Three kids from unchurched backgrounds committed their lives to Christ Sunday night. Very exciting.
Any suggestions what to do now?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
50 Ways to love your neighbour
1. Fast for the 2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.
3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.
4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.
5. Adopt a child.
6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.
7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)
8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.
9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.
10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is homebound.
11. Read the newspaper to someone at your local nursing home.
12. Plant a tree.
13. Look up the closest registered sex offender in your neighborhood and try to befriend him.
14. Throw a birthday party for a prostitute.
15. When you pay your water bill, pay your neighbor’s too (they’ll let you… really).
16. Invest money in a micro-lending bank.
17. Ask the next person who asks you to spare some change to join you for dinner.
18. Leave a random tip for someone who’s cleaning the streets or a public restroom.
19. Write one CEO a month this year. Affirm or critique the ethics of their company (you may need to do a little research first).
20. Start tithing (giving 10%) of all your income directly to the poor.
21. Connect with a group of migrant workers or farmers who grow your food and visit their farm. Maybe even pick some veggies with them. Ask what they get paid.
22. Give your winter coat away to someone who is colder than you and go to a thrift store to get a new one.
23. Write only paper letters (by hand) for a month. Try writing someone who needs encouragement or who you should say “I’m sorry” to.
24. Go TV free for a year. Or turn your TV into a pot where flowers grow.
25. Laugh at advertisements, especially ones that teach you that you can buy happiness.
26. Organize a prayer vigil for peace outside a weapons manufacturer such as Lockheed Martin. Read the Sermon on the Mount out loud. For extra credit, do it every week for a year.
27. Go down a line of parked cars and pay for the meters that are expired. Leave a little note of niceness.
28. Write to one social justice organizer or leader each month just to encourage them.
29. Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of the clothing being sold.
30. Experiment with creation-care by going fuel free for a week–ride a bike, carpool, or walk.
31. Try only reading books written by females or people of color for a year.
32. Go to an elderly home and get a list of folks who don´t get any visitors. Visit them each week and tell stories, read the bible together, or play board games.
33. Track to its source one item of food you eat regularly. Then, each time you eat that food, pray for those folks who helped make it possible for you to eat it.
34. Create a Jubilee fund in your Church congregation, matching dollar for dollar every dollar you spend internally with a dollar externally. If you have a building fund, create a fund to match it to give away and by mosquito nets or dig wells for folks dying in poverty.
35. Become a pen-pal with someone in prison.
36. Give your car away to a stranger.
37. Convert your car to run off waste vegetable oil.
38. Try recycling your water from the washer or sink to flush your toilet. Remember the 1.2 billion folks who don´t have clean water.
39. Wash your clothes by hand, or dry them by hanging to remember those without electricity or running water. Remember the 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity.
40. Buy only used clothes for a year.
41. Cover up all brand names, or at least the ones that do not reflect the upside-down economics of God’s Kingdom. Commit to only being branded by the cross.
42. Learn to sew or start making your own clothes to remember the invisible faces behind what we wear. Take your kids to pick cotton so they can see what that is like (and then read James).
43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin). Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.
44. Begin creating a scholarship fund so that for every one of your own children you send to college you can create a scholarship for an at-risk youth. Get to know their family and learn from each other.
45. Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.
46. Help your church congregation create a Peacemaker Scholarship and give it away to a young person trying to avoid the economic draft, who would like to go to college but sees no other way than the military.
47. Eat with someone who does not look like you. Learn from them.
48. Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask them to pray for you.
49. Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back and eat or sleep in the shelter and allow yourself to be served.
50. Join a Yokefellows ministry at a prison close to you. Remember that Jesus said he would meet you there (Matt. 25).
Thanks to Tim K for this list
2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.
3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.
4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.
5. Adopt a child.
6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.
7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)
8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.
9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.
10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is homebound.
11. Read the newspaper to someone at your local nursing home.
12. Plant a tree.
13. Look up the closest registered sex offender in your neighborhood and try to befriend him.
14. Throw a birthday party for a prostitute.
15. When you pay your water bill, pay your neighbor’s too (they’ll let you… really).
16. Invest money in a micro-lending bank.
17. Ask the next person who asks you to spare some change to join you for dinner.
18. Leave a random tip for someone who’s cleaning the streets or a public restroom.
19. Write one CEO a month this year. Affirm or critique the ethics of their company (you may need to do a little research first).
20. Start tithing (giving 10%) of all your income directly to the poor.
21. Connect with a group of migrant workers or farmers who grow your food and visit their farm. Maybe even pick some veggies with them. Ask what they get paid.
22. Give your winter coat away to someone who is colder than you and go to a thrift store to get a new one.
23. Write only paper letters (by hand) for a month. Try writing someone who needs encouragement or who you should say “I’m sorry” to.
24. Go TV free for a year. Or turn your TV into a pot where flowers grow.
25. Laugh at advertisements, especially ones that teach you that you can buy happiness.
26. Organize a prayer vigil for peace outside a weapons manufacturer such as Lockheed Martin. Read the Sermon on the Mount out loud. For extra credit, do it every week for a year.
27. Go down a line of parked cars and pay for the meters that are expired. Leave a little note of niceness.
28. Write to one social justice organizer or leader each month just to encourage them.
29. Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of the clothing being sold.
30. Experiment with creation-care by going fuel free for a week–ride a bike, carpool, or walk.
31. Try only reading books written by females or people of color for a year.
32. Go to an elderly home and get a list of folks who don´t get any visitors. Visit them each week and tell stories, read the bible together, or play board games.
33. Track to its source one item of food you eat regularly. Then, each time you eat that food, pray for those folks who helped make it possible for you to eat it.
34. Create a Jubilee fund in your Church congregation, matching dollar for dollar every dollar you spend internally with a dollar externally. If you have a building fund, create a fund to match it to give away and by mosquito nets or dig wells for folks dying in poverty.
35. Become a pen-pal with someone in prison.
36. Give your car away to a stranger.
37. Convert your car to run off waste vegetable oil.
38. Try recycling your water from the washer or sink to flush your toilet. Remember the 1.2 billion folks who don´t have clean water.
39. Wash your clothes by hand, or dry them by hanging to remember those without electricity or running water. Remember the 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity.
40. Buy only used clothes for a year.
41. Cover up all brand names, or at least the ones that do not reflect the upside-down economics of God’s Kingdom. Commit to only being branded by the cross.
42. Learn to sew or start making your own clothes to remember the invisible faces behind what we wear. Take your kids to pick cotton so they can see what that is like (and then read James).
43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin). Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.
44. Begin creating a scholarship fund so that for every one of your own children you send to college you can create a scholarship for an at-risk youth. Get to know their family and learn from each other.
45. Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.
46. Help your church congregation create a Peacemaker Scholarship and give it away to a young person trying to avoid the economic draft, who would like to go to college but sees no other way than the military.
47. Eat with someone who does not look like you. Learn from them.
48. Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask them to pray for you.
49. Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back and eat or sleep in the shelter and allow yourself to be served.
50. Join a Yokefellows ministry at a prison close to you. Remember that Jesus said he would meet you there (Matt. 25).
Thanks to Tim K for this list
Camp, soccer, wet patch....
On the weekend I went on a camp
We played soccer.
There was a wet patch.
I fell over.
Anyone who knows my form on this knows what is coming.
I was in hospital Sunday night.
This time it was a wierd fungal infection under my cornea from the skanky swamp water at Kingsford Smith park.
I go into the emergency bit at the hospital (after Rosie harassed me into going), the doctor says
' Are you in pain?'
' No'
'Are you sure?'
' Yep'
Then she calls in the next doctor, who takes a look.
"Ooo, thats strange isn't it. Are you in alot of pain'
'No'
'Oh, ok'
She calls in the specialist
"Hmm... so he says he's not in pain. Hmm, well he will be soon"
She was right. Cornea scrape. urgh.
Fie to the soccer I say.
We played soccer.
There was a wet patch.
I fell over.
Anyone who knows my form on this knows what is coming.
I was in hospital Sunday night.
This time it was a wierd fungal infection under my cornea from the skanky swamp water at Kingsford Smith park.
I go into the emergency bit at the hospital (after Rosie harassed me into going), the doctor says
' Are you in pain?'
' No'
'Are you sure?'
' Yep'
Then she calls in the next doctor, who takes a look.
"Ooo, thats strange isn't it. Are you in alot of pain'
'No'
'Oh, ok'
She calls in the specialist
"Hmm... so he says he's not in pain. Hmm, well he will be soon"
She was right. Cornea scrape. urgh.
Fie to the soccer I say.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Love: the goal of ministry
Are involved in some kind of ministry?
What is your goal? What are you trying to do? and how are you trying to make it happen?
Here's Paul's advice to Timothy
"The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" 1 Timothy 1:5
It seems to me with all the silly debates about the necessity of a social gospel etc, people get one of two things wrong.
1. The goal is love.
The goal of gospel ministry is to see changed lives and a changed world. The goal is to see God's love flowing through people, not just to make sure they have an entry pass to God's future. If our goal is to see people with pure hearts, good consciences and sincere faith, but don't then love as Jesus did, we've got things seriously messed up. We are lovemakers, not information feeders.
or 2. The goal issues from a pure heart etc.
People aren't going to change without a gospel of grace, of acceptance of the outcast. We are incapable of Godly love without his Spirit. If we don't have a sincere faith , then we won't follow Jesus to the cross. If our consciences are marred, we will probably act manipulatively, self justifying, ie. not loving. This message of purity, of forgiveness, of simple and sincere faith IS the way to change hearts and the world. You can't take short cuts, cutting out purity, consciences cleansed and strong faith, and expect to reach the goal.
We can neither cut corners, nor sit on corners instead of pressing forward in love.
God of love and purity,
give me a pure heart, a good conscience, sincere faith, that I might love. Keep this vision before our eyes in ministry, unleash your Spirit of love in your people.
What is your goal? What are you trying to do? and how are you trying to make it happen?
Here's Paul's advice to Timothy
"The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" 1 Timothy 1:5
It seems to me with all the silly debates about the necessity of a social gospel etc, people get one of two things wrong.
1. The goal is love.
The goal of gospel ministry is to see changed lives and a changed world. The goal is to see God's love flowing through people, not just to make sure they have an entry pass to God's future. If our goal is to see people with pure hearts, good consciences and sincere faith, but don't then love as Jesus did, we've got things seriously messed up. We are lovemakers, not information feeders.
or 2. The goal issues from a pure heart etc.
People aren't going to change without a gospel of grace, of acceptance of the outcast. We are incapable of Godly love without his Spirit. If we don't have a sincere faith , then we won't follow Jesus to the cross. If our consciences are marred, we will probably act manipulatively, self justifying, ie. not loving. This message of purity, of forgiveness, of simple and sincere faith IS the way to change hearts and the world. You can't take short cuts, cutting out purity, consciences cleansed and strong faith, and expect to reach the goal.
We can neither cut corners, nor sit on corners instead of pressing forward in love.
God of love and purity,
give me a pure heart, a good conscience, sincere faith, that I might love. Keep this vision before our eyes in ministry, unleash your Spirit of love in your people.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Prayer Monday: Cleanliness in Leviticus
Leviticus 15 concludes the section on clean and unclean laws, covering animals (ch11), childbirth (12) Leprosy (13-14) houses(14) and now bodily discharges.
"Thus you shall keep the people of Israel seperate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst" 15:31
One thing that is striking is the apparent everyday mundaneness of these things. We tend to think of being labelled 'unclean' as a terrible moral guilt, an insult. Yet your average Jew must have been unclean multiple, multiple times in their life. It was part of living an embodied life.
This doesn't reduce the seriousness. If they remain attached to the uncleanness, they will die. But God graciously provides a means of atonement, so that they can be both people who live in an unclean world, and have the glory of God dwell in their midst.
As the temple of God, whose Spirit dwells among us, how can this sense of careful reverence, yet embodied living, be cultivated. How can we learn to live in an unclean world, trusting in God's cleansing atonement?
Dangerous God, you gently show us how to come to you, how to be your people, how to have your consuming fire dwell amongst us. Though we play at your feet, we are in constant need of your atonement, yes from guilt, but also from simply living in an unclean world. We are pressed and imprinted by it, woven of good and bad cloth, moulded and mouldy, a rotten stench lingers on us from living in a dead world. Cleanse us, that we might live and not die from your holiness.
"Thus you shall keep the people of Israel seperate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst" 15:31
One thing that is striking is the apparent everyday mundaneness of these things. We tend to think of being labelled 'unclean' as a terrible moral guilt, an insult. Yet your average Jew must have been unclean multiple, multiple times in their life. It was part of living an embodied life.
This doesn't reduce the seriousness. If they remain attached to the uncleanness, they will die. But God graciously provides a means of atonement, so that they can be both people who live in an unclean world, and have the glory of God dwell in their midst.
As the temple of God, whose Spirit dwells among us, how can this sense of careful reverence, yet embodied living, be cultivated. How can we learn to live in an unclean world, trusting in God's cleansing atonement?
Dangerous God, you gently show us how to come to you, how to be your people, how to have your consuming fire dwell amongst us. Though we play at your feet, we are in constant need of your atonement, yes from guilt, but also from simply living in an unclean world. We are pressed and imprinted by it, woven of good and bad cloth, moulded and mouldy, a rotten stench lingers on us from living in a dead world. Cleanse us, that we might live and not die from your holiness.
Friday, April 17, 2009
His absence hurts because He is good
Does contemplating God's goodness make you feel better or worse?
I was chatting last night to a christian sister, who is having a bit of a hard time, and as she turns to the scriptures and thinks about the God of promise, it simply makes her feel worse. Where is the fulfilment of those promises? Why are things so bad? She was worried that she might be losing her trust in God.
In Psalm 77, Asaph asks the same questions. He cries out to God, refusing to be comforted. He remembers God's former deeds, the wonders of the exodus, redeeming the children of Jacob and Joseph. God's fearsome rule of the deep, the storm, the seperation of the waters, and God's presence with his flock through Moses and Aaron. Yet it is God who distresses him.
“Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favourable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” v7-9
Disappointment and crying out to God is biblical. We do God no honour by pretending that we can do without his redemption. We honour God's goodness by crying out in its absence in the world. Even as Christians, looking back to the heady events of Jesus resurrection, spur us to ask, where is that resurrection now?
“That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present”
Moltmann Theology of Hope pp21
God of goodness and life, where are you? We remember your power, your amazing promise, your world shaking Son, and it hurts us. Where is your mercy for the world? The compassion for your people? We eagerly await. We painfully wait. We wait hoping and remembering. Come Lord Jesus, come.
I was chatting last night to a christian sister, who is having a bit of a hard time, and as she turns to the scriptures and thinks about the God of promise, it simply makes her feel worse. Where is the fulfilment of those promises? Why are things so bad? She was worried that she might be losing her trust in God.
In Psalm 77, Asaph asks the same questions. He cries out to God, refusing to be comforted. He remembers God's former deeds, the wonders of the exodus, redeeming the children of Jacob and Joseph. God's fearsome rule of the deep, the storm, the seperation of the waters, and God's presence with his flock through Moses and Aaron. Yet it is God who distresses him.
“Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favourable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” v7-9
Disappointment and crying out to God is biblical. We do God no honour by pretending that we can do without his redemption. We honour God's goodness by crying out in its absence in the world. Even as Christians, looking back to the heady events of Jesus resurrection, spur us to ask, where is that resurrection now?
“That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present”
Moltmann Theology of Hope pp21
God of goodness and life, where are you? We remember your power, your amazing promise, your world shaking Son, and it hurts us. Where is your mercy for the world? The compassion for your people? We eagerly await. We painfully wait. We wait hoping and remembering. Come Lord Jesus, come.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Compulsory reading for all literate Christians
I just re-read Karl Barths "The Holy Spirit and Christian Hope", number 73 in Church Dogmatics 4/3.2.
It is truly one of the most comforting, challenging, energising, enriching pieces of christian theology I have ever read.
Every christian that can read should read this. If ever there was someone who considered how to spur other christians on to love and good deeds as we look for the Day of the Lords coming, Barth is the guy.
I have to write an essay now, but I will be posting up bits in the future.
It is truly one of the most comforting, challenging, energising, enriching pieces of christian theology I have ever read.
Every christian that can read should read this. If ever there was someone who considered how to spur other christians on to love and good deeds as we look for the Day of the Lords coming, Barth is the guy.
I have to write an essay now, but I will be posting up bits in the future.
Youth group names
Anyone out there starting some kind of youth ministry?
Need to come up with a name for it?
Hows about ACRONYM?
A
Christian
Ridiculously
Outdated
Named
Youth
Ministry
Hey kids! Want to come to ACRONYM? Yeah!
Need to come up with a name for it?
Hows about ACRONYM?
A
Christian
Ridiculously
Outdated
Named
Youth
Ministry
Hey kids! Want to come to ACRONYM? Yeah!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Prayer Mondays: Psalm 16, God the horizon of deleight
I say to the LORD "You are my Lord, I have no good apart from you....You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fulness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for ever more" Psalm 16:2,11
The presence of YHWH is the fount of all goodness.
He gives us the saints, secures a bountiful inheritance, gives counsel and security. In praise, Davids whole being, even his flesh, is secure from sheol and corruption. Surely these are true of Jesus, whom God did not let see corruption (acts 13:35), who sits at the right hand of YHWH, whose inheritance is sure.
But also for us, who look forward to the coming presence of God in Christ, his resurrection becomes ours, Himself as our bountiful inheritance and fulness of joy. Not only in the future, but now, YHWH is present by his Spirit, so the path of life, fulness of joy and eternal pleasures dwell within us.
LORD God, fountain of goodness, centre of pleasure, holder of security and inheritance, overflowing with blessing, rich in grace and love, raiser of the dead, keeper from corruption, open to me the path of life, come and be present, tickle me joyful with your right hand, overfill the horizon of my desires that I might deleight in you
Friday, April 10, 2009
Jesus and forgiveness
How important is Jesus' welcome of sinners to him being our saviour?
What would we lose if Jesus didn't pronounce forgiveness before he died?
What would we lose if Jesus didn't pronounce forgiveness before he died?
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The church as fans of God:Augustine on celebrity, love and taking pleasure in God
"In the theatre- that den of wickedness- someone who loves an actor and revels in his skill as if it were a great good, or even the supreme one, also loves all those who share his love, not on their account, but on account of the one they equally love. The more passionate he is in this love, the more he tries by whatever methods he can to make his hero loved by a greater number of people, and the more he desires to point him out to a greater number of people. If he sees someone unenthusiastic he rouses him with his praises as much as he can. If he finds anyone antagonistic, he violently hates that person's hatred of his hero and goes all out to remove it by whatever methods he can. So what should we do in sharing the love of God, whose full enjoyment constitutes the happy life? It is God from whom all those who love him derive both thier existence and their love; it is God who frees us from any fear that he can fail to satisfy anyone to whom he becomes known; it is God who wants himself to be loved, not in order to gain any reward for himself but to give to those who love him an eternal reward- namely himself, the object of their love.
Hence the fact that we also love our enemies. We do not fear them, for they cannot take away from us what we love, but we pity them, for they hate us all the more because they are seperated from the one we love. If they turned to him, it is inevitable that they would love him as the goodness which is the source of all happiness and love us as joint participants in such goodness."
Augustine "On Christian Teaching" Book 1, 64-65
Hence the fact that we also love our enemies. We do not fear them, for they cannot take away from us what we love, but we pity them, for they hate us all the more because they are seperated from the one we love. If they turned to him, it is inevitable that they would love him as the goodness which is the source of all happiness and love us as joint participants in such goodness."
Augustine "On Christian Teaching" Book 1, 64-65
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Theology and exegesis: is there a simple reading of scripture?
As Jesus approached his shameful death on the cross, to be convicted as a blasphemer, as a terrorist, as an usurper, to be stripped, beaten, killed in a field by oppresive forces, his followers scattered, his reputation ruined,
Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,
(John 17:1)
How is this glorious?
How do we resolve this?
One option is to say that Jesus was wrong, and he was not glorified.
Or perhaps we could say that when Jesus says 'glory' he means something else, that has no connection to what we mean when we say 'glory'
Another option is to say Jesus was glorified later, in the resurrection perhaps.
Yet there is a fourth option that says that we must rethink our concept of glory in light of the reality of what happened in Jesus Christ
Jesus death is truly his glorification, and the glory of his Father, but not glory in the way we usually use the term. Or perhaps it is in the way we use the term, but getting there a much differnt way.
Part of the necessity of theology is the way in which God has encroached on our language and concepts. Or maybe a better way to explain it is how God has sanctified, or redeemed our language and concepts.
If God simply replaced our concepts, or spoke in some kind of non-human God language
that had no connection to our previous language, then there would be no need for theology. Everything would be entirely clear (or entirely hidden).
But God didn't. He spoke in and through his Son who became entirely human, He spoke through his prophets and apostles, He made himself vulnerable to misunderstanding.
Pert of the task of the theologian then, is to show how God is both continuous with our concepts yet at the same time utterly judges, transforms and redeems them.
When it comes to language, God doesn't wipe the slate clean [to make a tabula rasa ;) ] he redeems and rebuilds. And the theology of the christian community is part of this rebuilding, this reframing of our view of life the universe and everything in light of the coming of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,
(John 17:1)
How is this glorious?
How do we resolve this?
One option is to say that Jesus was wrong, and he was not glorified.
Or perhaps we could say that when Jesus says 'glory' he means something else, that has no connection to what we mean when we say 'glory'
Another option is to say Jesus was glorified later, in the resurrection perhaps.
Yet there is a fourth option that says that we must rethink our concept of glory in light of the reality of what happened in Jesus Christ
Jesus death is truly his glorification, and the glory of his Father, but not glory in the way we usually use the term. Or perhaps it is in the way we use the term, but getting there a much differnt way.
Part of the necessity of theology is the way in which God has encroached on our language and concepts. Or maybe a better way to explain it is how God has sanctified, or redeemed our language and concepts.
If God simply replaced our concepts, or spoke in some kind of non-human God language
that had no connection to our previous language, then there would be no need for theology. Everything would be entirely clear (or entirely hidden).
But God didn't. He spoke in and through his Son who became entirely human, He spoke through his prophets and apostles, He made himself vulnerable to misunderstanding.
Pert of the task of the theologian then, is to show how God is both continuous with our concepts yet at the same time utterly judges, transforms and redeems them.
When it comes to language, God doesn't wipe the slate clean [to make a tabula rasa ;) ] he redeems and rebuilds. And the theology of the christian community is part of this rebuilding, this reframing of our view of life the universe and everything in light of the coming of God in Jesus Christ.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Prayer Monday: Stanley Hauerwas
REVEALING AND TERRIFYING GOD, whose very revelation is mystery, forgive our frightened attempts to possess you. You have created us for yourself, but we find that hard to believe, much less live. So we strut across your creation as if we really understood you. Theology becomes our way to try to be in control, dear God, even of you. So was ask for the humility that comes from the unavoidable recognition that you insist on our being your people. What an extraordinary thing. AMEN
S Hauerwas,
Prayers Plainly Spoken
S Hauerwas,
Prayers Plainly Spoken
Death of a Vigilante
People are ugly. Standing on the Bus yesterday I remembered, people are quite nasty pieces of work. One bloke was swearing into the phone, threatening to beat people up, no one would get up for an eldelry man to sit, people pushed and shoved and scowled. Sometimes I feel like taking on the role of a vigilante. Of cleaning this town up by removing some of its scum.
I've been reading Augustine though.
He has this concept of evil as the distortion or privation of good. This makes my fellow travellers even more guilty (me too). It isn't simply that we do wrong, but we fail to do all the good we could with what God has given us. The problem with the guy on the phone isn't simply that he is threatening, but that he isn't building up.
As the confession often says, "we have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done".
Which is why wiping out the wicked is never enough. While it may stop the injustice, the world is still deprived of the good these people could be doing. Only the Spirt of God, transforming people and empowering them into the freedom of self-giving work can create the kind of justice that isn't simply the absence of bad, but the presence of abundant good.
This has to change the way I look at people. My question has to stop being, 'how could God restrict them from being jerks?', and start being ' How could the Spirit of Jesus make them life givers for others?'
So, no more Vigilante fantasies.
I've been reading Augustine though.
He has this concept of evil as the distortion or privation of good. This makes my fellow travellers even more guilty (me too). It isn't simply that we do wrong, but we fail to do all the good we could with what God has given us. The problem with the guy on the phone isn't simply that he is threatening, but that he isn't building up.
As the confession often says, "we have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done".
Which is why wiping out the wicked is never enough. While it may stop the injustice, the world is still deprived of the good these people could be doing. Only the Spirt of God, transforming people and empowering them into the freedom of self-giving work can create the kind of justice that isn't simply the absence of bad, but the presence of abundant good.
This has to change the way I look at people. My question has to stop being, 'how could God restrict them from being jerks?', and start being ' How could the Spirit of Jesus make them life givers for others?'
So, no more Vigilante fantasies.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Augustine on Theology and Scripture: the prior role of theology
At the beginning of Augustines "On Christian Teaching", he responds to the critics who say such a book is unnecessary. While he admits that some blessed people can understand the scriptures with little aid, even without the alphabet, nevertheless, even these people were taught their mother tongue by other humans. Augustine goes on to defend human agency in coming to the scriptures, in thinking of doctrinal guides to reading them
"The teacher who reads out a text to listening students simply articulates what he recognizes; but the teacher who teaches the actual alphabet has the intention of enabling others to read too. Both are instilling knowledge they have received. The teacher who expounds what he understands in the scriptures expounds it to his listeners, like the reader of a text articulating the letters which he recognises; whereas the teacher who teaches how to understand scripture is like the teacher of the alphabet, one who teaches how to read. So the person who knows how to read, on finding a book, does not require another reader to tell him what is written in it; in the same way, the person who has assimilated the rules I am trying to teach, when he finds difficulty in the text, will not need another interpreter to reveal what is obscure, because he comprehends certain rules ( the equivalent of letters in this analogy). By following up various clues he can unerringly arrive at the hidden meaning for himself ar at least avoid falling into incongruous misconceptions"
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, preface. 18
The question is not should doctrine come before reading scripture, but which doctrines come before scripture
"The teacher who reads out a text to listening students simply articulates what he recognizes; but the teacher who teaches the actual alphabet has the intention of enabling others to read too. Both are instilling knowledge they have received. The teacher who expounds what he understands in the scriptures expounds it to his listeners, like the reader of a text articulating the letters which he recognises; whereas the teacher who teaches how to understand scripture is like the teacher of the alphabet, one who teaches how to read. So the person who knows how to read, on finding a book, does not require another reader to tell him what is written in it; in the same way, the person who has assimilated the rules I am trying to teach, when he finds difficulty in the text, will not need another interpreter to reveal what is obscure, because he comprehends certain rules ( the equivalent of letters in this analogy). By following up various clues he can unerringly arrive at the hidden meaning for himself ar at least avoid falling into incongruous misconceptions"
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, preface. 18
The question is not should doctrine come before reading scripture, but which doctrines come before scripture
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Christian Spirituality V: why we do what we do
What church is about is recalling God’s love and loving each other. The community of the church is God completing the love he has for us. In the church we get a glimpse of what God and his love are like.
“No one has ever seen God” says John in verse 12 “ BUT, if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”.
I have never seen God, but I’ve been around his people for 28 years, and I have seen and felt his love through them. God’s Spirit and love are made tangible to us through his people.
I see the love of God when I see Patrick handing out the cards he has made for people that week
I hear the love that is God when I hear the musicians who practice to play for us
I taste the love that is God when I eat the morning tea that is prepared with love
I touch the love that is God when I shake the hands of seventy people who got out of bed on a Sunday morning to encourage my faith.
The Spiritual health of a church then, is how it’s members love each other. Not the size of a church, not it’s programs, not it’s budgets or plans.
In the close and regular contact of church we learn to serve and forgive, to be humble and to be loved, to laugh and to cry for each other, to welcome stangers and to deal with weakness. By the Spirit we learn to be like the Son who is our life. We remind ourselves of who God is, what he has done for us and how he is living in and through us
This humble little meeting IS where the true spiritual action is at.
God is love. We know and rely on the love God has for us. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. Dear friends, let us love one another.
“No one has ever seen God” says John in verse 12 “ BUT, if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”.
I have never seen God, but I’ve been around his people for 28 years, and I have seen and felt his love through them. God’s Spirit and love are made tangible to us through his people.
I see the love of God when I see Patrick handing out the cards he has made for people that week
I hear the love that is God when I hear the musicians who practice to play for us
I taste the love that is God when I eat the morning tea that is prepared with love
I touch the love that is God when I shake the hands of seventy people who got out of bed on a Sunday morning to encourage my faith.
The Spiritual health of a church then, is how it’s members love each other. Not the size of a church, not it’s programs, not it’s budgets or plans.
In the close and regular contact of church we learn to serve and forgive, to be humble and to be loved, to laugh and to cry for each other, to welcome stangers and to deal with weakness. By the Spirit we learn to be like the Son who is our life. We remind ourselves of who God is, what he has done for us and how he is living in and through us
This humble little meeting IS where the true spiritual action is at.
God is love. We know and rely on the love God has for us. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. Dear friends, let us love one another.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Christian Spirituality IV: whoever lives in love, lives in God
Christian spirituaity is about what God is doing in us and through us.
In the Old Testament, the atoning sacrifice was made so that God could continue dwelling in the tent of the tabernacle, even though the people sinned.
In Jesus Christ, the goal is that God may dwell in us, and we in God. “He became human so that we may become divine” says Athanasius. John repeats this idea over and over. v2 When we acknowledge Christ, God lives in us, and we in him. v13 He has given us of his Spirit, so God lives in us and we in him. This mutual indwelling, what does it sound like? By his love, God includes us in his divine life. We don't need to strive for union with the divine, God simply gives it to christians freely. It’s as though God has pulled up another chair at the meal. God has made a space in himself for us, so that we can join in the dance. Through his Son and Spirit, God gives us a part to sing in the love that he is. And the key indicator that we have the Spirit, that we are born of God, that we know God, is that we love like he does. “Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in her”v16
This is what christian spirituality is. Loving like God loves. Beloved, let us love v7. We love because he first loved us . Giving ourselves for the good of others. Getting out into the nitty-gritty, difficult world, that sometimes won’t like us, and loving. When we love the person in front of us, whoever it is, this is a spiritual activity. This has massive implications for what Christians consider spiritual. Luther The great Reformer got this better than anyone else. If loving our neighbor is our spiritual activity before God, then the whole of life is our spirituality. If you are a teacher, and you work to educate your students, to enrich their lives because you love them, this is a sacred activity. If you are a plumber, and you fix people’s toilets because, let’s face it, life is better with toilets than without, this is part of your spirituality. If you are a pensioner, and you put up with the noisy kids next door, because you love them and want them to have fun, that is part of God working in and through you.
This is particularly true when we come to church.
In the Old Testament, the atoning sacrifice was made so that God could continue dwelling in the tent of the tabernacle, even though the people sinned.
In Jesus Christ, the goal is that God may dwell in us, and we in God. “He became human so that we may become divine” says Athanasius. John repeats this idea over and over. v2 When we acknowledge Christ, God lives in us, and we in him. v13 He has given us of his Spirit, so God lives in us and we in him. This mutual indwelling, what does it sound like? By his love, God includes us in his divine life. We don't need to strive for union with the divine, God simply gives it to christians freely. It’s as though God has pulled up another chair at the meal. God has made a space in himself for us, so that we can join in the dance. Through his Son and Spirit, God gives us a part to sing in the love that he is. And the key indicator that we have the Spirit, that we are born of God, that we know God, is that we love like he does. “Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in her”v16
This is what christian spirituality is. Loving like God loves. Beloved, let us love v7. We love because he first loved us . Giving ourselves for the good of others. Getting out into the nitty-gritty, difficult world, that sometimes won’t like us, and loving. When we love the person in front of us, whoever it is, this is a spiritual activity. This has massive implications for what Christians consider spiritual. Luther The great Reformer got this better than anyone else. If loving our neighbor is our spiritual activity before God, then the whole of life is our spirituality. If you are a teacher, and you work to educate your students, to enrich their lives because you love them, this is a sacred activity. If you are a plumber, and you fix people’s toilets because, let’s face it, life is better with toilets than without, this is part of your spirituality. If you are a pensioner, and you put up with the noisy kids next door, because you love them and want them to have fun, that is part of God working in and through you.
This is particularly true when we come to church.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Christian Spirituality III: we know and rely on the Love of God for us
As Christians we know and rely on God’s love for us. Our spirituality is primarily about what this God of love does and has done for us, rather than what we have to do for God.
“THis is love” says john in verse 10, “not that we love God, but that he loved us”. Christians don’t search for what God might feel towards us, because he has shown us, he loves us. Look with me at verse 9-10
And this is How God has shown his love for us, He sent his only Son into the world as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, that we might live through him”.
God didn’t stay content with his own perfect circle of love, distant from the world, but sent his Son into the world, into the messy, difficult, impure world of flesh and blood that was hostile to him. That is what love is, giving of yourself for the weak and difficult.
The Son not only came, but came to be an atoning sacrifice for sin. The sacrifice for atonement in the Old Testament was performed once a year to deal with the rebellion of Gods people, and to make it safe to have a Holy God dwell amongst them . The Son was sent to die, to deal with the problem of sin that had seperated humanity from God. How do we know God loves us, the Son suffered the cross and abandonment, the Father suffered the grief of the death of his Son. God himself has dealt with our punishment. And so any spirituality that calls itself christian but still instills fear of punishment, and demands reparation to be done is not from God. In verse 17 The perfect love of God in Christ drives out fear, and so we can rely on this love to approach God with confidence.
And the Goal of God’s love is that we may share in the divine life of the Son, look at verse 9 , that we might live through him
“THis is love” says john in verse 10, “not that we love God, but that he loved us”. Christians don’t search for what God might feel towards us, because he has shown us, he loves us. Look with me at verse 9-10
And this is How God has shown his love for us, He sent his only Son into the world as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, that we might live through him”.
God didn’t stay content with his own perfect circle of love, distant from the world, but sent his Son into the world, into the messy, difficult, impure world of flesh and blood that was hostile to him. That is what love is, giving of yourself for the weak and difficult.
The Son not only came, but came to be an atoning sacrifice for sin. The sacrifice for atonement in the Old Testament was performed once a year to deal with the rebellion of Gods people, and to make it safe to have a Holy God dwell amongst them . The Son was sent to die, to deal with the problem of sin that had seperated humanity from God. How do we know God loves us, the Son suffered the cross and abandonment, the Father suffered the grief of the death of his Son. God himself has dealt with our punishment. And so any spirituality that calls itself christian but still instills fear of punishment, and demands reparation to be done is not from God. In verse 17 The perfect love of God in Christ drives out fear, and so we can rely on this love to approach God with confidence.
And the Goal of God’s love is that we may share in the divine life of the Son, look at verse 9 , that we might live through him
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Christian Spirituality II: God is Love
Firstly. God is love.
If we are going to understand a spirituality, then we cant avoid talking about what we think the Spirit is that we are dealing with. What you believe about God, or the ultimate or the spiritual or whatever, will condition what you think spirituality is about. If you think God is essentially an authoritarian rulemaker, then your spirituality will be about keeping rules. If you think to be spiritual is to be not-physical, then your spirituality will be about escaping the body. If you think God is essentially the logical first Cause of everything, then your spirituality will be about finding logical cause and effect links between everything.
The key essence of God that John gives us here is that God is love. v8, v16. Not simply that God is loving , or that sometimes he loves, but that God IS love. Christians believe that when you strip everything else away, at the heart of what it means to be God is love.
Love is the stuff God is made of. At the centre of the universe is an other person centred relationship.
This comes from the christian recognition of Jesus as the Son of God. To be God isn’t to be alone, but to be the Father who loves the Son and gives him all things, and to be the Son who loves the Father and honours him in everything, and to be the Spirit who is loved by and loves the Father and the Son. This relationship, this bond of love that is God is so strong that each person lives in the other. We see this earlier in 1John , where he says whoever has the Son has the Father and whoever has the Father has the Son, or in the gospel of John 14:10, I am in the Father and the father is in me
Christian theologians have come up with all sorts of different images to help us understand this difficult concept of God as love.
Some use the image of a meal, with the Father, Son and Spirit sitting around it. Like one of those great dinner parties where everyone jjust clicks and no one dominates and all enjoy each others company.
Others use the evocative image of a dance. The love of God is like the never ending whirling of a dance where each makes space for the other, responds perfectly to the other
Others describe God’s love like music, where there is a perfect harmony of different parts.
The best image we have however, is the way in which God has loved us, and that brings us to our next point.
If we are going to understand a spirituality, then we cant avoid talking about what we think the Spirit is that we are dealing with. What you believe about God, or the ultimate or the spiritual or whatever, will condition what you think spirituality is about. If you think God is essentially an authoritarian rulemaker, then your spirituality will be about keeping rules. If you think to be spiritual is to be not-physical, then your spirituality will be about escaping the body. If you think God is essentially the logical first Cause of everything, then your spirituality will be about finding logical cause and effect links between everything.
The key essence of God that John gives us here is that God is love. v8, v16. Not simply that God is loving , or that sometimes he loves, but that God IS love. Christians believe that when you strip everything else away, at the heart of what it means to be God is love.
Love is the stuff God is made of. At the centre of the universe is an other person centred relationship.
This comes from the christian recognition of Jesus as the Son of God. To be God isn’t to be alone, but to be the Father who loves the Son and gives him all things, and to be the Son who loves the Father and honours him in everything, and to be the Spirit who is loved by and loves the Father and the Son. This relationship, this bond of love that is God is so strong that each person lives in the other. We see this earlier in 1John , where he says whoever has the Son has the Father and whoever has the Father has the Son, or in the gospel of John 14:10, I am in the Father and the father is in me
Christian theologians have come up with all sorts of different images to help us understand this difficult concept of God as love.
Some use the image of a meal, with the Father, Son and Spirit sitting around it. Like one of those great dinner parties where everyone jjust clicks and no one dominates and all enjoy each others company.
Others use the evocative image of a dance. The love of God is like the never ending whirling of a dance where each makes space for the other, responds perfectly to the other
Others describe God’s love like music, where there is a perfect harmony of different parts.
The best image we have however, is the way in which God has loved us, and that brings us to our next point.
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