Years ago people lived in communities (some of which were probably quite dysfunctional) but the masses were not educated. Therefore church had quite an educational feel and tended to be driven from the front.
Today people are educated (though whether mass education today challenges people to think for themselves enough is another question) but most people do not live in communities. Therefore churches today have house groups, and often the stopping for a coffee is seen as important as the service itself.
Our environments effects how we do church, and that is an advantage rather than a reason for concern. Just like the Sabbath was created for man not man for the Sabbath so church was created for man not man for church.
Life is different and therefore people's needs are different, and therefore how we do church will be different. Church must meet people where they are, and church must reflect the environment that it is in.
The problem is that often we try to reflect the world in matters that really only scratch the surface (music style etc.) rather than understanding the drivers and the deeper issues. For instance we live in a more emotional age and therefore you might say that we should be more emotional to follow the style of the age. However, we need to ask deeper questions. An over emphasis on the emotions and on feelings is dangerous in all walks of life. The approach to marriage that says it's all over because I don't feel anything any more is worrying and applied to Christianity as dangerous as it is as applied to the rest of life. We need to exercise discernment in our interaction with our culture.
In a world of feelings then our worship may be more emotional, because that is where we are. However we need to be careful about the dangers that brings about and steer clear of emotionalism. We also need to look at why we are becoming more emotional and address that. Are people looking for something more, are people dissatisfied with cold science and longing for something more - of course they are. We need to recognise we were created to be more than just rational machines! I also think that there are tensions within society that cause cracks and these are shown by a greater amount of emotional expression.
Princess Diana died and the reaction was worrying, but that was ten years ago, and there is a greater awareness today that perhaps we got a little carried away, there is a move towards greater conservatism (though that could prove to be temporary - the exuberant Blair has been replaced by the dour Brown). In the church we too often respond to what has happened, rather than what is happening, we need to be prophetic rather than just historic.
The church needs to meet people where they are, and meet the needs of the contemporary world remembering that the greatest need we have is for God.
Sunday, 15 July 2007
Thursday, 12 July 2007
The Paradox Machine
Okay so this is getting worryingly dominated by Doctor Who at the moment.
At the end of the last series of Doctor Who the Master returned and turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine. The Paradox is that it brings people back to interfere with their own past which means that they should cease to exist. It is therefore a paradox, they should not be there, it should not exist.
By the end of the final episode the earth was practically destroyed millions killed, the whole of Japan wiped out and the Master about to start galactic war. However the people chant the name of the Doctor and he gains the strength to reverse the paradox and therefore time reverses to just before the time the aliens invaded and the future, the destruction, the murder, and all that pain did not happen. Of course the Doctor and the others with him know what has happened but for everyone else it literally did not happen.
It struck me that sometimes we are paradox machines. We do things which we know we should not do. We know that what we are doing is wrong. We know that certain things are wrong, and by like the Pandora's box we open it and taste the forbidden fruit. The problem is that once we do so it brings in it's wake destruction.
The problem is in real life you cannot just reverse the paradox, in real life you cannot turn back the clock and undo the destruction. However much we may want to, however much we may hope and pray that we could. In the media there is something unsatisfying about it as a literary device, because in real life it does not happen.
In real life we are "paradox machines," praising God and doing all the right things, and then yet at times we blow it all. The religious parallels were striking, the Master was smooth talking and convincing, as these baddies often are - and yet he carried with him death and destruction.
Sin is subtle and attractive but deadly. Jesus came to heal a broken world, but the damage sin causes cannot simple be reversed. We and the rest of the world still have to live with the consequences.
At the end of the last series of Doctor Who the Master returned and turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine. The Paradox is that it brings people back to interfere with their own past which means that they should cease to exist. It is therefore a paradox, they should not be there, it should not exist.
By the end of the final episode the earth was practically destroyed millions killed, the whole of Japan wiped out and the Master about to start galactic war. However the people chant the name of the Doctor and he gains the strength to reverse the paradox and therefore time reverses to just before the time the aliens invaded and the future, the destruction, the murder, and all that pain did not happen. Of course the Doctor and the others with him know what has happened but for everyone else it literally did not happen.
It struck me that sometimes we are paradox machines. We do things which we know we should not do. We know that what we are doing is wrong. We know that certain things are wrong, and by like the Pandora's box we open it and taste the forbidden fruit. The problem is that once we do so it brings in it's wake destruction.
The problem is in real life you cannot just reverse the paradox, in real life you cannot turn back the clock and undo the destruction. However much we may want to, however much we may hope and pray that we could. In the media there is something unsatisfying about it as a literary device, because in real life it does not happen.
In real life we are "paradox machines," praising God and doing all the right things, and then yet at times we blow it all. The religious parallels were striking, the Master was smooth talking and convincing, as these baddies often are - and yet he carried with him death and destruction.
Sin is subtle and attractive but deadly. Jesus came to heal a broken world, but the damage sin causes cannot simple be reversed. We and the rest of the world still have to live with the consequences.
Saturday, 30 June 2007
The essential story
Doctor Who is back and is back on form. I had a theory about why Doctor Who became rubbish and disappeared. It was because we no longer really believed in good or evil. We stopped believing in evil, or that there was anything really worth hiding behind the sofa for. Everything was relative, evil was just something that happened when people did not live in good enough conditions. Better housing, a better environment and suddenly everyone would be good. Nothing really mattered, and in a world where nothing really matters it is difficult to have a good yarn, and therefore Doctor Who went down hill. We never really believed in good either that was relative, so try having a story about the battle between good and evil when you don't believe in either, and it is not going to work. Doctor Who never relied on special affects or big fight scenes and therefore it just slowly died, and it was the lack of the story that was the enemy that finally killed off the Doctor.
However, whether or not September 11th changed the world, it and other such events changed our view of the world. Doctor Who disappeared before Kosovo, before the bodies started floating down through Burundi. When we were not really aware of what was happening in the Congo. While we still thought Zimbabwe would sort itself out. While here in the UK violence has increased, so that it is not just over there it is over here again. Till again we believe in evil, till again we believe that there is something worth hiding behind the settee about. J K Rowling has made an incredible success about the battle of good against evil in Harry Potter, and it is a battle where the goodies don't just get away scot free either, but are marked.
To have a good good versus evil story you have to believe in good. It is here again where changing in culture and outlook appear interesting. Both Doctor Who and Harry Potter show a leaning towards ideas of good and heroism that I once thought had disappeared for good in a cynical age. Of course both are family entertainment and have children in mind, there is still much that is unremittingly bleak and dark, where "heroes" just shoot and kill, and it would be very much premature to announce the death of the anti-hero. However there is a resurgence of the idea of goodness and that it might be so to speak a good thing. There is at least a small call to what we might even call traditional morality.
We have lived through the me generation and in one sense looking after yourself is such a part of human nature that it is never going to disappear, but the harshness of some of the self-centredness has been based on the idea that I can get on on my own. I don't need you, you don't need me. I can fight my battles on my own. However when life gets really difficult we turn to others not just because it is the warm and cosy thing to do, but because we have to. We might be a national of individualists but when it comes to fighting something as big of Nazism, you have to work together. When evil is out there and armed and dangerous, you have to alter your behaviour.
One of the interesting questions that is being posed and that I heard on the radio today was the discussion about how much you sacrifice individual freedoms for the interest of collective security. The fact that we live in a world with dangers, with an enemy does have an impact on how we may behave - though we need to ensure that we do not manage to imprison ourselves because of the threats of others.
The world of course has not changed, we have lived in a world of sin since the days of Adam and Eve - there is nothing new under the sun. However the fact that our thinking is in flux matters, really matters. Much of the way that we live is based on the idea that in the end everything will all turn out okay, whatever we do, that life does not really have consequences - that it will be all right on the night.
Car bombs and drunken louts remind us that the reality is very different, that in truth our actions do have consequences and as Iraq demonstrates it is far easier to cause problems than it is to solve them, far easier to set things in motion than to stop them once they are in motion. Our actions do have consequences, the war that we hatch in someone else's country can come home to roost, and of course our actions in terms of pollution and how we treat the planet do have consequences and if we are not careful they can have dire consequences, melting icecaps and rising sea levels and climate chaos.
In the end the battle of good and evil matters because it is the human story and it has consequences. I think sometimes the church has something to blame, we can treat religion as the ultimate panacea - bring it to Jesus and it will all be okay; just believe; just pray - but our actions have consequences. The choices we make matter. There may not be angels and demons on our shoulders shouting or gently reasoning with us to choose a certain direction, but what we do matters - it matters to us and it matters to other people.
Christianity and the church have been seen as irrelevant because the story that we told about good and evil did not matter any more. We lived in a world that not only did not believe in God and the devil, but did not believe in good or evil either, anything went between consenting adults and if you did not like it you could switch over. However we have reaped what we have sowed and perhaps whether or not it makes a difference to people's attitude towards God and Christianity or not, people's attitudes are changing - and as much because of fear as anything else.
History has lessons for us and one of those lessons is that sometimes terrible things can happen, and that once they begin to happen it can be too late to stop them. Events like the French Revolution remind us that nothing is eternal and that sometimes reaping the injustices that we have sown can be a very bitter pill. Mario Antoinette had an idealised peasant village built where she could hide from the world and enjoy the simple peasant life, but it was fantasy, in reality the peasants lived in poverty and many of the city dweller lived in squalor and her rural retreat could not save her from the reality.
Good and evil matter, and therefore Christianity deals with the essential story of humanity, that of the battle between good and evil. This is played out in every aspect of our lives, and that is why morality matters. Easy sex has become part of the British way of life, and sex has become disconnected from marriage, so that the majority of children are born outside of wedlock. The problem is that while easy sex has a certain appeal, the reality that giving in to our passions and desires opens the door to much that is not good. In the end bringing up children and building families and communities is about hard work and self-sacrifice and dedication. The reason why marriage makes sense is that if you cannot commit yourself to someone for life then really you should not be bringing a child into the world, and though your child will be influenced by you and by your genetics, you do not get to choose your child. In the end as the last Harry Potter film finished, the time is coming when we will all have to choose between what is right and what is easy. The time of that choice is now, and indeed is always now.
The reasons why God sets good laws is that we may be blessed by living good lives, but God's laws make sense and can be summed up very simply love God and love one another. In a sense therefore God's rules for our relationships with each other are love. The reason for rules surrounding sexual restraint are because that is the loving thing to do, rather than exploiting and demeaning others.
As Christians we can often become uncomfortable with ideas of goodness. We do not like to teach it in case it makes us out to be boring, or to be the people who like to say no. However if we fail to share what it means to be good, then people will make mistakes and will hurt themselves - and others. People are into experience but the problem is that if we wait to learn from experience we may cause incredible damage both to ourselves and others in the meantime.
The other problem is that when we rely on experience we are limited by our experiences, i.e. we may not know any better, we may lack the empirical data that shows us the other choices that we missed. It is like deciding to go somewhere and not asking for directions but hoping that we will eventually stumble upon where we need to be. We need to take a look at the directions, we need to understand where we are going. The problem is that there are dangerous places, cliffs that we can drop off, bogs that we can sink into, objects that will block our paths - just setting off in hope is not enough. One of the images that I struggle with is the idea that the Bible is a map book, but the image that often we have is that we need to consult it at all times, like something that we carry in a case around our necks. However we know that is not the case, we know the way to go to the shops without needing a map, but there is a reason for that we have been shown, we have learned the way. It is like that with the Bible on much of it we just need to hear and obey, and once we have learned it and obey it we do not need to keep on looking up what to do in a certain circumstance we know because the Bible tells us.
There is a story of goodness and love, we need to learn it by heart, we need it to ring in our ears and to become our story. Not that we have to look at it nervously every day, but that we need to learn to live it out every day. Of course it is not a simple story and therefore we will still learn new things about it and we need to come back to it when fresh experiences challenge or where we find ourselves in uncharted territory. I'm not saying that we do not need to keep learning, of course we do, but we need to learn new things, not just to repeat by rote what we learned in Sunday School. It is about learning new things, and struggling with new terrain.
We live in a world of a battle, where there are real casualties, where what we do matters and has real consequences. In this world Christianity is 100% relevant and it is this message that the church needs to be unafraid to proclaim, it matters, it is the essential story.
However, whether or not September 11th changed the world, it and other such events changed our view of the world. Doctor Who disappeared before Kosovo, before the bodies started floating down through Burundi. When we were not really aware of what was happening in the Congo. While we still thought Zimbabwe would sort itself out. While here in the UK violence has increased, so that it is not just over there it is over here again. Till again we believe in evil, till again we believe that there is something worth hiding behind the settee about. J K Rowling has made an incredible success about the battle of good against evil in Harry Potter, and it is a battle where the goodies don't just get away scot free either, but are marked.
To have a good good versus evil story you have to believe in good. It is here again where changing in culture and outlook appear interesting. Both Doctor Who and Harry Potter show a leaning towards ideas of good and heroism that I once thought had disappeared for good in a cynical age. Of course both are family entertainment and have children in mind, there is still much that is unremittingly bleak and dark, where "heroes" just shoot and kill, and it would be very much premature to announce the death of the anti-hero. However there is a resurgence of the idea of goodness and that it might be so to speak a good thing. There is at least a small call to what we might even call traditional morality.
We have lived through the me generation and in one sense looking after yourself is such a part of human nature that it is never going to disappear, but the harshness of some of the self-centredness has been based on the idea that I can get on on my own. I don't need you, you don't need me. I can fight my battles on my own. However when life gets really difficult we turn to others not just because it is the warm and cosy thing to do, but because we have to. We might be a national of individualists but when it comes to fighting something as big of Nazism, you have to work together. When evil is out there and armed and dangerous, you have to alter your behaviour.
One of the interesting questions that is being posed and that I heard on the radio today was the discussion about how much you sacrifice individual freedoms for the interest of collective security. The fact that we live in a world with dangers, with an enemy does have an impact on how we may behave - though we need to ensure that we do not manage to imprison ourselves because of the threats of others.
The world of course has not changed, we have lived in a world of sin since the days of Adam and Eve - there is nothing new under the sun. However the fact that our thinking is in flux matters, really matters. Much of the way that we live is based on the idea that in the end everything will all turn out okay, whatever we do, that life does not really have consequences - that it will be all right on the night.
Car bombs and drunken louts remind us that the reality is very different, that in truth our actions do have consequences and as Iraq demonstrates it is far easier to cause problems than it is to solve them, far easier to set things in motion than to stop them once they are in motion. Our actions do have consequences, the war that we hatch in someone else's country can come home to roost, and of course our actions in terms of pollution and how we treat the planet do have consequences and if we are not careful they can have dire consequences, melting icecaps and rising sea levels and climate chaos.
In the end the battle of good and evil matters because it is the human story and it has consequences. I think sometimes the church has something to blame, we can treat religion as the ultimate panacea - bring it to Jesus and it will all be okay; just believe; just pray - but our actions have consequences. The choices we make matter. There may not be angels and demons on our shoulders shouting or gently reasoning with us to choose a certain direction, but what we do matters - it matters to us and it matters to other people.
Christianity and the church have been seen as irrelevant because the story that we told about good and evil did not matter any more. We lived in a world that not only did not believe in God and the devil, but did not believe in good or evil either, anything went between consenting adults and if you did not like it you could switch over. However we have reaped what we have sowed and perhaps whether or not it makes a difference to people's attitude towards God and Christianity or not, people's attitudes are changing - and as much because of fear as anything else.
History has lessons for us and one of those lessons is that sometimes terrible things can happen, and that once they begin to happen it can be too late to stop them. Events like the French Revolution remind us that nothing is eternal and that sometimes reaping the injustices that we have sown can be a very bitter pill. Mario Antoinette had an idealised peasant village built where she could hide from the world and enjoy the simple peasant life, but it was fantasy, in reality the peasants lived in poverty and many of the city dweller lived in squalor and her rural retreat could not save her from the reality.
Good and evil matter, and therefore Christianity deals with the essential story of humanity, that of the battle between good and evil. This is played out in every aspect of our lives, and that is why morality matters. Easy sex has become part of the British way of life, and sex has become disconnected from marriage, so that the majority of children are born outside of wedlock. The problem is that while easy sex has a certain appeal, the reality that giving in to our passions and desires opens the door to much that is not good. In the end bringing up children and building families and communities is about hard work and self-sacrifice and dedication. The reason why marriage makes sense is that if you cannot commit yourself to someone for life then really you should not be bringing a child into the world, and though your child will be influenced by you and by your genetics, you do not get to choose your child. In the end as the last Harry Potter film finished, the time is coming when we will all have to choose between what is right and what is easy. The time of that choice is now, and indeed is always now.
The reasons why God sets good laws is that we may be blessed by living good lives, but God's laws make sense and can be summed up very simply love God and love one another. In a sense therefore God's rules for our relationships with each other are love. The reason for rules surrounding sexual restraint are because that is the loving thing to do, rather than exploiting and demeaning others.
As Christians we can often become uncomfortable with ideas of goodness. We do not like to teach it in case it makes us out to be boring, or to be the people who like to say no. However if we fail to share what it means to be good, then people will make mistakes and will hurt themselves - and others. People are into experience but the problem is that if we wait to learn from experience we may cause incredible damage both to ourselves and others in the meantime.
The other problem is that when we rely on experience we are limited by our experiences, i.e. we may not know any better, we may lack the empirical data that shows us the other choices that we missed. It is like deciding to go somewhere and not asking for directions but hoping that we will eventually stumble upon where we need to be. We need to take a look at the directions, we need to understand where we are going. The problem is that there are dangerous places, cliffs that we can drop off, bogs that we can sink into, objects that will block our paths - just setting off in hope is not enough. One of the images that I struggle with is the idea that the Bible is a map book, but the image that often we have is that we need to consult it at all times, like something that we carry in a case around our necks. However we know that is not the case, we know the way to go to the shops without needing a map, but there is a reason for that we have been shown, we have learned the way. It is like that with the Bible on much of it we just need to hear and obey, and once we have learned it and obey it we do not need to keep on looking up what to do in a certain circumstance we know because the Bible tells us.
There is a story of goodness and love, we need to learn it by heart, we need it to ring in our ears and to become our story. Not that we have to look at it nervously every day, but that we need to learn to live it out every day. Of course it is not a simple story and therefore we will still learn new things about it and we need to come back to it when fresh experiences challenge or where we find ourselves in uncharted territory. I'm not saying that we do not need to keep learning, of course we do, but we need to learn new things, not just to repeat by rote what we learned in Sunday School. It is about learning new things, and struggling with new terrain.
We live in a world of a battle, where there are real casualties, where what we do matters and has real consequences. In this world Christianity is 100% relevant and it is this message that the church needs to be unafraid to proclaim, it matters, it is the essential story.
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
I need you like the rain (on a Bank Holiday weekend)
Perhaps the worship leader did not want to go to the church BBQ. Perhaps he wanted a quiet weekend. As the rain poured down, and we sang "I need you like the rain" and I sat there thinking how nice it would be to see the sunshine again, I wondered if anyone else was thinking what I was thinking.
As far as I know there is not a song entitled, "I need you like the sunshine." Now, I know we need the rain, but sitting there on a damp Bank Holiday Sunday morning with things that I wanted to do which involved going outside, I did not particularly feel like I needed the rain. Or rather perhaps I did need the rain, just not here, not now.
Was I therefore trying to say to God, I need you, just not now, not here, not today - dear God please can I have a weekend off??? Today couldn't I have some sunshine....
Some people will be uncomfortable about me saying this, aren't I being slightly silly, a bit ridiculous, a little mocking of things that are spiritual, rather indeed unspiritual. Perhaps I am being slightly provocative, and it's not just that I think we should think seriously about the words that we sing it is something bigger than that.
Jesus came that the relations with Him and the relationships with others that sin has broken might be healed. I once had a boss who commented particularly negatively about some witticism that I had made in a meeting - people had laughed and enjoyed it, and I do not think there had been any negative feedback - it was just that she was rather lacking in the humour department. Her comment was not just that I should not say it, I should not think it. Well she was not exactly what I would describe as a friend, she was a particularly unpleasant boss.
However sometimes Christians can give that impression, don't say it, don't even think about it. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, we do not question the ridiculous - we submit, we love, we trust. What though we end up with is a pale imitation of a relationship. We are called to call God Father, but I can have a joke with my Dad - that is part of having a good relationship. I have said before that there ought to be a programme called Christians do the silliest things, and that is okay. However we need to be able to talk about it, to walk with each other, to travel together and to discuss.
Of course part of the problem is that Jesus did not do ridiculous things, so we do not have examples of how the disciples dealt with Him with spiritual ridiculousness. However Jesus himself had some tough words for the Pharisees and their ridiculous rules and some of that could be seen as mocking the spiritual and quite unspiritual. We know that His language upset them rather. Jesus had a taste for highlighting the ridiculous, for debunking the apparently spiritual. Jesus stood for truth and honesty, and sometimes we need to be more honest.
So God I need you like the sunshine on a bank holiday weekend, but I praise you Lord that you do exist. I need you like the dry ground needs rain. I need you like the plants need sunshine. I need you as a child needs a father.
At times we need to take ourselves rather less seriously. God likes it when we laugh together. Perhaps we need to review of understanding of God, I do not believe that God is the serious school master with a big red pen who delights to mark down our mistakes.
Perhaps He does have a big red pen, perhaps He does mark crosses all over our mistakes, and by it He marks the words, "Paid in full". He has done it because He wants us to live again, to laugh again, to rediscover the joy of living and loving.
As far as I know there is not a song entitled, "I need you like the sunshine." Now, I know we need the rain, but sitting there on a damp Bank Holiday Sunday morning with things that I wanted to do which involved going outside, I did not particularly feel like I needed the rain. Or rather perhaps I did need the rain, just not here, not now.
Was I therefore trying to say to God, I need you, just not now, not here, not today - dear God please can I have a weekend off??? Today couldn't I have some sunshine....
Some people will be uncomfortable about me saying this, aren't I being slightly silly, a bit ridiculous, a little mocking of things that are spiritual, rather indeed unspiritual. Perhaps I am being slightly provocative, and it's not just that I think we should think seriously about the words that we sing it is something bigger than that.
Jesus came that the relations with Him and the relationships with others that sin has broken might be healed. I once had a boss who commented particularly negatively about some witticism that I had made in a meeting - people had laughed and enjoyed it, and I do not think there had been any negative feedback - it was just that she was rather lacking in the humour department. Her comment was not just that I should not say it, I should not think it. Well she was not exactly what I would describe as a friend, she was a particularly unpleasant boss.
However sometimes Christians can give that impression, don't say it, don't even think about it. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, we do not question the ridiculous - we submit, we love, we trust. What though we end up with is a pale imitation of a relationship. We are called to call God Father, but I can have a joke with my Dad - that is part of having a good relationship. I have said before that there ought to be a programme called Christians do the silliest things, and that is okay. However we need to be able to talk about it, to walk with each other, to travel together and to discuss.
Of course part of the problem is that Jesus did not do ridiculous things, so we do not have examples of how the disciples dealt with Him with spiritual ridiculousness. However Jesus himself had some tough words for the Pharisees and their ridiculous rules and some of that could be seen as mocking the spiritual and quite unspiritual. We know that His language upset them rather. Jesus had a taste for highlighting the ridiculous, for debunking the apparently spiritual. Jesus stood for truth and honesty, and sometimes we need to be more honest.
So God I need you like the sunshine on a bank holiday weekend, but I praise you Lord that you do exist. I need you like the dry ground needs rain. I need you like the plants need sunshine. I need you as a child needs a father.
At times we need to take ourselves rather less seriously. God likes it when we laugh together. Perhaps we need to review of understanding of God, I do not believe that God is the serious school master with a big red pen who delights to mark down our mistakes.
Perhaps He does have a big red pen, perhaps He does mark crosses all over our mistakes, and by it He marks the words, "Paid in full". He has done it because He wants us to live again, to laugh again, to rediscover the joy of living and loving.
Friday, 25 May 2007
Send the Bus???
This originates from an exercise in writing a Psalm in church, except the Psalm writing led me to have an idea that was not really a Psalm at all. With apologies to General Booth.
Lord, Send the Bus.
I'm hungry and I'm cold
I feel like I am growing old
I've been waiting here so long
I started to write this song
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
Lord, I am still waiting here
And it feels like a passing year
The battle needs to be won
It's time for me to move on
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
I'm tired of all this waiting
The transport procrastinating
The world seems to be passing me by
It makes me want to cry
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
I have been waiting here so long
Perhaps my method has been wrong
It's time to stop the talking
I'd be better to set off walking
Lord, send me, send me, send me.
We live lives waiting for God to do something, for God to send some magical transport to get us from where we are to where we feel we ought to be or where we are called to be. So we wait at the heavenly bus stop doing nothing but waiting. But God wants us to stop behaving like passengers and start using the transport he has given us and start acting like followers.
Lord, Send the Bus.
I'm hungry and I'm cold
I feel like I am growing old
I've been waiting here so long
I started to write this song
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
Lord, I am still waiting here
And it feels like a passing year
The battle needs to be won
It's time for me to move on
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
I'm tired of all this waiting
The transport procrastinating
The world seems to be passing me by
It makes me want to cry
Lord, send the bus, send the bus, send the bus
I have been waiting here so long
Perhaps my method has been wrong
It's time to stop the talking
I'd be better to set off walking
Lord, send me, send me, send me.
We live lives waiting for God to do something, for God to send some magical transport to get us from where we are to where we feel we ought to be or where we are called to be. So we wait at the heavenly bus stop doing nothing but waiting. But God wants us to stop behaving like passengers and start using the transport he has given us and start acting like followers.
Monday, 21 May 2007
A rose by any other name
Back to Genesis Ch1
Ge 1:5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
In Genesis everything gets given a name, it is not just people who have names but the day and the night. We get to verse five and God starts to give things a name. Pure science can cope with descriptions, but the poet demands words. The omnivorous quadruped is called a rabbit, and things have a greater sense a greater meaning. Every hair on your head is numbered. Not a sparrow falls to the ground but He knows it.
God is a God who watches over His garden and delights over it. We give names to things we value, so people name their cars and assert to them personalities, it is a sign of affectation - if not affection. God does not just look and observe, he gets involved. When we give something a name we enter into a relationship with it, it becomes more real. So God uses words and gives names.
There is something mystical about creation and the relationship that God has towards it. So often we treat the planet like these are just routes to somewhere else, and we spend life travelling to somewhere not knowing that where we are matters. God though gives names like a tourist taking snaps shots. This I call day, this I call night. Like a artist naming his works, this is not just a splash of paint, this is "A Sunflower", "Water Lillies", or a "Madonna Col Bambino"
Names matter, they give the opportunity of distinction and description. The world finds not just a physical but a literary form. It is not just a flower, it is a rose.
" What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;" Romeo and Juliet.
But if Juliet could only call Romeo, him over there, and could not have nouns and descriptors then the whole of the play might be spent in trying to describe Romeo so that he could be identified. Of course if we did not have variety, if everyone did look just the same then it really would be very difficult to identify who they were. Names give us language they enable us to communicate and interact.
Of course the problem is that God did not call day, he called it something else in a language that we do not entirely understand or is perhaps beyond language, since of course there was no man to hear God's utterances.
Words matter, the gospel of John begins, "In the beginning was the Word". Words have a certain significance. Words matter, God says let there be light and there is light. Words matter in our relationship with one another, and words matter in our relationship with God.
We live in a world created by the Word, we need to start talking God's language.
Ge 1:5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
In Genesis everything gets given a name, it is not just people who have names but the day and the night. We get to verse five and God starts to give things a name. Pure science can cope with descriptions, but the poet demands words. The omnivorous quadruped is called a rabbit, and things have a greater sense a greater meaning. Every hair on your head is numbered. Not a sparrow falls to the ground but He knows it.
God is a God who watches over His garden and delights over it. We give names to things we value, so people name their cars and assert to them personalities, it is a sign of affectation - if not affection. God does not just look and observe, he gets involved. When we give something a name we enter into a relationship with it, it becomes more real. So God uses words and gives names.
There is something mystical about creation and the relationship that God has towards it. So often we treat the planet like these are just routes to somewhere else, and we spend life travelling to somewhere not knowing that where we are matters. God though gives names like a tourist taking snaps shots. This I call day, this I call night. Like a artist naming his works, this is not just a splash of paint, this is "A Sunflower", "Water Lillies", or a "Madonna Col Bambino"
Names matter, they give the opportunity of distinction and description. The world finds not just a physical but a literary form. It is not just a flower, it is a rose.
" What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;" Romeo and Juliet.
But if Juliet could only call Romeo, him over there, and could not have nouns and descriptors then the whole of the play might be spent in trying to describe Romeo so that he could be identified. Of course if we did not have variety, if everyone did look just the same then it really would be very difficult to identify who they were. Names give us language they enable us to communicate and interact.
Of course the problem is that God did not call day, he called it something else in a language that we do not entirely understand or is perhaps beyond language, since of course there was no man to hear God's utterances.
Words matter, the gospel of John begins, "In the beginning was the Word". Words have a certain significance. Words matter, God says let there be light and there is light. Words matter in our relationship with one another, and words matter in our relationship with God.
We live in a world created by the Word, we need to start talking God's language.
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Lost in Ibiza?
I was wandering through San Antonio Bay in Ibiza on holiday with the family. We walked past a group of males just as a group of women came up to them. One of the males spoke to the women, "Hello Ladies" he said, but the women just walked off.
What really struck me was the inevitability of the situation, indeed, what made the situation almost tragic was the fact that the guy who said, "Hello Ladies," tone of voice seemed to be a meditation on hopelessness. He knew that he was sober and they were sober and it was not going to happen. He was lost in Ibiza looking for something, he probably would not call it love, but something, and he knew that though he was seeking it there was an inevitability about the fact that he was not going to find it.
We live in a world that is failing by its own standards. Often we try and measure the world by God's standards and the world cannot understand it because it does not understand God's standards. The issue though is that the world is failing by its own standards.
The world says that if you go for it, you will find it. Go out there and get it, but the problem is that those who do go for it - do not get it. The world may deliver for a short amount of time, like the drug dealer who is trying to get you hooked, but it does not deliver in the long term. The Bible warns that, in Proverbs 14
12 There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.
We need to better understand how sin works. If we were dealing with a disease we would look at the infection risks, look at how the virus or other cause of the disease operates and try to work towards a cure. That would appear to be a sensible way to operate. The problem is that many people go into denial and do not accept that they have a problem, which is exactly what happens with sin.
The reason most people are not interested in Christianity is that they do not believe they have a problem. You only need a cure if you have a problem and they do not have a problem. There is the problem of pride. I do not need religion, I do not need God. That is a lie.
I have heard of people dying of treatable cancer because they denied the symptoms, by the time they made it to the doctor it was too late.
We have a problem it is called sin, but there is a cure. Sin causes alienation from ourselves and God and ourselves and each other. There is a cure that offers the opportunity not only for reconciliation with God, but to also start to find reconciliation with ourselves and others.
God has come to us, He has said Hello, He has offered us new life, the question is will we just walk away not interested.
What really struck me was the inevitability of the situation, indeed, what made the situation almost tragic was the fact that the guy who said, "Hello Ladies," tone of voice seemed to be a meditation on hopelessness. He knew that he was sober and they were sober and it was not going to happen. He was lost in Ibiza looking for something, he probably would not call it love, but something, and he knew that though he was seeking it there was an inevitability about the fact that he was not going to find it.
We live in a world that is failing by its own standards. Often we try and measure the world by God's standards and the world cannot understand it because it does not understand God's standards. The issue though is that the world is failing by its own standards.
The world says that if you go for it, you will find it. Go out there and get it, but the problem is that those who do go for it - do not get it. The world may deliver for a short amount of time, like the drug dealer who is trying to get you hooked, but it does not deliver in the long term. The Bible warns that, in Proverbs 14
12 There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.
We need to better understand how sin works. If we were dealing with a disease we would look at the infection risks, look at how the virus or other cause of the disease operates and try to work towards a cure. That would appear to be a sensible way to operate. The problem is that many people go into denial and do not accept that they have a problem, which is exactly what happens with sin.
The reason most people are not interested in Christianity is that they do not believe they have a problem. You only need a cure if you have a problem and they do not have a problem. There is the problem of pride. I do not need religion, I do not need God. That is a lie.
I have heard of people dying of treatable cancer because they denied the symptoms, by the time they made it to the doctor it was too late.
We have a problem it is called sin, but there is a cure. Sin causes alienation from ourselves and God and ourselves and each other. There is a cure that offers the opportunity not only for reconciliation with God, but to also start to find reconciliation with ourselves and others.
God has come to us, He has said Hello, He has offered us new life, the question is will we just walk away not interested.
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