Hard Teaching 11 - A sparrow in a hall

Continuing the series of posts on difficult to understand or difficult to accept things in the Bible, I come to one where the question is difficult to understand!

Loving those who hurt you!
In the great pantheon on time, why is our life on earth so short?

I'll have a guess at what the intention was behind this, and if I got it wrong, perhaps whoever wrote this in the first place will comment and correct me.

There are two things on the mind of this mystery correspondent. Firstly Jesus' insistence on loving our enemies. The second point I'm choosing to answer in a way that will (I hope) throw light on the first. 

Jesus quite often said revolutionary and uncomfortable things. He said that the last will be first, and we've steadfastly ignored him ever since. Ever been in a supermarket queue where the checkout girl has got up and ushered the person at the very back to come past everyone else and be served first? 
Didn't think so.

His command to love your enemies is a bit like that. It's a bit of a contradiction in terms, isn't it? I mean, by definition, your enemies are the ones you don't love, so if you loved them you wouldn't have  ... ah - I think perhaps I'm beginning to understand. 

Jesus also took issue with "an eye for an eye," didn't he? His point there was that this Old Testament law which limited revenge didn't go far enough. It still allowed you to take proportionate retribution. But what if you didn't fight back at all? Ever? 

What would that look like? Remarkably like getting crucified, actually.

Jesus had come to soak up all the violence in the world like a sponge, and to give none of it back.  He was the place where it all stopped. And if we are going to be his followers, we have to do the same. Violence stops here. Hatred stops here. It just stops.

If only.

But the trouble is, we think, life's too short to let the b*******ds get away with it. And that's where we're wrong.

Here's the moment when I explain the title of today's post - a sparrow in a hall. It comes from an ancient Saxon saying about life - it's like a sparrow flying through a feasting hall, and then back out into the night. Just for a moment it flits in from the cold and the dark, and passes through the warm, brightly lit room full of chatter and joy, and then, back out into the darkness again.

So eat drink and be merry! Make the most of your moments in the sun. That's what this seems to be saying. YOLO, as people say these days.

But they're wrong. People who follow Jesus have started a new life that begins now and goes on for ever. It's not over in a flash, quite the opposite. The best is yet to be. And in the light of the wonderful, bright, warm celebrations that eternity will bring, the pains and injustices of this life take on a new, diminished perspective. 

What if the sparrow, after flying through the hall, was going to enter an even brighter, better room? 

If we use "hall" in its modern sense, then it's just the anteroom, the place where you hang up your coat and slip off your outdoor shoes, before being welcomed in to the real party that's going on inside.

Hard Teaching 10 Sorry Mum, you can't come

Why did Jesus tell his followers to leave their families behind to follow him?
There are a couple of occasions where Jesus says things that sound very hard to our ears. Like this one:
Jesus called a man to follow him, and he said he would, but just needed to bury his father. Jesus replied, "Let the dead bury their own dead." Another one said," I will follow, I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-62)
Harsh? It sounds like it.
Then there as the time when Jesus was in a house teaching a crowd of people, and someone knocked at the door saying, "Your mother and brothers are out here, asking for you." Jesus' response was to say "here are my mother, father and brothers, right here in the room with me." (Matthew 12:46-50)

What to make of this?
Perhaps Jesus didn't want his followers to be tempted away from putting his priorities first. In the case of his own family, few of them believed in him during his lifetime, and they tried at least once to interfere in his mission. Perhaps he had to keep them at arms length, or they would have tried to prevent him doing what he needed to do.
His first retort to the man who was waiting for his Dad's funeral sounds especially bad, doesn't it? Let the dead bury their own dead? What kind of comment is that?
Well, probably not the kind of comment we think it is. "Let me bury my father" didn't actually mean, "he's dead and I'm waiting for the funeral." It usually meant, he's old, and I have to run the farm/family business/look after things at home until he dies, and then I'll be free to please myself. So it could be more of an excuse.
Jesus said that his presence wouldn't always be good for families. It would stir up division - some people would be for him, others against him. (Luke 12:51-54) It would be important for his followers to realise that becoming a disciples meant sacrifice. Better to be told that at the outset, than discover halfway through.

So maybe this is about counting the cost before you sign on the line. Maybe we want to have our cake and eat it too much, and sometimes being a Christian will mean some hard choices. Maybe it will.

But don't let anything I've said persuade you that it's OK to turn your back on your family. The fifth commandment still applies: "Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12)

Honour them.

But don't let them be more important than God.

Hard Teaching 9 The Afterlife

"Where is heaven?"
"Where do non-Christians go when they die?"

I'm going to take these two questions together, and try and think about life after death. Traditionally, people think that Christian belief is that there are two places to go when you die: you either go to hell, and get prodded by devils with pitchforks, or you go to heaven and sit on a cloud for compulsory harp lessons.

I'm not sure anybody really believes either of these two caricatures any more, which owe more to writings like Dante's Inferno than the Bible.

So what does the Bible say? Not a great deal, if the truth be told. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes heaven the most, but it is hard to penetrate through the very symbolic language and work out what is a realistic picture. For instance, John, the writer says this at one point: "Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” and there was no longer any sea."

The translators put "new heaven and new earth" in quotes, as a kind of clue that this was not a literal description, but what about the phrase, "there as no longer any sea." No buckets and spades in heaven? If you're big into surfing, are you going to be disappointed? Again, this is much more likely to be symbolic than actual. In Jewish thinking, the sea represented chaos, the primeval mess out of which God established the order of creation. God is always holding back the sea, restraining the chaos that threatens to overwhelm our lives, so that we can enjoy some peace.

But one day, John says, there ain't gonna be any sea. Chaos won't be a threat any more, always nearly sweeping us away. It will be finally and completely defeated. God's order will have triumphed.
But identifying where heaven is, cannot be done. John the gospel writer talks about us having "eternal life" if we come to Jesus. A new quality of life that begins now and goes on for ever. For him, heaven isn't so much a place as a state of being. It's the state of being right with God. Nothing to fear, ever again.

So if heaven is the state of being OK with God, then hell is the state of being not OK with him. Hell might not actually be so bad, if you're not interested in God. Sometimes people say that the doors to hell only have handles on the inside. God can't get in - he can't open the door from the outside, but people inside can get out, and go and be with God any time they like. they are only in there by choice.

If God is indeed loving and merciful, then I can't see that he wants to insist on us having a relationship with him if we don't want to. If we want to live without him, we're welcome to do so, and he will let us go. All the negative imagery that's sprung up around this ultimate choice is pretty unhelpful, although people might find, when their eyes are finally opened and they say things as they really are, that eternity without God is a pretty lonely and miserable existence.

Hard Teaching 8 - Why is God mean in the parables?

Why, in some parables, does the character who represents God not show mercy and instead punishes the wrongdoer?

This was one of the questions posed on the day when I asked my congregation to tell me things that puzzled them about their faith.

I'm going to take a specific example: the parable of the great banquet, which in Matthew's version comes in Chapter 22. Here it is:

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

By talking about "a king and his son," we get a powerful clue that this is meant to represent God. So God invites people into his house for a party to celebrate his son's wedding. But when the day comes, they all make excuses and fail to turn up. Disappointed and angry, the king asks his servants to go and find anybody to come in and fill up the party, and soon the party hall is heaving, and everybody is set to have a good time. 
But one party goer hasn't bothered to dress up, and the king asks how he even got in, without being dressed appropriately. When he has no answer, he is unceremoniously trussed up and tossed out, where there's not much he can do except - in one of Matthew's favourite words - gnash his teeth. 

I swear that if Matthew told a fluffy bunny story, he'd put gnashing of teeth in there somewhere. Anyway, how do you gnash your teeth?

Sorry, I digress.

The point is, it sounds pretty mean on the unfortunate guest who'd violated the dress code. For all we know, he might not have owned a tuxedo, or whatever the first century equivalent was.  What's going on?

To answer that, we have to understand who the parable was originally aimed at. If we look back at chapter 21, we see that Jesus was in conversation with the chief priests, after having annoyed them no end by pulling the stunt with the donkey and the palm branches. 

He was telling them that originally God's invitation had been for them, but they'd made their excuses, so God was throwing the doors open to others. In Luke's version, it's the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame who are invited. Matthew isn't specific who the new guests are, but the religious leaders would still have been incensed to be told that they weren't going to be at God's party, and others were.

So the first point is, God in this story is passing judgement on those who have rejected his offer. He's slamming the door in their faces, because they've had their chance and they said no.

But what about our badly dressed boy? Well, just because you've been offered a late pass to the best party ever, doesn't mean you can just breeze in without taking it seriously. This is a pretty impressive offer God is making, and we need to appreciate it properly. 

Sometimes, we Christians can think that God is such a cuddly grandpa figure, so keen to forgive and overlook any wrong doing, that it doesn't matter how we behave. But he has a little more backbone than that. Even those who think they're on the inside of God's plans need to remember they have responsibilities too.

Hard Teaching 7 - The Big One

Is God in control of bad things on earth, and if so, why does he let them happen?

Yep, this is the Big One. The hardest, most difficult question a Christian can get asked (in my opinion). Why does a good God let bad things happen?

What can I say about this? First, to state the problem as acutely as possible: 
If God is good, presumably he doesn't want bad things happening. If he doesn't prevent them, then he must be insufficiently powerful to do anything about it. Or maybe he is powerful enough, but he just doesn't care.

It's hard work defending the idea of a good God with enough power to prevent tragedies, who doesn't. Very hard work. But I promised to try.

There's a fascinating parable that Jesus told that I always reflect on when grappling with this question. There was a farmer growing a field of corn. One night, an enemy planted seeds of a weed in his field, and as the plants sprouted, it became obvious what had happened. The farm workers asked whether they should try and weed then out, but the farmer said no. Let them both grow together until the harvest, and then we will sort them out.

"Let them both grow together until the harvest."

That reflects what we see in the world - good and evil both flourishing. But there's also a promise there that one day Things Will Be sorted Out.  
In Capitals. 
Sorted Out Once And For All.
That is very important - the idea that eventually Right will prevail. This is part of the Christian hope. One day, God will tell us all the Truth about the way things are. No one will be able to pretend any more. No one will be able to say "I was just following orders," "It wasn't my fault, I was led astray." Everyone will have to give account for their own actions.

So is that it then? We've just got to struggle on through, but at the end of all time, God will finally put things straight? 

Well, no. There is something else. But it's not what we'd expect. We'd expect something mighty, probably with a bit of smiting and thunderbolts thrown in, wouldn't we?

This is what we get: God suffers too.

God takes a dive off the deep end of heaven and plunges right into the cess pit that is the human condition. He's born in a stable, for Heaven's sake. 

He's born!! Blood and umbilical cords and screaming and crying. Then he lives, and then he dies, with blood and nails and screaming and crying.

By entering into our suffering world, and suffering within it, God found a way to redeem suffering. 

If there was a better way, don't you think he would have found it?

Jesus once said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

It comes down to trust. Is this tiny seed dying and being transformed the best way to save the world? I happen to think it is. 

Bonfire night

This is my letter in November's parish magazine:

Dear friends,

By the time you read this, one of our major village events will have come and gone.

Bonfire Night on the village green is one of my highlights of the year.

Why?

Well, there’s the fireworks, of course, there’s the fun of being out at night in the dark, when everything, and everybody looks different, and there’s something thrilling about a whacking great blaze that’s hot enough to singe your eyebrows off.

The church is making a small contribution to this event each year now, by providing the insurance for something that is almost always trouble free, but where there is potential for disaster.

Sometimes, it seems to me that the church is quite good at offering insurance. We are there in case of trouble. If trouble never happens, people don’t need the church, or think about it much.

But when the sky falls in, we represent a way to get in touch with the one who can help us even in catastrophes of that magnitude.

Who better to speak to than the one who made the sky?

In the week that I’m writing this, three people who were on my most recent discussion course in the Goat pub took a step of faith and stood up in public to get confirmed. They had the courage of their convictions to stand before the Bishop and declare that they believed in the God who made heaven and earth. And the Bishop told them in his sermon that they had come to someone who could rescue them from any disaster, and whether they were troubled by disaster or danger, God would set them free.

He also told them not to think that God was only there for when their lives crashed. God is there to help life to be lived to the full.

God is there to light a blaze in our hearts that will rival even the village bonfire.

Love,

Nick

Hard Teaching 6 - No women please, we're Christians

So what are we to make of this passage?

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

I suggested four possibilities in my last post.

1. It wasn't written by Paul.
2. It wouldn't have sounded so bad in that culture.
3. It's the Bible, stupid. Stop whining and believe it.
4. Let's just rip this bit out, shall we?

I challenged people to tell me which they would choose - nobody rose to the challenge, so I suppose I'd better tell you how I deal with it.
It's tempting to do number 4. Just to refuse to accept that these words have any authority over me. But there is the strength of number 3 to reckon with. If I genuinely believe that the Bible can be God's word to me, it's hard to ignore any part of it. At the very least, I'll need to think long and hard before I do so. Otherwise, I'd be guilty of assuming I know better than God.
And we all know that's not true.
So what about the first two options? Could this little bit have been added by some later writer, and not in fact be what Paul wrote? Well, possibly, but there is no evidence for it except that it contradicts what we know to be Paul's attitude elsewhere.
The argument that the whole letter is not by Paul, but by someone else, has more going for it. It was a common technique in the ancient world, and 1 Timothy isn't as incisive as 2 Timothy, so scholars often suggest that it isn't really Paul who wrote it.
The problem is, that even if I accept that, it's still in the Bible. It's been through the process of selection that every other bit of the Bible has, a process that has sifted out some of the more outlandish gospels for instance and left us with the solid four that we can trust.
So what's left? Number 2? Culture has changed, and the process of selection that has left us with the canon of scripture (the list of books that are in the Bible) would have read this passage and not found it objectionable.
Here's the rub. Different cultures dislike different things. I dislike the idea of excluding women. Or excluding anybody, really. But I'm sure I've got my own blind spots that others would point out, and for which I deserve to be hauled over the coals.

Hard Teaching 6 - An error occurred

An error occurred the other Sunday.

I was away preaching at another church, and I left incorrect instructions about the first Bible reading. I asked for 1 Timothy 2 to be read, and omitted to say that I wanted the reading to stop at verse 8.
The theme of the service was praying for the world, and I wanted people to hear the instructions to offer "petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving [ ... ] for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."
But the passage goes on, asking men to pray "lifting up holy hands with anger or disputing" and women to dress modestly and keep their mouths shut, because Adam was made first then Eve. So the pesky females should know their place and remember it was their fault that humanity was chucked out of the the Garden of Eden because Eve gave way to temptation and ate the apple.

What???
Where did this sudden burst of misogynistic claptrap come from?

It sticks out from the rest of the letter like a sore thumb - there's one other reference to women being "temperate and trustworthy" in chapter 3, but otherwise nothing. From what we know about Paul, he worked happily with women, treating them as equal partners in God's work. He even seems to have regarded them as worthy leaders of local churches, something which went against the prevailing culture of the day, which denied women positions of leadership and authority.

What explanation can there be?
Here are some possibilities.

1. Perhaps Paul didn't write this bit. It could have been added by someone else later on, or the whole letter could have been written in Paul's name, but not actually written by him. Such "pseudapigraphal" writing seems dishonest to us, but back in the day, it was nothing unusual. Plato, for instance, write a lot of his philosophy as if he was Socrates talking - it was regarded as a legitimate way for a disciple to claim the authority of his master.
2. Perhaps we fail to appreciate the culture of the day, Women were not accustomed to any public roles, and for the church to break this tradition would have caused offence and not been understood. It was more appropriate for the church to remain in its culture, whilst pointing towards a better way of doing things. This argument is deployed in the slavery argument - where Paul in his letter to a slave owner, Philemon, clearly hopes that Phil will pardon his runaway slave, but acknowledges that he has the right to do what he pleases with his property. 
3. Maybe it's God's truth and should be taken literally. There are those in the church who use passages like this to argue that women should not have authority within the church, that women bishops or even women priests are not right.
4. Or maybe we should take a pair of scissors and gently snip this little bit out of our Bibles. We'll feel much better if we don't have to keep reading it.

Which one shall we choose? Please comment and tell me your preference, and in a day or three I'll tell you what I would do.

Hard teaching 5 - What about people who don't believe?

This time, I am tackling a collection of questions that all mention the same basic problem. The problem is that Christianity implies that, left to ourselves, the human race is in deep trouble, and that God has devised a rescue plan. But if we don't opt for the rescue plan, or never get a chance to get on board, we remain in the proverbial.

Here are the questions.

Christian doctrine tells us that we are saved by faith – what about those who never hear about Jesus, or indeed the many who do not accept him?

I absolutely believe in Jesus and my Father God; my husband and children don’t. How do I accept the fact that I will one day be with the Lord and they won’t?

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Here's the painful question put very clearly. What about those who don't hear, or don't accept? What about my family members who don't believe? If Jesus says he is the only way to God, what about everyone else?

We live in an inclusive, tolerant age. The thought that Christianity might be exclusive worries us to death. So what are we to think?

Christians have adopted one of three different answers to this question. 

Some say, "It's clear and obvious, you read the Bible and it tells you that the only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus. If you don't have that faith, you aren't saved. End of."

Others take the opposite extreme: "God is a God of love. He will never reject anybody. Ultimately, he will find a way of saving everybody."

There is a middle ground position as well, which basically says: "We don't know what people's eternal fate will be. That's up to God. All we can do is trust in his mercy."

This is very much a live question. Recently the Religious Right in America got all hot and bothered about a book called Love Wins by Rob Bell. They accused him of being a universalist - which is basically position 2 above. But the accusations took on something of the nature of a witch hunt. 

The trouble with the extreme views on both sides is that they end up protecting themselves by turning strident, and end up sounding and acting very unlike the Jesus they claim to be following. Something's wrong there. 

So - for me, the right thing to think either has to be one where I'm aligned with people who act in ways I'm ashamed of, or the woolly, sitting on the fence "We don't really know" middle ground position. I'm uncomfortable wherever I sit. 

So my response is to retreat from having a dogmatic, certain view into stories and nuances. We have Jesus' words on the subject; what we don't have is his tone of voice. He said "No one comes to the Father except through me," but how did he say it?

This may not work on the page, but did he say it like this:

No one comes to the Father except through me

or did he say it like this:

No one comes to the Father except through me

Do you see the difference?

In the first one, Jesus is like a doorman at a night club. He will keep you out, unless you satisfy his conditions. In the second, he's not judging anyone who comes in. He saying in effect, "I'm the one who opens the door to the Father for you. You may not recognise me, but it's only through me that that door will ever be opened. It's only through me that you will ever find yourself in the presence of God."

Experts tell us that only 10% of our communication is verbal. On this issue, I'm putting my faith in the 90%.

Hard Teaching 4: Jesus's appearances after death

The full question I was asked was this:

What was going on when Jesus appeared after death? Could heaven be on earth?

I want to try and answer this from two points of view. First of all, from the disciples' point of view, and then from Jesus' standpoint.

So what did the disciples think was going on?

Well first of all, they thought that they'd lost. Jesus had been defeated. This is going out on penalties, being relegated, watching your team go into administration, and having the Olympics awarded to another country all on the same day. It doesn't get any worse than this.

You don't start following the Messiah, expecting him to end up dead on a cross.

So the last thing, and I do mean the very very last thing any of them expected, was to see Jesus again. Maybe this accounts for the fact that they didn't recognise him at first. Or if they did, they thought he was a ghost. On the resurrection front, their expectations were so far below ground level they were bumping against the Earth's core. For them, nothing could be less likely to happen than for Jesus to come strolling in with a grin on his face, saying "Surprise!"

Have I laboured the point enough? So when Mary met him at the tomb, when Cleopas and friend walked with him to Emmaus, when Peter saw him in secret, and when they all (except Thomas) had him gatecrash their evening meal, they weren't looking for him, or hoping for him to appear. At least, not alive.

May thought he was the gardener, Cleopas thought he must have been a stranger to Jerusalem, since he pretended not to know what had happened, the ten in the upper room thought ... I don't know what. It took time and effort on Jesus' part to convince them that he was back from the dead.

But there's also something mysterious about him. They can touch him, yet somehow he's reluctant for them to do so. He "appears," even though the doors are locked. Even when they look at him, sometimes they can't seem to focus on his face properly. He's different somehow.

Now, what about it from Jesus' point of view? Sometimes I imagine the Incarnation as a diver, where Jesus forces himself below the surface of the water into a world that, strictly speaking, is alien to him. When he dies, it's as if he "pops out" back into the air of heaven, and has to take a deep breath and force himself back into earthly existence for a few minutes in order to speak to his friends.

If you've ever read "Water Bugs and Dragonflies," perhaps you'll know what I mean. In this little story, the larvae of dragonflies, who live under water, are confused when some of their number disappear from their sight. They haven't died, they've become dragonflies, new and beautiful creatures that no longer belong in the watery world.

The Bible tells us that if we trust in Jesus, we will eventually have resurrection bodies, which surpass the glory of our earthly bodies to a similar extent. What if Jesus after his resurrection, now clothed in his resurrection body, was holding his breath as it were, and diving back under the surface of the water to speak to us again?

A little bit of heaven, come to earth. Just for a while.

Hard Teaching 3 - Give up all that you have

"Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said, "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

This is the climax of a little story in Mark's gospel where an earnest young man with a privileged background is unable to go further along the path of righteousness than he has already travelled, and leaves Jesus, crestfallen.

Jesus follows up this encounter by warning his disciples that it is harder for someone rich to enter God's kingdom than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The disciples are like, "Woh! Who's ever going to get in then?" Peter says that he's left everything behind already, and Jesus implies that he's made the grade.

Read the passage, if you haven't already, and tell me if that's the way it strikes you.

If you're agreeing with me so far, then let me tell you, we're both wrong.This story is not about doing something so hard, so remarkable, that God will be pleased with us and let us into heaven. Really, it's not.

How do I know? Because there's plenty elsewhere in the Bible that tells us that this isn't how it works. We're fooled by the question the young man asks: "What must I do...?" Truth is, we can't do anything to deserve the gift of eternal life, God offers it to us without strings attached.

So there we are. Let me say it very simply. You don't need to give up all you have to get into heaven.

But wait a minute, didn't Jesus say, "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." (Matthew 5:40) I remember reading that passage once, then answering the door to a homeless man who looked at what I was wearing and said "That's a nice jumper, can I have it?"

I stared at him for a minute, then went upstairs, got an old jumper out of my drawer and gave him that instead.

Did I do the right thing?

Hard Teaching 2 - Practical or Spiritual?

How important is the spiritual side of the Christian faith? I love the practical application of “love thy neighbour” and the parables, but struggle with the Holy Spirit.

I'm working my way through a list of questions compiled by my congregation. There are some fine questions here, and replying to them in a helpful way is going to be really challenging. I probably won't do more than scratch the surface with any of them.

That is particularly true with today's question. I could say, somewhat dismissively, that the "spiritual side" is everything. Without it, Christians aren't Christians at all, they're social workers, or volunteers, or campaigners. But my guess is that the questioner knows that - what he or she is really asking is more about should Christians be focussed inwards, or outwards.

Time for a beef. I love contemporary worship. I love big bands, crowds of people with their hands in the air, worshipping God heart, soul, mind, body and strength. But I don't love many contemporary songs. I prefer stuff from the 80's and 90's. Ok so I'm old, I know that, but few of the songs being written right now seem to have much substance. They are all about me and how God makes me feel. (I can't believe I'm writing this - I am so turning into my Dad!)  Singing them anywhere other than in a big crowd makes my toes curl. 

Come to an ordinary small church, where there aren't any gifted musicians, and perhaps the only instrument available is an organ, and these songs sound ridiculous. What you need is something with a bit of doctrine to it. Something that declares the truth about who God is, or what we need to do for him in the world.

So I'm impatient with too much soppy soul-searching, and keen to have an attitude that encourages me to go out and make a difference. 

I too struggle with the Holy Spirit. I struggle with the fact that God wants all of me. He wants my love, not just my obedience. He wants my attention, not just my service. He wants to fill me with his Spirit until I leak glory from every orifice. (Sorry about that metaphor - perhaps it wasn't the best). 

And I can't do that just by being a decent chap. I can only do it by being so soaked in the presence of God that he literally drips off me wherever I walk. That way, my work for God, my volunteering, my campaigning, won't be either strident or self-seeking, instead it will be natural, filled with grace, and a real blessing to others.

I want to be like that. I really do. But without the Holy Spirit, I haven't a hope.

Hard Teaching - Bread and Wine, Body and Blood?

Inspired by the words of John 6:60, I asked my congregation to give me the things about the Christian faith they found hard to accept.

They responded! See my last post for the list they gave me. Some questions we tackled in the service, and I promised to blog and write about them all.

I thought I should begin with the one that made the first hearers uneasy. Jesus had told them, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

What on earth did he mean?

Of course, these words were echoed when at the Last Supper he took bread and wine and gave them to his disciples telling them, "This is my body..this is my blood...do this in remembrance of me."

Most Christian churches regularly have a service in which we eat bread and drink wine, calling to mind this moment in Jesus' life, and consciously trying to obey his instruction "Do this in remembrance of me."

But what we believe about what we're actually doing differs a lot.

 For some of us, this is an act of commemoration. It calls to mind Jesus' death on the cross, the sacrifice he made for us.

Others of us are more literal minded about this issue, and hold that in the bread and wine is the real presence of Jesus himself, and that we are in some way re-enacting his sacrifice.

Books have been written, ink has been spilled, battles have been fought over this issue down the centuries. I'm well aware I'm not going to add anything new.

Well, I'm struck by the word Jesus used when he said "eat my body." He might as well have said "chomp" or "munch." Nom nom nom. It's that sort of word.

Eurrgh! is my reaction - perhaps it's yours too. Intellectually, I run a mile from this.

So you might expect me to veer towards thinking that communion is just a memorial.

Except that something happens at communion. It's very hard to say what, but at this moment in our worship, there is a level of closeness, of intimacy, yes of communion - there's no other word - with God that I never experience anywhere else.

When I receive the bread and the wine, I receive Jesus. It is the most precious gift.

This is a hard teaching - the list

Last Sunday in church I asked my congregation to write down the "hard teachings," the bits of their faith that they struggle with. I promised to try and answer some of them in church, and to blog about them as well.

Here's the list that people came up with.

How important is the spiritual side of the Christian faith? I love the practical application of “love thy neighbour” and the parables, but struggle with the Holy Spirit.

Give up all that you have.

Transformation – what happens at communion?

What was going on when Jesus appeared after death? Could heaven be on earth?

Christian doctrine tells us that we are saved by faith – what about those who never hear about Jesus, or indeed the many who do not accept him?

I absolutely believe in Jesus and my Father God; my husband and children don’t. How do I accept the fact that I will one day be with the Lord and they won’t?

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Is God in control of bad things on earth, and if so, why does he let them happen?

Why, in some parables, does the character who represents God not show mercy and instead punishes the wrongdoer?

Where is heaven?

Where do non Christians go when they die?

Why did Jesus tell his followers to leave their families behind to follow him?

Loving those who hurt you!
In the great pantheon on time, why is our life on earth so short?

Original sin.

An all-powerful, all-loving God and the existence of evil.

Why does God seem to pick and choose between those whose prayers he answers?

John 3:16 implies that those who don’t believe in Jesus will “perish.” Is this right?

Trusting God to work in others.

Did God really send plagues in Egypt?

What did Jesus mean when he said of bread and wine, “This is my body,” This is my blood?”

What do you think of that? There's some superb questions there, aren't there? Some are theoretical and perhaps unanswerable; some represent real pain and difficulty and need to be treated with utmost respect. Few, if any, can be adequately answered in a blog post, or indeed by me - I'm just not up to the job. I am as my strapline says, just another follower stumbling after Jesus.

So please join in with your comments. Hold me to account if I give flippant or unsatisfactory answers. But please remember - both for my sake and for everyone who comments - be gentle. I'm going to get things wrong, we all are, and we all depend on the loving forgiveness of our Lord Jesus.

This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

Last Sunday, inspired by these words from John's gospel, I asked my congregation to think of aspects of the Christian faith that they found hard to accept. I promised to discuss some of their "hard teachings" in the service, and to publish the rest on line and in print, together with my responses.
So, there's going to be a series of posts on this subject.
Why did I do this?
I do it from a belief that Christianity is not a dodgy cult, but a solid, rational, trustworthy faith. That means that it's OK to go digging around in its dusty corners, we won't unearth any unexploded bombs that are going to blow our faith out of the water.
I've also been encouraged by this book Blind Spots in the Bible by Adrian Plass. In preparing to look hard at some passages we tend to avoid, Adrian says this: "I found myself driven, as ever, to the crucial conclusion that we can safely explore the strangest of avenues as long as we are safe in Jesus." I like his attitude, which is all about giving people freedom to ask questions and have doubts, without pretending that we have a simple, solid faith with answers to everything. Such simple, apparently earthquake-proof beliefs often cave in alarmingly as soon as an unanswerable question comes along. I'd rather have a faith that looks more ramshackle, but which is capable of stretching or flexing when the ground shakes beneath it.
So, come with me onto some dodgy ground, and let's see what our faith is built on!
Solid rock, or shifting sand?

Olympic Inspiration

(Nearly) Everybody I know has been wowed by the London Olympics.

Everybody who likes sport, that is. My long-suffering wife plaintively asks "how much longer is this going on?" from time to time, while the rest of us pump the air and exchange delighted grins.

The feelgood factor has been immense. From the charming, original and heartwarming opening ceremony, through the long stream of British successes, and thanks to the brilliant broadcasting of the BBC, the olympic spirit has shone out.

Here are people who are pouring their hearts out to compete: how refreshing, when so many professional sports people no longer even try to look as though they mean it, but cynically collect their pay cheques and go through the motions ... or so it seems.
I know appearances can be deceptive, and perhaps all those well paid footballers are trying their hearts out, really. But it doesn't seem like it.

The athletes who lose are queueing up to apologise to the nation and to their support team for letting them down; the athletes who win are queuing up to thank the same people. Has anybody complained about the referee? If they did, I haven't noticed.

It is truly marvellous to see that, even in 2012, even in this age of manipulation and gamesmanship, there are still some sportspeople out there who play it the way it was meant to be played.

Hit the wall

Well, I have ground spectacularly to a halt. Halfway through Sirach, I just couldn't take any more and stopped.
To tell the truth, I haven't been enjoying the Apocrypha anything like as much as I enjoyed reading the Bible last year, and that's why I have thrown in the towel.
Trying to analyse what it is that I don't like, I've come up with two things. There is a powerful (and to me, unpleasant) sense of nationalism in the books I've read; and secondly, there is so much less quality. What I've read so far really is second rate.
Take Judith, for example. It came highly recommended to me by a previous colleague who extolled it as a wonderfully empowering story for women. I'm afraid I just thought that Judith's opponents were stupid, and that she herself was so one-sided a character she didn't appeal to me. She didn't come across as a real woman, and her adversary general Holofernes didn't come across as a real man. They were cartoon figures going through the motions. In the end, all that was left was the sense that We Are Israel, and We Are Right.
The books are also legendary and fantastical. The events described are hard to believe, the advice given is dodgy. Why believe this stuff?
Sorry, Apocrypha, you've lost me.

Sirach Chapters 22 & 23

Typical proverbial rants against fools, interesting comparisons - fools are worse than dead people - at last the dead are at peace! And a lovely prayer at the end of chapter 22: very reminiscent of Psalm 141. It’s a humble prayer for help against sin, and displays the attitude that we’re helpless without God. Sin can creep up on us, surprise us when a bad habit bursts out at an inappropriate time, and bring us to ruin. So keep the law!

Sirach Chapters 20 & 21

I suppose my verdict so far on this book would be “yes but?” I don’t disagree with what I’m reading (much) but it’s hardly new, or deep, or revolutionary. So I’m shifting to two chapters a day, to get through it a little faster. If I stumble across a gem, I’ll slow down and take a closer look, but otherwise, for my own sake, I need to stave off boredom.

Today there are a strong of proverbs, some quite salty. Like this one: Winning an argument by trying too hard is like a eunuch trying to rape a woman(!) Or this: An impolite person is like one of those off-color stories that ignorant people are always telling.
Chapter 21 deals with sin - it causes incurable wounds, it needs to be shunned. Fall into its trap, and you will die. There’s a brief mention of forgiveness, but it’s certainly not held out as a universal hope.
The chapter finishes with some contrasts between wisdom and folly. All very black and white, none very memorable.

Sirach Chapters 18 & 19

For a few chapters now, Sirach has been expanding on the theme of human weakness and our short-lived lives, in contrast to God’s eternal glory.
When God looks at us, he knows we are doomed to die, and he is sorry for us. He offers us his love, he has compassion on us. So we should be like him. Give gifts with kindness, not with a grudging heart.
Then he urges us to examine ourselves, to act rightly before God. Don’t put off your repentance until you‘re on your death bed. You may not get the time. If you know what’s right, why wait before you do it? It’s time for some self-control - let’s not be ruled by our passions, which will make beggars of us.
We should also learn to keep our mouths shut. If people would stop passing on malicious gossip, without checking out whether it’s true first, the world would be a better place. One of the things that Christians can do is use their social media accounts to bless, and not to gossip.
Real wisdom stands out. Even online. Sirach would probably agree.

Sirach Chapter 17

As God made creatures to rise from the dust and return to it again, he made humans with the unique ability to raise their eyes and see god’s glory during their brief time on earth. This is so that they will praise his name and come into relationship with him, and then there will be more to their lives than the cycle of dust returning to dust.
Our short and dingy lives are in stark contrast to God’s everlasting brightness. He has chosen Israel, and his hatred of evil is terrible. But his mercy and forgiveness and sweet indeed.

Sirach Chapter 16

I’m abandoning the day numbers for my Apocrypha posts - since I’m not keeping up a daily regime this year, there’s little point. But on with wonderful Sirach. Godless children are nothing to be proud of, in his eyes. Having many children was regarded as a great blessing in Jewish culture - a sign of God’s favour. But if they aren’t fearing the Lord, Sirach would rather be childless. He wants us to remember that God forgets no one. No sins are overlooked, even if their punishment seems erratic to our eyes. God will right every wrong in time.
Poetically, Sirach looks back to creation, when God declared everything good. Every part worked as it should. That’s not how it is these days, but Sirach is confident that one day things will be back in order.

Day 69: Sirach Chapter 15

Yesterday, Sirach was in the realm of metaphor, telling us to camp in the garden of Wisdom’s house, to shelter under her spreading branches. Today he’s more practical, and tells us what that actually means: keep the Law, fear the Lord.
It’s good to hear him say it straight out, because so much of this book is pragmatic common sense, and God doesn’t get much of a mention. But here he makes plain that it all depends on our relationship with God.
We all have a choice, whether we go God’s ways or whether we don’t. But we mustn’t blame God for the bad consequences of our choosing - he never wills us to do evil.

Day 68: Sirach Chapter 14

Why is miserliness such a sin, and generosity such a virtue? Sirach explains it in terms of the miser being turned in upon himself. “Greed will shrivel up a person’s soul.” I might say that generosity is a sign of being like God, who is endlessly, recklessly generous.
So - enjoy life, don’t waste a day. It is going to end, after all. That’s not a sad thought - as old leaves wither and fall off the tree. new ones unfold. It’s all part of a greater plan.
And where do you fit in to this greater plan? Well, to get an answer to that, you need to spend much time camping out at Wisdom’s house.

Day 67: Sirach Chapter 13

Here we are again. “Don’t touch tar, it will stick to you.” Sirach would not have liked Jesus. He would have been scandalized at the way he associated with dirty people.
But Sirach persists with his advice. Animals flock together, he says. People do too. They naturally associate with similar people. I don’t disagree. Such behaviour is natural and normal - it’s our unthinking, default mode. But sometimes you need to think, to step out of the default. I think what I object to is Sirach’s advice to make the instinctive behaviour something that is thought out and principled. I can see all sorts of nasty places where that can lead.

Day 66: Sirach Chapter 12

“Give to good people, but don’t help sinners.” Today’s advice continues the theme that I’m disagreeing with more and more. Sirach keeps urging us to stick to the insider, the safe choice, never take risks with your friendship, avoid dodgy people.
I don’t regard myself as a risk taker, and I’m not the world’s most outgoing person, but I don’t like the idea of steering clear of people just because they might do me harm. Never have.
What’s the old advice? Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. That’s said so that you know what they’re up to, but also it works if you want to influence them for good.

Day 65: Sirach Chapter 10

We are assured that God oversees our rulers. He makes sure we get the rulers we need. Hmmm. I think we have to make do with the rulers we deserve, more often.
“The Creator never intended for human beings to be arrogant and violent.” Well, we learned fast. We specialise in pride and destruction, perhaps because it is easier to destroy than to create.
But Sirach would have us learn humility, to shun the dangers of pride. Value yourself at your true worth, he says.
Wise words.

Day 64: Sirach Chapter 9

Some sexual advice this morning - flee temptation. Don’t look. Sirach understands how men are led by their eyes, and so his advice is simple: don’t look. I wish our culture had taken this on board, but it hasn’t. The opposite is true, and everywhere there are open invitations to ogle, to gaze, to peek, to pry, to stare. And it’s very hard not to.
I like the line, “friendship is like wine, it grows better as it gets older.” Old friends are a precious resource, and need nurturing.
There’s lots of advice about keeping the right company. All common sense stuff, but |i can’t help thinking it’s the opposite of what Jesus did. He sought out the company of the disreputable, not being afraid of the damage it might do to him, but thinking instead about how his influence might rub off on them.

Day 63: Sirach Chapter 8

Common sense advice today: don’t provoke people who’ve got the power to hurt you - you’re asking for it if they retaliate. Even more spiritual subjects are backed up with a pragmatic “it’ll be worse for you if you do” comment - for instance, “ You should not provide a sinner with more opportunity to sin. You might get hurt yourself” from verse 8.
Chapter 7 with its theme of God’s sovereignty might have capped this piece of advice with a word about God’s ultimate authority to punish, but here , it’s all more mundane and matter of fact. So there are two reasons to do the right thing - a spiritual one (God isn’t pleased with your sin) and a practical one (harmful actions will damage you in the end).

Day 62: Sirach Chapter 7

A ragbag of advice today, perhaps summed up by these words from verse 17: “Be very humble, because the decay of death awaits us all.”
The fault that seems to be under attack in these aphorisms is that of arrogantly thinking that you are captain of your own destiny. God will intervene and leave you powerless. He raises people up, and he casts people low. It’s not your own doing.
This is one of the prevailing themes of Wisdom literature: don’t forget God.
But of course, we all do.

Day 61: Sirach Chapter 6

Sirach turns to the subject of friends. We’re in familiar “Proverbs” territory, with sage advice about how to avoid being led astray, how to make friends who will truly help. There’s a hint that Sirach was a wealthy individual - he talks about some friends sticking close to you while times are good, even “giving orders to your servants.”
Then there are more exhortations to persevere in your quest for Wisdom. He implies that it will be hard at first, and undisciplined people will give up, but it is necessary to accept her bonds. In words reminiscent of Jesus saying “take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” Sirach urges us to take up the burden of Wisdom.
A crown might be heavy, but you are royalty if you wear it.

Day 60: Sirach Chapter 5

The key point of the advice in this chapter is about wanting to be independent. You might try to rely on money to enable you to manage without God, you might think that you can please yourself and he won’t punish you, but he will catch up with you in the end. So turn back to him before it’s too late! People cannot disconnect themselves from God, and live their lives without reference to him completely. They might try, kidding themselves that they are their own masters, but God is only being merciful, and hasn’t started punishing them yet.
Similarly, the opposite is true - we shouldn’t be so connected to other people that we get led astray by them into behaving in an ungodly way. God is not fooled, even if we are.

Day 59: Sirach Chapter 4

Chapter 4 continues with the thought about almsgiving, and returns to the subject of humility. Be like this, he says, and God will love you more than your Mum.
It’s hard to say no to any of this, it’s all good sensible stuff, but hardly revolutionary or deep. Why did Grandson think it was worth translating? Or was he just being humble and obeying instructions?
Moving on, the advice is that in following Wisdom you need to go through the pain barrier. At first, following her requirements will seem hard, because she is testing you. but persevere, and she will come to you with no delay. This implies that sometimes the way of the wise will seem counter-intuitive, or even against your self-interest. Sometimes the right thing to do will bring harm to you, although it will benefit others. Jesus could tell you that.

Day 58: Sirach Chapter 3

Chapter 3 first gives us some familiar instructions about honouring parents. Clearly this is aimed at grown up children honouring their elderly parents and, although not stated explicitly, it derives from the fact that this command when first given in the 10 commandments was accompanied by a promise, that those who obeyed it would live long in the land.
Then there is the injunction to be humble. Don’t concern yourself with matters that are beyond you. Have quiet faith, sit back and trust that God will do what is right. This is hard to swallow in today’s culture, when we all believe we have the right to know everything, and to be told that something is “none of your business” is an insult. Would it have been the same then? Plenty of people in the Bible questioned God  - the Psalmist asked repeatedly why his prayers were not answered, or why underserved suffering came his way. If he’d listened to Sirach, we’d have had a shorter Psalter.

Day 57: Sirach Chapter 2

More on the ultimate prize for a devoted Jew - the gift of Wisdom.
First, a plea for patience - something that Jewish people have always needed. Familiar words about gold being tested by fire are used again: if any race should be pure and valuable surely it is the Jews, who have been through the furnace more times than most.
So hang in there! Has anyone ever trusted in the Lord and been disappointed? asks Sirach. I’m tempted to reply, “Yes!” but he responds with a blast against those who give up and lose heart.
He finishes with a lovely verse: “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, but not into the hands of mortals.”
If you’re going to fall, make sure God catches you.

Day 56: Sirach Chapter 1

Another Wisdom book to begin - and this one is unusual in that it begins with a helpfully informative Prologue.
The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, a book which I previously knew as Ecclesiasticus, starts by explaining where it came from. It is a translation by a Jewish exile living in Egypt, of his grandfather’s book. he translated it from Hebrew into Greek. This man is a fan of Wisdom, that Jewish concept that is part knowledge and understanding, and part personification of attributes of God. Let’s see what his granddad had to say.
Verse 1 sums up my definition of Wisdom above:  “All wisdom comes from the Lord,
     and Wisdom is with him forever.”
Wisdom was God’s first creation, and understands the mysteries that puzzle human minds. God pours her out on people - a little to everyone, but a lot on those he favours. So, fearing God is the first step to Wisdom, because she is a gift from God. Those who approach God with a sincere heart will receive their reward.

Day 55: Wisdom Chapter 19

The story continues, with the Egyptians enraged pursuit of their departing slaves. Another chance for gloating as the writer pictures the Israelites skipping with glee across the dry bed of the Red Sea.
The Egyptians are being punished for not showing hospitality to strangers, because although they initially welcomed the family of Jacob, later they enslaved his descendants.
To release them from slavery, God plays a new chord on the harp of Creation. A wonderful way to finish this thought-provoking book - a very rich and inventive metaphorical description of miracle.

Day 54: Wisdom Chapter 18

Meanwhile, the light was shining for the Israelites. While they were on their journey through the wilderness, God led them by a pillar of fire.
In poetic terms, the writer revisits the last plague of all - the death of the first born. As Egypt’s sons died, they realised finally that Israel was God’s son.
In the midst of this terrible fear and grief, a hero stood up. Aaron confront the angel of death and faced him down with his prayers. Clad (anachronistically) in his priestly robes, he claimed God’s promises and drove away the fearful instrument of God’s wrath.
All very dramatic and not to be taken too literally. Firstly, Aaron was not that much of a hero. Secondly, this account makes it sound as if God’s anger would have spilled over onto the Israelites were in not for the prayers of brave Aaron. What about the lamb’s blood splashed on the lintels of their doors? That part of the story is forgotten. Never mind, We’ll allow the writer his dramatic license.

Day 53: Wisdom Chapter 17

The writer returns to the plight of the Egyptians, cowering under the impact of the plagues. There is a certain delight in the way he dwells on their suffering, relishing the enemies of God getting their comeuppance. This is a common theme in the bits of the Apocrypha I’ve read so far. A small and persecuted people would enjoy any tales of their enemies being put to shame, wouldn’t they?
But the psychology is spot on - someone with a guilty conscience will always imagine things to be worse than they really are. I could add that the view of the world at 3am, in the middle of a sleepless night, is a lot more bleak and comfortless than at 3pm in the afternoon sunshine.