When life seems cruel

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. Ruth 1:3-5

Salmon was the father of Boaz, who mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. Matthew 1:5-6

Some people seem to have a particularly difficult lot in life – hardship, sickness, bereavement, troubles of all sorts. Others seem to coast through pretty easily, outwardly at least (though the person looking on doesn’t see the hidden pains). Usually, only God knows why this should be: to the human eye it all seems just a matter of luck.

Naomi certainly qualifies as what we might call one of life’s unfortunates. Born in Judea in that shadowy period of history after Moses but before David, having married Elimelech and given birth to Mahlon and Kilion (can you picture the happy little family group?), things start to go wrong. Famine forces them to leave their home in Jerusalem, so they move to neighbouring Moab where, presumably, they were able to make a better living. Then Elimelek dies. The two boys grow up and marry local girls called Orpah and Ruth. But then, cruelly, both boys die and Naomi, left alone, has no-one to care for her except her two daughters-in-law. Both girls seem to have been loving and sensitive, but there is no man to earn a living (a must in that society at that time), and certainly no “social security”, so what is Naomi to do?

Word has got around that things are looking up in Jerusalem, so there seems only one answer: head back home. But… is Jerusalem any longer her home? She has lived in Moab for some ten years by now, her sons grew up, married and died there, and Jerusalem seems a bit of a distant memory. And what about Orpah and Ruth, possibly the only people in Moab with whom she has a strong, warm bond? They, after all, are under no obligation to come with her.

Bu she feels she has no realistic choice, and the decision is made: Jerusalem it must be. And so the story unfolds… (Please take the few minutes it needs to read it right through.)

Several things strike me as worth taking to heart.

First, we must avoid any tendency to imagine that our lot in life is dictated by good or bad deeds we have done. True, some people who live what might generally be regarded as a thoroughly wicked life do indeed “come to a bad end”; but others in that same category die comfortably in their beds surrounded by luxury. To human eyes the different fates of different people do indeed seem a case of pot luck. But let the words of Jesus in Luke 13:1-5 be our safeguard against slipping into superstition in this way.

Second, the story of Naomi reminds us that, as Paul says in Romans 8:28, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him”. True, it may take time; and true, the path may be rocky. But God knows what he is doing, even though we may need great faith to hang on to his promises. After all, right at the heart of the Christian faith stands a cross, a symbol of pain and defeat.

Third, we should never pronounce too dogmatically on the decisions other people make. Think of Orpah. Have you ever wondered what became of her? Verse 14 is particularly touching: “At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good bye, but Ruth clung to her”. Truly a parting of the ways. Orpah’s life has become intertwined with Naomi’s and Ruth’s, but now we see her turning away and walking slowly back to her Moabite home.

I heard a Christian once say how sad it was for Orpah – how sad that she chose to make the “wrong” choice. But surely no. Both young women were confronted with a difficult decision, and what was right for one may not have been right for the other. Of course, we know now how Ruth’s decision worked out – marriage to a kind and generous man, Boaz, in Jerusalem; the gift of a son called Obed, who had a son called Jesse, who had a son called … David; and thus, for Ruth the Moabitess, a place in the family line of the Messiah. Truly wonderful! Orpah meanwhile sinks into obscurity.

But wait a minute – who are we to talk about obscurity? What appears to us as obscurity may have been a rich and rewarding later life for Orpah in the familiar surroundings of Moab, fulfilling the purposes of God in a different but still meaningful way.

Who knows what God might be doing through the lives of people we think of as completely insignificant?

Two final thoughts…

First, a big part of the appeal of the Ruth story is that all the main actors in it – Naomi, Ruth, Orpah, dear kind Boaz, even the unnamed women of Jerusalem who welcomed back Naomi and her foreign daughter-in-law – behave well. No spite, no selfishness, no jealousy; just kindness and compassion. In our modern world, so poisoned by hatreds and animosities, so much in need of honesty and integrity, doesn’t this give us qualities to aspire to?

Second, it’s hard to read this story without thinking of the plight of migrants today – a prime modern example of the “unfortunates” of our world – men, women and children carrying their pathetic few belongings as they walk miles in the hope of finding a place to rest their heads… May God give us hearts of compassion.

Meanwhile we leave Naomi and her family in Jerusalem. Naomi, now old and worn, is holding baby Obed on her lap. Little did she know what this child was destined by God to be.

Thank you, Father, for the lovely book of Ruth, and for the kindness and compassion it demonstrates for us. Please help us to hold on to you in faith if hard times come, and always to have tender hearts for those whose lives are cruel and sad. Amen.

Through a glass darkly

For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face… 1 Corinthians 13:12

Some wise person once said, “The more I know, the more I realise how much I don’t know”.

I imagine that most of us can identify with that. When we’re young, brimming with life and energy, there’s a temptation to think we “know it all”, and to set about putting the world to rights. But as time goes on we learn it really isn’t quite that simple: there are things we just don’t understand; there are questions we don’t know the answers to. Welcome to the real world!

It can be specially difficult if we’re Christians. We have, in Jesus, the living word of God, and, in the Bible, the written word of God. We have, in the Holy Spirit, the very wisdom of God. Surely that should set us up for life? Yes, indeed. Being in a loving relationship with God – a Father who speaks and who deepens our understanding of life – makes a massive difference in all sorts of ways. But the fact is that we have no choice but to live our lives with unanswered questions.

I remember, as a young minister, feeling I was under an obligation to have an answer for any questions people might put to me; I, after all, was the “expert” on such things (ha ha). It came as a real relief to realise that sometimes I just had to say “Sorry, I don’t know the answer to that”. I learned that sometimes we just have to live with mysteries – and I think that fact came as a relief too to the person asking the question.

1 Corinthians 13 is Paul’s great passage on love. His chief point is that, whatever we have by way of knowledge, wisdom, wealth, power, spiritual gifts, even a generous and sacrificial spirit, if we don’t have love we are “only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal”, ie, we are all wind and emptiness. And then comes his famous statement that “we see only a reflection as in a mirror”. (Remember that in Paul’s day mirrors were not made of glass, like today, but of burnished metal: hence the poetic translation in the King James Version of the Bible, that “we see through a glass darkly”).

If Paul, the man who probably had a deeper insight into the things of Jesus and a firmer grip on them than almost anybody else (he wrote more of the New Testament than other single person, after all) could say that, well, surely there is hope for all of us!

What does this mean for us in practice? I offer a few suggestions…

First, accept such limitations cheerfully as a fact of life.

Certainly, let’s do all we can to grow in knowledge and wisdom – God expects that of us. But let’s accept too that there is a limit, and that that is nothing to ashamed of.

Second, be wary of people, especially preachers and teachers, who give the impression of “knowing it all”.

They may be well-qualified in theological terms, with letters after their names and impressive titles, but, again, that may mean nothing. I always feel a slight sliver of fear when I read James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers… because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways”. God help us to be humble, not arrogant!

Third, take pleasure in the mysteries of the world in which we live.

One of my regrets as I look back is that the glories of the night sky – those vast distances, those circling planets - or of a magnificent natural scene – mountains, lakes, trees - were pretty much lost on me. I could use as an excuse the fact that I grew up very much as a city boy, but I wish now that I had taken more advantage of such opportunities as I had, and I see it as a pretty feeble excuse.

Modern psychologists tell us that developing a sense of wonder and awe, perhaps by looking seriously and attentively at the structure of a leaf or the movement of a tiny insect, can benefit our mental health, and I can well believe it. Many of us grew up with the idea that “science” and “religion” are at loggerheads, contradicting one another. But many leading scientists are religious in various ways, and they are often the first people to recognise that, in spite of all they know, the gaps in their knowledge remain massive.

I like the quotation of Albert Einstein (who, I am led to believe, knew just a bit about science): “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”. What exactly Prof Einstein meant by that unsatisfactory catch-all word “religion” I don’t know (I don’t think he was an orthodox Christian), but never mind!

God’s world is full of wonder. Sometimes it’s a wonder that leads to fear, even pain. But in spite of the sadnesses and tragedies that dog our existence, not least the reality of death itself, there is also much beauty, much to provoke a gasp of awe (have you looked recently at the face of a new-born baby?). And this is so for the Christian, the same as everybody else. The heavens really do “declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19); they have been doing so since the birth of creation; and they will continue to do so until Jesus returns. If only we have eyes to see…

But let’s not overlook the second part of Paul’s statement. Now, it’s true, “we see only a reflection in a mirror; but… “then we shall see face to face”.

That’s a sombre but wonderful thought. What shall we see? Who knows what wonders! But at the heart of them all, “we shall see Jesus as he is” (1John 3:2).

Christian, live daily in the light of that great truth!

Father in heaven, this world in which you have placed us is truly a wonderful yet mysterious place. Thank you for all you have shown us of yourself and your glory, whether in nature or, supremely, in Jesus, God-in-the-flesh. Help me to live gladly with the mysteries I cannot grasp, and to look forward to the day when, by your kindness and grace, I shall see Jesus as he is. Amen.

The man who tried to run from God

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to  the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me”. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish… Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:1-2, 17

Poor Jonah! There’s nothing to suggest he was anything but a true Israelite who, under normal circumstances, was keen to do God’s will. Yet in the course of these four little chapters it’s hard to imagine how he could have got things more completely, totally wrong!

He attempts to run away from God’s call to him, but God refuses to let him. He ends up “in the belly of a huge fish”, from where he prays a heart-felt prayer, acknowledging his hopelessness and despair; whereupon God causes the fish to “vomit” him onto dry land. By now he has got the message, so he gets on and does as God had first instructed him. The result: a massive revival across Nineveh where everyone, both king and people, humble themselves before God.

This, surely, is every preacher’s dream. Yet Jonah remains in a thoroughly bad mood, still questioning God’s purposes (“I told you so, Lord!”, 4:2) and, for all we know, never becoming reconciled to them. We say good-bye to him in this angry, sulky mood.

The first two chapters of the book involve Jonah and the pagan sailors whose lives he has put in danger – plus God, of course. There is much we can apply to ourselves to warn and challenge us.

First, the person who tries to run away from God is on a fool’s errand.

Did Jonah really believe that jumping on a ship and heading in the opposite direction to Nineveh would do any good if God had really made up his mind? It would seem that yes, he did. His faith in God may have been entirely genuine, but it doesn’t seem to have been very mature (though who am I to judge!).

The fact is that wilful disobedience to God is always a flight into the darkness, and though our circumstances today may be far less dramatic than Jonah’s, exactly the same thing applies to us as Christians. Disobedience to God robs us of our overall purpose in life, of our inner peace, and threatens to lead to disaster.

Is this a word to anyone reading this?

Second, the mind of God is far more generous and loving than we can fully grasp.

Jonah no doubt had his reasons for rebelling against the purposes of God. True, the people of Nineveh (Assyrians) were bitter enemies of Israel. True, God was specifically “the God of Israel”. But hadn’t God called Israel precisely in order to be “a light to lighten the gentiles”, not just a harsh condemning voice? True, Jonah was called by God to “preach against” Nineveh  because of their “wickedness”, which sounds pretty severe, but the closing verses of the book make clear that God’s ultimate purpose is gracious, to show compassion (“. . .should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?”).

As Christians we are well-attuned to the call of evangelism and, hopefully, we take it very seriously: Jesus is for every human being on the face of the earth! Yet we can still maintain a narrow, mean-minded spirit towards people who, deep down, we have decided are “not like us”. (A young eighteenth-century Christian had begun to feel a strong sense of call towards the teeming millions of China. When he shared this vision with older ministers he was told by one, “Young man, if God decides to make the gospel known to the people of China, he is perfectly able to do that without any help from you”.)

Are any of us guilty of prejudice of any kind – racial, religious, social or whatever? Let’s never forget: God loves sinners, strangers and outcasts. He loves failures and even those we may cruelly dismiss as odd-balls.

Is it time for a re-think of some of our attitudes?

Third, what are we to think when non-believers behave better than believers?

I have to admit that the more I read the story of Jonah, the more sympathy I feel for the unnamed sailors whose lives were endangered by his folly as they went about their day-to-day business. Putting it briefly, they did all they could to rescue him: “each cried out to his own god”, and they jettisoned their no doubt valuable cargo (verse 5); they reasoned with him (verses 6-12) when it must have been tempting to tip him overboard pronto; and in the end they only did that when all else had failed and they had reached the end of their resources (verse 13).

In a word, they showed him kindness; their actions were better than his. And haven’t we all known times when we have been put to shame by non-Christians who have outshone our response to a particular situation?

It’s true that the sailors’ kindness might have involved a strong element of superstition – they might have been afraid of incurring the anger of their gods if they put Jonah to death. But on the principle of always believing the best of somebody’s motives rather than the worst unless there is some very good reason to do otherwise, why not accept that, while they were no doubt sinners like the rest of us, they were motivated by goodness of heart? Why need we doubt that God was happy to accept their sacrifice and vows (verse 16)?

I like to imagine the mood on that ship as Jonah’s body sank, as the sea grew calm, and as those men rested on their oars in exhaustion. I like to think of it as one of a deeply serious peace.

It had been anything but a normal day at the office, certainly – yet had they not met with God that day?

Father, we can all smile at the folly of Jonah as we think of our own stupid blunderings and sins, our acts of weakness and disobedience. We can all see ourselves in him. Lord, have mercy upon us! Amen.

Of olive trees and arrogance

Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider, therefore, the kindness and sternness of God… Romans 11:20-22

Let’s be honest, there are times when, reading Paul, we find ourselves wondering “What is he going on about!” This applies particularly to Romans 9-11, a substantial chunk of the letter where he is grappling with the place of Israel in the outworking of God’s purposes.

Is Israel, the descendants of Abraham, still the chosen people of God? Has their rejection of God’s intended purpose for them – to be “a light to lighten the gentiles”, a fulfilment of the Old Testament prophets – resulted in their final dismissal from the stage of world history? Has God, so to speak, given up on Plan A and, in Jesus, moved on to Plan B?

You only have to skim-read these three chapters to see how distressing such an idea is to Paul. He reaches something of a climax in 11:1-6, where he vehemently rejects the very suggestion: “I’m a Jew myself!” he exclaims; as if to say, “God hasn’t cast us off! He knows exactly what he is doing, and it’s only a matter of time before everything becomes clear”.

In 11:17-24 he uses the illustration of the olive tree to explain what God is doing, and what he is going to do in the future. This is a part of the letter where we can get seriously lost, if only because most of us, I suspect, haven’t got a clue about the growth and cultivation of olive trees. Suffice to say: they are a vital part of the Mediterranean world,  greatly valued by local people; valued for their fruit, for the shade their branches give from the heat of the sun, for their life-span (possibly even hundreds of years), and for their wood. It is hardly surprising that over the centuries they became a symbol (along with the vine and the fig-tree) of prosperity for the nation of Israel.

We need to be clear about the context here: in these verses Paul is addressing specifically gentile rather than Jewish Christians (11:13), and he is keen to ensure that they don’t (as an old friend of mine might have put it) “get ideas above their station”, in other words, become arrogant. “Oh”, they might think, “God has finished with Israel; they’ve let him down too often. Now it’s us - former heathens, pagans! - who have entered into the grace of God through faith in Jesus, and Israel is consigned to the scrap-heap of history”.

Not so! replies Paul. Think of the olive tree. Yes, many Israelites have indeed lost touch with the purposes of God and so have lost their way and become like a dead, fruitless tree. And yes, you gentiles, though nothing better than wild, uncultivated trees, have indeed been “grafted in” to draw sap and produce good fruit. This is indeed wonderfully so, but – and here comes the punch-line – “do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches” (verses 17-18). And then a dark warning: “If God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either”.

In a word, don’t take your new status in Christ for granted; more specifically, don’t let it engender in you spiritual pride… because if you do, the day might come when you’re in for a nasty shock.

Paul then goes on to suggest something that such arrogant gentile Christians have obviously not so much as dreamed of: if the people of Israel “do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again”. Now, taken as it stands, that sounds pretty unlikely to me! – can dry, withered branches lying on the ground really be re-grafted onto a fruitful olive tree? Surely not! (Though admittedly I haven’t had a chance to check with a professional horticulturalist.) But that is the point: God is a God of miracles, and Paul, putting it in plain words, is holding out a hope that the Jewish people might yet return to their ancestral God.

Sorry if this has all got a bit complicated. Let’s boil it down to two simple things we need to get hold of…

First: Christian, pray for God’s ancient people Israel.

God called Israel to be his special people - but not in terms of privilege so much as in terms of service. And that calling has never been revoked, however much Israel may have failed.

That doesn’t mean we should become “Zionists”, and certainly not that we should always be on the side of modern Israel in terms of the politics of the middle-east. Not at all. Every nation on earth is blighted by the reality of sin – and that sad truth applies to every area of conflict, whether Ukraine and Russia or, just in the last few days, India and Pakistan or, of course, the terrible situation in Gaza. Every nation needs to know about the love of Jesus, and wrongs done on every side fall under the judgment of God.

So pray for Israel of course (and avoid like the plague every hint of antisemitism). But pray too for the suffering people of Gaza.

Second: Christian, avoid arrogance.

As we have seen, part of Paul’s concern in this part of Romans is that the gentile Christians tended to look down on their Jewish brothers and sisters as rejected by God. From what we have seen from the olive tree illustration, we must put that suggestion firmly to one side.

But we must be careful. There are plenty of other issues on which it is easy for Christians to look with contempt on their fellow-Christians. The main one is probably doctrinal correctness, the attitude of those who are convinced that they have got every jot and tittle of teaching sorted out, and who therefore hold themselves arrogantly aloof from fellow-Christians who hold different views on certain things. (What things? Well, the Holy Spirit, the return of Jesus in glory, the authority of scripture, church government, baptism, styles of worship will do for a start…)

It's a strange irony that, of all strands of Christianity, the one that most emphasises the pure grace of God towards sinners, and which should therefore be most noted for its humility, can come across as arrogant and self-important in keeping its distance from those it considers to be in error.

May God help us all, however confident we are in our faith and understanding, to have the humility to recognise that it could just be us who are the ones in error on certain things!

Father, I want to be right in my understanding of your word in scripture, but my understanding is very limited and I know that it’s easy to be deceived by unreliable and even false teachers. Teach me the humility to be open to correction, and never to look down on those who, as I see it, have got certain things wrong. Amen.

Father, we look with sadness upon present-day conflicts in our world, especially in the middle east. We pray for Israel, who have suffered so much; we pray too for the Palestinian people of Gaza, who likewise have suffered untold injustice and misery. O Lord, send peace and hope, we pray! Amen.

Encouragement? or cop-out?

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?... 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect… 1 Peter 3:15

Just recently I was chatting with a group of fellow-ministers when we found ourselves sharing a common frustration about “evangelism” or “witness”: how can Christians (not just pastors) find a way to cross that invisible line between (a) being friendly, pleasant and helpful in any ways we can (of course!), and (b) actually talking about Jesus plainly and sharing the good news which has transformed our lives?

The two Bible passages above both came into our discussion.

On the surface, perhaps they don’t have a lot in common. But I think if we look briefly at them we can indeed see a link, and find that there is both a challenge and an encouragement, not to mention a warning…

In 1 Peter 3:15 Peter seems simply to be giving advice to his readers about the Christian duty of evangelism, how and how not to go about it. His advice can be summed up as: always be ready to make Christ known – but don’t push it inappropriately.

No doubt there have always been Christians who evangelise in off-putting ways. I think with some embarrassment of my early years as a teenage Christian. I was converted at 15 and went back to school determined to convert everybody in five minutes flat. I’ll never know how many people looked at me with a mixture of puzzlement (“What’s happened to him?”), contempt (“Oh, he’s become a religious nutter!”), and sheer incomprehension (“Doh!”). Had I inadvertently put anybody off for life? Oh to be able to turn the clock back!

Peter’s advice is simple: let the other person take the initiative, and when our turn comes to speak, to do so “with gentleness and respect”.

What about 2 Corinthians 2:14-16? What’s all this about beautiful smells “pleasing aromas”)? Paul is using the image of smell as a metaphor for the good news of Jesus (though perhaps he is mixing his metaphors a little in a slightly complex passage).

The first and most obvious comparison (we are “captives in Christ’s triumphal procession”) is to a Roman army victory parade. We have to imagine the victorious soldiers, having defeated the enemy, returning home to be greeted by great crowds of people. They bring with them, in chains, some of the enemy soldiers; sacrifices are made to the gods of Rome; incense is burnt along the route; the noise and sense of excitement are intense (imagine a football team who have just won the cup returning home on an open-top bus) – and the smell must have been overwhelming.

Why Christ’s followers should be depicted as playing the part of the defeated prisoners isn’t entirely clear, but, as I said, Paul is probably happy enough to mix his metaphors. What matters is the smell.

Not until you lose your sense of smell, perhaps through a heavy cold or some other illness, do you realise how precious and important it is. I used occasionally to walk past a quite up-market coffee shop, and the aroma of the freshly-ground beans was quite wonderful; it was tempting to stop for a few minutes just to have a few good sniffs. And probably all of us experience certain smells occasionally which have the power to transport us back to some scene or event from long ago.

It's hard to put into words exactly how “aromas” affect people, but the point is that they spread and linger, and somehow seem to burrow to somewhere deep in our minds. So an obvious application of Paul’s metaphor is that a Christlike manner and way of living – what we might call a “silent witness” – does have an impact, even if the name of Jesus is not spoken. It may then become the role of another Christian some time in the future – perhaps even years ahead – to evangelise more directly. To change the metaphor, we are all links in the chain of witness. And in this particular instance our place is to be wordless, but to pray and trust that, by the Holy Spirit, something of Jesus may be seen even in us.

So we can be encouraged! We may be frustrated that we have not succeeded in speaking explicitly of the gospel. But, to change the metaphor yet again, we have hopefully sown seeds of truth which will germinate under somebody else’s witness.

I spoke earlier of both a challenge and an encouragement. Let’s sum them up…

The challenge comes in Peter’s words, “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have”. Always be prepared. Yes! Surely there must have been opportunities to speak for Jesus - but we simply failed to see them. Lord, help me not to make that mistake again!

The encouragement comes in Paul’s use of the image of smell. A Christlike way of life may make a deeper impact on somebody’s life than we could begin to imagine. What, me, Lord? You even used me, a most imperfect follower of Jesus, to act as a link in the chain, to be a silent sower of the seed? That’s wonderful!

But I also suggested that our two passages should sound a warning for us. What might that be? Just this: let us not use them as a cop-out from the responsibility of direct evangelism. Let us not say, All right, I didn’t manage to explicitly speak of Jesus, but not to worry. After all, the person in question didn’t ask me to explain my faith; and anyway, by the grace of God something of the aroma of the gospel may have been passed on.

No! That may be true; but let’s not console ourselves with easy excuses.

Let’s allow Peter to have the final word regarding witness and evangelism: Christian, always be prepared…

Father, in our modern and godless world it can be very difficult to communicate the gospel of Jesus in plain words. So I take comfort from the words of Paul and Peter. But help me never to let them be an excuse for laziness, or cowardice, or sheer spiritual insensitivity. Help me always to be prepared for unexpected opportunities. Amen.