Virtual Methodist

A Timely Psalm...

2012-01-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Last year I said that I would post the weekly responsive Psalms that I regularly draft for use on Sunday mornings, but after a few weeks that petered out because we were using an Advent candle liturgy in the run up to Christmas (and as it was only partly my own work I didn't have the right to post it...)

Anyway, I meant to post last week's, and perhaps will in a week or two, but I got swamped last week and am only now coming up for air... But for various reasons I thought I would post this one a day early.

It's the annual Service for DFCI (Dundonald Family and Community Initiative) our community outreach programme on Sunday morning, come and join us if you are free... This is the Psalm that their director, Sally, asked for this year:

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,

Those whose hope is in the LORD our God,

the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them

the LORD, who remains ever faithful, ever true.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets prisoners free and gives sight to the blind,

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down and watches over the immigrant

He supports and sustains the fatherless and the widowed,

the LORD loves the righteous.

but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The LORD reigns for ever,

His Kingdom endures for all generations.

Praise the LORD.

From Psalm 146: 5-10

The reason I posted it a day early is not only so that I can have a day away from the computer tomorrow, but as I was drafting this in its current form I got an email from another DFCI executive member filling me in on yet another racist attack in Ballybeen where the church and community programme is based. And the words "he frustrates the ways of the wicked" leapt off the screen at me...

Does he?

Then why can cowardly, racist thugs get away with breaking the windows in the house and car of an innocent family, intimidating them out of the home they have invested their life savings in?

Why do the police take 3 days to come out to see the family?

Why do the authorities only offer alternative accommodation in an even more unstable estate?

O Lord uphold the oppressed and frustrate the ways of the wicked...

And show us your people the part we have to play in that!

Selah.

ps. To be fair to the police, I have been told that they initially responded within 30 minutes, but there was no follow up visit until 3 days later, because the community support officers were not in on the Monday and Tuesday...

Sadly, subsequent to me writing this post there has been another attack on the same family involving injury to a child...

The VM Awards for 2011

2011-12-31T09:37:00.000-08:00

Ok… It’s the last day of 2011 and before I head out to perform my last clerical duties of the year, as per the tradition (ie. I did it last year…) I offer you an eclectic set of VM’s Awards of the Year… as if anyone cares…

Anyway, last year kicked off with what was to be my (and many people’s) favourite film of the year – The King’s Speech, in which Colin Firth stammered his way to a p-p-plethora of awards… Still think Helena Bonham Carter was the best thing in it however…

It took until the end of the year however for me to come across my favourite album of the year… it was a Christmas present to my eldest son from some discerning giver… What do you give a jazz trumpet playing teenager with pretensions at being a guitar playing rock god (when not studying for medicine or strutting the stage that is)? – why obviously Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues Live at the Lincoln Centre… Two genuine musical genii sharing the same stage… And as I am eventually carried out of my funeral service (some years from now I hope), I want their version of “Just a closer walk with thee” to be playing through the PA…

Which on a number of levels brings me to my favourite concert of the year… Been to a few different gigs during the year, but given that I’ve been waiting for about 35 years to see him, my favourite of the year had to be Eric Clapton in at the Odyssey in Belfast… He has the stage presence and rapport with an audience of my Uncle Walter (and he’s no longer with us), but Clapton’s playing is absolutely peerless, and that is now one more thing ticked on my bucket list…

All of the above were easy to elevate above their peers this year. Other awards were harder to tease apart… Especially plays… Was deeply disappointed with Jacobi’s Lear earlier in the year at the Opera House, and Branagh/Brydon’s “Painkiller” at the newly refurbed Lyric was funny, but ultimately disposable… So I suppose it should ultimately be between two other Lyric shows, both involving old friends (though that probably wouldn’t sway me), “Faith Healer” or “The Crucible”… Because of my own involvement in the former many years ago I still can’t get any proper objective perspective on it… and it is a hard play to jump up and down about at the best of times as it is mentally and emotionally draining… On the other hand, the opening show in the new Lyric… “The Crucible” directed by Conall Morrison. The reviews were mixed, particularly at the beginning of it’s run, and even when we saw it at the end of it’s run some performances were a little patchy, with a lot of unnecessary stomping and shouting… But it had an emotional energy sadly lacking in the aforementioned Lear… with the use of local accents enabling the obvious resonances with contemporary Irish society to hit home more easily. Also the set seemed as if it had been hewn from the same wood that clads the inside of the main auditorium of the new Lyric. However, ultimately it is the setting of a theatrical experience that makes my favourite play of the year another Arthur Miller play, “Incident at Vichy”. A free performance in the Belfast synagogue by a semi-professional cast as part of the Jews Schmooze Arts Festival, it was a truly challenging, powerful production, and points up the fact that while it is good to have appealing (but expensive) professional theatre spaces, like the Lyric, the Opera House and the new OMAC, some of the most provocative theatre happens in unexpected places… and we need more of that…

Book-wise its been a bit of a dry year… with little to cheer about. My theological reading has been relatively low-brow this year, and, as such my favourite has probably been “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning… It’s not without its faults, but it spoke to where I was at the time I read it and I will be recommending it to people in similar positions in the years to come.

Most of my fictional reading has also been, as usual, complete, unashamed trash… Read “Any Human Heart” at the beginning of the year and “The Shipping News” at the end of it and both left me feeling jaded… Also read Stig Larsson’s second instalment of the “Millennium” trilogy – which I thought was better than the first one, but I didn’t feel strong enough to go straight to the third one… Most of my other reading has been historical fiction, including another by the uncrowned king of the genre, Bernard Cornwell, this time taking a slightly different, more thought-provoking approach in his War of Independence novel “The Fort”. But my favourite was an Amazon recommendation – “The Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield, which was exciting, lyrical and mentally stimulating all at the same time… But by most will be dismissed as a “sword and sandals” pulp fiction novel… sadly.

Which brings me to my penultimate award for this year… for my favourite piece of technology… In a year where I’ve had to replace a lot of bits of technology around our house due to wear and tear, with the usual spiral of comparing prices, technical specs and consumer reviews… my favourite tech purchase wasn’t the PS3 the kids got for Christmas (I haven’t got near that yet), nor my new HTC Desire S smartphone (largely because I’m still not totally happy with the diary function – any suggestions guys?), but my Amazon Kindle… I bought it early this year as I expected to be doing a lot of airtravel, which didn’t actually materialise, and thought that loading books on a single e-reader would be a lot more convenient than taking my customary pile of paperbacks… Now many bibliophiles are very snooty about ebooks… Anne Robinson apparently said last week that "Owning a Kindle is like wearing polyester knickers....." I wonder how she knows. For me, however, its not a case of either/or… I love the feel and smell of books… But the Kindle is just so convenient… And actually, I’ve ended up using it for purposes I hadn’t originally planned, including storing all my documents for meetings, sermons and even radio talks like this… The Kindle I bought was one of the cheaper ones and it has more than paid for itself in saved ink costs through not printing everything… So all in all it was quite a successful purchase, and I’ve sung its praises to so many people I almost feel like asking Amazon for commission, although I do notice that the version I bought, the renamed Kindle Keyboard Wifi is not currently available... So perhaps I'll rein back on my recommendations.

And finally, I come to my single award for Blog of the year – I had multifarious blogging categories last year, but I (like many others it seems) have been paying less attention to my and others blogs this year, so I am making only one recommendation on that front – the VM Blog of 2011 award goes to WhyNotSmile… Not just because she got stroppy when she got an “honourable mention” last year, but because even though her output has dropped (only one post in December - come on), it hasn’t dropped as much as most and it is still guaranteed to encourage what it says in the title… So I hope this virtual award prompts her to start posting again...

So that’s my round-up of 2011… Not a profound way to the end the year… But hey ho… What do you expect from me? At least I didn’t finish the year with some sort of miserablist rant… Let’s leave that to next year...

God bless you all in 2012...

Shalom

Have some Craic this Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Chrismas to all those who have enriched our lives this year and have followed us on facebook and on this blog. Hope God blesses you in the new year and perhaps we'll meet up in the real world and not just on the interweb...

But throughout what remains of this year, and next, wherever you may be and in whatever you face, may you remember that Jesus in Emmanuel - God with us.

Shalom

O Come all you Faithless...

2011-12-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

So we've now finished our look at the so-called "O Antiphons..." with a big help from Maggi Dawn and her translation of this advent liturgy.

Seemingly the Benedictine monks arranged the antiphons so that if you take the first letter of each one in reverse order - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia, they spell “ero cras” – which in Latin means “tomorrow I will come”.

This comes from the time when Christmas Eve was the big celebration of Christ's coming... And indeed in many parts of the world it still is today… Within Britain and Ireland the last vestiges of this is to be found in the Midnight Communion/Mass, which still has an enormous attraction to those who would never normally cross the threshold of a church… Some well lubricated with Christmas spirit… This led one character in the wonderful BBC “Rev” Christmas special to refer to Christmas Eve Communion as “the religious equivalent of a kebab” (do check this episode out – if not the whole series – it will make your Christmas), and frequently it has been said that the only appropriate hymn for this sort of a service is “O come all ye faithless…”

But we’re all faithless, to greater or lesser degrees… Father God alone is faithful… For us to sneer at anyone who regard themselves as regular churchgoers because they go regularly every Christmas, is to display the mentality of the “elder brother” in Jesus’ famous story of the loving Father and his two sons… The Father goes out to meet both of his children, and wants everyone to come in and enjoy the celebration…

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy your celebrations of Christ’s coming… And that you have enjoyed these reflections on the O Antiphons… I said yesterday that maybe I should have a go at translating them. Well, last night in a fit of sleeplessness I did… Here’s my humble offering…

Sapientae
Come, O come, O Wisdom from on high
From you all human foolishness flies;
Breathe your order into chaos as in the beginning
Grant us your vision as you wing your way over all the world.

Adonai
O come, O come, O Adonai, Our Lord
Who revealed himself to Moses in a burning bush
and gave us the Law through him on Mount Sinai
come with your strong arm to rescue and redeem.

Radix
Come, O come, O Shoot from the stump of Jesse,
Before you the rulers of the earth are speechless
To you all the nations will bow in prayer
Come and free us – Hurry to help us.

Clavis
Come, O come, O Key of David,
The sceptre of the House of Israel;
Release the prisoners from their dungeons
And open the gates to our eternal home.

Oriens
Come, O come, O Dawn long longed for.
Sun of righteousness, O light of love,
The glory of eternity breaking into time,
Life driving away the darkness of death

Rex
Come, O Come, O King of all the nations,
Come to grant our hearts’ deepest desire;
The salvation from strife that comes from you alone
The cornerstone upon which true unity is constructed.

Emmanuel
Come, O come, Emmanuel,
God with us – our King and Judge
Our hope and our salvation
Come and rescue us O Lord, Our God.

ERO CRAS – Tomorrow, I come…

Shalom

O Come - Emmanuel

2011-12-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

We are most familiar with this antiphon as the opening verse of John Mason Neale’s stirring advent hymn:

O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Latin 13th century translated by John M Neale (1818-1866)

The interesting thing is that the original Latin makes no reference to Israel, but returns again to the coming King as ruler of the (gentile) nations:

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

Which Maggi Dawn translates:

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

I can’t even begin to speculate why Neale changed the emphasis. Was he a British Israelite? I find suspicions about him being a closet papist in his internet biographies but no reference to such a British Israelite philosophy, although it wouldn’t have been unusual in 19th century Anglicanism…

But the original, medieval version carries no such ideology… It is simply a reiteration of much of what has been said before…

But perhaps nothing new needs to be said after addressing Christ in the initial title of Emmanuel… God with us… Look up Emmanuel on the internet, and you need to be careful what you click on thanks to a certain series of movies in the 1970s.

But Emmanuel… God with us is one of the most powerful Hebrew/Aramaic words in scripture… It has survived translation from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English… And even today it continues to have resonance… It is the title with which I have addressed God in prayer in many circumstances in recent days… with the mother of a terminally ill child, with the parents of a new born baby, with a woman struck dumb by a stroke, with another frustrated at having her life curtailed to her small care-home room by another room, with a man facing a major operation, another facing imminent death… and with numerous lonely people for whom this season brings little by way of comfort and joy…

Jesus is Emmanuel – not just for high days and holidays, but for the dark and difficult days too… The days when the stench of the stable is stuck in your nostrils…

O Come - King

2011-12-22T00:06:00.000-08:00

The antiphon for today is one of those missing from the traditional English version, but in Latin it reads:

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

Maggi Dawn translates it as:

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

While Alan Luff offers this:

O come, the nations' King, impart
To them the longing of their heart;
United us with that cornerstone
In whom the saved are built as one.

Alan Luff (born 1928) translated from Veni Emmanuel © Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Is this version missing from the traditional English version translated by John Mason Neale because the metaphor of Christ’s kingship sits uneasily with our modern democratic mindset? I doubt that given that he did his translation in the 19th century at the height of the British imperialism, when the idea of a Kingdom that embraces all nations might have been easily understood… Even if the Kingdom of God is slightly different from the British Empire… although disentangling one from the other in the hearts, minds and politics of 19th century British church would have been quite difficult… just as the geo-politics of the US, and its “manifest destiny” are dangerously entangled in the missiology of a lot of American churches.
The Kingdom of God will not be coterminous with any earthly kingdom, empire, nation or strategic alliance of nations… It will, one day extend around the globe, and will truly be the Kingdom on which the sun never sets. But when it refers to a Kingdom, lets not confuse it with a constitutional monarchy like our own… If Christ is to be King, then it will not be within carefully legislated parameters. It will not be a dictatorship… But it will not be a populist democracy either, with what is right being determined by what is popular. Its borders will not be marked on a map but on the contours of individual human hearts.
The real reason I think Neale dropped this verse from his version? It’s probably because of the awkward mixed metaphor of kingship and cornerstone… Neither Maggi Dawn’s or Alan Luff’s versions capture my imagination in the way that their readings of other verses do… And that is not me being critical of their creative skills – far from it… perhaps I should do a version of these O Antiphons for myself, just to demonstrate how good the two of them are! It’s simply a lot to cram into 4 short lines… But then, how can you sum up what the Kingdom of God and Christ’s Kingship really means in a few lines?
Dr. S.M. Lockridge takes a wee bit longer than that in the following prayer/poetic sermon… I’ve posted this before but he seemingly preached it many times himself, so that’s fair enough then! Sit back and enjoy… then kneel before the King of the Nations…

O Come - Dayspring

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by your advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Latin 13th century translated by John M Neale (1818-1866)

The only thing that Dayspring means to me is that it is the tradename of a company that has a line of cloying Christian greetings cards for all eventualities... It wasn't until I read the Latin original that I realise it has a clearer meaning:

O Oriens,

splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

Oriens means daybreak, or sunrise... Is it an accident that the ancient writers of this series of songs saved this one for the day before the shortest day of the year and the true beginning of winter? I don't think so...
Maggi Dawn translates this verse with a wee bit more liberty writing:

Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

This obviously draws on that promise in Isaiah that features in the standard set of readings for the 9 Lessons and Carols:

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
Isaiah 9:2 (ANIV)

Jesus went on to claim for himself:

"I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life."

John 8:12 (ANIV)

It's only at this time of year that I see the sunrise... unless I've been working through the night, a la "Singing in the Rain"... I'm not a morning person... But as followers of the light of the world we, in turn are called to be "morning people", sharing the light of light, in the midst of the darkness of death, because Jesus also said...

You are the light of the world...
let your light shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds
and praise your Father in heaven. 

Matthew 5:14, 16 (ANIV)

Selah

O Come - Key of David

2011-12-20T00:59:00.000-08:00

Ooops... This one escaped in the form of an earlier draft that only had the following verse from Neale's translation of the Antiphon for today:

O come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Latin 13th century translated by John M Neale (1818-1866)

As has been my pattern this past week, I had intended to include the original Latin text and Maggi Dawn's stimulating translation.

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Like all the O Antiphons, this one draws on Isaiah's prophecies, in this case:

I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David;
what he opens no-one can shut, and what he shuts no-one can open.

Isaiah 22:22 (ANIV)

Of course all you Revelation junkies out there (and sometimes reading Revelation seems to be a bit of a dangerous drug...) know that John picks up on this image in the letter to Philadelphia where he writes:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David.
What he opens no-one can shut, and what he shuts no-one can open.
I know your deeds.
See, I have placed before you an open door that no-one can shut.

Revelation 3:7-8 (ANIV)

But Jesus at one point layed into the Pharisees saying, among other things:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces.
You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

Matthew 23:13 (ANIV)

The key to God's kingdom has been entrusted to his church (let's not get into an argument about Peter's place in all of this)... But I worry at times that we've become a bit security conscious...
I've got a few elderly members of my congregation, brought up in the more trusting times and environment of the Lower Newtownards in and around the Second World War... no-one had anything worth stealing and they just left their front doors open so their friends, family and neighbours could just wander in and out of their house as pleased them. So nowadays, with the advent of Yale locks, they simply leave their keys stuck in the outside keyhole of their doors most of the day, and see nothing wrong in that...

With the church and its stewardship of the Kingdom of God, I've got a nasty suspicion that we are more like the Pharisees, than those gloriously naive members of my congregation...

And who do we regard as being on the inside and who is on the outside? Recently we gave our youngest son his first housekey, after a few "left on the doorstep" incidents... But are children keyholders in the Kingdom, as Jesus clearly described them to be? And what about the poor, and those who speak up for them - are they best kept on the outside like the protesters outside St. Paul's... being allowed to "occupy" a few square yards of pavement, for a while... Until it becomes economically embarassing?

And what about the "unchurched" (what an awful term) how are we throwing open the doors to the Kingdom to them in ways that doesn't just look like we want their bums to polish our pews and their money to pay for our property expenses?

And with that in mind let me share this petition adapted from a “Prayer for Christmas Morning” by Henry Van Dyke

Close the doors of hate and open the doors of love in our hearts and indeed all over the world,
so that your promise of peace to all people might be fulfilled.

Shalom

ps. Because this fuller reflection has turned up so late tonight, I've put back tomorrow's offering by a few hours...

O Come - Shoot, Root, Rod, Rood, Radish whatever...

2011-12-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

O come, O Rod of Jesse, free
Your own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell your people save,
And give the victory o'er the grave.

Latin 13th century translated by John M Neale (1818-1866)

English is a funny old language. I'm not stupid, I know my Bible and I've got a good working knowledge of the origins and derivations of words in English, yet every time I sing this verse of this advent hymn I have a picture of Jesus laying about him with a big stick, beating the Devil and his demons with this "rod of Jesse".

Of course thats not the intended image. The original Latin of this verse goes:

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,

super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

The modern English word "radish" is derived from the Latin "radix" but it is not this specific usage referred to here (the image of Christ as a small purplish vegetable is no more helpful than that of him as a headmaster's cane!) but rather the general translation as "root"... As Maggi Dawn translates this verse:

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will keep silence,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come, deliver us, and do not delay.

Medieval genealogy, and in many ways the way we lay out "family trees" today, is at odds with the way we talk about our ancestry. We talk about our roots as our predecessors, yet when we draw them out on a family tree our "roots" are at the top of the page... Whereas our shoots (for those of us blessed with children) are lower down the page... When I was doing a family tree recently I discovered that there weren't as many roots in my family as I thought... and that they were somewhat tangled... That could explain a lot, says you...
But in both physical trees and the family variety, both the branches and the roots contribute to the well-being of the plant... Drawing in and creating the nutrients to keep it alive.
Today's Antiphon, emphasises Jesus' rootedness in a specific Jewish family, with royalty running through it's DNA... However, in the days since David it had been seriously pruned back in terms of its power and influence. So much so that Jesus' earthly father may have been descended from David, but he was a working man in a Galilean backwater.
Maggi Dawn reminds us that you should prune roses as if they belonged to your enemy. Cut them back as drastically as you like, they will always re-grow. Indeed the late great Geoff Hamilton of Gardener's World suggested, just go at them with a set of electric shears down to about 2 inches from the ground. That's my sort of pruning. And its the sort of pruning that Isaiah must have had in mind when he wrote:

“A shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his root”.

(Isaiah 11:1)

When the affairs of the house of Jesse seemed at their lowest ebb... that is when God used them for his purposes again. Not as kings or rulers in the worlds way of looking at things but in a way that would change the world forever.
And that's worth thinking about when we, the shoots that have subsequently sprung from (or been grafted into) Jesse's stump (See John 15:1-6 and Romans 11:11-23) feel that we have been pruned back more than we can bear...
Just wait for the spring...

O Come...

Selah

O Come - Lord

2011-12-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

O come, O come, O Lord of might
Who to your tribes on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe

Latin 13th century translated by John M Neale (1818-1866)

The original Latin of this is:

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

Which Maggi Dawn translated as:

O Adonai and Ruler of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and on Mount Sinai gave him your law.
Come, and with outstretched arm redeem us

Maggi keeps the word Adonai in her translation of this verse of the old Advent hymn... The title which we are told was ascribed to God, and used in place of his sacred name of YHWH when the Jewish rabbis were reading from scripture, for fear that they would take God's actual name in vain, leading to the later mix up of the consonants from YHWH and the vowels from Adonai, to produce the composite "Jehovah."

Makes me wonder how many times a pernickety approach to God's law and getting things mixed up have led to a misapprehension, not only of the name or title of God, but his entire character?

I suppose in some ways that is why God in his grace had to reveal himself as the incarnate Word... to flesh out and fulfil the law... And save us, not just from the penalty of the Law, but our tendency to get everything confused...

But 2 millenia on and we're still elevating law over grace... trying to legislate the coming of God's kingdom on earth, whereas we know that his kingdom comes when we bow the knee before Christ as King, as the shepherds and wise men did before the baby of Bethlehem, and then get back off our knees and live out Christ's loving lordship in our everyday lives.

As it says in the last book of the Bible:

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus...

Shalom

O Come - Wisdom

2011-12-17T00:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I shared Maggi Dawn's introduction to the "O Antiphons" better known through the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". However, as I said yesterday, most versions of the hymn omit 2 of the original verses, and we actually begin with one of those missing verses, which Alan Luff recently translated as:

O come, thou Wisdom from on high
Before whom all our follies fly;
Give thy sweet order to all things
As through the world thy prudence wings.

Alan Luff (born 1928) translated from Veni Emmanuel © Stainer & Bell Ltd.

For Latin purists Maggi Dawn posted the original Antiphon as:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

In the modern world we value knowledge and information... and we have never had so much of it at our fingertips, floating around in the ether, ready to download at any time. But Glenn Campbell over at Kilroy Cafe writes:

Society is currently intoxicated with information, thinking that information will solve everything. In fact, information solves nothing! The same problems of the world persist! Certainly, good data is important input to any decision, but data doesn't make the decision; wisdom does. If balanced wisdom isn't there, then the decision will fail no matter how much data you have.

How we use that information is a matter of wisdom... and there doesn't seem quite so much of that floating around. I often wonder what T.S. Eliot would have made of the internet given his famous question...

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

Earlier in the year over on Newsbiscuit I came across this piece:

People with too much wisdom and experience could find themselves redundant in Digital Britain’s new knowledge economy. ‘In the Internet age, when wisdom is just a mouse click away, there’s little demand for people who had to spend their whole lives learning by experience,’ said Gino Spencer, chief evangelist of Zeitgeist Social Media.

The traditional model of obtaining wisdom was a three stage largely manual process that involved huge investment of time and energy. It involved book reading, followed by word of mouth references, recommendations from friends and counsel with a bloke in the pub who knows everything. But the really crazy bit came next, when this heresay data was cross referenced with a period of personal experience.
‘What a palava,’ says Spencer. ‘These days, you can consult your iPad and get instant wisdom.’

It is a spoof, but I think there are people who function like that, and actually in Judeo-Christian tradition however, Wisdom isn't simply a matter of "learning from experience", but rather it is seen as a gift of God. I say "it" but to be more accurate I should say, "she" as Wisdom is a person, an aspect (a FEMININE aspect) of the Divine. In the New Testament this is equated with the Holy Spirit... Suggesting -

1) Wisdom is more than simply Emmanuel "God with us" but is God in us.

2) Perhaps in the macho modern world we need to get in touch, if not with our own feminine sides, we need to get in touch with God's

3) True Wisdom is relational... not simply abstract thought... facts, figures and strategic plans

As James writes:

the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

James 3:17 (ANIV)

I want to download wisdom like that...

O Come - O Come...

2011-12-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

Last year in the run up to Christmas, Maggi Dawn published a series of posts on the so-called "O Antiphons" and in her introduction she said:

"The “O Antiphons” are seven short songs, one of which is said or sung each evening for seven nights before Christmas Eve – the last “octave” or seven days of Advent, 17-23 December. (There are some other traditions in which extra antiphons are inserted – for instance, the Sarum liturgy has eight, and another has twelve). By ancient tradition, the Antiphon for the day was sung before the Magnificat at Vespers, the evening office, and in the Anglican tradition the antiphons are used in Evening Prayer. They weren’t in the Book of Common Prayer, but you can find them in the English Hymnal, and in Common Worship.
Even if you aren’t familiar with the Antiphons, you probably know the song O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel in Latin), which condenses all the antiphons into one Advent hymn.
They are called the “O” Antiphons simply because each one begins with the word “O…” followed by one of the traditional Messianic names drawn from the book of the prophet Isaiah...
The exact origin of the “O Antiphons” is uncertain. They were referred to as early as the 6th century by Christian philosopher Boethius, and were in use in the liturgies of Rome by the 8th century. But it’s evidence of their wide usage in the monastic tradition that suggests they originated in the early centuries of the Christian tradition."

I didn't know any of that. So who says that the internet is a useless, time-wasting tool!?

So, following that ancient tradition I thought that I would reflect on the 7 verses of that hymn as we enter into the final days of Advent and the run up to (or stagger towards) Christmas... "Seven verses?" say you... "I've only ever sung 5!" Well, stick with this series and you too might learn something new... In the meantime, here is a modern instrumental version of this beautiful advent carol, by Casting Crowns, with images taken from the film "The Nativity."

Shalom

Santa, God and Satan

2011-12-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I overheard this conversation which Sally later posted as her fb status update:

Sally: So do you think Santa is a real person?

Ciaran: What?? You can't disprove Santa is real. Well you can, but then you would crush my childhood dreams and I will bring Childline down on your head like a hurricane.

Everyday life in the Campton household.

Anyway, a few days before I overheard another conversation on a bus which included the line:

"I gave up believing in God shortly after I gave up believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy."

I'm sure you've come across similar, and if not, spend 5 minutes looking at the comments on many "Christian" contributions to YouTube or other open-access Christian website.

Such an attitude to the idea of God reflects more on our "consumerist" attitude to God... he's there to bless us and to turn painful experiences (like losing a tooth) into gain (hopefully financial!).

If you want to start debating with someone on the back of statements of this kind then this post by Michael Patton over on Pen and Parchment last March may be of interest... It certainly makes a change from my younger days when it only took Santa to be mentioned in evangelical circles for someone to mount a spiritual high-horse in which the fact that poor old St Nicholas' modern monicker is an anagram of Satan, would be the clinching argument concerning the evils of the modern Christmas, although those arguments are still out there... (everything's out there on the internet if you are prepared to waste time looking for it).

However, perhaps before debating with non-theists about the logical inconsistencies of their Santa/God analogy, we could have a look at how we who claim to be theists, approach God... Because this erroneous understanding of God as a cosmic-Santa, has not arisen purely in the minds of non-theists spontaneously without "cause", but is probably founded on the fact that we in the church often talk about him and treat him in such a way, spending more time on our ~~Christmas~~ prayer lists, than in listening to him... More time trying to get him to work for us than in truly worshipping him...

Perhaps if people outside the church saw us worshipping the God of scripture rather than a God with a fluffy beard who will bless us (or otherwise) on the basis of whether we are naughty or nice then perhaps they might take us, and God, more seriously.

Shalom

ps. Am I the only person in the western world who has never seen "Elf"?

O Come and Behold Who?

2011-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

I originally picked this up at the beginning of the year, but Christmas had been and gone by that stage, and with it the season of carolling (to which most ministers generally respond with a collective sigh of relief). But it has now swung round again and anything that gives us a new angle on overly-familiar songs sung repeatedly over a few weeks is worth thinking about. In this case the word "angle" is particularly apposite.

Now I have repeatedly pointed out some of the political dimensions of the nativity story as we find it in Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, but Esther Addley, on Comment is Free, suggested that some of our favourite carols had political origins too (though perhaps not always quite in tune with the original gospel story). Her account of 'O come all ye faithful' is particularly interesting. I don't know if there is any truth in it, but she suggests that Adeste Fideles, the Latin hymn from which the carol was translated, was not composed by a medieval mystic as was once thought, but by John Francis Wade, a Jacobite loyalist who may have written it as a coded call to arms for those loyal (the "faithful") to the exiled Bonnie Prince Charlie on the eve of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. In those terms, the Bethlehem to which loyalists are summoned can be read as England, while the line translated as "Come and behold him, born the king of angels" may in fact contain a pun on "regem anglorum", the king of the English.
So in this province of ours where many revere a king who was regarded as the Dutch usurper by those Jacobites, there may be a certain irony in the lusty singing of this rebel song...
But then the song the original angels sang outside Bethlehem was an act of open rebellion against the usurping earthly empires...
(My original link to this story was via Burke's Corner, but the original post seems to have disappeared.)

Shalom

Conflicted

2011-11-30T22:14:00.001-08:00

Maybe it is part of my makeup that means I spend so much time sitting on the fence with various issues that I permanently have skelfs in my backside... But yesterday's union protests left me enormously conflicted on many levels.

I suppose a lot of it goes back to a childhood where strikes were always in the news... at first over significant issues like equal work for equal pay, but building through the 70s, culminating in the winter of discontent, with the unions over-reaching themselves and effectively disempowering themselves and the labour party for a generation... Ushering in the Maggot Scratcher with her militant anti-union stance. Her wholesale dismantling of the industrial base of our society may have been inevitable to a certain extent because of the global marketplace, but the main problem was her laissez-faire approach to filling the employment gap. But nature abhors a vacuum and into the economic space stepped the financial, service and public sectors, with the financial sector effectively propping the others up. The construction sector effeectively became a sub-set of the service sector, meeting the needs of wider society for accommodation and/or investment in homes and offices. After the rise of New Labour, which still had a broad commitment to the public sector, but was no more socialist in its economics than Maggie herself, this unsustainable relationship of public,financial and service sectors flourished, until the perfect economic storm hit, with the largely American generated sub-prime mortgages, followed by the almost inevitable Eurozone crisis which was always waiting to happen, due to Germans never having read any Homer, and letting the basketcase that is the Greek economy into the Euro like some latterday Trojan Horse. Whilst neither of these may have been of Britain's making, our financial sector was ridiculously exposed, and since "the City" was our main national form of income, we were royally screwed.

Without the financial sector being bullishly (if not foolishly) confident, the service (construction) and public sectors were always going to be unsustainable in their inflated form. What I'm saying about Britain in general was even more the case with Northern Ireland, with its even more disproportionately large public sector caused by lack of private sector investment due to years of businesses being blown up and potential young entrepreneurs leaving this place in their droves (I suppose it is also applicable to the Republic of Ireland to a certain extent, although their buy-in to the financial boom was against the background of never having a large industrial base to begin with).

Now, me giving anyone a potted history of the recent economic history of our country is a bit rich given that I can barely balance my own chequebook, but it serves as the background for the following comments, and my current sense of internal conflict.

I am inherently socialist in my outlook. I believe that society is judged by how well it looks after the poor and the marginalised, and that the best way for that to happen is not by a patchy charitable sector, but an efficient public sector, available to all, and in the case of health and education, free at the point of need. This should be funded by progressive taxation, where people pay in proportion to their wealth, and, in the case of education, might include an additional levy on those who have benefitted from the economic uplift that third level education can provide. That way rich people will then pay more but they will also still retain more. The rich will still be richer, just not disproportionately so.

However, that is not the world we live in. Our taxation system is the most Byzantine in the world, where, yes the poorest are removed from income tax altogether, but those just above the taxation threshold pay a disproportionate amount. This is exacerbated by the taxes that everyone pays via VAT, fuel duty etc. Whilst the economic conservatives may believe that this is fair in that everyone is then paying in proportion to what they consume (usually the same people who believed that the poll tax was fair because everyone paid the same), it disproportionately affects the poor, for whom the purchase of essentials includes a high level of indirect taxation. And don't get me started on the "well if the poor didn't drink, smoke and gamble so much" brigade...

We have a government (and a general population) who aren't really prepared to pay for the public sector. I recently came across this piece from America on what not to do if you hate taxes. The details may differ this side of the Atlantic, but the principle is the same, indeed there are probably many more than 102 things, given our more developed welfare state. But without wholesale taxation reform and a "can't pay/won't pay government and society in general, the public sector was bound to be squeezed in the current economic downturn. The public sector IS disproportionately large here (or rather the private, or to be even more specific, manufacturing sector is disproportionately small) and there are parts of it that are outrageously bureaucratic, over-staffed, unproductive and risk-averse. However, let us remember that those who work in the public sector did not create the economic mess we are in (just as they didn't create the economic boom that went before). As the many FB status updates put it "Remember when Teachers, Civil Servants, Policemen, Ambulance staff, Nurses, Midwives, Doctors and Fireman crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither."

The fact that a bunch of millionaires sitting in Downing Street decide that because their mates in the City have banjaxed the economy means that public services, supporting the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, need to be cut sticks in my craw. The public sector DOES need reform, and by that I mean cuts, not just a shuffling of expenditure, but it should be done with an eye on the needs of those it serves.

But that also applies to those working in the public sector. And this is where I was at odds with yesterday's strike. To call the biggest public sector strike since the winter of discontent over the issue of public sector pensions is to fall straight into a trap of the Tories' making, painting public sector unions as being self-serving. The pensions situation is serious, particularly for the low paid (although as someone who is likely to be living on birdseed in my deferred retirement I look on many public sector pension schemes with unalloyed envy) but to be seen to inconvenience many, including hospital patients and children preparing for exams, is a collossal own-goal. It allows the ConDem coalition, to paint the protesters as modern day Red Robbos... wanting a day of work (unpaid) and a gold-plated pension... Nothing could be further from the truth. But that is the way the govenment and predominently conservative press have been portraying it. According to them this one day stoppage not only affected patients, schoolchildren and parents working in the private sector who needed to make alternative childminding arrangements, but will also have had a huge impact on economic productivity and potentially frighten off foreign investors. They didn't suggest that the whole country having a day off to wave flags at William and Kate's wedding would have disastrous effects on the economy... but of course only Union Jack flag waving is good for the country, not Unison flag-waving.

The coverage was entirely predictable and, to a certain extent, deserved. Had the protest been about wider issues regarding how the government are responding to this crisis I may have been in support, but not purely on the issue of pensions. And again, had the union leaders been more creative in their approach I might have been impressed... One facebook friend suggested a Day of Voluntary Action... that might have disarmed the Tories and their media machine... but that would have required too much imagination. And creative imagination is something that seems to be in short supply in both government and union leadership...

Shalom

ps I had no sooner posted this than my attention was drawn to a piece on Jeremy Clarkson's very humorous suggestion (!) that strikers be shot. That settles it... if clarkson is opposed to the strikers I'm definitely on their side... althought the fact that he focuses on their "gilt edged pensions" somewhat makes my point about the public relations disaster this strike has been.

A Scots Grace for Thanksgiving Day

2011-11-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was introduced to this short prayer when I had my first family meal with my Scots inlaws many years ago, in Alloway, Ayrshire, the birthplace of the "ploughman poet" Robert Burns. It is known as the "Selkirk Grace" and is often attributed to Burns, but it was apparently in use well before his birth:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
and some wad eat that want it,
but we hae meat and we can eat,
and sae the Lord be thankit.

So on this Thanksgiving Day, let the Lord be thankit...
Today I especially thank God for all my American friends and hope you have a wonderful day of celebration.

ps. Both today and yesterday's blog-posts have been sitting in my archive as scheduled posts for the past year, and so were as big a surprise to me when they appeared as they may have been to everyone else given my paucity of posts this year. An interesting addendum to them is, however, that this year as part of our community project we are having our own "Ulster-Scots" spin on Thanksgiving for our monthly family tea - Irish Stew followed by Pumpkin Pie or Apple Pie...

Cheers

The Day Before Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

The discipline of a national day of thanksgiving is a worthy one, and an American import that I wouldn't mind us adopting on this side of the Atlantic... so long as it isn't accompanied by the ludicrous overindulgence with which we already mark the birth of Christ.
I don't buy the origin myths of this day, but I suppose it adds a little historical colour (or should that be color in this case) to the whole thing...
Last year a friend posted the following video by Darrell Scott on facebook, at the time I said, being an outider to the USA and its culture I would be wary of posting such a powerful critique of American society at such a precious, if not sacred time for American citizens... but it is a critique that needs to be heard.

Around the same time last year I had been reading Rob Bell's "Jesus Wants To Save Christians", and when reviewing it I said that many had suggested that he should stick to theology and not get political, meaning "not criticise America and its military and economic policies." But as I said at the time, Christianity, the Gospel and the Bible as a whole is intensely political... It may not be party political but it has massive political implications... You need read no further than the story of Jesus upending the tables of the money-lenders in the temple to see that... Although some leaders in a certain cathedral on this side of the Atlantic seem to have missed the implications in that particular story...
So here I am, doing what I said I would feel wary of doing, but feeling a need to tiptoe into the sacred space known as "Thanksgiving" and, if not upend the dinner tables, at least introduce a prophetic (American) voice into the mix.

Selah

Finished with Heresy

2011-11-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back an update appeared on my facebook page announcing that I was reading heresy. This didn't surprise many people.

However, this was actually an automated post via goodreads marking the fact that I had begun reading "Heresy" by S.J. Parris. This had been recommended to me for my Kindle by Amazon probably because of my previous purchase of C.J. Sansom's "Shardlake" novels. There are similarities beyond the format of the authors' names. Both are historical detective stories set against the background of the not-so-merrie England of the reformation era. Sansom's novels are set in the reign of Henry VIII, while this one takes place against the background of the reign of Henry's second, Protestant, daughter, Elizabeth. Both weave their way through the politico-religious world of their day, but whilst there is a depth to the picture painted in Sansom's novels, this one really reads like Shardlake-lite. Even the central character, the excommunicate priest, philosopher, scientist Giordano Bruno, is slightly one-dimensional, despite being based upon a real true renaissance-man. Here is painted as a premature child of the Enlightenment... indeed almost as a prophet, if not patron saint of post-enlightenment scientific secularism, but this is both to raise Bruno to a position he would probably be unconfortable with and to do a disservice to the man, who seems to be a much more complex individual. There is some sense of this anachronistic secularist scepticism, if not atheism, in the character of Matthew Shardlake, but it is not so pronounced, and not all the religious characters are as irredeemably evil, self-seeking or simple-minded as seems to be the case in the world inhabited by Mr. Bruno. The years around the reformation were not exactly the time when Christianity showed itself in its finest light, especially not where the different factions allied themselves with political powers, but there must have been a few righteous believers. You would almost think that this was written by Richard Dawkins under a pseudonym.

I don't look to my leisure reading for "Christian" content, but I also don't particularly want unadulterated anti-Christian polemic. That, combined with the fact that the characters are not so well drawn, nor is the background as richly textured as in the Shardlake stories, and the story drags in places (before accelerating to breakneck speed in the final few chapters), although Sansom could also be accused of that at times, means that I won't be rushing to get the next one - though it might put the time in until another Shardlake story appears.

Shalom

Ever Feel Like you Just want to Run Away and Hide?

2011-11-20T05:05:00.001-08:00

Readers of this blog will know by now that I do a monthly stint on a local independent radio station, offering reflections on the Sunday newspaper headlines and a "Review of the Week" as part of an early morning religious magazine programme, which in its latest incarnation is called "Dawn Reflections".

Today the headlines covered three broad areas depending on what papers you looked at.

The Irish nationals (eg. the Irish Independent and Irish Times) had stories critical of the past and present Irish governments' handling of the economic crisis, and reflected a spirit akin to Fraser from Dad’s Army telling us “We’re all doomed!”

The erstwhile broadsheets of Britain, meanwhile, filled their front pages with photographs of a beturbaned Saif al-Islam Gaddhafi, who was captured yesterday trying to flee Libya... (Although the Observer also found space to highlight a letter from Church of England Archbishops and Bishops critical of the current indescriminate ConDem benefit caps... while the Telegraph led with a broadside from Prince Philip about windfarms - he always was a forward thinking individual!)

Of course the British tabloids were, as usual, more interested in so-called "reality" shows, with both the People and Star covering "I'm a Z-List Celebrity Get me on to this!" and X-Factor... Actually both of them carried ridiculous "shock" headlines concerning young X-Factor contestant Amelia (you'd almost think I knew who she was!), and the risk of her going blind through diabetes... Responsible journalism at its best!!!

However, despite all of this, the story that caught my eye in the newspapers this week was the tale of a prolonged spat between the faceless people behind Facebook and the author Salman Rushdie. Apparently they weren’t allowing him to call himself Salman on his account, insisting that he use his actual first name of Ahmed… Mr Rushdie was a little put out by this and started a vigorous campaign using that other social media site Twitter, ridiculing Facebook’s stance. Then on Tuesday he announced that facebook had backed down and even apologised before reinstating his facebook account. It all seemed a bit bizarre, given that this was the same man who had to go into hiding for a substantial period of time because of a fatwah against him in the wake of his book the Satanic Verses – and here he was involved in a very public struggle over his identity in the virtual world of social media…

I suppose it was particularly important for him because his name is so firmly lodged in people’s consciousness… and as an author it is important that it should remain so… For others, such as myself, our names aren’t quite so important… Everyone gets my surname wrong, calling me Compton, Kempton, Trumpton or Captain instead of Campton… And this week someone called me David Cameron… A different guy ALL together…

But thankfully, in our relationship with God, he not only knows our names, he knows all there is to know about us… Hopefully we will never need to go into hiding as Salman Rushdie once did, or flee the country like Saif Gaddhafi, but the Psalmist tells us that there is no hiding from or fleeing from God…

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

Psalms 139:7 (ANIV)

God knows where we are all the time… without us having to check-in on facebook, and is there with us. He stands with us in times of joy and sorrow, struggle and serenity… in times of hopefulness and anxiety... in the face of economic and health problems...

God said to his people Israel and he says to those who will come to him through Christ:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:1-2 (RSV)

Nothing that lies ahead, personally, nationally, and certainly not as churches, should daunt us, as we stand with the God who knows us each by name…

Faith and Healing

2011-11-07T00:05:00.000-08:00

Aberarder, Aberayron,

Llangranog, Llangurig,

Abergorlech, Abergynolwyn,

Llandefeilog, Llanerchymedd,

Aberhosan, Aberporth...

With this tongue-twisting recitation, or incantation, of Welsh place names, the fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer, begins a harrowing theatrical journey through his story... An exploration of fact, fiction and truth, faith, hope and despair, surrounding Hardy and his unpredictable gift (or was it a curse?); exercising (or exorcising) it in a "ministry without responsibility."

For those who don't know the play, the story is told in a series of 4 monologues by Francis, his "partner" Grace and "manager" Teddy... I won't spoil the story except to say it isn't exactly a comedy... although it's not without it's moments of humour.

23 years ago I had the privilege of playing Frank in an Edinburgh Fringe production, with the woman who went on to be my wife as the director... But it was interesting to see it with my wife for the first time since then at the Lyric on Saturday night, especially since my friend Ali White, played Grace in both productions. She's now the right age... and it would have been interesting to have a go at the part of Frank myself nearly quarter of a century on.

This isn't a review of the production, for a few reasons. First, after a tour with nearly as many stops as Francis Hardy's roadshow, the Townhall Production has come to the end of the line... though why that should be so with the Lyric now dark until the 22nd of November and this production having sold out all the past week I do not know... So there's not much point in reviewing a show that no-one else would have the ability to see except as an act of point-scoring vanity (I had the same problem with the opening show in the refurbished Lyric, my friend Conall Morrison's production of "The Crucible" - although as well as being directed by a friend this production had a number of parallels with "Faith Healer": one of the actors was Lalor Roddy, and it deals with issues of faith and society).

Second, it's always dodgy reviewing anything that a friend is in - if you are overly effusive others will think you are biased, if you are critical then a friendship may be put under strain, and friendship is too important for that (again an issue with "The Crucible")... Although it has to be said that my friends have never accused me of going soft on them... Just prefer to keep such criticism private!

Third, with this show in particular it is hard to dispassionately engage with a performance that you have previously invested so much in, and are inevitably going to see differently from another actor.

If you are interested in a review you can check out Hugh Odling-Smee's (don't agree with all his analysis, but love his line describing the play as "Friel’s thoughts on how Beckett would have written Terry and June") or C.M. McHugh's among others. Suffice to say I enjoyed last night... it was a delight to see Ali again, both on stage and all too briefly afterwards, and a joy to be drawn into the world weaved by Brian Friel's words.

"Too many words" according to one audience member in our Edinburgh production, and there were times when I remember seeing audience members asleep in the small auditorium... though no-one who snored as loudly as one member of the audience at the Lyric on Saturday night. How Lalor Roddy didn't hear him in the last monologue, or if he did, how he was able to carry on, I don't know... Certainly had I been sitting beside him I'd have nudged him awake or smothered him with a coat!

It is a play that demands absolute attention, and they lyrical quality of the dialogue in places could soothe you into sleep... but the rapt attention required is more than repaid by a multi-layered exploration of many issues.

I suppose thinking again about this play so many years down the line, when I have spent most of those years dealing with faith, and even healing (for example last night we had a service of prayer for healing in my own church) it raises many interesting questions for me that may never impinge on others. Personally there is always the danger of seeing preaching and leading worship as "performances" as Francis Hardy would describe them, playing a part and wearing a mask (becoming a hypocrite, or mask-wearer as Jesus criticised the Pharisees) before the congregation rather than exposing my real self and becoming vulnerable. Hardy is protected from that by moving from place to place, never having to make himself responsible to any of his "audience"... Itinerant evangelists (include those who have a healing element to their ministries) may have the "luxury" of this, but not those with the responsibility of an ongoing pastoral ministry.

Francis Hardy makes no claim to any religious affiliation, yet the play does, inevitably, raise many questions regarding faith and religious belief. Where does this healing faith come from and where is it focussed? Is it faith in the healer or faith in faith, or even the healer releasing a faith in themsleves within the person who needs healing? Interestingly no-one makes any mention of God, in a positive or a negative way... I wonder if it were written and set now, would there be more of a new-Atheist polemic on the nature of faith and the fact that God is unnecessary even for "faith" healing. Most orthodox Christian teaching on healing emphasises that the key thing is not the faith of the person asking to be healed, or those praying on their behalf, but the faithful God to whom they are praying... But the results of such prayer sometimes seem to be just as fickle and unpredictable as the healing events in this play. Ultimately we follow Jesus' example in praying "Your will be done", but is "God's will" then the ultimate kop-out?

All the characters in this play agree that healings take place... none are bold enough to claim to understand how. I actually wish some Christian writers on healing were so agnostic...
The healer here has no control over his "gift" and is unable to heal the hurts at the centre of his own life and relationships... instead he reorders his record of reality. Truth and fiction are not always antithetical, but truth should always be grounded in reality. Whilst we should seek to look at things positively, that doesn't mean that we should recast reality in such a way that everything is always good. Francis Hardy's big enemies in this play are the questions that plague him, and that is also the case for many people of faith. Yet faith and doubt are not polar opposites, indeed we should face questions, doubts and problems as aspects of and pointers to truth. That way lies healing and wholeness... And personally speaking when the questions stop and I've got all the answers I think it will be time to bring the curtain down...

Psalm for Sunday

2011-11-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

Didn't actually use a Psalm in worship this morning, but have been lax in posting them the past few weeks, so I have a few in reserve. Here is a paraphrased excerpt from Psalm 43 that we used as our call to worship last Sunday morning:

Send forth your light and your truth;

let them guide me, O Lord my God.
May they bring me to your holy house,
to the place where your people worship.
Then I will come to the mercy seat of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
There I will praise you with stringed instruments,

I will put my hope in you, O God my Saviour.

From Psalm 43:3-5

Selah

Earth Ball

2011-10-31T03:35:00.000-07:00

Ooops sorry. Been neglecting the blog a little lately (a trend I have noted among fellow bloggers too - has the blogging zeitgeist gone?). Keep forgetting even to post my promised Sunday Psalms... I promise I'll try harder in future...

But for the moment here is a wee screen shot of an image I worked up for our Creation themed Cafe Church event last night... It is based on the prose poem “Earth Ball” by Olaf Skarsholt...

Selah.

Do it for the Children...

2011-10-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

Normally when I’m doing a review of the week’s news on Downtown Radio's "Dawn Reflections" I’ll use a story that has been grabbing all the headlines or something suitably quirky. This week I focussed on neither… but rather a disturbing piece that I read earlier in the week.

It concerned child sacrifice in some areas of Uganda, and there is a suggestion that this problem has developed because of an unholy alliance between emerging capitalist prosperity there and unscrupulous supposed witch doctors willing to kill, mutilate or take blood from a child in order to bring others wealth and good health, by burying the resulting fetishes around the building sites of new developments. According to official police figures, there have been about 25-30 cases of child sacrifice per year recently, but local pastors suggest that the figures are actually in the hundreds, with more than 900 cases yet to be investigated by the police because of corruption and a lack of resources.

The stories I read were too disturbing for for me to discuss on radio early on a Sunday morning, or indeed at any time of any day… We need to pray for those working on this problem in that area, so that this cruel superstition might be stamped out...

However, let us not think that this is a problem that is caused by people in Uganda and only affects the people there.

This is a function of an unequal world where we in the prosperous white, western world are quite content to let children in Africa die of preventable diseases and malnutrition, whilst one of our biggest health problems is childhood obesity! This afternoon one facebook friend posted details of the One.org campaign to end famine, which reminds us that 30,000 people have died of famine in Africa because of the ongoing conflict there.

It is the function of a world where we think that children don’t count… where they should be seen but not heard… or if possible not seen either… In its least malignant form this involves people in church tutting and sshshing at mothers with toddlers… But at its worst it has resulted in entrusted to the church and state being physically, sexually and psychologically abused.

It is also the function of a world that is prepared to put future generations in debt to fund their education because we have been so profligate in our generation… where politicians are so pig headed about their constitutional differences that they can’t work together to sort out a coherent transfer system that doesn’t traumatise, stigmatise or inhibit any of our children at the age of 11.

At the height of our troubles, Paul Brady sang

“Up here we sacrifice our children, to feed the worn out dreams of yesterday.”

We are in a different place than when that song was sung, but we are still sacrificing our children. We may sacrifice them in different ways from Uganda, but it is still happening. We are still delivering significant numbers into the hands of paramilitaries, by failing to offer them an inspiring alternative... while others we are offering up as bondslaves to banks for the whole of their working lives…

Jesus said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

It is a good job that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them, because the kingdoms of the earth currently don’t… whether that be Africa or here…

So let us not simply pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven… let us work to make it a reality.

Selah

ps the illustration was taken from a twitpic posted by a friend of mine today.

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

2011-10-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in:

You tend the land and water it
And the earth produces its abundance.
You crown each year with your bounty,
and our storehouses overflow with your goodness.
The mountain meadows are covered with flocks
and the valleys are filled with corn;
Your people celebrate your boundless grace
They shout for joy and sing.

from Psalm 65

Monument or Movement?

2011-10-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

What do the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, the Provincial Government Buildings in Christchurch, New Zealand, the island of Saint Helena and Preston Bus Station all have in common?

Well, apparently this week they have all been included in the World Monuments Fund's 2012 list of historic buildings in danger of loss… The ruins of Coventry Cathedral and Napoleon’s place of incarceration on St. Helena are at risk because of natural erosion, the Christchurch buildings have been endangered because of the earthquake earlier in the year, while Preston Bus Station is being threatened with demolition… It is one of 3 buildings on the list which are described as examples of British Brutalism, along with the Central Library in Birmingham, and the Heywood Gallery in the South Bank Centre in London… Frankly, I think that the only reason for keeping any of those 3 is as a warning to future generations of what NOT to do with thousands of tonnes of concrete.

This list is produced every year, and we’ve had two Northern Irish buildings on it in the past: in 2008 Richhill House in Armagh was included … whilst in 2010 they listed Carlisle Memorial Church, referred to by some of my fellow Methodists as the erstwhile Cathedral of Belfast Methodism (and the photo at the head of this post).

I love old buildings and finding out about their history (as my children know to their cost on holiday) and am appalled at some of the unnecessary cultural vandalism carried out in the name of progress… particularly where that progress involves shopping malls and multi-storey carparks. I’m with Churchill who said “We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us.” However, buildings are not the be all and end all of a society… The mark of a truly great society is not how it maintains its old buildings… but how it looks after its old people… Not how we pour money into monuments to the past, but how we invest in the children who are our future…

And this is even more the case with the church… The world is constantly changing and church buildings quickly become monuments to a bygone age… some more attractive than others… I doubt that anyone would rush to put a preservation order on my church building in Ballybeen… But the church is not supposed to be a monument but a movement… not a building but the body of Christ… And whilst the loss of the spire of Carlisle Memorial may radically alter the Belfast skyline, we need to ask ourselves what positive difference does the continued presence of countless congregations across this land make to the society around us?

Well, this was my last BBC Radio Ulster Thoughts for the Day for a while broadcast this morning... I was only supposed to do September, but due to public demand I was asked back for another week - if truth be told, they wanted me to do another week as I escaped doing one on the Friday before 9/11 as they asked the US Consul to do it instead...

Actually, I wrote this a couple of days in advance as I knew I would be busy all Wednesday and Thursday, and when I sent it to the producer for approval, said that I hoped nothing significant happened in the interim... of course since then we've had the PM getting into trouble over an ill-drafted speech referring to Credit Card debts, Sarah Palin saying that she's not running for President next year, and, biggest of all for all the Apple addicts out there, the death of Steve Jobs...

But I decided to go with this anyway, on the basis that I didn't have any time to write anything else as I hadn't originally planned to be writing anything for Thought for the Day this week!... Ah well, you can't be up to the minute all the time...

Psalm for Sunday - Restore your Vineyard, Lord

2011-10-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Oops... Just realised that I missed out on last week's Psalm for Sunday... Had one all ready for Back to Church Sunday as well... Never mind - I'll post it next year (bet you can't wait)! Anyway, today's one is taken from the Psalm in today's lectionary readings, which all focus on the image of the people of God as a vineyard planted and tended by God ("The Song of the Vineyard" Isaiah 5: 1-7 and "The Parable of the Tenants" Matthew 21: 33-46)... We used this as a Psalm of response after the Old Testament reading.

Restore us, O God Almighty;

make your face shine upon us, so that we may be saved.You brought a vine out of Egypt;

You cleared the ground for it and planted it.

It took root and filled the land;

The mountains were covered with its shade.

But now you have broken down the walls of the vineyard

so that all who pass by pick its grapes.

Return to us, O God Almighty!

Look down from heaven and see our plight!

Watch over this vine,

the plant your right hand has tended.

Your vine is cut down and scorched with fire;

Your name is mocked.

Let your hand rest upon us once more;

revive us, so that we might bring glory to your name.

Restore us, O God Almighty;

make your face shine upon us, so that we may be saved.

Adapted and abridged from Psalm 80:7-19

Rihanna Rumpus...

2011-10-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

One of the unexpected upshots of the unseasonably warm weather here (now sadly departed), is that events in a certain wheat field in rural county Down have made it onto the national and international news… It would never have happened had the late September weather here been its usual cold, wet self, but Rihanna’s disrobing and farmer, Alan Graham, stopping the filming of her pop video, has made it onto the front pages of papers worldwide, TV news programmes and radio discussions, whilst video clips have gone viral all over the internet. Was Mr. Graham too prudish? Is Rihanna, a good role model for young girls. Let's remember after all that this isn't the first time that her video's have got Rihanna into trouble. Is this a deliberate embrace of the policy, no publicity is bad publicity?

Meanwhile, more seriously, but with much less coverage (no intended irony in my choice of words there), in Saudi Arabia, another woman, called Shema, was sentenced to 10 lashes for breaking the ban on female drivers. Thankfully it seems as if that sentence has been commuted by King Abdullah… But in between the tasteless jokes about women drivers, a lot of comment about these two stories coming out of the Islamic world, and indeed in some conservative Christian circles, has suggested that the “lewd” behaviour of pop divas like Rihanna is a direct consequence of western secularism and women’s liberation.

I doubt that it is anything like as simple as that… but it does illustrate twin dangers of extreme religious legalism on the one hand and a tendency towards “anything goes” libertarianism on the other… And I do get slightly uneasy when it is men, whether in the middle east or mid west of America who define what is right in the eyes of God for women to do and not do… Indeed was it not Paul, (someone not usually cited in terms of women’s rights), who said that in Christ there are no males and females, but we are all one… So if these stories have lessons for us it is for both women and men, and how we should use our hard-won freedoms.

But actually there is Biblical warrant for cavorting around to music half-naked. Although it was a man in story I’m thinking about… While bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem King David, no mean musician in his own right, danced around in front of it scantily clad… His wife Michal scolded him, saying that it was no way for a king to behave… David’s response was that he was prepared to be even more undignified than that in praising God… (See II Samuel 6: 12-22)

I doubt that is a line that Rihanna could have used…

But it does remind us that if we see everything that we say and do as a sacrifice of praise and worship to God, that as we seek to act and speak for what is right (right in the eyes of God, that is, not, self-righteous), we should be ready to be out of step with the self-proclaimed moral majority or out of tune with prevailing popular opinion… be that is the tune sung by a pop superstar or even a church choir…

Thought for the Day Radio Ulster Friday 30th September

Remember the Sabbath Day...

2011-09-24T05:35:00.000-07:00

It was this time last year that things started to seriously unravel for me. A lifetime of bad work habits, exhaustion, financial pressures, a backdrop of low-level depression, physical injury preventing me from doing the sport that was my safety valve all combined to create a new experience for me, that of acute anxiety... I'm in a better place this year than last but there is no doubt that the headlong rush from the beginning of September through to harvest is taking its toll, exacerbated by the loss of my wonderful pastoral assistant John Mbayo, who has gone to Edgehill College to be trained for the ordained ministry, and the incapacitation of another colleague. I then read this piece by April Diaz on "Mommy Needs" via Scot McKnight's Weekly Meanderings on Jesus Creed... I may not be a "Mommy" but I recognised the experience:

"My days are out of control recently. I'm working way too much. Way. It's a unique season of ministry where I've finished most days with a list of "to dos" longer than when I've started the day. Every single day has dealt with painful emails, difficult conversations, disappointed followers, misunderstood decisions, and awkward transitions. Literally, every single day. It's a season I hope to leave sooner than later. Tears have defiantly fallen more often than I'd like. I've been hanging on by a thread while passionately casting a vision of a new thing I believe God's calling our community toward [Isaiah 43:18-19]. Most days I feel a complicated tension of intense conviction and a weary beat down."

She goes on to outline how she was forced to take some time out on her own... And whilst factoring in time for family and particularly Sally over the past year has been important in me getting back on track in this past year, me time has also been vital... On a practical level that has meant a negotiation with my employers at the local hospital where I serve as a part-time chaplain, and a return to my old practice of Mondays off...

Cue a discussion last Monday with my wise 10 year old son... When I went to pick him up from school, which is part of my Monday routine, he asked me had I been doing any work. I said no, that I had been having a lazy day, which I had enjoyed even more because it was shaping up to be a very busy week (which it has been).

"Would it not be a better idea to get ahead with the work today then?" Ciaran asked.

And I was forced to explain to a 10 year old that over the last year I had rediscovered that no-matter how much work lies ahead, I needed to get my rest before trying to tackle it, so that I could give it my best... Working from rest rather than resting from work... There will always be more work to do... the to do list never gets any shorter because so many of the things that I do are weekly tasks that need addressed as soon as I have completed the previous one...

"That makes sense..." said Ciaran

And it does...

So when is your sabbath?

Worth your Weight in Gold?

2011-09-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we learned that the Ministry of Defence is considering compensating the families of Bloody Sunday victims… I don’t think any precise sums have been released yet, but it raises the question again of the value of a human life, and whether all victims should be compensated equally – the rock upon which the Eames-Bradley proposals on dealing with the past effectively foundered.
There has been emotive talk of “blood money” - yet this is a phenomenon that goes back to the ancient law code of Hammurabi and beyond…
And like it or not the issue of how much a life is worth comes up in many ways at many times. Where tourists are kidnapped for ransom by Somali pirates… Where footballers are bought and sold in the transfer window at ridiculous prices… Where the unemployment of millions of people and the effect it has not only on their livelihoods, but their personal sense of worth, is regarded as a “price worth paying” for the sake of the economic wellbeing of the country… although those who think in such terms are rarely those who have to pay the price…
There is an exercise, beloved of preachers speaking to children, that calculates the value of a human body when broken down into its chemical elements… Currently that is about £1 in total, or if they are combined into simple substances like soap or sugar or an iron nail, then you might get as much as £10… I then read this week if our component parts were sold off in bits then we would be worth more than 45 million dollars. With our bone marrow alone being worth about 15 million pounds, and our antibodies 4 million. A lung 70,000 pounds, a kidney 60,000 and a heart 40,000. You’ll not be surprised to hear that a young woman is worth much more than a man because her eggs are worth infinitely more than his sperm.

So perhaps the old saying that you feel like a million dollars should be changed to, I feel like 45 million dollars, or 29.32 million pounds at current exchange rates…

But what price can you really put on a human life… No amount of government compensation will adequately pay for the loss of a loved one… Yet on the other hand there are plenty of people around who, for one reason or another feel totally and completely worthless…

Not so, we learn from the Bible – we may be unworthy, but we are far from worthless… indeed we are told that Jesus believed we were worth dying for…

My Thought for the Day on Good Morning Ulster this morning (23/9/2011). Seek it out on the BBC iplayer over the next 7 days if you want... You will hear my dulcet tones at about 24 and 84 minutes in to the programme.

Justice?

2011-09-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

Polls regularly demonstrate that a majority of people in the UK would like to have the Death Penalty for certain types of murder reinstated (although most of those polls tend to be fielded by right-wing newspapers such as the Daily Mail), and there was a recent online petition which reached the threshold for consideration as a parliamentary debate (whoever thought online petitions were a good way to run this country? Given the on-line mood at the moment there may be a parliamentary petition for the reinstatement of the old Facebook format before too long...) but on this issue I am thankful that we live in a representative democracy rather than an absolute one... Especially today in the wake of Troy Davis' execution in Georgia, USA:

Words fail me in the light of such an event - so instead I will use the words of two others. First Albert Camus. I would love to say that I am so well read that I came across these myself, but an old school friend posted them on her facebook status as a thought for today (I nearly stole them for my Radio Ulster Thought for Today tomorrow, but I would have been duty bound to split the fee with her and Albert!)

"But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)

But the most poignant words are Troy Davis' own words from his execution chamber:

"For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls."

Troy Davis (22/9/2011)

Remembering the families of Troy Davis and Officer Mark MacPhail.

Shalom

Sports, Fantasy and Reality

2011-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Being a sports fan is an up and down business… more down than up if you’re an Arsenal fan at the moment… but I won’t rub salt into the gaping wound there… It's even more complicated if you participate in the myriad "fantasy" competitions out there, where you can end up wanting your team to win but not by too much, incase any of your fantasy players incur too many points against them. I'm currently registered with 6 different fantasy leagues - four football (that is real football for all you American readers out there... you know, the sort played with your feet!) and 2 World Cup Rugby ones. However, things have been so busy lately I haven't had time to look next nor near them, except to register the fact that I was effectively bottom in all of them.

However, until Sunday it was a good weekend, for me… Ulster won convincingly against Cardiff in the rain on Friday night… Then Saturday morning Ireland put all their fans through the wringer as they won a close encounter with the Aussies in the World Cup… and Glentoran beat Carrick Rangers by a rugby score that afternoon, despite having a player sent off… I was even doing well in my various fantasy sporting endeavours...

Everything was fine until I mentioned on Downtown Radion on Sunday morning that hopefully Liverpool would beat Spurs that afternoon to make my joy complete… I did have to ope my big mouth didn't I...

But even before that, the much misquoted words of former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly had already come to mind, as I saw the result of the Swansea v West Brom match on Saturday afternoon… Shankly is famous for saying, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, that football is not a matter of life and death, its more important than that… And Swansea’s 3-nil victory this weekend proved that is nonsense… It may be their first ever Premier League victory, but it will mean very little to many of their fans who have been shattered by the loss of the 4 miners in the Gleision Mine disaster just up the road… This follows on the deaths at the beginning of the year of the 29 workers who were killed in the Pike River Mine disaster in New Zealand… And reminds us that, despite the almost miraculous rescue of the 33 Chilean miners little over a year ago, such employment is still enormously dangerous.

It should also make us wary of directly attributing God’s hand to such events… Were the Chilean miners more deserving of rescue than the New Zealand or Welsh ones? Where was God in those events?

He was where he always is. With us in joy and sorrow, in life and death.

The Psalmist says:

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139: 8-12

I pray that those who have lost loved ones in the Gleision Disaster or in any other, non-headline-grabbing, way will know the light of God’s love shining on them… and that you, wherever you feel yourself to be – whether you are on top of the world… or the depths of despair that you will know that God is with you and will never let you go.

Shalom

An adapted version of my "Review of the Week" for Dawn Reflections on Downtown Radio 18/9/2011

I will Exalt You

2011-09-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

This Sunday's lectionary readings includes a portion of Psalm 145. Here's a reblog of a responsive version I wrote a while back:

Leader: I will exalt you, my God and King:
All: I will praise your name for ever and ever.Leader: Every day I will praise you
All: And extol your name for ever and everLeader: Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;

Men: his greatness no-one can fathom.

Leader: One generation will remind the next about your wonderful works;Women: they will tell of your mighty acts.Leader: They will speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty
All: And I will mediate on your miracles

Men: They will tell of the power of your awesome works
All: And I will proclaim your great deeds
Women: They will celebrate your abundant goodness
All: and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
Leader: My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord
All: Let every creature praise his holy name

Psalm 145

Selah

Record Breakers...

2011-09-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the 2012 edition of that perennial favourite the Guinness Book of Records was published, with a huge amount of coverage in the “and finally” section of many news reports… including the news of St. Annes Primary School, Dunmurry and their Bobble Hat record here on Good Morning Ulster. I heard and read about all sorts of strange achievements like Clare Pearce from Peterborough and her 47 inch long cucumber… Chanel Tapper, from California, with the world's longest tongue at 3.8 inches from tip to top lip… and Christine Walton, from Las Vegas, with her 19ft 9 inch fingernails.

Then there is Dr Who fan Rob Hull and his collection of 571 Daleks… I actually think my son Ciaran could give him a run for his money on that one… Or Wei Shengchu who set the record for the most needles on his face with a horrendous 2009. Given I feel weak at the threat of one injection I’m not going to go for that record any time soon. Nor will I challenge for the record of Reverend Darrell Best, who owns, drives and presides over the fastest wedding chapel in the world; a converted fire truck which allows couples to tie the knot whilst careering along the road at 62mph.

Shakespeare tells us that some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them… You could also substitute the word weird for great… But if truth be told the vast majority of people will never be record breakers… No matter how much "dedication" we put into our chosen endeavour, as Roy Castle used to encourage us, we may never make it into the hallowed pages of this book, or indeed "be the best", or "beat the rest" in anything… Most people will not get As, A stars and firsts in exams, nor will most people achieve that most treasured attribute of celebrity…

But such things are not the measure of a person… Even record breakers and celebrities are more than that for which they are famous. Indeed like icebergs, most of who we are is hidden from public view. God alone knows all there is to know about us… He’s counted each hair on our heads… So he’s the only one who knows who is a record breaker on that front. And only he knows all that we are capable of.

Perhaps that is one reason why the preacher Robert Murray McCheyne once said "A man is what he is on his knees before God, and nothing more."

My "Thought for the Day" for Radio Ulster this Morning.

The Butterfly Effect

2011-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

It was supposedly meteorologist Edward Lorenz who first suggested the "Butterfly effect" which, in one version, suggests that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can ultimately cause a hurricane off the coast of America… This has become one of the most widely quoted illustration of that branch of mathematics known as "chaos theory."

Well, if that’s the result of 2 butterfly wings, then is it any wonder that the collapse of 2 skyscrapers in New York have produced such chaos in the past 10 years? It devastated the lives of not only those who lost loved ones that day but in many subsequent events the world over. They may have been called the World Trade Centre, but their effect on world trade was probably greater in their demise than during their existence… their fall was like the beginning of a row of dominoes toppling, with the affects spreading wider and wider with the passing years… The cloud of dust they kicked settled on the lungs of thousands of New Yorkers, and will have health implications for years to come, but the cloud of fear and hatred created has enveloped the world, producing a climate of suspicion which is almost as threatening as environmental climate change. Yet if we as nations and individuals are perpetually terrified then the terrorists (and tabloids) are the winners.

What can we possibly do in the face of all this? Well Jesus at one point said that a mustard seed of faith is powerful enough to move mountains, while Paul tells us that there is an even more powerful force than faith… That while faith, hope and love are enduring gifts, the greatest of these is love… Great enough, we are told by yet another Biblical writer, to cast out all fear.

So in the face of fear, despair and hatred, let us remember that wee butterfly frantically flapping its wings in China, and seek, through even seemingly infinitesimally small acts of faith, hope and love to bring peace in place of chaos.

The Just a Moment for Downtown this morning.

A Psalm for Sunday - on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

2011-09-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

Didn't actually use this today - had planned to read it in the hospital service, but forgot to upload it to my Kindle... That's the problem with technology - the idiots using it! Anyway, here is my take on Psalm 46 for today...

God is our strength and a safe place to hide,

In time of trouble he’s always there to help.

So we will not fear, even if the earth should shake

And mountains be reduced to rubble,

though the seas rage and roar

and cities be swept away in the surge.

Pause

The River of Life sustains the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is within her walls, so she will stand;

God will ride to her rescue with the rising sun.
Nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms fall;
The I AM speaks, and the whole earth dissolves .

The Almighty I AM is always with us;

The God of promise is our protector.

Pause

Come and see what I AM can do,

Sweeping away what we thought to be indestructible.

He will bring war to an end

From one end of the world to another;

Putting weapons beyond use eternally

And disarming hearts and minds.

Stop. Be still. Know that I AM is God;

I will be exalted among all nations,

I will be exalted over all the earth.

The Almighty I AM is always with us;

The God of promise is our protector.

Psalms 46:1-11

Psalm for Sunday (?)

2011-09-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

Most weeks I use some sort of responsive reading as part of the morning service. I adapt these myself (usually) and a couple of people have asked me for copies of them. So, I said I'd post them here under the generic title of "Psalm for Sunday"... Typical that the first time I do so it is actually a psalm... We're using this on in our morning service, which is a Service of Dedication for our Youth Leaders before they take on another year as shepherds of their particular flocks:

See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,

His strong arm stretches out to enforce his rule.

See, he comes to pay-back his enemies as promised,

And to bring rich rewards to his faithful followers.

He looks after his flock like a shepherd:

He enfolds his lambs in his everlasting arms;

He carries them close to his heart,

And gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:10-11

Numbering Days

2011-09-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

Nearly one month on from the riots in England, the repercussions and recriminations are still going on… and there seems to be no clear consensus of what really caused them… Was it a function of social marginalisation, or recreational rioting? A sign of general moral decline or shopping with violence…

Riots can be sparked off by the slightest of things… I’ve even known riots in Belfast kick off because of a football result in Glasgow. But on this day back in 1752 there were apparently riots in many British cities because of a change in the calendar. Britain was one of the last countries to adopt the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian one, and so by that stage Britain was 11 days out of sync with the actual position of the earth around the Sun, and consequently most of the rest of Europe… The solution… just lop 11 days out of the calendar… Hence in 1752 people leapt straight from the 2nd of September to the 14th… Producing the strange anomaly in Ireland that we remember the Battle of the Boyne on the 12th of July when it actually took place on the 1st of July…

But when all this happened many people thought they were being robbed of 11 days from their lives, leading to the rioting and, so I am told, cries of ‘Give us back our 11 days!’

We may look back on such thinking and say “how foolish”, (in the same way that we might be tempted to make glib generalisations about recent rioters) but what if you thought that someone had, arbitrarily, removed 11 days from your life?

The Psalmist in one place asks God to

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

(Psalms 90:12)

whilst elsewhere he says

“Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath.

(Psalms 39:4-5).

Nice cheery thought… but perhaps, just perhaps, if we realised how fleeting our days were on this earth in the light of eternity then we might make the most of each day that we have… Starting with this one… Have a really good day…

My "Thought for Today" on this morning's "Good Morning Ulster" on BBC Radio Ulster. You can check out the audible version on BBC iPlayer - it'll be at about 26 and 86 minutes in on the recording of the 2nd September Show.

Taking Up the Cross

2011-08-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday the lectionary reading from the gospels moved things on from Simon Peter's confession of Jesus as Christ (Matthew 16: 13-20) to the confrontation between Jesus and Simon over the direction Jesus was headed (Matthew 16: 21-28) and Jesus' challenging words:

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

Matthew 16:24 (ANIV)

I've just recently completed Robyn Young's "Templar Trilogy" dealing with the latter years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the downfall of the Templar Order. If you want to read my full review of the final episode "Requiem" you can find it here, but basically all three were a bit of a slog, with the author trying to cover too much in any one book. She does manage to avoid a lot of the conspiracy-theory nonsense that many other "Templar" books are founded on, but she does seem to import a 21st century multi-faith/secularist mindset into the book... obfuscating, for me, one of the most interesting questions of the whole crusading/Christendom projects: that being, how did Jesus' instruction to take up the cross, get corrupted into the blasphemy that was the crusades, which in turn has blighted relationships between Muslim, Christian and Jew for nearly 1000 years (although it should also be remembered that "crusades" were also declared against schismatic/heretic Christian sects such as the Aligenses, and Eastern Orthodox)?
In many ways the "crusading" phenomenon was an example of what would have been the ultimate result of Simon Peter persuading Jesus to abandon his talk about suffering and death and following the expected Messianic path to conquest and power. But Jesus was definite in saying that was the way of the world rather than the way of God...
Yet today we still prefer the way of the world than the way of God... we are more comfortable with the stirring language of crusade than with really embracing the way of the cross… Conquest rather than sacrifice… Seeking power and influence rather than seeking to serve…
We still like the idea of wearing the cross... not necessarily a bright one emblazoned across our chests, but on our lapels and on chains around our necks... all the better if it brings us into conflict with worldly authorities, prompting (spurious) cries of "PERSECUTION!!!!!" and a crusading media campaign by the Christian Legal Centre or others.
Jesus didn't say to his disciples “By the crosses round your neck or on your lapel they shall know you.” He said:

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

John 13:34-35 (ANIV)

Love should be our badge, our symbol… Not wishy, washy hearts and flowers love, but the sort of love that took Jesus to the cross: messy, painful sacrificial love and service.
Its not romantic, or sexy, and it probably won't result in many exciting novels or banner headlines, but such is the real way of the cross.

(An adaptation of part of my sermon last Sunday at Dundonald Methodist)

St Lubbock's Day

2011-08-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is one of the days when we should give thanks for St. Lubbock? Never heard of him? Well there's no point going to look in a dictionary of saints.
Sir John Lubbock was a banker and politician, which in modern eyes might exclude him from sainthood. But in 1871 he introduced the Bank Holidays Act which arranged for additional, so called “bank” holidays on top of the then existing holidays of Christmas Day, Good Friday, November 1st and May 1st. He was fanatical cricket enthusiast and wanted bank employees to have the opportunity to participate in and attend matches when they were scheduled. So, included in the dates of the prescribed bank holidays were the dates when cricket games were traditionally played between the villages near where Sir John was raised. The people of England were so thankful that they called the first Bank Holidays 'St. Lubbock's Days' for a while.
The last Monday of August wasn’t included among the original “St. Lubbock’s Days” but it is a welcome addition, as we teeter on the brink of another few months of hectic activities. Summer breaks are behind most of us and most schools in this part of the world are back tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm usually in the hospital doing a chaplaincy round on a Monday morning, but the admin staff don't come in on a bank holiday and so there are no patient lists produced, which means we don't know who wants a visit from a chaplain and who doesn't. So I'll be making the most of this last breather with Sally and the boys, and I hope you'll do the same.
But even when we do get back into the swing of things lets remember that the principle of taking a regular break from work goes back much further than Sir John Lubbock. Back to the beginning when God created the world. After a hard week’s work God took a day off. And we need days off too. Or perhaps we’re better than God?
So today, and one day in seven, lets rest from our work, so that we can work from our rest.

(This is a revised form of a Just a Moment broadcast on Downtown Radio on 31st August 2009)

Shalom

History and Heroes

2011-08-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the summer on the 4th July we had an Independence Day party. I went dressed as a Native American, and when challenged by an American friend as to what that had to do with American Independence, I said that I was representing the first nations of America. I suppose, on reflection I could have claimed that I was dressed as a participant in the Boston Tea Party, one of the mythic events that primed the pump for revolution... yet one which is badly misunderstood by the vast majority of Americans, and misappropriated by Sarah Palin and her posse of right wing nihilists (or theocrats depending on how you read it). It was priceless recently seeing her display her complete ignorance of that other iconic revolutionary event, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and her acolytes' cack-handed attempts to change history, or at least what passes for history on Wikipedia. However, as Bernard Cornwell points out in his (as always) scrupulous historical notes at the end of his most recent book, "The Fort" (which in my usual thrawn style I started to read on the 4th July), perhaps her version is no more inaccurate than the one most people are familiar with, shaped by Longfellow's famous poem, and that, when looked at in the round, Revere is possibly a less suitable subject for national celebration than many others, including Longfellow's own maternal grandfather.
I'm a big fan of Cornwell's writing, being drawn into them by the Sharpe saga, although usually, a quick assessment of who the hero is, and a broad historical knowledge of the period in question will generally appraise you of the likely outcome long before the end of his books.
But with this one there is no singular hero, indeed he offers a perspective from both sides in this small but significant conflict in north eastern Massachusetts, a few years after the Boston Tea Party and midnight ride etc. I knew nothing of the events or outcome of this campaign before reading this, so I won't spoil it for anyone else, except to say that Cornwell paints the picture masterfully as ever, although it probably ends a bit precipitously for my liking.
Throughout it all, however, he explores the nature of heroism. Normally he writes historic fiction, using real people and events as the backdrop against which his larger than life heroes act. Here most of the characters are painted as real people, and it becomes clear that heroism in such a situation, even in the heightened form of historical fiction, is a much more complex thing. There are heroes and villains on both sides in any conflict, and sometimes the same person can be both hero and villain... and heroism is not always about feats of arms.
We need to be wary of hero-worship, and the warping of historic truth to meet contemporary needs. Longfellow's poem, written at the time of the American Civil War, owed more to contemporary political and social issues than historical accuracy. It happens all the time, everywhere, be it the USA with their War of Independence mythology, France, where I read the book and their Revolutionary myths, Protestant Ulster with its warped understanding of 1690 and all that, or the myths and heroes that underpin the founding of the Irish Republic and NI. And God help anyone who messes with the myth... Some of the online reviews of this book have been scathing, either because it is slower in pace and less "boys-own" than many of Cornwell's other books, or, especially with American readers, because they perceive him to be sullying the memory of Revere and trying to turn the Redcoats into heroes. Yet he does no such thing. He paints the people on both sides of the conflict (including the 2 most famous characters on either side, Paul Revere and a young Sir John Moore) as flawed human beings... which is what they, and all our heroes, whoever they may be, are...
"All history is biased." my first history teacher told us "All history is, to a greater is lesser extent, fictional. The secret of good history is identifying the bias and separating fact from fiction." Is that always possible? Maybe not, but it is a useful watchword, especially when dealing with the dangerous phenomenon of heroes.
And it raises the issue of who are our contemporary heroes (and villains)? With the current conflict in Afghanistan there is a tendency to talk about soldiers (particularly dead soldiers) as heroes... indeed a major charity in the UK operates under the label of "Help for Heroes." I'm happy to support such a charity, without feeling that I am supporting the military action, which I don't... but I'm not sure about the label of "heroes." And at a local level, in areas such as the one I work in the heroes of young men can often be the hard men and paramilitary leaders that are afforded a wary respect in the estate... The only alternative role models seem to be multi-millionaire Premier League prima-donnas and bling-wearing gangsta-rappers... which are no more laudable.
Within the church there are those who argue that there need to be more positive male Christian role-models... and they are identifying a real problem, however I am uneasy about some of the macho-posturing offered as a response to this. Within the church and society as a whole we need to seriously wrestle with who we want to hold up as heroes and role-models... And as we look at history (including Biblical and Church history) we need to help people understand that things were just as complex back then as they are now... Things were very rarely black and white with heroes and villains... and they aren't now...
Ciaran loves the Horrible Histories books and TV programmes - what am I talking about, our whole family loves them, and that's why we're going to the live show next month - And they are great because they not only go into the gory and gungy history beloved of young boys, but because they tell you all the things that the received histories hide away... That the good guys weren't always that good and the bad guys weren't quite so bad...
Perhaps that's the approach to history we should have rather than one built around heroic fictions.

Watch this Space...

2011-08-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Have been off the blog for quite a wee while now, and it seems like others have been shaking off the blogging bug in my absence (including the always stimulating Zoomtard). However, my absence has been due to a combination of technical problems and life/work balance, but things are beginning to even out again and (at present) my intention is to carry on. I could well be posting into a virtual vacuum given that I have been away so long, but never mind... 90% of my blogging has always been about personal therapy anyway.
After such an absence I've got a number of pieces that are likely to come thick and fast now, largely prompted by reading and viewing experiences over the past 2-3 months. I've just posted a review of the first of my holiday reading on Goodreads/Facebook, "The Fort" by Bernand Cornwell (of "Sharpe" fame). At first glance this wouldn't seem to be the most profound of books (ideal holiday reading) but tomorrow I'll be expanding on that to look at some of the themes within it, and particularly the potent mix of politics, history and hero-worship...

Bet you can't wait...

Shalom

News of the WORLD?

2011-07-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

When I was a child at home we only ever had 2 newspapers come into the house... both on a Sunday. One was the News of the World the other was the Sunday Post. My mother endeavoured to never let me or my brother see the News of the World... that was Dad's paper... but every week we were allowed to read Dundee's finest, which included "Oor Wullie" and "The Broons", although even as a child I could see that "The Broons" consisted of one story about jumping to conclusions being repackaged a hundred different ways...
Actually, I'm not too sure that a weekly diet of the Sunday Post is any more healthy than that of the News of the World... its like a moral choice between a diet of pure candyfloss and pure vodka... Both entirely legal, but neither good for you... The former moralising, the latter amoral... both appallingly parochial with no breadth or depth of perspective... both knowingly giving their contituencies what they want, because that sells, rather than what really is needed.
Like sausages, you should never reveal how tabloid news is created - and I use that word advisedly. Now, because the public got a brief glimpse of the distasteful way that the market-leading product was produced, the News of the World has been taken off the shelf by Mr. Murdoch, the guarantor of public life here in Britain. His reach into the hearts and minds of the British public since he first bought into publishing here with the purchase of the News of the World, and its transformation into the archetypal Sunday gutter tabloid, has led him, and others, to think that he can buy and sell political power in this land. But there is no doubt that the recent revelations were making it difficult for his political friends to sign off on the News International takeover of British Sky Broadcasting (for a superb dissection of that check out John Finemore's superb monologue on The Now Show of 8th July on BBC iPlayer at 6 minutes 45 seconds in before it self-destructs on the 17th July)... So the News of the World had to go, at least in its present form, and until a) their friends in government have made their decision re B-Sky-B and b) the current furore has abated and they can get some advertisers to come back on board...
There is no doubt about it, within the next few months when I'm reviewing the papers on a Sunday morning for Downtown Radio, there will be another Murdoch tabloid for me to leaf my way through wearing surgical gloves... But at least it won't be called the News of the WORLD... that is what used to get me most about that abomination... How they could claim that the dumpster-diving, gutter-trawling, celebrity-baiting that packed its pages was a window on the wider world? Sadly it was probably a good index of the "world" in Biblical terms, where that word is used as the polar opposite of "heaven", two contrasting kingdoms and perspectives...
But the greatest irony of all is that even in its demise, the News of the World is yanking all our chains and turning the whole media circus into an exercise in parochial, pseudo-moralising (and I include this blog in that)... whilst the big news in the world is that 10,000,000 people in the horn of Africa are starving to death because of the drought there. I've just sat through an entire edition of "Any Answers" on Radio 4 given over to the demise of the News of the World, on a day in which, as one commentator said, a new country came into being, the space shuttle Atlantis took off for the last time, not to mention the emerging news of the famine...
Tell you what... how about we redress the balance a little, and everyone who would normally have bought the News of the World (you know who you are) and all the companies who would normally have advertised in it tomorrow would give their money (suitably gift-aided) to the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal. Indeed, how about doing that for as long as Murdoch, sorry News International resists launching the Sun on Sunday or whatever they are going to call it... actually why go back at all, perhaps this enforced cold turkey will break your addiction to bad journalism and titillating tittle-tattle masquerading as "public interest."
And then, if anyone can dig up some dirt that will result in the Sunday Post having to be taken off the shelf, then future generations will be prevented from the mental and moral scarring I was subjected to in my youth...

Northern Ireland in the Headlines (Again)

2011-06-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

The circumstances that have prevented me blogging so regularly have been exacerbated recently by a number of crises, but once again I'm back on the blog... and once again Northern Ireland has been back in the headlines… for mixed reasons…
On the positive side, Rory McIlroy united people right across Northern Ireland, and the world, in his victory in the US Open. Even I, who am happy to agree with Samuel Johnston or Mark Twain or whoever it was who described golf as a good walk spoiled, was really frustrated not to be able to watch it on TV (being too tight to give Rupert Murdoch money for Sky Sports) and had to make do with regular internet updates and good old BBC Radio 5 Live. I was right behind the lad from Holywood, Co. Down, and while the fact that he went to my old school gave me a soft spot for him, the combination of what happened in the US Masters a couple of months ago and his refreshing demeanour endeared him to everyone... And I think that has increased in the wake of his record-breaking victory.
Watching the Monday evening news my eldest son suggested that the entire western economy could have collapsed and we wouldn't have heard about it in Northern Ireland, such was the adulation about "our Rory..."
However, a matter of hours later the emphasis of the news changed as sectarian violence broke out again on the Short Strand interface, a few miles from here and from Rory McIlroy's home in Holywood... It wasn't the first violence of the weekend... indeed the previous morning I had been contrasting the emerging Rory McIlroy story with violence in North Belfast in the wake of the "Tour of the North" parade, where golf balls had been used differently from the way Rory uses them. But that fracas was as nothing compared with the two nights of rioting that occurred in East Belfast at the weekend. I'm reliably informed by one friend who is a reporter that golf balls have been in evidence there too... along with petrol bombs, blast bombs, fireworks, bricks, bullets, baton rounds and water cannon.
In the immediate wake of Rory McIlroy's victory there was much discussion of the possible impact there might be on Northern Ireland from Rory-related "golf tourism" and there has been a lot of debate over encouraging inward business investment here by dropping the corporation tax and finding a way of offsetting the taxes paid on the Continental flights between New York and Belfast. But the events of this week may well make all that a waste of time and effort, because what sensible international business would want to come within a thousand miles of us in the light of all that… and even though there aren't too many golf courses on interfaces, I think that even the Rory-factor may not attract too many tourists to a Belfast that seems intent on going backwards rather than forward.
However, these sorts of incidents will continue to flare into life, so long as any economic benefits of "peace" and the limited prosperity that there can be in a worldwide recession do not significantly impact on areas such as these. Report after report has highlighted the low educational achievement in such areas, yet instead of actively tackling such things, the politicians are happier to be involved in a stand-off on the issue of the transfer test, which will never impact on the kids of that area because most never take it. Meanwhile, whilst the rest of the province basks in the illusion of peace, it is interfaces like this where low levels of sectarian violence (from both sides) continues unabated, unacknowledged and unaddressed. I'll leave it to others to point the finger at who caused what on Monday night, and who fired what at who, but whoever was to blame then, it has been coming for a long time, and with the marching season reaching its climax it was almost inevitable. And then another "them and us" situation develops between those who would never dream of rioting and those who are in the middle of it, either by choice or circumstance...
Once the trouble like that kicks off it is really difficult to stop it... to hear the media talking you would think that the paramilitaries could turn it on and off like a tap... It's more like knocking the head off a water hydrant... and attracts a similar number of young people! The amount of work by local politicians, community leaders and ministers that went into largely stopping the rioting by Wednesday must have been considerable... However, if the issues that lie behind these riots and the other complex problems that face our province are to be addressed we need that work to continue. AND we need a fundamental shift in our mindset... Because part of our problem here in Northern Ireland is that we approach all political and social issues as a game where there are winners and losers... So if the other side wants something then our side will be be against it... But if we really believe in the idea and not just the rhetoric of a shared future, then we need to find ways of helping both "sides" to "win". (I've recently written on this emphasis on "sides" in our political mindset elsewhere).
Last Sunday afternoon I took friends down the Newtownards Road to see the interface and the murals there, and was standing there where the congregation came out from installing the new Restor into St. Patrick's Church of Ireland Church further up the Road. Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday and according to legend Saint Patrick used the shamrock as a symbol of the trinity when he came to Ireland. If truth be told, however, there is no record of him doing so and, anyway the shamrock is a fairly poor representation of the trinity, as all the leaves are the same, whilst central to the doctrine of the trinity is that there is both unity and diversity within God, and yet, if passages like Philippians 2: 10-11 are to be believed, there is no jealousy within the Godhead... whatever brings glory to the Son brings glory to the Father. Now perhaps there is not only a theological issue at play there but an important social one...
Last Sunday evening the whole of Northern Ireland exulted in the glory one of our younger sporting sons... We need to bring the determination that he showed to the pursuit of a shared, prosperous future for all... all sides and social classes in this society.
In the meantime, we look beyond the marching season to the British Open in the hope of more reasons to celebrate...

Shalom

This is a highly adapted version in the light of the East Belfast rioting of a review of the week on last Sunday's "Dawn Reflections" on Downtown Radio

Dust on the Breeze

2011-06-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Writing this at stupid o'clock, because I've just come down from a local hilltop where I had the privilege of sharing in the scattering of ashes of a member of my congregation. Her husband is a Kiwi, and it is, he tells me, a Maori tradition to do such things at dawn... I've been to the top of this particular hill for dawn services before... but those have been at Easter, at a time of year when the sun has the decency to lie in for a bit... This morning we had to be there for shortly after 4am. I needn't have bothered going to bed!
Anyway, my body clock was clearly worried about missing my early start and I was up even earlier than I needed to be... And as I thought about what was to come, both this service and a later more conventional interment of ashes, I made a start on this short poem/reflection, which I finished on my return a few minutes ago...

So this is for Carole, Paul and family...

Dust on the breeze
Is that what life comes to?
A hilltop offers fresh perspectives,
New insights on how things are
Down below.
But is that the revelation
in the cold light of dawn
and the chilling wind
of this transfiguration?
Are we a random assortment of elements
Briefly bound together
In an animated form?
From dust you came
And to dust you shall return -
Nothing more.
But what of the years in between?
The love, the laughter,
The anger, the tears,
Hopes and dreams and memories
And faith.
Are they little more than
Dust on the breeze
Motes momentarily catching the light
On the updraft?
But the light is the light of the rising sun.
First light speaks of new life
In the risen Son
A dawning day and a coming kingdom
A sure and certain
Hope

Selah

I haven't been Raptured...

2011-06-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

In the light of the last post, and yesterday's celebration of Ascension Sunday, I just wanted to reassure(?) any remaining readers out there that I haven't been raptured, promoted to glory or otherwise translated to another realm. I've simply been trying to balance work with the rest of life, and part of that is that I've put rules on me being nowhere near the computer at certain times of day and certain days of the week... If truth be told I'm breaking one of those rules right now... But life has been a little busy recently and so I haven't had a chance to post anything. Not sure how the next week will be either, given that Virtual Methodist is going to have to spend time with a lot of other flesh and blood Methodists at our Annual Conference towards the end of the week, as well as doing my day job!

Maybe by this time next week I'll wish I'd been raptured...

Shalom

Waiting...

2011-05-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

In church we're just coming to the end of a series of studies on Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Philippi, at the time Paul was writing, was a small city which had been refounded as a Roman military colony little more than 60 years before... As such its citizens prized their citizenship of Rome and one of the greatest honours they could receive was a visit from a Roman Emperor, who was known (among many other similarly humble titles) as the “Saviour of Mankind”. We have no records confirming that Philippi ever did receive such a visit, but while he was in prison in Rome awaiting trial before the Emperor, Paul wrote to his friends in Philippi, saying:

"our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the
Lord Jesus Christ..."

Philippians 3:20 (ANIV)

Last week, while the news focussed on the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Britain's erstwhile colony of Dublin, a substantial number of people in that other former British colony, also known as the United States of America, were awaiting the imminent arrival of the Saviour of Mankind. Much has been written elsewhere (notably here, here and, from a viewpoint not quite sympathetic to Christianity, here) about the predictive abilities of Harold Camping, 89 year old preacher and radio broadcaster from Oakland, California, who forecast that Jesus should have returned around 6pm on Saturday, with around 2% of people being teleported/raptured straight to heaven… warning that the rest who’ve been left behind have got just under 6 months before the End of the World on October 21st. He has now revised his predictions (he has a history of this) to say that actually everything is going to happen on October 21st.

Now a lot of people have had a lot of fun at Harold's expense... except it isn't costing him much... rather he has been fleecing those who believe his twaddle, and I've been talking to those working with people from Pentecostal backgrounds in the Philippines, Eastern Europe and Africa who say that they have been sending money to his ministry and were genuinely terrified at the thought of the world ending on Saturday... That is an obscenity and one that I genuinely hope Harold has to answer for when the real judgement day rolls around...

As to when that will be... Well, we know Jesus himself didn't know the time or place of his return… So, with due respect, why should God let Harold Camping or David Campton in on the big secret and yet keep it from his son?
Once again I remind you of the story that sociologist and preacher Tony Campolo tells about a time when he was asked about the timetable for Jesus' return:

“I don’t know," he claims to have said "I’m not on the planning committee; I’m on the welcoming committee.”
Boy I wish I could come up with lines like that... And I hope you will be on the welcoming committee… I doubt that it will be on the 21st October... but why not make it sooner as you welcome him first and and foremost into your heart and mind…

A radically revised version of my "Just a Moment" on Downtown this morning.

ps. When I was searching for a suitable photograph for today's blog I clicked on a website with the above, widely used photo, only to find that it was a link to one of those sites that tries to terrify you that your computer is infected with viruses, thus encouraging you to hand over hard-earned cash to purchase their protection... Maybe they see in Harold a kindred spirit... Harold Camping, the patron saint of fear merchants and scam artists...

My Son...

2011-05-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I went to see the new movie “Thor” based on Marvel Comics’ take on the old Norse myths… I went with my ten year old son, who is, like me at his age a complete nut about Marvel Superheroes and ancient myths and we were both keen to see this latest big screen interpretation… Here's the trailer for those of you who missed it...

Just incase you couldn't make head nor tail of this, and here I flag up a slight spoiler alert, the key element of the plot is that Thor, son of the King of the Norse god’s Odin, is banished from Asgard to earth as a form of punishment by his father and has to prove himself worthy in order to restore himself to his father’s favour… You can guess for yourself how it all works out…
I won't give a detailed critique of the film, as I'll post my thoughts on that front elsewhere, although, to be truthful, while I enjoyed it, it probably doesn't really stand up under close scrutiny.
However, I did find myself thinking that the story portrayed contrasts strongly with the story of the son of God that we read in the Bible… there, Jesus isn’t banished from heaven, he freely chooses to give up the riches to heaven out of love for the world, and he doesn’t need to earn his heavenly father’s favour… indeed right at the outset of his mission on earth, when he was being baptised by John, a voice echoes from heaven, saying “This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased…”
And the thing is that our heavenly Father wants all his children to hear him say that of us… and to us, and through Jesus we can… We can’t earn God’s favour… nothing we can say or do can possibly do that… and like any father or mother there is nothing that we his children could make him love us an more...
His love and his pleasure are his gifts to us if only we will accept...

An adaptation of this morning's "Just a Moment" on Downtown and my talk from last Sunday morning...

Read On...

2011-05-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

As this post goes online I'll probably be in the midst of an Annual Circuit Meeting... which like all business meetings, fills me with precious little joy... But this is a day when Methodists remember that amazing things can happen even when we go "very unwillingly" to meetings, because on the 24th May 1738, the man regarded as the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, famously wrote in his journal:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

Out of an inauspicious start an amazing outcome...

What we Methodists generally overlook however, is what comes immediately after that where he says:

“I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial
manner despitefully used me and persecuted me.”
John Wesley’s first thoughts on being given an assurance of forgiveness and salvation was to pray for his enemies… Maybe that is why Methodists later became known as the friends of all and the enemies of none!

So whether you are a Methodist or not, let me suggest that in honour of John Wesley’s memory tonight we might spend time praying for those who have done ill to us and ours…

An adaptation of this morning's "Just a Moment" on Downtown Radio.

There's No-One as Irish...

2011-05-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Dublin has a reputation as a venue for short city-breaks, but that usually involves couples getting away for a weekend… or groups of people going there for a stag or hen party… But this past week has seen two of the most prestigious flying visits to Dublin in a long, long time… First the momentous visit of the Queen last week, not only seeking to acknowledge a painful past but also endeavouring to point to a more positive partnership in the future… And then yesterday the President of the United States of America jetted in on Airforce One… And unlike the Queen or Prince Philip, when offered a pint of the black stuff he knocked it back (doubtless causing ecstacy among the advertising boys at St. James' Gate).

During the run up to his election the above song doing the rounds affirming that there’s no-one as Irish as Barack O’Bama, and I heard it yet again over the past few days. But I don’t think many people realised at the time that he does have significant roots in Moneygall, County Offaly. Some cynical commentators have suggested that he merely came here to boost his standing with Irish-Americans in the run up to a re-election campaign next year… It is a little ironic that Ireland enthusiastically affirmed him as a son of the sod… while there are still those across the Atlantic who refuse to accept that he was born on American soil and therefore can legitimately be President of the USA…
There have at times been criticisms of Obama's "messianic" status in some quarters, but regardless of that I was reminded in the build up to yesterday, that when Christ came into the world “he came unto his own but his own did not receive him.”
There were no state receptions, fanfares, or elaborate security precautions for him… He came, not as the head of an earthly empire, maintaining power by military might, but as the envoy of a coming heavenly kingdom, a kingdom of grace and peace.. giving up the riches of heaven to become an ordinary human being... Living our lives, and dying our death... Not seeking a lost apostrophe... But to seek and save the lost...

An adapted version of the "Just a Moment" I recorded for Downtown Radio yesterday morning...

Loyal Yokefellow

2011-05-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

I was doing a live Thought for the Day for Radio Ulster this morning at 6.55 and 7.55am, and one of the great fears when preparing something like this is that you go to sleep well-prepared but wake up the next morning to find that something major has happened which completely derails what you were going to say... Such as yesterday morning when I lurched into consciousness to the news of the death of former Taoiseach Dr. Garrett Fitzgerald.
This put a whole different perspective on recent events in Dublin, because there is no doubt that the signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement by him and Margaret Thatcher in 1985, set in train a process which eventually culminated in the momentous visit of the Queen to Ireland this week… Many said a very loud “No” to that Agreement at that time… But in the wake of the later Good Friday Agreement, the majority of people on this island have emphatically and repeatedly said “Yes” to the attempt to put the past behind us and find a way of working together to our mutual benefit… And the events of this week have powerfully symbolised that.
A number of years ago friends of mine went as mission workers to the high Himalayas… After trekking for days from civilisation they arrived in the area they were supposed to work in and were introduced to the local people… When asked where they came from, they said “Northern Ireland.” “Oh…” came the reply, “the place where Christians kill each other…”
What an epitaph!
Garrett Fitzgerald’s many eloquent epitaphs have emphasized his part in seeking to change that poor reputation of this country… But what about those of us in less influential positions? How will we be remembered?
Well, I am reminded of a single line in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which we are studying together in our local church under the title of "New Beginnings." In chapter 4 of that letter Paul pleads with 2 members of the church there, “Euodia and Syntyche” to agree with each other… We know nothing else about these two people… indeed we’re not even sure whether we’ve got the first one’s name right or whether they were a he or she… all we know about them is that they didn't get on with each other…
But Paul also refers to someone he calls “Syzygus” or loyal “Yokefellow” asking him to intervene with these two quarrelsome colleagues and help them to work together…
What might my one-line epitaph be? Or yours? Someone always at odds with others, or a loyal yokefellow? Someone who always says no, or a worker for peace and reconciliation between people. A builder of new beginnings...

Shalom

(An adaptation of my piece on "Good Morning Ulster" this morning. You should be able to hear it on the iplayer for the next week at around 26 and 86 minutes into the programme... I'll post the link when it's up...)

I'm VM... Fly Me...

2011-05-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

I have long realised that VM has not been doing enough to improve people's knowledge of European geography... Well, here, at last is the way to address that... A completely addictive game by Lufthansa giving us all the chance to be pilots for a minute or two...

The widget doesn't actually work in the blog but it will take you where you need to go, unlike most Ryanair flights... Enjoy...

Happy (Belated) Birthday KJV

2011-05-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

Monday week ago the 2nd of May was the 400th Birthday of that venerable old lady, the King James, or Authorised, version of the Bible. I've been a bit snowed under with one thing and another recently (hence the lack of any posts) and the wider world was a bit distracted by other things like elections, marathons, the aftermath of a big royal shindig and the assassination/bringing to justice of a certain terrorist leader, so there wasn't much coverage in the media on the actual day of the anniversary, although there have been a number of interesting programmes and articles in the run up to it.
On a local level we threw a bit of a low key party last Sunday evening as members of the three churches on our local Methodist Circuit shared their favourite readings from the KJV, juxtaposed with some more modern worship songs... It was a good night, if truth be told, and those who absented themselves either because they didn't like the KJV, or modern worship songs, well it was their loss.
However, while I want to give thanks for the publication of the King James Version and the influence that it had on the English speaking world, I am not one of those who is a KJV-only person... Indeed I use a wide variety of versions, though, because of my age and upbringing in evangelicalism of the 1980s I usually default to the Northern Irish Version (isn't that what NIV stands for?). Haven't made up my mind on whether I'm going to switch to the NNIV yet when it hits the shops properly next month.
But anyway, whilst I believe the KJV was important I don't venerate it, or elevate it above other later translations... And I enjoyed this piece by Nick Page based on his book "God's Dangerous Book", where he says:

1. It was widely ignored on publication. Far from being an instant classic, The King James, or Authorised Version, was widely ignored on first publication for one very good reason: hardly anyone wanted it in the first place. It was widely ignored on publication.

2. It was never intended as a means of giving the Bible to the people: it was intended as a way of stopping them using the Bible they already had. The people already had a great English translation – the Geneva version. James I hated that because he thought its footnotes were seditious. So he specifically commanded that the new version should be done without footnotes.

3. It was a revision not a new translation. James ordered that it be based on the text of the Bishops’ Bible of 1568. James instructed that the new version was to be ‘as little altered as the truth of the original [i.e. the Bishop’s Bible] will permit’.

4. It was a politically motivated translation. James also instructed that ‘the old ecclesiastical words to be kept, viz. the word Church not to be translated Congregation.’ James insisted that ekklesia be translated as church and that the word ‘bishop’ be used instead of ‘elder’. So you get verses like Acts 1.20, where the Geneva Bible has

For it is written in the booke of Psalmes, Let his habitation be void, and let no man dwel therein: also, Let another take his charge.

The AV has

For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.

It is difficult to imagine the writer of Psalms ever had in mind someone taking over a bishopric.

5. It’s a sanitised version. The Geneva Bible uses the word ‘tyrant’ over four hundred times to describe wicked kings and emperors. But you won’t find the word at all in the AV. It’s the king’s Bible – how can a divine monarch ever be a tyrant?

6. It was designed to be the preserve of the clergy and church. It was a lectern Bible – a massive book designed to be kept in a church and read to you. The Geneva Bible had tons of footnotes and introductions and maps and charts – it was the world’s first study Bible. the AV had nothing except a lengthy preface and then the lectionary. The powers behind the AV didn’t want the people to read the Bible: they wanted it read to them.

7. It was the world’s first mock-Tudor Bible. The language is undeniably beautiful. But it is deceptive. The translators of the AV upgraded the language of the original. The translators chose – created, really – a style of language which was not one spoken in Jacobean England: which, indeed, had never really been spoken by anyone, at any time. They were deliberately archaic. They used terms and phrases which were already out of date in 1611. Anthony Johnson, writing less than ninety years later stated that the absence of notes from the AV led to complaints from some readers that ‘they could not see into the sense of the Scriptures.’

8. It’s mainly the work of Tyndale. The AV is still, primarily the work of the great William Tyndale. At least 83 per cent of the New Testament comes from Tyndale’s translation and 76 per cent of the Old Testament come from Tyndale’s work, with the AV translators just adding that sheen of impenetrable Jacobean literary bling. The AV has majesty and stateliness. But Tyndale has a levity, a homeliness which is entirely absent from the AV. According to Tyndale, ‘The Lord was with Joseph and he was a lucky fellow’; according to the AV ‘the Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man’ (Gen. 39.2). See what’s happened? Joseph’s gone up in the world. Just like the Bible.

9. Even the translators themselves didn’t use it. Lancelot Andrewes, chairman of the AV translators, used the Geneva Bible for his sermons – as did several other bishops. Archbishop Laud, the man later given the task of suppressing the Geneva Bible, based his sermons on the Geneva Bible until the mid-1620s. Amazingly, even in the AV itself, in the preface, Bishop Smith makes a quote – and he quotes the Geneva Bible! When the Puritans from the Mayflower set foot on America, it was the Geneva Bible they carried with them, not the King James.

10. It succeeded because other versions were banned. The Geneva Bible continued to sell and in huge numbers. Indeed, the Geneva proved so popular that in 1616 the King was forced to ban the printing of the Geneva Bible by any English press. Although people continued to import copies, eventually the ban worked and the AV became the default English translation. Without any serious competition, its sonorous, beautiful, fantastic prose wove itself into our culture.

The following video, posted by Zoomtard on Facebook this evening (thus stirring me to actually write this) proves the truth of that last sentence beautifully:

However, there is a caveat in the closing words of Nick Page's book:

Its privileged position means that the AV has taken on a symbolic value. Just as everyone loves old English churches, but fewer and fewer go to worship, we cherish the AV, but hardly anyone reads it. A copy of the AV is what every household has, along with a dusty volume of the complete works of Shakespeare.

This is why the AV is the non-Christian’s version of choice. It allows them to enjoy the language without having to obey the thing. Because, deep down, we want a God with a big white beard and a nice line in Jacobean poetry. We don’t want a God who talks in the language of tradesman’s Greek; a God who sounds like a shopkeeper or a housewife or even a carpenter; we want a God who sounds old and ancient and mysterious. The logical conclusion of this is the mind-bogglingly stupid statement of Charles Allen Dinsmore, who declared the AV to be ‘a finer and nobler literature than the Scriptures in their original tongues.’ As the Cambridge History of the Bible puts it, the AV’s text ‘acquired a sanctity properly ascribable only to the unmediated voice of God.’

Why do we love the King James Bible? Why did it come to dominate our culture?

Because it sounds better than the original.

Something Worth Cheering About

2011-04-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

Whilst doing all I possibly could to avoid the royal hoo-ha I came across this gem on Euangelion... Yes, its another flashmob advert... Though I don't know and don't really care what for... But this is a song of praise in Arabic to the risen Messiah in a Beirut shopping mall this Easter, against a background of upheaval throughout the Middle East. Now that is worth getting excited about... (although if truth be told, I'm not too sure that the English sub-titles are terribly accurate as they seem to have translated "Meshiach" as "Jesus"...)

He is (still) risen!

He is risen indeed.

Alleluia!

Oral Tradition

2011-04-28T03:03:00.001-07:00

Okay... Here are a few questions for preachers prompted by this post by John Byron: How many of these "pulpit legends" have you promulgated in your time? Who did you hear them from?

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

2. The high priest tied a rope around his ankle so that others could drag him out of the Holy of Holies in case God struck him dead.

3. Scribes took baths, discarded their pens, washed their hands, etc. every time they wrote the name of God.

4. There was this saying among the sages: “May you be covered in your rabbi’s dust.”

5. Voltaire’s house is now owned by a Bible-printing publisher which is ironic given that he was famous for saying, “One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”

6. Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem.

7. NASA scientists have discovered a “missing day” which corresponds to the Joshua account of the sun standing still.

All of these are, if not actually untrue, do not have any clear documentary proof that has been furnished ie. they would be flagged up as requiring sources in any Wikipedia entry. I hadn't heard the last one, but have passed on many of the others at one time or another. Indeed I shared one a few weeks ago and a colleague shared another during our Holy Week reflections. Anyone think of others?

And why is it that we preachers, who are supposed to be purveyors of truth are so slap-dash in our use of such anecdotes and illustrations? My fear is that this is likely to get worse. In this day and age of the internet, to misquote a proverb quoted by a preacher of a previous age, C.H. Spurgeon, lies and half-truths are sprinting round the world before truth has even attempted to get it's shoes on...

Shalom

Who do You Think that I Am?

2011-04-25T06:14:00.000-07:00

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare'a Philip'pi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?"
And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli'jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Matthew 16:13-16 (RSV)

In the light of Jesus' claims as to he is which we explored throughout Holy Week in his "I Am" statements, we, like the first disciples before us have to make our own assessment as to who Jesus is.

What follows is the daily litany that we used to guide our prayers throughout Holy Week, but the I AM sayings of Jesus are a good place to start our prayers and meditations any day of any week.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the gate for the sheep’
The way to the place of peace and security.
And you offer fullness of life.
Son of God, protect us.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the good shepherd',
who knows his flock and his flock knows him.
And you give your life for the flock.
Son of God, help us to follow you.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the bread of life',
You fed five thousand people with a young boy’s lunch.
Yours are the words of eternal life.
Son of God, feed us.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the true vine’.
And we are the branches
Pruned by our gardener God
Son of God, keep us abiding in you.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the light of the world',
You gave sight to a man born blind.
The darkness will never overcome you.
Son of God, help us to see.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the way, the truth and the life',
Reassuring your friends
The night before dishonesty and death seemed to cut your journey short.
Son of God, help us to trust you.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'
You called Lazarus from his grave
and on the third day you rose from the dead never to die again.
Son of God, raise us up.
Amen.

Shalom

I Am the Resurrection...

2011-04-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

Jesus said to Martha by the tomb of his friend Lazarus:
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him...

John 11: 25-26 (ANIV)

Martha believed before Jesus had proved his power in the resurrection of her brother... and before his own resurrection...

Do we believe with the benefit of hindsight?

REFLECTION
I am
The resurrection and the life
Resurrection – not life after death
But life before, beyond and despite death
Resurrection – not immortality of a disembodied soul
But embodiment of your soul in a body to be enjoyed eternally
A body that doesn’t creak, or crumble or decay.
Resurrection – Not reanimation of a rotting corpse
But new life in a new body
Re-creation in my image
My life
Liberated from the grave
A fresh start
A new beginning
A new Genesis
I am
And you can be...

Check out this song... which we used as part of our Easter Morning celebrations.

Selah

The Light of the World

2011-04-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

A reflection for the darkest day of the year, liturgically.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life…
As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no-one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

John 8:12 & 9:4-5

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "He's calling Elijah." Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Matthew 27: 45-51

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1: 4

REFLECTION
I am
the light of the world
Earth owes its life to the light of the sun
And the people of the earth owe their life
To the light of the Son of God
Darkness is the absence of light
But darkness cannot snuff out this light
My light
Though the sun ceases shining
And the moon has no light to reflect
Though the stars are all erased from the sky
Leaving you in the darkness of death
Still I will shine
Bringing love in place of hatred
Hope in place of despair
Peace in place of conflict
Life in place of death
My love for you is more constant than the sun
It was before the sun was formed
It shall continue long after the sun is extinguished
I am
The light of the world
Live in it…

Jesus, you said, 'I am the light of the world',
You gave sight to a man born blind.
The darkness will never overcome you.
Son of God, help us to see.

Give me, for light, the sunshine of thy sorrow,
Give me for shelter, shadow of they cross;
Give me to share the glory of thy morrow,
Gone from my heart the bitterness of loss.

G.A. Studdert Kennedy

I am the True Vine

2011-04-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful... Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

John 15:1-8 (ANIV)

In the mid 19th century, while Ireland was laid waste by potato blight, imported from America, France was devastated by another American pest… Phylloxera, which destroyed most of the vineyards in France… Eventually the only solution was for European varieties of grape to be grafted on to the resistant American rootstocks.
It is only when we are grafted into the rootstock of Christ that we can be protected against the even more devastating blight of sin… But that is not the end of all trouble, trial and pain… Indeed Jesus suggests that pain, or pruning is the lot for blighted or fruitful branches… And on the cross Jesus ultimately demonstrated his solidarity with humanity in suffering and death. But it might also be said that this was the very point at which, through pain and suffering, we were grafted into Christ.

REFLECTION
I am
the true vine,
from my roots lodged deep in eternity
flows life
and love
and fruitfulness…

I am
The true vine,
And my Father God is the gardener
Tending the vine
Pruning the branches…
There is no escaping the sharp edge of his knife
Unfruitful branches are cut off
Fruitful branches are cut back.
Unfruitful branches are cut off so they will not sap the strength of the fruitful ones
And burned to prevent the spread of disease and decay
But fruitful branches are cut back to prepare for new growth and fruitfulness
But only the expert gardener can tell one from the other
He will do the cutting off and cutting back
All you have to do is remain in me...
And grow
And be fruitful

I am
The true vine
And you are the branches
Grafted in
One dark spring morning
When the vine seemed dead
Cut down.
But when the world least expected it
The vine broke free of the cold dark earth.
The branches spread their leaves to the risen sun
Nourished by my blood poured out in love
And the sap of the spirit formed flavoursome fruit.

I am
The true vine
You are the branches
And the trellis is a cross

Music: Here is Love (Joanne Hogg)

PRAYER
Loving Lord Jesus, Great I Am, the True Vine
Keep us abiding in you…
In the business of life…
In the darkness of death
You are the vine
We are the branches

Loving Lord Jesus, Great I Am, the True Vine
We give thanks that the branches of your church stretch right around this world
Different nations and denominations
With varying languages, cultures, theologies, worship styles, organizational structures
Yet all find their roots in you and your cross O Christ.
Together today we give thanks for your sacrifice for us and for the whole world.
May we live our lives in the light of your loving sacrifice
Loving one another as you have loved us
Forgiving as you forgave
Seeking to be one as you and the Father and the Spirit are one…
You are the vine
We are the branches

We remember those branches of the church that are under different pressures at this time
Those who are being actively persecuted and prevented from celebrating this Easter season freely
Those who live in societies that are not as materially well off as we are and so struggle to meet the needs of those around them
But also those who, like us, live in affluent societies where people outside and inside your church do not recognize their need of and dependence on You.
May we all remember that just as the cross of Christ became a source and sign of victory and hope
So our times of difficulty and suffering will bear much fruit for you and your kingdom
You are the vine
We are the branches

Loving Lord Jesus, Great I Am, the True Vine
We give thanks for the other branches of your church in this area…
And pray that our work together may be a sign of our unity and your claims on this the people of this area
May our community become your vineyard
Show us how we can better work together to extend your kingdom in this area
And forgive us where we have sought to build up our own wee empires at the expense of your Kingdom
You are the vine
We are the branches

Loving Lord Jesus, Great I Am, the True Vine
We give thanks for our brothers and sisters in this branch of your church
Praying for those who are experiencing the pain of pruning at this time
And those who feel that they are withered and fruitless.
May your Spirit restore them and may we support them in all that they are facing
You are the vine
We are the branches

Jesus, you said, 'I am the true vine’.
And we are the branches
Pruned by our gardener God
Son of God, keep us abiding in you.

I am the Good Shepherd

2011-04-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

John 10:11-18 (ANIV)

Although the background to this analogy is almost certainly Psalm 23 and other passages in the Old Testament where God is referred to as a shepherd, the term "good shepherd" would have been understood in practical rather than moral terms, because to most of his more respectable listeners no shepherd could possibly be a morally or spiritually good… they were one of the “unclean” professions because of the necessities of their emplyment… it was all very well to talk of God as a shepherd… but you wouldn’t want your daughter marrying one. A shepherd would be expected to lay down his life to protect his sheep… they were his entire livelihood… But no-one would have expected Jesus to follow through on this analogy… The shepherd becoming sacrificial lamb… the lamb who takes away the sin of the world as John the Baptist foretold…

Jesus, you said, 'I am the gate for the sheep’

The way to the place of peace and security.

And you offer fullness of life.

Son of God, protect us.

Jesus, you said, 'I am the good shepherd',

who knows his flock and his flock knows him.

And you give your life for the flock.

Son of God, help us to follow you.

REFLECTION

I am

The good shepherd

You are my flock… the sheep under my care

I know each and every one of you…

I see beyond your similarities

I know all your quirks, your different personalities

Strengths and weaknesses.

I know each and every of you inside out

I know you and I love you

And I want only what is best for you

I know what is best for you

I am

The good shepherd

I know you… but do you know me?

Do you know my voice?

And if you know it do you heed it?

Will you follow were I lead?

Even where I lead you along narrow, rocky paths

Through deep, shadowy gorges?

I am

The good shepherd

I am watching over you day and night

I would die for you

I have died for you

The shepherd become the sacrificial lamb

But I will never leave you

Even when the wolves are circling.

So don’t run…

Stay by my side

And I will protect you

I have already defeated your greatest enemy

I’ve shown that death is only a shadow

So long as you follow where I lead

I am

The good shepherd

Follow me…

PRAYER (Based on Psalm 23)

The LORD is my shepherd,
We commit ourselves again to follow you

But we remember that you are not our personal possession

That we are part of your flock, and that your flock is bigger than this sheep-pen...

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

I shall not want
Thank you for your provision for us in body and in spirit.
Help us to trust you and not inappropriately put our trust in earthly sources of security.
We pray for those who do want in this world
And for those whose sources of security and provision have let them down in recent days...

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.
We thank you for your ability to refresh and renew us and pray for ourselves and others who need to know that renewal today
Those who are worn out and weary
Those who have become cynical and hard of heart...

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Help us to walk the right paths in this confused and confusing world

But may we not be self-righteous in our relationships with others,

but to do everything to the glory of your name
so that others may come into a right relationship with you...

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
May all those currently walking the valley of the shadow of death know your comfort, consolation, strength and protection:
those who have been bereaved and feel unable to move on
and those who are currently facing death, either their own or someone close to them.
May we be your rod and your staff to them
May we be the bearer of your Spirit of comfort...

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

We thank you for your gracious provision for us even when we are surrounded by people who wish us ill.
We pray that those who are beset by trouble, that they will know your gracious presence with them.
But in the light of your command to love our enemies
We look forward to the time when our enemies will sit down beside us at your table
as our friends
part of your flock.

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Thank you for the healing, empowering, renewing anointing of your spirit…
May all your blessings to us overflow in praise and service as we seek to bless others in your name.

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

May we live our lives in the light of your ever present goodness and love,
but may we also leave a trail of goodness and love in our wake…

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

We look forward to that time when you lead us to the place you have prepared for us…

But may everywhere we lay down to rest be for us Beth-El, the House of the Lord.

Good Shepherd

Lead us on.

Selah

I am the Bread of Life

2011-04-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval..."
So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
"Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

John 6:25-35 (ANIV)

Jesus, you said, 'I am the bread of life',
You fed five thousand people with a young boy’s lunch.
Yours are the words of eternal life.
Son of God, feed us.

What potatoes were to the poor of Ireland in the 19th century, bread was to the poor of Palestine in the first century. There was a wheat shortage in Palestine in or around 54 AD and this caused about 500,000 deaths... It was probably the reason for the collection which Paul talks about in some of his letters. People in Palestine in the first century had bread with everything, or rather they had everything with bread, because the bread acted as a disposable plate off which they would eat many of their meals, or they would use it as an edible spoon to scoop food out of a communal dish... Saved on the washing up.
So when Jesus said he was the bread of life, he was identifying himself with what was an absolute essential to the people around him. But what he had to offer to the people of Palestine is equally needed today. Jesus is the bread of life for all time.

REFLECTION
I am
The bread of life
Each and every day of life
Sufficient for all your needs
Not your greeds but your needs
Fresh each new morning
So trust me
No need to hoard my blessings

I am
The bread of life
Present in each mouthful
Taste and see that I am good
Find enjoyment in me
Find me in enjoyment of the simplest of things
The taste of fresh baked bread
The smell of newly brewed coffee
The warmth of the sun
The cool of a breeze
I am there in the commonplace
Each one is a miracle of grace

I am
The bread of life
Not just this life
But eternal life
My body was broken that you may be whole
Take, eat, and live
Take, live and share

I am
The bread of life…

PRAYER (Based on the Lord’s Prayer)
Our Father who is in heaven
Watching over us and all your worldwide family whom we remember before you
Some wealthy, some poor, some free to worship you, others not…
hallowed be your name
forgive us for those times that we have brought your name into disrepute
through what we have said and done, or not said or done
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
May it begin here and now in us
And may all our choices here on earth be guided by your will and your word
Give us this day our daily bread
May we trust you for all that we need for here and now and for eternity
And may we share all that you have given to us as freely as the young boy shared his lunch with Jesus to feed 5000 hungry people
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
You are always giving and forgiving, yet we are always getting and forgetting
Help us by your Spirit, to change
Lead us not into temptation
May we avoid placing ourselves in the way of temptation
And may we not be a source of temptation to others
Deliver us from evil
In this world and the next
Evil around us and evil within us…
For yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever, AMEN

I am the Gate for the Sheep

2011-04-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognise a stranger's voice." Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 10:1-10 (ANIV)

Jesus, you said, 'I am the gate for the sheep’

The way to the place of peace and security.

And you offer fullness of life.

Son of God, protect us.

"Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them."

You think? In this chapter which we return to tomorrow for the next "I am" saying of Jesus, Jesus would have got low marks for clear communication if he were being examined... although it is him at his poetic best... weaving together multiple images drawn from the life of a shepherd and his sheep. There has been a lot of discussion over the years about the background to this saying of Jesus… Many have suggested that it finds its origin in shepherds actually lying across the gap in the crude wall of stones that marked out a sheep pen then and now in Palestine… Actually protecting the sheep with his body… Whether or not this is the origin, the key here is not just the gate, but what that gate allows access to… and that the pen is not a permanent residence, just a stopping off place in the hours of darkness, where a sheep’s wounds can be tended, and they can get some rest before the next day’s foraging begins.

REFLECTION

“I am…” says Jesus…

“I am the gate for the sheep…”

I am the gate

You are the sheep

On the other side lies safety

And food for the night

But the last day has not yet come

The night has not finally fallen

The gate is not yet permanently closed

This pen is not a prison

I have come that you should have life like you’ve never known it before

Full to overflowing…

Go wander the world in knowledge that this gate is open to you

A place of security in the darkness

Come and go

In response to the shepherd’s call

Come to be fed and tended to Go and tell others what you have found in me

For this sheep pen is big enough to hold all who would come

This gate is broad enough to allow all safely through

No grid to catch out those who are unwary

No crush to get in before it’s too late

But I am the gate…

I am THE Gate…

Fashioned from wood and nails…

I am…

PRAYER

Lord Jesus

Gate for the Sheep

We thank you for the security we find in you and in you alone…

But we ask your forgiveness for those times when we have hidden away safely behind the walls of the sheep-pen instead of walking the world in your name…

Lord Jesus

Gate for the Sheep

We thank you for the fullness of life that you offer…

But forgive us that all too often we settle for half measures or less, thinking that eternal life is for the hereafter rather than here and now…

Lord Jesus

Gate for the Sheep

We pray for those who feel that they are not so much living as existing…

And for those who feel vulnerable and alone at this time, even when they are surrounded by othersMay they find the fullness of life and the eternal security that you offer to all…

AMEN

Selah

Before Abraham was I am...

2011-04-18T02:38:00.000-07:00

The Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?" Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

John 8:52-59 (ANIV)

"Who do you think you are?" is not only the title of an emotionally manipulative celebrity documentary on the BBC, it is also a key question in this day and age. As we saw yesterday, Jesus had a very strong sense of who he was... or rather is... But given his answer to the Jewish leaders he is debating with in today's readings, it seems he not only had an "ego problem", he also had a problem with grammar... not getting his tenses correct.

"Before Abraham was, I am..."

It is grammatically illogical. But then the whole of what Jesus was claiming... that he was THE Great I AM who made himself known to Abraham and later to Moses... is illogical...

Human theology is in some ways the fallible attempt to make the seeming illogicality of God fit the workings of a human, finite time-bound mind.

REFLECTION

“I am…” Says Jesus…

“Before Abraham was I am…”

Eternally the same…

Eternally present…

Yesterday, today, forever I am…

I never was… I am.

I will not be… I am.

I am the God of Abraham and Isaac,

Of Moses and Joshua,

Of Naomi and Ruth,

Of David and Solomon,

Of your grandparents and parents,

But don’t try to imprison me in the past

In far off tales of long ago

When things were different

Or when you were different. Because even then

I am.

Eternally constant

I am...

I hold past, present and future in the palm of my hand

I know the end from the beginning

But don’t put me off to the future

For the future is guaranteed to none

Eternity is always now

In me

I am

Be present to my presence

Be still and know that I am…

God…

I am…

PRAYERS

Ever-present God

Hear our prayer and make your presence known in power and grace…

Hear us as we pray for those who are imprisoned by the past –

By decisions long since taken...

Those overshadowed by sorrow, shame, regret...

Those scarred by the past of this province…

Those constantly seeking to relive past glories, real or imagined.

Those who expect the church to be more a religious museum than a spiritual movement

Ever-present God

Hear our prayer and make your presence known in power and grace…

Those who fear the future due to uncertainty about their health, or relationships, employment or investments.

Those who are fearful of any change

Those who put off decisions to some indeterminate day in the future when things will be clearer

Those who defer their hopes and dreams for a better day

Those who live for the future and miss the blessings that this day offers

Ever present God

Hear our prayer and make your presence known in power and grace…

Help us to live in the present –

This is the day that you have made…

Let us rejoice and be glad in it

Give us this day our daily bread

Grant us grace for this day

And an awareness of your presence always.

AMEN

Selah

I Am He

2011-04-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

The woman said... "I know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we'll get the whole story."

"I am he," said Jesus. "You don't have to wait any longer or look any further."

John 4:19-26 (The Message)

This week in our Holy Week Services and Prayer Breakfasts at Dundonald Methodist we're reflecting on some of the outrageous claims of Jesus that are often bracketted together as the "I am" sayings of Jesus... If read without any understanding of historical context, or the miraculous "signs" to bear out what he was saying, Jesus could literally be said to have an ego problem... In this first reflection for Palm Sunday we use as our starting point Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, on a previous return journey from Jerusalem to Galilee.

REFLECTION

“I am…” Says Jesus…

“I am he…”

The one you’ve been waiting for…

The one you’ve been arguing over…

The one the prophets foretold…

Yet the one who was before the prophets…

I am he...

The one you have worshipped down the centuries

Without seeing my face or hearing my voice.

I am he…

I am here

To enable you to worship worthily

In Spirit and in truth

To empower your praise

And to enable you to live out your lives to my glory

I am he you have been waiting for.

Here I am…

Stop looking elsewhere…

Stop waiting for someone else…

Someone who fits your picture of what I’m like

A mirror of your positions and prejudices.

The answer to your selfish hopes and aspirations.

I am here...

To challenge old certainties and break down old barriers.

To meet with the outcast and the other.

I am here...

Where you least expect me...

Not at a temple or shrine...

But in the everyday, workaday, midday heat…

I am here...

With those whom you would least expect me to be with...

The other sort, the wrong sort...

I am he...

I am here...

And I know all about you.

No point in trying to hide anything.

No point in trying to change the subject.

No point in trying to tie me up in theological debate.

I am he...

I am here...

To talk, to listen...

To take a drink if you will give me one...

Or anything else you care to offer…

I am here...

I am he

PRAYER

Lord God… Great I AM

We pray for those who have lost sight of who they are… Trying to be all things to all people… Wearing different hats in different places… Their lives dictated by the needs and desires of others… Those who feel their best days are behind them… Or that their ambitions have been sidelined… their hopes indefinitely postponed…

Lord God… Great I AM

Make yourself known in Jesus Christ

So that we may know who you created us to be.

We pray for those who feel ashamed because of their past… whether they have any reason to feel ashamed or not… Those who feel themselves friendless… Those who look for love and acceptance in all the wrong places… Those who find it hard to accept genuine love when it is offered because they feel they don’t deserve it…

Lord God… Great I AM

Make yourself known in Jesus Christ

So that we may know who you created us to be

We pray for those who define themselves in terms of labels… theological, denominational, political, national, sexual… especially those who are certain of what they are not rather than what they are… those unable to conceive of a God who operates outside our boundaries… those who think that God thinks like them…

Lord God… Great I AM

Make yourself known in Jesus Christ

So that we may know who you created us to be. AMEN

This week's reflections are dedicated to Alan Lorimer... with thanks for all his support over the past few months.

Selah

ps. Sorry for the delay in this post and the fact that it was mangled the first time it went up. Yesterday was a day of technical difficulties!

Singing the Cross

2011-04-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

Back on again over on the Methodist Church in Ireland's Lenten Blog on the Atonement... this time reflecting on Stuart Townend's understanding of what was happening on the cross. That, and the fast approaching shadow of Good Friday has prompted me to list my 6 favourite and 6 least favourite songs about Christ on the cross (excluding the 2 Townend songs, which I quite like despite their theological frailties)... It was going to be 5 of each but I couldn't restrict myself to that Let's start with the stinkers first in no particular order:

Lift High the Cross - has too much of the "crusader" overtones for me...

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle - for much the same reason as above- indeed probably more so as it as militaristic tosh like this that set the theological context for crusading Christendom, the unholy alliance of Kingdom and Empire. Also don't like "The Royal banners forward go" by the same author, Venantius Fortunatus , for the same reason... but thankfully we rarely sing either of them these days (at least not when I have a say...)

Rejoice and be glad - too repetitive and jam-packed full of theological jargon...

There is a fountain filled with blood - straight from the Hammer-Horror School of Theology...

The old rugged cross - actually there's not a lot wrong with the theology of this one, apart from a slight tendency tosentimentalism and religious jargon... but it just doesn't do it for me, and probably is guilty by association with some memories of "wee meetings" in days gone by...

I stand amazed in the presence - not only do I feel uneasy at the juxtaposition of the exultant chorus with some of the verses reflecting on the agony of Christ... the fact that he suffered and died alone is not marvellous or wonderful... and that line suggests a fracturing in the trinity at the time of Christ's death, while it is almost docetic in its attitude to the agony of Christ in the Garden...

But let's finish on a more positive note:

When I survey the wondrous cross - however, always concerned that it doesn't explore why a piece of execution equipment could be described as "wondrous..."

My song is love unknown - a comprehensive poetic exploration of Christ's death within the context of his life and love...

Jesus Christ, I think upon your sacrifice - it may be simple (and some may say, using my own words against me, simplistic) but I think it works... (if not this one then another by Redman "I will offer up my life")

Here is love vast as the ocean - Whilst many other hymns focusing on the blood of Christ come across as gore-fests, this explicitly uses Christ's blood as a metaphor for God's love and mercy. I find it strange that this song, reputedly the theme song of the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference which in many ways spawned both modern evangelicalism and ecumenism, was then largely forgotten for the most of a century.

Come and see - Another modern one, which (horror of horrors) mentions the word "wrath", but I think it does a good job of putting people into the context of the cross...

O Sacred Head sore/once wounded - always wary of using this as the language is less than transparent... but it usually wins out because of the beautiful pairing of words and music...

One thing I am looking for, however, is a hymn/song which truly expresses the context of Jesus' death... not just the eternal implications, but the contemporary political and theological reasons for his crucifixion... But more of that anon... If anyone can point me in the direction of one I would be deeply grateful... And feel free not only to critique my lists, but to offer some of your own...

Shalom

A Community that Should be Called Atonement

2011-04-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings faithful followers... Please forgive the lack of posts recently... I've been busy elsewhere and find I only have a decidely finite amount of time and energy these days... But I promised that I would return with a review of Scot McKnight's "A Community Called Atonement" once I'd finished it and our church book-group had a chance to discuss it...

So here goes, but once again I want to state from the outset that these are my opinions alone, I'm not foisting them on any of the rest of the group... although actually we were fairly unanimous on this one... and it wasn't universal acclaim...

The thing is it all started so well... The editor's preface had claimed that the series to which this book belongs offered "approachable theology" suitable for church small groups... Scot's own prologue offered a helpful analogy of why we need multiple metaphors for the atonement (I've written on that elsewhere), and the title suggested to me a principle that I have been seeking to substantiate for some time, i.e. that the language with which we express our theology (particularly our theology of the atonement) significantly shapes our relationships within the church and with the wider world...

However, it all fell apart pretty fast... As I read it on my own, the further I got into it the more uneasy I felt about the theologically less-literate members of the book group reading it... And our later discussions suggested that many felt left behind by some of the language and concepts (and none of our group are dunderheads by any means... they just haven't had the "benefit" of a university-based theological education. At the same time, I felt that Scot was simplifying things in unhelpful ways, e.g. conflating some atonement metaphors e.g. recapitulation/ransom and Christus Victor obscuring their distinctive emphases, strengths and shortfalls. But I thought that all this would pay off as he explored, for me, the key issue of how our theology of atonement does or should shape our Christian community and its relationship with the wider community. But the pay-of never came... Indeed the last section, exploring atonement in terms of "Missional Praxis" was very thin... each section being little more than a few sentences... And these got thinner and thinner as the end approached... with the last chapter on liturgical expressions of this, almost reading like a set of notes for a much more developed piece... It was almost as if the editor had been breathing down his neck, and he had finished it in a hurry. The editor's preface promised that this series would not offer a 400 page monograph... but although I wouldn't have wanted a 400 page theologically dense textbook, perhaps a 400 page book would have been a more realistic way to explore this issue in the depth, breadth an colour that it deserves... and which Scot McKnight is more than capable of providing...

There were glimmers of what might have been... his emphasis on atonement being the restoration of the image of God within us was very helpful... and perhaps might be the metaphor for the moment, in a world obsessed with image (although his insistence on using the word Eikon as a theological shortcut was unnecessarily obfuscating and alienating to the non-theologue). As such I hope that he returns to this subject, freed from the artificial constraints of this "Living Theology" series, to explore it more fully, especially in terms of its implications for the shaping of Christian community...

However, I may have trouble convincing my book-group to give it, or indeed any further book by Scot McKnight, a go...

(If you are interested in what is next on our list, we decided to go with Brennan Manning's "The Ragamuffin Gospel")

Shalom

My Mother's Hymnbook but not Mine

2011-03-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

At the moment I, and others, are exposing the darker underbelly of our personal soundtracks to those interested in the 30 day Song Challenge over on Facebook, and in that I think that I am confirming my reputation among my critics and friends (and that list overlaps significantly) as a musical Philistine. That can only be reinforced in this post where I am, essentially saying that I really, really, really don't like Johnny Cash's "My Mother's Hymnbook" very much...
A number people have recommended it to me in the light of my enjoyment of Tom Jones' "Praise and Blame" and Robert Plant's "Band of Joy" so I borrowed it off a friend. But try as I might, listening to it day in day out over a number of weeks, I'm afraid I just couldn't warm to it. I like Johnny Cash at his best, but even though this was reputedly Cash's own favourite from his mountain of recordings, I just don't get it... Actually even the songs I do like, I prefer in versions by other artists like Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch... I posted a short, and somewhat disparaging review on LivingSocial a few weeks ago, but after a couple of responses, decided to ameliorate it and take it down from my facebook wall until I had enough time to work out why I responded with such strong antipathy.
If truth be told this could be my mother's hymnbook as much as Cash's. Most of the songs in this album are those that were staples on Sunday radio in Northern Ireland when I was a kid, and are still sung the length and breadth of the country in Gospel Halls and tent missions, sometimes to a guitar, as here, or often to an accordian (my least favourite instrument bar bagpipes at any distance less than a couple of miles, or a violin in the hands of a 6 year old beginner). I was never a fan of that style of music, in either it's sacred or secular form, and my negativity hasn't mellowed with age. But it wasn't just the music... It's the lyrics...
There is nothing wrong with a simple faith, indeed there is much to commend it but the spirituality behind many of these songs is simplistic at best. That sounds harsh, so harsh that I dropped that line from the LivingSocial/Facebook review, but I stand by it and would like to articulate why (social networking sites are not necessarily the best place for such discussions).
9 out of the 14 on this album express a yearning to leave this world and its troubles behind to go to the better place that it heaven. Not only does that represent an eschatology that would make N.T. Wright foam at the mouth, I really believe that songs such as these foster a distorted view of the relationship of the Christian to this world as well as the interface between heaven and earth. Where they were sung out of a real yearning produced by grinding poverty or oppression, as probably was the case with Cash's mother, such sentiments are understandable (although they could be symptomatic of Marx's identification of religion as the opiate of the people), in the same way that the lyrics of the gospel songs shaped by the experience of slaves often express a similar longing, but with them there is also a yearning for freedom and justice, which has found resonance in subsequent generations, even though the freedom being longed for is less tangible.
However, when the songs of slaves or white share-croppers become the substance of middle-class, white, suburban, sentimental, pseudospirituality, suitably delivered through the ether onto a nice shiny ipod... or even worse, becomes the core songbook of a whole section of the church that then becomes, as the epigram puts it "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good" then it I don't care whether the great JC... Johnny Cash that is, sings it... I still don't like it...
And actually... if truth be told, I don't like the production on this either...

The Theology Game

2011-03-18T12:15:00.001-07:00

Our church book group is currently looking at Scot McKnight's "A Community Called Atonement". I must say I'm finding it a stimulating read, and, after we've had our discussion of it next week I'll post a longer reflection. The opening page served as the stimulus for my only contribution to the MCI Lenten Blog on the Atonement, which was published today, entitled "The Atonement Game."

What I say in that blog regarding the debate regarding the Atonement, might also be usefully applied to the ongoing hell-Bell saga... His book, "Love Wins" will probably be on the reading list for the book group soon, but until such time as I actually read it, I'm not making any further comment or posting links pointing to what others are saying from varying informed and uninformed positions. Mr. Bell's publicity machine is doing a good enough job on its own (hence the lack of a link even to buy the book)... I will, however, say that so far the whole episode has been distasteful, and whoever turns out to be the winner in this particular theological spat, the injunction to "speak the truth, in love" (Ephesians 4: 15) seems to have been left out of the rules of the game.

Incident at Vichy

2011-03-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick post, because I want to get it up before the event it refers to is over...
Last night I had the privilege of attending performance of Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy" in the Belfast Synagogue as part of the 2011 Jews Schmooze Arts Festival.

I was invited to go as part of the inter-faith panel invited to discuss the play afterwards. Our briefing was not to discuss the performance as such but the ideas that lie within the play, and I'll keep largely to that brief in this short post too...

However, I would like to particularly commend the performances of Matt Faris as the psychiatrist/army veteran "Leduc" and James McAnespy as the artist "Lebeau". The former may have been a little too intense all the time for my liking, but these were the stand-out performances, in an ensemble of mixed skills and experience. Perhaps because of the varying levels of performance ability, the production itself was not of the highest standard, but it was still very, very powerful... especially given the subject matter of the holocaust, in the context of a synagogue in North Belfast...

The play itself is jam-packed full of ideas, but when performed in such a context they light up like neon signs... Anti-semitism... racism in general... sectarianism... prejudice... victimhood... collusion with oppressors... guilt... responsibility... identity... authority... civilisation... nationalism... liberal democracy... education... aesthetics... faith... God...

One interesting thing for me, as a person of faith, was how little the last two featured in the play itself, or in the discussion afterwards... Indeed God was only mentioned by two people... one being Hassan Sami Mansour from the Belfast Islamic Centre... both essentially saying that if we really followed God then the holocaust and other examples of inhumanity wouldn't happen. I nearly responded in less optismistic terms (and expected the avowed atheist on the panel to pounce on this) but given the shifting sands of the discussion I wasn't convinced that my critique would be heard... However, afterwards I was involved in a three way conversation with Hassan and the Rabbi (a Muslim, a Jew and a Methodist... sounds like the beginning of a particularly bad joke), with both of them saying that the problem with pre-war Germany was a lack of belief in God, leading to a disrespect for those created in the image of God...

I begged (and beg) to differ... all that I have read of pre-war Germany, and the critique of religious belief and action then by divergent voices such as Barth, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr and Niemoller, suggests a society pervaded by religious belief... More theological reflection went on in German universities in the 50 years prior to WW2 than perhaps at any other time in church/academic history... but that was rarified academic theology that had little impact on the man in the street. There, the prevailing religious belief was one that was entirely compatible and indeed comfortable with anti-semitism and other racist and nationalist ideologies... be it the intensely anti-semitic Catholicism of Bavaria and Austria, or the Lutheranism that hadn't shaken off the anti-semitism of the reformation as exemplified and indeed reinforced by some of Martin Luther's own writings. The issue is not a belief in God... but the kind of God you believe in, and whether that belief makes any difference to how you live your life.

Here in Northern Ireland, and North Belfast is as good an example of that as any, the God worshipped, or at least the way he was worshipped, was one of the factors in the ongoing victimisation of one community by another. Belief in God has been cited as one of the factors that limited the extent of the violence, but religious belief was indubitubly one of the factors that caused the violence in the first place especially when sectarian attitudes and nationalist idolatries etc were not only permitted, but at times promoted by faith leaders.

But as I said, the issue of faith and God is a surprisingly minor one in this play, which is absolutely bursting with ideas and emotions. If however, that's as far as it goes its only so many words on a page or a stage... As well as being the most theologically literate society in history, early 20th century Germany was also, perhaps the best educated and cultured of its day... But it still proved to be the breeding ground of Nazism... Looked down on by the cultural and intellectual elite as vulgar, it grabbed the hearts and minds of the people because instead of sitting around and talking about things, it got things done...

Fine thoughts and feelings are great, but as Leduc makes clear to the (up to that point) sympathetic German officer, feelings mean nothing if they don't move the officer to save those in danger.

So, if you have a free night, why not go along to the Belfast Synagogue tonight to see the second and last performance of this play (actually it deserves a longer run and a wider audience)... Its free...

But don't just watch and listen and chat to your friends about the issues raised afterwards, rather ask yourself "What do I do now?"

Lent Reflections...

2011-03-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

Just a brief plug for a few resources that might be worth following over Lent...

For those of you who fancy a bit of theological stimulation, the Methodist Church in Ireland are fielding a series of reflections on the Atonement... As the former convener of Faith and Order I tried, and failed, to prompt some sort of coherent thinking on this issue for a number of years, but my successor, RevMac has at least managed to get a blog up and running... so it should be interesting to see where it goes...

That is also true of another blog that features in my sidebar... Shouting at the Devil, by anabaptist lay canon David Porter, director of the Coventry Cathedral Reconciliation Programme. He's promised daily blogs throughout Lent... we'll see...

But if you are decidedly old school and prefer your thoughts on paper rather than pixels, the book I have just finished reading, "Walking the Edges" by David Adam, would repay study either on your own or in groups over the coming weeks...

If anyone has any alternative suggestions to the above, please feel free to pass them on, to help see us through the wilderness time that is Lent...

Hymn to Christ

2011-03-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Currently we're doing a Bible study on Paul's Letter to the Philippians and we've got as far as the hymn to Christ in Philippians chapter 2. It is pregnant with meaning (and controversy) probably due to its likely origins as a hymn/poem rather than as a piece of systematic theology. The context into which Paul drops it (whether Paul or another originally wrote it is almost irrelevant) is a passage where he is encouraging the Philippians to work together. What follows is my (prosaic) take on this wonderful piece:

Think of yourselves the way that Jesus, the Anointed One, thought of himself:
He was God, through and through,
but did not cling on to his equality with God,
didn’t grasp at things for his own selfish ends,
rather he poured himself out
into the shape of a slave,
taking on the physical life of a human being.
Having become a human being he humbled himself yet further,
obeying God to the death,
ironically to a death that was reserved for rebellious slaves,
death by crucifixion.
But because of his humble obedience and humiliating death
God has exalted him high above anyone and everything
Given him a name to be honoured above every name
So that at the mention of the name of Jesus
every knee will one day bow,
Everyone in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every voice will proclaim that Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,
God and King,
And what brings glory to Jesus brings glory to God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

Selah

Heresy

2011-03-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

For those who haven't seen it, my theological credentials have been cruelly besmirched by WhyNotSmile a few days ago...
For those who haven't got a sense of humour and want to rally to my defence... I asked for it... literally, when I posted on facebook as follows:
"Would someone please write a review of my book saying I am a heretic/servant of Satan... I haven't actually written a book yet, but that shouldn't matter as you don't have to read books now to have informed opinions on them (See Rob Bell's up-coming ouvre)... And there's no such thing as bad publicity is there? With enough negative publicity I could self publish a pile of tosh (double spaced) and make a million..."
For those who haven't a clue what prompted this, and think I am referring to Rob Bell the owner of my friendly local coffee shop, then you have clearly not been on the internet recently, particularly not in the "Christian" ghetto on the wonderweb... But a quick look at this post by Jason Boyett should bring you up to speed and let you know where I stand on this whole sorry mess.
But for all of you, feel free to besmirch my character and theology as much as you want, especially over the social media, because, first, I probably deserve it, and second, I really do feel a book coming on...

The Wiki Jesus

2011-03-03T01:12:00.000-08:00

"Jesus" is 10 years old today... or at least the Wikipedia entry on "Jesus" is according to this piece by Chris Wilson that I picked up a couple of months ago via Biblical World. A lot of debate (not least in the internet... see for example the comments at the bottom of Chris Wilson's article) goes into the historicity of Jesus, with sceptics writing most evidence for the existence of Jesus (known as the Christ) as irredeemably biased, with amateur Christian apologists asserting in a vague, unattested way, that there is more documentary evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for the existence of near contemporary Julius Caesar. The latter piece of nonsense probably comes from the more accurate assertion that there is more near contemporaneous documentary attestation to the books of the New Testament than there is to Caesar's Gallic Wars, but that is understandable given that the New Testament was treated as sacred by the church, and many ancient copies where preserved, while Caesar's Gallic Wars was treated as a piece of shameless vanity publishing and most copies ended up as kindling, or toilet paper, or were scraped clean to write a new copy of the New Testament on...

Meanwhile, even among those who hold the New Testament in some sort of informed respect, there is much wrangling over getting back to the so called "historical Jesus." Even a century after Albert Schweitzer's warnings, many "Jesus" theologians still peer down the deep well of 21 centuries to fashion a Jesus who is only a pale reflection of themselves...

Yet in many ways, we are called on to create a Wiki Jesus for the world... to collaborate with each other to offer the wider world, who may never read the Gospels or the worthy writings of the "Jesus Seminar", a picture of Jesus... not a Jesus confined to a particular time and place, and even less to a theological or political perspective, but a Jesus who is relevant to everyone, everywhere, at all times...

Mid-Table in a League of Lears...

2011-03-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

“The weight of this sad time we must obey.
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”

Some of the concluding words of Shakespeare's King Lear (spoken by Edgar... and not Albany as I originally misattributed it until corrected below!) and as good a point to start as any... Never been one to hesitate speaking (or writing) what I feel... and on this one, I doubt that anyone will care what I feel, or think... As ever, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Hundreds of people giving a standing ovation to the Donmar Warehouse's touring production of King Lear starring Derek Jacobi, clearly had a divergent opinion to my own, which was essentially "Glad to be here, but its nothing special."
Why do I say that? Well, first let's put this in context... I probably know this play better than any Shakespeare apart from Macbeth (pause to go outside, spit, turn round and do everything else you're supposed to do if you forget to refer to it as "the Scottish play") and have now seen 4 high profile professional productions, 3 film/TV productions and performed in one student production. Each take on the title role has been different... for me, Paul Scofield's film performance in the 1960s Peter Brook production is the baseline against which all others are judged, and there is a tightrope to be walked between the strength of character required to belive that this is a King who could hold a country in his sway, and dispose of huge portions of it at his fiat... whilst descending into helpless senility/madness within the course of the play... The man who enters into Act 1 Scene 1 is a man on the very cusp... Scofield, and later Hopkins on the National Stage, conveyed the strength and power, but were less convincing in the scenes of madness...(I was sorry when the much-touted film production with Hopkins was dropped a couple of years ago), Olivier's Channel 4 performance captured the fragility of age, but he was beyond the point of having the power to convey what was necessary in the first scene... while both were beyond Richard Briers in Branagh's Renaissance production... It is unfair to make any judgement on Michael Hordern's Jonathan Millar directed BBC version, first, because I remember so little of it I saw it so long ago, and because the production values of that entire series were so low), but the worst I have ever seen (student production included) was Anthony Quayle's Compass Theatre production, which reduced me to helpless mirth, as he turned in a performance that was on the one hand old-school ham-actor, and the other akin to a performance of Lear by Spike Milligan. Unfortunately I didn't see Ian McKellen, Ian Holm or Brian Cox's interpretations, but, I've seen a lot of Lears, good, bad, indifferent and mixed. And last night's definitely fits into the last category...
First the production as a whole, and the good points of it. It was a pared down production both in terms of staging, with a muted greyscale colourscheme, all the better for making the blood of Gloucester's mutilation stand out (akin to the red coated girl in Schindler's list), and in terms of script... Whoever was responsible for paring down the dialogue, excising extraneous details and characters without losing the sense or depth of the plot and poetry (yes there were a few beautiful lines ditched along the way, but not so many that you felt you were being short-changed), deserves an award... I have rarely if ever been at a Lear that moved along with such pace, and never been at a Shakespeare where the meaning and moment of each line was so clear. Some of the diction wasn't as clear as it might have been (though that didn't apply to Jacobi despite a lot of publicity regarding his voice problems before the show...)
But, whilst the pared down nature of the production probably reflects the intimate surroundings of the Donmar Warehouse, opened out onto the mainhouse stage of the Belfast Opera House, with a larger and more distant audience, the actors seemed to rattle around a little... The basic blocking seemed somewhat shambolic, and the actual physical distance between the actors throughout most of the play spoke of a lack of passion and involvement... (I suggested to Sal that this was the theatrical equivalent of "barrier nursing" creating a sterile environment, but she dismissed this as a "catchy line". I stand by it though.) This made the much-spoken of "ball-grabbing" scene much less powerful than it might have been... It came out of nowhere, sitting like some sort of setpiece that had no real psychological or physical context. While I'm on the subject of physicality, however, the fight scenes and other expressions of violence had no real power to them... (even those in our student production had more bite...)
And that lack of power is true of the whole production... Speeches were well delivered (Edmund's "stand up for bastards" soliloquy worked well for example, and Jacobi's underplayed storm speeches were great) but there was no real ongoing dynamic development of the characters or relationships... It is curiously anaemic, and passionless. I'm an emotional wreck at the moment and can be reduced to tears by a lunchtime episode of "Doctors". Normally Lear's final two scenes, first on the way to prison with Cordelia and his final scene mourning her loss (apologies for spoiling the ending if you didn't know it) tear at my heartstrings, but last night - nothing... just a cool appreciation of craft...
The original production in the Donmar was highly lauded. Tickets for it were hot property and a number of friends that I respect spoke highly of it, there was a multiplicity of 4 and 5 star recommendations on the back of the programme/script, and a brief scan across the internet will produce any number of gushing reviews. Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph went so far as to describe it as:

"the finest and most searching Lear I have ever seen..."

Well, as I said earlier, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and perhaps he has seen a different set of Lears from myself... or seen something different in them and in this. Again, I do suspect that the setting of the Donmar helped to create an intensity that is easily disapated in larger, more traditional theatres, and this was the first night of what is only the second venue on their tour schedule, so perhaps they aren't up to speed yet. I look forward to reading what friends make of it later in the week and what the notices around the "provinces" say. However, I do believe that in this play more than most, whatever the vision of the director (in this case Michael Grandage), the style and tone of the lead actor makes all the difference. And this is where I think that Michael Coveney in the Independent got it right, introducing his review back on 8 December 2010 saying:

"He is the most exacting and pernickety of actors, Derek Jacobi, which means that his long-awaited Lear will never open the floodgates. There's something guarded and "worked out" about it, but it is most beautifully spoken and detailed. It's also terribly polite."

I love Derek Jacobi as an actor... His C-C-C-Claudius was a work of genius... I've seen him (on the same stage) reduce an entire audience to tears in his portrayal of Alan Turing in "Breaking the Code." But Coveney's analysis is spot on... His "guarded", and "polite" precision is ideal for a Turing, but sells Lear far short. (This could also be said of his Cyrano... where his mannered performance in the RSC production seems bloodless compared with Depardieu's visceral film appearance.) In an online review of a film of the Donmar production, which describes this as "Jacobi's crowning glory" Theresa Smith suggests that it is "a play of words." I might be tempted to say, what else can it be? But actually that might be the strength and the weakness of this production... particularly when lifted out of the intimate intensity of the Donmar... It may offer us the words in their distilled form, but there is no real depth of flavour...
But don't take my word for it, or even Michael Coveney's. Go see it if you can get a ticket (and don't start me on how difficult it is to actually book multiple tickets on the Opera House's internet booking system) or look out for the filmed version of the Donmar production...
Meanwhile, I'm off to order the Brook/Scofield version on DVD...