Faith on false pretences?

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. Matthew 19:13-15

In a recent newspaper article Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Conservative Party, explained among other things how she had lost her Christian faith. She had, she said, followed the shocking story of the father who had virtually enslaved his own daughter in his house for over twenty years, and decided that she could no longer believe in any God who could allow such an appalling thing to happen in spite of constant prayer.

Well, you can’t help feeling a certain amount of sympathy, and it’s good that various Christians have responded in helpful and thoughtful ways. But one thing she said that particularly struck me was that, as a child with a strong church upbringing, she had somehow developed the belief that when she prayed, even for quite trivial things - for example, for beautiful hair or for the bus to arrive on time - she could expect that prayer to be answered. And her experience was that sometimes that indeed happened. But now, in adulthood, she couldn’t accept that that young woman’s prayers in such a horribly dire situation had for so long gone unanswered.

Reflecting on her comments triggered a bad memory in my mind.

It was my practice when a young minister to include a “children’s talk” as part of the Sunday morning service. One Sunday I told the story of blind Bartimaeus, and the wonderful love and power Jesus showed in healing him. All that was needed was faith!

A great story. But I made a big mistake. I overlooked the fact that in our congregation we had a lady who had lost her sight in her later years.

Had Mrs Carter been prayed for? Oh yes. Had she been prayed over? Certainly. She had been prayed for in English and in tongues and with laying on of hands. Did she have faith in Jesus? No doubt about that.

Had she been healed? No. No, she hadn’t.

As I stood at the church door after the service, dear Mrs Carter came to me to tell me, very graciously, of her distress: “You have taught the children this morning that I don’t have enough faith…” I felt embarrassed and ashamed and could only mumble an apology. How could I have been so unutterably stupid? Mrs Carter was far more forgiving than I deserved.

The Kemi Badenoch story didn’t only trigger that memory: it also made me think about how we as Christians teach young children the stories of the Bible. We can be in no doubt that Jesus loved children (the story at the top is included in Matthew 19, Mark 10 and Luke 18); he “took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them” (Mark 10:13-16).

But – and I had never really noticed this before - nowhere are we told what he said to them, or anything of what he taught them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know! Well, we don’t, and that’s that; so it’s up to us to prayerfully work it out for ourselves. I’m not implying any criticism of those who taught Kemi Badenoch as a child – I don’t know what her circumstances were like, and it wouldn’t be for me to judge even if I did. I’m just pointing out that it’s something we should give some serious thought to.

Please forgive me another childhood memory. As a small boy in Sunday School I still remember learning the story of King Solomon and the two women disputing over a dead baby (1 Kings 3). Solomon’s proverbial wisdom is reflected in his gruesome command to take a sword and “cut the living child in two”. It didn’t happen, of course – but that was the whole point of the wise king; he knew maternal love would prevail and make itself known.

But I was a small boy and, well, just learning the story frightened me. Has it scarred me for life? No, thank God; but…

How careful we need to be, especially when so much unsuitable material is readily available on line.

And what about the songs we sing? We are all very concerned - and rightly so – that children should enjoy being in church with us. Long gone are the days when everything was stiff and staid. But is there a danger that we end up teaching them songs which convey unbalanced truths that go well with jolly tunes (probably accompanied by actions)? A new one to me comes to mind, focussing on the sheer power of Jesus; it contains the words “He can heal the sick! He can raise the dead!” followed by “Only He can do this…”

Well yes, he can, thank God. Certainly he has done it in the past. Occasionally, no doubt, he still does it today. But wonderful though this truth is, are we in effect showing children only a tiny part of a far bigger picture? Do we ever go to the trouble of also explaining to them plainly that very often that isn’t what in fact happens? that millions of prayers are offered every day which (seemingly at least) go unanswered?

Are we, in practical terms, setting them up for a Kemi Badenoch-type fall? Could Kemi Badenoch herself have been saved this kind disappointment? Could she, with a steadily deepening and maturing faith, be a solid Christian today?

Father, thank you for the children you have committed to our care and for the privilege of introducing them to Jesus. Give us the wisdom, whether as parents or as teachers, to judge their level of understanding wisely so that we don’t inadvertently feed them only partial truths. Hear us too for Kemi Badenoch, that the response to her remarks may lead her to think again. Amen.

A steep learning curve

Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14:25-33

Was Simon Peter a hero for having the faith to step out of the boat and walk on the water? Or was he a failure for panicking and starting to sink?

It’s a question that has been asked many times, not least in sermons. And it’s a perfectly natural and reasonable question. It’s certainly a question that comes as a challenge to us, reminding us of the many times we, like Peter, have let Jesus down. But the challenge is not destructive or demoralising, because Jesus responds so lovingly to Peter’s failure: we are told that as he saw him begin to go down he “immediately (note that word) reached out his hand and caught him”. Yes, he rebuked him: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” But the rebuke was loving rather than a telling-off (there’s a big difference), rather the way a parent gently chastises a child.

If you’re anything like me you enjoy the story because it makes you feel better about yourself. After all, if even the human leader of Jesus’ twelve apostles could fail in this dramatic way and still be rescued, perhaps there’s hope for me too! And if the gospel-writers see fit to expose the weakness of their leader in such a public way, well, surely there must be hope for me. Whether we should derive such encouragement or not – well, that’s another question! - are we just administering easy comfort to ourselves? But, whatever, it’s a difficult temptation to resist.

In some ways the story is rather puzzling. It starts (verse 22) with Jesus almost seeming to abandon his disciples: “Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him”. Then what does he do but… climb the nearest mountain to get a bit of solitude for prayer! It’s almost as if he wants to get as far from them as possible, and that’s not easy to understand. They clearly end up with a hard time and a long, dark night, “buffeted by the waves” (verse 24). What is Jesus up to?

His behaviour suggests at least two things.

First, he needed time to himself.

Some Christians suggest that because Jesus was (indeed, is) the Son of God, he was some kind of spiritual super-man, always fully charged with energy and never experiencing weakness of any kind. But that is plain wrong. The reason (for example) he sat and got into conversation with the woman at the well (John 4) was because he was “tired from the journey” and needed a drink (which, by the way, he wasn’t ashamed to ask for). A little later here in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 26) we read of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane where he pleaded with God his Father to spare him the torment of crucifixion (… “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me”) and where the men who have been his companions for his earthly ministry couldn’t even so much as stay awake. To put it in plain terms, he felt agonisingly abandoned and lonely: he needed companionship (as we all do).

And let’s make no mistake: there wasn’t any hint of play-acting in the different trials he was subjected to, nor in his inability to carry the cross to Golgotha, nor in his “cry of dereliction” (“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”).

No: if Jesus needed that time of solitude, away from his disciples above the Sea of Galilee, it was for some good reason, even if we aren’t told what that was. He was – let’s spell it out – fully human as well as fully divine.

May that great truth be a comfort to those of us who particularly need it at the present time.

Second, Jesus’ behaviour is also explained by the fact that there were times when he needed to put his followers through testing-times.

Muscles grow hard and strong through exercise; they become flabby through under-use. And faith is like that. Certainly, Jesus put his disciples through a hard time that night on the Sea of Galilee. But he knew the kind of struggles their loyalty to him would entail in the months and years to come, so that long-drawn-out night of fear and that personal crisis for Peter would have constituted what today tends to be called a “steep learning curve” for them all.

The Bible suggests that God only ever allows us to have our faith stretched and tested in order to stiffen our spiritual muscles. It’s true that that may seem pretty cold comfort at the time. But it remains true.

Hebrews 12 is a section of the New Testament which focuses specially on this truth. “Endure hardship as a discipline; God is treating you as his children…” (verse 7). And then (verse 10) “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness” (verse 12).

The storms of life can be hard, and we may sometimes feel unjustly treated – “Lord, it’s not fair!” But let’s notice two things: first, that we should view them as signs of fatherly love, not coldness or indifference, and certainly not cruelty; and second, that they are intended to deepen our holiness, to make us more like God himself. Which, of course, raises the key question: Do I in fact want to be more holy? Really?

Well, while we try and honestly work that out, assuming that we are not presently in a Peter-and-the-apostles situation, perhaps we should turn our thoughts to things we might be doing for those who are…

Father, I fear I would be just as weak as Simon Peter if I were in his shoes. But thank you for the assurance that you love me and that you will never let me go. Give me, please, the gift of true compassion for those who may feel they’re going under. Amen.

"The living should take this to heart"

 

A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
² It is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.
³ Frustration is better than laughter,
    because a sad face is good for the heart.
⁴ The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
    but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-4

We’ve been talking a bit about death recently, my wife and I. Why so? Well, mainly because we have quite suddenly become conscious of our getting old (both in our seventies) with all that that means: new aches and pains, and increasing weakness and inability to do things we never even used to have to think about. You could say a sharp new reality has kicked in.

We’ve even bought what we call our “death book”. It’s a glorified exercise book in which we each jot down various practical matters which we feel the one of us who is left behind would benefit from having to hand, if they don’t already – things as varied as bank account numbers and hymns and songs we feel might be appropriate for our respective funerals. (I heard recently about the emergence of “death cafes”, where people meet to share together something of the experience of preparing for death; all very cheerful, I’m told.)

Each day my wife and I share together a few minutes with the Bible and prayer, taking turns to choose the Bible passage. This is the background against which my wife chose Ecclesiastes 7:1-7 the other day (with, I might say, a slightly wicked smile on her face), and which I thought it might be worth reflecting on.

On the face of it the writer could be dismissed as just a complete misery-guts: “the day of death is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting”. Are we really expected to take such an outrageous saying seriously? Surely not!

Well, let’s recognise first that in the so-called “wisdom” books of the Bible (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Songs) the purpose of the various writers is to stimulate thought – and to do that sometimes by throwing out provocative and controversial opinions to wake people up. We shouldn’t treat the wisdom books the same way we treat the factual, history books (like Kings, Chronicles or the Gospels), or books of reasoned argument (like the letters of the New Testament). In this case it’s as if the writer is saying: “I’ll give you something to think about, so just listen to me…!” After shaking our heads in bewilderment we hopefully might find ourselves saying, “Actually, I think I can see his point…”

Well, if that’s right, what might that point be?

I would sum it up like this: The fact is that life is a serious business, and to refuse to take it seriously is to miss the point of what really matters. Humour is a great gift, and humourless people are a drag on both themselves and those around them. But by the same token the person who is never serious, the person who refuses to get to grips with the general realities of life drives everyone around them to distraction - ”Will you please be serious for a minute!” Wasn’t there a pop-group once who used to declare to the world that “girls just wanna have fun”? Well, that’s all very well; but sorry, it simply isn’t the way things are.

If we need a bit of seriousness, what better place to go to than a funeral? A Christian funeral, of course, may be an event of great peace, hope and even joy – thanks be to God for that! – but it is bound also to be an event with a deep substratum of seriousness: we find ourselves in touch with the deepest realities of our human lives. We find ourselves also confronting questions which it’s very easy to try to avoid most of the time. And a funeral draws us together as a community: it reminds us of the immeasurable value of the people we live around, even if day by day we are tempted to take them for granted.

We are all grateful for the cheerful, funny people in our lives. No problem with that (and even Ecclesiastes recognises it: “when times are good, be happy”, 7:14). But when things are hard do we not instinctively turn to the serious people, the people with a bit of depth to them?

The Bible takes death very seriously. Paul describes it as “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26) – last, yes, but still an enemy. When Stephen was killed by the mob, we read that “godly men buried him and mourned deeply for him” (no stiff upper lips there) (Acts 8:2). Paul also assures us that after death “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). To state the obvious, the resurrection of Jesus changes everything for those whose trust is in him.

So why not look it fairly and squarely in the face? As Ecclesiastes 7:2 says: “The living should take this to heart” (can’t you almost see the writer wagging his finger?)

An after-thought… If what I have said is right, does it affect how we should think about “assisted dying”?

My impression is that most Christians are very uneasy about this proposed change in the law, and my tendency is to go along with them. But let’s be careful. The world we live in tends to view death as the worst thing that can ever happen to us, and that the prolongation of life is supremely what matters. But surely no Christian can ever accept that.

Go back to Paul: at a time when he sensed that his earthly life was reaching its end he wrote: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). That’s not just a sentiment for “super-saints”: no, that’s for every man and woman who simply trusts in Jesus crucified and risen.

We have something to teach the world by the way we live. Should we not have something to teach it too by the way we die?

Father, I don’t know when death may come for me, and I’m not looking forward to it. But just as I seek daily to glorify Jesus by my living, please grant me grace also to glorify him by my dying. Amen.

Asking the impossible?

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-4

Did Jesus ever say a more radical, indeed a more revolutionary, thing than this? Indeed, did anybody ever say a more revolutionary thing than this? – it seems almost laughably idealistic in our troubled and hate-filled world.

The problem for many of us who know these words pretty much by heart is that familiarity can breed, if not contempt, then at least a kind of indifference, if not of downright cynicism.

“Love your enemies”? Well, that sounds a pretty tall order, but, all right, I’ll do my best; at least I can aim to be courteous, I suppose. “Pray for those who persecute you”? Well, again, I suppose I can summon up an occasional prayer, even if rather grudgingly; it doesn’t cost a lot, after all. “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? True, that certainly is a pretty big ask! But surely we must allow for a degree of exaggeration…

No! That won’t do!

We need to try and hear these words through the ears of their first hearers. To put it very briefly, Jesus is in effect inviting us to become like God: “that you may be children of your Father in heaven”. In other words, he wants to build a community of men and women who are, little by little, taking on the divine family likeness.

That’s the point of his words about the sun and the rain being given to all and sundry, the “righteous” and the “unrighteous”. Nowhere in the Old Testament are we told to “love our neighbours and hate our enemies” (though Leviticus19:18 could be taken as implying this). But nature itself makes it plain that God, the creator and sustainer of all things, is, putting it mildly, not picky about who he blesses! He loves all that he has made, however sinful and rebellious they may be. So, then, must we.

But what does it mean in practice to “love our enemies”? Surely, tolerating them should be enough?

The experts tell us that in the Greek in which the New Testament was written there were four main words for love: first, family love; second, sexual love; third, the kind of love we associate with friendship and respect; and then, fourth, a little-used word which one commentator defines as “unconquerable benevolence, invincible goodwill” – and this was the word which the church adopted as its favourite word for Christlike love (it’s the word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13). That definition I’ve just quoted from the commentary may be something of a mouthful! But it makes the point. New Testament love is love that stubbornly refuses to wish anything but good upon those who may hate and even hurt us.

This means, of course, that it is not so much a feeling as a conscious act of will. It means both wishing good on the enemy we feel we have, and also doing good to them in any way we can. Feelings, at first at least, simply don’t come into it.

Jesus goes on to tell us to pray for those who hurt us. If the hurt goes really deep that may seem a sheer impossibility - through gritted teeth only.

But… it’s a wonderful fact that remarkable things begin to happen when we take it seriously: among them, we start to see that “enemy” in a new light altogether – not just as a stupid, nasty, selfish, vindictive, spiteful individual who, deep-down, we have learned to hate and despise; but as a lost and helpless sinner who, by God’s grace, can be reborn and, as we have done, become part of the family of God. (It’s what Jesus elsewhere calls being “born again” (John 3) and what Paul describes as becoming a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5).

It’s becoming the kind of person God always intended me to be. And it’s why Jesus’ parting gift to the church was the person of the Holy Spirit, the very breath and energy of God himself

And, of course, it’s what Jesus himself exemplified on the cross as he looked at his killers: “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing…” (See what I meant when I spoke about beginning to take on the family likeness?)

Exploring these powerful words of Jesus – “love your enemies”, “pray for your persecutors”, even “be perfect” – takes some doing! But one thing we mustn’t do is water them down or try to wriggle out of them. We are all children of a sinful, fallen race: the first Adam was guilty of disobedience, and we still carry the curse that resulted.  But now God has sent us a second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) to renew the fallen creation. His name is Jesus, and in Matthew 5:43-48 he invites us join his new family. Not just a tarted up version of the old (if you will pardon the expression) but new priorities, new aspirations, new ambitions, new hopes, new attitudes… new you, new me!

Oh, Lord, help me to take seriously your call to be perfect, as you are perfect, whatever that may mean in practice. Amen!

... then the word of the Lord came...

 

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 17:2

Then the word of the Lord came to him… 1 Kings 17:8

After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 18:1

Last time we thought about how “the word of the Lord came to Elijah” some 900 years before Christ, and I suggested that we imagine our way back into his time before there was any such thing as a complete Bible. If we today, in our very different world, want to hear God’s word, how are we to go about it? – apart, that is, from our reading of scripture and listening regularly to his preached word. I found there were various questions I needed to put to myself; I hope you too might find them useful.

First, how serious am I about hearing God’s voice?

That thought challenged me because it made me question my whole motivation. It’s relatively easy to read the Bible as an act of personal discipline. When I was a child we used to sing in Sunday School a song which contained the words, “Read your Bible, pray every day, if you want to grow…” Those words were then repeated two or three times so that they became part of our mental furniture, and still to this day they help form the shape of my daily life. No complaints there, then.

But while doing something good out of discipline, even habit, is no doubt better than not doing it at all, there is of course the danger of it becoming a purely mechanical routine, a mere ritual. I was quite an obedient child, and can remember rattling through my passage for the day, putting my Bible down, and feeling I had done my duty (“thank goodness I’ve got that done!”). But had I taken anything in? Had I (as Thomas asked the Ethiopian eunuch) “understood what I had read” (Acts 8:26)? It was only later that I really grasped that a verse or two digested, mulled over, perhaps even questioned, is likely to be of far more value than a complete chapter swallowed whole.

Second, what if I do hear God speaking – and don’t very much like what I hear?

In other words, what happens when a passage, or perhaps a sermon, touches my conscience in some tender place? (You may know the old rhyme: “Don’t get mad at the preacher, he’s not provoked at you; he only preaches the word of God, and sometimes the truth breaks through!”)

Well, there’s not much more to say about that question, is there! The Bible often speaks about people with wilfully “deaf ears” and sinfully  “hardened hearts”, so… “whoever (including you and me) has ears to hear, let them hear…” (Matthew 11:15).

Third, do I actively expect to hear God’s voice?

I heard somebody say once, “Anyone who is serious about God will hear something from him in a sermon, even if it’s not a very good one”, or words to that effect. And if that’s true of a sermon, it’s surely true also of the Bible itself. In other words, a lot depends on the reader or listener and what we bring to their seeking to hear God’s voice. If we come with a dull, half-hearted heart, that’s what we are likely to go away with also. Lord, help me to be expectant and open to your voice!

Fourth, am I open to the danger of getting things wrong?

Core truths concerning the love and holiness of God and the good news of the gospel are not so much of a problem, but if ever we feel prompted – as Elijah was - to be specific about events and circumstances, we need to be careful. My wife and I lost what would have been our first child; it died in the womb for no particular reason. Yet during the lead-up to this event, obviously a time of considerable stress, we had Christians assuring us that “The Lord has told me that the baby will be all right”. These were Christian friends, sincere and well-meaning people who we respected and loved. But… fact: they turned out to be wrong. Elijah’s predictions of course came true, but we are reminded of the warning in John’s first letter; that all things need to be “tested” (1John 4:1).

Fifth, and this really sums up everything I’ve tried to say, how God-centred generally am I?

What kind of person am I? What kind of person do I want to be? The poet George Herbert, some of whose poems were once used as hymns (sadly not much heard today) wrote these beautifully simple lines of prayer: “For my heart’s desire/ Unto Thine is bent./ I aspire/ To a full consent”. Can I even want to be able to pray those words?

Jesus, of course spoke of those “who hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6), suggesting a deep yearning for God, not just a shallow “spirituality”. And also, just to challenge us even more, there is the wonderful description of Barnabas, the man who was content to play second fiddle to Paul: “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith” (Acts 11:24). Not a bad epitaph for somebody’s tombstone!

Some Christians speak of “thin places”, meaning sites where the separation between heaven and earth is felt to be specially permeable, almost truly “heaven on earth”. Such places may be buildings or places of pilgrimage. The cunning, deceiving Jacob came to such a place at Bethel, where he had a vivid dream, to which he responded “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t realise it” (Genesis 28:16).

Perhaps we might speak also of “thin people”, odd though that sounds: men and women in whom we naturally and instinctively sense the near presence of our holy God. Elijah, I think, was such a one.

Not, of course, that we can train to somehow qualify as such men or women (it’s not something taught in Bible college!). But we can train ourselves every day to live in God’s presence – and to long for his word, in whatever form it might come.

Father in heaven, thank you that you love to speak to us - through scripture, through preaching, perhaps even through dreams and visions, through conscience or strong impressions. Give me a hunger and thirst to hear your word, even when what I hear is ninety percent consolidation of what I already know, and only ten percent something fresh. Amen.

... then the word of the Lord came...

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 17:2

Then the word of the Lord came to him… 1 Kings 17:8

After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah… 1 Kings 18:1

The Bible introduces us to the prophet Elijah out of nowhere in 1 Kings 17:1: “Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab (that’s the evil king of Israel), ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word’”.

We know virtually nothing about Elijah’s “back-story” – just that his home town was “Tishbe in Gilead”, which doesn’t mean a lot to us. But he was, it seems, a bringer mainly of bad news, news of the judgment of God. He dominates the next few chapters in a sequence of highly dramatic events, and then is “taken up to heaven in a whirlwind”, leaving his servant Elisha to succeed him (2 Kings 2).

An enigmatic figure! He was (still is, I think) revered by the people of Israel, and his status as a major figure in their history is confirmed by the story of the “transfiguration” of Jesus told in Matthew 17, where he appears alongside Jesus with no less a person than Moses.

Listening recently to a sermon on Elijah I was particularly struck not so much by any of the dramatic events which are to come but by that little phrase “the word of the Lord came to Elijah” (three times in this first episode). It made me want to ask the simple question, “How? How exactly did this happen? In what form did the word of the Lord come to Elijah?”

In the many years I have been a Christian I have often wondered vaguely what the answer to that question might be. But the key word there is “vaguely”; it’s not something I’ve ever seriously got to grips with. One might say, of course, that since the Bible doesn’t tell us we should be content not to know. But the minds God has given us often run to curiosity, and, unless we have some sense of trespassing on sacred ground, allowing that curiosity to probe a little is surely not wrong.

As Christians we believe that God is a God who speaks, and our chief means of hearing his word is Scripture, the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments. But thinking of the people we meet in scripture, whether an Old Testament figure like Elijah or a New Testament figure like Paul and the Gospel-writers, that of course cannot apply, for the very simple reason that while they were active “the Bible” as a complete book didn’t yet exist! Most of us today probably have a variety of different versions of the Bible on our shelves; but for Elijah there was no such thing as “the Old Testament” (never mind the New!) for him to read a passage of day by day.

So, going back to where we started, the question arises: How did Elijah know about the coming drought? Did he hear an audible voice, perhaps coming to him in his own times of prayer or in a dream or some kind of trance-like state? Or did he know a fellow-prophet who passed on the message to him? Did he simply survey the disastrous twenty-two-year reign of King Ahab, who ruled over Israel roughly 874-852 before Jesus (summed up at the end of 1Kings 16) and feel a grim sense of foreboding which hardened into a conviction that the judgment of God was going to fall in the form of drought?

There is no way we can be sure. But it prompts various questions about how we as Christians can receive “the word of the Lord”.

As I’ve said, our regular interaction with the Bible is the obvious, and most important, starting-point. We read it day by day; we receive it through sermons, Bible-studies, commentaries and other kinds of literature; we may use some daily “thought for the day” on-line or even in an old-fashioned calendar. But how can we know for sure that some truth we are reminded of is particularly for us personally?

Of course, we are not an Elijah, or a Moses, or a Matthew, or a Paul. These were people with a special calling from God, people he dealt with in a special way. But God speaks to all his people, whether great or small, and that includes us. There are questions which I find myself wanting to ask – please join me next time as I try to explore some of the possibilities and to challenge us as to our hunger for God’s word…

Father in heaven, if you are indeed a God who speaks to his people, how can I possibly afford not to listen! Indeed, how dare I not listen? Please forgive my deaf ears and my hard heart, and teach me to listen better to your voice. Amen.

An unsung hero (2)

But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern… They pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern…  Jeremiah 38:7-13

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2

The prophet Jeremiah has become what used to be called a hot potato. He’s been preaching to the people of Jerusalem that they should accept the judgment of God upon them, even though they are his own special people, and yield to the mighty Babylonians and their ferocious king, Nebuchadnezzar. Poor King Zedekiah, who is destined to become Judah’s last king, doesn’t know what to do with him: should he accept his message and lead his people to surrender? or should he listen to those who regard Jeremiah as a traitor and put him to death?

He tries to find a middle way. He “gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard”, but he arranges too for him to be given “a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread in the city is gone” (37:21). In other words, he agrees to silence him, but not to kill him; he is to see out the siege to the bitter end, though in custody.

But that’s not good enough for Jeremiah’s arch-enemies (they are named in 38:1): “This man should be put to death”, they insist. Zedekiah responds with those pathetic words we noticed last time, caving in to their bullying: “He is in your hands… The king can do nothing to oppose you”. (Rather like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death, don’t you think?)

But Jeremiah’s enemies in fact hold back from killing him (why we aren’t told); they take him instead and dump him in “the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son” (38:6), where he “sinks down into the mud”. (It’s tempting to think that he might just as well be dead.)

But… God has other ideas! Enter Ebed-Melech who is the hero of the hour, truly an unsung hero of the Bible.

His name means “servant of the king” (apparently quite a common name), and that is exactly what he was; he is one of Zedekiah’s “officials”. He learns what has happened to Jeremiah, and he makes it his business to go to the king to protest. Zedekiah, as usual leaning whichever way the wind is blowing, authorises him to take a party of other servants and pull Jeremiah out of the cistern. The process of pulling him out seems not to have been too easy, and Ebed-Melech seems to have been especially thoughtful to ensure that he didn’t suffer unnecessarily: he “took some old rags and worn-out clothes… and let them down to Jeremiah in the cistern”. He told him (presumably shouting down into the depths, “’Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes’”.

And so Jeremiah was rescued: not very dignified, it’s true, no doubt dirty and smelly, but at least alive.

What do we know about Ebed-Melech? Very little; these two chapters of Jeremiah’s book (38 and 39) are the only place in the Bible where he appears. And I don’t suggest he has anything very deep to teach us. But following Jesus isn’t only a matter of profound truths; sometimes simple, small and everyday things are what matters. So what can we glean?

First, he was a foreigner in Israel, an African. The Bible’s “Cush” is generally thought to be roughly what today we call Ethiopia. How he came to be in Judah we don’t know, and whether or not he had accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob likewise. How he came to be part of the royal household, again, we don’t know.

But, second, what matters is that when a crisis arose he responded to it with courage, integrity and sheer practical know-how. Whether he had become a personal follower of Jeremiah we are not told, but obviously he felt it his duty to speak and to act on his behalf. Probably that involved a real element of risk, for the little quartet mentioned in 38:1 will not have been happy. Even if his role in the palace was quite a minor one, he took intelligent advantage of it and wasn’t afraid to confront the king himself.

He can be a challenge to us in our day to day lives. When difficulties arise, including tricky moral decisions that have to be made, do we tend to keep our heads down and just go with the flow, or are we prepared to stand up and be counted?

Third, Ebed-Melech reminds us that God has his people in all sorts of unexpected places. Who would have guessed that a champion for God’s prophet would take the form of a minor official in the royal entourage who wasn’t even an Israelite? As keen Bible-readers we of course get pretty familiar with the big personalities of both testaments: Abraham, Moses, David; Peter, Paul, John. But let’s not overlook the unsung heroes – for example, the unnamed servant girl of Naaman’s wife who spoke up at just the right time (2 Kings 5); or Obadiah, King Ahab’s “palace administrator” who was also “a devout believer in the Lord” and who supported the prophet Elijah and used his influence to protect other believers (1 Kings 18); or the list of those we might consider nonentities but who obviously meant a lot to Paul (Romans 16). All, in their own ways, unsung heroes.

Who knows, in your normal routine today you might find yourself talking to “an angel without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2)?

One detail of the Ebed-Melech episode that particularly makes me smile is his concern to ensure that Jeremiah was made as comfortable as possible during his ordeal in the cistern – that detail about the rags and old clothes to protect his armpits. People who think about things like that… you can’t help but warm to them, can you?

Thank you, Father, for the Ebed-Melechs of this world – those men and women who may strike us as complete non-entities, but who show the graciousness, the courage and the love of Jesus. Help me to notice and value them. Help me, indeed, to be one of them. Amen.

Church in a bubble?

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it… Jeremiah 29:7

I urge, then… that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:2

Last time we looked at a dramatic story about Jeremiah the prophet. He was dumped in a muddy water tank because he insisted on preaching the truth concerning the forth-coming collapse of the city of Jerusalem to the pagan Babylonians and their king Nebuchadnezzar. The king of Judah, Zedekiah, was too broken, too spineless to stop this happening, even though he obviously respected Jeremiah and asked for his prayers and guidance. The third person in the drama is Ebed-Melech but I’m afraid I never got on to his part of the story because Jeremiah and Zedekiah seemed to provide enough food for thought.

Well, I hope to put that right soon! But before doing so a further few minutes of reflection prompted by King Zedekiah seemed justified. His sad story (its gruesome end is described in 39:5-7) made me think of the responsibility of God’s people, whether in Old Testament days or in the Christian church, to pray for those who govern them. There aren’t so many kings and queens around in our days, of course – it’s more about presidents and prime ministers, those elected democratically and those not. But, whether we like them or not, they carry heavy responsibility on their shoulders - and they need our prayers, if only for our sakes. Paul spells this out explicitly in 1 Timothy 2:2.

One of the dangers in being a church is that we can concentrate almost entirely on “in house” matters. I remember attending a service one Sunday morning in 2004 immediately after that terrible tsunami in the Indian Ocean which caused 230,000 deaths across 14 countries. For once that overworked word “stunned” fitted the mood of the whole world as it digested the details. But the service we were in proceeded pretty much as usual with no mention at all of what had happened – and certainly not a whisper of prayer. It’s as if the church we were in was saying, “Well, this is truly a tragic thing; but of course it isn’t the concern of us in the church. Our concern is with the ‘spiritual’ things – worship, evangelism, service, not to mention the needs and difficulties of our own members”.

Result? A church can retreat into its own little holy bubble  - which is not spiritually healthy! I think it was the great twentieth century Christian leader John Stott who encouraged us to pray to God “with the Bible in one hand and the daily paper in the other”.

Yes! The Bible makes it clear that the whole world belongs to God its creator: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). This means that just as in Old Testament days God wasn’t interested only in his own special people Israel, so in the age we live in he isn’t interested only in the church.

Earlier in Jeremiah even the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar is described by God as “my servant” (27:1-7). And the prophet went to the trouble of sending quite a long letter to those Israelites who had already gone into exile in Babylon, a letter in which he tells them to “seek the peace of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers you too will prosper…” (29:4-23).

One of Jesus’ best-known sayings is that his followers should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15-22), which, while it’s said in the immediate context of taxes and other aspects  of civil obedience, must surely include prayer. Likewise in Romans 13, and elsewhere, Paul writes about the Christian’s responsibility to be a good citizen which, again, we can assume to include prayer.

It may seem a paradox, but churches can teach certain things precisely by not teaching them. A church that rarely or never includes prayer for the big wide world outside (and not only in the context of evangelism) is in effect teaching that such matters are not its concern. I personally, as a British Christian, have never felt drawn to be part of the Church of England or another church that has a strong “liturgical” tradition. But there are times I wonder if I have missed out, for their liturgies at least require regular public prayer for the royal family and leading politicians – and, boy, how they need it in the days in which we live!

I was once confronted by a member of my congregation at the end of a service which had included a prayer for the prime minister. He was angry: “I don’t know how you could bring yourself to pray for that awful man!” And I had to point out to him that it’s a very mistaken view of prayer if we only pray for those we like or approve of.

Of course we can never know if things might have turned out differently for Israel in the days of Zedekiah if he had been a God-centred king supported by the prayers of a God-centred people. All we know is that the people had turned away from God, and their king had become a pathetic, feeble puppet. And… God’s judgment fell.

So… you don’t like the royal family? So what? the fact is that they are there, they are what they are, and they need God-given grace. You don’t like the prime minister? Again, so what? All the more reason to pray for him, for he must sometimes feel near to breaking-point. And I forbear to mention others who are, rightly or wrongly, “in authority”: Presidents Putin, Zelensky, Trump, to name but three. Our world is in deep, deep need. There’s even talk of World War 3 flaring up across Europe – our continent.

So, Christian, pray for all such leaders – and do everything you can to ensure that they are prayed for regularly Sunday by Sunday in your particular fellowship! Those prayers do rise to God – and the message will get across to all of us who seek to be faithful in our responsibilities.

(I’m afraid that Ebed-Melech has got squeezed out again! But I promise I won’t let that happen again…)

Father, our great desire is to present the gospel of Jesus, crucified and risen, to the whole world. But help us also to be faithful in bearing up to you in prayer those matters which might be described as “political”, as Jeremiah did, and as Zedekiah failed to do. Amen.

An unsung hero

But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern… Jeremiah 38:7

Jesus said: When the devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

Ebed-who? It may be that Ebed-Melech is a Bible-character you have never heard of before, or someone you’ve never stopped to think about if you have. And that’s understandable, for he appears in the Bible only here, in the book of Jeremiah 37-39. But though the part he plays is quite tiny, it’s also striking in a situation of high drama for the nation of Israel. These chapters describe the momentous event of the fall of Israel to Nebuchadnezzar the king of the Babylonians about 590 BC. A long time ago, of course; yet there are worth-while lessons we today can still learn from.

Three figures play a particular part in the drama – an uncompromising prophet, Jeremiah; a weak king of Judah, Zedekiah; and a brave unsung hero, Ebed-Melech.

Take Jeremiah first.

It fell to him to speak for God at this time of terminal crisis, and his message was anything but popular. The mighty Babylonians were beating at the gates of Jerusalem and King Zedekiah of Judah was at a loss to know what to do. Jeremiah’s message is crystal clear: Give in! Don’t resist! Accept that this your destiny, God’s way of bringing judgment on his precious people. That way, at least you will survive physically, and Jerusalem will be spared from total destruction.

Jeremiah brought bad news; and who, in life in general, likes a bringer of bad news? Answer, Nobody. But there are times when bad news is God’s sombre but true message, and such a time had come for Israel. Jeremiah refuses to compromise his message, regardless of the possible consequences. Chapter 38:1-4 give us the names of three officials of King Zedekiah who were particularly outraged: “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people…”.

We all long for leaders, whether political or spiritual, who are men and women of courage, honesty and integrity; leaders whose words we know we can trust, however unwelcome they may be. We somehow recognise them and instinctively respect them. And how cynical and critical we tend to be, even perhaps justifiably so, when they fall short,.

But what about the rest of us? It’s hypocrisy to ask for integrity and transparency from those who lead us, whether in the church or in world affairs, but then fall short ourselves. Jeremiah suffered because of his courage, and so may we – think of the whistle-blower, or the politician who refuses to toe the party-line. Yes, they may be seen by some as self-important trouble-makers (and there may even be an element of truth in that) but their voices may also be very important.

Jeremiah, in a word, “spoke truth to power”, and it cost him. Do we have that kind of moral backbone and determination?

Second, what about Zedekiah?

He came to power as a puppet ruler set up by King Nebuchadnezzar (37:1), and he is now remembered as the twenty-first – and last - king of Judah, reigning nominally from roughly 597 to 587. The great days of David and Solomon are long gone, and the crisis of complete take-over by the mighty (and cruel) Babylonians is looming.

Sadly, Zedekiah comes across as weak and spineless. He is indifferent to God’s word - and yet prepared to ask Jeremiah for his prayers (37:1-3). He refers to God as “our” God, and wants to know if “there is any word from the Lord” (37:17) - but he clearly has no confidence in God, and his faith is purely skin-deep. When Jeremiah’s opponents say that he should be put to death, his reply is pathetically feeble: “he is in your hands… The king can do nothing to oppose you” (as if to say, “I’m only the king, after all”).

And that’s how Jeremiah ends up being dumped in some kind of water-tank. His opponents in fact hold back from killing him - we don’t know why; not, I suspect, out of compassion – but “they lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud” (38:6). Oh well, I suppose that’s one way to silence God’s spokesman…

Such giving in by King Zedekiah suggests a near-broken man. Whether a stronger king could have made much difference is, I suspect, doubtful: God’s time had come. But nonetheless Zedekiah stands as an emblem of failure.

I think this suggests something to those of us who are Christians about our attitude towards our secular, political leaders. But I’m running out of space, so I’ll leave it till next time – and then move on to the third figure in our story, Ebed-Melech, where we started. I think we will find in him a small ray of light to brighten all the murk and misery which fill this sad story. Pease join me again next time.

Dear Father, thank you for the courage and honesty of Jeremiah, who stood against the forces of lies and evil. Please forgive those times I have kept quiet, or even lied, when it was my responsibility to speak unwanted truths, regardless of the consequences. Lord, give me honesty and integrity in every situation! Amen.

Fatalism - or faith?

If I die, I die. Esther 4:16

They sound a bit grim, don’t they, these words of Esther?

They remind me of a song from my childhood days, way back in the 1950s: Que sera sera, whatever will be will be… They suggest fatalism, a hopeless shrugging of the shoulders in the face of the future.

What has brought Esther to this sorry state? Piecing together the history involves various complex questions, but a likely scenario is this. It is nearly 500 years before Jesus, and the people of Israel are under the rule of the Persian empire and their king, Xerxes. The action of the story takes place in the royal citadel of Susa, where many Jews live. Among these is a man called Mordecai, who has been responsible for bringing up his young cousin Esther, or Hadassah, who was orphaned in childhood.

King Xerxes falls out with his wife Vashti, who refuses to obey him and allow herself to be put on display as a trophy wife. He divorces her and decides to find a new queen to take her place, so a search is started to find a suitable young woman; and Esther is chosen. It is not generally known that she is a Jew.

Enter Haman, an official of the royal court – who has a deep-seated hatred of the Jews. He uses the influence he has with the king to urge him to pass a decree that all the Jews in the empire should be killed. Xerxes foolishly agrees, with the result that “there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing…” (4:3). Esther realises that, queen or not, her position will be pretty precarious once her Jewishness becomes known. But what can she do?

This is the point at which the wise Mordecai comes up with an answer: she must approach the king and plead with him on behalf of her people. Only one problem, says Esther: anyone approaching the king without express permission is liable to be put to death – once again, queen or no queen. Fair enough: but Mordecai tells Esther that there is nothing for it but to take that risk. After all, as a Jew she is liable to be put to death anyway. Esther sees the sense of this; so after urging Mordecai and all the Jews in Susa to fast and pray (let’s not overlook that), she agrees with his plan. And so… “if I die, I die…”

If you don’t know how the story unfolds, just take a few minutes to read the remaining chapters, 5 to 10.

The great lesson from the book of Esther for us today - in fact, for all God’s people down through time – is summed up in the word providence. This, in essence, means the way in which God works his purposes out, both in history and in people’s personal lives, in ways that are often hidden from us. We may, at the time, put it down to coincidence or luck. But looking back later we realise that there is a pattern and a purpose in what has happened and, by faith, we see what we may call “the hand of God” at work.

Mordecai obviously knew something of the providence of God. When he and Esther become aware of how desperate their situation is he puts it to her: “who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (4:14). As if to say, “Look, Esther, you remember how amazed we all were when, you, an unknown Jewish girl, were chosen to be Xerxes’ new queen. Well, suddenly it seems as if there might be some divine purpose in that of which we couldn’t then so much as dream! Perhaps God himself has brought this about, and intends to give you a big place in the working out of his will”.

God’s providence doesn’t only work in big world events. It works too in the lives of the “little people”, like most of us, who simply seek to walk with God day by day. The classic Bible text for this is Romans 8:28: “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him…” – where “all things” really means all things! Clinging to that conviction even in the hard times, when events in our lives seem chaotic, is a severe test of faith. May our faith not fail us! Remember Job!

It's worth noticing one particular peculiarity in the book of Esther – the word “God” never appears. How strange is that in such a God-filled book as the Bible!

What’s the significance of it? Simply this: While God is certainly at work for the good of his people, he nowhere makes himself known (as far, that is, as we are told). There seems to be no prophetic voice raised, no miracles performed, no charismatic leader to rally and inspire the people. The fact seems to be that events unfold in entirely “natural” ways with just one very brave man and one very brave woman at the heart of it all. The faith they have inherited from their ancestors seems to be so deeply rooted in their hearts that they simply assume that God is there, though unseen, and can be trusted. It’s in their very DNA. And, of course, that faith is ultimately vindicated.

This can be true also for us. We believe in our loving God – of course we do. But there are times when it is hard. We pray earnestly, even desperately, perhaps even despairingly. We live with heartache, deep down quite disappointed with God. But ultimately (an important word, that!) God chooses to show his hand, and we see things in a completely new light…

Oh, so he was there all the time! Thanks be to God!

Loving Father, give me the faith of Mordecai and the obedience of Esther, especially during hard and even desperate times - if not immediately, then to see the unfolding of your hidden purposes as time goes by. Amen.

Lord of the world, as we reflect on the story of Esther, we cannot help but think of  the current grave situation in the middle east. We pray for your intervention in the conflict between modern Israel and the Palestinian people, asking that wise and peace-making voices will be heard on both sides and will soon prevail. Have mercy, Lord! Amen.

Gossip

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts. Proverbs 18:8 (NIV)

Gossip is so tasty – how we love to swallow it! Proverbs 18:8 (Good News Bible)

In everyday life there are few things we hate - and yet love - more than gossip. How so? We hate it when we are the victims (“How dare they say such things about me!”); we love it when we have an opportunity for  it ourselves (“Hey, had you heard that…?”).

Gossip can be broadly defined as “malicious talk”. I found myself thinking about it recently when I read that a politician’s ex-wife had written a book detailing the break-up of their marriage. I haven’t read it, nor will I, but it sounded very much like “dishing the dirt” on her former husband and various other people too. I bet it will “fly off the shelves” in its thousands. But just reading about it made me feel uncomfortable, even slightly grubby.

I’d better be careful, though. Am I in fact being self-righteous? Have I never gossiped myself? Oh, I’m afraid I have, not intending any harm (of course!), but being guilty all the same. When you realise that you are guilty it’s then that you also realise that you are not in fact the very nice person you like to present yourself as, but… well, really rather nasty. That, I’m afraid, is me.

The Bible nowhere gives us extended teaching about gossip, though James 3:1-12, about the tongue in a more general sense, comes pretty close. It’s a frightening warning, using the graphic image of the forest fire, easy to start and tragically hard to stop. No, we have to pick up little Bible snippets here and there, not least in Proverbs, from which I have taken the verse at the top.

I’ve culled together some of the basic features of gossip under three headings; they’re a challenge to me, and I hope they might be to you as well.

First, gossip is no trivial matter.

I used to think the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:36-37 seemed rather  exaggerated; but in fact they bring home to us the sheer importance of wrong words in general, and that obviously includes gossip: “I tell you that everyone will have to give account for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned”. All right, actions may speak louder than words, as the saying goes, and forgiveness is always there for us when we repent;  but let’s not allow ourselves to water those solemn words down too much.

Second, gossip is frighteningly addictive.

That comes across in the verse at the top, where the writer compares it to a tasty meal. It’s tempting, and like all temptations it threatens to ensnare us until we can’t get free. We all know how a harmless-seeming habit can threaten to dominate our lives. When we gossip we not only harm the person we gossip about, we also harm ourselves, poisoning our own personalities. God has given to each of us the responsibility to recreate that personality in the likeness of Jesus, and even an occasional giving in to temptation - any temptation - will slowly harden into a fixed habit unless we make a decisive effort to stamp on it.

Is it time all of us had a look at our habits? Are we slowly, quietly destroying ourselves?

Third, gossip does more harm and damage than we can imagine.

Proverbs 16:28 tells us that “a perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends”. That, again, is the NIV translation. But I think that the Good News version is more punchy: “Gossip is spread by wicked people; they stir up trouble and break up friendships”. Yes! If you drop a little innocent-seeming remark about a person you’ve had as a friend for many years, and if they get to hear about it, they will never trust you quite the same again, will they? And why should they?

I spoke of gossip as a “poison”, and nowhere is that more true than in the life of a church. How many good, solid churches have been slowly destroyed by “trouble-makers” and “busybodies” who don’t know when to keep their mouths shut? Very likely they mean no ill – perhaps it just gives them a feeling of importance, that they’re “in the know”. Of course, there are times for open, frank discussion conducted in the love of Jesus, but “sin is not ended by multiplying words, and the prudent hold their tongues” (Proverbs 10:19). (Beware too that even prayer can be a vehicle of gossip. The person who prays fervently in a group that God “would bless Jack and Barbara as they go through this difficult time” may very likely start all sorts of hares running…)

Evangelist Billy Graham said, “A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip”. And there’s a Spanish proverb: “Remember that anyone who gossips to you will eventually gossip about you”. To listen to gossip is as wrong as to talk it.

I finish with a childhood memory which has stuck in my mind. A teacher told us that before saying anything about anybody else we should ask ourselves three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful? I’ve never forgotten that: I only wish I had obeyed it more carefully!

Father, please forgive the unwise, untrue and unkind words I have spoken, and please help me always be the prudent person who knows when to hold their tongue. Amen.

Happy all the day?

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast.

Light in the messenger’s eye brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 15:13, 15:15, 15:30, 17:22

Martin Chuzzlewit isn’t one of Dickens’s best known novels, but it has a varied cast of characters, one of whom is called Mark Tapley. Mark is known for his indestructible cheerfulness, his refusal to let anything get him down, indeed for his quirky habit of actively seeking out difficult and trying circumstances in order to test his optimistic good nature against them. He seems a pretty unlikely character, I must admit – but every time he comes into the story he makes you smile.

I’ve grouped together four Bible verses from the book of Proverbs, all on the theme of cheerfulness. It’s a long time now since I read Dickens’s book, but dipping into Proverbs somehow dredged him up from the mists of my memory. I wonder if Mark Tapley had nourished his personality on these and other similar verses?

The question arises: How should we understand them? As they stand, they are quite simply statements of fact, of the way things are - yes, a cheerful spirit is good for one’s health, both mental and physical, no doubt about that.

But does the writer also intend his readers to treat these statements as aspirations, even as commands? Is he indirectly telling us to make sure we are always cheerful? Even more, is he suggesting that if we fail to do so we are guilty of sin? If so, many of us could well reply, “That’s all very well for you to say, but if you knew what I am going through at the moment I don’t think you would say it so easily. Tears of pain, not smiles of pleasure, are the best I can muster at the moment.” Think of some of the atrocious sufferings of people in Gaza or Ukraine.

As always when we read the Bible, the key thing is to take it as a whole. The Bible is a very big book, and different passages put different emphases on different questions; they sometimes, in fact, might seem to contradict one another. Thinking about these four verses from the centre of Proverbs, various things need to be said if we are to get the full biblical context.

First: No, they are not to be viewed as commands.

Part of the enjoyment of Proverbs is the way it tosses out observations and opinions almost at random, as if to say to the reader, “Here you are, what do you make of this?” The Bible wants to get us thinking, and one way Proverbs achieves this is by setting up contradictions (call them “paradoxes” if you’re uncomfortable with that word). Proverbs 26:4 and 5, for example, seem on the face of it to be in flat contradiction with one another (no wriggling allowed, please!).

So… not commands to make us feel guilty, but statements to make us think.

Second: the Bible never turns a blind eye to the reality of human pain.

Far from it! The people we read about, both the big names and the unnamed “ordinary people”, are anything but “now I am happy all the day” in their relationship with God. The Psalms, an obvious example, reflect both intense joy and deep misery. And at the centre of Christianity stands the cross, truly an agonising emblem of pain, humiliation and suffering. Our little snippets from Proverbs are anything but a full picture, so while of course it is good to nurture a cheerful, trusting spirit, it would be ridiculously naïve to imagine that we may never be overwhelmed by negative feelings.

Third: these verses about cheerfulness are not a license for irresponsibility.

Sometimes you meet Christians who are so determined to have the “cheerful face” that reflects a “happy heart” that they brush aside the troubles and sorrows of life as being of no importance: “Well, God’s in control, isn’t he? And he loves us, doesn’t he? So why waste time worrying?” The result of such a shallow approach to life is that friends or other members of the family end up shouldering the heavy burdens while the person in question takes shelter behind an artificial smile. And what kind of witness is that? In times of trouble God expects us to roll up our sleeves so far as we are able and get on with the job of battling through.

Fourth: in spite of what we have said, the basic truth stands out clearly: Christianity is a trusting and positive faith, and therefore, whatever sufferings we may experience, our basic mind-set is positive. We cannot and should not try to brush our trials aside, but by God’s grace we can and should tackle them with faith and confidence. We may – indeed, we should – call on our brothers and sisters in Christ for support, whether spiritual or physical, but then what else is the church for?

Putting it starkly: in principle a miserable Christian is a contradiction in terms. We worship Christ crucified and risen again, and every story is assured of a happy ending. I knew of one Christian who admittedly had had quite a hard life and who you rarely caught smiling; I heard it said of her that she was admirable in many ways, but was in fact “a bit of a misery-guts”. I don’t defend the person who used that unkind expression, but it was hard to avoid the element of harsh truth in what they said.

In Philippians 4:4 Paul urges his readers to “rejoice in the Lord always”. Then, as if to ram it home, he repeats it: “I will say it again: rejoice!” Good words to keep in mind.

Dear Father, thank you for the cheerful, positive Christians I have known over the years who have lifted my spirits, lightened my burdens and brought a smile to my face. Please help me in my dark times not to falter in faith, but to trust through thick and thin, and to be a good example to those around me. Amen.