Celebrating Easter Doubt

As I get older , I find myself more riddled with doubt than filled with faith. This is despite (or perhaps because of) being a minister.

Abundant joy and wonder and beautiful community are significant parts of my faith experience — but so are abundant doubt and struggle.

Even during periods when I’ve felt filled with devotion to Jesus, I’ve never been free of anxious questions about the possibility of God’s mercy toward me.

To be honest, I’m more prone to disbelief and the kind of bewildered despair that friends mourning Jesus may have felt on Good Friday or Holy Saturday — after the shock of the cross — than the confidence they found on Easter Sunday.

This sort of difficulty with faith isn’t uncommon among Christians. Belonging to Jesus doesn’t shield any of us from the ache of being human or the general brutality of life on our planet, as the most recent tragedies of the Ukraine or Gaza show so clearly. Even if our suffering isn’t related to persecution or oppression, there is plenty of daily turmoil to shake our trust in the reality of God as loving and good.

We believe that God speaks and reveals truth in Scripture and throughout creation. But even after the resurrection, God is still veiled, quiet and hidden in many ways.

As Christians, we often act as if faith should be straightforward and easy. Though economic hardship, unspeakable loss of life, trauma, chronic pain and mental illness abound as much in the church as anywhere, we make little room for expression of the real struggle of everyday grief.

We’re quick to judge those in the church who seem “weak” in faith, who are not overflowing with confident trust in God. Many of us think of “strong” faith as intellectual certainty in specific tenets of church doctrine or enthusiastic conformity to particular aspects of church culture. Despite our talk of grace, we tend to demonize those who struggle to believe or who question our specific theologies or practices. We forget ourselves. It’s easier to focus on some project of “saving souls” elsewhere or to police others’ orthodoxy than to acknowledge our own need for conversion and saving.

Why do we yield to this pressure? Perhaps we fear — understandably — being eaten alive by other Christians around us. Or we fear marring God’s image in the world. But our pretending to be perfect or to have all the answers is much more harmful than being honest.

I love Easter, because I do believe in the risen Christ and in Christ’s miraculous, redemptive power in our lives. But the bulk of my faith journey is better represented by the confused shock of Good Friday and Holy Saturday than the glory of Resurrection Sunday. Much of my life has been about wrestling in the wilderness (like Jacob in the night) — about the fury of prolonged waiting, and the fear of having been abandoned by God. About longing and desperation for an indiscernible Christ.

I believe that the feeling of being alone and at the mercy of a senseless, hostile universe may be more common in the faith lives of Christians than we let on. We need to more openly acknowledge that doubt and feelings of lostness are as much a normal part of the faith journey as the confident joy of being found. We shouldn’t expect people to make the colossal leap to the miracle of Easter Sunday when their living might feel more like crucifixion or the grave.

Our tendency to demonize doubt doesn’t serve Christ’s body or the world at large. Rather, it isolates those who are suffering and alienates those with legitimate questions that have no easy answers. Some people may find it easy to trust God, but I know many, like myself, who simply aren’t made that way — people who are inordinately sensitive to the hurt in the world, who have all the questions all the time, or whose lives have been too filled with trauma to trust anyone, let alone an invisible God.

I suspect that our difficulty in extending genuine grace to others in this area might be because we have yet to experience the depth of God’s grace ourselves. Perhaps we fear that God disdains questioning of any kind. But I believe that God’s compassion is great, and that God remembers that “we are but dust.”

For the sake of young people who may feel confused, for the sake of older people who may feel disappointed or forsaken by God — for the sake of all who may question or struggle, we need to be more welcoming than condemning.

My hope is that the church, and especially Christian leaders, might give more attention to the reality of Holy Saturday in our daily lives.

We could all be more mindful that many people’s paths are more characterized by that space of waiting than by victory — even within the walls of our churches. May we all grow in knowing the love of our unfathomably merciful God in the midst of ongoing doubt and struggle, for our own sakes, for the sake of the church, and for the sake of extending the grace of the risen Christ to the world.

Get Out!

At one of my churches we have been discussing and working on the mission of the church. In particularly a vision for a new different style of congregation. I have to be honest I am struggling with this vision. There is nothing wrong with what is being proposed and I hope it will be successful for all involved, but I find it difficult to make it my vision.

Much of the mission of Jesus when he walked this earth could be summed up in one word ‘Go!’

Even Jesus’s final words to his disciples, is centred on the word ‘Go’. – “go therefor and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19) 

Earlier in Jesus’s ministry Luke recounts Jesus sending 72 un-named followers out on mission “Go to the people, go to their villages and cities, go to the squares and into their homes, go to where people are and live, where they work and spend their leisure time, where they live their relationships and recover… Go, spend time and share a piece of life with them! Go and seek together with people ways in which we can live the faith together, here and now, credibly, contagiously and relevantly.” (Luke 10:1-11, my paraphrase)

In my experience, at least here in Britain, we are good at planning programs to invite people to come to church with, but we are not so good at going to people and at being church with them wherever they are going. Therefore, we need guidance, and so Luke 10:1-11 can be one such guide for us.

In Luke Jesus tells his followers to ‘Go’ in three different ways: “Go into the cities and houses! Go without baggage; go to your neighbours’ tables and be sure to go with God’s shalom/peace.”

“Go!…Carry no wallet, no bag, and no sandals.” (Luke 10:3-4)

I find that difficult to imagine. We Brits go on holiday with a suitcase full of clothes for every eventuality from a heatwave to a blizzard! I would never dream of leaving the house or going on a journey without my wallet Even when I am trying to travel as lightly as possible, I would still rather not risk having to beg for money from strangers.

“Go empty-handed,” Jesus urges the 72. Traveling like this means depending on others. Most of the refugees from the Global South come to us in Europe as strangers in need, dependent on our hospitality. To this end, Jesus urges the 72: “Become strangers in need, dependent on what others give you!”

“Go into the cities and houses” without baggage. What “baggage” do I carry with me already? Maybe my baggage looks more like my morals and values, my knowledge of the Bible and the church, my faith experiences, my experiences in general, my prejudices, all kinds of methods and concepts of how to reach people, my desire for bringing people into the church. How easily does this “baggage” make me blind and deaf to what my neighbors have to give to me! How easily do my fixed ideas weigh me down from discovering what God has in mind through my neighbours!

This story encourages us: “Leave all that at home! It is only a hindrance at the moment. Rather, without such baggage, go to the people wherever they are. And watch, listen carefully, pay attention to what God is already doing in their lives and join in. Be like strangers who are entering an unknown world excitedly.”

Looking and listening without judging or trying to ‘solve their problems’ is the beginning of mission —it turns out you can look and listen well when you eat together!

Remain in this house, eating and drinking whatever they set before you, for workers deserve their pay.” (Luke 10:7)

Every family, every community has its own food culture, its own ‘kitchen’ we could say, its own habits at the table. Some may be similar to your own, others quite different and unfamiliar to you.

Jesus sends the 72 into others’ homes where their food and table habits would certainly be different: “Immerse yourself in the culture of the people who welcome you, live in their houses, become part of their household and their everyday life, work, eat, celebrate, share life with them.” Of course, these were not households as we know them in Western Europe, with 3, 4, maybe even occasionally 6 or 7 family members. At that time, entire clans lived together with their employees, 30, 40, sometimes 50 people around the ‘table’.

Anyone who has lived abroad for a longer period of time, perhaps for a student exchange year with a family, knows how lost and foreign you feel at the beginning. Many things are different and unfamiliar. You must orientate yourself in a completely new way, which means getting to know the people, their stories, their experiences, their values, their habits. What better way to do this than by living together in a house community and sharing a table together? It’s around the table where people tell stories, share joys and sorrows, and you are in the midst of it all.

When we immerse ourselves in a community in this way, we not only get to know the lives of our friends, neighbours, or work colleagues. When we pay attention like this, we can also hear the gospel of God’s shalom as good news for this particular place with these people.

Hearing this story this way, focusing on Jesus’s urging us to go in this way, shakes me up and makes me question my priorities. Shouldn’t we live out our calling to be the church in the homes of the people in our neighbourhood, rather than in the church? Shouldn’t our congregational life take place primarily around the tables of the people we meet in everyday life, rather than in our church sanctuary? If God is with people where they live, in their homes and towns, if God has something in mind and is doing something there, shouldn’t we be right there, too, with open eyes and ears, open minds and hearts, to discover what God has in store for us all? Where people actually live and spend their time is where the church must be, we learn from the very start!

I have spoken of going to our neighbours without baggage but we do not go empty-handed.

Whenever you enter a house, first say, ‘May peace (shalom) be on this house’… and say to them, ‘God’s kingdom has come upon you.’” (Luke 10:5-9)

Wow! What a gift, what a responsibility! We are shalom bearers! God’s shalom is the tangible reality of God’s kingdom. Where God’s kingdom is, there we will find “peace on earth.”

Zacchaeus’s story illustrates this reality very clearly.(Luke 19:1-10) Zacchaeus and those around him experienced God’s transforming shalom power when Jesus came to his house. “Today, salvation has come to this household“, Jesus says. What happened? Zacchaeus found peace with himself and went from being a wrongdoer to being a benefactor. God’s shalom has an individual, personal side. Zacchaeus found peace with his neighbours. He made amends for the wrongs he committed, which also mean God’s shalom has a social side. God’s shalom has a spiritual side: Zacchaeus found peace with God. He began to live out his calling as a beloved son of the heavenly Father.

As in Zacchaeus’s house, God’s shalom wants to spread wherever Jesus sends us: “Go with God’s peace. Rejoice, you are my peace bearers! I entrust you with my shalom. Proclaim it with all your actions and words. Live it out! Trust him to grasp, heal and transform you and the people you live with in their homes and cities. Peace on earth!”

The story of the sending of the 72 awakens a vision in me, a future image of our church. Not a gathering of people in a building we call a church but Methodists and their neighbours meeting in one another’s homes. They eat and drink together, they spend time together, they share a part of their lives, they share their faith. In doing so, they experience the transforming power of God. They experience the shalom that extends into their hearts, homes and surroundings, finding peace with themselves, with their fellow human beings, with creation, and with God.

We cease to go to church and we become church when we meet our neighbours and our God wherever that may be.

God’s unbounded love

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A Case of Mistaken Identity

“All the city was stirred saying “Who is this? A very good question then and now. And the crowds said: ”This is the prophet, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee”

It was, I think, a case of mistaken identity. The multitude had participated in a demonstration –a demonstration organized by Jesus himself. In fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy Jesus enters Jerusalem as Messiah. He comes to inaugurate a Kingdom-a peaceable Kingdom-symbolized by the donkey.

Those who lined the road from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem had other ideas. They wanted to see the triumphal entry into Jerusalem of a national saviour-a King of David’s line- a liberator. Obviously Jesus’ action aroused great excitement. Here at last was the one to set Israel free. The Kingdom had been inaugurated. As for the Romans they would be out, as for the Gentiles they would be put in their place. We catch an echo of their attitude in the remarks of the one disciple to another on the Emmaus Road in Luke’s gospel.” We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel”. We had hoped but we were disappointed. It was a case of mistaken identity.

They were wrong! They heard the message but they mistook the meaning. They wanted peace but peace on their terms. Peace after victory over the Romans. They asked a rhetorical question. Who is this? And they came up with an incomplete answer. This is Jesus the prophet from Galilee.

Some of you may know the famous piece of newsreel footage that records the return of Mr Chamberlain from the Munich Conference at which he betrayed Czechoslovakia. He stood beside the aeroplane; he waved his piece of paper and declared that it was peace in our time. And he was the most popular man in Britain because he told everybody what they wanted to hear. He was wrong. Everyone was wrong or most people anyway. Mind you to be fair there is a case for the defence.

As Jesus says in Luke’s gospel as he surveys the city
Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace? But now they are hid from your eyes.

People felt deceived by Chamberlain a year later. When people discover that they have been deceived they become angry and call for heads to roll. The truth is though that the British people then had deceived themselves. People are always deceiving themselves because although the truth can set you free freedom can be almost unbearable.

It was the same for Jesus> he didn’t fulfil their hopes. So a few days later they turned nasty. Shouted for his death and called for the release of Barabbas who seemed to be the genuine article. The people of Jerusalem were deceived but they had deceived themselves.

It was a case of mistaken identity.

Very often we are no better than them. When we see Jesus or when we read the Bible we see in these things what we want to see. You tell me what you find in the Bible and I’ll tell you what sort of person you are. Theologians, who might be expected to know something of these matters are like people who look down the shafts of deep wells. At the bottom they see their own faces looking up.

Perhaps we ought to look at that face at the bottom of the well a little harder. Who are we? What do we really hope for? Do we have fears if so what are they? Do we have great expectations? How do we imagine that they will be fulfilled?

One way of dealing with that would be to ask you what your favourite hymn or Bible passage is. The words that really speak to your condition as you imagine it to be. Ask yourself why you like it. And then turn the question around. What would a person who likes that passage be like?

Of course we like to hear what we like to hear. But is that message the one we really need to hear. We want to hear a word of forgiveness but we don’t want to hear about judgment. We want to hear about rights but not about duties. We want peace but only peace on our terms. In our devotional lives we like the high moments-the strong sense of fulfillment-the vocation affirmed. We‘re not so keen on the downside-the boring meeting-the Church Council that went on till 10.30. We are inclined to say with Peter when confronted with the negative side. No Lord this shall never happen to you. What we really mean of course is that this must never happen to us.

It is at such moments that we need to hear Jesus’ teaching about the cost of discipleship and the cost of discipleship is the cross.

A case of mistaken identity. Oh yes!

Such cases are very common. At job interviews I’ve often been asked questions in which the questioner betrays their own wishes. Please Mr Grimwood please-reassure us that you are indeed the person we want you to be. It is very difficult to disappoint people at such moments.

Have we mistaken Jesus for someone else? Jesus we say is our saviour. How is he going to save us? Which of our hopes and expectations will he fulfill? Ask yourself: What do you hope for? What are your great expectations? Is Jesus the one who is going to make all your dreams come true-all your lucky numbers turn up? We had hoped. Well what are your hopes? Are they hopes that are compatible with faith in Christ-the suffering savior who gives his life and calls upon us to follow his way of costly love.

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week. The dominant symbol of that is the cross. This is the week when we survey the wondrous cross. A week when we try to embrace a larger vision and turn aside from those vain things, those extravagant expectations and futile longings that charm us so much. A week for turning aside from triumph and glory. A week to remember the two mysteries that lie at the heart of the faith.

God’s love for us in the broken body of his son. And the possibility that we might respond to that love with humble, contrite hearts.

So stay with the story! Walk the way of the cross through this week. Read the texts, embrace the music and find renewed faith, hope and love. Then you will discover who this prophet from Galilee really is!

Lenten Reflections – God and Science: Observation.

On December 25, 2021, while we were celebrating Christmas, a rocket launched carrying the James Webb Space Telescope. By mid-July 2022, the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope began generating never-before-seen images of the distant universe.  

John Mather, NASA senior project scientist, reflects on what it means to reach this moment after 25 years of work by 20,000 people:

“It was worth the wait! Our immense golden telescope is seeing where none have seen before, discovering what we never knew before,…Already…we have seen galaxies colliding and  merging…we have seen one black hole close up….we’ve seen the debris when a star exploded….” (Senior Project Scientist John Mather Reflects on Journey to Webb’s First Images. NASA Blogs, July 15, 2022.)

When asked, “What’s next?”, Mather’s response is, “We have guesses and predictions, but astronomy is an observational science.” He then goes into a litany of the kinds of questions for which astronomers will be seeking insight through observations made possible by the Webb telescope. 

While many people are finding renewed interest in this new era of space exploration, those within the Christian tradition have special reason to embrace this news. The Christian tradition and its focus on a creating God who engages with creation has long incentivized people developing skills of observation, and the sciences that arose out of deploying such skills on the natural world.

The polytheism found in ancient sacred texts such as the Gilgamesh Epic and the Enuma Elish focused attention on many gods and goddesses who have direct connection to natural processes—sun gods and rain gods and goddesses of fertility. Humans were subservient to these deities and subject to their whims and battles. This understanding did not encourage independent thinking or creative exploration.

Monotheism, as the Hebrew and Christian scriptures express it, includes not only the belief that there is only one God, but also the view that creation is fundamentally good and orderly. This essential belief even extends into humanity’s creation, claiming that human beings are created in the image of God. Taken together, the Christian doctrine of creation results in a positive view of the universe that stimulates human thinking and exploration. 

It was in a school biology class where I had my first exposure to how the Judeo-Christian worldview prepared the way for modern science. I was introduced to a Catholic monk, Gregor Mendel, who is widely regarded as the father of genetics. His fascination with God’s good, orderly creation led him to experiment with pea plants. He studied their basic characteristics, such as plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color.  He coined the use of dominant and recessive to refer to these characteristics. 

Mendel published his work in 1866 demonstrating the actions of invisible ‘factors’, which are now called genes, in predictably determining an organism’s traits. Mendel was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, and abbot of St. Thomas Abbey in Moravia. He is a good example of the way in which the belief in a good and orderly creation is an invitation from God to think with God’s thoughts. From this perspective, science becomes one very important way of being faithful to God by serious observation of God’s beloved creation. 

Another great scientist Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical physics, was also a Bible scholar and theologian. His faith in God as maker of heaven and earth fueled his research into subjects such as gravitational pull and the circulation of the planets. Creation is God’s gift to be explored and understood as much as possible in order to be good stewards.  Science was an expression of Isaac Newton’s faith. Move on a number of generations and we have Einstein’s assessment that physicists are the only religious people around anymore because they still have a genuine sense of awe and wonder at the immensity of the universe.

Sadly the rise of Evangelicalism in the church has led to the demonisation of science as somehow in opposition to God and has at times led science to loose its moral touchstone.

Do those of us alive today have any awareness of the way the Christian faith motivated men and women to become inquisitive rather than fearful about science?  

The scriptural story and the church’s teachings encouraged men and women to practice observation of the world around them, which led to the development of science. In return, we now have the opportunity to consider how the scientific method can inform our own understanding of the Christian faith by heightening our powers of observation. Scientists are observant. They pay attention, and then they study, compare, and develop hypotheses based on their observations. Today, we may find that it is scientists who can encourage us to embrace the kind of ‘paying attention’ that we see in the Bible.  

We see this clearly in Psalm 8, which begins and then proceeds to observe the natural world: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name throughout the earth!  When I look up at your skies, at what your fingers made— the moon and the stars that you set firmly in place,” and concludes with a question, “What are human beings that you think about them; what are human beings that you pay attention to them?” Wrestling with this question leads to a conviction with an order of magnitude on par with the images from the Webb telescope. “You’ve made them only slightly less than divine, crowning them with glory and grandeur.”

Psalm 19 continues this practice of observing God’s glory in the created order—“Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork”—before moving to consider the law of the Lord as being just as revelatory as is nature. 

The Gospels testify to the way Jesus invited a more intense observation in daily life, in phrases such as:  

• “Look at the birds of the air”
• “Consider the lilies of the field”
• The vine and the branches
• Wheat and weeds
• Treasure in a field
• Water of life
• Wilderness
• Loaves and fish
• Sheep and shepherds
• “As you did it to one of the least of  these…”
• “Let the children come to me…”

In Luke 12:54-56 Jesus challenges his hearers to expand their capacity for observation,

Jesus also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud forming in the west, you immediately say, ‘It’s going to rain.’ And indeed it does. And when a south wind blows, you say, ‘A heat wave is coming.’ And it does. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret conditions on earth and in the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret the present time?

Matthew’s Gospel includes the story of the magi who were willing to go on a journey based on their own observations—“We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”  They were paying attention to the world around and were willing to travel to gather the data they needed to arrive at a conclusion. There came a time when the light they were following had carried them as far as it could—to Jerusalem. Then, like good scientists, they started asking questions. Observation-driven questions that led them to Bethlehem and to the Child. 

The presence of these astrologers from the east serves as a witness to the global reach of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wonder if this well-worn story could provide fresh incentive to use our own senses as means of paying attention to what is going on in us and around us—which may not be as mundane as we might assume.  

And just as the wise men traveled together, might we learn to view each other as traveling companions who have been brought together by the church and, through the church, invited to be co-researchers? 

It is exciting to hear John Mather say, “the Webb images will rewrite our textbooks, and we hope for a new discovery, something so important that our view of the universe will be overturned once again.” I am confident that there are new discoveries to be made if we take our faith as seriously as we ask our scientists to take their work. 

For one thing, embracing the complementarities of faith and science can give us a renewed sense of the drama of our faith and the need to give it our full attention. The wise men observed the star in the east and by following it they came at last to Jesus. Observation is a fundamental part of the scientific method. To observe means to pay attention to the world—both the world around us and the world inside us. Engaging this first “sense” of the scientific method can help us to discern the surprising ways God is calling us to move forward on the journey of faith. The disciplines of worship, Bible study, fellowship, witness, and community outreach are ways of paying attention in order to make new discoveries.  

May we (re)learn what it is to observant disciples of Christ this Lenten season.

Grace and peace to you,

Alan.

Will the meek really inherit the earth? ( a sermon preached at Falcon Lodge)

How paradoxical it all seems! To be blessed by one’s sufferings and persecutions, to be blessed because one is poor as Luke’s version puts it and to be blessed because one is hungry for righteousness- and more!! Truly here is a world turned upside down.

I invite you to focus on just one of these beatitudes-blessed attitudes as some have called them. It’s this.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Now we know that’s not true in our world. What do the meek inherit-an eviction notice-a promise of social housing in 40 years’ time-a mould ridded poorly maintained flat at an exorbitant rent-a tent in the underpass. Those who inherit the earth are those who inherit family wealth or have appropriate connections. Not the meek-they are the losers. Meek are you! You’re fired.

Jesus ‘message to you and I is that we should seek after a loving God and follow his way of meekness and majesty- a different kingdom to that of the Kingdoms of this world.

What then of the poor, the marginalised and those who have conspicuously failed to inherit the earth. Now there are those who will answer in these ways. Let us in kindness give the opponents of the gospel the first word.

All is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.

Capitalism is not a perfect system but it is the one in which the bad can do the least harm.

The kingdom of God belongs to the time of the not yet. We must await the age to come.

Indeed as Jesus said –the poor you have always with you. Charity is wasteful and social justice is a mirage. The best to help the progress of society is to get all we can and promote economic growth.

References supplied on request.

And so secondly beware! Before you adopt any of these points of view remember the fullness of Jesus’ teaching and practice. Jesus called upon his hearers to repent for the kingdom of God is not to be indefinitely postponed. It is at hand-imminent-breaking through now! That’s from Matthew’s gospel last week’s gospel reading. We are poised between the already and the not yet.

And remember also what Jesus does. He reaches out to the poor, the underprivileged, the marginalised and the hungry and feeds them. The time of the Kingdom of God does not follow the time of the Kingdom of this world. The two are juxtaposed. What is the Church but a sign of God’s new world order. That’s why this a community of love-God’s Kingdom and why profit, power and worldly status have no place among us. This is also why Christians often find themselves persecuted. Every time when I come here I pass a place where a Christian minister was put to death because his Christian teaching didn’t correspond with establishment teaching. It helps to concentrate my mind on my Sunday duty!

A very useful phrase to sum up our Christian situation is this one. We live between the times. The time of Christ’s first coming and that of his final coming. But we don’t just wait passively. We pray for the coming of the kingdom and we create here and now signs of his Kingdom’s coming.

And so thirdly I have spoken so far of our inheritance of the promise of the kingdom. But what of the meekness that is the key to this inheritance. Yes Jesus and his people are revolutionaries but not in the usual way. Jesus is not Che Guevara with a halo. When his disciples point to the weapons they are carrying his response is utterly straightforward. That’s enough of that!

What then is meekness? Perhaps a better word would be humility. And we can see in the life and ministry of Jesus and those who have followed him most closely that humility is always the keynote of their lives. Ultimately it is humility that disarms the powerful and opens the way to the creative love of God. If this sounds like foolishness remember our epistle reading and Paul’s famous words. The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

In this act of worship and fellowship around the Lord’s Table we receive him in the signs that he has given us. We become his body in the world and remember the words of Mother Theresa that Christ has no body now on earth but ours. We become as St Augustine put it, what we eat. And so you see we receive a calling to continue his work in the world-in love, mercy and humble service for the coming Kingdom in all its fullness. This can seem daunting but there are many who have walked this way before us and have become an inspiration for us. What’s more we have John Wesley’s final words and testimony to serve as a benediction. The best of all is that God is with us. 

Wake up and smell the coffee!

Today is Advent Sunday. Advent is the season in which we affirm all that is real in our lives-for good or ill –and all that is real in the providence of a loving God. Get real we sometimes say to one another in an argument and that use of the phrase has overtones of judgement. Truly it is an Advent saying. So let’s get real but remember how the poet T S Eliot penned his famous line. “Human kind cannot bear very much reality”. Too true! Alas. When I was in another circuit I penned an article entitled CAMRA-Campaign for a Real Advent. That campaign continues somewhat against the odds.

Sadly we know that most people prefer sentimentality and nostalgia for a vanished age that never really existed. Have yourself a merry little Christmas just like the ones you used to know. Get out that Advent calendar with a different luxury chocolate for every day.

Courage sisters and brothers – get real-embrace the reality of our situation and the reality of God’s love. Remember that you and I are Methodists and what is a Methodist but a Christian in earnest.

The times are dark. Of course it is always dark at this time of year-the days short and getting shorter. We withdraw into our own worlds and binge on old films and TV repeats. Netflix and I player plus comfort reading-chick lit- the novels of Barbara Pym. We go to bed early. I speak of my own experience of course.

Another poet now: W H Auden in his opening sequence for his “Christmas Oratorio”:

Huge crowds mumble-Alas our angers do not increase,

Love is not what she used to be

Portly Caesar yawns; “I know, I know”.

Who can speak against the darkness? Surely the shepherds abiding in the fields who keep watch over their flocks by night rather than dwelling safe in their episcopal palaces.

St Paul however says to us; Wake up cast off the works of darkness-put on the armour of light! Smell the coffee.

But the times are especially dark this year. War in Europe, in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The environmental crisis grows steadily more alarming and the response from governments increasingly feeble. Then there is the cost of living crisis and the threatened disruption occasioned by strikes. The Churches too are experiencing difficult times: financial crises, abuse scandals, and declining membership rolls. By schisms rent asunder by heresies distressed to quote a favourite hymn. From the same hymn my wife who is an Anglican churchwarden often quotes the line about the tumult of her war and her longing for peace for evermore.

Our leaders both in Church and state seem distracted by peripheral issues and unable to offer us a vision for the future. Small wonder then that we draw the curtains, sit by the fire and turn our attention to a media landscape of escapeism.

But St Paul says: wake up, smell the coffee. Put on the armour of light!

The armour of light. What might that mean for you and I?

The Christian life is a journey-a journey of small steps. Every step we take in this world is a step towards either darkness or light. Every harsh word, every act of resignation in the face of challenge every act of submission to hopelessness, every mean and lazy decision is part of the works of darkness. Every act of forgiveness, every act of love however small, every temptation resisted is a step towards the light. We must put on the armour of light and not submit ourselves to the clothes of darkness.

You and I can’t reform the world but we can at least be pointing in the right direction clad in the armour of light. Look towards the east O Jerusalem and see the salvation that is coming from God.

Paul insists that salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. How can he say this? How can he say this to the Roman Christians who he’s never met? Sometimes scholars say that Paull was simply wrong and that to expect a second coming is simply a mistake.

I think however that what Paul wrote is profoundly true in two senses –that God’s promises are to be trusted, that his promises will be fulfilled and that our call is to put on the armour of light and work together for the coming of the one who will bring in the fullness of God’s love. In so far as we are doing this we are sharing in God’s work of salvation and meeting the coming Christ in the one who needs our help. Salvation is nearer then when we live this way than when we first believed.

That’s one sense.

The other is to insist that that the Christian life is a journey from darkness to light-a series of spirals upwards towards the fullness of revelation when we come to understand that God is all in all. Today is the first day in the Christian year-a new turn in the spiral and each turn brings new truth, new insights, and new revelation.

The poet who expressed this most beautifully was the Italian: Dante-who in his Divine Comedy describes the downward spiral into hell and the upward spiral to the summit of the heavenly mountain. Flicking over the pages of the National Geographic magazine in Waitrose recently I came across a beautifully illustrated article about him-one of those pictures is on the screen now. You see even the magazine rack in Waitrose can be a vehicle for Divine truth.

Forward then together into another turn upwards of the spiral staircase-speaking out against the darkness and putting on the light of Christ and rejoicing as we by words and deeds light Advent candles in the darkness to signify the hope that is rekindled within us.

You know we Christians are always looking forwards in hope which is why the last words of the New Testament are the words of Jesus.

Surely I am coming soon.

And our response:

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

Methodism Today: Resurrected and Resurrecting

Forget the pandemic for a moment and set aside you anxiety about gas bills. In five to ten years these struggles will no longer demand our attention, but this reality will:

• Less people than ever in our society will be a part of a church.

• Less young people than ever in our nation’s history will be a part of a congregation, enter a church building, or open a Bible.

• Christians, if current trends continue, will be a minority population in our society by 2070.

We do not get to choose the time in which we live, but we do get to choose how we live in our time. If the Church is to be reimagined in this era, we must realise that a vision of the church precedes a vision for the church. Rather than consider the form or structure of a denomination, we are wise to recall the function of the church. We can begin by considering some of the hallmarks of the first disciples who followed risen Jesus Christ.  

The first disciples placed their trust in the power of the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the crescendo of proclamation in the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul. The first Christians understood that if Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected to new life, he really was the Messiah, Saviour, and Lord. They followed His way with this level of conviction in the resurrection.

Their actions were consistent with the kingdom of God Jesus said was breaking into the world. The experience of the resurrection changed them. Their ministry and behaviour was always in keeping with the kingdom of God present in their lives individually and as the church. 

The disciples whole life was first and foremost a spiritual life. Their life in Christ was not limited to one day of the week or a set of activities that made them feel good in the rest of their lives. The Holy Spirit led them to honour God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Their love of neighbour and self flowed out of their ongoing experience of God’s guidance from the time they awoke to the moment they entrusted God with their nightly rest.

The disciples had a deep concern for those who did not know Jesus. Throw them in jail because they talked about Jesus, and they converted the guard. Tell them if they talk about Jesus again bad things will happen, and they said “…we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) Evangelism, the ability to talk to others about Jesus, was not a program or spiritual gift. It was what they did because Jesus had changed their lives and they knew He could change others’ lives as well.

The first Christians healed the sick, made sure people had food, lived in communities where everyone had enough, and attended to those on the margin. They did what they sometimes did not want to do. This included outreach to the Gentile population, after the Holy Spirit told them that God now called such people “clean,” a rather significant and historic revision to Judaic law and tradition. Whether through acts of compassion or calls for justice, the early church offered God’s love, compassion, and power to those who were lonely, suffering, or in need. They loved people, even the ones who threw rocks at them.  

As Christianity declines in the United Kingdom, other theologies and ideologies will fill the void. The Methodists in the UK will become more like the Methodist Church on the continent of Africa, where Christians are distinct because they are in the religious minority. Being distinct is the opportunity before us. We already live in a time when the wisdom of Christ stands in remarkable contrast to the foolishness of the flawed ways our cultures tell people they will find security and happiness. The teaching of Christ and the foundational beliefs of our church make more sense now than ever because of the failure of leaders in society to offer people much other than division, dissension, and fear. A resurrected Methodist Church must offer people a unique, Christ-ordered way of life that is resurrecting to those its hopes to reach and an alternative community within the larger society, just as John Wesley envisioned.

Those first disciples discovered that resurrection was a new state of existence. It was not about working harder to be a little less dead, it was a complete new life. For our church to have new life, we will have to rethink how we form people in the Christian life. Accountable discipleship, once a hallmark of Methodism, must emerge afresh in this time. The more spiritual encouragement and functional accountability people experience, the more progress they make in their sanctification. Our task is to help people live distinctively Christian lives that are attractive to others because of the integrity and love they demonstrate. Prior to Constantine, the early church did this slowly. They were not interested in quick, emotional conversions. People had to commit to the completion of the catechesis. They learned and lived the way of Christ before they were made members of the church. 

There is no structural change that will bring the Methodist Church greater vitality. We can only find it as we seek the power of God and resurrect the function of church, live the resurrection way deeply, and offer Christ and his love and wisdom to the world. 

Grace and peace,

Alan.

Methodism Today: Dot-to-Dot.

As a child my maternal grandmother would join us for Sunday lunch and tea. I always looked forward to these times because she was my ‘Nana’ but also because she would bring a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream to share and a puzzle comic for me to do.

I particularly liked doing the dot-to-dot puzzles, where, if you connected them in the right order, the seemingly random dots on the page would reveal a picture of a car or ship or something.

In many ways the life and mission of the church is like a dot-to-dot puzzle. These ‘dots’ are the unchanging aspects of a churches life and work, like personal invitations to gatherings, breaking bread with a neighbour, singing praise to God, reading his word, offering the life of the world in prayer and offering a captivating message. For many years we have joined this dots together in a particular way to reveal a picture we call Church.

But what if you could join the dots of the puzzle together in a different way to reveal a different picture? If we connect these dots in the “right” order, we just might have an exciting, life-giving movement on our hands. 

Many churches are now quite familiar with a both/and reality, especially with worship. Churches stream worship online while also having people in the pews. On any given Sunday you will find an offering plate but many church members now give online. (Some churches even have contactless card readers to accept donations!) The both/and world is becoming quite familiar, but often overlooked is the responsibility to recognise that both/and is not just about church logistics. Living into this tension elicits a pastoral response. Many are feeling left behind with the quickly changing technological landscape, and with this dramatic change there is grief, those who were on the ‘offertory rota’ no longer have a role to fulfil.

We must hold in tension both the grief and excitement of this new augmented landscape. Many for the first time feel like the church is listening to them. Creating discord servers, developing space in the metaverse, and investing in digital currencies as a means through which the church is serving a new generation, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of those currently in our communities. It’s not about the technology, but it is about the connection (or lack thereof) technologies affords.  As of yet there isn’t an app on the market that can heal a hurting soul who feels forgotten. We must connect the dots between what technology can do and how technology makes us feel. 

In the church there is often a resistance to change and those who resist change will speak about ‘change for changes sake’. I must admit I agree that change for changes sake is not always the best way forward. If change comes it must be adaptive change, joining the dots in a different way to produce a better not just a new picture.

Twenty or so years ago there was a church that had experienced their “golden” years: substantial growth, effective mission, expansion, and influential community leadership. The minister who led during this time of abundance eventually came to the end of their time in the circuit and was stationed elsewhere, and with his successor came great strife. The following years offered division, antagonism, and depending on who you ask, great trauma. Since this shake-up, the congregation seemed to find some reason or another to ask the minister to start packing every four to five years. Why? With each new appointment the next minister was being asked, explicitly or quietly in the hallways in between meetings, to recapture the past. The incoming minister’s vision was never enough. It never could be because repeating the past is impossible. It is not an altogether bad thing to desire the best practices of a fruitful time. Connect-the-dots puzzles are a tried and true children’s exercise, but if you’re hoping to find a connect-the-dots book within walking distance from your home at a corner news shop your walk will probably end in disappointment.  

Congregations tempted to reclaim past mission and vision are in a particularly difficult context today. As I mentioned in my previous article, we are all running the third great Covid marathon; “Nostalgic Scarcity,” the desire to reclaim the past through already limited resources. Nostalgic Scarcity might be an unfamiliar phrase, but “let’s get ‘back to,’” and “This is how we used to do it,” I’m sure will resonate in many churches with a slight traumatic tremor.

Churches who want to ‘get back to’ are stifling this new environment to explore the realities of mission and church today, both physically and digitally. Some members will even go to the extent of removing the dots to prevent a new pattern being formed, the “if you do this I will resign from the church” brigade. Enshrining the past is not a bad thing, but it is the job of museums, not the calling of churches. 

Adaptive change will be waiting for us at the Covid marathon finish line, and with adaptive change there is always a cost. The cost is often loss. Several church members of that church left when the new ministers failed to invest in creating a “get back to” environment; however it seems that the congregation has never been healthier. The worshiping congregation is certainly slimmer, but also more nimble, more missionally engaged, and frankly happy. We must connect the dots between what will bring us into a more fruitful future with the recognition that not everything/one will join us on that journey. 

The good news is that the church is not being called to be innovative, witty or clever. We simply need to be where the people are. We need to connect the dots between the excitement of innovation with the sorrow of grief. We need to connect the dots between the fruitfulness of moving into the future with the loss from adaptive change. We need to connect the dots between innovative technology and the people the technology should serve. When we reconnect the dots of our churches life we will see the shape of a cross. It may have been hard to see at first in the midst of exhaustion and rapid change, but it is our faith that it is there. So, how are you being called to reconnect the dots of your churches life?

Grace and peace to you, Alan.

Being an Attention Seeker-a sermon preached at Kingsbury

Jesus told them a parable to this effect. They ought always to pray and not lose heart. Persist don’t give up. Continue to wrestle with the situation and with God. That is the message of both scriptural passages today.

It’s unusual for the gospel writer to give the meaning of the parable at the outset but perhaps he felt that his readers needed a little help in coming to an understanding of Jesus’ message. Perhaps in our irreligious age we ought to step back and ask a more fundamental question> namely what is prayer. How should we understand it?

In the end prayer is about waiting on God-giving him our full attention.  The orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God-that is prayer. God we believe is infinitely loving and cares for each one of us so we need to pay attention to him and put ourselves in his way.

The French philosopher and writer Simone Weil who was also a High School teacher believed that the study of mathematics or difficult foreign languages like Greek developed the power of attention in students. Consequently such studies were not only helpful to students in their academic and intellectual development but also in their prayer life. This seems odd at first but I’m sure she was on to something. These days’ people find it hard to pay attention to anything for any length of time and they crave instant amusement and complain constantly that they are bored. Perhaps you are bored with me now.

If prayer is to be understood as giving our attention to God we might also consider what prayer is not.

Prayer is not magic or the casting of spells. It’s not about uttering words or phrases to ensure particular outcomes at critical moments. Of course familiar words or phrases uttered at critical moments of crisis can be a comfort to us and have their value but at best they are only a key or a pin number to open up the heart so that it gives its full attention to God.

A famous story told by a French religious figure-obviously it’s their day today-concerns the famous priest known to history as the Cure d’Ars. Walking through his church one day he saw a man kneeling in silence before figure of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Time passed and he became used to seeing the man kneeling day after day before the cross. So he asked him about how he was and what he was doing. He replied; I looks at him and he looks at me and we are happy together. That’s as good an account of prayer as you will find.

Prayer then is giving attention to God. Getting in God’s way and letting God get in our way.

That’s my first point perhaps the key point. The second thing to say is that prayer has a number of aspects:-

Praise: We need always to be praising God for who he is and what he is doing.

Confession: Giving attention to God also means attending to our sins and shortcomings which prevent us from making a full engagement with him.

Thanksgiving-we should always be giving thanks to God for his love and care and his ongoing engagement with us.

Intercession-in which we ask for things. But what things?

You will note, I hope, that when I come here I try and make space in the order of worship for each of these elements. The choice of hymns should also follow this pattern.

All these elements of prayer are needed if we are to have a serious engagement with God who loves us. If some elements are missing we are just left wish wishing and hoping which leaves us feeling disappointed when our wishes don’t come to pass. Always we need to get real-real about ourselves and real about God.

Coming to Church Sunday by Sunday we follow this pattern and this provides us with a template for our own private devotions.

What then thirdly is the use of praying?-to quote the title of a famous book by a Methodist author.

Prayer is good for us because it is the gateway to a holier life and a holy life is a happy life. Holiness and happiness are linked. Prayer is a means to happiness. That’s useful!

Prayer changes things. Not that prayer changes God rather it changes us. Because it changes us it opens up new spaces for God to act in the world – a world so often gripped in a kind of unholy necessity. Prayer changes the world because it changes what is possible for God and for God’s people who act in his name.

When people say, especially in committees: oh but we must be realistic I feel as perhaps you do too the grip of a kind of iron law of necessity. Realistic – well yes- but whose realism are we talking about-our reality or God’s reality. God leads us in prayer to enlarge our ideas about what is realistic in his name.

That’s very useful.

Faced with injustice in the world and with suffering and anguish close to home we must not give up. The cynicism that disguises itself as realism is too easy. Today my diary tells me that it is Freedom Sunday and next week is One World Week. It would be easy to feel cynical and detached in the face of increasing discrimination violence and oppression among the peoples of the world. What can we do? We can call upon God and place ourselves at his disposal. Above all we must persist in prayer as the gospel tells us to do. Be assured says Jesus God will vindicate us speedily.

The key theme in both our Bible readings this morning is struggle. Persistence in prayer as Jesus commends it in his parable and Jacob wrestling with the mysterious “man”. Who is this man? Could it be God? Charles Wesley seemed to think so.

Art thou the man who died for me

The secret of they love unfold

Wrestling I will not let thee go

Till I thy name and nature know.

The struggle you see. To know God and to know his purpose for us through prayer.

But in this struggle we have two great allies:

The Bible in which we learn who God is and how he acts and the Church Christ’s body here on earth present with us in his people and in the signs he gives us most notably the Holy Communion which we are about to celebrate with him, for him and for the world.

You know we did a good thing coming here today. Congratulations to us all for coming together to know God, to seek his will and to enjoy him forever.

Be assured he will vindicate us speedily.