Last week James Walters wrote a piece for Leadership Journal
entitled, ‘The
Celestial Con Man’. He described a disappointing experience of God’s call.
He and his wife answered a call to move from North Carolina to the west coast
of the USA, a distance of three thousand miles. The job description was
exciting, but things moved at tortoise pace. Further delays happened, and they
wondered whether to stay. However, they believed God was calling them to stay.
Eventually, the purported project was trialled for a year. It was a success.
But Walters felt deflated. He was exhausted. He resigned, and returned to North
Carolina. That which attracted them to the post wasn’t what they wanted to do
after all. Reflecting upon this, a mentor pointed him to Hosea 2:14:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her
into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her”

He concluded that God ‘allured’ him and his family to move,
but that he had different purposes for them in this ‘wilderness experience’. In
that sense, God had to ‘con’ them in order to fulfil his purposes. The text
that came to my mind as I read the story was Jeremiah 20:7, where the prophet
complains that God has deceived him.

Naturally, this raises many questions, and there has been a wild
variety of responses this week, ranging from the aggressively hostile to
those sympathetic, because they have had similar experiences. In the middle are
those who recognise the experience, but would not use the same terminology.

Certainly, the debate makes me recall certain stories. I
have retold in sermons an account from my first year of training for the
ministry. One evening, after supper, a fellow student collapsed while playing
table tennis. He died soon afterwards. He thought God had called him to the
ministry. The church had concurred. Yet he never made it into the ministry. Did
God ‘allure’ him to follow a call to ministry in order to accomplish something
else that could only be achieved that way? Was it a genuine call, but it went
wrong, because perhaps my friend hadn’t looked after himself properly? (I do
not know, I am speculating.) Was it not a call in the first place, and both my
friend and the church were mistaken? I do remember that this friend had been
uncomfortable about the ease with which the church had accepted his account of
his call. He had been a solicitor. To enter the ministry meant, in financial
terms, knocking a zero off the end of his previous salary. He said the church had
been all too easily impressed with that. They had assumed he would only make a
sacrifice in response to a genuine call. Nobody questioned whether there were
any emotional insecurities behind it.

Or what about another friend of mine? (I tell this story with
permission.) He was asked to look at a particular appointment when moving
circuit. His profile and the circuit’s didn’t match. When he visited the
circuit, the discrepancy became even more apparent, and painfully so. He prayed
about it, but felt strongly led to accept the invitation. The Chair of District
said that certain family concerns would be met. When he arrived, he discovered
that these promises had been based on out-of-date information.

These problems – and other associated ones – are fundamentally
connected with the concept of God calling people. Officially, the Methodist Church
views things differently. The other day, I read a report that contained
recommendations for future policies in stationing our ministers. The Stationing
Review Group pointed out that we don’t speak of God calling ministers to certain appointments; we speak of them being sent (by the Church). At a simple level,
this shifts the blame from God to the Church! Yet we can’t divorce it from the
idea of calling. Ecumenically and evangelically, we have picked up the language
of ‘call’ from other Christian traditions. Perhaps those closest to our sense
of ‘sending’ are the Roman Catholics and the Salvation Army, but Anglicans,
Baptists and URCs seem to be more in the ‘call’ tradition. Furthermore, when
someone ‘candidates’ for presbyteral ministry in the Methodist Church, we
openly speak about their ‘call’ being tested. So it’s not entirely true to say
that we concentrate on sending rather than calling. We begin with the call, and
after that, you are sent.

Somewhere in all of this, we have to deal with a host of
issues. Human fallenness infects the process at every stage. There may be
selfish desires that a minister or circuit translates (sometimes unconsciously)
into a delusion in the writing of their profile. Add to that the stories I have
heard (admittedly third-hand) about how the Stationing Matching Group conducts
its business when trying to match circuits who want a minister with ministers
on the move: the father-in-law of one District Chair has repeatedly told me
accounts that would shake many ordinary Methodists’ pious images of their
leaders, if they are even half-true. However, the report of the Stationing
Review Group (which I quoted in the last paragraph) claims this is by far the
best system we have ever had. However, no perfect system exists, nor will
exist. Nor can we always be sure that the ministers moving and the circuits
looking for new staff will all fit together like a neat jigsaw. And God has not
yet eliminated human sin! When there is a ministry mismatch, it is just as
likely to be one of those imperfections we have to live with in this life.

It may be worth comparing with other spheres of work. In Genesis
2, God means human work to be fulfilling. Come the fall in chapter 3, part of
the curse is that work becomes toil. Might it be that when a call to a ministry
appointment goes wrong, it is another symptom of the same phenomenon? It is
particularly hard to live with, because we expect ministry to be fulfilling. It
can be far from fulfilling, but that does not mean God is absent or mistaken.

At the same time, the Methodist approach of ‘sending’ should
be open to critique. We speak this language within the context of there being a
‘covenant’ between the minister and the church. The minister gives up all sorts
of things to serve the church, and the church provides a stipend and manse. It has
long been presupposed that the minister is available to be stationed anywhere. Increasingly,
ministers have tried to circumscribe this, by saying they are only suitable to
serve in certain types of appointment, or in particular areas of the country. Some
traditional Methodists see this as a betrayal of the covenant.

While I would acknowledge that it is easy to baptise a
personal preference as an aspect of calling, I would be on the side of those
who do not see circumscribing as a fundamental betrayal. At its best, it takes
seriously the denial of the ‘one size fits all’ heresy. Methodism has effectively
believed in the past that once you were trained for the ministry, you could
serve in any station. This is manifestly untrue. It has led to some of the
painful ministry mismatches of the past. It is like a production-line approach
to church and ministry, and for that very reason, we should reject it as
sub-human.

Not only that, we also need to see the link between a
minister’s call and its affect on others beyond the circuit and the minister. I
am thinking here about the issue of caring for elderly relatives. Last year, my
parents moved. They decided they were of an age that they needed to be nearer
family. Knowing that in a few years, we would move from here to another appointment
who knows where, they chose to move near my sister and brother-in-law. Naturally,
however, I want to play my part – even if it is limited – in caring for them. If
we were to move to the other end of the country, then that would presume that
my sister has the ‘call’ to be the primary carer for our parents. The church
would never consult her, though. When we moved to this appointment, this very
issue was tackled in some literature we were sent. We were told not to restrict
our movements by geography for this reason, because you could now get quick,
cheap air flights. So much for caring about climate change, then! And the
Stationing Review Group report I have mentioned twice already suggests higher
stipends for those who will move anywhere. Is that not a pejorative comment
against those who need to restrict their movements? If society talks about a ‘duty
of care’, how much more the Church? And what does the notion of a higher
stipend do to the idea that a stipend is a living allowance, not a ‘rate for
the job’ salary?

Ultimately, as I have already said, there will be ministry
mismatches. That is not to excuse what might be behind them, whether it is a
minister unwilling to accept discipline, a circuit with unreasonable
expectations or a denomination not exercising a duty of care. In different
ways, we all have to live with disappointment with our lives. Expectations are
dashed. Youthful dreams do not all materialise in mid-life. The speaking God
remains silent, or is hard to hear. The purposeful God remains elusive to
sharing what he wants to accomplish. Hindsight – ahem – comes later. In the
midst of these tensions, we have to do what Rob Bell says at the end of a Nooma DVD: we need to settle one question; do we
believe that God is good? If we do, then – in the silence and darkness –
ministers and circuits can wait.

Technorati Tags: Methodist, ministry, JamesWalters, RobBell, Nooma

Tomorrow morning, I take my final Covenant Service of the year. So that will be a repeat of the sermon I posted a fortnight ago. In the evening, I have to preach a fresh sermon. I’ve chosen the morning Lectionary Old Testament lesson. The words, ‘It is too light a thing … ‘ spoke powerfully to me on a personal level. You may see some missional-type thinking in the second of the two points.

Isaiah 49:1-7

Introduction
In 1988, my sister was completing her studies to become an Occupational Therapist. She had to do one final placement. Within reason, she could pick it herself. She chose to go to Rwanda, and work in a missionary hospital for three months.

The experience was a culture shock for her in several ways. She learned the sense of being on African time: that if you made an appointment with a patient at the hospital for Tuesday at 10 a. m., that meant ‘Tuesday – some time’. She discovered the – ahem – excitement of African driving styles, that would put Italians to shame, and on far poorer roads.

But the missionary culture was strange, too. The missionaries lived on a compound, separate from the people they served. Worship was strange. Although African drums called people to worship on Sunday rather than church bells, the service was Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Seventeenth century English for twentieth century Africans!

The biggest shock was something else, though. The missionaries employed servants at the compound. Although it was justified as a way of giving jobs to the locals, she was uneasy. Although she is by nature bossy, she was still uncomfortable!

I guess most of us would feel queasy about having servants, too. It is part of a past that feels a long way away now – except when you meet elderly people today whose first job was ‘in service’. And it’s a long time since ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ was on the TV to remind us of a past age.

We have a big bridge to cross, every time we hear ‘servant’ as an image of discipleship in the Bible. And it looms large in this part of Isaiah. These verses from chapter 49 are one of several so-called ‘Servant Songs’. They appear to come from the time when God’s people had been exiled in Babylon for many years, but are now only a decade or two away from liberation and return. As the prophet brings his message of hope, ‘servant’ is a regular metaphor he uses for the relationship between humans and God. To some extent, he applies it to himself, to the people of God and to the longed-for Messiah. To that list, we would add ourselves.

Being a servant of the Lord has similarities with, and differences from the general notion of servanthood or slavery. Yes, to serve God puts us ‘under orders’. We don’t have the right to negotiate our terms with God, however much we try at times. But at the same time, God treats us with dignity and love, to the point that Jesus told his disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants but friends.’ And he did this, because he invited them in on his plans, unlike a master and a servant.

And our passage is one of encouragement for God’s servant. Although the servant knows he has a gift with words (his mouth is like a sharp sword, and he is like an arrow hidden in a quiver, verse 2) and that he is called the Lord’s servant (verse 3), nevertheless we then hear:

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,
   I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
   and my reward with my God.’ (Verse 4)

Sometimes in the Christian life, you can think, what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Whatever I do, it achieves nothing. I’ve wasted my time. Is that ever your experience? It is mine, from time to time. So how does God encourage discouraged servants? There are many ways, but I see two in this reading:

1. A Renewed Call
Straight after the expression of despair comes a recapitulation of the servant’s call:

And now the Lord says,
   who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
   and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
   and my God has become my strength— (verse 5).

Before the new word comes, there is a reminder of the old word. God called the servant to bring Jacob (Israel) back to him. The initial call is a call to God’s people. In bringing them back to God, it is a pastoral and prophetic call. It is the call that prophets answered over centuries to speak God’s word to God’s people. That is why this prophet has ‘a mouth like a sharp sword’ and is like an arrow hidden in a quiver. There is a challenging word to be given to the people of God. In calling people back to the Lord, it is inevitably a call to repentance. It is a word that describes how far people have gone from God, how he longs for them to return, and what that will involve. It is a ministry fulfilled many times in Scripture: Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, John the Baptist and others.

Oh yes, and someone called Jesus. He lived his entire life within the boundaries of the Promised Land. The vast majority of the people to whom he ministered were Jews, not Gentiles. (There are occasional exceptions, such as the centurion who showed true faith and the Gentile leper who returned to give thanks.) He told the Syro-Phoenician woman who was desperate for healing that his focus was on the people of God.

And the content of what he said? Not all of it could fall under the heading, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. Alongside all the good news for the poor, the healings and other miracles, come stern words for the rich and the religious leadership. His parables of the kingdom challenge people to decision about following him. If you had Jesus in your church, then it might not all be the comfortable ride you had anticipated.

And down the centuries since then, God has called people in his church to bring them back to himself. The apostle Peter said that judgment begins with the house of God. Our witness is at stake, and so messengers are sent to us with a burden for the repentance of the Church.

Certainly, the most vigorous Local Preacher in my home circuit was an elderly Welshman, John Evill. I remember what today we would call his catchphrases – not that he would have stooped to something so trivial: ‘Do you believe it?’ He didn’t mean, do you assent to this in your mind? He meant, do you show you believe this by the way you live? He also used to say, ‘I only challenge you after first challenging myself.’ As a young church steward, I recall once in the vestry before a service asking him to ‘give it to us with both barrels’.

Perhaps that isn’t the best metaphor, and yes as a young Christian, I could say all sorts of reckless things, but I think John’s ministry had modelled something for me: responsible Gospel preaching doesn’t simply give people strokes. So much is at stake. How easily we drift in our commitment, we preachers included. John Evill knew that. As the old hymn puts it, ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.’ But the call to repentance from the God of grace needs to be issued continually. And it can sap one’s hope to show people the ways in which they may be raised up, only for them not to do what is healthy for them. It can indeed be discouraging to keep preaching that way, when there isn’t always a positive response. But God renews the call, because it is vital.

2. An Extended Call
Now here’s the strange twist in the tail: the servant is discouraged, and God renews the call to restore the people of God. Surely, that’s enough? It sounds like a hard task. But that isn’t how God describes it:

he says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
   to raise up the tribes of Jacob
   and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
   that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (Verse 6)

The heavy and sometimes discouraging responsibility of restoring God’s people is said to be ‘too light a thing’! But here we have it: God’s call to his servant is not merely to work within the church, it is to serve him in the world. ‘I will give you as a light to the nations,’ God says. You will be my witnesses not merely among my people, but to others.

Again, the Old Testament prophets often reflected this. Much of their message was directed to Israel, but there were also oracles to or about the nations. The bigger problem was whether the nation of Israel fulfilled her call to be a light to the nations. Many think the story of Jonah, with his reluctance to go where God sent him, and his grumpiness when he got there, even when Nineveh repented, is a message aimed at Israel’s reluctance.

And while Jesus’ ministry was geographically confined within national borders, he knew the outcome would be a movement that began at Pentecost in Jerusalem and swept through Judea, to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts gives us some early highlights of that process.

It means there is a twin call for the Church today. The call to build up the people of God through calls to repentance and the exercise of pastoral care remains, and is renewed for us. But it is too light a call on its own. We too hear the call to be ‘a light to the nations’. It is equally important. The faithful church of Jesus Christ is committed both to inward renewal and to outward witness.

During a sabbatical five years ago, Debbie and I worshipped at the local Baptist church. When the pastor (who was a friend of ours) preached, the sermons were worthwhile. When others preached, you could not be so sure. On one occasion, a deacon preached. He clearly fancied himself as an evangelical superstar, prancing and prowling from one side of the platform to the other as he dispensed his wisdom on the grateful congregation. His priceless pearl was when he told us that Christians would always care about how you really are, whereas non-Christians will ask how you are but never mean it. Debbie and I looked at each other in disbelief, knowing very well some good friendships with non-Christians.

It has been our joy, too, here, to build friendships with non-Christians. It is our privilege to pray for them when they are in need. Indeed, there have been times when – contrary to the Baptist deacon – it has been more refreshing to spend time with non-Christians than church people! Then it seems ‘too light a thing to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel’. It is an honour to invite the widow for a coffee, and support the worried mother whose son is under Great Ormond Street. We do this because of our faith, and our friends are under no illusions about that. And we pray that the opportunity will come to be more explicit about what Jesus can do for them.

Yesterday afternoon, Mark and I killed some time in the children’s department of Waterstone’s while Debbie took Rebekah for a treat at Claire’s Accessories. As we wandered around, there was a couple with their primary-age son. He was choosing a book. He picked up a children’s Bible. ‘What do you want a Bible for, weird boy?’ said his mother. ‘Why don’t you get something on dragonology?’

So there you go – ‘dragonology’ – or whatever the proper name is – is less weird than the Bible. Being a light to the nations will risk the accusation of being weird. But it is our high and holy calling to take that risk, alongside what we might feel more comfortable doing, restoring ‘the survivors of Israel’.

Technorati Tags: OccupationalTherapy, Rwanda, missionaries, BookOfCommonPrayer, servants, UpstairsDownstairs, Isaiah, ServantSongs, JohnEvill, GreatOrmondStreet, Waterstone’s, Claire’sAccessories

Tomorrow morning, I take my final Covenant Service of the year. So that will be a repeat of the sermon I posted a fortnight ago. In the evening, I have to preach a fresh sermon. I’ve chosen the morning Lectionary Old Testament lesson. The words, ‘It is too light a thing … ‘ spoke powerfully to me on a personal level. You may see some missional-type thinking in the second of the two points.

Isaiah 49:1-7

Introduction
In 1988, my sister was completing her studies to become an Occupational Therapist. She had to do one final placement. Within reason, she could pick it herself. She chose to go to Rwanda, and work in a missionary hospital for three months.

The experience was a culture shock for her in several ways. She learned the sense of being on African time: that if you made an appointment with a patient at the hospital for Tuesday at 10 a. m., that meant ‘Tuesday – some time’. She discovered the – ahem – excitement of African driving styles, that would put Italians to shame, and on far poorer roads.

But the missionary culture was strange, too. The missionaries lived on a compound, separate from the people they served. Worship was strange. Although African drums called people to worship on Sunday rather than church bells, the service was Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Seventeenth century English for twentieth century Africans!

The biggest shock was something else, though. The missionaries employed servants at the compound. Although it was justified as a way of giving jobs to the locals, she was uneasy. Although she is by nature bossy, she was still uncomfortable!

I guess most of us would feel queasy about having servants, too. It is part of a past that feels a long way away now – except when you meet elderly people today whose first job was ‘in service’. And it’s a long time since ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ was on the TV to remind us of a past age.

We have a big bridge to cross, every time we hear ‘servant’ as an image of discipleship in the Bible. And it looms large in this part of Isaiah. These verses from chapter 49 are one of several so-called ‘Servant Songs’. They appear to come from the time when God’s people had been exiled in Babylon for many years, but are now only a decade or two away from liberation and return. As the prophet brings his message of hope, ‘servant’ is a regular metaphor he uses for the relationship between humans and God. To some extent, he applies it to himself, to the people of God and to the longed-for Messiah. To that list, we would add ourselves.

Being a servant of the Lord has similarities with, and differences from the general notion of servanthood or slavery. Yes, to serve God puts us ‘under orders’. We don’t have the right to negotiate our terms with God, however much we try at times. But at the same time, God treats us with dignity and love, to the point that Jesus told his disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants but friends.’ And he did this, because he invited them in on his plans, unlike a master and a servant.

And our passage is one of encouragement for God’s servant. Although the servant knows he has a gift with words (his mouth is like a sharp sword, and he is like an arrow hidden in a quiver, verse 2) and that he is called the Lord’s servant (verse 3), nevertheless we then hear:

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,
   I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
   and my reward with my God.’ (Verse 4)

Sometimes in the Christian life, you can think, what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Whatever I do, it achieves nothing. I’ve wasted my time. Is that ever your experience? It is mine, from time to time. So how does God encourage discouraged servants? There are many ways, but I see two in this reading:

1. A Renewed Call
Straight after the expression of despair comes a recapitulation of the servant’s call:

And now the Lord says,
   who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
   and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
   and my God has become my strength— (verse 5).

Before the new word comes, there is a reminder of the old word. God called the servant to bring Jacob (Israel) back to him. The initial call is a call to God’s people. In bringing them back to God, it is a pastoral and prophetic call. It is the call that prophets answered over centuries to speak God’s word to God’s people. That is why this prophet has ‘a mouth like a sharp sword’ and is like an arrow hidden in a quiver. There is a challenging word to be given to the people of God. In calling people back to the Lord, it is inevitably a call to repentance. It is a word that describes how far people have gone from God, how he longs for them to return, and what that will involve. It is a ministry fulfilled many times in Scripture: Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, John the Baptist and others.

Oh yes, and someone called Jesus. He lived his entire life within the boundaries of the Promised Land. The vast majority of the people to whom he ministered were Jews, not Gentiles. (There are occasional exceptions, such as the centurion who showed true faith and the Gentile leper who returned to give thanks.) He told the Syro-Phoenician woman who was desperate for healing that his focus was on the people of God.

And the content of what he said? Not all of it could fall under the heading, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. Alongside all the good news for the poor, the healings and other miracles, come stern words for the rich and the religious leadership. His parables of the kingdom challenge people to decision about following him. If you had Jesus in your church, then it might not all be the comfortable ride you had anticipated.

And down the centuries since then, God has called people in his church to bring them back to himself. The apostle Peter said that judgment begins with the house of God. Our witness is at stake, and so messengers are sent to us with a burden for the repentance of the Church.

Certainly, the most vigorous Local Preacher in my home circuit was an elderly Welshman, John Evill. I remember what today we would call his catchphrases – not that he would have stooped to something so trivial: ‘Do you believe it?’ He didn’t mean, do you assent to this in your mind? He meant, do you show you believe this by the way you live? He also used to say, ‘I only challenge you after first challenging myself.’ As a young church steward, I recall once in the vestry before a service asking him to ‘give it to us with both barrels’.

Perhaps that isn’t the best metaphor, and yes as a young Christian, I could say all sorts of reckless things, but I think John’s ministry had modelled something for me: responsible Gospel preaching doesn’t simply give people strokes. So much is at stake. How easily we drift in our commitment, we preachers included. John Evill knew that. As the old hymn puts it, ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.’ But the call to repentance from the God of grace needs to be issued continually. And it can sap one’s hope to show people the ways in which they may be raised up, only for them not to do what is healthy for them. It can indeed be discouraging to keep preaching that way, when there isn’t always a positive response. But God renews the call, because it is vital.

2. An Extended Call
Now here’s the strange twist in the tail: the servant is discouraged, and God renews the call to restore the people of God. Surely, that’s enough? It sounds like a hard task. But that isn’t how God describes it:

he says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
   to raise up the tribes of Jacob
   and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
   that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (Verse 6)

The heavy and sometimes discouraging responsibility of restoring God’s people is said to be ‘too light a thing’! But here we have it: God’s call to his servant is not merely to work within the church, it is to serve him in the world. ‘I will give you as a light to the nations,’ God says. You will be my witnesses not merely among my people, but to others.

Again, the Old Testament prophets often reflected this. Much of their message was directed to Israel, but there were also oracles to or about the nations. The bigger problem was whether the nation of Israel fulfilled her call to be a light to the nations. Many think the story of Jonah, with his reluctance to go where God sent him, and his grumpiness when he got there, even when Nineveh repented, is a message aimed at Israel’s reluctance.

And while Jesus’ ministry was geographically confined within national borders, he knew the outcome would be a movement that began at Pentecost in Jerusalem and swept through Judea, to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts gives us some early highlights of that process.

It means there is a twin call for the Church today. The call to build up the people of God through calls to repentance and the exercise of pastoral care remains, and is renewed for us. But it is too light a call on its own. We too hear the call to be ‘a light to the nations’. It is equally important. The faithful church of Jesus Christ is committed both to inward renewal and to outward witness.

During a sabbatical five years ago, Debbie and I worshipped at the local Baptist church. When the pastor (who was a friend of ours) preached, the sermons were worthwhile. When others preached, you could not be so sure. On one occasion, a deacon preached. He clearly fancied himself as an evangelical superstar, prancing and prowling from one side of the platform to the other as he dispensed his wisdom on the grateful congregation. His priceless pearl was when he told us that Christians would always care about how you really are, whereas non-Christians will ask how you are but never mean it. Debbie and I looked at each other in disbelief, knowing very well some good friendships with non-Christians.

It has been our joy, too, here, to build friendships with non-Christians. It is our privilege to pray for them when they are in need. Indeed, there have been times when – contrary to the Baptist deacon – it has been more refreshing to spend time with non-Christians than church people! Then it seems ‘too light a thing to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel’. It is an honour to invite the widow for a coffee, and support the worried mother whose son is under Great Ormond Street. We do this because of our faith, and our friends are under no illusions about that. And we pray that the opportunity will come to be more explicit about what Jesus can do for them.

Yesterday afternoon, Mark and I killed some time in the children’s department of Waterstone’s while Debbie took Rebekah for a treat at Claire’s Accessories. As we wandered around, there was a couple with their primary-age son. He was choosing a book. He picked up a children’s Bible. ‘What do you want a Bible for, weird boy?’ said his mother. ‘Why don’t you get something on dragonology?’

So there you go – ‘dragonology’ – or whatever the proper name is – is less weird than the Bible. Being a light to the nations will risk the accusation of being weird. But it is our high and holy calling to take that risk, alongside what we might feel more comfortable doing, restoring ‘the survivors of Israel’.

Technorati Tags: OccupationalTherapy, Rwanda, missionaries, BookOfCommonPrayer, servants, UpstairsDownstairs, Isaiah, ServantSongs, JohnEvill, GreatOrmondStreet, Waterstone’s, Claire’sAccessories

Tomorrow morning, I take my final Covenant Service of the year. So that will be a repeat of the sermon I posted a fortnight ago. In the evening, I have to preach a fresh sermon. I’ve chosen the morning Lectionary Old Testament lesson. The words, ‘It is too light a thing … ‘ spoke powerfully to me on a personal level. You may see some missional-type thinking in the second of the two points.

Isaiah 49:1-7

Introduction
In 1988, my sister was completing her studies to become an Occupational Therapist. She had to do one final placement. Within reason, she could pick it herself. She chose to go to Rwanda, and work in a missionary hospital for three months.

The experience was a culture shock for her in several ways. She learned the sense of being on African time: that if you made an appointment with a patient at the hospital for Tuesday at 10 a. m., that meant ‘Tuesday – some time’. She discovered the – ahem – excitement of African driving styles, that would put Italians to shame, and on far poorer roads.

But the missionary culture was strange, too. The missionaries lived on a compound, separate from the people they served. Worship was strange. Although African drums called people to worship on Sunday rather than church bells, the service was Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Seventeenth century English for twentieth century Africans!

The biggest shock was something else, though. The missionaries employed servants at the compound. Although it was justified as a way of giving jobs to the locals, she was uneasy. Although she is by nature bossy, she was still uncomfortable!

I guess most of us would feel queasy about having servants, too. It is part of a past that feels a long way away now – except when you meet elderly people today whose first job was ‘in service’. And it’s a long time since ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ was on the TV to remind us of a past age.

We have a big bridge to cross, every time we hear ‘servant’ as an image of discipleship in the Bible. And it looms large in this part of Isaiah. These verses from chapter 49 are one of several so-called ‘Servant Songs’. They appear to come from the time when God’s people had been exiled in Babylon for many years, but are now only a decade or two away from liberation and return. As the prophet brings his message of hope, ‘servant’ is a regular metaphor he uses for the relationship between humans and God. To some extent, he applies it to himself, to the people of God and to the longed-for Messiah. To that list, we would add ourselves.

Being a servant of the Lord has similarities with, and differences from the general notion of servanthood or slavery. Yes, to serve God puts us ‘under orders’. We don’t have the right to negotiate our terms with God, however much we try at times. But at the same time, God treats us with dignity and love, to the point that Jesus told his disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants but friends.’ And he did this, because he invited them in on his plans, unlike a master and a servant.

And our passage is one of encouragement for God’s servant. Although the servant knows he has a gift with words (his mouth is like a sharp sword, and he is like an arrow hidden in a quiver, verse 2) and that he is called the Lord’s servant (verse 3), nevertheless we then hear:

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,
   I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
   and my reward with my God.’ (Verse 4)

Sometimes in the Christian life, you can think, what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Whatever I do, it achieves nothing. I’ve wasted my time. Is that ever your experience? It is mine, from time to time. So how does God encourage discouraged servants? There are many ways, but I see two in this reading:

1. A Renewed Call
Straight after the expression of despair comes a recapitulation of the servant’s call:

And now the Lord says,
   who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
   and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
   and my God has become my strength— (verse 5).

Before the new word comes, there is a reminder of the old word. God called the servant to bring Jacob (Israel) back to him. The initial call is a call to God’s people. In bringing them back to God, it is a pastoral and prophetic call. It is the call that prophets answered over centuries to speak God’s word to God’s people. That is why this prophet has ‘a mouth like a sharp sword’ and is like an arrow hidden in a quiver. There is a challenging word to be given to the people of God. In calling people back to the Lord, it is inevitably a call to repentance. It is a word that describes how far people have gone from God, how he longs for them to return, and what that will involve. It is a ministry fulfilled many times in Scripture: Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, John the Baptist and others.

Oh yes, and someone called Jesus. He lived his entire life within the boundaries of the Promised Land. The vast majority of the people to whom he ministered were Jews, not Gentiles. (There are occasional exceptions, such as the centurion who showed true faith and the Gentile leper who returned to give thanks.) He told the Syro-Phoenician woman who was desperate for healing that his focus was on the people of God.

And the content of what he said? Not all of it could fall under the heading, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. Alongside all the good news for the poor, the healings and other miracles, come stern words for the rich and the religious leadership. His parables of the kingdom challenge people to decision about following him. If you had Jesus in your church, then it might not all be the comfortable ride you had anticipated.

And down the centuries since then, God has called people in his church to bring them back to himself. The apostle Peter said that judgment begins with the house of God. Our witness is at stake, and so messengers are sent to us with a burden for the repentance of the Church.

Certainly, the most vigorous Local Preacher in my home circuit was an elderly Welshman, John Evill. I remember what today we would call his catchphrases – not that he would have stooped to something so trivial: ‘Do you believe it?’ He didn’t mean, do you assent to this in your mind? He meant, do you show you believe this by the way you live? He also used to say, ‘I only challenge you after first challenging myself.’ As a young church steward, I recall once in the vestry before a service asking him to ‘give it to us with both barrels’.

Perhaps that isn’t the best metaphor, and yes as a young Christian, I could say all sorts of reckless things, but I think John’s ministry had modelled something for me: responsible Gospel preaching doesn’t simply give people strokes. So much is at stake. How easily we drift in our commitment, we preachers included. John Evill knew that. As the old hymn puts it, ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.’ But the call to repentance from the God of grace needs to be issued continually. And it can sap one’s hope to show people the ways in which they may be raised up, only for them not to do what is healthy for them. It can indeed be discouraging to keep preaching that way, when there isn’t always a positive response. But God renews the call, because it is vital.

2. An Extended Call
Now here’s the strange twist in the tail: the servant is discouraged, and God renews the call to restore the people of God. Surely, that’s enough? It sounds like a hard task. But that isn’t how God describes it:

he says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
   to raise up the tribes of Jacob
   and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
   that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (Verse 6)

The heavy and sometimes discouraging responsibility of restoring God’s people is said to be ‘too light a thing’! But here we have it: God’s call to his servant is not merely to work within the church, it is to serve him in the world. ‘I will give you as a light to the nations,’ God says. You will be my witnesses not merely among my people, but to others.

Again, the Old Testament prophets often reflected this. Much of their message was directed to Israel, but there were also oracles to or about the nations. The bigger problem was whether the nation of Israel fulfilled her call to be a light to the nations. Many think the story of Jonah, with his reluctance to go where God sent him, and his grumpiness when he got there, even when Nineveh repented, is a message aimed at Israel’s reluctance.

And while Jesus’ ministry was geographically confined within national borders, he knew the outcome would be a movement that began at Pentecost in Jerusalem and swept through Judea, to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts gives us some early highlights of that process.

It means there is a twin call for the Church today. The call to build up the people of God through calls to repentance and the exercise of pastoral care remains, and is renewed for us. But it is too light a call on its own. We too hear the call to be ‘a light to the nations’. It is equally important. The faithful church of Jesus Christ is committed both to inward renewal and to outward witness.

During a sabbatical five years ago, Debbie and I worshipped at the local Baptist church. When the pastor (who was a friend of ours) preached, the sermons were worthwhile. When others preached, you could not be so sure. On one occasion, a deacon preached. He clearly fancied himself as an evangelical superstar, prancing and prowling from one side of the platform to the other as he dispensed his wisdom on the grateful congregation. His priceless pearl was when he told us that Christians would always care about how you really are, whereas non-Christians will ask how you are but never mean it. Debbie and I looked at each other in disbelief, knowing very well some good friendships with non-Christians.

It has been our joy, too, here, to build friendships with non-Christians. It is our privilege to pray for them when they are in need. Indeed, there have been times when – contrary to the Baptist deacon – it has been more refreshing to spend time with non-Christians than church people! Then it seems ‘too light a thing to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel’. It is an honour to invite the widow for a coffee, and support the worried mother whose son is under Great Ormond Street. We do this because of our faith, and our friends are under no illusions about that. And we pray that the opportunity will come to be more explicit about what Jesus can do for them.

Yesterday afternoon, Mark and I killed some time in the children’s department of Waterstone’s while Debbie took Rebekah for a treat at Claire’s Accessories. As we wandered around, there was a couple with their primary-age son. He was choosing a book. He picked up a children’s Bible. ‘What do you want a Bible for, weird boy?’ said his mother. ‘Why don’t you get something on dragonology?’

So there you go – ‘dragonology’ – or whatever the proper name is – is less weird than the Bible. Being a light to the nations will risk the accusation of being weird. But it is our high and holy calling to take that risk, alongside what we might feel more comfortable doing, restoring ‘the survivors of Israel’.

Technorati Tags: OccupationalTherapy, Rwanda, missionaries, BookOfCommonPrayer, servants, UpstairsDownstairs, Isaiah, ServantSongs, JohnEvill, GreatOrmondStreet, Waterstone’s, Claire’sAccessories

This weekend, I am surrounded by death. Yesterday, I travelled
back to Medway. I attended the funeral of my dear friend Bran Griffith. He was
only 51. An early death wasn’t unexpected. He suffered terrible back problems,
caused by radiation damage. He had had radiotherapy for cancer in his youth. He
also had serious heart trouble. Three days before Christmas, he fell down the
stairs at home, and died instantly. Hundreds of us thronged to St Paul’s,
Parkwood yesterday, to remember a man, who, in the face of enormous pain,
radiated the most wonderful faith. He was gentle, humorous, uncomplaining and a
man of strong principle. His career as a social worker cut short by his
ill-health, his very character blessed innumerable people. In my case, Bran and
his wife Nikkii welcomed me to their home many times, especially when I was
single. The speaker who referred to his Caribbean chicken brought back
particular memories for me, as three times in the service I mopped up tears.

As I arrived home, my wife was coming off the phone. A church
member who had been in a home with, I guess, some form of dementia had passed
away. I rushed to see her husband. Despite lights and television clearly being
on, he couldn’t have heard my two rings at the doorbell.

This morning, we bury the ashes of my Church Council
secretary, who died two days before Christmas. I am writing this as I prepare
for that ceremony, praying that the wind and rain might subside for a
particular five minutes.

You could say it is the time of year. One month between November
and February each winter seems to have the highest concentration of deaths. You
could say it is part of the minister’s lot, and you would be right. It makes me
feel like many elderly people, who speak of how they go from one funeral to
another, from the loss of one friend to the death of another relative. All of
this would be true. What I do know is, it’s making me snappy with my family as I
attempt to process my own grief, as I think of one widow after fifteen years of
marriage, and two widowers who spent over fifty years with their wives.

But as I have sat reading prayers, ready for this morning’s
interment, I have been struck again by one inadequacy in Methodist death
liturgy. In the funeral service we pray, ‘May your Holy Spirit lift us above
our sorrow, to the peace and light of your constant love’. In the interment
service, there is a similar petition: ‘Lift us from the darkness of grief into
the light of your presence’.

What is my problem? Is it that I don’t want people to be
delivered from grief? Of course not. I do. It is a problem of timing. We are
still in the journey of grief at this point. Many who are bereaved will still
be on that journey for the rest of their lives. I want to experience God’s
peace and light within my grief. After
all, my grief is a sign of my love. I grieve, because I can no longer express
my love for the one who is gone. I don’t want to diminish the resurrection hope
for one second, but I am wondering about rewording the prayers. Would you make
any changes? If so, what, and if not, why?

Technorati Tags: death, bereavement, ministry, Methodist