Wait and See

Wait and See
by Richard Bauckham



In the drab waiting-room
the failed travellers, resigned, sleep
on the hard benches, inured
to postponement and foul coffee.
Hope has given up on them.
There are also the impatient,
pacing platforms, and the driven,
purple with frustration, abusing
their mobiles, for the hardest part
of waiting is the not doing.
Truly to wait is pure dependence.
But waiting too long the heart
grows sclerotic. Will it still
be fit to leap when the time comes?
Prayer is waiting with desire.
Two aged lives incarnate
century on century
of waiting for God, their waiting-room
his temple, waiting on his presence,
marking time by practising
the cycle of the sacrifices,
ferial and festival,
circling onward, spiralling
towards a centre out ahead,
seasons of revolving hope.
Holding out for God who cannot
be given up for dead, holding
him to his promises - not now,
not just yet, but soon, surely,
eyes will see what hearts await

Am I a tritheist?

Having read and reflected on the Patristic Fathers over the past six months I have concluded that my imagination of God is tritheist. I have been brought up to believe that the Father and Son are two people (and the Spirit a third). Then conceive of these three as one. One being; three persons. But most of the conversation is about Jesus or the Father (or the Spirit) not about the one God. If I am brutally honest it is hard to understand what is meant by one being in three persons.

Reading Hillary who attempted to explain Greek terms to his Latin friends was helpful. Translation often has an ability to clarify. The terms that came to be settled were ousia for the one and hupostasis for the three. Hillary argued they were both words relating to existence because both speak of what a thing was permanently. Existence (ousia) particularly referred to a reality that is always. Substance (hupostasis), following Athanasius, refers to how the thing subsists in itself. (De Synodis, 12.) That is, the concrete reality of the thing. Basil explains the relationship between ousia and hupostasis as the common to the particular.

I have two reflections on this.
First, the three persons are really the same reality. They are the same being. Thus the term homoousia (same being). There is one God as the scriptures proclaim so loudly. There is no other God besides the one true God.

To my ears this sounds modalist. (And explaining this to a friend he gently told me so.) Modalism argues the persons are different manifestations of the one. There really is only one that appears different at different times. Responding to this Athanasius explains that orthodox doctrine is not modalist because the Father and Son are the same being. Confused? He argues that there are two persons who are the same being thus distinct. Calling the Father, 'Father' indicates the presence of a Son. And vice-versa. They are not the same subject but the same in what they are, God. Thus this is not modalist.

My second reflection concerns my imagination. I imagine God as a committee of three humans. Or a three person rugby team (like scrums in rugby sevens). But I don't think that is a correct imagination and tends towards individualism. I must learn to imagine that when I meet Jesus Christ I meet the Father. Likewise the Spirit's work in me is the work of God. Interestingly I use some of these triune expressions but somehow I forget that all three are working together in all things, God is working!

Actually Hillary argues that we ought to preach the story of the gospel first before preaching metaphysical truths about God's triunity. (De Synodis, 70). Similarly Bauckham argues that Christian authors of the New Testament cared more for who God was than metaphysical conceptions of deity. I believe that to revive the teaching about the trinity we need to explain the need for the trinity. God is trinity because that is who we meet in Jesus Christ, who God really is.

Imagination helps us hope and create in this world. Imagination about the true God and his relating will help us relate well. Obviously imagination involves an analogy to creation and will always be incomplete. I suspect we should stop explaining God as three and one or one and three as a logical equation. But explain that God is known in three. This is not a retreat into modalism but an adequate explanation that there are not three Gods, as many imagine (although all will confess that they are one being). Our pluralist society has no problem conceiving of three individuals. The problem is their unity in each other. We live in a world that simply does not believe that God is one. Why do we wonder that Christians living in that world struggle to image God as one. Simply put our problem is not modalism but tritheism.

So how do we explain the trinity to our children. What are some expressions and phrases that will rightly imagine God. Every reality is concretely expressed. The reality of God is known in the three persons. Each fully and equally God.

This is my attempt at grappling with the trinity. I don't think that we need to do away with the creeds. Rather we stand with Hilary attempting to explain concepts across language. Unlike Hilary there are traditions of language within our church. However possibly being, substance, person, individual, etc. don't mean what they meant when we transliterated them from Latin 4 centuries ago.

So friends, help me express God truly in this world.

Liberal and Plain reading of scripture

Liberal approaches to scripture and the claim to have a plain reading of scripture are very similar.

Both privilege their current time and cultural context as the key for interpreting scripture.

One attempts to understand the historical meaning of a text in order to dismiss it.

The other dismisses the historical meaning of a text by not attempting to understand it

Christians merrily skip naked

A friend of mine once said "All fashion makes the same statement; 'I am wearing this so that you will think something about me'". The fashion industry is not driven by our need to avoid physical nakedness, but by the need to avoid social nakedness. We need to tell people what to think of us. It is driven by the idea that we construct our own identities, that to a large extent we are 'self made men' or 'self made women'. Buying the right clothes will change who you are, will present a different story to the world. This is true whether you swallow popular fashion, or if you are part of a subversive subculture. Not that we should single out fashion in particular. Our whole consumerist culture is based on this social need. To be somebody, to be anybody, we must accrete the value of different objects onto the basically neutral and meaningless centre of our lives. You dont buy a giant plasma, or consume high culture, or buy a hybrid, because you really need to. You buy it because of the person you would like to be. "I purchase this so that you will think something about me" is a phrase we all say, not least to the mirror, so that we will think something of ourselves.

Unfortunately the churches have, for the most part, capitulated to this consumerist culture. Its crass forms, such as fish stickers for the car, perpetuate the idea that you can (and perhaps must) buy your way into a christian identity. But they also blind us to the more subtle ways we have incorporated the idea of 'self construction' into our churches. How many of us would really accept the christian who could remain faithful to Jesus simply by the regular nourishment of christian worship. For starters, in his efforts to construct his christian identity, he must take responsibility to choose a church with 'good teaching'. Surely he needs to be able to read the bible himself, perhaps in a few translations? And then he must join a bible study, and listen to some mp3 sermons. Perhaps if he really wanted to secure his christian identity he could do a ministry apprenticeship, or even theological college.

But this construction of identities, consumerist and christian, goes against a key biblical idea. That our true 'selves' are hidden with Christ in God. Rather than an empty, meaningless core, that must be made meaningful as it is enveloped in stuff, even christian stuff, the core of our identity is infinitely meaningful as it is united to Christ and enveloped in the being of our triune God. This identity is hidden, but real. It is most definitely not constructed by us, not even by our christian activity. It is simply given to us in Christ. Grasping this truth should make us sit lightly to the social need to 'construct ourselves'. (and indeed is part of why christians dress so daggily). We are not afraid to be ourselves as selves truly loved by God.

Through a world crushed by its own elaborate costumes and grotesque masks, christians merrily skip naked. The church must paint nudes. With all their blemishes and shame, vulnerability and boredom and yet in this, their beauty and allure. We must paint nudes so that others would find courage to break the crust of their self made sarcophagus and find themselves beautiful and alive in Christ.

The church does not need leaders from all walks of life

The church does not need leaders from all walks of life. It needs leaders IN all walks of life. We need christian economists, plumbers,mums, artists,politicians, hippies, farmers, philosophers and unemployed. They need to be gutsy, thelogically informed, Jesus loving,bible saturated, humble servants who lead those who follow them.
One way to achieve this would be to pull all the good leaders out of these contexts, and make them clergy. I guess the hope would be that each plumber will be able to speak to plumbers, economist to economists, hippies to hippies. But despite the desires of those who love the homogeneous unit principle, our churches simply aren't like this, they include a whole range of ages, ethnicity and walks of life.
Church leaders need a certain amount of imagination to equip people to be Christians in their different lives. The least imaginative option would be to say 'well you should become a church leader like me'. Not that there is anything wrong with full time gospel ministry. Only when it becomes a pyramid scheme. Then it stops doing the very thing it is meant to do, equip the saints for THEIR ministry. It becomes the absolute opposite of a belief that people are equal but different.
Of course, not everyone can be a clergyman, so the second least imaginative option would be to say,
'you can do clergy like things' even if you cant do it full time. So, on top of your job as a plumber, you can run a bible study. In fact, if it is a bible study on how to run bible studies, even better!
Again, don't hear me saying that running a bible study is a bad thing. But if we take no interest in how to be a christian plumber. In what it might mean to lead the plumbing industry into more godliness. In how the structures of a plumbing business might best give glory to God and serve the gospel and serve the world, we have failed as leaders of the church.

Which is partly why people in our churches give lukewarm responses to our calls for evangelism and action.
Our dreams are far too small.
We dream for the church, instead of dreaming for the world.
We dream for our local church to run smoothly, to evangelise, be taught and give money.
Maybe we dream for so much money to be given that we could employ someone else to do some teaching that might cajole us into doing some evangelism.
But God's dream is for the world. The world that all of us live in. God's dream is for peace and justice for our world. Not by abandoning the gospel. Not by turning into a government agency. But by living out the gospel in everything.
Our people live in a crying world that thirsts for love, and we want people to keep our system functioning.
Our people live in a desert of meaning, and we tell them their lives are pointless except for that hour of walk-up.
Our people are weighed down with guilt, because they are complicit in an abusive, destructive, shallow society, and we tell them that as long as that society keeps paying us to preach forgiveness everything is ok.

Well, everything is not ok.
Jesus is Lord of the entire earth, but while our churches are focussed on themselves, no-one will know. While our churches swallow up all possible leaders as clergy or pseudo-clergy, no one will know. While our churches ignore real evil in our society (and so ourselves), no one will know.

Richard Bauckham: unpublished essay: Mission as hermeneutic

check out Richard Bauckhams .Mission as hermeneutic Hot

Blogs to change your life

Perhaps you are one of the few people who read this blog who do not also read the Blogging Parson and Nothing New Under the Sun. I'd like to recommend them as important for your life.

Michael Jensen at the Blogging Parson has been posting about the history of Sydney Anglicanism, and challenging us to avoid views of 'escaping the earth' and avoiding social responsibility. He outlines a vision for Sydney christians to have a prophetic voice for the large issues we face as a society.

Byron at Nothing New Under the Sun is such a voice. He gives us a calm and considered christian perspective on the looming (and now here) ecological, economic and energy crises. Byron's blog is an excellent resource for keeping informed. But more importantly, he helps us to think and live as christians within a changing world. It is a blog that every western christian should read and engage with.

Three things to put on my study wall

The other day I was looking at the timetable of an assistant minister in an Anglican church. Yikes! those hours really do get filled up quickly.

So I though I would pop up on my study wall

1. What can someone else do?

2. What can I do with someone else?

3. What can I only do alone?

It seems to me that unless I am strict about it, I could spend doing lots of 1. and 2. alone, and never actually spend time with people

Some very very very preliminary thoughts on Hebrews 13

The Euphrates is one long river to find one wife.
Jacobs brother is scheming to kill him
and Esau gets all the action, I mean, how many wives does the man need?

And for the man with the bargain birthright, no children.
Not even a chance of possibly doing anything that might lead to children,
except trudge this long river to an unknown land.

Then one night as he lays in the dust
the light shines, the earth breaks open to God
who calls out
"Never will I leave you
Never will I forsake you"
What does Jacob have to fear from man? If God is his helper,
then the stone in the dust will found the house of God

'marriage should be honoured by all'


Israel stands on the banks of the Jordan.
Moses is finished. His speech and his life.
God has offered them everything. Blessed beasts and wombs and bread
Blessed comings and goings in city in country.
But will it be enough? Probably not.
This people cant help but want more. More idols.More land
The pull of wood and stone, silver and gold.
But first those mighty giants must be felled.

and God says
"Never will I leave you,
never will I forsake you
What have you to fear from men? If I am your helper?"

just seven years can pass before you give it all back,
and God will pick a place to meet again.

"keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have"


Which is easy to say if you are Solomon I guess.
Or maybe not, since Daddys plans are pretty grand.
Davids meticulous blueprint sits before him, and he is claiming divine inspiration.
Gee Dad, this temple scheme needs golden bowls and fork, silver lamps and stands. Not to mention rooms and courts and priests and priests and priests.
Who is going to pay for all this place for God to hang? Haven't you seen Grand Designs?
Will Kevin McCloud be smarmy as God and I fight over the budget?
Yet God was pleased to make David king over Israel.
and God says
"Never will I leave you,
never will I forsake you"
What is there to fear from men, if God is Solomons helper?
God will have his footstool. The people and officials will obey your command.

"Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith"

Jesus sits on a donkey overlooking Jerusalem. . Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The mount of olives trembles as the earth is broken open, and Jesus rides a ladder down into the city, and a light shines upon us. What does he have to fear from man, as the crowds sing Hosannas from the same tune? There's money in the temple, markets in the footstool. A scene, a trial, a cross,
And God calls out
"my God, my God, why have you forsaken me"
as Israel places his cornerstone in the dust.

Never is a long river.
When the scheme is to kill you
When you might just give up
When the price is high.
But it has been walked, and there is a bride, a blessing, a temple

What if we took Pul's description of headship seriously?

I'm just going to float a boat here. I'm not utterly committed to it, just a thought experiment. Play along.

What if, what if we took Paul's definition of 'head' at face value and ran it all the way through 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.

The head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, the head of Christ is God.

1. Every man who prays with his head (Christ) covered, dishonours his head (Christ)
Understandable, Jesus is our mediator, wouldn't want to sideline him.

2. A woman who prays with her head (a man) uncovered, dishonours her head (the man).
She might as well be a baldy. Cover him up, he aint your mediator.

3. A man shouldn't cover his head (Christ) since Christ is the image and shininess of God.

4. Woman however is shininess of man

5. So women should have authority over their head (the man), because of the angels. (is this somehow related to Hebrews discussion of the place of humanity vis a vis the angels). Implicit here is an argument 'oh, so you are going to say JC isn't God because he is the ima,ge and shininess, I don't think so. So neither are women excluded from sharing in humanity,nor the kind of position humanity has over angels just because they are the shininess of men' let me remind you, that position was AUTHORITY'

6. But let me remind you that this sharing of humanity comes 'in the Lord'. One comes from, the other one through, but everything comes from God

7. Judge for yourselves, is it right for a woman to pray with her head (the man) uncovered?
As though he needed him to pray? As though he were the access point to God?

8. God's gift of a head (man) covering is the shininess of women.


hooo, a rather different reading to the normal one.

The clarity of scripture and the 'plain reading'

Maandiko yote Matakatifu yameandikwa kwa uongozi wa Mungu, na yanafaa katika kufundishia ukweli, kuonya, kusahihisha makosa, na kuwaongoza watu waishi maisha adili,

Clear as a bell, you had better obey this word. Dont come to me with your liberal hermeneutic that says you need someone to explain it. You are just being sinful and obedient.

So goes the argument for a 'plain reading' of scripture, that ignores the need for translation (or that sees translation as the atomistic replacement of words with no respect for culture).

Of course, the plain reading of scripture, without people explaining it to us, is that God does not give a stuff about speaking to us. Seriously, if that is all you had, and someone said, this is God's message to you, well, God wishes to not speak to you. (apologies to those who can read Swahili).

Our bibles are translated, and a good thing too. But this necesserily means that the words used in the original language mean slightly different things to our language and culture and practice.

Scripture is not clear because we can grasp it without any work. (especially historical and hermeneutical work). It is not clear because its meaning is obvious to whoever might pick it up. Scripture is certainly not clear because we access God's word unhindered and unmediated by any human contact. Scripture is clear because Jesus promises to speak through it. Or more precisely, throughout 'them', the apostolic witness, as it spreads through cultures and through time.

The temptation we always face is that the scriptures belong to us rather than to Jesus

Submission and Authority

Jesus is the one we are to submit to. He is Lord.
Slaves are to submit to their masters, not because of their oppressive authority, but out of reverence for Christ. In the same way, the masters had better submit to christ in relation to their slaves, especially as Christ is authoritatively in those slaves by the spirit. Each is the authoritative gift of God to the other, to be submitted to. Yes, thats right, you submit to the gift of God as you receive it with thanks.
Should wives accept their husbands as a gift of Christ? Should they submit? Damn straight
Likewise, should husbands accept their wives as a gift from Christ? Should they recognise the presence of Christ in their believing wives? Should they recognise that authority? Damn straight

The dissappearing gospels

Over the past year I have been meeting with two groups of people to read through a gospel. I've been reading Luke with a bunch of high school students and Matthew with some 20 somethings (a category that extends well into the 30's). Both groups have plodded along at a chapter a week. With both I wondered whether I should change it up a bit, do some old testament, or epistles.
Yet I've come to the conclusion that most Christians are woefully ignorant of the gospels (including me), and so are roughly ignorant of Jesus too. I've also come to think that unless we get some grip on the Jesus of the gospels (and until he grips us), the epistles aren't much help to us.
For example, we will read a passage like Hebrews 1, and nod our heads, about Christ being the perfect revelation of the Father, and yet spend so little time getting to know him through the gospels. our nods are theologically correct, but essentially meaningless.
Why do we privilege the somewhat abstract statements about Jesus in the epistles? This isn't to say that there is a theological gap between them. But I feel like most people read the gospels to mine them as examples of their reading of Paul.
We know God by reading a story. We need to just read the story more