Reflections On Covenant

This morning I sat in a quiet house overlooking a wooded creek, reading, praying, drinking coffee, and thinking about covenant.

Covenant is never only about personal relationship with God, or another person, but about creating a community (absolute minimum of two persons) that is robust enough to live beyond judgement. It moves from the particular (personal) starting point to bless and embrace others.

Future judgement and future blessing both break-into the present. So we can speak of the crises facing the Church and the wider society to whom we are sent as just judgement on God's people and the world for failing to love God and our neighbour. In this context, covenant creates community robust enough to live after the cultural earthquake.

This is how covenant is depicted biblically, whether after the Great Flood; or when Joshua renews the covenant between the people and God after he has brought them out of Egypt (judgement), dealt with them in the wilderness (judgement), and displaced other nations to give them the Land (judgement); or when Jesus initiates a remnant community that will survive the fall of Jerusalem (judgement on God's people) and the fall of Rome (judgement on the world) - a remnant that will embrace both Jews and Gentiles.

Therefore our covenant relationships - whether marriage covenant, or other forms - provide us with the means to live in a world that has been violently shaken, as would be an accurate description of our society in double recession and great upheaval, albeit the positive celebrations of this summer (celebrations which express covenant between a monarch and get subjects, and the youth of the world, as it happens).

It does so by (as the marriage service vows articulate it) the sharing of all that we are and all that we have, within the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The offering of who we are today, each day, as we change/grow; given to another so that they might grow more fully into the person they were created to be; in order that others are blessed beyond and outside of the covenant relationship in question. The sharing of resources. All held within the height and depth and width and length of God's love that goes beyond all we could ask or imagine. So, my marriage should not only bless my wife, but also our children, and as many others as we come into contact with.

And likewise my church community.

Is that how we understand ourselves, our calling in the world? Or are we overwhelmed by the earthquake?

View From America

I'm in America to attend the Sentralized Conference, and with a rest day between travelling and the conference beginning, I'm thinking about some of the differences between US and UK culture and what that means for church culture. My point is not that either culture should become more like the other, but that stepping outside of our own culture often helps us to critique it better.

A friend of mine who has lived in both countries recently told me that Americans invest in land, while the British invest in property. You can see this in our respective houses. As I walk around here, the houses are temporary structures. Every element will only last so long, but they are easily and inexpensively replaced. This allows for extending or remodelling or even building/re-building. Home is important, and when you enter an American home, the way it is decorated will tell you the values of the family that lives there (in a much less self-conscious manner than back home). But the structure is far less important. Family is the principle, and the house adapts to meet the changing needs of the family.

In contrast, in the UK we buy houses that are built to last, but come with high maintenance costs and are expensive to adapt. The family almost always adapts to fit the constraints of the house (with perhaps one big last-a-lifetime extension/conversion project).

If you have seen the period drama Downtown Abbey, you might be forgiven for assuming that Americans are more pragmatic, while the British are more principled. In fact, we operate according to different (often unspoken and certainly usually unchallenged) principles, each requiring their own different pragmatisms (US adapt, UK conserve).

This has an impact on our churches. Here I am concerned with my own British context. Rather than starting with the church family as it is now and as we perceive it is most likely to develop next, and asking what shape our structures need to be to hold this, we start with our structures and ask, how can our present family inhabit these existing structures? Who will take responsibility for this room or that room?

This takes us back to Downtown Abbey, and the challenge of running a Pre-WWI house after the cultural crisis (not to mention population loss) of that world-changing event. It can't continue as it was. This is the challenge facing us in our own different moment of equally rapid and discontinuous change.

It isn't sustainable.

The Americans invest in land, not property. Funnily enough, Anglicans also invest in land, at least in theory: long-term commitment to the parish. The problem arises where we see our role as preserving a building and/or set of practices.

My own interest is in asking, who are we? Recognising a continuity with the past and a responsibility to pass on what has been entrusted to us, yes: but not seeing that in inflexible terms. If anything, our preoccupation with the structures (the physical building and the institutional roles) prevents us from engaging in being family on mission to bless the world as it is now (in need of a family who will bless others) not how it was.

The American church faces its own challenges. In the UK church, we need to invest in more provisional and adaptable structures, seeing the family not as guardians of a way of life but as those who are alive, whose God-given life guarantees life.

The Difficult Business Of Apologies

Lately I have been pondering the difficult business of apologies.

One of the controversies of the recent London Paralympics involved the South African double below-knee amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius.  Pistorius had fought for the right to compete against able-bodied athletes, against claims that his blades gave him an advantage over them; and this summer he competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  But in the Paralympic T44 200m he finished in second, behind Alan Oliveira – a shock result.  Interviewed immediately after the race, he claimed that Oliveira’s blades gave the Brazilian sprinter the unfair advantage of a longer stride, dismissing the achievement of another athlete who had always looked up to him, and being dismissive of the International Paralympic Committee.  In fact, Pistorius didn’t have a leg to stand on: not only did he run the 200m in fewer strides than Oliveira, suggesting that Pistorius had the longer stride (and anyway, blades are scaled to the athlete wearing them, and no-one claims that Usain Bolt should be penalised for having a longer stride than his competitors) but Pistorius ran faster in his semi-final than either athlete ran in the final.  The following day Pistorius apologised for the timing of his comments.  Not for the comments themselves; for the timing.  So, when is an apology not an apology?

Then, and with the Paralympic Games as back-drop, the German-based company responsible for the morning-sickness drug Thalidomide issued an apology – for the first time, fifty years after the drug was withdrawn – along with an appeal for understanding and forgiveness: an apology deemed insincere and insulting by some campaigners but welcomed conditionally by others, who have extended the invitation to further progress towards reconciliation.

Yesterday, the Hillsborough Independent Panel published its Report into the Hillsborough Disaster and its aftermath.  Yesterday and today have seen a flurry of apologies made by politicians, senior police officers, journalists.  Some have been welcomed, others rejected as too little too late.

Of course, there are almost daily examples I could draw on.  When it comes to apologies, it would seem that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

So here are some thoughts:

Saying sorry is perhaps the hardest thing we ever do.

We generally demand a swifter and fuller apology of others than we are willing to give to others...

The more we trust the person or people to whom we owe an apology to have our best interests at heart and to be looking for the win-win of reconciliation rather than the win-over-you of vindication, the fuller the apology we will be able to give.

Likewise, the less we trust the person or people to whom we owe an apology, the more guarded and limited our apology is likely to be.

Offer the apology that you are able to offer.

Be as clear as you can as to the apology you are making.

Be as honest as you can about the apology that you owe but are not (yet) able to make.  This opens the door for a degree of reconciliation, which opens the door to the fuller completion of the apology.

Be as generous as you can in accepting another person’s apology.  Is it really too little too late, or has it taken great courage to get this far while needing something in return in order to go further?

An apology that is not freely given is empty, so ask for an apology by all means, but don’t dictate what it should contain: if you do, you rob yourself of the apology you are looking for, and the other person of the apology that they might otherwise be able to move towards in time.

Only the person making an apology can truly know whether they are being sincere or not.  Passing judgement on their sincerity makes you less human than you were created to be, because it builds a barrier between us.  Accepting an insincere apology does not reveal you to be gullible; it reveals you to be the more fully whole person (at least in this instance), by denying the opportunity to build a barrier and, instead, moving for reconciliation.

Our unwillingness or inability to accept an apology reveals the extent to which we harbour brokenness – and, therefore, the extent to which we need to accept the apology being held out to us.

Don’t retract an apology – and don’t retract the acceptance of an apology.

Don’t apologise more than once (unless you need to apologise to more than one person or group and can’t do that on one occasion), unless you are able to extend your apology beyond what you have apologised for.  An apology – whether accepted or rejected – is an end to the matter (though it may need to be followed by taking consequences, and/or by attempting to make amends).  To keep apologising for the same thing is to believe that we are unworthy of forgiveness or acceptance.  Likewise, to demand that someone apologises repeatedly is to demonstrate that we do not believe that they are worthy of forgiveness or acceptance (and if that is so, that is our problem, not theirs).

Accepting an apology is perhaps the hardest thing we ever do.

Truth And Freedom

[I have lived within sight and sound of both Hillsborough and Anfield; was sent forward for ordination by Sheffield Diocese and received by Liverpool Diocese, ordained in Liverpool Cathedral.]

Today the Hillsborough Independent Panel, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, has published its Report.  Today is a significant moment for the families of the 96 who died, for the cities of Liverpool and Sheffield, and for the whole nation.  Things have been brought into the light, which have been hidden for twenty-three years.

Jesus said, “If you hold on to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31, 32)

Today we have a greater access to significant relevant information concerning the Hillsborough Disaster.  Today we are able to point to deliberate attempts to cover information with misinformation, long suspected but until now not established.  Today we can identify failure on the part of individuals and organisations, and shared degrees of culpability.  Today we know something, which we need to know in order to experience freedom.  But none of this is, in itself, the truth that will set us free.

If we are to experience freedom, we need to see ourselves in the eyes of our enemies; we need to forgive them; we need to love them.  We need to discover that – though justice must be done – mercy must triumph over judgement.

Liverpool supporters have been vindicated.  They were not responsible for what happened, and, indeed, they worked to alleviate suffering and were vilified for it.  They were not responsible for what happened, but they could have been: not because Scousers are scum who can’t be trusted, but because the impulse to exonerate ourselves by shifting the blame for our short-falling – whether the short-falling is wilful or unintended, doing what we ought not to do or failing to do what we ought to have done – is a universal human impulse as old as conscious thought.  I do it, and often – and I hate myself for it.  We fall short of our responsibility towards our neighbour; hide, driven by shame; and create a web of lies to cover our tracks.

When we look at the list of individuals and organisations that are rightfully indicted by this Report, we need the honesty to say, It could have been me in their shoes.  In this regard – as is invariably the case in tragedy that causes outrage – the families of those who died have shown a dignity that has not been shared by everyone who has called for justice for the 96, by those who have called for vengeance that goes beyond justice...and so violates the very possibility of justice, by ruling witness statements calling for mercy to be inadmissible evidence.

For while there are legal consequences (such as prison sentences) and public consequences (such as the redesigning of football stadia and the rethinking of policing), as well as psychological consequences (such as having people’s deaths on your hands), that need to be borne, we also need to forgive.  Unless we can forgive, we remain pinned under the weight of a barrier that crushes the life out of us.  Yes, this is easier said than done – but done it must be.

Today is an opportunity to move through justice (as yet, incomplete) towards reconciliation (as yet, a long way off).  Perhaps we can learn lessons from South Africa in this regard.  Only when we can love our enemies – when, from the heart, we can wish them no evil, only good; when we bless them, asking God to bring life out of the ashes of their lives, rather than curse them, asking God to cut their potential and their future short – can we live freely: free from the shame of our own short-comings, and the fear that they too will be publically exposed; free from the hatred that posses as pre-emptive defensive strike; free from the pain of our scars, which we will always bear but which we do not have to bear raw.  Only then will the memory of the 96 be able to rest in peace; only then will the people of Liverpool, and Sheffield, and wider, be able to rest in peace.

When Jesus told his disciples that they must love their enemies (Matthew 5:43-48), and forgive those who were in their debt by renouncing any claim to what they could not repay anyway (Matthew 6:12), he knew these three things: that they absolutely needed to, for the alternative is too costly to live with; that it is possible; and that they wouldn’t be able to do so alone.  Jesus gave, and continues to give, himself so that we are not left alone, so that we don’t have to fall back on our finite resources.  In the words over the gate at Anfield, and on the replica gate in the Memorial Garden in Hillsborough Park, You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Jesus revealed a kingdom-of-heaven principle to his disciples, one they struggled to understand: that the way to multiply what you have is to give it up – for only when we reach the end of our resources can we receive from God his unlimited resources.  It works like this: choose to forgive who you are only just able to forgive, choose to love who you are only just able to love, and if you are open God will increase your capacity to forgive and to love those you cannot, at this moment in time, imagine being able to forgive and to love.  If you want to know where you are in that process, listen to the imaginary conversation in your head with the key players.  The process is costly, and laborious, and messy, and through it heaven breaks into our world as untouchable outcasts are embraced within community, to the mutual restoration of both.

Today is a momentous day.  But it is not the End.  It is, if we will receive it, a new Beginning.  Lord, have mercy on us all.

Turning Seasons

I love the turning of seasons, that moment, ripe with potential, when one thing gives way to another.  In particular, I like the turning-point from summer into late summer, bursting with fruitfulness.  Today our children went back to school.  For the boys, a return; for Susannah, the first day at high school.  Here she is; and also a photo of all three with my parents, taken in our garden last week.

Blind Universe

I did not get to see the opening ceremony of the London Olympics – we were on holiday at the time – but a common theme to the accounts I have heard was how the religious dimension was so unashamedly included in the celebration of British culture, with hymns that went beyond the tradition of singing at Cup tie matches and a moving remembrance of those who died in the London bombings the day after the Games were awarded to the capital city.

We watched the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics last night, and were struck by how very anti-religious the celebration was.  The central theme was a Scientific approach to the universe.  And while science and religion are not incompatible, the statement was defiantly humanistic and atheistic.  Which has me asking, are the disabled as a constituency that can be gathered more irreligious than society as a whole?  Or, is this the defiance of those who have been locked-out by those who do believe in God?  What – if anything – does this moment tell us?

As someone who believes in God as God is revealed in and through the person of Jesus, disability is a complex issue.

It is unavoidable that Jesus, directly or indirectly, reverses the physical and social impact of disabilities: the blind see, the lame walk.  Some see this (consciously or unconsciously) as affirming the able-body not only as normative but as being of a better class.  But in his relating to disabled people, Jesus always treats them with dignity.  He appears to recognise that the disabled have both had something taken from them – and it is denial to refuse to recognise this – and also have had something given to them, a determination and an ability to see and to respond to God’s active presence in their midst that the able-bodied are blind and lame to.  Jesus’ impulse is to move to restore what has been taken and affirm what has been given.  Both these moves seem to me to be fully in-line with the Paralympic vision.  After all, what else are prosthetic limbs and (physical and emotional) rehabilitation, if not a restoration of what has been lost; coaching and training and promoting and supporting, if not an affirmation of what has been given?

However, as a Jesus-follower I must look not only to what Jesus did – how he responded to others; and how he confronts our marginalisation of the other – but also to who he was.  In particular, his resurrection body, as a foretaste of the fullness of God’s intention for our bodies, has much to teach us about our attitude towards disability.

Firstly, Jesus’ resurrection body is not immediately recognisable.  I have disabled friends who believe that they will not be disabled in heaven, and disabled friends who believe that they will be.  My best guess is that all of us will be different from how we are now, in ways which we cannot imagine, and yet which are in continuity with who we have already begun to be.  No human condition is the final word on being fully human.

Secondly, Jesus’ resurrection body is not subject to the same physical limitations our bodies are bound by.  Pushing those limits – as Olympians and Paralympians do – would appear to be recognition that, while we experience constraints that contain us, they do not define us.  Again, our present condition – whether able-bodied or differently-able – is not the final word on being fully human.

Thirdly, Jesus’ resurrection body carried the scars inflicted on him by humans.  This is, surely, not simply evidence for theological claims concerning Jesus, but for theological claims concerning humanity.  Many (not all) Paralympians had their disability inflicted upon them by the actions of others: by improvised explosive device, machete, car crash, terrorist bomb, exposure to drugs (medical or otherwise) in the womb.  In Jesus’ body, their scars are affirmed as something that can be transformed from the raw ugliness of wounds into something beautiful; that the disabled human form can be beautiful, though perhaps only for those – both disabled and able-bodied – with eyes to see.  At any stage, the human body – our own, that of another – can be rejected as abhorrent or embraced as gift – to ourselves, to others.

I know many Christians who are delighted that these will be the most-watched Paralympic Games yet; who rejoice that attitudes towards disabled people have come a long way, and that – with a long way still to go – the United Kingdom is among those societies taking a lead.  Watching the athletes from many nations parade into the stadium last night, it was clear that this is an occasion to celebrate where we have come to, in equality, rather than lament where we have come from or where we have still to go.  It would be a shame if the humanistic and atheistic defiance of the artistic direction accurately reflects the general attitude of people with disabilities towards the Church, or the diversity of religious beliefs represented by the competing athletes.

On a national level, perhaps the anti-religious nature of this opening ceremony allows us to retreat from the heart-on-our-sleeve exposure of the Olympic opening ceremony; to move from self-conscious awkwardness after the event to face-saving restoration of business-as-usual.  Except that there is no business-as-usual to such moments: carnival is, by definition, a throwing-off of the masks we wear in daily life.  Prospero came to the conclusion that relating to others by godless means imprisoned not only them but himself; and pleaded with his audience to set him free by prayer and forgiveness, which move divine mercy.  The godless Prospero who was our host last night only painted a vision in which nothing is of account in the face of a vast unknowable universe, where the breaking of our prisons is no more than spectacular illusion and pretty distraction.  If that is the best vision we can put our imagination to, then these Games are not about humanity but about the desire to see freak-show gladiators fight for our entertainment.

How then, might we watch the Paralympic Games, as able-bodied and disabled, as people of growing faith in God and growing faith that no God exists?  Surely by allowing what we see unfold to call into question the position from which we begin, finding ourselves moving to a different view-point.

Would You Help Me Write A Book?

I am writing a book, and am looking to collate enough data to help test some intuitive hunches.  I’m writing about the dynamics between five human impulses I believe each one of us displays, to greater or lesser degree, in differing order of preference.  The technical religious language to describe these impulses, within the Christian tradition, is apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding and teaching, but they are universal human impulses to:

pioneer beyond what is already familiar in any given field or discipline (e.g. build an online business, rather than a high street business);

imagine and express the challenges we will face if we continue on our present trajectory so those challenges can be prepared for (e.g. Peak Oil, aging population, etc);

carry good news stories (e.g. promoting a new restaurant or latest gadget by word-of-mouth);

care for people (e.g. speaking out for the most vulnerable); and

secure the passing-on of knowledge or skills from one generation or context to another (e.g. teaching children to cook).

Here is how you can help.  My friend Alan Hirsch has developed a profiling tool for measuring the relative weighting of each of these preferences (you might have very little preference for pioneering beyond the known – but you will have some!).  For $10US you can take the test here.  It takes about 10 minutes, and will be recognisable in style to anyone who is familiar with other preference profiling tools such as Myers Briggs.  (As with Myers Briggs, we are talking about preferences, not mutually-exclusive boxes.  This particular tool is not an alternative to Myers Briggs, or Belbin, etc., but investigates a different set of preferences.)

I would be grateful if some of my friends – that is, people I know well enough to weigh my ‘guess’ against your results – would be willing to take the test and share their results with me.  If possible, it would be great if you could also give some indication as to whether you think it is a fairly accurate stable profile, or whether it more reflects your current circumstances (like Myers Briggs, I would say that there might be some ‘seasonal’ variation but that over time a stable preference set would be confirmed).

I would like to hear from friends who work in a variety of contexts: not only those in church leadership but in as wide a variety of fields or disciplines as possible.  And because I believe these are human impulses, not religious ones, I’d be especially grateful if any of my friends who would not identify themselves as Christians would be brave enough to set aside the technical religious language of Alan’s profiling tool and take the test.

If you are willing to help me out in this way, please email me your completed profile.  My email address is andrew[at]dowsetts[dot]net

Thank you!

The Dark Knight Of The Soul

(or, watching Batman with Richard Rohr, Mike Breen, and Mark Stibbe.)

Life is a game played in two halves, not necessarily of equal length, with many people sitting out the second half – and even much of the first – on the bench.  The primary goal of the first half is to discover who we are; the primary goal of the second half is to give ourselves back – to God, to our neighbour – in such a way that extends the reach of life: for only our true self is a worthy offering.  It would appear that experiencing both love and success is key to discovering who we are (Scripture is full of such stories).  But such love and success need to be released from our grip if we are even to start the second half of life, and this is so scary to us that only failure can open us to the purpose of knowing ourselves, to give ourselves back.  This is what the Bible describes as dying to self, by which the Christian tradition does not mean obliteration of the self but the transformation of the self by the power that rose Jesus from the dead; that will one day rise us from death; and of which it is possible to experience that future breaking into our present, but only by moving from the end of the first half and into the second.  The delight of resurrection life, which can only be known on the other side of death, is that the love and success we dared let go of have not deserted us.

The Dark Knight Rises, the final part in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, is a film concerned with the transition from the first half of life to the second.

It is eight years since Bruce Wayne moth-balled the Batman project, having chosen for Batman to take responsibility for the murders committed by Harvey Dent rather than allow the population of Gotham to lose the hope they had placed in their crusading District Attorney before Dent’s tragic turning.  Moreover, Wayne has moth-balled a nuclear-fusion project for creating clean renewable energy, into which he had invested half his fortune, having discovered that it could be turned into a nuclear bomb.  At the start of the film, Wayne has been living for some years as a recluse, shut off from the world.  Having successfully invested his physical, intellectual and financial (and to a lesser degree relational and spiritual) capital into his identity – and I would suggest that Bruce Wayne/Batman is one identity, albeit that this is hidden – his resources are now spent or spurned.

Alongside the Wayne/Batman story, we meet Selina Kyle/Catwoman.  Kyle has established herself as a successful cat-burglar, but is now looking for a shot at redemption.  To this end she attempts to use her ability in exchange for a clean slate, stealing information in return for the promise of all records tracing back to her identity being wiped from any computer database.

When mercenary terrorist Bane turns up in Gotham, holding the city to nuclear blackmail, Wayne decides to bring back the Batman.  He will seek to address the present crisis using the strategies and methods that served him well in the first half of life.  His faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth, who became his surrogate father following the murder of his parents, cautions him against this.  Alfred’s dream has always been to see Wayne embark on the second half of life – and to this end, the wise older man is prepared even to lose their relationship.  Wayne, however, confronts Bane, who breaks his back – witnessed by Catwoman who, at Batman’s request, had led him to Bane – and transports him to the Pit, a prison designed to break the spirit through feeding despair by holding hope just beyond reach.  But while Bane is right in recognising that despair is fed by the tantalising proximity of hope, he fails to realise that hope is fed by touching the pit of despair.

Wayne eventually escapes the Pit, not by relying on the methods that have served him well in the past, but by letting go of security, of the cord that ties us to what we know that we are capable of and what is beyond our reach.  Returning to Gotham, he searches out Catwoman and offers her the clean slate she longs for, not as reward for her track-record but as opportunity to give herself to others regardless of what they might do with that gift: the very thing Wayne has had modelled to him by Alfred and now models to Selina Kyle.  Kyle is now faced with the dilemma: having discovered her true self, through success that encounters failure, will she hold on to that self for herself, or offer it to and for others?

It is a risk with no guarantee – in their final confrontation we discover that Bane had laid his life down for another, only for them to be unable to respond in the same way; a loss too painful for Bane, who took up the broken pieces of his life to turn them against the world.  This, of course, is the same temptation that faced Bruce Wayne – albeit that he had only gone as far as turning away from the world, and not yet against it – the key difference in their lives being the self-sacrificial faithfulness of Wayne’s adopted father, Alfred, and the sacrificing unfaithfulness of Bane’s father-figure (and Wayne’s erstwhile mentor) Ra’s al Ghul.  If we are to dare to move beyond the first half of life, we will need not only the downward push of failure but also the faithfulness of a father who is prepared to send us out until we are ready, and actively wait to see us return – as the father does in one of Jesus’ most famous parables, and Alfred does in the cafe in Florence.

The trilogy concludes with Bruce and Selina leaving the first half of their lives behind – the Wayne/Batman and Kyle/Catwoman half – in order to live the second half.  What has been learned, as Batman reveals to Commissioner Gordon before ‘dying,’ is that anyone can be a hero – even the person (Sergeant Gordon) who puts a coat around the shoulders of a young boy who has lost his parents, to reassure him that this is not the end.  The mistake of the first half of life is to believe that hope depends on the image of a hero that did not fall.  The lesson that sends us into the second half of life is that true hope depends on ordinary people discovering themselves and offering up all of who they are – flawed, failing, even our best intentions having unforeseen consequences that will grieve us – fully, in every situation, to extend the reach of life, to give the gift of life.  ‘Life’ is gifted on, to the orphan boys of Gotham City, to detective Blake, to Lucius Fox, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred...modelled and entrusted, in hope that they will do the same.

Bruce Wayne is dead.  Long live Bruce Wayne...

Understanding Strength And Weakness

In Ephesians 4:1, Paul urges the believers in Asia Minor to live a life worthy of the calling they have received.  What is that calling?  Certainly, he speaks of unity and of maturity, but that is not our primary calling: rather, Paul goes on to speak in terms of specific calling – to be an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd or a teacher – a calling which is to be expressed in unity with the specific calling of other believers, for the purpose of attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Paul knew his calling – to be an apostle – and urged others to discern their calling too.  How can we live a life worthy of the calling we have received if, unlike Paul, we don’t know what our calling is?

Here, at least in England, we run into a particular difficulty: a pious obsession that our gifts, strengths, and areas of competence are at worst a trap, causing us to operate without God; and at best irrelevant, because God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.  After all, didn’t Jesus say this very thing to Paul himself?

No, he did not, and this pious obsession is a gross distortion of the passage it cites (2 Corinthians 12).

The weakness Jesus refers to in addressing Paul is a position of weakness that is caused by external opposition.  Writing to a church he established and where, in his absence, others have come in who oppose him, Paul recognises that this has been a recurring pattern in his ministry.  Indeed, he had broached the subject with Jesus no less than three times, making use of a scriptural phrase - ‘barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides’ (Numbers 33:55, 56) – referring to people who, unless driven out, will lead God’s people away from him and into trouble.  In the past, Paul had followed the instruction of Numbers 33:55, 56, in persecuting the dangerous followers of the Way.  Such action is no longer open to him; instead he pleads with Jesus to intervene on his behalf.  Jesus responds (on the third occasion? repeated three times?), “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  That the weakness he refers to is external is clear in Paul’s response, to “delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”

Commentators have tended to ignore the plainest meaning of Paul’s case, engaging in speculation as to the possible nature of a bodily condition that afflicts him (an eye complaint? malaria?).  While such suggestions are still distinguished from personality preference, they are sufficiently internalised as to facilitate the interpretation of ‘weakness’ as being ‘those things we are not gifted in’ and the case is therefore presented that God is more able to work through our incompetence.  If I had a Pound Sterling for every time I have heard such an argument, I’d be a rich man.

This may well tie in with a very English unease with competence (though if we are ever going to address that, the summer of our best ever Olympic performance – not to mention, delivering a spectacular Games – is as good a time as any).

Throughout history, God has looked for people to partner with him.  The idea that he would make you as a person with particular gifts and then prefer to ignore what he had made is ludicrous.

God will invite you to step outside of your comfort-zone, the sphere of your present competence, for a number of reasons including these:

because discovering what you are not gifted for is one of the ways in which we discover what we are gifted for;

because experiencing those things we are not gifted at is one of the ways in which we grow to appreciate the different gifts of others;

because persevering for a season in what is not our best preference adds depth and roundedness to our strengths;

because the starting place for all competency is incompetency.

However, Jesus’ intention for you is neither naive incompetence nor omni-competence.  It is that you discover your calling and grow into it, so that you can live a life worthy of that calling.  It is that each member of the body of Christ should fundamentally be the particular gift they were created to be, learning to work together as opposed to trying to be and to do what someone else was given to be and to do.

Too often we ask people to operate in what is not their calling, because that seems easier than identifying the person whose call is best suited (and, after all, Jesus’ power is made perfect in weakness).  It never seems to work in the long-term, but if we just do a better job of explaining why we need them perhaps we can keep them in that role longer...

When Paul wrote to the church in Asia Minor, he was experiencing the particular weakness of another external constraint: he was in prison.  This, however, did not equate to an undermining of his internal strength, his calling to be an apostle.  It simply meant that how that calling was worked-out looked different from when he was free – writing rather than travelling.

Right now, your external circumstances might be such as to put you in a position of weakness.  If so, know that Jesus’ grace is sufficient for you.

But that is not the same thing as having no regard for strength, for the gift Jesus has given you to be.

Play to your strengths.  Invest in them.  Allow the Lord to train you in them.  Let other people seek to constrain you with weakness if they so choose; but don’t give weakness your energy.  To paraphrase Jesus, “let it go: you attend to whom I have made you to be, and do it to the fullness of the gifting I have given you.”

Birthday Boy

This cheeky, life-loving, thoughtful five-year-old...turned six today!

Happy birthday to our beautiful Elijah.

(photos taken last week, on holiday.)

The Yeast And The Dough

This morning I was talking with Scott Emery, a friend in America with whom I have recently been having some great conversations on Skype for an hour every other week.

One of the things we talked about this morning was an observable shift, several small bands of missional pioneers we are aware of who have recently taken or are seriously exploring the decision to be folded into larger and more structurally established church communities.

Up to this point, I don’t think we’ve seen this happen in quite this way.  Some have struck out and fallen back, taken a shot at a different way of being church and couldn’t make it work; but that is, I think, something different.

Alan Hirsch, drawing on the anthropological work of Victor Turner, has written on liminality – between spaces - and communitas - the close bond that forms between a group of people when they venture beyond the stable circle of community into such spaces.  Many groups exploring missional discipleship have stepped outside of church as they have known it, and indeed this has been a necessary step.  And yet the purpose of liminality and communitas is found in a return to the stable community, in such a way that the life of that community is perpetuated rather than slowly dying.  The boys Turner observed did not disappear over the horizon abandoning their village, but returned to the village from their adventures as men.

What I would suggest we are seeing is a returning.  And what is encouraging is the evidence that this is not an arrival with an ulterior motive to change churches, but an invited and welcome development.

Jesus spoke of yeast that is worked through dough.  I would suggest that these little bands are yeast – but they lack dough.  And that the churches they are being folded into are dough, in need of yeast.

(If we fear that the larger group is yeast that will somehow contaminate our dough - ‘the yeast of the Pharisees’ - perhaps we have misunderstood our purpose, struck out merely in line with the schismatic individualism of Protestantism/Modernism; or perhaps, and more positively, it indicates that it is not yet time for us to return.)

Or to offer another image, as I shared our conversation with my wife afterwards, Jo made a connection with Jesus taking his disciples across the lake in their boat.  The time in the boat is deeply significant, but they are heading for a shore where there are other people.  Perhaps we mistake the shore we are heading to for a wholly different way of organising ourselves, rather than an opportunity to re-enter community in ways that bring transformation?

I would contend that this observable shift represents not failure – evidence that another fad is passing, as people grow beyond the ego of youth and return home – but the coming-of-age of these particular communities.  Others, in their turn, will step out into the unknown.  The next season for those returning is to step up to the task of blessing, bringing hope to those who are older and a future to those who are younger...

On Beauty

Yesterday I got to witness and take part in a strange phenomenon.  The London Olympics closed on Sunday night, and on Monday it seemed that the nation stumbled about in a daze of mourning its loss.

Why strange?  Because, despite the participation of thousands of Games Makers and hundreds of thousands of spectators who travelled to the arenas, despite the millions of hours invested in preparing the sites, the overwhelming majority of the population contributed no more than sitting in front of the television or listening along on the radio.

What right, then, did we have to mourn?

I think we do have a right to mourn.  Indeed, I think it reveals our humanity.  I would suggest that our mourning is not merely self-indulgent – who will entertain me now? – but that we have been moved by (fleeting glimpses of) beauty and by the subsequent removal (loss) of beauty.  Not simply the particular beauty of finely-honed young bodies – a beauty our own culture places a high premium on – but also the beauty of the smiles on the faces of those who achieved their dream (contrast Tom Daley’s joy at winning bronze with the disappointment of others who wanted gold), and the beauty of spectacular venues (the velodrome, the transformation of Greenwich Park) and backdrops and joyful celebrations.

I am reminded of a story told about a man called Jonah, who mourned the loss of a vine God had provided to give him shelter, and subsequently took away again.  What was it that caused Jonah’s despair and resignation?  Surely it wasn’t the loss of shade, for he had already provided shade for himself by making an effective shelter.  In providing shelter where there was already shelter, God’s action would appear to be extravagant and perhaps even redundant.  And beautiful.  Not just a shelter, but a vine, that elicited a psychologically positive response.

God asked him, do you have any right to be angry? and Jonah replied, I do.  God, interestingly, does not inform Jonah that he is wrong, that he has no right to be angry.  In fact, he affirms Jonah’s response: his emotional investment in something both short-lived and towards which Jonah had contributed nothing.  And then he takes Jonah a step further: God sees beauty in a multitude of people who have mastered nothing, who cannot tell right from wrong, who are overlooked, on a par with cattle...and invites Jonah to see as he sees, and to channel his emotional response in the ways of grace and compassion – giving what is not earned, being moved to action by the plight of others – in ways marked by anger that is under control and love that knows no bounds at all.

These Olympic Games will inspire a new generation of Olympic athletes.  More, they will inspire a new generation of coaches who will invest in the potential of others.  A new generation of designers who will extend the frontiers of human creativity in ways that reflect the Author of Creative Life.  But in the talk of legacy, perhaps the greatest legacy will be if these Games inspire prophets to live in harmony with those whose culture and values and actions in the world are alien to us and ours; and inspire people to invest in the multitude of children who will otherwise never have another opportunity.

It begins when we see beauty in a particular moment, and choose to be people who recognise that the whole world is beautiful; who choose to affirm the beauty in others rather than confirm the ugliness that contends for every heart, including our own.

It is right and proper that we should feel at a loss in the post-Olympic shadow.  The choice before us is to turn in on ourselves, or to turn out to others.

Oh So Quiet

Oh so quiet here of late.  A combination of reasons for this, including the change of rhythm now the kids are off school, and trying to write a substantial manuscript on Ephesians 4 identity, without pre-empting it with blog posts – a great temptation!  I’m hoping to gather lots of stories to be told...


At least the sun has finally put in an appearance.

Vulnerability

Some thoughts on this coming Sunday’s lectionary readings, Mark 6:1-13 and 2 Corinthians 12:2-10.


Mark 6:1-6 Jesus is ‘without honour’ – experiences a religiosity that refuses to welcome him and puts pressure on others to not welcome him either.


Mark 6:7-13 Jesus sends out his disciples to extend his mission – including sharing in his experience of rejection – but where they are welcomed, they are used by God to bring deliverance and healing.


2 Corinthians 12:2-10 the context is Paul’s experience of rejection and being without honour; of a religiosity that refuses to welcome him and puts pressure on others to not welcome him either.  Paul speaks of intimate relationship with God, but also of a ‘thorn in my flesh’ – reference to Numbers 33:55, other people who, if not removed, undermine the relationship between God and his people (a splinter in your eye and a thorn in your side, cf. Jesus telling people to deal with the plank in their eye before commenting on the splinter in someone else’s, to consider whether the company we keep keeps us from God before passing judgement on the company other people keep) – reference to those who followed Paul everywhere he went, telling new Christians they needed to become cultural Jews.  Paul cites this opposition in another context of opposition.  Previously, Paul had tried to root out his opponents - the Christians – with violence, but now understood that taking such action was not an option open to him, so asked Jesus to intervene on his behalf; Jesus responds instead with reassurance of sufficient grace, and of his power made perfect in weakness.  These attacks keep him from becoming conceited, keep him dependent on Jesus.


Jesus and Paul both testify to an intimate relationship with the Father; both testify to the resources of heaven available to those who welcome Jesus; both testify to opposition from those who ‘know better’ than them.


The consequence of intimacy with God is opposition from those who do not experience such intimacy.  The grace we need in the face of opposition is available through intimacy with God.  If we don’t have intimacy with God we won’t experience opposition, or grace and power in our lives.


Are we pursuing intimacy?  How do we deal with opposition?

Every One Carries Everyone

To begin, a paradox:

God created each and every living thing, including every human being (e.g. Psalm 139); and,

God created all living things to be reproducing, self-sustaining species, to be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis 1).

Every human being carries the code of life; a code expressed in them in a unique way; a code which can combine with the code carried in a corresponding other to create a new and unique life.

All but wipe out humanity, and we would begin again, according to God’s blueprint.  All but wipe out the Church, and she would grow again, according to Jesus’ distribution of his likeness through humanity.

Every human being is at a fundamental level created an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd or a teacher (abbreviation APEST; Ephesians 4); made to be a pioneer, a visionary, a recruiter, a nurturer or a trainer; as we share in the family likeness that is carried and perfectly expressed by Jesus, the one who has also liberated, and is liberating, his brothers and sisters.

Every human being carries the potential to be an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd or a teacher within them.

This coded matrix (APEST) configures in patterns that nuance the way in which we express the image of God; how, as we acknowledge him, we express the likeness of Christ – and this ‘nature’ combines in turn with ‘nurture,’ with the particular life experiences we live through, and the community contexts we are found in (for the person only exists in relation to other persons), to further flesh-out what Jesus-in-us (both personally and communally) looks like in the world.  In other words APEST is not merely a question of role (whether ‘in the church’ or ‘in the world’) but is core, in ways that we have yet to significantly explore, to person-ality and preference.*

And this potential is passed on, combined with another code, to create new persons.  So, I am a P who is significantly nuanced by A, and to lesser degrees by T, S and E; married to a S who is significantly nuanced by P, and to lesser degrees by T, A and E.  We have three children, still too young to know with any degree of certainty what they have been created to be – it could be any of the five, in any combination and variance of degrees, as we, as parents, carry and pass on the full potential – but we have the privilege of helping them discover and grow-into what Jesus has given them as, and for...

*I would love to see more mapping of APEST combinations against MBTI combinations.

Kairos : Season : Weather

Following on from the previous post, my friend Ian Paul (Dean of Studies at St John’s College, Nottingham, where I trained) informs me that in modern Greek, kairos now means season, or weather.  I find that really interesting.


Yesterday I was having a conversation with another friend, in America (Skype is a good thing).  We were discussing fruitfulness.  Jesus says, by their fruit you shall know them – that is to say, the condition of our hearts is revealed through something observable; something that can be bitter – such as envy – or sweet – such as generosity.  Clearly, we would hope to bear good fruit, the external outworking of an internal transformation.  But even so, fruit is produced in its season.


The consumer can get fruit instantly, at any time of year, simply by going to the supermarket.  The farmer knows that fruit has a season – and that attending to the fruitless times is essential if the crop is to be a fruitful one.


In John 15, Jesus describes the process of achieving fruitfulness: the gardener prunes back the branch; the branch is surrounded by the thickening vine-stock; the branch grows out from the vine; the branch bears fruit; the branch is pruned again, and the cycle repeated.  In order that our lives are fruitful, the Father prunes back our lives, inviting us into times of retreat, of intimacy with Jesus.


The pattern of discipleship is one of invitation and challenge.  Both, held in tension, are necessary: but in pruning and abiding, invitation is the leading beat to our rhythm of life; in growing and bearing fruit, challenge is the leading beat.


Is it coincidence that, living in societies where the supermarket has flattened-out seasonality, that we expect to be fruitful all of the time?  Is it coincidence that we have overlooked the need for pruning and abiding?


The meaning of words evolves over time.  I’d suggest that the meaning does not change arbitrarily, but as different expressions of the potential meaning contained within the word – just as every seed produces a plant that is true to its type.


A kairos, therefore, is (amongst other things) a shift in season: from fruiting to pruning to abiding to growing.  A kairos expresses God’s current activity within chronos.  A kairos is a change in the weather: rain and sun (God’s blessing on the righteous and the unrighteous alike), again often connected with seasons.


I love it when conversations come together, and spread out again...

The Tyranny Of Chronos

In Greek, there is both chronos – sequential, process, time with length – and kairos – consequential, event, time with depth.  In Greek mythology, Chronos was the Titan, father of the Olympian gods, who devoured his own children until betrayed by his wife and defeated by his son Zeus.  A tyrant.


The other evening Jo and I were with Mark Carey and a number of other friends who meet together once a month as part of our commitment to one another within The Order of Mission.  At some point in the evening, Mark mentioned the tyranny of time – that is, what happens when we misunderstand time with the result that it shifts from being a light yoke to being a heavy burden.


As part of professional or community development, we have become familiar with being asked to make plans – 6-month plans, 12-month plans, 2-year plans, 5-year plans – setting goals we will be measured against in order to be held accountable.  And it is often said that most people over-estimate what they can do in one year, and under-estimate what they can do in five.


There is nothing wrong with making plans, or indeed with setting goals.  The problem comes when chronos, rather than kairos, becomes the driver, becomes the yardstick against which accountability is measured.  We become so focused on delivering our agenda – or meeting someone else’s – that we become deaf and blind to God’s timing.  We set our course, and fail to notice when God says, turn here.


It is much easier to measure what we do within chronos time than it is to measure how often we have responded rightly to kairos times, because this is what we are used to measuring, have grown competent at measuring.  We need to unlearn how we measure time, in order that we might grow in competency at recognising and responding to kairos events.


There comes a kairos when Jesus sets his course towards Jerusalem and sets out on a journey through chronos towards his goal.  But that chronological passage is punctuated by kairos moments Jesus responds to.  In so doing, rather than trying to force circumstances, he makes himself available – whether by exercising agency, as when he opens the eyes of blind beggars on the road outside Jericho; or by surrendering agency, as when he allows the Father to hand him over in the Garden of Gethsemane – for heaven to break into earth through him, at the Father’s prompting.


How, then, might we hold chronos more lightly, while attending more closely to kairos?  One way might be to ask ourselves, each evening:


“Where did I work with Jesus today?” and,


“Where did I resist Jesus today?”


Another way might be to set measureable goals as part of our plan in response to a kairos (to repent involves observation, reflection, and discussion; to believe involves forming a plan, being accountable, and acting in a new way), rather than as a To Have Done By This Date List; taking them seriously but holding them lightly, open to the disruption of other kairos moments (every kairos changes our world, and some more dramatically so than others).

The Person Of Peace

Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him with the instruction to look out for the ‘person of peace’ (Luke 10).  Contrary to popular belief, this is not an evangelistic strategy.  It is a strategy for disciples who would make disciples who would be capable of making such disciples in turn.  These are not the same thing.  For many, the working definition of a person of peace is someone who isn’t a Christian but is open to you, and therefore open to being introduced to Jesus by you.  But this doesn’t equate to what Jesus does in sending his disciples to those who were already within the ‘house’ of Israel, who already worshipped God and knew something we ought not dismiss about not only knowing about God – as God-fearing Gentiles did – but knowing God.  For our context, a person of peace is someone who is open to you, specifically to you as a disciple, whether or not they already worship God as revealed in Jesus.


The church community I am currently a part of is composed of two neighbouring Anglican congregations, ‘inherited’ in their patterns and concerns, within which I have an oversight responsibility.


Within that (kind of) community there are (always going to be) a few people who are opposed to me, whether because they were especially close to my predecessor, or because I don’t fulfil their expectations and am unwilling to fulfil their demands, or because of a personality clash, or for whatever reason.  Do I need to love them?  Yes.  I need to love them and pray for them, forgive them and bless them.  But I ought not to focus my time and energy on them.  If I do, I will end up railing against something – whether in hate or love – rather than making disciples.


Then, there will be others (most likely, the majority) who are indifferent to me, perhaps because they know that I am only passing-through and they will be here (out of commitment to place, or out of apathy) when I have gone.  Do I need to love them?  Sure!  I need to nurture them in whatever way I am able.  But I ought not to focus my time and energy on them.  Indeed, this is a major tyranny of the inherited church belief-system, that as a member of the clergy I am there to be equally available to all.  I call it a tyranny because this belief, so different from Jesus’ practice, has borne fruit of worn-out overseers and diminishing members of the Body of Christ.  As a strategy, it fundamentally works against making disciples.


But Jesus sends us with instruction to seek out the person of peace.  Someone who is open to us, who will welcome us, who will look for ways to bless us, to support us – the person of peace is God’s relational provision in any given context.  This is the relationship that I need to focus on – and in so doing, other open-to-me relationships will be opened up, for the person of peace is the door-keeper into community.


A person of peace is not someone who looks just like me, who shares my interests.  A person of peace is not a yes-man, not someone who will become a clone, like me but lacking my original spark, or any original spark of their own.  The person of peace is, rightly, a demonstration of unity in diversity.  And while we are all called to live in harmony, the person of peace is a vital ingredient in the recipe for that to be worked out in practice.


There is, potentially, a person of peace in every ‘village’ I go to, every little community: in my church; among the staff at the local convenience store, the local cafes; at the sports club.  Potentially; but not necessarily – in which case, after genuine searching proves fruitless, move on again (frequent another social space).  Some of them know Jesus already.  Some of those haven’t previously thought in terms of following him, or even considered the possibility; others have, but haven’t really known how to go about that.  Some of them don’t know Jesus yet.  Does it matter?  I don’t think so.  That is, I want to see people follow Jesus, want to help them follow Jesus; but my person of peace is a person of peace wherever they are in relation to Jesus, because it has to do with what Jesus, by his Spirit, is up to in their life regardless.


If I want to build a team, I look for the person of peace.  If I don’t find one, that is one way of discerning that the task or the timing might be mine but not God’s.  Likewise, if I enter into a new context, I look for the person of peace; and I will prioritise being with that person over being with other people, because by being with that person I am placing myself in the centre of what God wants me to do.  And there, I watch and listen, for opportunity to introduce earth to heaven.


One more thing: this means that, as well as being a disciple, I am (at least potentially) the person of peace through whom God might bless another disciple and introduce them – and thus what they have learned from Jesus, and what he might want to do through them rather than directly through me – to the community in which I live...

Embodied Covenant and Kingdom

Jesus is the revelation of God: when we look at Jesus, we see God represented without any distortion.  Moreover, Jesus’ revelation is consistent with the two great themes that give structure to the story revealed in Scripture (that is to say, the living Word is consistent with the written Word), Covenant relationship and Kingdom responsibility.  Jesus taught that God is our Father, who provides what we need, and protects us (not least from ourselves); and King of the Universe, who passes judgement on our debts with justice and mercy held in perfect balance, and delivers us from his enemies.  But Jesus also lived out these truths.


The Gospel reading for this coming Sunday is Mark 5:21-43, the account of the healing of a woman who had suffered continual menstrual bleeding for twelve years (and as such was considered permanently ‘unclean,’ was permanently excluded from her family and wider community) and of the restoring to life of a twelve-year-old girl who had died (note: this is not a resurrection – the girl was not given an imperishable body and would have gone on to die at some point in the future; but it is the restoring of life that had been taken away by death).  In this account, I would suggest, we see can see Jesus as the revelation of God as Father and as King, in relation to both the woman and the girl.


Father
Jesus addresses both the woman – ‘Daughter’ v34 – and the girl – ‘Little girl’ v41 – in relational terms and with familial tenderness, driving out fear with love.


Provision
Jesus provides for the woman in the broadest and deepest sense, by restoring her to her community; and ensures that the little girl is given something to eat, v43.


Protection
Jesus sends the healed woman out to ‘Go in peace’ v34, to be led on the path of wholeness, to experience the guidance of God’s peace that keeps us within his will, that lifts from us to alert us when we are straying.  And he protects the little girl from become the centre of the attention of the crowd – a celebrity freak – by giving strict orders not to let anyone know what had happened, v43.


King
That Jesus reveals the kingship of God is seen both in the crowds who gather to see him pass by wherever he went, v21, and in the way he exercises authority over them, issuing orders that are to be obeyed, vv37-39.


Debt
That Jesus represents without distortion God’s kingly role as judge is seen in Jairus (the little girl’s father) falling at his feet and pleading with him, and Jesus going with him, vv22-4; and in the woman, likewise, falling at Jesus’ feet, trembling with fear, and Jesus responding with compassion, vv32-34.  We plead and tremble before one who judges us, who exercises power over us; and discover that our debts – here, debt includes the inability to pay for the healing sought – are not held against us.


Deliverance
Jesus delivers the woman from suffering, v34, and the girl from death, v42 – both of which oppose God’s will and neither of which will have any place in God’s future when his kingdom is fully come.


Unlike Jesus, we cannot reveal and represent God without any distortion; and yet, we are called to reveal God as faithfully as we can and represent him as fully as we are able.  Like Jesus, we are called to embody Covenant relationship and Kingdom responsibility, to live in and to live-out their implications and consequences.

Praying In Exile

Yesterday I posted on the Lord’s Prayer, through which Jesus reveals to us that God is our Father, who provides and protects, and also the King, who cancels our debts and delivers us from his enemies.


Today I want to take a look at Isaiah 40:1-11 (one of the Lectionary readings for this coming Sunday).  The context is this: God’s people are living in exile in Babylon; speaking through his prophet, God tells them that after judgement comes restoration, that they are to prepare to return home, and that the Babylonian empire (along with all other human empires) will not last, whereas God’s promises do.

Isaiah 40: 1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.  3 A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.  4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.  5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people together will see it.  For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’  6 A voice says, ‘Cry out.’  And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’  ‘All people are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.  Surely the people are grass.  8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.’  9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain.  You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’  10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him.  See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.  11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.


How, then, do we live in exile, as God’s people in a post-Christian society?


God is our Father, who provides and protects:


Father
We live knowing that God is our Daddy, who comforts us (v1) and relates to us with tenderness (v2).


Provision
We live knowing that God comes with his reward and his recompense (v10), his abundant provision.


Protection
We live knowing that God gathers us in his arms, carries us close to his heart, and leads us (v11).


God is the King, who cancels our debts and delivers us from his enemies:


King
We live knowing that God is revealed in glory (v5), coming with Sovereign power to exercise rule (v10).


Debts
We live knowing that God has paid our debts, has decreed an end to our debtor’s prison sentence (v2).


Deliverance
We live knowing that these verses as a whole proclaim God’s kingly will to bring his people out of captivity and bring them home.


These words are spoken to a people living in an alien culture, spoken in order to renew their hope, spoken to give birth to faith (Romans 10:17) – which is the concrete expression of hope (Hebrews 11:1), the transformation of potential future into actual present (just as cement mix can become one of many things – a path, a building block, a sculpture – but set concrete is a particular and lasting form).


These words are written down and handed on, in order that they might do the same for us.