did it have on them to be told that the outcome was already settled? It must have given them great courage, but some of them still would lose their lives. God wins the battle, but he does it with them and through them not without them.
And we are always crossing the Jordan. Our life on earth is meant to be lived on the threshold. And what courage and joy it can give us when God tells us that the outcome is not in doubt, that the victory has already been won by Him. But we're not excused from the battle, are we? Some of us will die early, and some of us will suffer, but we are part of something much bigger. We're part of this story that is moving towards the most wonderful conclusion, and no matter what blows befall us in the present they won't stop us from taking our place in the Kingdom of God.
That Kingdom which is built up and brought ever nearer through our lives with Christ here and now. Which was built up and brought nearer when the Israelites crossed the Jordan. They were given signs, the Ark of the Covenant, that God was with them. And we too have been given signs that God will be with us and that victory is His and will be ours.
Joshua's men had to win that battle so that there could be a land and a people through which God's prophets would speak. They had to play their part on that terrifying day thousands of years ago so that many hears in their future Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel, could prophesy the coming of Christ.
And in our Gospel reading Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah. But not because he's stuck in the past. He quotes this prophet from 500 years ago as he is telling them about the Kingdom of God which is partly there and then, in the present, and partly in the future. He's making the link between an earlier part of God's story, the prophecy of Isaiah, the part that he is playing in it there and then, and what is going to happen in the next bit of this story. In this passage we see the perfect integration of past, present and future. We see the thread running through the whole story that includes the Israelites in captivity, in the wilderness, then in the promised land producing prophets that start to give clues as to where it's all going. It's all pointing towards Jesus, isn't it? But then Jesus comes and even He can't stop talking about the future. Jesus, who is there in the present spends most of his time talking about things that will happen in the future. But when he talks about the future he refers to the past. He shows the continuity between Isaiah, who was looking to the future, and himself who is pointing the way to the future, and ourselves who should have our eyes firmly set on this future.
Throughout the New Testament we see Jesus' actions set against a template of the past. The 40 days in the wilderness when Jesus uses the scriptures to defeat the devil; the transfiguration where Jesus is seen alongside Elijah and Moses, the Passover as context for the Eucharist, the ark as the image for future salvation, Jesus as the new Adam in Romans.
So for us this must mean that there's no ban on talking about the past. Jesus refers frequently to the line of prophets that led up to the time of his birth. And we have our own impressive history that we shouldn't be shy about, indeed we should be proud of it. The reformed tradition looks back to the early church. It looks back to the reformation, to Geneva in the 16th Century, to the religious revival of the nineteenth century, to the pilgirm fathers. But why do we look back? We do so, in the same way that Jesus did, because it points the way to the future. Our history is so important but not for its own sake. The book of Joshua is highly questionable if taken on its own, its a bloodcurlding tale of ethnic cleansing, but it really matters because it is part of that thread that runs from the creation of the world to its redemption, it's part of God's story.
Our own past is important because of the role it played in building the present and the future. It's still important because it can inspire us and point the way to the future still. But we mustn't live in the past because the Gospels show that God doesn't live in the past. Jesus, throughout the Gospels, acts in the present, with a nod to the past, but as a signpost to the future. That's God's story and we're part of it. The cross is not something locked away in a museum, or chained up in a book. It's an active, dynamic, transforming force that is working now and is creating our future.
Every day is Easter Day for us. That means we live in hope. We look at every dark situation and believe that it can be transformed into light. And that hope is real, it's based on something real and powerful and true: the certainty of God's promise.
Lets look again at those words from the letter to the Hebrews:
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek.
God has made an oath about our future. He has sworn by Himself. Our souls don't need to be blown away with confusion, we have this hope as an anchor. We don't need to be driven onto the rocks of despair, our hope keeps us where we are, secure in God's promise. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.
What's behind the curtain? In our darkest hours we fear what's behind the curtain, what's on the other side. But Jesus has already gone there on our behalf. Like Joshua and his men we learn, in advance, that the battle has been won for us. So we're not afraid and we don't despair. We have this hope, always, as an anchor for our souls.
And because we have this hope we are not afraid to look to the future and we're not afraid to build for the future,
Because after Christmas we all have a great big list of things that we wish were different.
Over the past few weeks we've been in the company of others a lot more than some of us are used to and it isn't always easy. Christmas is a time spent at the coal-face of Christianity with almost constant opportunites to be judgemental about the people we're thrown together with.
When visiting relatives we can't help noticing how they don't do things the way that we do: whether it's how they prepare a meal, or how they hold their knife and fork. We find ourselves disapproving of people, don't we? Of how they talk to their children, or how they don't recycle enough: in countless ways we find that the company we've been keeping doesn't behave in the way we would prefer, And with every opportunity to pass judgement has come an opportunity to forgive, to rise above it, and to remember our own faults.
So over Christmas we find it hard, very hard, not to throw the first stone. And we come out the other end of it feeling pretty bad about ourselves.
So that would be a good very new year's resolution, to forgive rather than condemn, to judge ourselves not others, not to throw the first stone.
Christmas has shown us how some of our relationships are just not what they could and should be. If you feel you ought to buy a present for someone, but you have no idea what to buy them what does that say about your relationship with that person? So that would be another good new year resolution - to get to know people a bit better, so we know what present to buy them next year because we know what they've been up to and we know what they like and dislike.
And what has this Christmas taught us about our relationship with money? Some of us will be starting the new year in debt because of what we've spent on Christmas. Did we really need to spend that much? Have we fallen into the trap of thinking money can make us happy, that material possessions will make other people like us? Many of us will be making new years' resolutions to do with money: not to spend more than we earn, not to throw our money away on things that don't make us happy. Some of us will have spent more than we can afford over Christmas because we're concerned about what people will think of us. This should tell us that something isn't right, there's something in us and in our relationships that isn't right. Lets fix it in this coming year.
There's a lot of fun to be had at Christmas but a lot of work too. Have we done our bit? Or did this Christmas confirm the fact that things aren't very fair in our home and the burden always falls on the same people. We could resolve to change that in the coming year.
And Christmas makes us painfully aware that as a society and as communities we don't manage to look after everyone. There have been people sleeping rough this Christmas; many people have been alone and unloved over Christmas; and many people have lived with disease and poverty while we've been opening presents and eating Turkey.
But lets be honest. Whatever our good intentions right now we know that come next Christmas we'll still find other people annoying, we'll still struggle to buy presents for people because we don't know them as well as we should and we'll still spend too much. And things probably won't be any fairer next Christmas than they were this year. Which is why some people only ever make one new years' resolution - not to make any resolutions.
But that can't be us. Resolving to change, to do better, is what we're all about. New Year's day is when the rest of the world does what we do every week. Every time we worship we confess our sins from the past week, we receive forgiveness and we are compelled to try again. Every time we say the Lord's prayer we go through this process of dealing with what's gone before and then looking to a bright future. So we should not be shy about joining in with everyone else and making some new years' resolutions.
Some people find it hard to think about the future. They're so depressed, so fearful about what seems to be on the horizon that they daren't hope any more. Or their aspirations are so vague and so unrelated to any practical steps that they might take towards them that it amounts to the same thing as not hoping at all.
But Christians should always hope, should always be looking to the future. Some of us worship in very old buildings, and some of our congregations are quite elderly. We read from a book the last bit of which was written nearly two thousand years ago. And yet our faith is not about the past, it's about the future.
The Kingdom of God that we pray for each week is not a golden age in the past, it's our future. The resurrection happened once two thousand years ago as a sign that it will happen to EVERYONE in the future. The cross isn't a memorial to what happened, it's a statement about what will happen in the future.
I've talked before about how Christianity has a beginning a middle and an end, a past present and future that is so at odds with Buddhism. For Buddhists time is something that goes round and round not forward but for us we must always be focused on the future.
Traditional African religions are all about the past, all about ancestors, being worthy of them and seeking protection from them.
The most civilized pagans in the Roman Empire thought Christianity abhorrent because to them the most you could say about the future was that it might be the same as the past. But ours is a tranforming faith, believing as we do in a resurrected Christ that announces to the world that it will be changed. What happened on easter day was not a one off piece of God showing off, it was a mighty sign that our whole world will be transformed, that the Kingdom of God will come to us. The resurrection is a wonderful sign, it's our redemption in the future. The risen Jesus is a bit of tomorrow today. Jesus is in the Kingdom of God and the redemption that he's working in us is like a gravitational pull towards the future, towards restoration, perfection, unity, towards heaven.
So in this drama we all have a part to play, and it's not generally a part that we get to choose.
The Israelites led by Joshua thousands of years ago in our Old Testament reading were part of the same drama, the same story, that we are performing in right now. Even then everything was going in one direction, towards the Kingdom of God.
They already had an illustrious past to inspire them, their liberation from slavery was a recent memory, but they were seized by a task to be performed in the present that was to bear fruit in the future. The book of Joshua is the first book after the pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible. They already had an ancient history in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Noah, the tower of Babel, a religion could be based on just the first book of the Bible, couldn't it? But not only did they have their ancient history, their book of origins, but they also had their recent history, the story of how God had liberated them from slavery, of how the great Moses had formed them into a people and led them, how God had inspired him and produced mighty miracles along the way.
This could be seen as sufficient for a religion. They could have become at that point a people who, like many other cultures, live in the past. Always talking about their golden age, wishing for nothing more than to return to those days. But that wasn't what God had in mind for them.
They were the chosen people and they were marching towards a promised land, their faith was calling them into the future. And the goal they had in mind, of a promised land flowing with milk and honey, in fact, wasn't the final destination many of them will have thought it was. That land was to produce many generations of prophets and eventually would be the setting in which, through which the redemption of the whole world would take place.
So Joshua had to win that battle, didn't he? God would make sure that the Israelites prevailed. In our reading we hear about how God tells the soldiers in advance that he will be with them and he will cause them to be victorious. Joshua thought that winning that battle would be a stepping stone towards the promised land. In fact it was a stepping stone towards the Kindgom of God. Those soldiers waiting to go into battle, no doubt full of fear, what effect did it have on them to be told that the outcome was already settled? It must have given them great courage, but some of them still would lose their lives. God wins the battle, but he does it with them and through them not without them.
And we are always crossing the Jordan. Our life on earth is meant to be lived on the threshold. And what courage and joy it can give us when God tells us that the outcome is not in doubt, that the victory has already been won by Him. But we're not excused from the battle, are we? Some of us will die early, and some of us will suffer, but we are part of something much bigger. We're part of this story that is moving towards the most wonderful conclusion, and no matter what blows befall us in the present they won't stop us from taking our place in the Kingdom of God.
That Kingdom which is built up and brought ever nearer through our lives with Christ here and now. Which was built up and brought nearer when the Israelites crossed the Jordan. They were given signs, the Ark of the Covenant, that God was with them. And we too have been given signs that God will be with us and that victory is His and will be ours.
Joshua's men had to win that battle so that there could be a land and a people through which God's prophets would speak. They had to play their part on that terrifying day thousands of years ago so that many hears in their future Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel, could prophesy the coming of Christ.
And in our Gospel reading Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah. But not because he's stuck in the past. He quotes this prophet from 500 years ago as he is telling them about the Kingdom of God which is partly there and then, in the present, and partly in the future. He's making the link between an earlier part of God's story, the prophecy of Isaiah, the part that he is playing in it there and then, and what is going to happen in the next bit of this story. In this passage we see the perfect integration of past, present and future. We see the thread running through the whole story that includes the Israelites in captivity, in the wilderness, then in the promised land producing prophets that start to give clues as to where it's all going. It's all pointing towards Jesus, isn't it? But then Jesus comes and even He can't stop talking about the future. Jesus, who is there in the present spends most of his time talking about things that will happen in the future. But when he talks about the future he refers to the past. He shows the continuity between Isaiah, who was looking to the future, and himself who is pointing the way to the future, and ourselves who should have our eyes firmly set on this future.
Throughout the New Testament we see Jesus' actions set against a template of the past. The 40 days in the wilderness when Jesus uses the scriptures to defeat the devil; the transfiguration where Jesus is seen alongside Elijah and Moses, the Passover as context for the Eucharist, the ark as the image for future salvation, Jesus as the new Adam in Romans.
So for us this must mean that there's no ban on talking about the past. Jesus refers frequently to the line of prophets that led up to the time of his birth. And we have our own impressive history that we shouldn't be shy about, indeed we should be proud of it. The reformed tradition looks back to the early church. It looks back to the reformation, to Geneva in the 16th Century, to the religious revival of the nineteenth century, to the pilgirm fathers. But why do we look back? We do so, in the same way that Jesus did, because it points the way to the future. Our history is so important but not for its own sake. The book of Joshua is highly questionable if taken on its own, its a bloodcurlding tale of ethnic cleansing, but it really matters because it is part of that thread that runs from the creation of the world to its redemption, it's part of God's story.
Our own past is important because of the role it played in building the present and the future. It's still important because it can inspire us and point the way to the future still. But we mustn't live in the past because the Gospels show that God doesn't live in the past. Jesus, throughout the Gospels, acts in the present, with a nod to the past, but as a signpost to the future. That's God's story and we're part of it. The cross is not something locked away in a museum, or chained up in a book. It's an active, dynamic, transforming force that is working now and is creating our future.
Every day is Easter Day for us. That means we live in hope. We look at every dark situation and believe that it can be transformed into light. And that hope is real, it's based on something real and powerful and true: the certainty of God's promise.
Lets look again at those words from the letter to the Hebrews:
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek.
God has made an oath about our future. He has sworn by Himself. Our souls don't need to be blown away with confusion, we have this hope as an anchor. We don't need to be driven onto the rocks of despair, our hope keeps us where we are, secure in God's promise. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.
What's behind the curtain? In our darkest hours we fear what's behind the curtain, what's on the other side. But Jesus has already gone there on our behalf. Like Joshua and his men we learn, in advance, that the battle has been won for us. So we're not afraid and we don't despair. We have this hope, always, as an anchor for our souls.
And because we have this hope we are not afraid to look to the future and we're not afraid to build for the future,
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Blair Converts to Catholicism!
Former prime minister Tony Blair has finally done what was widely expected and converted to Roman Catholicism.
There's been a certain amount of indignation from Anne Widdecombe who points out that Blair has not taken the Catholic line on abortion in several votes in the House of Commons. Has he changed his mind, she wants to know?
I don't really think that's the point. The greatest appeal of the Roman Catholic Church is not its teaching but its claim to be the original church of Christ.
Perhaps he is following a path that he has already trod in secular politics. There was always a feeling that Blair was a late convert to the Labour Party; and it's perhaps suprising that a man of his generation, background and beliefs didn't join the SDP. But he judged that his dreams needed to be achieved within the Labour party, even if it needed to be thoroughly transformed before this was possible.
This sits very neatly with the Roman Catholic cry that whatever objections we might have we have a greater duty to belong to the original church - that we should be protesting Catholics rather than Protestants.
He's never really talked about his faith, for fear of being labelled a 'nutter', so we can only speculate. So here goes:
1 He really believes not only the truth of Catholic teaching but its authority
2 He's pretty vague about his beliefs but wanted to worship with the rest of his family (all Catholics)
3 He's desparate for absolution as tens of thousands of people have lost their lives as a direct result of his decisions.
4 He wants to be the Pope
5 He wants to use the Roman Catholic Church in the same way that he used the Labour Party, to build a political power base.
6 He wants to 'save' the Catholic Church in the same way that he's 'saved' Britain, the Monarchy, the Labour Party, Iraq, Northern Ireland etc.
Now more than anything I want the Pope to tell him that he was wrong about Iraq.
There's been a certain amount of indignation from Anne Widdecombe who points out that Blair has not taken the Catholic line on abortion in several votes in the House of Commons. Has he changed his mind, she wants to know?
I don't really think that's the point. The greatest appeal of the Roman Catholic Church is not its teaching but its claim to be the original church of Christ.
Perhaps he is following a path that he has already trod in secular politics. There was always a feeling that Blair was a late convert to the Labour Party; and it's perhaps suprising that a man of his generation, background and beliefs didn't join the SDP. But he judged that his dreams needed to be achieved within the Labour party, even if it needed to be thoroughly transformed before this was possible.
This sits very neatly with the Roman Catholic cry that whatever objections we might have we have a greater duty to belong to the original church - that we should be protesting Catholics rather than Protestants.
He's never really talked about his faith, for fear of being labelled a 'nutter', so we can only speculate. So here goes:
1 He really believes not only the truth of Catholic teaching but its authority
2 He's pretty vague about his beliefs but wanted to worship with the rest of his family (all Catholics)
3 He's desparate for absolution as tens of thousands of people have lost their lives as a direct result of his decisions.
4 He wants to be the Pope
5 He wants to use the Roman Catholic Church in the same way that he used the Labour Party, to build a political power base.
6 He wants to 'save' the Catholic Church in the same way that he's 'saved' Britain, the Monarchy, the Labour Party, Iraq, Northern Ireland etc.
Now more than anything I want the Pope to tell him that he was wrong about Iraq.
The Meaning of Christmas
It has been said that if you're looking for somewhere to hide something from someone the best place is under their nose. And that's what's happened with Christmas in some respects. Underneath the pagan Christmas, the consumerism, the materialism, Santa Claus and Christmas trees, is the nativity.
The nativity play is, thankfully, still considered an essential element in Christmas. This in itself does not mean that people are hungering and thirsting for Christ at this time of year, but it still forms part of indigenous Briton's tradition, and therefore identity, and so people want to hang on to it.
But how many people watching nativity plays this last week have understood its meaning?
Behind the story of a child in a manger is a wonderful, shocking, and incomprehensible event. God, the creator of the universe, the Supreme Being whom we cannot see or even conceive of, has taken on human form.
And behind this event, this incarnation is the decision God has taken, that he will not be a distant God, he will come into our world. He will not be the cruel and pitiless God that we might suppose him to be when we look at the injustice and suffering in our world. God becoming human means that all disease and death and misery is not the final word, and he will be a healing, restoring, loving and merciful God.
We cannot think why the creator of the Universe should be concerned with our lives but because God became one of us, one of His creatures, we know that he is.
Do we think about this when we read the story of the shepherd's and the angels, or of the Magi? How many children singing about the baby Jesus at this time of year know who or what that baby was?
Let us never forget that Mary's pregnancy was planned. Behind the events of the nativity lie a decision, taken by God, that He will be for us not against us. He will be with us not far from us. He will be merciful and forgiving and he will draw us near to him, both in this life and in the life to come.
This decision is an eternal decision. It's not something that happened in the past that we must recreate in plays and films so that it's kept alive. It's a decision that cannot die. It's an eternal decision and it's a final decision.
So this Christmas lets try to remember what lies behind the nativity. Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ but it's more than a birthday party. It's about that decision God has taken, that he will be our God.
Read the story, go to church, watch a nativity play at school. Lets keep the nativity play alive, lets delight in it, and lets protest when people try to remove it from the Christmas experience.
But lets not forget what the nativity represents. As we celebrate Christmas lets keep in mind that we are celebrating all the events and symbols through which we come to realise that God is for us and is with us. Lets not confuse the wrapping with the gift. The nativity is is the wrapping, God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit is the gift.
Happy Christmas!
The nativity play is, thankfully, still considered an essential element in Christmas. This in itself does not mean that people are hungering and thirsting for Christ at this time of year, but it still forms part of indigenous Briton's tradition, and therefore identity, and so people want to hang on to it.
But how many people watching nativity plays this last week have understood its meaning?
Behind the story of a child in a manger is a wonderful, shocking, and incomprehensible event. God, the creator of the universe, the Supreme Being whom we cannot see or even conceive of, has taken on human form.
And behind this event, this incarnation is the decision God has taken, that he will not be a distant God, he will come into our world. He will not be the cruel and pitiless God that we might suppose him to be when we look at the injustice and suffering in our world. God becoming human means that all disease and death and misery is not the final word, and he will be a healing, restoring, loving and merciful God.
We cannot think why the creator of the Universe should be concerned with our lives but because God became one of us, one of His creatures, we know that he is.
Do we think about this when we read the story of the shepherd's and the angels, or of the Magi? How many children singing about the baby Jesus at this time of year know who or what that baby was?
Let us never forget that Mary's pregnancy was planned. Behind the events of the nativity lie a decision, taken by God, that He will be for us not against us. He will be with us not far from us. He will be merciful and forgiving and he will draw us near to him, both in this life and in the life to come.
This decision is an eternal decision. It's not something that happened in the past that we must recreate in plays and films so that it's kept alive. It's a decision that cannot die. It's an eternal decision and it's a final decision.
So this Christmas lets try to remember what lies behind the nativity. Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ but it's more than a birthday party. It's about that decision God has taken, that he will be our God.
Read the story, go to church, watch a nativity play at school. Lets keep the nativity play alive, lets delight in it, and lets protest when people try to remove it from the Christmas experience.
But lets not forget what the nativity represents. As we celebrate Christmas lets keep in mind that we are celebrating all the events and symbols through which we come to realise that God is for us and is with us. Lets not confuse the wrapping with the gift. The nativity is is the wrapping, God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit is the gift.
Happy Christmas!
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
The First Shall be Last
I want to tell you about something that I heard someone say on the radio. It wasn’t a religious programme and as far as I know she isn’t what we might call a ‘religious’ person but what she had to say seemed to chime with the gospel so clearly that I find it hard to say that it wasn’t the gospel. Do you need a label to speak the truth of the gospel? We’re all aware that calling yourself a Christian, being a regular churchgoer or even holding some official title within the church, is no guarantee that we will be able to hear the gospel, let alone speak it.
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ tells us something about the Kingdom of God. The first shall be last and the last shall be first; the meek shall inherit the earth; blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These are staggering words, powerful, mysterious, beautiful words and hard to comprehend. It seems that God’s kingdom is utterly at odds with our world, our society, the last shall be first; the first shall be last.
What does Jesus mean by telling the crowd about the Kingdom of God? Is he telling them what heaven will be like, when we die? Is he telling them to go and build the kingdom of god? At the time many Christians thought the world as they knew it was going to end any minute and the Kingdom of God would be established. Then when it didn’t happen they had to adjust, to admit that although they had been seized by the idea of the Kingdom of God they hadn’t quite understood it. And that describes us still. The Sermon on the Mount is dazzling yet baffling.
What about the Lord’s prayer? Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God in the words we all say in every Sunday. ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. Well it definitely says that the Kingdom of God is coming. On that I think all Christians will agree. The next line, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. What’s at issue here is the relationship between the two lines. Are they both part of the same thought – that the kingdom of God will come when and if God’s will is carried out on earth like it is in heaven. ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done’. Is it saying that one is the result of the other? If it is it doesn’t answer the question of whether God’s will is going to be carried about by his people or is it somehow going to be imposed on the earth, that God is going to make all this happen without our help.
Or are they two separate actions? ‘Thy will be done. Pause. Thy Kingdom Come’ Remember that this is a prayer, and I think that’s the key. Like all good prayers, and lets not forget it is the prayer that defines what a good prayer is, it involves praise, confession and intercession. The two lines we’re thinking about here: ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done’ are a prayer of intercession. That means it’s something that we’re asking for.
I always struggled with the idea of prayers of intercession. Philosophically it caused me all sorts of problems. Why should we ask God for something? Doesn’t he already know what we want?
Do we think that we can change his mind? As if God thinks to himself ‘I was going to let you fail that exam but since you put it like that I realise that I’d better make sure you pass it instead.’ Then it dawned on me. Prayer is all to do with our will. We ask God for things, as a way of training ourselves to want the right things. Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies. Our enemies don’t need our prayers, but we need to pray for them. We need to bend our will, to discipline ourselves to want what we should want. We know that we should forgive the person who burgles our house or calls us names or rips us off. We know that we should forgive them. We’ll know that we have forgiven them when we’ve prayed for them, when we’ve sincerely wished for them to be happy. The prayer of intercession is how we bring our will into line with God’s will. If we pray to win the lottery it will do us no good at all (even if we win it). But when the things that we ask God for are the things that Jesus says we should be asking for, then we start to change. We become better people. We start to become proper Christians.
So it’s a prayer, a prayer of intercession. ‘Thy Kingdom Come. Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.’ It’s two separate things that we’re asking for or wishing for. Please, please God. Let your Kingdom Come. Please, please God let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
If it’s something that we are asking for in prayer then it really doesn’t matter if the Kingdom of God is going to be made by us or by God. It doesn’t matter if we only see it in heaven or in the resurrection, or in glimpses or not at all. What matters is that we are praying for it. We don’t know what the kingdom of God is exactly, Jesus doesn’t tell us, but he tells us to ask for it, to will it into existence, to want it, to want it badly.
You know what it’s like to really want something. We really want our children to pass that exam, to get that job. We want the result of the hospital check up to be all clear. We want to get the house we’ve made an offer on. I don’t find it easy, or if I’m honest even possible, to want the Kingdom of God as much as I wanted to have the offer we recently made on a house accepted. Isn’t that terrible? But that’s what we’re like and that’s why we’re told to pray this way so that we can start to get better.
So we’ve got to pray that the first should be last. How can we do that if we don’t even know what it means? Who does he mean when he talks about the first and the last? First and last in what?
In school we’ve always known. It starts with the school you go to, is it a grammar school or a secondary modern? Where did it come in the league tables? And from the moment you start you’re getting measured for CATS scores, SATS scores, KS3 levels, and GCSE results. All the way through teachers tell pupils, quite rightly, that they shouldn’t compare themselves to others. ‘If you were level 3 last year see if you can get to level 4 this year, don’t worry about anyone else’. But we do worry. The kid with the level 3 knows that most of the class is on level 4 or 5. He or she knows who’s first and who’s last.
And of course those kids in your class with the best scores went on to get the best jobs. Our leaders, at work or our politicians, they’re all first-rate people. What sort of leadership would we get if we put the people that are always coming last in charge?
Maybe it means that we should make it easier for someone from a humble background to rise to the top, like Joseph in Egypt or John Major who became Prime Minister of the UK without ever going to university? We might listen to the Sermon on the Mount and then conclude that that is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing. I couldn’t argue with that. I think every Christian should believe in equality of opportunity. But suppose we succeed in making a society where everyone has an equal chance in life. Does that mean we’ve done it, we’ve created the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven? No it doesn’t. The Kingdom of God isn’t a place where the last can become first; there are no self-made men in the kingdom of God. The last shall be first.
Last in what? We’re meant to be praying for this to happen, so what does it mean? Does it mean the last in ability? What good would it do putting them in charge, and what good would it do them? I’m absolutely useless at science. I have no natural ability for it and I didn’t get a single qualification in science when I was at school. In the Kingdom of God would someone like me be made the top scientist? I’ve about as much chance of finding a cure for cancer as I have of playing for England, and I don’t think I’ll be doing that in the Kingdom of God either!
The gospel can be mysterious, but it’s never nonsense.
Does it mean those who are last in morality? Well in one respect we can say that it does. At university they teach you that the more you know the more you realise how little you know. In Christianity we learn that you can only become very good by realising just how bad you are. You and I cannot say that we are closer to God than even the most heinous criminals. Seriously, someone sitting in prison right now who is totally and tragically aware of his or her guilt, and who has put themselves entirely at God’s mercy will, we believe, receive his free grace. We know what the deal is, be aware of your sin and confess it in helplessness. Reach the point where you finally accept that there is nothing you can do to change it and cry out to God in total helplessness and you will get your reply. In that respect the Kingdom of God is already here. Ask and you shall receive.
So should we put these people in charge? No. Not necessarily. Christ came to save sinners and being the biggest sinner in the world does not mean that you cannot be saved. But he didn’t come to put the sinners in charge. Now if you were in the privileged position of choosing the next Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury, or even a Congregational Minister you would, in a sense, be putting someone in charge of morality. If you were on the interview panel I think a very good question to ask would be ‘what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ I don’t suppose you’d be able to ask that, but you would, I think, want to be sure that the person you choose knows what it is to be bad and what it is to be forgiven.
And I don’t suppose it’s just co-incidence that the apostle Paul, without whom there would be no such thing as Christianity, to whom we all are personally indebted for our faith, was before his conversion a very bad man.
But what this amounts to is that in the Kingdom of God those who are last in morality may become first, they aren’t automatically disqualified, and in some circumstances they may be nearer to the kingdom of God than you or I. But they aren’t automatically qualified either. The Kingdom of God is surely a place where evil is transformed into goodness but it’s not a place where evil is called good.
All of which brings me to the remarkable woman I heard being interviewed on the radio the other day. She’s called Jill Hicks and she gave me an idea about what it might mean this enigmatic phrase ‘the first shall be last.’ As I said, she’s not religious as far as I know but something incredible happened to her and she’s written a book to try to tell people all about it.
She was sitting on the tube next to one of the young men who set off the bombs on July 7, 2005 in London. She very nearly lost her life; she did lose her legs.
She was asked why she’d written the book. I expected her to say that it was a sort of therapy, a way of getting all the pain and distress out. A way of channelling her anger and confusion into something creative. Getting it all down on paper so that she can move on, start to heal. All that would have been perfectly understandable and it would have been a good book.
But that wasn’t it. She wrote it to ‘try to put into words the gratitude she felt…’ Not just to the people who’d risked their life to rescue her, or the doctors and nurses that saved her life, or to her partner and family for their love and support. She feels overwhelmed with gratitude to the strangers who did so much for her simply because she was a human being. And she feels overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude to life itself. Life is so sweet to her, every minute, every conversation, every sight and sound is so precious to her. She doesn’t feel bitter. She feels lucky.
She’s so overwhelmed by this feeling, and the insight that comes with it that she simply had to share it. She’s in no doubt that it’s only through the extreme suffering she’s endured that she has become the person that she was. She described herself before it happened as someone who was ‘interested in the world but totally oblivious to it.’
She described sitting on the tube on her way to work and suddenly being in darkness and feeling like she was falling. Then she heard people screaming in the dark. She thought she’d had a heart attack and these people were screaming at her. Then it dawned on her that something much worse had happened and people were screaming for themselves. Those who could got out of the tunnel, but those who were too injured had no choice but to stay where they were and wait for help. She said that there was an eerie calm on the train among the few that were left down there, calm and an incredible feeling of goodwill between them all, encouraging and consoling each other.
She heard two voices. One was the voice of death calling her and she said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. She struggled to put this into words when she was on the radio, it was beautiful in a way that surpassed anything she’s ever experienced. It was calling her and she was so drawn to it, she said she desperately wanted to go to it, but then she became aware of another voice, the voice of life. The voice of life wasn’t beautiful it was angry and brittle. At this point she realised that her life wasn’t about her. Her death would mean the distress and devastation of her partner of her family; her friends and she made a decision to live. She feels that this decision was at the root of everything that happened from that point on.
She woke up in hospital, with her legs amputated. But she was seized by gratitude that she was alive and she’s felt like this ever since. Her life is precious, everyone and everything is precious to her. Every minute, every conversation, every event. She was moved to write this book because she couldn’t contain the way she felt. She feels lucky, grateful, blessed. She lives in a state of grace.
Grace is a Christian concept, and what’s at the heart of it is that you can not earn grace, it’s a gift. But what a gift she’s had! Unbearable pain and trauma, disfigured and permanently disabled, yet she talks as though she’d won the lottery! Or does she? We’re getting used to reading about lottery winners cracking up. Celebrities going into rehab. The most envied people in our society are some of the most miserable, maladjusted, and desperate people you could wish to meet.
So who are the happiest people in our society? People like Jill Hicks. I don’t think you’d find it very shocking if I were to say to you that a hospice is where you would find some of the most joyful people you could ever wish to meet. Jesus says that we must lose our life to gain it. In the resurrection we can see this happening literally. Jesus gains life after losing it and we hope that this will happen to us too. In hospital wards and hospices, in war zones and in our homes over and over it is proved true that those who are closest to death are the most alive. Is this something of the new life that they are gaining? They truly are alive, aren’t they? Those who are dying. Those who know that they will never recover. Those who know that death is a real danger each day. They can be the most joyful and alive people, can’t they?
Whatever the Kingdom of God is it seems that Jill Hicks has a greater share in it than someone like myself who still walks around as though he’s going to live forever. When we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven we are learning to see the world her way, to want what she wants. We’re training our will. We pray for the Kingdom to learn to really, really want it. We’re learning to delight in life, its riches, its beauty, its grace.
We’re asking to be a little bit more like Jill Hicks. She made sense of the phrase ‘the first shall be last’ and ‘the last shall be first’. Listening to her I thought that maybe the Kingdom of God is a place where people like her are in charge and where we do things her way.
And as to how this Kingdom will come about – we have to start by really wanting things to be like that. The question of how God’s Kingdom will arise cannot really be considered by us until we have resolved that this is really, truthfully, what we want. So we should pray every day for God’s Kingdom, yes in the hope that we will see it, but first and foremost in the hope that we should actually desire it and that we should be able to bring our will into line with the will of God.
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ tells us something about the Kingdom of God. The first shall be last and the last shall be first; the meek shall inherit the earth; blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These are staggering words, powerful, mysterious, beautiful words and hard to comprehend. It seems that God’s kingdom is utterly at odds with our world, our society, the last shall be first; the first shall be last.
What does Jesus mean by telling the crowd about the Kingdom of God? Is he telling them what heaven will be like, when we die? Is he telling them to go and build the kingdom of god? At the time many Christians thought the world as they knew it was going to end any minute and the Kingdom of God would be established. Then when it didn’t happen they had to adjust, to admit that although they had been seized by the idea of the Kingdom of God they hadn’t quite understood it. And that describes us still. The Sermon on the Mount is dazzling yet baffling.
What about the Lord’s prayer? Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God in the words we all say in every Sunday. ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. Well it definitely says that the Kingdom of God is coming. On that I think all Christians will agree. The next line, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. What’s at issue here is the relationship between the two lines. Are they both part of the same thought – that the kingdom of God will come when and if God’s will is carried out on earth like it is in heaven. ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done’. Is it saying that one is the result of the other? If it is it doesn’t answer the question of whether God’s will is going to be carried about by his people or is it somehow going to be imposed on the earth, that God is going to make all this happen without our help.
Or are they two separate actions? ‘Thy will be done. Pause. Thy Kingdom Come’ Remember that this is a prayer, and I think that’s the key. Like all good prayers, and lets not forget it is the prayer that defines what a good prayer is, it involves praise, confession and intercession. The two lines we’re thinking about here: ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done’ are a prayer of intercession. That means it’s something that we’re asking for.
I always struggled with the idea of prayers of intercession. Philosophically it caused me all sorts of problems. Why should we ask God for something? Doesn’t he already know what we want?
Do we think that we can change his mind? As if God thinks to himself ‘I was going to let you fail that exam but since you put it like that I realise that I’d better make sure you pass it instead.’ Then it dawned on me. Prayer is all to do with our will. We ask God for things, as a way of training ourselves to want the right things. Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies. Our enemies don’t need our prayers, but we need to pray for them. We need to bend our will, to discipline ourselves to want what we should want. We know that we should forgive the person who burgles our house or calls us names or rips us off. We know that we should forgive them. We’ll know that we have forgiven them when we’ve prayed for them, when we’ve sincerely wished for them to be happy. The prayer of intercession is how we bring our will into line with God’s will. If we pray to win the lottery it will do us no good at all (even if we win it). But when the things that we ask God for are the things that Jesus says we should be asking for, then we start to change. We become better people. We start to become proper Christians.
So it’s a prayer, a prayer of intercession. ‘Thy Kingdom Come. Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.’ It’s two separate things that we’re asking for or wishing for. Please, please God. Let your Kingdom Come. Please, please God let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
If it’s something that we are asking for in prayer then it really doesn’t matter if the Kingdom of God is going to be made by us or by God. It doesn’t matter if we only see it in heaven or in the resurrection, or in glimpses or not at all. What matters is that we are praying for it. We don’t know what the kingdom of God is exactly, Jesus doesn’t tell us, but he tells us to ask for it, to will it into existence, to want it, to want it badly.
You know what it’s like to really want something. We really want our children to pass that exam, to get that job. We want the result of the hospital check up to be all clear. We want to get the house we’ve made an offer on. I don’t find it easy, or if I’m honest even possible, to want the Kingdom of God as much as I wanted to have the offer we recently made on a house accepted. Isn’t that terrible? But that’s what we’re like and that’s why we’re told to pray this way so that we can start to get better.
So we’ve got to pray that the first should be last. How can we do that if we don’t even know what it means? Who does he mean when he talks about the first and the last? First and last in what?
In school we’ve always known. It starts with the school you go to, is it a grammar school or a secondary modern? Where did it come in the league tables? And from the moment you start you’re getting measured for CATS scores, SATS scores, KS3 levels, and GCSE results. All the way through teachers tell pupils, quite rightly, that they shouldn’t compare themselves to others. ‘If you were level 3 last year see if you can get to level 4 this year, don’t worry about anyone else’. But we do worry. The kid with the level 3 knows that most of the class is on level 4 or 5. He or she knows who’s first and who’s last.
And of course those kids in your class with the best scores went on to get the best jobs. Our leaders, at work or our politicians, they’re all first-rate people. What sort of leadership would we get if we put the people that are always coming last in charge?
Maybe it means that we should make it easier for someone from a humble background to rise to the top, like Joseph in Egypt or John Major who became Prime Minister of the UK without ever going to university? We might listen to the Sermon on the Mount and then conclude that that is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing. I couldn’t argue with that. I think every Christian should believe in equality of opportunity. But suppose we succeed in making a society where everyone has an equal chance in life. Does that mean we’ve done it, we’ve created the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven? No it doesn’t. The Kingdom of God isn’t a place where the last can become first; there are no self-made men in the kingdom of God. The last shall be first.
Last in what? We’re meant to be praying for this to happen, so what does it mean? Does it mean the last in ability? What good would it do putting them in charge, and what good would it do them? I’m absolutely useless at science. I have no natural ability for it and I didn’t get a single qualification in science when I was at school. In the Kingdom of God would someone like me be made the top scientist? I’ve about as much chance of finding a cure for cancer as I have of playing for England, and I don’t think I’ll be doing that in the Kingdom of God either!
The gospel can be mysterious, but it’s never nonsense.
Does it mean those who are last in morality? Well in one respect we can say that it does. At university they teach you that the more you know the more you realise how little you know. In Christianity we learn that you can only become very good by realising just how bad you are. You and I cannot say that we are closer to God than even the most heinous criminals. Seriously, someone sitting in prison right now who is totally and tragically aware of his or her guilt, and who has put themselves entirely at God’s mercy will, we believe, receive his free grace. We know what the deal is, be aware of your sin and confess it in helplessness. Reach the point where you finally accept that there is nothing you can do to change it and cry out to God in total helplessness and you will get your reply. In that respect the Kingdom of God is already here. Ask and you shall receive.
So should we put these people in charge? No. Not necessarily. Christ came to save sinners and being the biggest sinner in the world does not mean that you cannot be saved. But he didn’t come to put the sinners in charge. Now if you were in the privileged position of choosing the next Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury, or even a Congregational Minister you would, in a sense, be putting someone in charge of morality. If you were on the interview panel I think a very good question to ask would be ‘what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ I don’t suppose you’d be able to ask that, but you would, I think, want to be sure that the person you choose knows what it is to be bad and what it is to be forgiven.
And I don’t suppose it’s just co-incidence that the apostle Paul, without whom there would be no such thing as Christianity, to whom we all are personally indebted for our faith, was before his conversion a very bad man.
But what this amounts to is that in the Kingdom of God those who are last in morality may become first, they aren’t automatically disqualified, and in some circumstances they may be nearer to the kingdom of God than you or I. But they aren’t automatically qualified either. The Kingdom of God is surely a place where evil is transformed into goodness but it’s not a place where evil is called good.
All of which brings me to the remarkable woman I heard being interviewed on the radio the other day. She’s called Jill Hicks and she gave me an idea about what it might mean this enigmatic phrase ‘the first shall be last.’ As I said, she’s not religious as far as I know but something incredible happened to her and she’s written a book to try to tell people all about it.
She was sitting on the tube next to one of the young men who set off the bombs on July 7, 2005 in London. She very nearly lost her life; she did lose her legs.
She was asked why she’d written the book. I expected her to say that it was a sort of therapy, a way of getting all the pain and distress out. A way of channelling her anger and confusion into something creative. Getting it all down on paper so that she can move on, start to heal. All that would have been perfectly understandable and it would have been a good book.
But that wasn’t it. She wrote it to ‘try to put into words the gratitude she felt…’ Not just to the people who’d risked their life to rescue her, or the doctors and nurses that saved her life, or to her partner and family for their love and support. She feels overwhelmed with gratitude to the strangers who did so much for her simply because she was a human being. And she feels overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude to life itself. Life is so sweet to her, every minute, every conversation, every sight and sound is so precious to her. She doesn’t feel bitter. She feels lucky.
She’s so overwhelmed by this feeling, and the insight that comes with it that she simply had to share it. She’s in no doubt that it’s only through the extreme suffering she’s endured that she has become the person that she was. She described herself before it happened as someone who was ‘interested in the world but totally oblivious to it.’
She described sitting on the tube on her way to work and suddenly being in darkness and feeling like she was falling. Then she heard people screaming in the dark. She thought she’d had a heart attack and these people were screaming at her. Then it dawned on her that something much worse had happened and people were screaming for themselves. Those who could got out of the tunnel, but those who were too injured had no choice but to stay where they were and wait for help. She said that there was an eerie calm on the train among the few that were left down there, calm and an incredible feeling of goodwill between them all, encouraging and consoling each other.
She heard two voices. One was the voice of death calling her and she said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. She struggled to put this into words when she was on the radio, it was beautiful in a way that surpassed anything she’s ever experienced. It was calling her and she was so drawn to it, she said she desperately wanted to go to it, but then she became aware of another voice, the voice of life. The voice of life wasn’t beautiful it was angry and brittle. At this point she realised that her life wasn’t about her. Her death would mean the distress and devastation of her partner of her family; her friends and she made a decision to live. She feels that this decision was at the root of everything that happened from that point on.
She woke up in hospital, with her legs amputated. But she was seized by gratitude that she was alive and she’s felt like this ever since. Her life is precious, everyone and everything is precious to her. Every minute, every conversation, every event. She was moved to write this book because she couldn’t contain the way she felt. She feels lucky, grateful, blessed. She lives in a state of grace.
Grace is a Christian concept, and what’s at the heart of it is that you can not earn grace, it’s a gift. But what a gift she’s had! Unbearable pain and trauma, disfigured and permanently disabled, yet she talks as though she’d won the lottery! Or does she? We’re getting used to reading about lottery winners cracking up. Celebrities going into rehab. The most envied people in our society are some of the most miserable, maladjusted, and desperate people you could wish to meet.
So who are the happiest people in our society? People like Jill Hicks. I don’t think you’d find it very shocking if I were to say to you that a hospice is where you would find some of the most joyful people you could ever wish to meet. Jesus says that we must lose our life to gain it. In the resurrection we can see this happening literally. Jesus gains life after losing it and we hope that this will happen to us too. In hospital wards and hospices, in war zones and in our homes over and over it is proved true that those who are closest to death are the most alive. Is this something of the new life that they are gaining? They truly are alive, aren’t they? Those who are dying. Those who know that they will never recover. Those who know that death is a real danger each day. They can be the most joyful and alive people, can’t they?
Whatever the Kingdom of God is it seems that Jill Hicks has a greater share in it than someone like myself who still walks around as though he’s going to live forever. When we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven we are learning to see the world her way, to want what she wants. We’re training our will. We pray for the Kingdom to learn to really, really want it. We’re learning to delight in life, its riches, its beauty, its grace.
We’re asking to be a little bit more like Jill Hicks. She made sense of the phrase ‘the first shall be last’ and ‘the last shall be first’. Listening to her I thought that maybe the Kingdom of God is a place where people like her are in charge and where we do things her way.
And as to how this Kingdom will come about – we have to start by really wanting things to be like that. The question of how God’s Kingdom will arise cannot really be considered by us until we have resolved that this is really, truthfully, what we want. So we should pray every day for God’s Kingdom, yes in the hope that we will see it, but first and foremost in the hope that we should actually desire it and that we should be able to bring our will into line with the will of God.
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