Category: Music

Podcasts

Most mornings I go for a walk after the school run. As I stride out, I gaze upon the architectural wonder of our 1980s housing estate.

No, that isn’t the reason. It’s blood pressure. Longstanding friends will know how I used to have a dog. While he was still vigorous, he used to take me for a daily walk. He was a lively, if obscure breed in this country – a Finnish Spitz. When he died three years ago, I started putting on weight. Eventually, a medical paid for by the church nearly two years ago raised concerns. To cut a long story (largely filled with my procrastination) short, my prescription is mild medication and regular brisk walks.

But how to make the walks interesting? I decided that an MP3 player would make it worthwhile. Not being able to stretch to an iPod (or at least, not to the 160GB model I would have wanted for my CD collection), I bought a phone with an MP3 player.

Unfortunately, the Sony Ericsson W810i is a pain in the neck, despite outstanding reviews. The software on the PC always crashes, and SE technical support tried to blame other software I had installed (not that they could say which). When you transfer CDs to it, the tracklisting is scrambled. The first track may be put at the end, they may be put in reverse or even random order.

But it’s OK with podcasts. You only have one ‘track’ there. Even the W810i can’t foul that up.

So I’ve started to entertain and edify myself by listening to podcasts while I walk. For music, the weekly production from The Word magazine is entertaining and informative, as is their occasional ‘Backstage’ interview. On the latter, I’ve heard conversations with folkie Pete Atkin and his famoust lyricist Clive James, and a sci-fi author whose name escapes me, but who believes in ‘mathematical Platonism’, jsut at the time when Platonism is long discredited in theology.

Christian-wise, I’ve subscribed to the Sunday talks from HTB and heard the odd decent sermon. Godpod from HTB’s St Paul’s Theological Centre has so far been a little worthy but dull. Less intellectual on the surface but LOL-funny has been the podcast from the American show Steve Brown Etc. Other pleasures await from the Internet Monk, including his coffee cup apologetics show.

These are just my early explorations. What do you listen to? Any recommendations? Anything to avoid?

5

Worship

John 4:5-26

‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ (verse 24)

That’s an obvious verse to pick for this circuit service on the theme of worship. But sometimes, however much I like to be obscure, obvious is OK!

There are several valid ways you can read this verse. Worshipping in spirit and truth can be about the fact that you can worship God anywhere. That’s true, and in the context, the woman has just raised the question of physical locations for worship.

You can also read the ‘spirit’ aspect as being about the need for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in order to worship. That has some merit, too, because there is much in John’s Gospel about the ministry of the Spirit.

Worshipping in ‘truth’ can be about the importance of basing our worship on the truth of God, rather than our own preferences or fantasies. That, too, would be valid.

But I want to offer a different – if complementary – approach to Jesus’ teaching that we are to worship in spirit and in truth. I think it also means our worship is to be Christ-centred. Why? The work of the Spirit in John’s Gospel is to point to Christ. And Jesus himself is the way, the truth and the life in John. Spirit and truth both focus on Christ. I’m going to use Christ as our framework for worship.

Incarnation
My sister is an Occupational Therapist. At the end of her college training in 1988, she had to take a final elective placement. With the support of her college Christian Union, she went out with a missionary society to Gahini Hospital in Rwanda.

One of her most interesting cultural experiences (apart from African driving!) was Sunday morning worship in the hospital’s Anglican church. People were not called to worship by the ringing of bells, but by drums. All well and good. 

But when worship began, it was the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Seventeenth century England, transposed to twentieth century Africa. Crazy.

Why is that crazy? Jesus is the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. He took on human flesh, and lived in his context as a first century Jew. Might it be that when it comes to worship, our worship has to live in the cultural forms in which we live, and of the people we desire to reach with the Gospel?

Can I bring that insight to the worship wars that often rip apart our churches? We need to drop the nonsense talk that hymns and choral music are somehow morally superior. And those who argue for contemporary music need to quit the notion that others are fuddy-duddies. The issue is this: who has God called us to reach?

The American pastor Rick Warren, who planted Saddleback Church in California, has a useful approach to this. He says that if you are going to plant a church, then the way you decide the musical style of the worship is this: find out what the most popular radio station in the area is, and model the musical aspect of your worship on that style of music. 

So never mind what we like: incarnation demands we live in the culture of the people where God has placed us on mission. And that will shape our worship – from music to other elements, too.

Cross
In my  last appointment, I was part of a team that put on a weekly Wednesday lunch-time prayer and worship event entitled Medway Celebrate. At one team meeting, I remember the founder of the event say he had asked all visiting worship leaders to put a particular emphasis on ‘celebration’ in the tone they set. 

Inwardly, I winced. What about people suffering pain or troubles? How would they cope with relentless joy and happiness? And at first glance, anchoring our worship to the Cross of Christ would support my reaction. In worship, the Cross leads us to confession of sin. It puts us in touch with the pain of the world, and so it also informs our intercession. And the central act of Christian worship, Holy Communion, is directly linked to the Cross: ‘This is my body … this is my blood.’

Not only that, something like one third of Israel’s hymn book, the Psalms, are the so-called ‘Psalms of Lament’, where the psalmists bring their pain and complaints to God in worship. So surely it’s right that worship is not persistently happy-clappy.

There must be room in worship to express pain. But – it’s only half the story. Even when the Cross shows us our need to confess, we don’t stop there: we receive forgiveness. When we intercede about the pain of the world, we do so expecting that God will answer. When by faith we take the tokens of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament, we are renewed.

I was once at a Good Friday united service at the Baptist Church in my home town. Our own minister was preaching. He had chosen a song that was popular at the time: ‘I get so excited, Lord, every time I realise I’m forgiven‘. As a congregation, we sang it in the most drab way. Michael stopped us and berated us. How could we not be excited that God had forgiven us in Christ?

As we come to the foot of the Cross in worship, yes we bring our pain at the sin that put Christ there. We also bring the pain of the world. But we come for healing and restoration. Making the Cross central to worship is a matter of joy as well as pain.

Resurrection
I referred to Holy Communion a moment ago when talking about the Cross and worship. But it’s the Resurrection that makes sense of the sacrament.

‘What? Isn’t the Lord’s Supper about the death of Christ?’ you may object.

Yes, but it’s OK to stop there if you only believe communion is a symbolic memorial of a past event. If it’s remotely more than that, you need the Resurrection to explain it. How many memorial services have you attended where the deceased was present? How many funeral wakes have you been to where the one you were remembering served you the food? Jesus is alive! And our worship is filled with hope. Whatever discourages or depresses us, Jesus is risen from the dead and there is a new world coming.

So my friend who wanted celebratory worship had a point. Just so long as it wasn’t escapism, celebration is the proper tone for those who know the Christian hope. We experience suffering and we witness suffering, but in the Resurrection we know it won’t have the final word and our worship is an act of defiance based on Christian hope. In the words of Steve Winwood, we’re ‘talking back to the night‘. But we talk back to the night because the dawn is coming.

And when the dawn comes, God will no longer feel distant or remote. God will always be close. Thus if Resurrection characterises worship in spirit and truth, our worship will have a sense of intimacy with God. We cannot use hymns about the majesty of God to make him distant, even if we also avoid songs that make Jesus sound like a boyfriend.

Ascension
If there’s one curse in all the worship wars that occur in church, it’s the way we use sophisticated arguments to hide the fact that what we’re really campaigning for is ‘what we like’. The Ascension of Jesus puts paid to that.

Why? Because the Ascension is the enthronement of Jesus at the right hand of God. It is the confirmation that Jesus is King over all creation, including the Church. When we treat worship as what pleases us, worship becomes idolatry, for we worship ourselves. When we recognise the kingship of the ascended Christ, I cannot ask what pleases me. I can only ask, what pleases you, Lord?

It also means we must stop treating worship as spiritual escapism. When a steward prays in the vestry before the service about us ‘turning aside from the world for an hour’, I cringe. When we sing an old chorus like ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus‘ with its line about ‘The things of earth will grow strangely dim’, I wonder what some people are thinking when they sing those words.

If worship is in spirit and in truth – if that means it’s Christ-centred – and if that includes the Ascension – then worship cannot be used to escape from the world. It can only be used in preparation to face the world. For the king of the Church is on the throne of creation.

There is a church building in Germany, which has over the exit doors these words: ‘Servants’ Entrance’. Worshipping the ascended Christ thrusts us into the world. It’s why the Roman Catholic Mass is called the Mass – after the Latin ‘Eta misse est’: ‘Get out!’ Our feeble version is, ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’: perhaps that should be ‘Go in boldness to love and serve the Lord’! The test of worship isn’t Hymns And Psalms versus Mission Praise versus Songs Of Fellowship. It’s whether we continue to worship by our lifestyles in the world where Christ reigns.

Conclusion
Archbishop William Temple wrote a classic devotional commentary on John’s Gospel. I can do no better in concluding this sermon than quoting some of his most potent words on this very verse:

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to HIs purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Yes – worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin. [p 65]

May we worship like that.

0

Waiting

It was the eminent American theologian Tom Petty who once sang that ‘The waiting is the hardest part.’ We, like millions of other families, are currently waiting. We are waiting for next week, when Mum enters the Brompton Hospital for her investigations. Admission is Monday, procedure is Tuesday, we are told the results Wednesday, and if surgery is feasible, that happens Friday.

Meanwhile, even a short wait from Monday last week when the consultant broke the potential news, feels like it is dragging. If it feels like that to me, I don’t know what it is like for Mum or Dad.

And there are others who wait much longer. In Scipture, waiting is often for years, decades, even centuries – for the hope of the Messiah to ease the pain of God’s people (and even then he wasn’t in the form they expected).

Yet one thing I must recognise is that God uses waiting positively. ‘Waiting’ and ‘hoping’ are interchangeable English translations of Hebrew, if I recall correctly. (Compare different English versions of Isaiah 40:31). I believe God can use the waiting period to shape us. George Carey once said to me at Trinity College, Bristol that theological training wasn’t simply about information, it was about formation. And isn’t that true of the whole Christian life? God is forming us. One means he uses is waiting. As we pray, struggle, wrestle and argue, God forms us more into the image of Christ.

I pray that God is doing that for us as a family right now. If you are waiting, is he doing it for you?

When the singer Sam Phillips was operating on the Contemporary Christian Music scene under the name Leslie Phillips, she wrote a song that I imagine her paymasters didn’t like. It was called ‘Answers Don’t Come Easy’, and it returns to me at times like this. She sang:

I can wait
It’s enough to know you can hear me now
I can wait
It’s enough to feel you near me now
And when answers don’t come easy
I can wait

I think she was wise.

1

Quote

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.”

 – Albert Einstein 

From the weekly Word Magazine email.

0

Wedding Music

My new favourite blog, Stuff Christians Like, had this post a few days ago: Stuff Christians Like: #161. Refusing to make songs you can slow dance to.

In the comments, several people riff on the theme of (un)suitable music for first dances at weddings. Debbie and I only had a wedding reception with food. We’re both allergic to dancing, but not to food. We were more – ahem – creative with our choice of entry music and exit music for the wedding service itself. For the bulk of the ceremony, we were trad. Hymns included ‘Be thou my vision’ and ‘And can it be’. I’m sure there was a third, but I can’t remember it.

But as I say, the entry and exit music were not quite what you would expect at a Christian wedding. Debbie, having been a biker in her youth, wanted to walk down the aisle with her Dad to Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be wild’ (that’s from the hippie biker film ‘Easy Rider’, young people). We had timed it at the rehearsal so that she would arrive by my side just as the chorus came in for the first time. My mother was in the row behind me. As we stood for the entrance of the bride, she poked me and said, ‘What is this song, darling?’ Our Chair of District also came to the service. As an accomplished classical musician, I have no idea what he thought of the choice.

But I had the choice of exit music. I brought two possibles, and we experimented to see which one had the better rhythm for walking out to. In the end, the theme tune to the 1960s TV show Thunderbirds won out over The Simpsons main theme. We hadn’t told my two young nephews, who were page boys. They were delighted.

As a minister, then, I have little room for argument when couples don’t come up with the usual Mendelssohn and Wagner requests (or Widor’s Toccata, but that depends on the organist’s competence). Perhaps my favourite memory was an African-Caribbean wedding in Chatham. The bride came in, not only with her father and bridesmaids, but a whole long procession, American-style. As a song by Eric Benet played, they danced down the aisle, their forerunners scattering petals. When she left with her new husband, they went out to live African drums.

The one shame about that wedding was that the bride had, as a young woman in Wolverhampton, been a babysitter for Beverley Knight, now a famous British soul singer. Ms Knight was supposed to turn up at the wedding and sing. Unfortunately, recording commitments (she was recording her ‘Who I Am’ CD at the time) prevented her. Instead, an anonymous female singer from a black-majority Pentecostal church sang an a capella solo of Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ (and – yes – Al Green, not Tina Turner). On the spur of the moment I dropped my standard wedding sermon and somehow linked that song with the Bible passage from Ruth that the couple had chosen for the ceremony.

Does anyone else have fun stories about wedding music?

0

Songs That Drive You Mad

Very funny post at Stuff Christians Like regarding overdone and maddening worship songs (via Think Christian). Much as many the tunes to many traditional hymns leave me trying to stay awake or reaching out for the Prozac, and much as their words mean I need a concordance (maybe not so bad a thing), it set me off thinking about some of the daft lyrics and actions associated with worship songs and choruses. I’m not touching on the ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ phenomenon, but here are some easy targets:

Actions: I don’t want to be treated like I’m in Sunday School. So having to run on the spot or wave my arms during ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower’ – no thanks. Nor the down to my knees and up in the air during ‘Lord, I lift your name on high’- if I want a Mexican wave, I’ll go to a sporting event. Besides, I’ve heard too many worship leaders play the intro to that song just like Steve Miller’s ‘The Joker’. One day, I’m going to hear someone singing in worship, ‘Some call me the space cowboy’. It might be me.

And please, no having to put my hands together and flap them like a bird during ‘The power of your love’, when it comes to the line about ‘I’ll fly like an eagle’. My five-year-old and three-year-old do this. I’m forty-eight.

Words: Where do I begin? Much as I like Delirious?, I can’t get my head around the imagery at the beginning of ‘I could sing of your love forever’. ‘Over the mountains and the sea, your river runs with love for me’ – just tell me how a river can run over the sea. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it. And I’m no dancer, so ‘Oh, I feel like dancing’ – well, actually, no. God bless you if you do. Just don’t ask me as one friend did once whether the Lord has released me in dance. Sorry, I’m an introvert; I know that’s a sin, and I’m getting help. (Not really.)

Or there’s plain biblical sloppiness. Pride of place goes here to Robin Mark’s ‘Days of Elijah’. ‘These are the days of your servant David, rebuilding a temple of praise’. Well, David may have been ‘the sweet psalmist of Israel’, but God forbade him to build the temple, because he was a man of blood. Solomon got the gig.

Then there are songs where biblical material is taken over without translation to our culture. If we just quote the Authorised Version or an obscure bit of the Old Testament, that will be deep. Step forward that old favourite, ‘Pierce my ear’ (or ‘Lacerate my nose’, as a friend dubbed it).

Plus there are the ones where a little more thought could have been given to their writing. Ishmael had an old song about God giving us various body parts to use for his praise. Nice idea, apart from the thought that we might look like multiple amputees without God’s help, and I just would never have picked ‘Lord you put a tongue in my mouth’ with teenagers.

I write this, aware that it’s all too easy to score points and get some cheap laughs. I also know that just as in any other period of history, we are in an editing process, and not all the drivel will survive. But the phenomenon of nonsense in worship is a serious issue. Why do worship leaders and publishers let this stuff through? Once, I challenged a worship leader about this, and he said, ‘I just choose something because it works.’ Works in what sense? Sounds good, or fits into a ‘set’, like a gig, I’d suggest.

So – I invite you to post comments about the songs you think need more attention or terminal care, and why. But I’d be just as interested to have a conversation about the reasons for this, and how we might respond (apart from not choosing the stuff).

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14

Larry Norman

I only read this last weekend about the death the previous Sunday (24th February) of Christian music pioneer Larry Norman. He was 60. He had suffered from heart problems and other health difficulties for years. Sales of his CDs went to help pay his medical bills.

Norman was the man who opened up the Christian rock music field. You might think, encountering the Mammon-infested wilderness of much ‘CCM’ (Contemporary Christian Music) that this was nothing to be proud of. But Norman was so different from many who succeeded him. Yes, as other bloggers have pointed out, his song ‘I Wish We’d All Been Ready’ held to a crude eschatology based on a simplistic reading of Scripture. But he was as far from the ‘Left Behind’ nonsense and its associations with the Religious Right as it were possible to be – absolitely remarkable, given his upbringing in the Assemblies Of God. There was nothing other-worldly about his faith. A common thread in his music and concerts could be summed up in the title of another song of his: ‘Feed The Poor’. Another song, ‘The Great American Novel’, from his landmark 1972 recording ‘Only Visiting This Planet’, contains these lines:

You say we beat the Russians to the moon
And I say you starved your children to do it.

The same song berates racist murder and sexual abuse. It’s not exactly Pat Robertson territory, is it?

The only surprise about ‘I Wish We’d All Been Ready’ being so literalist about the ‘Rapture’ is that Norman was a man skilled in using evocative imagery. The fact that he did got him into trouble with Christian bookstores, who wouldn’t sell his LPs. ‘Nightmare #71’ on 1973’s ‘So Long Ago The Garden’ bears comparison with the best of Bob Dylan’s incendiary 1960s’ material. In the context of a nightmare, Larry describes a vapid entertainment industry, environmental pollution, murder, adultery and soulless town planning as signs of human fallenness:

Man does not live
He just survives
(We sleep till he arrives)

Love is a corpse
We sit and watch it harden
We left it oh so long ago the garden.

Like the prophets, Norman was a strange, if not downright eccentric character. I once stayed with a family in Plymouth who had hosted him when he played a concert in the town. They had many anecdotes of his bizarre behaviour – not least in the realm of disappearing at night and not returning. But then, there is plenty of ‘eccentric’ precedent in the habits of Old Testament prophets, and to some extent Norman might be compared with them.

But, like all of us, Norman was a flawed individual. Counter-cultural as he was (both to society and a complacent church), he also aped the culture. His second wife, Sarah, had been his friend and convert Randy Stonehill‘s first wife. No wonder Norman and Stonehill endured a rift of twenty years. One of the tragedies about the timing of his death is that the two of them were planning to write and record together again.

Larry Norman, conflicted individual, blazed a trail for Christian music in a contemporary vein. So many have followed into Christian rock, so few have had his prophetic edge. For he didn’t give us the bland prophecy of ‘Thus says the Lord, I love you O my children’. He gave it straight, no chaser. He dissected church and society with clarity and precision. May God raise up many more to do this in music and the arts, as well as in the pulpit and on the political hustings.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I think I’ll spend some of my birthday money replacing some of my lost vinyl Larry albums with some CDs. His music was a treasure. Enjoy your eternal reward, Larry.

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3

Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Mount Of Transfiguration

Matthew
17:1-9

Introduction
According to OFSTED, the standard of
Geography in our schools is in decline.
This week’s Essex Chronicle interviewed
local people about this. Less than a quarter knew that the largest ocean in
the world is the Pacific. One third didn’t know that Everest was the highest
mountain on earth, and half didn’t know that the mountain range in which
Everest is situated is the Himalayas.

All of which brings us to the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine
of Jesus’ apostles didn’t make it to the Mount of Transfiguration. Only three
did. That tells you this incident was special, just as the same three
accompanied Jesus in Gethsemane.

And the fact that the incident happens on a mountain also
tells us this is important. Whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s
Gospel, it is a sign to pay particular attention. The words or deeds that
follow will be significant.

So it’s no surprise that when the voice from heaven speaks
here, it ends with the words, ‘listen to him’ (verse 5). You always encounter
the authority of Jesus on mountains in Matthew – from the Sermon on the Mount
(chapters 5-7), to mountain after the Resurrection where he gives the Great
Commission (28:16-20).

Peter and the others certainly need to be reminded about the
authority of Jesus here. Sometimes we do, too. We slip, we compromise and we
dilute our allegiance to Jesus. Peter also needed encouragement for the
difficult task of obeying Jesus. I suggest we do, too. All these things – the challenges
and the encouragement – we find on the Mount of Transfiguration.

1. Heroes
Peter’s first mistake is this. When Elijah and Moses appear, he equates Jesus
with them. He needs to hear that it is Jesus to whom he should listen. He needs
to look up with his friends at the end of the experience and only see Jesus. I
think he’s gone in for a spot of hero worship.

The Christian Church has been altogether too good at
creating personality cults, where we elevate people to a status close to that
of Christ. It isn’t just the Catholic veneration of Mary or loyalty to the
Pope. Protestants are just as good at this trick. Some Christians hang on every
word of church leaders they admire. Listen to members of some congregations
talk about how good life was when so-and-so was the minister, and you’re
dangerously close to a personality cult where people depend on a talented
leader, instead of trusting in Christ.

Is it possible that we do something similar? Here is an
example.

For all the modern hymns and worship songs I pick for
services, it may surprise you to know that I love Charles Wesley’s writing. I
have a problem with some of the tunes allocated to them: I sometimes wonder
whether the compilers of Hymns and Psalms had done a sponsorship deal with the
manufacturers of Prozac. There seems no other explanation for the preponderance
of dull tunes in the book.

However, I have a problem sometimes with people who defend
Wesley’s hymns against other developments in worship. I encountered this in my
first circuit. Some people were quite virulent about my expansion of the
worship repertoire. When pressed to defend the Wesley hymns, it was on the
grounds of superior poetry and musicality. I don’t deny these are important,
but they never mentioned the doctrines Wesley wrote about – doctrines he had
experienced. None of his staunch defenders alluded to sharing in his spiritual
experience.

If only they had, I think they might have behaved
differently. They made Wesley into a kind of hero that he would have abhorred.
They applauded the style of his faith, but not the substance. They were the
least likely to be sharing their faith with others and pursuing holiness of
life.

No – Charles Wesley, and I am sure, John, too – would have
been horrified by the Wesleyolatry that has plagued parts of the Methodist
tradition since their death. They would have been far more likely to urge us in
the way Paul pleaded with some of those to whom he wrote, ‘Follow me as I
follow Christ.’

That is the message of the Transfiguration, too. ‘Listen to
him.’ Jesus is transfigured, not
Moses or Elijah. It isn’t that we should discard Moses or Elijah. But disciples
should follow them in their pointing to Christ.

Who have we made our hero alongside Christ, or maybe even
instead of him? The voice from heaven tells us to get our priorities straight:
‘Listen to him.’

2. Museums
One area of continuity when we moved here in 2005 was to find ourselves living
on the Dickens Estate. You will know that the roads on our estate are named
after Dickens characters and places: Copperfield, Nickleby, Quilp, Barnaby
Rudge, Flintwich Manor and so on.

The continuity was in having come from an area, the Medway
Towns, which had strong links with Charles Dickens himself. Dickens lived in
the Rochester area for some of his life. Every year, the council there makes
some money out of this – sorry, celebrates this – in two ways. There is a
Dickensian Christmas weekend to get you shopping in the area. In addition,
there is a Dickens
Festival in June. Not only that, a large area of the former Chatham
Dockyard (now known as Chatham Maritime) has been given over to Dickens World, which is a museum and
theme park based on the man, his life and literature. They’ll fleece you for
£12.50 before letting you in through the turnstiles.

Could it be that in his confusion and fear Peter tries to
commemorate the Transfiguration with his own little museum or theme park? He
blurts out a half-witted idea to make three dwellings – one for Jesus, one for
Moses and one for Elijah. I’m not suggesting he wanted to exploit it
commercially in the way the memory of Charles Dickens is in Kent. But he wants
to put up buildings to mark the spot and celebrate this little bit of history.

Is there anything wrong with that? Why does the voice from
heaven interrupt him while he is jabbering on? Come back to the Dickens
Festival in Rochester for a story, because I think it might be a way into the
dilemma.

For all his flaws, you can be sure of one admirable quality
about Charles Dickens: he cared about the poor. His novels campaigned against
the social injustices of his day. If you were going to celebrate Dickens,
wouldn’t it be appropriate to do so by helping the poor, rather than bowing down
at the temple of consumerism?

Well, at the Dickens Festival, many people would dress up in
the costume of the day, perhaps pretending to be a particular character. In our
last year there, I watched costumed visitors walk past Big Issue sellers,
pretending they weren’t there, and with little appreciation of the sick irony
that they who were celebrating Dickens did not share his care for the poor.

Now do you see the problem? The commemoration and
celebration of the Transfiguration that the Father’s voice from heaven calls
for is to ‘listen to him’. Yet we can turn church into a museum, and I don’t
simply mean when a church closes and the circuit sells the premises. Many of
our congregations are living, flesh and blood museums. We can preserve things
how they were. We can go through the motions. We can honour the traditions of
our ancestors. However, if all we have is the style without the substance, then
we’ve tried to build three dwellings, like Peter.

So – if we really are steeped in the Methodist tradition of
Christianity – do we truly believe that every single person needs salvation in
Christ? Do we believe it’s possible for anyone to find the love of God in
Christ? Do we believe it’s the birthright of all disciples to have such peace
in our hearts that we know we belong to Christ, and that it isn’t arrogant to
claim this? Are we optimistic about how much more the Holy Spirit can change us
into the likeness of Christ? If we do believe these things – if we will let the
Spirit of God ignite such faith in our hearts – then our churches will not be
museums.

3. Dazzle
It’s not only the appearance of the long-dead Moses and Elijah that turns Peter
and his friends into three lumps of jelly, it’s what happens to Jesus himself –
the very act of transfiguration. His face shines like the sun and his clothes
become dazzling white. Here we have special effects to make both Hollywood
movie directors and washing powder manufacturers jealous.

And there are certain parts of the Christian church that go
in for the razzle-dazzle and the glamour. Certain TV evangelists even dress
entirely in white suits. It goes with the image, along with the private jet,
the luxury home and the security guards – just like Jesus, don’t you think?

The question arises, why does Jesus go through this
experience? In addition, why does the voice from heaven speak, not only with
the words ‘Listen to him’ that we have already discussed, but also with
repetition of words from his baptism – ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased’ (verse 5)? Should I order my Mercedes now?

Yes. Er – only kidding. In fact, the Transfiguration is
linked profoundly with the suffering
of Jesus. It comes after Jesus has revealed his identity as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi, prophesied his suffering and warned his disciples that anyone who
follows him must embrace rejection, suffering and even perhaps death. The
Transfiguration is not an escape from that destiny. It is God’s affirmation of
his Son’s obedience.

What will sustain Jesus as he resolutely travels to
Jerusalem and the Cross? It is knowing that he is the Son of God, and that the
Father loves him. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, says the voice. Accompany that
with such an encounter with the Father that his face shines and his clothes
dazzle, and you get some sense that God the Father affirms and encourages Jesus
by deed and word here. Has Jesus forgotten who he is? Does he need reminding of
the Father’s love? No. However, an underlining gives him strength and
encouragement.

If Jesus needed that, then how much more do we? He is Son of
God in a unique way. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption. We are not
divine. However, what is the effect of hearing that voice, affirming that we
are the Father’s children? What does it do for us to know that the Father loves
us? Is it not the foundation we need to live the daring and sacrificial life of
faith?

I only remember one sermon from the weekly communion
services at college during my three years in Bristol. The preacher was Tom Smail.
He preached on the baptism of Jesus, and picked out those similar words: ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved’. He used these words to remind us how God saw us – as
beloved children. I have never forgotten this. When I waver, I go back to this
truth.

Likewise, I remember one main insight from my Ethics tutor.
We were talking about vocation. He described how the traditional Catholic view
had been to confine vocation to the priesthood, the monastery or the nunnery.
The Reformation expanded it to include ‘ordinary’ jobs. But that wasn’t radical
enough, he said. Our most fundamental vocation is not to do, but to be – to be
children of God.

When you know you are a child of God, and when you know the
Father loves you, you have inner resources that are the strongest of
foundations when the storms of life come. The life of faith will bring
challenges aplenty. We can walk into them, knowing the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ loves us for eternity. We can ‘listen to him’, and set out on the
challenges of discipleship.

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Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Mount Of Transfiguration

Matthew
17:1-9

Introduction
According to OFSTED, the standard of
Geography in our schools is in decline.
This week’s Essex Chronicle interviewed
local people about this. Less than a quarter knew that the largest ocean in
the world is the Pacific. One third didn’t know that Everest was the highest
mountain on earth, and half didn’t know that the mountain range in which
Everest is situated is the Himalayas.

All of which brings us to the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine
of Jesus’ apostles didn’t make it to the Mount of Transfiguration. Only three
did. That tells you this incident was special, just as the same three
accompanied Jesus in Gethsemane.

And the fact that the incident happens on a mountain also
tells us this is important. Whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s
Gospel, it is a sign to pay particular attention. The words or deeds that
follow will be significant.

So it’s no surprise that when the voice from heaven speaks
here, it ends with the words, ‘listen to him’ (verse 5). You always encounter
the authority of Jesus on mountains in Matthew – from the Sermon on the Mount
(chapters 5-7), to mountain after the Resurrection where he gives the Great
Commission (28:16-20).

Peter and the others certainly need to be reminded about the
authority of Jesus here. Sometimes we do, too. We slip, we compromise and we
dilute our allegiance to Jesus. Peter also needed encouragement for the
difficult task of obeying Jesus. I suggest we do, too. All these things – the challenges
and the encouragement – we find on the Mount of Transfiguration.

1. Heroes
Peter’s first mistake is this. When Elijah and Moses appear, he equates Jesus
with them. He needs to hear that it is Jesus to whom he should listen. He needs
to look up with his friends at the end of the experience and only see Jesus. I
think he’s gone in for a spot of hero worship.

The Christian Church has been altogether too good at
creating personality cults, where we elevate people to a status close to that
of Christ. It isn’t just the Catholic veneration of Mary or loyalty to the
Pope. Protestants are just as good at this trick. Some Christians hang on every
word of church leaders they admire. Listen to members of some congregations
talk about how good life was when so-and-so was the minister, and you’re
dangerously close to a personality cult where people depend on a talented
leader, instead of trusting in Christ.

Is it possible that we do something similar? Here is an
example.

For all the modern hymns and worship songs I pick for
services, it may surprise you to know that I love Charles Wesley’s writing. I
have a problem with some of the tunes allocated to them: I sometimes wonder
whether the compilers of Hymns and Psalms had done a sponsorship deal with the
manufacturers of Prozac. There seems no other explanation for the preponderance
of dull tunes in the book.

However, I have a problem sometimes with people who defend
Wesley’s hymns against other developments in worship. I encountered this in my
first circuit. Some people were quite virulent about my expansion of the
worship repertoire. When pressed to defend the Wesley hymns, it was on the
grounds of superior poetry and musicality. I don’t deny these are important,
but they never mentioned the doctrines Wesley wrote about – doctrines he had
experienced. None of his staunch defenders alluded to sharing in his spiritual
experience.

If only they had, I think they might have behaved
differently. They made Wesley into a kind of hero that he would have abhorred.
They applauded the style of his faith, but not the substance. They were the
least likely to be sharing their faith with others and pursuing holiness of
life.

No – Charles Wesley, and I am sure, John, too – would have
been horrified by the Wesleyolatry that has plagued parts of the Methodist
tradition since their death. They would have been far more likely to urge us in
the way Paul pleaded with some of those to whom he wrote, ‘Follow me as I
follow Christ.’

That is the message of the Transfiguration, too. ‘Listen to
him.’ Jesus is transfigured, not
Moses or Elijah. It isn’t that we should discard Moses or Elijah. But disciples
should follow them in their pointing to Christ.

Who have we made our hero alongside Christ, or maybe even
instead of him? The voice from heaven tells us to get our priorities straight:
‘Listen to him.’

2. Museums
One area of continuity when we moved here in 2005 was to find ourselves living
on the Dickens Estate. You will know that the roads on our estate are named
after Dickens characters and places: Copperfield, Nickleby, Quilp, Barnaby
Rudge, Flintwich Manor and so on.

The continuity was in having come from an area, the Medway
Towns, which had strong links with Charles Dickens himself. Dickens lived in
the Rochester area for some of his life. Every year, the council there makes
some money out of this – sorry, celebrates this – in two ways. There is a
Dickensian Christmas weekend to get you shopping in the area. In addition,
there is a Dickens
Festival in June. Not only that, a large area of the former Chatham
Dockyard (now known as Chatham Maritime) has been given over to Dickens World, which is a museum and
theme park based on the man, his life and literature. They’ll fleece you for
£12.50 before letting you in through the turnstiles.

Could it be that in his confusion and fear Peter tries to
commemorate the Transfiguration with his own little museum or theme park? He
blurts out a half-witted idea to make three dwellings – one for Jesus, one for
Moses and one for Elijah. I’m not suggesting he wanted to exploit it
commercially in the way the memory of Charles Dickens is in Kent. But he wants
to put up buildings to mark the spot and celebrate this little bit of history.

Is there anything wrong with that? Why does the voice from
heaven interrupt him while he is jabbering on? Come back to the Dickens
Festival in Rochester for a story, because I think it might be a way into the
dilemma.

For all his flaws, you can be sure of one admirable quality
about Charles Dickens: he cared about the poor. His novels campaigned against
the social injustices of his day. If you were going to celebrate Dickens,
wouldn’t it be appropriate to do so by helping the poor, rather than bowing down
at the temple of consumerism?

Well, at the Dickens Festival, many people would dress up in
the costume of the day, perhaps pretending to be a particular character. In our
last year there, I watched costumed visitors walk past Big Issue sellers,
pretending they weren’t there, and with little appreciation of the sick irony
that they who were celebrating Dickens did not share his care for the poor.

Now do you see the problem? The commemoration and
celebration of the Transfiguration that the Father’s voice from heaven calls
for is to ‘listen to him’. Yet we can turn church into a museum, and I don’t
simply mean when a church closes and the circuit sells the premises. Many of
our congregations are living, flesh and blood museums. We can preserve things
how they were. We can go through the motions. We can honour the traditions of
our ancestors. However, if all we have is the style without the substance, then
we’ve tried to build three dwellings, like Peter.

So – if we really are steeped in the Methodist tradition of
Christianity – do we truly believe that every single person needs salvation in
Christ? Do we believe it’s possible for anyone to find the love of God in
Christ? Do we believe it’s the birthright of all disciples to have such peace
in our hearts that we know we belong to Christ, and that it isn’t arrogant to
claim this? Are we optimistic about how much more the Holy Spirit can change us
into the likeness of Christ? If we do believe these things – if we will let the
Spirit of God ignite such faith in our hearts – then our churches will not be
museums.

3. Dazzle
It’s not only the appearance of the long-dead Moses and Elijah that turns Peter
and his friends into three lumps of jelly, it’s what happens to Jesus himself –
the very act of transfiguration. His face shines like the sun and his clothes
become dazzling white. Here we have special effects to make both Hollywood
movie directors and washing powder manufacturers jealous.

And there are certain parts of the Christian church that go
in for the razzle-dazzle and the glamour. Certain TV evangelists even dress
entirely in white suits. It goes with the image, along with the private jet,
the luxury home and the security guards – just like Jesus, don’t you think?

The question arises, why does Jesus go through this
experience? In addition, why does the voice from heaven speak, not only with
the words ‘Listen to him’ that we have already discussed, but also with
repetition of words from his baptism – ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased’ (verse 5)? Should I order my Mercedes now?

Yes. Er – only kidding. In fact, the Transfiguration is
linked profoundly with the suffering
of Jesus. It comes after Jesus has revealed his identity as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi, prophesied his suffering and warned his disciples that anyone who
follows him must embrace rejection, suffering and even perhaps death. The
Transfiguration is not an escape from that destiny. It is God’s affirmation of
his Son’s obedience.

What will sustain Jesus as he resolutely travels to
Jerusalem and the Cross? It is knowing that he is the Son of God, and that the
Father loves him. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, says the voice. Accompany that
with such an encounter with the Father that his face shines and his clothes
dazzle, and you get some sense that God the Father affirms and encourages Jesus
by deed and word here. Has Jesus forgotten who he is? Does he need reminding of
the Father’s love? No. However, an underlining gives him strength and
encouragement.

If Jesus needed that, then how much more do we? He is Son of
God in a unique way. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption. We are not
divine. However, what is the effect of hearing that voice, affirming that we
are the Father’s children? What does it do for us to know that the Father loves
us? Is it not the foundation we need to live the daring and sacrificial life of
faith?

I only remember one sermon from the weekly communion
services at college during my three years in Bristol. The preacher was Tom Smail.
He preached on the baptism of Jesus, and picked out those similar words: ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved’. He used these words to remind us how God saw us – as
beloved children. I have never forgotten this. When I waver, I go back to this
truth.

Likewise, I remember one main insight from my Ethics tutor.
We were talking about vocation. He described how the traditional Catholic view
had been to confine vocation to the priesthood, the monastery or the nunnery.
The Reformation expanded it to include ‘ordinary’ jobs. But that wasn’t radical
enough, he said. Our most fundamental vocation is not to do, but to be – to be
children of God.

When you know you are a child of God, and when you know the
Father loves you, you have inner resources that are the strongest of
foundations when the storms of life come. The life of faith will bring
challenges aplenty. We can walk into them, knowing the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ loves us for eternity. We can ‘listen to him’, and set out on the
challenges of discipleship.

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