People of the Book



an exercise in missing the point

This post from ASBO Jesus is great for reminding us that our first love is a relationship with Jesus.  I've heard far too many times that our only way of knowing who Jesus is, is from the Bible.  But even the Pharisees couldn't work out what God was like from simply being those who read the Scriptures...

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. JOHN 5.39,40

So how do we as evangelical Christians, those who love Scripture, those who believe that this book is a radical life-changing story that can and should impact our faith journey, be those who know how to come to Jesus, through and, dare I say it, beyond, Scripture?

What is it that makes some look at Scripture and proclaim goodness in apartheid, slavery, oppression of women, and others think that the Scripture (as currently understood at that time) is wrong. Those of us who love Scripture and believe that it cannot be ultimately instructing us to do wrong things, find a way around this.  We either take to a literal interpretation come hell or high water, or we decide that it is the predominant interpretation which is wrong, that Scripture needs looking at again because we've misunderstood it.

I confess that this is my approach.  But I think we all have to come to the reality, at some point, that we have to assess where our assessments of what we think the Bible says, are coming from.  It is my somehow intangible strange confusing wonderful unpindownable relationship with Jesus which tells me that I simply cannot think that the Bible says it's ok to buy and sell people.  But I still want to go to the Bible and say, 'Look, See, the Word of Life'.

How does that kind of approach not become horribly individualistic and relativistic?  The Bible says what I think it does.  Do you know - I don't know.  How did the new approach to the Scriptures of a small bunch of 1st Century Palestinians grow and spread like wildfire?

I suppose it has something to do with community - that Jesus is present in me by the Holy Spirit, but is also present in the community I commit to.  It has something to do with prayer - real deep contemplative basking in God's presence prayer, not the kind that is a bit of a shopping list, or asking God to change all the people that we don't like so that they become more like us.  It must have something to do with spending time with the people that Jesus would have spent time with; the sad, confused, poor and sinful.  It's getting to know the voice of God that whispers on the wind, so that we choose the right thing, even when there's not a Bible reference to back it up.

I think Scripture is wonderful, but our God is beyond them..oh yes God is (before you leap)....and how we figure out this life with God, together with the story of God that is captured in Scripture, is part of joy of this life of discipleship.

learning the art of watching and being entirely pointless

so here i am. ordained. there is a whole ministry stretched out in front of me and i don't have a clue what it is going to look like. this is good.

God is the God of suprises. i could never have imagined any of this for myself. in fact if i could have i probably would have run away....at least initially. as it is, this is the only thing that i can imagine myself doing. and yet the exact details are veiled.

at college the primary metaphor that was given to me about being ordained, was to be a manager. manage the services, manage the people, manage the parish. yeuch, no thanks. but there was also this lingering idea (i think it comes from the mission shaped church report) that as ministers of the gospel, we should be watching. watching for what God is doing....and then joining in with that. this is one of those phrases which is, to be honest, bandied around without anyone having the slightest clue what it actually means. i mean, what does it 'look' like...to watch for God?

simeon watched for God. was his ministry any less meaningful because he had to wait til the end of his life for the thing that he was watching for? or did the faithful daily completing of his work, day in, day out, give him the eyes that he needed to see when God did the thing he was waiting for?

i want to be the kind of ordained person who is patient and who can see what is going on, when what is 'going on' isn't necessarily on the surface, laid bare, clear. i'm not sure that i'm naturally a patient person, not when i can see what needs doing, but sometimes what needs doing is to wait and watch.

these are the things that are not taught in college. perhaps they can't be, perhaps there are things that cannot be taught. there's a lot of panic going on at the moment about fees and money and how the theological colleges will continue in this particular educational climate. personally i think that theological education is all very well, i definitely think that people presenting themselves for ordination should put themselves through a theology degree, but......

who will teach us the art of watching for God?

those of us ordained this petertide (that's this summer for those who don't speak in anachronistic language....) are now to go out into the world that needs God, in order to be those who speak 'God', who see God in the dark corners of our communities and point God out to those communities and have those communities point out God to us. but how are we to do that? where do we begin? how do we know what is God and what is our own minds, conjuring up the safest or most comfortable delusion about the God of our own imaginings?

the art of watching for God is not new. it did not arrive with the mission shaped church report. the art of watching for God is ancient.

it is called prayer.

in the climate of financial turmoil that the colleges are going through, whilst many are looking to diversify, building projects multiply and the next couple of decades are looked to be managed, will there be those who are part of the training of priests, who will teach us how to watch for God? teach us how to pray?

this is the moment! will they grasp it? i often said at college, that i really could have done with 2 years of prayer. being taught by those who pray. learning the art of listening. i know that it sounds naive. i used to joke about it. but i don't think i was joking. if i was teaching people to be ministers of God's people, ministers of the Gospel, i'd ask them to come having done their academic training, and then i would teach them to pray. for 2 years. at least.

so many young guys come to theological college having been in a career where they were quite successful and they are taught by people like them....and they are handed comfort blankets - ways to manage the congregation, the parish, the building project, the community partners. these are ways of saying that this is a 'job' that you just have to figure out how to do... and it's ok, because the tools are the same as the 'job' you just came out of.

i yearned for people to say, more often....at all?....that this is the most ridiculous job in the world and we don't know what we are doing...or rather we know what we are trying to do, but have no idea how to do it!

it is so easy, as an ordained person, to get frightened by the need to be doing, to be seen to be doing, and to be able to produce a product in order to be recognised as successful. whether your product is an ever expanding congregation, a new programme, a course or a very full diary. the pressure is on to have something in your hand to show what the point of you is.

so, at the start (which is really the middle), here i am....committed to learning the art of watching for God, stepping into the stream of the ancients who have gone before me, and perhaps being part of the story that will be told after me.

and so being willing to be unseen, willing to have nothing to show for my presence, and happily finding myself utterly and completely.....pointless.

the point

i was reminded today of something which spoke to me so strongly when i was exploring a call to ministry. it spoke of what it means to be a minister, a pastor. i needed it today because i had one of those days where you wonder if you're losing the plot, or whether God really does want you to 'feed his sheep'.

it's an adaptation of samuel moor shoemaker's 'an apologia for my life' - it says more than i can ever say about my own personal sense of call, but if i was to put it somehow, much more briefly, in my own words, i would say this:

i want be with those who don't know of jesus, who feel lost, who need a signpost

i want to be with those who live their lives in such a way that there may be nothing left when they are refined in the fire, when all the dross is gone, they will be gone too, who need a light in the darkness

i want to be with those who are following an unknown god, who live lives of compassion and justice, of the way of the cross, who have not yet known the name 'jesus', who need to hear the name

i want to be with those who seek and who do not find, whose journey only moves towards God because there are those who will walk with them, who need a companion

i want to be with those who have a sneaky suspicion that those freaky christians have something, but are frightened, who need someone who will leap off the cliff with them

i want to be with those who have journeyed longer than me, who are wounded and who want to turn around and go back, or find a different path, who need someone who will listen (often) and talk (little)

i want to be with those who will be with me, yes, in the joy and goodness, but also when i am lost, when i can't find jesus in the crap of life, when i find God is silent, when i cling to the cliff with no intention of leaping off, when i am hurt and sad

____________________________________________

samuel moor shoemaker says it like this:

i stand by the door.
i neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
the door is the most important door in the world –
it is the door through which men and women walk when they find God.
there’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
when so many are still outside and they, as much as i,
crave to know where the door is.
and all that so many ever find is only the wall where a door ought to be.

they creep along the wall like blind men,
with outstretched, groping hands.
feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
yet they never find it…
so i stand by the door.

the most tremendous thing in the world
is for people to find that door-the door to God.
the most important thing any person can do
is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
and put it on the latch-the latch that only clicks
and opens to the individual’s own touch.
people die outside that door, as starving beggars die
on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter-
die for want of what is within their grasp.
they live, on the other side of it-live because they have not found it.
nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
and open it, and walk in, and find Him…
so i stand by the door.
go in, great saints, go all the way in-
go way down into the cavernous cellars,
and way up into the spacious attics-
it is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
go into the deepest of hidden casements,
of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
some must inhabit those inner rooms,
and know the depths and heights of God,

and call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
sometimes i take a deeper look in,
sometimes venture in a little farther;
but my place seems closer to the opening…
so i stand by the door.

there is another reason why i stand there.
some people get part way in and become afraid
lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
for God is so very great, and asks all of us.
and these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
and want to get out. “let me out!” they cry.
and the people way inside only terrify them more.
somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
for the old life, they have seen too much:
once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
somebody must be watching for the frightened
who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
to tell them how much better it is inside.

the people too far in do not see how near these are
to leaving-preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
but would like to run away. so for them too,
i stand by the door.
i admire the people who go way in.
but i wish they would not forget how it was
before they got in. then they would be able to help
the people who have not yet even found the door,
or the people who want to run away again from God.
you can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
and forget the people outside the door.
as for me, i shall take my old accustomed place,
near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
but not so far from men and women as not to hear them,
and remember they are there, too.
where? outside the door-
thousands of them, millions of them.
but-more important for me-
one of them, two of them, ten of them,
whose hands i am intended to put on the latch.
so i shall stand by the door and wait
for those who seek it.
“i had rather be a door-keeper…”
So i stand by the door.

today creed

rachel tagged me to take part in a creed meme that started here and i decided to do one that is a very specific contemporary one - because in the last three months we've known sickness and because today my friend's husband lost his job and because sometimes we get tired and just need a friend. it isn't one for always, it is for today.
__________________________________________

we believe in God
the healer of healers
master above masters
friend of friends

she is beyond
she is above
she is with
she is Father Son Spirit

i tag dennis, maggi, jon

indeed

prophecy contd

I am going away for a few days, I may have a chance to post, but may not, but I will keep a notebook of my pictures, words etc and let you know how it goes.

today they were:

1. the words 'beloved children'
2. a flower growing extra quickly, like those speeded up videos on nature programs - 'as one untimely born'
3. an iceberg with a little boat maneouvering around it

creative pray-er

jonny put me on to this website which seems like a great resource.

enjoy :-)