Gratitude

Pharaoh restored the chief cup-bearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand… The chief cup-bearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. Genesis 40:21-23

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him - and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-17

What do you say when somebody thanks you for some little help you’ve given them? Probably, “No, please don’t mention it! It was my pleasure!” or something like. And you mean it quite sincerely – you did whatever it was you did because it was a good thing to do, not out of any wish for thanks. Quite right too.

And yet… it’s good to be thanked, isn’t it? It encourages you, and gives you a little glow of pleasure. If the person doesn’t thank you, you say to yourself, “No problem! – that isn’t why I did it”. And you’d gladly do it again. Yet… something is missing.

A simple question today: How good am I at expressing gratitude?

The chief butler of Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, gets to know Joseph the Israelite in prison (Genesis 40). There he learns that Joseph has a God-given ability to interpret dreams, information which he is able to tell Pharaoh about on his release - and information which Pharaoh badly needs; but information which he fails to pass on.

Not unnaturally Joseph had felt entitled to ask him to keep him in mind: “… when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison”. But we then read the sad little note: “the chief cup-bearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him” (verses 14 and 23). So in fact Joseph continues to languish in prison.

Ten men with leprosy – a horrible disease that’s both physically destructive and socially isolating – meet Jesus one day on the road (Luke 17:11-17). They cry out to him for healing, and he answers their prayer. But only one of the ten, a Samaritan, thinks to turn back to offer praise to God and give thanks to Jesus. Jesus expresses his disappointment: “Has no-one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Two dramatic stories – a far cry, of course, from times when we do something to help somebody out in the course of everyday life. But challenging all the same, for both stories remind us how easy it is to be guilty of ingratitude.

We can make excuses for both Pharaoh’s butler and the men with leprosy: if nothing else, they must have been beside themselves with sheer excitement at the change in their fortunes. The lepers especially - to be instantly cleansed after perhaps many years of misery with this affliction! Just imagine!

Perhaps the butler is most at fault. For one thing, Joseph had explicitly asked him to remember him; and for another, even when he had calmed down and been two years back in his former job, he still didn’t remember that strange man he had met in prison. Sad!

But are we any better? Quite likely we feel gratitude when whatever it is is actually  happening; but what good is gratitude that’s felt if it’s not also expressed? The person who needs the encouragement of our gratitude is denied it.

When we’re on the receiving end of gratitude, it’s amazing what a difference a word of appreciation can make. It brightens our whole day; it makes us feel valued; it make us feel we’re not just cogs in a wheel or names on a list: “I’m a person! They noticed me! I matter to them!” And how easy it is to pass on this good feeling – just a simple word, card or greeting will do it.

True, we need to be careful not to overdo it: laying it on with a trowel defeats the whole object – it can come across as unctuous and insincere. No, a simple, genuine word is all that’s required.

If ever people ought to develop the gift of gratitude it is, surely, Christians. We have received the grace of God, entered into salvation in Christ, and been given a new life full of meaning and hope. Gratitude should be in our very DNA! And this is so even when life is hard – some of the brightest, most positive Christians are those who have suffered most. And people who have the most in life but never think to be grateful are often the most grouchy and mean-spirited.

So… is there anyone in your life or mine currently waiting – no! not waiting; that’s just what they’re not doing! – but entitled to a word of gratitude? Like Pharaoh’s butler, are we guilty of forgetting them?

The poet George Herbert (1593-1633) offered a prayer I think we could all take to heart (certainly me, anyway)…

Thou hast given so much to me… Give me one thing more – a grateful heart. Amen!

When Christians fall out (3)

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company… Acts 15:36-39

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles… Galatians 2:11-12

Arguments and divisions in the church are nothing new; they go right back to the earliest days.

That has been the thrust of my last two posts, taking as examples (a) Paul’s fall-out with Barnabas over John Mark (Acts 15:36-41), and (b) his public condemnation of Simon Peter over his refusal to eat with gentile believers (Galatians 2:11-21). Unhappy events, however you look at them.

In a strange sort of way we can take it as encouraging that such things could happen even among the early giants of the church – there are no “plaster saints” in the Bible, so let that give us hope!

But, of course, it is the will of Jesus that his church should be united – just take a look at his great prayer in John 17: “…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I in you”. So we should never excuse disunity among us as Christians, and certainly not be complacent about it.

All of which raises the question: At what point (if ever) should we break fellowship with others who claim to be Christians? To use the technical, if rather ugly, word, at what point might we regard them as heretical, so seriously in error that we can no longer feel united to them ? The answer is easy to state in principle but often very difficult to pin down in practice.

Regarding the examples we have looked at, there can surely be no doubt that Paul was right to condemn Peter that day in Antioch, embarrassing, painful and even humiliating though it must have been. If Peter and the “circumcision group” had won the day, it would have inflicted a massive tear on the fabric of the church: can you imagine a situation where Jewish Christians sat to eat in one room, and their gentile brothers and sisters in another? It would have been scandalous, outrageous.

Even more, it would have been a denial of the very essence of the Gospel, for Jesus died and rose again for all those who trust in him, and so they are all equal in his sight. There were no first- and second-class Christians in those early days; and nor should there be now.

So, going back to the question of when, if ever, we are justified in breaking fellowship with others who profess to follow Jesus, the answer is simple: only if they are saying or doing something which violates the very essence of the Gospel. Never over a personality clash or an issue, practical or doctrinal, which is only of secondary importance.

But that raises another question: Yes, but how do we decide what is an essential first principle and what is merely secondary? To which the answer is often: with great difficulty!

A few examples may help us to pick our way through this.

We’ve all heard stories of Christians falling out over issues that would be funny if they weren’t so sad – What colour should the new carpet in the church be? Should the morning service start at 10.15 or 10.30?

Others aren’t funny at all, but are just very sad. I was once attacked (not physically) in a scornful and insulting way because I expressed the view that the King James Version of the Bible wasn’t the only “proper” translation.

And there is a multitude of doctrinal questions where equally sincere Christians disagree – What is meant by “the baptism of the Holy Spirit”? “What is the ‘millennium’?” How do we reconcile divine predestination and human free will? What place do women have in church leadership? Is it right to “christen” babies? How precisely does Jesus’ death on the cross accomplish our salvation? What is the nature of hell? How literally should we take the Genesis creation story?

I could go on! The Bible, even though inspired by God, is not always a simple book to understand!

For what it’s worth, let me suggest a rough rule of thumb.

If somebody claims to be a fellow believer in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and I have no reason to doubt their genuineness and sincerity, then – well – that’s enough for me, even if I may sometimes shake my head when I learn about various of their beliefs and practices.

I may not feel comfortable about being in the same church fellowship as that person, or about encouraging others to be; but I will not refuse to regard them as a fellow Christian (and very likely a far better one than me!). After all, there is no-one who has everything pinned down, no-one who is without error. And if that is so, it follows that I should always be open to the question, “Never mind that heretical person… What if it’s me that’s wrong?

A teaspoonful of vital truth outweighs a lorryload of secondary error. (Discuss…)

Loving Father, please give me a passion for the truth as it is in Jesus, a wise and discerning mind, and also true humility and generosity of spirit. Amen.

When Christians fall out (2)

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company... Acts 15:36-39

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles... Galatians 2:11-12

Arguments and divisions in the church are nothing new; they go right back to the earliest days.

That was the point of our last post, where we looked at the sad story of Paul falling out with his friend Barnabas over John Mark (Acts 15). The two men simply couldn’t see eye to eye over something that mattered very much to both of them, so they “parted company”.

But I said there was another big falling out involving Paul, this time with the apostle Peter. Paul gives his account of it in Galatians 2, and it’s clear that it was even more serious than the Paul-Barnabas dispute: “When Cephas (that is, Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned”.

That’s strong language! Can you imagine the atmosphere in the hall when this confrontation between the two spiritual giants took place? It must have been electric.

Two questions arise…

First, what was actually going on in Antioch?

The Antioch church was a key church in those early days (go to Acts 11 to see how it was founded). It was where the word “Christian” was coined, and it was where something happened that seems to have taken the original church in Jerusalem by surprise. What was that? – large numbers of non-Jews – “Gentiles”, or “Greeks” – came to faith in Jesus (Acts 11:20-21).

We need to remember that “Christianity” was originally a thoroughly Jewish affair: Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, the twelve apostles were all Jews, and the gospel was the fulfilment of God’s promises to the people of Israel.

But no-one seems to have fully grasped that it was God’s intention to gather all peoples and nations to himself - in spite of passages like Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abram that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you”; and Isaiah 49:6, where he tells Israel that “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation shall reach to the ends of the earth”.

But now exactly this was happening… in Antioch!

So the question arose: How should we receive these strange new converts - people who don’t dress like us, who don’t share our history, scriptures and language, who have never learned our laws, whose men have never been circumcised? Do we just baptise them into Christ and have done with it? Or should we in effect require them to convert to Judaism in order that they can truly belong to the Jewish Messiah?

The essential answer was simple: just accept them as they are! All that matters is faith in Jesus!

And so a truly mixed church was born, Jews and Gentiles side by side. So far, so wonderful.

But that leads to the second question: why was Paul so angry with Peter when they met that day in Antioch?

Answer: because Peter – yes, Peter of all people… Peter who had been with Jesus in his earthly life, and had seen how decidedly unpicky he was about the company he kept… Peter who had received from God a remarkable vision (Acts 10) that should have taught him all he needed to know… Peter who had stood up before a full church council (Acts 15:6-11) and declared that God “does not discriminate between us (Jews) and them (Gentiles)”… Peter who knew Jesus as well as anybody on the face of the earth! – yes, this Peter had decided that he, as a Jewish Christian, could no longer sit at the same meal-table as Gentile Christians. Jews just didn’t eat with Gentiles because they were “unclean”; and that was that.

No wonder Paul is utterly horrified.

There were, it seems, some hard-line Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who felt that if any Gentile wanted to follow Jesus they must first become “real” Jews, food laws and all. They claimed to be sent by James the brother of Jesus, the head of the Jerusalem church (Galatians 2:12; I wonder if they really were?). They are referred to by Paul as “the circumcision group” – which suggests that it wasn’t only Jewish food laws that they were concerned about.

And – this is the point - it seems that Peter had allowed himself to be persuaded by these people. He “began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group”.

Paul, then, is outraged by Peter’s inconsistency, indeed, by his “hypocrisy” (Galatians 2:13). But it wasn’t just that, not at all. No, there was a matter of vital principle here, unlike in the spat with Barnabas.

But (sorry!) I think we will need a third blog to bring that out…

Lord God, thank you that you love all people alike. Help me to do the same, regardless of their colour, their race, their background, their education, their wealth or poverty, their intelligence or simplicity – just as people for whom Jesus died. Amen.

When Christians fall out

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company... Acts 15:36-39

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles... Galatians 2:11-12

A great feature of the Bible is its honesty about the faults of even its so-called heroes -  you can look at the Old Testament, and people like Abraham, Moses and David, or at the New, and people like Peter and Paul, and you see them “warts and all”; no attempt is made to gloss over their imperfections.

This thought is in my mind because we recently had a sermon about the importance of unity in the church. It was good to be reminded of this vital theme; we modern Christians should be ashamed of the extent of disunity among us, all the thousands of movements and denominations.

But let’s never imagine that the problem is new! Far from it. You don’t have to read the New Testament particularly carefully in order to see that, right from the very beginning, arguments, disagreements and divisions were common: Acts 6:1 - probably only days after Pentecost! -  is just the earliest recorded squabble.

Two of the worst disputes feature Paul: well, he was a pretty strong-minded person, wasn’t he?

In Acts 15 we read of what today might be called a bust-up between him and his friend Barnabas. Luke uses the Greek word from which we get the English “paroxysm”, a violent convulsion, translated in the NIV as “sharp disagreement”. The Message translation puts it graphically: “Tempers flared and they ended up going their separate ways”. Oh dear!

And then in Galatians 2 it’s Paul and Peter (referred to here as “Cephas”) who find themselves at loggerheads: Paul tells us that, one memorable day in Antioch, he “opposed Peter to his face, because he stood condemned”. And he did it “in front of them all”. Again, oh dear!

Deciding who was right and who was wrong isn’t the point; it’s not for us to judge. But perhaps we can learn lessons from these sad episodes which help us to work out some of our own difficulties. The key thing is to see why these disputes arose, and to ask if they could have been avoided. (What we mustn’t do is assume that because the Bible records them it also approves of them. No way!)

First, then, Paul’s quarrel with Barnabas.

Was this basically a personality clash, the sort of thing that sometimes happens even between friends? I think there was more to it than that. It was more like a disagreement over policy and even strategy.

Let’s use our imaginations to read between the lines…

Paul and Barnabas are planning a re-run of their first missionary journey, the events described in Acts 13-14. Barnabas seems to assume that they will take John Mark (who happens to be his cousin) with them, as they did first time. But Paul isn’t happy. “He deserted us last time!” he protests. “He’s unreliable! We can’t risk him again!” (The background is told in Acts 13:13.) And so Paul recruits a man called Silas for the proposed journey, while Barnabas and John Mark head off for Cyprus.

How easy it is to see both sides of the dispute! Barnabas (it’s no accident that his name means “Encourager”) takes a soft line regarding John Mark’s failure: “Oh, we all need a second chance! We all make mistakes, and he will have learned from last time”. While Paul is uncompromising: “No! The task is too important to risk a repeat.”

Don’t we sometimes see this kind of thing in our churches today? Somebody loses their way over something, and the church knows it must act – it can’t just turn a blind eye - but really doesn’t know what to do. On the one side there are the Barnabases, the “We-really-should-make-allowances” faction – “Jesus, after all, is all about forgiveness. Didn’t he restore Simon Peter after he denied Jesus? Didn’t he show compassion and mercy to the woman taken in adultery?”

On the other side, there are the Pauls, the hard-liners – “There are times when a stand has to be made, or the purity of the church will be compromised”. Which way to go?

Well, it seems that the church backed Paul on this one: they “commended Paul and Silas to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:40) for their journey, and we don’t read of them doing that for Barnabas and John Mark; in fact, we hear nothing more at all about that journey.

But – hey! – let’s not overlook the fact that now there were two evangelistic tours instead of one. Let that encourage us: even when things go wrong, God is well able to bring something positive out of it.

But what about the other dispute – that explosive crisis in Antioch? I’m afraid we’ll have to come back to that next time…

Lord God, thank you that you work through far from perfect men and women in bringing your purposes to pass. While we take encouragement from that, help us never to be complacent about our faults and divisions, but to remember the prayer of Jesus, that we may all be one, even as he and you are one. Amen.

Feeling hungry?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6

I know what it means to feel ready for a meal; but I don’t think I know what it means to be hungry. There’s a big difference. “I’m starving!” we might say, “what time’s dinner?” But of course the word starving – really hungry – is nonsense for most of us.

In the time and place in which Jesus lived, most people would have known hunger very well. Many of us (vegetarians and vegans, please excuse me here) feel hard done by if we don’t eat meat at least once a day; in Jesus’ world you might be fortunate to eat meat once a week.

And as for being thirsty…!

Without food and drink we die. No wonder, then, that Jesus used hunger and thirst as a way of talking about spiritual appetite, “hungering and thirsting for righteousness”.

This, the fourth “beatitude”, is possibly the most challenging of the eight, because it forces us to face the question, What is it that I want above all other things in my life? And Jesus is saying that our answer should be: righteousness.

But… what is righteousness?

It’s a tricky word to grapple with for at least two reasons.

First, it’s not in much use in modern English. We might say, “She’s a lovely person”, or “He’s a great bloke”, but would we ever call somebody a “righteous” man or woman? The word seems very old-fashioned: ask the average person what they understand by it, and they would probably come up with something like “Goodness, with a sugar-coating of religion – and not something particularly attractive, thank you very much”.

Second, while it obviously has to do with “rightness” and “goodness”, in the Bible it has several layers of meaning - a bit like those burgers that are so thick you can hardly get your mouth round them.

However you come at the word, it has to begin with the character of God himself, for he is ultimately the righteous one. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, Genesis 1:1 tells us. And when he had completed the work of creation he “saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

But it has become spoiled. The Adam and Eve story tells us that in the Garden of Eden they disobeyed God and dragged his good creation into ruin: what the Bible calls “sin”. And so we see the consequences every day of our lives: in human relationships, lies, cruelty, injustice, war; and the spoiling and polluting of planet earth on a universal scale. And, even more, we see the consequences when we look into our own hearts: anger, jealousy, hatred, greed, pride, lust.

It’s into this sad picture that the Christian Gospel brings hope, for its message is that God is at work to turn bad to good, to put right what has gone wrong. Go from the first chapters of the Bible to the last, and what do you find? – not just another garden, but this time a perfect garden-city, the “new Jerusalem”, the holy city “prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:1-2).

God is in the business of putting things right! – that’s the point. And he is not going to stop until he has completed the job.

So when Jesus declares as “blessed” the person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he is talking about the person whose passion and craving is to see the “new heaven and new earth” (Revelation 21:1) which is totally cleansed of sin and full of the glory and beauty of God.

And so the question: Is that me? Is it you?

This great programme of “putting right” has to begin with each individual person, for the rot is deep within us. And this is what God himself came to earth to achieve, in the person of his own son Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the clearest statement of this is given by Paul in Romans 3:22-24: God’s righteousness, he says, “is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified (that word can be translated “made righteous”) freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ…”

So… Do I want my heart to be “right” as God intends it to be? And do I want to be part of that perfect “made-right” world which God has promised to bring about? And do I want to see the beginnings of it now, “on earth as it is in heaven”, not just waiting for this earthly life to be over?

I do? Then on to the next question: What am I doing about it, day by day, and hour by hour?

That’s “hungering and thirsting for righteousness”.

Loving Lord God, teach me what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, not only in my own life, but also in terms of international justice, political integrity, economic fairness and the health of this beautiful planet you have made. Amen.

Babbling for Jesus

A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with Paul. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’… Acts 17:18

I spent a very interesting hour recently in a lively, full-on discussion about religion in general and Christianity in particular.

My wife and I belong to the University of the Third Age, which is emphatically not a university at all, but a voluntary organisation for  anyone who is retired. It runs various types of groups – languages, poetry, computer skills, walking, music, comedy, litter-picking, current affairs, virtually anything anyone wants to start up. (If you happen to be (a) an expert on the Mongolian nose-flute and (b) retired, the U3A is just waiting to enfold you to its bosom.)

And if ever anyone trots out that tired cliché that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” just kick them, please, in the direction of the U3A.

One of the groups calls itself, perhaps a little grandly, the “philosophy” group, and it was these good people who hosted this discussion on religion. I had never attended it before (me, philosophy? Nah!) but I was warmly and kindly welcomed by a bunch of about ten delightful people. I was the only participant who explicitly declared themselves a Christian.

Virtual discussions are, of course, bound to be less than entirely satisfactory, and I came away not sure how good an “ambassador for Christ” I had been – I am sure I omitted to say various things that would have been useful, and fear that I may also have said things  that were unclear or open to misunderstanding. I felt a little like “babbler” Paul in Athens.

But I had the opportunity, at very least, to share my story – to say how I had become a Christian in my teens, and a little bit of why I am still a Christian in my seventies.

On reflection, one or two thoughts seem worth sharing.

First, I was struck that several of the group had rebelled against a very “religious” upbringing. Adolescence seems to have been the turning point, the opportunity to shake off the shackles of superstition, meaningless ritual and mumbo-jumbo.

I was glad to point out that my story was just the opposite – having been sent to Sunday School by non-churchgoing parents, my brother and I both became Christians in our mid-teens; not exactly rebelling, but certainly creating a bit of a stir.

It made me aware of the terrible damage we can do if ever we come across self-righteous, sanctimonious, downright sinful, or just plain incomprehensible. It reminded me of a cynical remark I heard once from a good Christian, as he ruefully shook his head: “Every time I look at our churches I marvel that anyone ever gets converted”.

The question, “What sort of advertisement are we for Christ?” is one we must always have in mind.

But having got used to this attitude - jolly dismissal of religion as beneath contempt - I couldn’t help but feel that there were also vibes of a positive kind.

In some there was a hint of affectionate nostalgia; people spoke of their childhood faith and church involvement with real warmth: “I still remember some of the songs we sang”; “I have never forgotten those Bible stories”. Churches can be happy places!

There was even respect. “Of course, even though I don’t believe a word of it, I’m the first to recognise that some churches do a lot of good in the community”. (Food-banks? Street pastors? Night-shelters? Debt-counselling?) One woman said to me personally, “It’s so refreshing to have someone with us who has a real, solid faith” (and I’m thinking, who? me?).

There was even an expression of envy: “I really do envy you your faith”, from one of the most outspoken of the unbelievers – as if faith in Christ was just a matter of luck, like having a pleasant voice or being good at sums.

I noticed too that some of those who said little or nothing were paying real attention to what was being said, even what was being said by me. I felt like asking, “What’s going on inside your mind…?” I came away in no doubt that some militant unbelievers are, in fact, nothing like as militant, or as sure of themselves, as they make out…

The most important – and, indeed, the saddest – reflection was that most of the objections to Christianity were to do with the weaknesses, foibles and peculiarities of churches, not at all to do with Jesus. These friendly people seemed unable to see that what matters about any kind of religion is not “Does it do good?” or “Does it make you feel better?” or “Does it give a shape to your life?” (though the answer to those questions is, of course, “Yes”, if you’re a Christian) but… “Is It true?”

Did Jesus come into this world as God-in-the-flesh? Was he crucified as a sacrifice for our sins? Did he rise from the dead on the third day?

It is to basic questions like that that we must draw people; unless we do so, all our “witness” and “outreach” is ultimately just preparing the way.

Loving Father, please help us to be faithful witnesses, true ambassadors, for Jesus and his resurrection, so that people will say to us what they said to your servant Paul: “We want to hear you again on this subject”. Amen.

Lambs among wolves?

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere. Luke 9:1-6

Some birds are in the habit (so I’m told) of pushing their young out of the nest in order to teach them to fly. Probably not nice for the baby birds – but presumably it does the trick.

In Luke 9:1-9 Jesus treats his twelve disciples in rather that way: he sends them off on a whistle-stop evangelistic tour, having first given them the same power which had enabled him to exercise his ministry in those early days (verses 1-2). It’s as if he says: “Right! You’ve watched me preaching, healing the sick, even casting out demons – now it’s your turn! Off you go!” 

And… they did (verse 6): “they went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere. (Let’s notice, by the way, that linking of preaching and healing, of word and deed; both are vital.)

The really striking thing is the conditions Jesus imposes on them: Don’t take a staff, or food, or money, not even a second set of clothes. This is truly “travelling light”! They are to be totally dependent on the charity of strangers to support them. They aren’t even allowed to look around for a nice place to stay: no, if someone welcomes you into their home, there you stay – even if you then notice something a bit better a couple of doors down the road (verses 3-4).

Oh, and if no-one gives you a welcome in a particular place – all right, just head off somewhere else; don’t waste valuable time with people who don’t want you (verse 5).

Just reading these verses makes you quite breathless!

Today, of course, we simply don’t operate in this kind of way, not even pioneer missionaries and evangelists. No; we settle in our local communities and hope to communicate the gospel by personal witness and influence plus the occasional explicit word about Christ.

So you might say: That means this story has no practical application for us, then? But no; while we aren’t meant to copy the disciples’ exact method, there are several aspects of their situation which are relevant for us. Let me pick out three…

First, Power.

Jesus didn’t send the twelve out naked, so to speak. No, he clothed them with the same power that had enabled him to exercise his own ministry. And likewise, he gives to us the power of the Holy Spirit to make the gospel known by both word and deed.

That raises a difficult question: if we have that power, why do we so often seem weak and feeble? Why do we seem to have so little impact on our world?

That’s a question for another time, and personally I don’t think there is any simple answer. But what is clear is this: You can’t do the work of Christ without the power of Christ.

Let’s pray, then: Lord God, please baptise us with the power of the Holy Spirit, please give us a little Pentecost!

Second, Faith.

If ever there was a “faith mission”, this was it! “Take nothing for the journey” Jesus tells the twelve (verse 3). That was a big ask, wasn’t it? -  frightening, in fact. They are to rely totally on the provision he makes for them on a day-to-day, even hour-by-hour, basis.

How can this challenge us? Well, we live in a society where we value comfort and security above almost anything else. But while of course we are not to behave irresponsibly or recklessly, may there not be times when God calls us to “step out in faith” and act in a way that makes us catch our breath?

Somebody once asked, How do you spell “faith”? The answer came back: That’s easy! F-a-i-t-h, of course. To which came another answer: Not always; sometimes faith is spelled R-i-s-k.

When did you, or I, last take a risk for Jesus’ sake?

Third, Urgency.

Verse 5 seems rather harsh: in effect, if people don’t welcome you, so be it; leave them to the judgment of God.

Again, this goes flat against our instincts. And quite right too; the New Testament tells us, after all, to be patient and persevering - it is very rare for someone to come to faith at first time of hearing; it may require months and even years of determined witness and prayer.

But there are exceptions to that general rule. The gospel is not just something to be politely (or impolitely) listened to: no, it is a message to be responded to.

And so we must be ready, if the occasion demands, to take a deep breath and – politely and respectfully, of course – point out to someone that perhaps the time for decision has come.

God help us all to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5)! – in the power of Christ, by faith in Christ, and with a spirit of urgency. Amen.

Lord Jesus, please pour out on me afresh the power of your Holy Spirit, please deepen my faith as I trust in you, and please give me a sense of the urgency of the task of making you known. Amen.

Noah's dove

After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. Genesis 8:6-12

Noah stands on the deck of his ship, anxiously scanning the endless expanse of water: is there – oh please, Lord! - any land to be seen? It’s getting on for six months, this lock-down – a long time to be cooped up with just his wife, his three sons and three daughters-in-law, plus of course the inhabitants of his floating zoo. How long, O Lord!

He sends out a raven, but day after day it just reappears for want of a branch to rest on. He sends out a dove – will it be able to find somewhere? No: back it comes. Oh well, give it a week and try again. This time… oh dear, there it is in the distance heading back that evening. But - wait a minute! Has it got something in its beak?

It comes closer. Noah reaches out his hand to receive it and – yes! – an olive leaf, a fresh olive-leaf. A sign of hope. The waters, at last, are going down. Thank you, Lord!

He waits another week and sends the dove off again, and “this time it did not return to him”. It’s over! – at long last the end is in sight!

Reading this story again I couldn’t help but draw a parallel with our present pandemic situation. How wearisome! How exhausting and frustrating! Will it ever end?

All right, I’m probably being a bit over-imaginative. But if so, well, please bear with me.

Why did God send the flood? It’s spelt out pretty clearly in Genesis 6:5-7: “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the face of the earth… the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race that I have created…’”.

God seems to have had two things in mind: cleansing, for planet earth needed to be washed clean; and judgment, for human sin had to be brought to account.

Each day I pray, as very likely you do too, for this horrible virus to be overcome. And no doubt it will be – there will come a day when, so to speak, “the dove will not return”. And that will be wonderful.

But the question arises: Will we be any cleaner than we were? Will we be properly chastened and repentant?

Not physically cleaner, of course; but cleaner in terms of behaviour and habits of mind and thought. Will this pandemic have the effect of shaking us out of our complacency, our childish triviality, our selfishness and greed, our indifference to the needs of others, our rampant materialism, our downright immorality? Will our consciences and motivations be any cleaner? Jesus declared “blessed” those who are “pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8); will we be purer in heart than we were pre-lockdown?

And will we be humbly chastened by the reality of divine judgment? I’m not suggesting, of course, that God is actively punishing those who have suffered most, and even died, over the last year. That isn’t the kind of God he is.

(Jesus makes that very clear in passages like John 9:1-12, where he explicitly bangs on the head any suggestion that a blind man was born that way because either he or his parents had sinned; or Luke 13:1-5, where he does same regarding a group of worshippers who were slaughtered by the Romans as they offered sacrifice; or regarding some unfortunate people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a tower fell and crushed them.)

No. But God is a God who allows certain things to happen in order to bring us to our knees before him: a God who issues a “wake-up call”, if you want to put it like that. And I don’t think it’s wrong of us to see the pandemic in that light.

Imagine Noah rushing to show his family that olive leaf. Imagine too that day, another week later, when once more he sent the dove off. And imagine that electrifying moment when he looked at the anxiety-stricken faces of his family and said: “The dove hasn’t come back!” Can you imagine an explosion of tears of joy?

That day will come for us. True, Noah had to be patient, and so must we. But it will come. The question is: Will we be better Christians, better people, when it does?

Lord God, we are in trouble – it frightens us and makes us aware of our folly and sinfulness. Please forgive us our many failings and have mercy upon us. Please hasten that day when the dove does not return. Amen.

Serious about being like Jesus?

Jesus said, So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12

“Do to others what you would have them do to you…”

This is “The Golden Rule”. Not that Jesus or the early church ever called it that, but that is how it is generally known. Jesus tells us that it “sums up the law and the prophets”; in other words, it is as perfect a distillation of Old Testament religion as you could hope to find.

It’s often been remarked that if all of us did indeed obey this rule, the world would be a very, very, different place. And it’s hard to argue with that!

But that makes it sound as if it’s a simple thing, like a d-i-y kit that I’ll be able to assemble unaided in no time at all. But it isn’t. Human nature isn’t like that, because it is weakened and corrupted by sin. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we hope to be successful in obeying Jesus’ command.

As a saying it trips easily off the tongue. But it’s worth pausing for a bit to ask the question: Yes - but what in practice do I want other people do to me?

Some answers to that question are simple enough…

If I’m in trouble, I want them to help me. If I’m lonely, to befriend me. If I have wronged them, to forgive me. If I’m hungry, to feed me. If I’m insecure, to encourage me. If I’m confused, to point me the way. If I’m in despair, to comfort me.

Come to think of it, two other great passages perfectly flesh out what this tiny command might mean in practice.

First, there is Jesus’ rather alarming story of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), which is in essence a damning indictment of religion that is “all talk and no walk”, religion which is destined for “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. Mmm.

And then there is the wonderful story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:10-37), the man who sacrificed time, money and effort to help someone - a total stranger - for whom he had no personal responsibility.

I can’t be in any doubt that if ever I was in need I would be grateful for a “sheep” or two to be there for me, not to mention a Samaritan. Wouldn’t you?

And now, if I stop to think about my responsibility to do such things to others, I begin to see just what a high standard Jesus is setting. This is, as they say, a “big ask”! But that doesn’t mean we should quietly leave it as just a vague aim, conveniently tucked away in the “good intentions” file. No: Jesus meant exactly what he said.

The things I have listed probably would come to the minds of most of us. But there is something else that deserves a mention, something that perhaps we tend not to think of: I want people to take me to task when I’m in the wrong.

As I look back in my life, I can’t help wondering how much better a person I might have been if friends had taken a deep breath from time to time and said, “Er, Colin, we need to have a bit of a chat…” and told me things I didn’t want to know. No doubt I would have bridled indignantly: how dare they say such things to me! But if I knew deep in my heart that what they said was true – well, surely a day would come when I would be grateful for their loving honesty.

Are we Christians sometimes just too “nice” to one another? True, we shrink from judging our fellow-believers, and so we should. But are there not times when such a rebuke may be an act of truest love?

A footnote…

The Golden Rule appears in Matthew’s Gospel in the “Sermon on the Mount”. But Luke has the same saying in a different place (sometimes called the “Sermon on the Plain”).

So? Well, the context in Luke is very different from that in Matthew. In Matthew the “others” to whom we must “do as we would be done by” seem to be mainly those with whom we have good relationships. But in Luke Jesus is talking explicitly about loving not your friends but “your enemies” (6:27).

We are to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who ill-treat us, to turn the other cheek to those who hit us…

I’ve don’t know why Luke has this saying in a different setting from Matthew. But who cares? All I do know is that his take on it gives it a sharper and more challenging edge.

In fact, if you happen to be looking for a new year resolution, perhaps it’s a case of… look no further! If Luke 6:27-31 doesn’t make us better people, what will?

Loving Father, teach me the skill of putting myself into the shoes of other people, even other people I may not like or respect, and so acting towards them how I want other people to act towards me. Amen.