"More blessed to give...?"

Entirely of their own accord, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. 2 Corinthians 8:4

I once heard a story - a true one, apparently - about a minister using a sermon to tell his congregation off about the level of their giving. So what's new? you say. Isn't this pretty normal? "Come on," says the preacher, "we need to do more to bump up the church's income!"

Only... it wasn't like that. No - the preacher was telling his congregation off because they were giving too much. Yes, really. They were mainly quite poor people, but such was their love of God that they were giving so generously that there was a risk they would leave themselves seriously short. The Bible says that "God loves a cheerful giver", of course - it's better not to give at all than to give grudgingly or grumblingly. But perhaps a time had come in this case when the people were giving over-extravagantly, and the minster felt he should ask them to stop. Whatever next!

Something like this seems to have happened in Paul's experience. The "they" he is speaking about in our verse were Christians in the Macedonian churches, probably Philippi and Thessalonica. He was keen to collect money from such Gentile churches in order to help the Jewish mother-church in Judea. The Jerusalem-based Christians had, for reasons we aren't told, fallen on hard times and needed help.

And Paul was bowled over by the sheer generosity of the Macedonian churches. He didn’t need to beg them for money for this fund - no, they had begged him to be included in the project (even though they too were dirt poor). 

 A challenge to us all.

But, believe it or not, it's not really money I'm thinking about, important though our financial giving is. I'm thinking more about our overall attitude towards service for God.

I have a little joke I’ve trotted out sometimes over the years. When there's a job needing to be done in the life of the church, and we make the need known, I have sometimes said, "Please form an orderly queue at the end of the meeting" - knowing, of course, that that is extremely unlikely (to put it mildly) to happen. All right, not very funny really. But you get the point.

How wonderful it would be if there was a little queue of people volunteering to serve! "Yes, I'd just love to help out in Sunday School... the youth work... the music group... the stewarding... the grass-cutting... the coffee-making... the setting out of chairs... visiting the house-bound... I don't know if I'm really qualified, of course, but I'm just delighted to offer myself..." (I even have this dream of finding people queuing up for the prayer-meeting - "There's a prayer meeting tonight! - right, great, mustn't be late!")

Much more likely, I’m afraid, is the response Isaiah the prophet didn’t give when God asked him “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And what was that? “Here am I. Send him.”

I'm not saying this to pile guilt on us. Not at all. Of course, we're living in days when everyone is frantically busy and often it's desperately hard to do even the things we really like doing. But could it be that some of us have got into a wrong mentality? A mentality where our knee-jerk reaction is to say "Not me! Oh no, I couldn't do that! That's for someone else to do"? - without even pausing to think and pray. Could it in fact be that God is calling me to get involved?

Here are two great Bible principles.

First, it is a joy and privilege to serve God in the building of his kingdom. What greater use of our earthly lives could there be than doing work which results in the love of God being spread more widely?

Second, it is through service that we grow. Why are some Christians, even those of many years' standing, spiritually flabby and slack? Often it's because they have never rolled up their sleeves and taken on the discipline of some specific work for God.

Why not read the whole passage, 2 Corinthians 8:1-9, and ask yourself the question: Is there any area (I stress again not necessarily to do with money) where I need to take a leaf out of the Macedonian Christians' book? Is it time to discover the joy of giving?

Lord God, help me to be a cheerful giver in every area of my Christian discipleship, remembering how Jesus gave his all for me. Amen.

Words that need to die

The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Acts 11:26.

There are times I wish I could eliminate various words from the English language: they contain the “grrr”-factor - as in making me grind my teeth in irritation. This is usually because they have been emptied of any real meaning through constant careless use. Oh for a cosmic delete button!

A particular pet hate at the moment is “incredible” (not to mention its close cousin “fantastic”). Nothing these days is allowed to be just “good” or “excellent” or “outstanding”; it has to be incredible - a well-worked goal, a powerful bit of music, a slightly surprising piece of news. Incredible!

No! Incredible means defying belief, impossible to believe in. Suppose you switch on the television news one evening and hear the news-reader say, “Her Majesty the Queen was observed outside Buckingham Palace at three o’clock this morning dancing a highland jig to the accompaniment of the London Symphony Orchestra with One Direction”, or “Wayne Rooney has announced that he is giving up football in order to train as a ballet dancer” - then, yes, call that “incredible” by all means. But for things just a touch out of the ordinary, just a little bit special, no! Grrr!

Being a little more serious, there are a couple of words in the religious sphere which I wonder may have outlived their usefulness.

One is that word “religion” itself. I have come to detest it, because it conjures up in the minds of many people all sorts of negative images - old fusty buildings, people dressed up in strange outfits, weird forms of worship, incomprehensible language, not to mention hypocrisy and other nasties.

“Oh, you’re religious, aren’t you!” people have sometimes said to me when, perhaps, there’s a biblical clue in the crossword they can’t solve; and I feel like screaming “No! I’m not religious! I just try to follow Jesus.” The word “religion” has become a kind of rag-bag into which anything vaguely “spiritual” can be tossed.

Even more seriously, I sometimes wonder if the very word “Christian” is past its use-by date, especially in the supposedly Christian west.

This was brought home to me very forcibly many years ago in a conversation I had with a woman I had recently met. She was very interesting and open, and a point came when I felt able to inquire, very politely, “May I ask if you are a Christian?” She looked at me with an expression, first, of sheer incomprehension (I think she wondered if she had heard me right), quickly followed by one of affront: “Of course I’m a Christian!” as if I had deliberately insulted her. How dare I suggest otherwise!

I immediately saw where the problem lay.

To me, the question “Are you a Christian?” meant (though, don’t worry, I wouldn’t have put it like this), “Do you believe Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, that he lived a perfect life on earth, that he died an atoning death for our sins, that he rose bodily from the dead, and that he is one day going to return in glory?”

But to her the question meant “Are you a decent human being? Are you honest, kind, law-abiding?” No wonder she took offence.

To be a Christian is far more than to be a civilised human being. Plenty of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics - you name it - are civilised human beings, perhaps more so than many of us Christians. But they are not Christians.

A Roman Catholic theologian many years ago was troubled by his church’s teaching that “outside the church there is no salvation”. So he invented the idea of the “anonymous Christian”, by which he meant the vast numbers of outwardly good people who belong to some other religion or none. All right, they may carry the label of Hindu or Muslim or atheist or whatever; but really, in God’s eyes, they are “Christians”. Which sounded all very tolerant and enlightened.

But unfortunately for him some of these “anonymous Christians” got quite angry: “No, we are not Christians!” they said, “anonymous or otherwise.” They felt they were being patronised. And you can see their point of view.

I can’t imagine myself denying the word Christian; it is a vital part of my identity, and has been for fifty years. But I do sometimes wish we could do without it and all the misunderstandings it gives rise to. The word Luke uses in Acts 11:26 is invariably translated “Christians”, but it could just as easily be translated “Christ’s people” or “followers of Christ”, which is of course what Luke meant.

I don’t suppose my one-man war on “incredible”, “fantastic” or “religious” is likely to be successful. Oh well - at least it gives me something to be grumpy about. And I’m not sure I would really want to say goodbye to “Christian”. But the problem of words that need to die poses to us all the question: How am I seen by others? Merely as a “Christian”? Or truly as a “Christ person”?

Father God, thank you for the privilege of bearing the very name of Christ. Help me, day by day, to live worthy of that “name above all names”. Amen.

Getting to grips with God

Epaphras... is always wrestling in prayer for you... Colossians 4:12
 
When I was a youngster we didn't have a television in our home - I used to feel quite envious of my friends. But sometimes on a Saturday afternoon my brother and I used to visit a friend's house, and we'd be able to make up a bit for what we didn't have at home.

And what were they showing on television? Often it was wrestling, and quite a grotesque spectacle it was: overweight, misshapen men in odd outfits grunting and sweating as they threw one another around the ring. Sometimes they would thump the floor in what seemed absolute agony - I really thought someone was going to end up dead.

I soon learned that a lot of it was fake. In fact, even the crowd didn't seem to take it too seriously - everyone seemed to accept that it was just a show.

Real wrestling, I suspect, is a different matter altogether: two people pitting their raw strength against one another, no doubt using all sorts of skills and techniques to reduce their opponent to the bitter point of submission. It was a well-known sport in the ancient world.

Well, I don't imagine that Paul often went to watch wrestling, but he obviously knew something about it. And one thing it reminded him of was - would you believe it? - prayer. Yes, Paul saw prayer as a kind of spiritual wrestling match. And he praises his friend Epaphras for being a keen wrestler. He tells the Christians of Colosse that Epaphras is "always wrestling in prayer for you".

Which leads to a very obvious question. I assume that all of us, especially if we are Christians, pray (how can you be a Christian and not pray?). But how many of us know anything about wrestling in prayer? What do we know of getting into a no-holds-barred clinch with God himself?

You might say, "But surely God doesn't need to be treated in this way!" Well, not always, of course: sometimes our praying might be quite calm and unemotional. In fact, if you turn back to verse 2 of this same chapter you find Paul using a much more gentle (but still challenging) expression: “Devote yourselves to prayer...”, implying perseverance rather than agonising.

But still, I find I can't avoid that little word "always" in verse 12 - apparently this kind of praying was by no means unusual to Epaphras. So even if our praying shouldn't necessarily be always of the wrestling kind, you can't help wondering if it is something we should take seriously.

Two other Bible passages spring to mind.

First, the story of Jacob and the angel in Genesis 32. Jacob is about to meet his brother Esau, whom he has treated appallingly in the past. Scared, and painfully aware of his bad behaviour, he is met by a mysterious stranger who engages him in a prolonged wrestling match. Somehow Jacob senses that his very life depends on it, and when the angel asks him to let him go he grits his teeth and says (wonderful words, these!) "I will not let you go until you bless me." And the angel does just that. Jacob "struggled with God and overcame". Quite a story!

The other passage is about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion (Luke 22:39-46). Luke tells us that "being in anguish, Jesus prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground". (Note, by the way, that Luke doesn't say that Jesus literally "sweated blood": that word "like" is important.) The word Luke uses for "anguish" is the same as Paul uses for Epaphras "wrestling" in prayer; it's the word we get our word "agony" from. Putting it another way, just as Jesus "agonised" in the garden, so Epaphras "agonised" in prayer.

I don't think there's any point in asking why a kind and fatherly God should want to bring us to such a pitch; no doubt there are various reasons. All I know is that these passages are there for our good. Of course, you can’t put on wrestling in prayer just to please God; what he wants is real pray-ers, not actors. But is it time, perhaps, that we - how shall I put it? - got to grips with God in a new way?

 
Father God, please forgive the shallowness of my praying. Take me to a new level - perhaps even to a new depth - so that I might experience the kind of victory you gave to Jacob, and for which Epaphras longed. Amen.

Jesus the sinners' friend

This man welcomes sinners... Luke 15:2

Are there four more beautiful words in the New Testament than these? It was said of Jesus that he welcomed sinners.

The sad thing is that it was said as an accusation: not “He welcomes sinners - how wonderful, how revolutionary, how beautiful!”, but “He welcomes sinners - how disgraceful, how scandalous, how outrageous!”

The religious authorities had noticed that Jesus was in the habit of sharing meals with people who were disapproved of by the “good” people, and you can almost see them quivering with righteous indignation.

Well, history has shown pretty conclusively who was in the right and who in the wrong. You don’t even need to be a Christian to feel that your sympathies are all with Jesus. The essence of the gospel is summed up in these words; and the wonderful thing is that what was true of Jesus two thousand years ago is just as true today. With Christmas round the corner we’ll soon be seeing church bill-boards declaring “wise men came to Jesus; wise men still do” (boom boom). To which we might add: “Jesus welcomed sinners; Jesus still does.”

Two things come to mind that Jesus’ critics didn’t say, but which are equally true and equally important.

First: Yes, Jesus welcomes sinners, but he doesn’t share in their sin.

Certainly, Jesus was accused of being no better than the people he mixed with. Turn back to Luke 7:34, for example, and you find he was described as “a glutton and a drunkard”. But such charges never stuck, for the simple reason that they had no basis in fact. Jesus came not to condone or share in sin, but to make atonement for it by his death on the cross.

There’s an old quip which says that if we are Christians we are called to “hate the sin but love the sinner”. I’ve heard this described as trite and simplistic. But why? I personally can’t find anything wrong with it. Isn’t it exactly what Jesus did?

I read recently about a group of “swingers” who profess to be Christians. In case you don’t know, swingers are people who believe in sharing their partners sexually: as long as everyone is happy with the arrangement, what’s the problem? These people say they want to bring fellow-swingers to faith in Jesus, and they believe that sharing in their life-style is the way to go about it - rather like becoming bank-robbers or drug-pedlars in order to infiltrate the criminal or drug communities. (Such a belief is so grotesque, so monstrously misguided, that you even start to feel some sympathy for those scribes and Pharisees Luke is telling us about.)

No. Plain fact: Jesus and sin don’t mix. But good news: Jesus and sinners certainly do!

The second thing Jesus’ critics might have said is: Yes, Jesus welcomes sinners, but then he changes them.

The gospel is all about forgiveness - God gladly blots out the sins of anyone who comes in true sorrow and asking to be washed clean. But it doesn’t end there. The gospel is also about transformation: the forgiven person becomes, in the words of Paul, “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Sometimes the transformation is immediate and dramatic. Think of the avaricious Zacchaeus (Luke 19), transformed into a model of open-handed generosity. Or the violent anti-Christian Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9), transformed into a passionate follower of Jesus. Or the sexually immoral woman described in John 8 (we aren’t actually told what became of her, but it’s hard to imagine her returning to her former life after this meeting with Jesus). 

Other times the transformation is gradual and less obvious. But the fact is that once you come to Jesus you get changed. And, make no mistake, even outwardly “good” people need that change. Yes, it may take time - indeed, the process will only be complete when this earthly life is over - but each new day is an opportunity to become a little more like Christ. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in: breathed into us by Jesus, the very breath of God himself makes this process possible.

I ought to add one more thing: Yes, Jesus welcomes sinners, but he doesn’t coerce them, he doesn’t gate-crash their lives. No, in the vast majority of cases (Paul seems to have been something of a special case) he waits to be asked.

Which leaves the big question remaining. Have you yet come to him and asked him to welcome you? Why not! Why not today? Why not now?

Lord Jesus Christ, I come to you as a sinner. Please welcome me into your love and change me into your likeness. Amen.