‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.
On the night of his arrest, walking through Jerusalem from the Upper Room where he had celebrated the Last Supper, to the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, Jesus and his disciples look up at the Temple. There on the wall is the giant gold frieze of a vine, the symbol of God’s people planted by God himself in the Promised Land, lit by the firelight of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem to observe the Passover. And Jesus declares that he is the true vine (John 15), and goes on to describe the experience of the life of his disciples:
they are the branches that grow out from the vine, bearing fruit;
once the fruit is harvested, the branches are pruned back: those branches that have not borne fruit are cut off and thrown in the fire; while those that have borne fruit are pruned right back to the vinestock;
the vinestock (as all trunks do) grows thicker year-on-year, surrounding the pruned-back branches, from which they will grow out again, themselves stronger, able to bear more fruit than the year before.
There is a rhythm: of remaining, or abiding, in the vine; growth; fruit; and pruning. And we should expect just such a rhythm in our lives; learn to recognise the points where abiding turns to growth, growth to bearing fruit, fruitfulness to pruning; and to go with the gardener, rather than resist him.
So, as we spend time with Jesus, in the hidden place where no-one sees, in time we will become aware that our faith for producing a particular fruit in our life – patience, perhaps, or exercising the gift of healing – is growing. And then we will experience a season of fruitfulness – we demonstrate a patience that we had not known before; we pray for those in need of healing, and see healing more often than in the past. And then, just as we are enjoying this new experience, something happens: we stop bearing fruit; we might even notice that the fruit we were bearing, we are no longer bearing – we seem to be more impatient again; we pray, and don’t see healing, again. If we don’t know to expect this – if we don’t see it as a gentle invitation to abiding again (the idea of retreat in order to go forward) – then we will worry that something has gone wrong: that God has let us down, or that we have let him down and he has abandoned us, for now at least. In fact, it is un-pruned branches that grow too thin to support the weight of fruit, too long for goodness to travel from the vine. The life that does not embrace this rhythm will see a law of diminishing returns, bearing increasingly less and increasingly bitter fruit. On the other hand, the life that embraces this rhythm will bear much fruit, in season.
‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.
Jesus’ entire ministry is introduced and summarised by the declaration: the time has come: the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe. (Mark 1:15)
That is: here is a [kairos] moment, an opportunity, where something of heaven is available to break-in to your day-to-day experience on earth; and the way in which we enter into that experience is through taking-on a change of worldview [repent], and then living-out that new way of being in the world [believe].
That moment can be anything that interrupts or disrupts the flow of our life, big or small, positive or negative; often a change in our circumstances, or our resources in the face of our circumstances. The bus is late, and you find yourself getting agitated; someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, and you feel helpless and scared; your child is born/starts school/leaves home, and your life changes, again; you lose your job – or are promoted at work; celebrate a significant anniversary, or face divorce; are shown a small kindness or a pettiness by a stranger; a friend speaks a word of encouragement, and tears spring from your eyes out of no-where...these are all kairos moments.
Repentance breaks-down into observation, reflection and discussion:
God draws our attention to observe something in the moment, something that may seem trivial or incidental at first (when his disciples are worrying about how they will provide themselves and their dependents with food and clothing, having given up their means of income to follow Jesus, he draws their attention to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, Matthew 6:25-34); and speaks to us as we reflect on what we have now seen afresh, and as we discuss what we have seen with others: discipleship is not a private, internal matter, but is intended to take place with others: for God uses others to shape us, just as he uses us to shape others.
Likewise, believing is a practical activity that breaks-down into three parts – plan, account, act:
With those we have processed our repentance with, we make a plan for how we are now going to live differently (e.g. rather than worry about lack of resources, we will bring our needs to our heavenly Father, trusting him to provide what we need); and, crucially, we give our friends permission to hold us accountable to the decision we have taken, the plan we have made. With a plan and accountability in place, belief is now acted-out in how we live differently from before as we move on from the kairos moment.
Repentance is about discovering who God is and what he is like, and the implications for us as those who receive his love, his forgiveness, his mercy, his joy, his strength, his peace, his provision, his healing, his guidance, his deliverance...It is about hearing God’s voice day-by-day: and may involve recognition of our unbelief in a given matter (we call this confession); or may simply involve discerning that God is calling us into a new venture (we call this being led by God’s Spirit). Believing is about learning to live in the light of what we have discovered. It is about walking with God day-by-day. The two go hand-in-hand: repentance in one area of our life leads to a belief that brings us to another moment, another opportunity for repentance...and in this way, rather than life being something that happens to us, our life becomes a place where heaven continuously breaks-in to earth: where foretastes of, and signposts to, the future change the now, drawing it closer to the not-yet.
The enduring power of fairytales is not due to their surface escapism, but to their deeper exploration of our very real experience of life.
The story of Shrek and Fiona (now spanning four full-length films, and a made-for-TV special set between the third and fourth movie) is a modern-day fairytale. Both Fiona and Shrek have a destiny to fulfil; neither one can do so without the other. Fiona needs Shrek to unlock her inner beauty (as opposed to the commoditised beauty of society expectations); and Shrek needs Fiona to give purpose to his strength.
John and Stasi Eldredge would identify this as the age-old heart of the male and female condition since our first parents were expelled from Eden: the question of Adam’s heart being, “Will I be found strong enough to provide for Eve in a hostile world?” and the question of Eve’s heart being, “Will I be found desired by Adam, whom I desire and desire to be desired by; who desired me once?”
As a piece of storytelling, the latest instalment does not come close to the wonderful Shrek 2. But it continues the work of the fairytale to speak to us about our everyday experience of life.
Life has come between our couple. They find themselves stuck in a moment: in which neither partner is present for the other: in which Fiona is no longer giving her beauty to empower Shrek’s strength, and Shrek is no longer giving his strength to cherish Fiona’s beauty. And as a result, the moment they are stuck in is one in which Shrek’s strength is never enough, never takes mastery of the situation; in which Fiona’s beauty is never enough, never transcends the situation.
The story that unfolds is a story of giving away what you have too lightly;
of not realising what you have until it is gone;
of two who were one now attempting to pursue and fulfil their destiny alone, discovering that the attempt is only possible by hardening their hearts, a hardening that in fact makes the longed-for fulfilment beyond reach...
and a rediscovering of each other;
indeed, a deeper discovering than the discovery that had been lost – that Shrek needs Fiona as much as Fiona needs Shrek;
an engaging together again with the battle between two kingdoms that is continuously being fought out, between fear and love, desolation and companionship, scorched earth and fertile lands, captivity and freedom;
a redemption story.
And, as every fairytale tells us, true love always overcomes. This is true. Fairytales are the truest of all stories. That is why they have enduring appeal: our need for truth-stories is so great that, even if we do not recognise that they are truth-stories, we have an inbuilt need to tell them. True love always overcomes. Our folly is to believe that this is only true in fairytales. Or rather, to believe that we do not live in a fairytale, and so it is not true for us...
[This post is dedicated to Doug Paul as a birthday present, to complement his interest in how apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers plant Christian community in different ways.]
Why would you go to church? If the answer is, Because I like to sing along to Christian karaoke, look around: you might notice that most of your neighbours aren’t there with you...
Why would you get involved in the life of a church? Can I be so bold as to suggest a level of self-interest – and to mean that in a positive way, and not as a criticism?
Allow me to summarise Ephesians 4 in this way:
Jesus is the Great Apostle (‘sent-out’ one) of our faith; the Prophet greater than Moses; the Evangelist par excellence, who not only carries the Good News but literally embodies it; the Good Shepherd; and the Teacher who teaches with unmatched authority.
Jesus has created each and every one of us to reflect an aspect of his nature (the ‘grace’ given to all): as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. In distributing these gifts, he ‘apportions’ the grace as he chooses – some get a greater share than others to invest; what matters is what you do with it.
When we come into a saving relationship with Jesus, we offer ourselves – whether apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher – to him in tribute; and he in turn gives us to the church, as spoils of war in the clash between the princedom of the fallen angel of light and the kingdom of heaven.
In this context – redeemed, and taking-up our function in the building-up of the body of Christ, the church – our identity as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher finds a fulfilment that it cannot find until we have been redeemed and so deployed. To put it another way, the colony of the kingdom of heaven on earth needs us; but so too, we need the colony. And it is not limited to ‘what we do when we gather in a worship service’ but is, rather, concerned with equipping us to live out the kingdom in this world, in our families, our places of work, our places of leisure...
We are created to display a facet of Christ; created with the need to find our fulfilment in him; created to display, with others who have been made to reflect other facets of Christ, a fuller picture of Jesus to the world (that is why the church, rather than the individual believer, is described as the body of Christ).
And so an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher would each have a different answer, at the deepest internal level, to the question, Why church?
And where most of those reasons are not met, not allowed expression, when the church comes together, why would (m)any of them want to be there?
On the other hand, where those reasons found authentic expression, a pre-Christian – or a baby Christian, or a mature Christian, for that matter – might just be interested...
Why would an apostle come to church?
Because an apostle wants to make a massive impact on the world, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where people can be led in teams that bring transformation to communities, business, society...
Why would a prophet come to church?
Because a prophet dreams of a better world, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where dreams of a better world are conceived, carried to the point of birth, nurtured to the stage of maturity...
Why would an evangelist come to church?
Because an evangelist loves to tell good news stories, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where good news stories are celebrated and passed-on by word-of-mouth throughout the wider community...
Why would a pastor come to church?
Because a pastor is looking for opportunity to care for others, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where the broken and hurting, the discarded, are shown compassion and have their inherent dignity as the crown of creation recognised...
Why would a teacher come to church?
Because a teacher searches for both understanding and the wonder that lies beyond our understanding, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where understanding and wonder are equally cherished...
Church is the place where we learn how to relate to one another, how to work together, complementing each other. So, why is that so hard? At the deepest level, God chooses to use us to bring one another to maturity. Some of the battles we need one another to help us win include:
Apostles have a tendency (note that tendencies can be resisted: they are not inevitabilities) to leave behind a trail of collateral-damage, a high friendly-fire count...
Prophets have a tendency to withdraw from others. They can be seen as extreme, causing others to withdraw from them; and they can withdraw themselves, as a defence-mechanism, emerging to deliver the word God has placed on their heart and then withdrawing again. They are tempted to feel isolated. I am a prophet: I withdraw to my prophet’s cave (or study): I pull away from others at the gathered point: bear with me: but don’t let me get away with it...
Evangelists have a tendency to struggle to connect with those who do not share their view that a particular message is good news – an irony, given that the Good News is in fact so many good news stories...
Pastors have a tendency to create dependency, or to allow dependency on them to be fostered...
Teachers have a tendency to see themselves as stockbrokers of truth, controlling its value and reaping the benefit; rather than as investors of truth, handing a deposit over to another in the hope that it will grow beyond their own investment...
If there was a community of people committed to love one another in the face of these tendencies, and to allowing themselves to shape and be shaped by one another, to maturity...that would be...
I’ve been reflecting on what God’s Word has to say about friendship – something I believe we all crave, and all struggle with, and with good reason.
To begin with, in the Psalms I see that to embark on friendship is fraught with danger. Again and again, David pours out before God the heart-wound of betrayal at the hand of a friend: if my enemy had done this, I could take it, but this really hurts, God!
But as I read Proverbs; and the New Testament letters of Paul, Peter, John, and Jude, with their repeated address to their readers ‘dear friends’; I see that friendship is a risk that we cannot afford not to take...
And the question is, why? Why is friendship fraught with danger? And why is it, nonetheless, a risk we cannot afford not to take? Why?
Let’s take a look at what I consider to be Jesus’ definition of friendship:
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:12-15)
What has Jesus heard from the Father?
Well, let’s look back over the story John tells of Jesus in his gospel (he tells a different story from the other gospel writers, who want to convey different aspects of the same Jesus). What we see is that John’s account is all about Jesus’ identity (for example, we see far less of the disciples than in the other gospels): that Jesus and the Father are one. In particular, this is expressed through the seven “I am” sayings - “I am...the bread of life...the light of the world...the gate for the sheep...the good shepherd...the resurrection and the life...the way and the truth and the life...the true vine” (John 6, 8, 10, 14, 15) – where Jesus claims to share in God’s identity – “I AM” is the name by which God reveals himself to Moses – and understands that sharing-in-God’s-identity to be expressed or manifest in particular ways.
Who are Jesus’ friends?
Those he shares his identity most fully with, who will fight for that identity even to the point of willingness to die for their friend. As it will turn out, with the exception of Judas who committed suicide, every one of Jesus’ closest disciples eventually fought for Jesus’ identity to the cost of their own lives.
Why?
Why do we need friends? Why do we need friends who will lay down their lives for us? Why must we be willing to lay down our lives for our friends?
Because there is a battle over your identity, between the good shepherd who comes that you might experience the life God has for you in all its fullness, and the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy your identity (John 10).
Here, then, is what friendship is intended to look like:
My friend’s enemy is my enemy.
The Bible calls this commitment between two people a covenant. Note that our enemy is satan, and his demonic minions, not other people (Ephesians 6:12).
I must not make agreements with my friend’s enemy against my friend.
That is, the enemy will attack at our most vulnerable point, and attempt to provoke those close to us to join in: whispering a bad report of them in our ear – “he’s let you down, again” – in the hope that we will agree – “He always does!” Instead, we must rebuke the whisper – if we had all the evidence, we might realise that there was no intention to let us down; that we haven’t been let down; or even if we have been, we have the great weapon of forgiveness.
When I do – because I will – I must break those agreements and seek to be restored in my friendship.
Friendship is fraught with danger, not only because my friend is broken but because I am broken, and too easily act out of my brokenness. But friendship is intended by God as a very means through which he works reconciliation and wholeness.
Where my friend has made agreements with the enemy concerning their identity, I must challenge them.
Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” Many of us find it hard to take on board rebuke or correction – for every one of us, it is an uncomfortable experience at the time – but if we surround ourselves with those who will vindicate us where we are in the wrong, we do ourselves no favours at all; and if we are not prepared to challenge our friend, we are no true friend at all.
So, what have I heard God say to me about my identity?
God speaks to us about our identity through the promises of Scripture; through the battle-ground of our identity revealed through the meaning of our name; through the relationships God has called us into...
And who is fighting with me for my identity in Christ?
Who am I allowing to fight for me, by sharing my deepest identity with? That person is my friend.
And whose identity in Christ am I fighting for?
Who is allowing me to fight for them, by sharing their deepest identity with me? I am that person’s friend.
Jo and I have recently begun transitioning the worship team at St Andrew’s from being a task-focused activity – band rehearsal on Wednesday evening for facilitating worship on Sunday morning – to being a mission-shaped community.
Jesus said the most important thing was to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and to love your neighbour (those who do not share your world-view or beliefs) as yourself (your own people – the flow of Jesus’ statement being that the extent to which we are able to love ourselves is the limiting factor in our ability to love those who differ from us).
It is, therefore, good to shape community in such a way as to attend to these three loves – of God, of our own (wider) community, and of our neighbours. In our experience, it helps in creating a strong sense of identity to be able to express this UP, IN and OUT dimension in simple strap-line form. As we have listened to God for this transition, the strap-line we have come to is:
“Seek God’s face : Serve God’s people : Show God’s glory”
This can them be un-packed, as follows:
Seek God’s face: all this is not about our musical ability or voice – unless we are first worshippers ourselves, we might lead others in a sing-a-long, but we will not be able to lead them in worship; as we seek God’s face, we are changed; as we seek God’s face, we are able to serve his people, and his glory will be reflected and displayed through us; so we bring our instruments and offer them before him...
Serve God’s people: obviously through leading worship for the wider church on Sundays; also through investing in the musical ability, worship skills and character of the youth at St Andrew’s, who are part of their own youth community but are invited to our worship ‘jam’ sessions; and potentially in other ways, too...
Show God’s glory: there are many opportunities through the year – termly community celebrations; monthly baptisms; Christmas and Easter – where families from the wider community come into church. For some people (in many churches) such events are seen as an unwelcome interruption rather than as an opportunity, but our hope is that through us God’s glory would be displayed, as we seek his face and serve his people. This is an attractional approach to mission, which is, on its own, extremely limiting; but as a parish church it is nonetheless an opportunity, a gift not to be ignored.
Having these three dimensions mapped-out for this (or any) particular group is helpful because it provides the framework:
we don’t know how the community will evolve, the practical details of what will be – though I would expect it to become something wider than band-led sung-worship – but we know that it will do so within these parameters:
that these parameters act as a measure against which people will choose to belong here, or to belong in another community, with different parameters:
and these parameters will help us to weigh future decisions – if an idea can be expressed in terms of seeking God’s face, serving God’s people, or showing God’s glory then it has space to be nurtured, to see if it will flourish (and my expectation would be that some will, and some won’t, and that’s okay); but if not, then it can be seen as a tangent, not to be drawn down.
We have found such triangles extremely helpful in the past, in Sheffield, where we led a community of communities (gathered together at a monthly celebration) and structured our focus around a different triangle each year, allowing us to attend to particular aspects of our relationship with God, self and neighbour in manageable time-frames, moving on to new aspects that built on what we had learnt over the previous twelve months.
I am a prophet. I inhabit the future, to an off-the-scale degree. My grasp of the present is more...tenuous. But Jo has gone away on TOM business until Saturday night, and I must run the house and look after the children without her for these three days. In the present. A lot of people wouldn’t understand why that should be a big deal, but for me it is. In fact, that is why Jo and I complement one another so well, why we make such a great team. She helps to earth the stories I report back from the future, so others can grasp it.
So this is a very vulnerable place for me. A place where I experience a tearing – even if it is not the place where someone else would experience a tearing. And the place of tearing is the place where a testimony is spoken over us, if we will hear it. The voice that I heard as Jo drove away said, I AM.
God is described as the One who was, and is, and is to come: past, present, and future (future: the place I inhabit, my own Narnia). But God describes himself as I AM: present, continuous. Always in the present.
The territory that I need to settle is that God is with me, here, in the present. And the way in which that territory will be settled is by resting in the word I heard spoken...
by allowing the testimony to sit with me (Jesus is described as the Word; and also as one who stands at the door of our heart knocking, in order to sit and eat with anyone who lets him in)...
by allowing the word to envelop me, as the trunk of a vine envelops the pruned-back branch, from which place the branch will grow out again, stronger, bearing more fruit (this is how Jesus describes the rhythm of the relationship we have with him – abide, grow, bear fruit, be pruned – in John 15, drawing his illustration from the great gold vine on the front of the Temple; this rhythm is expressed in the Rule of The Order of Mission).
It will take time, and it will require of me that I make the space for that testimony to sink in,
to shape me,
to invite me to experience God in the present, strengthening me,
and challenging me to do the things that need to be done in his strength not my own.
And once it has done that work, I need to live it out. And to set up a marker stone that says: in this place, I met God who is I AM.
I have been reflecting recently on the process of tearing and testimony;
on the way in which God interrupts our lives, in order to speak into our lives:
to reveal something of his identity, and activity (doing) or passive presence (being done to) in the world –
and of what that means for our identity, and activity (doing) or passive presence (being done to) in the world.
The nature of tearing is that something is done to us, in which we are powerless. The thing done may be honouring or harming, but we are the object – the one being done to – not the subject – the one doing. In these places of vulnerability, we may hear God’s voice.
The purpose of the process of tearing and testimony is to bring us to a settled place: to the place where the testimony we have heard is a settled matter.
So in a place of tearing – a voice from heaven intervenes in his actions; and a ram is provided to sacrifice, which he had not brought, Genesis 22 – Abraham hears the testimony that the Lord is his provider (YHWH jireh): that Abraham is invited to experience the Lord as his provider: and challenged to be one through whom the Lord provides for others.
So in a place of tearing – Aaron and Hur hold up his weary arms, Exodus 17 – Moses hears the testimony that the Lord is his battle-banner (YHWH nissi): that Moses is invited to experience the Lord as the one who fights for him and wins his battles for him: and challenged to be one through whom the Lord fights for those who have no-one to uphold their cause.
So in a place of tearing – cousin John baptises him, even though John thinks that Jesus should be the one baptizing John – Jesus hears the testimony that the Lord is his Father, who loves him: that Jesus is invited to live as the beloved Son: and challenged to be one through whom the Lord adopts others into his family.
The metaphor of journey is a dominant one for those who follow after Jesus – think Pilgrim’s Progress. We are on a journey of discovering God and discovering ourselves. But the metaphor of settling is just as significant. God’s ancient people were given territory – allocated by tribe – to conquer, to settle, and to hold on to. In the same way, God has a territory for us – an identity to take hold of – which must first be taken...but then, having taken it, we must nurture it, develop it...and fight to keep hold of it.
The place of settling is not the end of our adventure: it is the beginning of a new adventure.
Through the process of tearing and testimony we discover things about God that have a consequence for our lives – that he is our provider, our banner, our father, etc. And God will continue to bring us to places of tearing, and to speak testimony in that place, until the lesson is learnt.
But once a lesson is learnt, something changes:
it does not need to be learnt again; it needs to be lived-out, and not surrendered.
That is what settling means. Once we learn that God provides, we can go deeper in that, discovering his provision in more and more ways, or we can forget. That is why in the Old Testament, when people encounter God in this way they set up an altar in that place, a memorial, a marker-stone, so that they can go back to that place in order to move on from that place: not to re-learn the lesson, but so as to not forget it. And that is why, when the markers were neglected, the people did forget, gave away settled territory, again and again.
There are places in my life where I am on a journey, towards a settled place. There are other places where I am settled: and that is the goal God has in mind: that more and more of my identity in him is a settled matter, until I am completely secure and able to know life in all of its intended fruit-fullness.
It will help me to keep the territory that with God’s help I have won (YHWH nissi, my battle-banner) if I am able to set up markers: to record the story of each tearing-place, and the testimony that was revealed there: “this is how I discovered that...”
My daughter is learning about the seven indicators of life in science at school. These indicators – movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition – have spiritual parallels which I have written about here. According to Susannah’s notes, “Something is an organism if it...goes to the toilet” – a fact so well-known that gives rise to the adage “Do bears [go to the toilet] in the woods?” to describe the self-evident.
I had to go to the Cathedral this morning. I have to go there on a fairly regular basis: often arranging a lift, sometimes going on the bus. Yesterday, when I thought of arranging a lift, I sensed that I should take the bus. So this morning I headed off to the bus-stop, and waited. As I was going straight on from the Cathedral to another meeting and then straight on to a funeral visit, I had my clerical collar on.
There were road works just up ahead, and the traffic was gridlocked. After a while, I driver leant across their car and shouted through their passenger window at me: they were going to Kensington, if that was any good to me? I thanked him for the offer, but explained that I needed to get into the centre of Liverpool (Kensington is not much further on than where we were), so I’d wait for the bus. He replied that it would be a long wait; that he was going to Kensington to pick up his dad to take him in to the hospital in town, and was that any good to me? As he clearly wanted me to get in – not to mention that I was waiting at the bus stop when I would have arranged a lift with a friend, except that I felt prompted not to – I thanked him and got in. (Don’t try this at home, viewers: I am trained in unarmed combat.)
So I met Jason, and sitting in a queue of slow-moving traffic, heard the story of his life. And it was a divinely appointed engagement. We talked about life and God and what part faith had played in his life, and where he was now, and how perhaps his faith was more marginal than it had been. And it wasn’t a confessional, and he wasn’t a prodigal, and I didn’t take advantage of his kindness to manipulate his vulnerability. But our conversation took place in God’s hearing, and at his disposal.
Jesus said, “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.” (Matthew 10:41)
Heavenly Father, Jason received me today because I am a prophet and a righteous man: in his words, a man of the cloth. I ask that whatever reward I have received and will receive from you, that he would receive no less. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Saviour. Amen.
Today saw the most incredible set of tennis ever played, and two unknown players become legends of the game. The back-story to the 10-hour-and-counting match will be 10,000-hours-plus spent working on their character and their skills. Truly inspirational.
I regularly find myself in conversations initiated by reflections I have posted on my blog, kairos : kisses. These conversations take place face-to-face, over the phone, through skype, by email, in public comment threads or private messaging on facebook...but (almost) never anymore on my blog itself.
This is interesting to me. Essentially, most of the people who engage with kairos : kisses are not, themselves, bloggers (I can’t be sure how many people that is – I have just reinstated a visitor counter after having removed it for two years – but I am fairly confident this is the case). Over recent years, the options for responding have multiplied. And so what was, in the first few years I kept a blog, a series of contained conversations has become a series of conversations which take place in a multitude of settings – where a conversation that begins face-to-face is continued here, and carries on in some other context; where a conversation that begins here is responded to in an email, on facebook, in passing in person...
Conversation used to be more contained than is the case today. Which means that the person who initiates a conversation – in this case, me – has less control over what might happen than before. In truth, whenever we attempt to initiate a conversation, we make ourselves vulnerable, we choose to relinquish any claim to control: we run the risk of being dismissed, ignored; we run the risk – perhaps, the adventure – of the conversation being taken off at a tangent. Nonetheless, the nature of conversations between two or more persons is more mobile than it was, jumping from arena to arena – not in order to evade commitment (channel-surfing), but in order to enable the respondent to respond. And that requires a flexibility, a willingness to engage with people on their terms not my own, which is not only good for me but, in fact, an essential lesson to learn if we want to engage in conversation in our rapidly-changing digitally-networked world.
Last night, Jo and I spent the evening with a group of cell leaders, seeking to hear God speak to us. Our assumption is that God wants to speak to us, and that we can hear him – as Jesus put it, he is the good shepherd, who calls his sheep by name and leads them out, and his sheep follow him because they hear his voice (John 10). We also think that in learning to hear God’s voice, it is helpful to ask questions, the sort of questions that lay our lives open before God. So Jo and I offered the group 12 questions as a starting-point: to provide a framework for our conversation: the sort of questions that, drawing on our experience, we think God might want to speak to cell leaders – those responsible for discipling a few others – about: and we invited them to ask the Holy Spirit to catch their attention with one, or at most two.
The questions pertained to character (who I am; formable) and skills (what I do; learnable), and were grouped in relation to our relationship with God (UP); with each other, and in particular, in the context of cell leaders, those we lead (IN); and with our neighbours, those who live and work alongside us (OUT):
Character UP:
Do I pursue intimacy with God?
What is on my heart for intercession?
Skills UP:
How easy do I find it to hear direction from God?
Character IN:
Do I love those I lead?
Is my family happy?
Am I sleeping/eating/resting well?
Skills IN:
Am I inviting those I lead into my life, by making myself appropriately vulnerable?
Am I able to appropriately challenge those I lead?
Character OUT:
Am I sharing my faith with others?
Do I make time for relationships with non-Christians?
Skills OUT:
Can I identify at least one person who is open to me and to the good news I have to share?
Is my group welcoming?
The conversation that followed took in various things – such as the way the two ‘Character UP’ questions feed each other – but focused on the ‘Skills IN’ questions: on learning to extend invitation and challenge: on why we find one or the other, or both, so hard (culture, both English culture and church culture, play a significant part; but often our reluctance to open our lives to people or our reluctance to challenge them appropriately, or patterns of unhelpful confrontation, are rooted in the ‘Character IN’ question, Do I love those I lead? – for we will extend little invitation or challenge to those we love little).
In fact, we all extend invitation into our lives to others: to friends, for example. But we sometimes see cell as more artificial, something separate to friendship. And as a starting point, it is: everyone on earth forms friendships; God is in the business of taking people as un-loveable as me and forming a new community. Over three years, Jesus shaped a diverse group including Matthew – a traitor who collected taxation for the puppet-king installed by Rome – and Simon – a freedom fighter who employed terrorist tactics – into friends: the starting-point, not to mention more than a few other moments along the way, was perhaps awkward. We need to get beyond the starting-point.
Challenge involves both encouraging people to discover something for themselves that you have discovered (Jesus does this with his disciples all the time: e.g. God is our provider, in practical ways, often by miraculous means); and loving someone enough to rebuke them when their words or actions are heading in a trajectory that, left unchecked, will only hurt themselves and those around them who they love (Jesus does this on occasion, when necessary: e.g. telling Peter that his perspective does not reflect God’s will, but satan’s agenda). When we see the word ‘challenge’ we may fail to connect to discovery (note: you can only invite/challenge someone to discover something you have already discovered for yourself); or shy away from discipline, until it is too late and what was a small weed has sent down a deep tap-root.
Invitation and challenge work best when they work together: when we share the thing God is teaching us, at an appropriate level, it draws the person we share it with into our life and challenges them to learn the same thing. We might even discover that they have already learnt more than we have, and we can learn from them.
For some, both invitation and challenge are hard, sometimes because we have experienced little invitation ourselves, or have had bad experiences of inappropriate confrontation (unjustified, or unbalanced). But for many of us, we have a natural preference for one or the other: we are known for welcoming people, but never help them to grow; or we are known for challenging people, relentlessly. It is worth growing aware of our tendencies; learning to spot when one needs to be balanced by the other; hearing God’s prompting to increase invitation (e.g. to someone who is hurting at present), or to embrace the discipline of challenge (note: sometimes people behave badly because they are hurting, and in such cases increasing challenge is like forcing someone with a broken leg to run, and faster; when what they need is invitation, the environment to heal).
‘Sufferings,’ as I observed in my previous post, does not refer to ill-treatment, per se, but to being the object of someone else’s actions towards us, whether treating us well or badly.
When we hold ourselves out to an other – as we do, say, to someone we have fallen in love with; or when we move to initiate a new friendship – we make ourselves vulnerable to their response. Will my love be requited, or unrequited? Will this person I desire to befriend treat me honourably or dishonourably, bless me or curse me? We make ourselves vulnerable, and then we wait...
One cannot hand oneself over to an other, and choose not to take oneself back whatever the response, whatever the cost, without sooner or later being discouraged by how that person has done to you. For they, like us, are deeply wounded and often respond out of their wounded-ness. And responding out of our wounded-ness, as opposed to out of our oneness with God, is a good definition of what it means to ‘sin against’: our Confessions remind us that “we have sinned against God and against our neighbour in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault” and as much through the good we have left undone as through the hurts we have done to others.
This is why Jesus insists that at the heart of our pattern of prayer must be the recognition and the response to that recognition “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Otherwise it is impossible to keep holding ourselves out to an other, and instead we withdraw: instead of outworking the ministry of reconciliation, we collude with the work of the accuser to bring division, to devour, to steal, kill and destroy.
The accuser, the devouring lion, the thief attempts to use that same wounded-ness in situations where the thing we ‘suffer’ – the thing done to us – is a response of love: even though we have made ourselves vulnerable to an other, in the hope that they will reciprocate by offering themselves to us (as friend, as parent, as child, as lover, as brother or sister or colleague or employer or neighbour – as a fellow human being), when they reciprocate we wait, deep inside, for the moment they will fail us and we will abandon them or we will fail them and they will abandon us...Or, in our dependence on an other (say, when illness makes a husband or wife as dependent on their partner as is a child to an adult) we fear that we are not worthy, that we have somehow failed or disappointed...
Again, it does not have to be that way. For Scripture reveals to us that it is in sharing in Christ’s sufferings that we are allowed and enabled to share in his glory.
In our sufferings: in those things done to us: the good and the bad: the honouring and the dishonouring: the response of love and the response of hate: there is a testimony from heaven: The Father says “You are my son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased.” The Spirit says “You are a son of God, a co-heir with Christ” – all that is Jesus’ – the Father’s love, the Father’s pride – is ours. The Son says, “You are mine” – my friends, my body, my bride. (These covenant descriptions are not about our gender, but our relationship to Jesus: so, male and female, we are sons of God because we are one with the Son; and, male and female, together the Church is the bride of Christ).
As we hear the testimony of heaven, we grow in our identity – we grow more fully into our identity. And as we grow in our identity, as those who are one with Christ, we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3).
Today, hear the testimony of heaven. Today, be glorious.
“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
(Romans 8:16, 17)
I have been meditating on these words over the past few days, while I was on retreat in preparation to be ordained priest yesterday. In particular, I have been reflecting on the connection between sufferings and glory: that the way in which we are enabled to share in Christ’s glory is through sharing in his sufferings.
Language slips and shifts, the usage and meaning of words changes over time, and so we must go back to the roots of words. The root of the word here translated into English as ‘sufferings’ is the Greek word πάσχω (paschō, from which we get our word ‘passion’) which means ‘to be done to’ and which is the converse of the word ποιω (poiō) which means ‘to do.’
The neutral ‘to be done to’ was accurately translated as ‘suffer’ in the English of the Authorised Version, also known as the King James Bible. So we read the account of mothers attempting to bring their babies to Jesus for a blessing, and the disciples attempting to prevent them, to which Jesus replies “Suffer the little children to come unto me...” That is, allow one thing – bring them – ‘to be done to’ them; as opposed to allowing another thing – prevent them – ‘to be done to’ them. ‘Suffer’ is neutral: they may be the objects of something good or something bad, of invitation or hindrance: the point is that they are the objects, the ones to whom something is being done by someone else. But to us, four hundred years later, ‘suffering’ has come to refer almost exclusively to describing the condition of experiencing enduring physical, emotional or psychological pain.
When we look at Jesus in the Gospels, we see him as subject, as free agent, doing things through which God is glorified. But we also see him as object, as one who places himself in the hands of others, the recipient of others’ actions, both good and bad: and through these, his sufferings, the Father is also glorified, and glorifies the Son.
In one account, Jesus is invited to the home of a man of good standing in the community, who fails to do to Jesus what one would expect a host to do to his guest. In contrast, a woman of ill repute enters the house and honours Jesus by anointing him with perfume, an act he describes as preparing his body in advance for his funeral. In other words, Jesus ‘suffers’ being treated dishonourably and ‘suffers’ being treated with honour. The point is not that he experiences pain, but that he allows himself to be in the position of receiving whatever another will do to him, whether an action of rejection or an action of embrace.
As we share in Christ’s sufferings, Paul tells us, so we share in his glory. As the things that were done to Jesus – welcomed by some, rejected by others – are done to us, so we are both allowed and enabled to share in his glory.
This ties in with my recent reflections on tearing and testimony. The thing being torn – the sky, the curtain – is passive: they do not tear themselves. Neither did the paralytic tear through the roof himself, but was as dependent on the actions of his friends as he was on the actions of Jesus towards him.
Why is this important? God is glorified not only through the things Jesus did, but through the things done to Jesus. God is not only glorified through the things we are free to do, but through the things done to us. And this is important because we are not always free to do what we might choose to do. Often, and not least because of our dependence on the response of others, we are not free at all. When Jesus went to his home town, the disbelief he was met with there meant that he was not free to perform the signs and wonders he had performed in other towns and villages. Nonetheless, God was glorified through Jesus’ presence: though he could not perform signs and wonders he was himself a sign and a wonder in their midst.
The same is true for us: there are times when we are able to perform signs and wonders, exercising the power and authority Jesus has delegated to us; and there are times when we are not free to act as we would want to. Nonetheless, sharing in Christ’s glory, we are ourselves a sign and a wonder.
That is why icons (which are properly understood as doors through which heaven can enter earth, rather than windows through which we can glimpse heaven) depict saints with halos. A halo is not the symbol of our goodness (as in “Your halo would appear to have slipped” in response to breaches of good behaviour), but the symbol of God’s glory.
As we embrace our covenant identity as children of God and co-heirs with Christ, so we are able to respond with the obedience of embracing suffering, of allowing others to respond to us as they choose.
As we exercise our kingdom authority (not only to act where we are free but also) to place ourselves into someone else’s hands, to respond to us as they see fit, so we are able to share in Christ’s glory, to participate in and conduct the life-transforming power of God’s glory being revealed in and to the world.
Back in Liverpool after a wonderful week away.
The first half of the week we stayed with friends from our time at college. It was great to just be able to spend time together. One day was very wet, and spent at the RAF museum at Hendon (some great insights into spiritual warfare, which I might post some time); the next hot and dry, and spent picnicking in style.
The second half of the week was spent in Sheffield, very relaxing, catching up with lots of friends, including celebrating Jo’s birthday with three homemade cakes over two days; and culminating in being at Philadelphia to witness several people make their temporary vows (3-year initial or novitiate vows) or permanent vows (can be taken after 3 years, or within a further 3-year period) within The Order of Mission (Jo and I became temporaries in 2003, and permanents in 2007). It was great to see various TOM friends, scattered across various countries over a number of years, there, as we were, for the occasion. It was also great to meet people who had come from USA and Scandinavia for Pilgrimage (and really encouraging to see the Lutheran churches commitment to ordaining young adults to serve as church leaders).
The journey home was spent listening to Pete James’ new album, Dreams, Reality And Everything In Between. All three of our children love it, Pete – especially the heavier/retro rock tracks. Particular favourites are the opening call to worship ‘Come Everybody Let’s Go’ and the creed ‘We Believe.’ Regardless of whether or not one likes the style, the substance is significant here. Too often, churches are seeking to be so ‘normal’ an experience for the unfamiliar visitor that we forget why we gather at all – not primarily to meet with friends, but to meet, together, with God who welcomes us into his house. We need the call to worship to form within us the reason we are there; to become a well-worn path (familiarity breeds contempt in the one who is contemptuous; but it nurtures confidence and competence – identity and authority – in the one who loves because they know that they are loved). And we need creeds, to carry for us and to form within us the faith the church has professed down through the ages. Too often, where churches have decided that written/corporately-spoken liturgy is culturally inappropriate, they have failed to do the work of translating liturgy into what would be considered culturally appropriate forms. The consequence is Christians who no longer know what Christians believe, who have no foundation to build on. So thank you, Pete, for the work you have put in here.
