I read an article in The Guardian recently (Sat 27 October, see The sins of the father) about Simon Crowhurst and how he lost his father at sea.
Donald Cowhurst was the final entrant in the Sunday Times' Golden Globe race, a round the world sailing trip with a £5,000 prize - a lot of money in 1968. He was an amateur but he managed to get sponsorship to do it on the basis that he would complete the journey.
At first it went disastrously badly, but then reports began to come in that he was doing much better. However, not far from the final finish line, two policeman appeared at the family home.
It turned out that in reality he had been lying, rather than sailing all around the world, he had decided to loop back to the start. He was only trying to finish the race and save him and his family from bankruptcy. Though in reality his backers were prepared to release him from that and he probably would not have been ruined if he had stuck to the race.
The problem was he cheated, he knew he had cheated, and yet he was on line for winning the race. He knew that as soon as his voyage was checked he would be found out, and therefore he threw himself overboard and drowned.
You can imagine what would happen to the family next. The disgrace at the suicide, the financial ruin, and what that would do to the family.
Except when you read the article you discover that Simon is a research technician at Cambridge, married with children, and when talking about his father seems to have his head firmly on his shoulders.
So what happened? What went right?
Donald Cowhurst did not win the race Robin Knox-Johnston did, however he donated his £5,000 prize money to the Cowhurst family saving them from financial ruin. Simon comments that, "He's an incredibly generous man - a real hero."
The history that would have happened did not happen, Simon Cowhurst and his family were saved by grace. His father did not win the race, but Knox-Johnston who won donated the £5,000 prize money that saved his family.
The term saved by grace generally means little to most people today, but I hope this illustration from real life helps.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Still running for the bus
I was late leaving the house this week, and though I ran at points I was still a distance from the bus stop when I saw the bus driving up. I was not yet late, but the bus was early. I broke my ankle a while ago and it is still not right, and therefore I was not quite quick enough. I did run for the bus, but it drove off just as I got to the back of it.
I was discussing this with a colleague at work and he told me that he no longer ran for the bus. He had run too many times and it seemed like the bus drivers took a perverse pleasure from driving off just as he was almost in reach.
It struck me as an image of lost hope and disappointment.
Bill Clinton famously said, "I still believe in a place called hope." (well he was born there), but sometimes it is difficult to hope.
People talk about clinging onto hope, but the image that we have of hope from the Bible is of something far more certain.
1 Cor 13v7 says about love "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (NIV)
The passage later states, v13 "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (NIV)
Do we have a hope that remains?
There are other famous passages on hope,
Psalm 25
3 No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse. (NIV)
Great as a promise but what exactly does it mean?
Psalm 62 provides an incredible image.
Man is shown as a leaning wall, as a tottering fence. That does not sound like a very hopeful image. Leaning walls and tottering fences have a tendency to fall down.
David though refers to God as my rock, my salvation and my fortress. Those are all images of strength and images of hope.
Hope in itself is not the issue. If I put my hope in the things of this world then I am looking for trouble. If I hope that I will get the bus then too many times I will end up being disappointed.
If my hope is in God then I will never be disappointed.
We can give great rhetoric about how we should not lose hope, about how we should always keep running for that bus, always keep believing. My friend is being quite sensible though, don't put your hope in something that is going to disappoint you. Buses and bus drivers are not great things to put your hope in.
There is and there has to be something more. Don't put your hope in the number 20 bus, put it in your rock, your salvation and your fortress.
Don't place your hope in buses, place your hope in God.
I was discussing this with a colleague at work and he told me that he no longer ran for the bus. He had run too many times and it seemed like the bus drivers took a perverse pleasure from driving off just as he was almost in reach.
It struck me as an image of lost hope and disappointment.
Bill Clinton famously said, "I still believe in a place called hope." (well he was born there), but sometimes it is difficult to hope.
People talk about clinging onto hope, but the image that we have of hope from the Bible is of something far more certain.
1 Cor 13v7 says about love "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (NIV)
The passage later states, v13 "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (NIV)
Do we have a hope that remains?
There are other famous passages on hope,
Psalm 25
3 No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse. (NIV)
Great as a promise but what exactly does it mean?
Psalm 62 provides an incredible image.
3 How long will you assault a man?
Would all of you throw him down—
this leaning wall, this tottering fence?
4 They fully intend to topple him
from his lofty place;
they take delight in lies.
With their mouths they bless,
but in their hearts they curse.
Selah
5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. (NIV)
Man is shown as a leaning wall, as a tottering fence. That does not sound like a very hopeful image. Leaning walls and tottering fences have a tendency to fall down.
David though refers to God as my rock, my salvation and my fortress. Those are all images of strength and images of hope.
Hope in itself is not the issue. If I put my hope in the things of this world then I am looking for trouble. If I hope that I will get the bus then too many times I will end up being disappointed.
If my hope is in God then I will never be disappointed.
We can give great rhetoric about how we should not lose hope, about how we should always keep running for that bus, always keep believing. My friend is being quite sensible though, don't put your hope in something that is going to disappoint you. Buses and bus drivers are not great things to put your hope in.
There is and there has to be something more. Don't put your hope in the number 20 bus, put it in your rock, your salvation and your fortress.
Don't place your hope in buses, place your hope in God.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Though he slay me
Job 13v15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;
I will surely defend my ways to his face.
One lesson I have learned in life is that some things have unexpected consequences. You take a path and it does not always take you where you expected it to take you. Another lesson that is obvious but that I struggle to learn is that even though this happens on a regular basis, I often fail to learn from it, and instead like the goldfish perpetually swimming around the same bowl, I'm still surprised.
Theology matters, by this I do not mean academic theology, but instead what we really believe about God, and what we believe we are here on earth for.
If you believe that God is a man with a big smile on his face who put us on earth to be happy, you are going to have severe problems with reality.
If you believe that God is a strict puritanical God who does not like people to have fun, and put us on earth to do worthy things then it is not likely that you are going to be much fun to be around.
If you believe that God is distant, then most likely while he is far away you are not going to take much notice of what He would think about your behaviour if He was closer by.
As human beings it is quite normal to like pleasure and want to avoid pain. Given the choice between a well paid job, a happy family, a nice house and trying to survive in a slum we would pick the former, and because we would do so we would expect that if we follow God and are obedient that God would do so to.
Solomon was a good boy and he got everything. David well, he misbehaved a bit but the Psalmist became Israel's great King, who thought he could get away with murder. Abraham was blessed materially, so was Jacob, so was Joseph (eventually).
God is nice and he likes us. All true, well depending on your definition of nice, but that does not mean he wants us to be happy - as if God's sole purpose in existing was to make mankind happy.
The problem is with this theological outlook, is that good fathers do not want their children to simply spend the rest of their lives bouncing on daddy's knees going gurgle gurgle. A good father wants them to grow up.
Perhaps I need to grow up a bit. I struggle at times and get angry with God because life has not constantly drawn me a happy lot with everything easy. Indeed trying to follow Jesus tends to make life awkward rather than easy. There are choices, there are prices to be paid, there are at times sacrifices.
And for people who have an attachment to the give away God, the idea that I might have to make some sort of sacrifice - that it might not all come easily and ready on a plate for me to bung in the spiritual microwave is a bit of a shocker. I mean Jesus paid the price to give me free entry to the party, an access all areas pass - didn't he? Isn't all I need to do is to take the pre-prepared and warm it up a bit and enjoy?
The problem is that life can be very tough and it does not always have easy happy endings. This real life, not the Waltons.
If we believe too strongly that we are meant to be happy, we can be vulnerable to the temptation that says I must find my happiness elsewhere. Therefore rather than working it through with God, we walk away to find something else to feed on.
It may be cheesy to say that what God gives us satisfies and nothing else can fit that God shaped hole, but in this case it happens to be true. There is no back-up replacement God for those times when the Almighty seems far away - indeed that is exactly what the people of Israel wanted when the demanded a golden calf.
God is a bit far away a bit distant while idolatry and temple prostitution and the like provide instant gratification. However, God is quite clear that there is no place for idols. We come to Christ, and as the famous phrase goes Christ alone. There is no place for substitutes, no easy quick fixes.
The early Christians were known as the people of the way, Jesus did not invite people to an instant destination, but to an onward journey. We are not called to love the world, not called to pitch our tent and build our castle here, we are just passing through. This is not home, this is not our comfort, we are as T. S. Elliot puts it in the journey of the magi.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
There is something haunting in Elliot's words (written following his conversion) it is a recognition that it is not all found in this world. Life is bigger than this life because God is life and He is bigger than this life.
Therefore trying to be satisfied here in the things of this world is not just missing the point, not just bad theology, but mission impossible. It is when we die that we live, it is when we give everything to God, really give everything to God, that we find what we really have - what really matters.
Christian life therefore is also Christian death - the two are not in this case different. It is through not just Christ's death that we find life, but also our own.
The problem is that without faith, without a belief in something more, without belief in God - then it is all so much hocus pocus. We are called to choose a road which is a tough road to travel, a difficult journey. We are called to walk past the thousand stalls of sin that are set to entice us and call us away, to call us to stop the journey and stay where we all - the problem being that if we do so we may never make our final destination.
We live in a world that worships pleasure, and if I am entirely honest, at times that includes me. I want happiness that is here and now, I want the sun to always shine, and I don't want any clouds to spoil it. Yet God calls me to die to self and to truly live.
It is not, in the end, all about my pleasure, though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.
I will surely defend my ways to his face.
One lesson I have learned in life is that some things have unexpected consequences. You take a path and it does not always take you where you expected it to take you. Another lesson that is obvious but that I struggle to learn is that even though this happens on a regular basis, I often fail to learn from it, and instead like the goldfish perpetually swimming around the same bowl, I'm still surprised.
Theology matters, by this I do not mean academic theology, but instead what we really believe about God, and what we believe we are here on earth for.
If you believe that God is a man with a big smile on his face who put us on earth to be happy, you are going to have severe problems with reality.
If you believe that God is a strict puritanical God who does not like people to have fun, and put us on earth to do worthy things then it is not likely that you are going to be much fun to be around.
If you believe that God is distant, then most likely while he is far away you are not going to take much notice of what He would think about your behaviour if He was closer by.
As human beings it is quite normal to like pleasure and want to avoid pain. Given the choice between a well paid job, a happy family, a nice house and trying to survive in a slum we would pick the former, and because we would do so we would expect that if we follow God and are obedient that God would do so to.
Solomon was a good boy and he got everything. David well, he misbehaved a bit but the Psalmist became Israel's great King, who thought he could get away with murder. Abraham was blessed materially, so was Jacob, so was Joseph (eventually).
God is nice and he likes us. All true, well depending on your definition of nice, but that does not mean he wants us to be happy - as if God's sole purpose in existing was to make mankind happy.
The problem is with this theological outlook, is that good fathers do not want their children to simply spend the rest of their lives bouncing on daddy's knees going gurgle gurgle. A good father wants them to grow up.
Perhaps I need to grow up a bit. I struggle at times and get angry with God because life has not constantly drawn me a happy lot with everything easy. Indeed trying to follow Jesus tends to make life awkward rather than easy. There are choices, there are prices to be paid, there are at times sacrifices.
And for people who have an attachment to the give away God, the idea that I might have to make some sort of sacrifice - that it might not all come easily and ready on a plate for me to bung in the spiritual microwave is a bit of a shocker. I mean Jesus paid the price to give me free entry to the party, an access all areas pass - didn't he? Isn't all I need to do is to take the pre-prepared and warm it up a bit and enjoy?
The problem is that life can be very tough and it does not always have easy happy endings. This real life, not the Waltons.
If we believe too strongly that we are meant to be happy, we can be vulnerable to the temptation that says I must find my happiness elsewhere. Therefore rather than working it through with God, we walk away to find something else to feed on.
It may be cheesy to say that what God gives us satisfies and nothing else can fit that God shaped hole, but in this case it happens to be true. There is no back-up replacement God for those times when the Almighty seems far away - indeed that is exactly what the people of Israel wanted when the demanded a golden calf.
God is a bit far away a bit distant while idolatry and temple prostitution and the like provide instant gratification. However, God is quite clear that there is no place for idols. We come to Christ, and as the famous phrase goes Christ alone. There is no place for substitutes, no easy quick fixes.
The early Christians were known as the people of the way, Jesus did not invite people to an instant destination, but to an onward journey. We are not called to love the world, not called to pitch our tent and build our castle here, we are just passing through. This is not home, this is not our comfort, we are as T. S. Elliot puts it in the journey of the magi.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
There is something haunting in Elliot's words (written following his conversion) it is a recognition that it is not all found in this world. Life is bigger than this life because God is life and He is bigger than this life.
Therefore trying to be satisfied here in the things of this world is not just missing the point, not just bad theology, but mission impossible. It is when we die that we live, it is when we give everything to God, really give everything to God, that we find what we really have - what really matters.
Christian life therefore is also Christian death - the two are not in this case different. It is through not just Christ's death that we find life, but also our own.
The problem is that without faith, without a belief in something more, without belief in God - then it is all so much hocus pocus. We are called to choose a road which is a tough road to travel, a difficult journey. We are called to walk past the thousand stalls of sin that are set to entice us and call us away, to call us to stop the journey and stay where we all - the problem being that if we do so we may never make our final destination.
We live in a world that worships pleasure, and if I am entirely honest, at times that includes me. I want happiness that is here and now, I want the sun to always shine, and I don't want any clouds to spoil it. Yet God calls me to die to self and to truly live.
It is not, in the end, all about my pleasure, though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Five loaves and two fish
You just discover that you have five thousand people turn up for lunch and all you have to offer them is five loaves and two fish.
Compared to the challenge the reality is that you have nothing to offer. Five loaves and two fish is not going to go very far.
It looks like everyone is going to have to go home hungry.
Sometimes in life we face big challenges with few resources. It is tempting to look at the problem and write it off as mission impossible without even thinking about it.
David had faced lions before but he had never faced combat with an enemy like Goliath, and Goliath could see the funny side of it and yet....
Gideon had just three hundred men and they were up against the multitudes of the Midianites, and yet....
Daniel was in a foreign land, with foreign God and the lions were feeling hungry and yet....
Miracles are possible.
Jesus manages after a hard day at work - healing and preaching, to feed the five thousand with just five loaves and a couple of fish.
David defeats Goliath.
Gideon beats the Midianites.
Daniel doesn't get eaten by the Lions.
We may not have much to offer. We may face impossible odds, except if God is on our side, the odds don't actually matter.
Five loaves and two fish is enough to feed the five thousand if that is what God intends.
The question is not what do we have, but to stand in the place of faith and hope and love, and listen as Jesus asks you the question what do you have and be prepared to be part of a miracle.
I can't help but notice that at the end their were twelve baskets full of broken pieces. At the end there were not twelve baskets of loaves and fish but of broken pieces.
There is something about miracles that changes everything and that mends that which was broken and breaks that which was not. There is change and there are often broken pieces left over.
Tomorrow we will face challenges that we may feel that we do not have the resources to face, however if God can use five loaves and two fishes to feed five thousand then he can use us and whatever resources we have to do his will.
Compared to the challenge the reality is that you have nothing to offer. Five loaves and two fish is not going to go very far.
It looks like everyone is going to have to go home hungry.
Sometimes in life we face big challenges with few resources. It is tempting to look at the problem and write it off as mission impossible without even thinking about it.
David had faced lions before but he had never faced combat with an enemy like Goliath, and Goliath could see the funny side of it and yet....
Gideon had just three hundred men and they were up against the multitudes of the Midianites, and yet....
Daniel was in a foreign land, with foreign God and the lions were feeling hungry and yet....
Miracles are possible.
Jesus manages after a hard day at work - healing and preaching, to feed the five thousand with just five loaves and a couple of fish.
David defeats Goliath.
Gideon beats the Midianites.
Daniel doesn't get eaten by the Lions.
We may not have much to offer. We may face impossible odds, except if God is on our side, the odds don't actually matter.
Five loaves and two fish is enough to feed the five thousand if that is what God intends.
The question is not what do we have, but to stand in the place of faith and hope and love, and listen as Jesus asks you the question what do you have and be prepared to be part of a miracle.
I can't help but notice that at the end their were twelve baskets full of broken pieces. At the end there were not twelve baskets of loaves and fish but of broken pieces.
There is something about miracles that changes everything and that mends that which was broken and breaks that which was not. There is change and there are often broken pieces left over.
Tomorrow we will face challenges that we may feel that we do not have the resources to face, however if God can use five loaves and two fishes to feed five thousand then he can use us and whatever resources we have to do his will.
Friday, 21 September 2007
Sheep without a shepherd (Compassion 1)
Matt 9v36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (NIV)
One of the things that is fascinating me at the moment is sight - how we see the world and how that impacts how we behave in the world. If we see the car coming we will not step into the road before it. Or if we watch our steps we will not trip on the last step and fracture our ankle, and I wouldn't be sitting her with my leg in a cast.
How we see influences how we behave.
If we see people positively we behave to them in a friendly manner, if we see people less positively then we may feel uncomfortable around them.
It says "When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
I wonder how we would have seen that crowd if we had looked upon them?
The crowds came because Jesus had been teaching and healing. The dead girl, the sick woman, the blind and the mute and every sickness and disease, and so the people were coming to Jesus.
It would have been easy just to see a crowd, more work, hadn't he done enough, wasn't he tired. He comments that,
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
However, this was not a moan of self-pity. The start of Chapter 10, he does something about it, he sends out the 12.
Jesus has compassion, but what does compassion mean? The word used is to have the bowels yearn, to feel sympathy, to feel pity, to be moved. The Jews thought that the bowels were the seat of sympathy. The idea is that this is not just some mental note, some thought of "Oh these poor people." Jesus was physically moved, it was so to speak a gut reaction.
Why was he moved?
He saw them as they were.
The launchpad of his mission (see Chapter 10) was his sense of compassion for the lost. He really did feel their pain, their misery, their suffering.
We see the idea of sheep without a shepherd in terms of leadership, we look at the Pharisees and we see that spiritually speaking they were blind guides and therefore they were unable to lead.
However, if we take a step back we can see the image of a sheep without a shepherd in a different way. The shepherd that Jesus was thinking about was not the sort of one man and his dog, who drives them through the gates to try and win the points. This was the shepherd of the 23 Psalm, which we can believe reflects David's glimpse of God's longing for His people.
The shepherd who cares for the sheep who leads it beside still waters, who brings it into pasture, who protects the sheep from danger, who cares for the sheep, who is even prepared to lay down his life for his sheep. Instead these people are like sheep without a shepherd, they have no one to tell them where the water is, no one to tell them where the good fresh grass is, and no one to protect them when the wild animals attack. Therefore they wander not knowing where to go, and are picked off by the wild animals.
To be a sheep without a shepherd - to be a sheep that no one wants or cares for - is a terrible predicament and Jesus is moved to compassion. He looks at these people and sees them through eyes of love, he identifies with them, and cares for them.
The word compassion comes from the Latin which comes from com meaning together and pati meaning to suffer - therefore to suffer together, to suffer with, or to feel the pain.
As Christians we are called to feel the pain. The together element of it matters, for the first question of compassion is connection, it is a connection with the pain of others and therefore we need to be able to connect, to sense our togetherness.
In Genesis 4 we hear of Cain and Abel. Cain goes out into the field and murders Abel because he is a better man, and God asks him, "Where is your brother?" and Cain lies to God and says, "I don't know, am I my brother's keeper?"
It is the question that humanity has been asking ever since, for if we truly saw each other as brothers and sisters then we would not behave to each other in the manner that we do.
Christianity needs to be a rediscovery of brotherhood, not just of the people within the church, but of everyone. If we just see the world as us and them we will never connect and never truly have compassion.
We live in a world that has been described as tribal, with a culture that is so diverse and fragmented that the "us" in "us and them" can seem incredibly small - and we look after our own.
Jesus calls us to a totally different perspective - not of us and them, but of universal compassion, of universal togetherness.
We live in a world with sheep without a shepherd and it is easy to look at programmes, services, plans and ideas - but if we do so without compassion we have missed the point. We need to be moved by others, we need to feel it in our bowels. The world is lost, Wesley described there as being "here and about ten thousand souls going headlong into hell."
We can celebrate action, but God does not want action heroes, he wants people who see and do, people who feel and act, people who are moved. People who see the suffering around them and are changed, who become people who act. Not because they ought to, but because God's love compels them to act.
Mission begins not with meetings and plan and strategies, but a crazy little thing called love. It all starts with compassion. He took pity on them, He saw their suffering, He felt their pain, and in our disconnected world we need to as well.
One of the things that is fascinating me at the moment is sight - how we see the world and how that impacts how we behave in the world. If we see the car coming we will not step into the road before it. Or if we watch our steps we will not trip on the last step and fracture our ankle, and I wouldn't be sitting her with my leg in a cast.
How we see influences how we behave.
If we see people positively we behave to them in a friendly manner, if we see people less positively then we may feel uncomfortable around them.
It says "When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
I wonder how we would have seen that crowd if we had looked upon them?
The crowds came because Jesus had been teaching and healing. The dead girl, the sick woman, the blind and the mute and every sickness and disease, and so the people were coming to Jesus.
It would have been easy just to see a crowd, more work, hadn't he done enough, wasn't he tired. He comments that,
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
However, this was not a moan of self-pity. The start of Chapter 10, he does something about it, he sends out the 12.
Jesus has compassion, but what does compassion mean? The word used is to have the bowels yearn, to feel sympathy, to feel pity, to be moved. The Jews thought that the bowels were the seat of sympathy. The idea is that this is not just some mental note, some thought of "Oh these poor people." Jesus was physically moved, it was so to speak a gut reaction.
Why was he moved?
He saw them as they were.
The launchpad of his mission (see Chapter 10) was his sense of compassion for the lost. He really did feel their pain, their misery, their suffering.
We see the idea of sheep without a shepherd in terms of leadership, we look at the Pharisees and we see that spiritually speaking they were blind guides and therefore they were unable to lead.
However, if we take a step back we can see the image of a sheep without a shepherd in a different way. The shepherd that Jesus was thinking about was not the sort of one man and his dog, who drives them through the gates to try and win the points. This was the shepherd of the 23 Psalm, which we can believe reflects David's glimpse of God's longing for His people.
The shepherd who cares for the sheep who leads it beside still waters, who brings it into pasture, who protects the sheep from danger, who cares for the sheep, who is even prepared to lay down his life for his sheep. Instead these people are like sheep without a shepherd, they have no one to tell them where the water is, no one to tell them where the good fresh grass is, and no one to protect them when the wild animals attack. Therefore they wander not knowing where to go, and are picked off by the wild animals.
To be a sheep without a shepherd - to be a sheep that no one wants or cares for - is a terrible predicament and Jesus is moved to compassion. He looks at these people and sees them through eyes of love, he identifies with them, and cares for them.
The word compassion comes from the Latin which comes from com meaning together and pati meaning to suffer - therefore to suffer together, to suffer with, or to feel the pain.
As Christians we are called to feel the pain. The together element of it matters, for the first question of compassion is connection, it is a connection with the pain of others and therefore we need to be able to connect, to sense our togetherness.
In Genesis 4 we hear of Cain and Abel. Cain goes out into the field and murders Abel because he is a better man, and God asks him, "Where is your brother?" and Cain lies to God and says, "I don't know, am I my brother's keeper?"
It is the question that humanity has been asking ever since, for if we truly saw each other as brothers and sisters then we would not behave to each other in the manner that we do.
Christianity needs to be a rediscovery of brotherhood, not just of the people within the church, but of everyone. If we just see the world as us and them we will never connect and never truly have compassion.
We live in a world that has been described as tribal, with a culture that is so diverse and fragmented that the "us" in "us and them" can seem incredibly small - and we look after our own.
Jesus calls us to a totally different perspective - not of us and them, but of universal compassion, of universal togetherness.
We live in a world with sheep without a shepherd and it is easy to look at programmes, services, plans and ideas - but if we do so without compassion we have missed the point. We need to be moved by others, we need to feel it in our bowels. The world is lost, Wesley described there as being "here and about ten thousand souls going headlong into hell."
We can celebrate action, but God does not want action heroes, he wants people who see and do, people who feel and act, people who are moved. People who see the suffering around them and are changed, who become people who act. Not because they ought to, but because God's love compels them to act.
Mission begins not with meetings and plan and strategies, but a crazy little thing called love. It all starts with compassion. He took pity on them, He saw their suffering, He felt their pain, and in our disconnected world we need to as well.
Saturday, 8 September 2007
Mercy street
I read in the news today of some women accused of prostitution who had been beheaded in Pakistan by Islamic militants.
When Jesus was confronted with the woman caught in adultery, he said let him who is without sin cast the first stone. The crowd melted away. For they saw in the woman something of themselves, they had all been caught may be not so publicly as the woman they all deserved judgement, they all needed mercy.
Normally I presume that this encounter with Jesus was life changing for the woman. She met Jesus, she was shown mercy and she did leave her life of sin. However, the Bible does not cosily tell us how she gave up her sinful life and lived a saintly life from then on.
We think surely if people encountered the love of God, the mercy of God, then they would change - but that is not always the case. For we have encountered the mercy of God, and how much have we changed?
The truth about God's mercy is that it is based on unconditional love. Jesus showed love not because He was an optimist who thought that every individual who met Him would be changed, but because God shows mercy to sinners with His eyes open - and He gives us the opportunity to change.
Mercy is truly mercy, because it is not based on some certain formula that says mercy means change, mercy is shown to sinners that they might have the opportunity to change - but God knows that does not always happen. God shows us mercy as sinners, far off, dirty, gritty, sinful, and He loves us.
Our faith needs to have a gritty realism to it that faces the reality of life on earth. Jesus came he showed perfect love and yet we crucified Him. He showed mercy and forgave those who sinned against Him, and some were impacted and changed, but some went on to try and destroy His followers.
Some of our ideas of mercy are skewed by images of merciful gods that are not really that merciful. However the facts challenge this, God offers forgiveness and mercy to even those who crucify Him, and He knows full well that they are not all going to suddenly change. Some will, but many will not.
We need to face our own sinfulness, and then receive mercy and the church needs to become a place of mercy. We are called to offer mercy to the perishing - many of Jesus warns will continue to perish and some of whom will persecute us for giving them the good news.
The church needs to become a mercy street, and it is there the reward is - lend and don't expect to get it back. We will have our reward in heaven, mercy often does not get a reward on this earth.
As we are confronted by those whose need for mercy is particularly evident, we need always to remember, as Jesus reminded the crowd, that we are not the morally superior looking onto the inferior but that we are all sinners. We show mercy as people who have been shown mercy. Everyone needs mercy.
When Jesus was confronted with the woman caught in adultery, he said let him who is without sin cast the first stone. The crowd melted away. For they saw in the woman something of themselves, they had all been caught may be not so publicly as the woman they all deserved judgement, they all needed mercy.
Normally I presume that this encounter with Jesus was life changing for the woman. She met Jesus, she was shown mercy and she did leave her life of sin. However, the Bible does not cosily tell us how she gave up her sinful life and lived a saintly life from then on.
We think surely if people encountered the love of God, the mercy of God, then they would change - but that is not always the case. For we have encountered the mercy of God, and how much have we changed?
The truth about God's mercy is that it is based on unconditional love. Jesus showed love not because He was an optimist who thought that every individual who met Him would be changed, but because God shows mercy to sinners with His eyes open - and He gives us the opportunity to change.
Mercy is truly mercy, because it is not based on some certain formula that says mercy means change, mercy is shown to sinners that they might have the opportunity to change - but God knows that does not always happen. God shows us mercy as sinners, far off, dirty, gritty, sinful, and He loves us.
Our faith needs to have a gritty realism to it that faces the reality of life on earth. Jesus came he showed perfect love and yet we crucified Him. He showed mercy and forgave those who sinned against Him, and some were impacted and changed, but some went on to try and destroy His followers.
Some of our ideas of mercy are skewed by images of merciful gods that are not really that merciful. However the facts challenge this, God offers forgiveness and mercy to even those who crucify Him, and He knows full well that they are not all going to suddenly change. Some will, but many will not.
We need to face our own sinfulness, and then receive mercy and the church needs to become a place of mercy. We are called to offer mercy to the perishing - many of Jesus warns will continue to perish and some of whom will persecute us for giving them the good news.
The church needs to become a mercy street, and it is there the reward is - lend and don't expect to get it back. We will have our reward in heaven, mercy often does not get a reward on this earth.
As we are confronted by those whose need for mercy is particularly evident, we need always to remember, as Jesus reminded the crowd, that we are not the morally superior looking onto the inferior but that we are all sinners. We show mercy as people who have been shown mercy. Everyone needs mercy.
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Peer Pressure
Cheshire Chief Constable Peter Fahy spoke about the alcohol related problems that led to the death of Gary Newloves. He decries the alcohol culture of young people and how this leads to anti-social behaviour. He proposes more expensive alcohol, more restraints on the sale and consumption of alcohol.
As a nation we are being changed by circumstances. While some of the suggestions sound very sensible and the call for a national debate is wholly to be welcomed, in that debate some difficult questions need to be asked.
Why is it that our young people go out and get drunk. I was discussing this with my wife. What is it that makes people follow their peer group and what is it that makes them rebel against it.
I was talking about how on alcohol and other matters I rebelled against peer pressure and how can I teach my children to do so, and why did I?
We have a tendency to want to please the people that are important to us. That is what drives children to drink, they want to be seen as someone. They want to be accepted by their peer group.
Why then did I not?
One answer is thatI did. I wanted to be admired by the people who were important to me. The question is who was important to me.
Of course, I could say that God was important to me, and that would be very true. I read the Bible regularly and in that and in prayer I met with God. It was about a personal encounter with the divine who loved me and understood me in a way no one else every could or ever would.
I was accepted, I was forgiven, I was loved. That gives us an incredible freedom, and the power to walk away when everyone else says go.
However, if I was going to say the people who matters to me who I wanted to please it was not those my age at school. I belonged to a loving Christian community who I wanted to please.
Now of course they never saw what went on when I was out with my friends, but they had the Holy Spirit, and I wanted God's blessing on my life. I knew that if I wanted God's blessing then I was not going to get it by doing the things that displeased Him.
When tempted to walk away I thought where do I want to be, where do I want to go. I met wonderful older people who were more alive not just to God but to life, than many of my contemporaries. I met few others who really drew me.
You want to please who you love. If we love God we want to please Him. However the church has a really important role to play as well if we love and we respect each other we can provide tangible encouragement to people not by moaning or decrying but just by loving people and believing the best - by being grace in action.
Perhaps what people need most is people to love them and believe in them, and then they will respond to the power of love, rather than the pressures of the world. The problem is that we need the power of God if we are going to be really effective in standing against the pressures. Of course our love can point people to that source, can point people to God.
As a nation we are being changed by circumstances. While some of the suggestions sound very sensible and the call for a national debate is wholly to be welcomed, in that debate some difficult questions need to be asked.
Why is it that our young people go out and get drunk. I was discussing this with my wife. What is it that makes people follow their peer group and what is it that makes them rebel against it.
I was talking about how on alcohol and other matters I rebelled against peer pressure and how can I teach my children to do so, and why did I?
We have a tendency to want to please the people that are important to us. That is what drives children to drink, they want to be seen as someone. They want to be accepted by their peer group.
Why then did I not?
One answer is thatI did. I wanted to be admired by the people who were important to me. The question is who was important to me.
Of course, I could say that God was important to me, and that would be very true. I read the Bible regularly and in that and in prayer I met with God. It was about a personal encounter with the divine who loved me and understood me in a way no one else every could or ever would.
I was accepted, I was forgiven, I was loved. That gives us an incredible freedom, and the power to walk away when everyone else says go.
However, if I was going to say the people who matters to me who I wanted to please it was not those my age at school. I belonged to a loving Christian community who I wanted to please.
Now of course they never saw what went on when I was out with my friends, but they had the Holy Spirit, and I wanted God's blessing on my life. I knew that if I wanted God's blessing then I was not going to get it by doing the things that displeased Him.
When tempted to walk away I thought where do I want to be, where do I want to go. I met wonderful older people who were more alive not just to God but to life, than many of my contemporaries. I met few others who really drew me.
You want to please who you love. If we love God we want to please Him. However the church has a really important role to play as well if we love and we respect each other we can provide tangible encouragement to people not by moaning or decrying but just by loving people and believing the best - by being grace in action.
Perhaps what people need most is people to love them and believe in them, and then they will respond to the power of love, rather than the pressures of the world. The problem is that we need the power of God if we are going to be really effective in standing against the pressures. Of course our love can point people to that source, can point people to God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)