The Jesus school of Prayer

I want to go on a journey to learn how to pray. I've been troubled by this desire all my Christian life, and I've decided it's finally time to do something about it.

Those are strange words and they need explaining. After all, I'm a professional Christian, a vicar, a leader of a church. So I should be an expert on prayer, shouldn't I?

Except I know I'm not.

There have been times in my Christian life when God has been so close, so real to me that nothing else compares to the delight of knowing him and being known. At such times, there was nothing I would rather do than stay in his presence.

But they never last. Most of the time, I'm too distracted, busy, tired, lazy, or all four to lift a finger to try and find my way back to his shining presence. Then I feel ashamed of myself, and say angrily, “What kind of a Christian am I? Do I believe this God stuff or not? Why can't I make myself live it?”

That's a bit harsh. I'm not all bad. But I'm not all good either. I struggle with seeing things through. I've made dozens of fresh starts. Again and again I've said, “This time it will be different. This time I really mean it. This time...”

And what's so different about this time? Only the fact that it's public. Two years ago, I publicly committed myself to reading the Bible through in a year. And to my surprise, I did it. I managed to find time every day to read large chunks of it, even the boring bits. I think the going public helped. It gave me an accountability that I otherwise lacked.

So now I want to invite you to come with me on a journey of prayer. I'm going to be talking about seven different aspects of the God-language that I want to learn, spaced out over a year or more (I'm not sure how long it will take.) I will be introducing each aspect to my church family in a sermon, and committing myself to a series of actions that will help me explore this avenue of prayer for the next month or so. And inviting others to do it with me. During that month, I'll blog and tweet any insights, encouragements or discouragements, then report back and introduce the next chapter.

It's inspired, hopefully by God, but also by Gerard and Chrissie Kelly, who wrote a book called Intimate with the Ultimate in 2009. I'll be using their seven headings, which conveniently all begin with R. I know I'm not a real Christian preacher and teacher, because I can never get my points to all begin with the same letter. 

Anyway, on this journey we'll be looking at prayer that's

Relational

Rhythmic

Restless

Rich

Reciprocal

Rooted

Revolutionary

Come with me. Let's see where the journey takes us.

8 o'clock Spirituality

Every Sunday I crawl out of bed an hour and a half earlier than I would choose to, and sit in my freezing study getting ready for the 8am Communion.
My Twitter companions at this hour are a collection of fellow Anglican clergy, for I strongly suspect that no other Christians have this peculiar tradition.

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, a friend and I had a conversation that went along these lines: "When I'm a vicar the first thing I'll do is abolish the 8 o'clock Communion." But I've never done so, and I would never dream of it.
Non-Anglicans are probably thinking that we're mad. But perhaps you too have shivered in a muddy field at 6am, while an off key trumpeter leads a bleary congregation in a threadbare rendering of "Thine be the glory."

Yes, the Easter Sunrise Service. Another example of Christian Masochism at its best.

Taking communion fasting, is I suppose an example of this. The idea is that the first thing that should pass your lips on Sunday morning should be the bread and the wine - as a way of saying that God comes first in my life. So, in that respect, going to the 8 o'clock communion is in fact a way of taking it easy and cutting yourself some slack.
However, it can also be a Rule. Rules, with a capital R are not always helpful.
Once, a very intelligent elderly ecclesiastical lawyer confessed to me that he was no longer going to come to church, because he couldn't go out without any food inside him, he was too wobbly. It seemed the perfect example of self inflicted Pharasaism. Why elevate a pious habit into a Rule that cuts you off from worship?

Other 8 o'clockers describe their reason for early attendance in church as "it gets it out of the way."

Gets it out of the way??

Before the really important stuff of life, like washing the car or reading the Sunday papers? Again, a funny way of describing your devotion to the creator of the universe.

Leaving the negative thoughts aside, there is something about the quiet gathering of (nearly always) elderly people walking to church - yes they nearly always walk - that is very special. 8 o'clockers are faithful people.  Vicars often moan about how their congregations only come to church every other week these days. "When I was young," they say, "we went to church twice on a Sunday. Nowadays we have to count ourselves lucky if we see people twice a month!"
Not so the 8 o'clockers. They'll be there, every week. Without fail. Usually half an hour early, for reasons that are completely inexplicable. Why is it that the main morning congregation never arrive more than five minutes before the service is due to start, and usually 5-10 minutes after, while the 8 o'clockers are forming an orderly queue by 7.30?

Once, years ago, the service at the church I belonged to was televised. We were all in place with 20 minutes to go, listening to the countdown before we went live and began to worship, with a rising sense of excitement.

The 8 o'clockers could teach us a thing or two about anticipation and faithfulness.

Inspiration for Lent

Thanks to my friend Stephen Stokes who shared this on Facebook.



Lent is not just about giving things up, but taking something on.

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.