There’s a lot of talk about entering the biblical narrative. Here is an example of it happening.
Rowan Williams And The Sharia Kerfuffle
While so many others in the Christian blogosphere have been
posting on this subject over the last two weeks, I’ve stayed silent. Mainly,
that’s been pressure of work. Probably this is too little, too late now: isn’t
one of the blogosphere’s curses something it shares with our culture, namely
the pressure for everything to be instant? If someone doesn’t offer an instant
opinion, there’s something wrong with him or her. If they do, and it is later
shown to be faulty judgment, that is held against them.
And that in itself is part of the difficulty here. We have a
culture that has marginalised the place for considered reflection. In an age of
near-instantaneous communication possibilities, we also expect
near-instantaneous wisdom. It’s a fallacy. Wisdom is gained over what Eugene Peterson called ‘a
long obedience in the same direction’, not something you expect of red-top
tabloids. The Sun’s terrible headline ‘Bash the bishop’, a crude reference to
masturbation, tells you more about their journalists and readership than
anything else.
A particular issue has been that of handling a serious and
nuanced academic debate, when given by a public figure. Some have argued that Rowan Williams should have
known that even though he was speaking to an academic audience, there was a
wider constituency for his speech, precisely because of who he is. They have
suggested he should not speak in such an intellectual way. (Certainly, the
tabloids can’t handle it.) The cry is for him to ‘dumb down’ or return to
Oxford. Others suggest his PR staff are at fault.
After a few days’ on-and-off reflection on this, my mind
went back to Neil Postman’s
seminal book on television, ‘Amusing
Ourselves To Death’. In it, he argues that television is not a good conduit
for serious debate. By its very nature, it reduces all exploration to simple
clashes between two diametrically opposed parties. There is no space on the
spectrum for views that fall in between. In politics, for example, everything is
reduced to ‘left’ versus ‘right’. This has caused problems for many years for
the Liberal Democrats, and in more recent years for New Labour (because they
are not ‘socialist’ but a mixture). It now affects David Cameron’s Tories.
My suggestion is this: Postman’s analysis is correct, and
the television mindset he describes has affected wider public discourse in
other media, now including the press. Newspapers that used to be able to
discuss things more subtly now live in the light of the sound-bite 24-hour news
channels and the near-instantaneous Internet. To compete, they drop the
subtlety and over-simplify. An academic paper by Rowan Williams never stood a
chance.
However, does that mean we should give up and dumb down? Not
in my opinion. James Emery White has
just written a paper that does not refer to the Williams/Sharia controversy,
but is pertinent. It is called ‘Big Brains, Small Impact’.
White laments the absence of the ‘public intellectual’. In past generations, he
argues, there were many more such people who maintained high academic
standards, but who still communicated with the public without sacrificing
intellectual integrity. Christianity had C S
Lewis; American society in general had Gore Vidal. Yet these
figures are rare today, he argues. What has changed? Today’s intellectuals more
often become professional academics, at home on the campus and writing for
journals. This is just as apparent in the Church, he says. You get either
mindless populist hogwash, or obscure academics writing for a niche audience. The
latter has been important, especially in conservative Christian circles, where
it has been essential to react against a prevalent anti-intellectualism. However,
it is no use if the academy is impressed with something so original it
qualifies as a PhD thesis, but is detached from reality.
It’s hardly uncommon for an Archbishop of Canterbury to hold
a doctorate. The position calls for someone who will – amongst other things –
be one of White’s public intellectuals. Rowan Williams, like C S Lewis, has
been an Oxford don. It is not an impossible call. The question is whether
Williams can make the transition.
Even if he does, the Church should be prepared for different
criticisms. Mockery will always come. Williams’ predecessor, George Carey, was no intellectual slouch,
with a PhD from King’s College, London, on the Shepherd of Hermas. (I should
declare that I studied under George for a year or so.) He had more of the
common touch. The media seized on that. He was the working-class boy from
Dagenham, with a charismatic spirituality. The TV satire show Spitting Image
caricatured him as spending his time singing ‘Kumbaya’ with the Scouts. George might
not have been a Lewis, but he had an ability to speak about faith to ordinary
people. But Christians should know ever since Jesus warned us that people would
paint a target on our chests and fire.
Williams didn’t help himself on one level. He knew there was
more to Sharia Law than cutting off the hands of thieves or stoning adulterers.
His immediate audience did. He didn’t take account of the wider audience, both
those inflamed by bigotry and those more nervous than ever of Muslims ever
since the attempts to bomb Glasgow Airport, apparently led by ‘respectable’
doctors. I have heard more than one ‘ordinary’ person say that before that
incident, they knew there were decent, quiet, law-abiding Muslims. However, from
then on, they didn’t know whom they could trust. Bigoted newspapers like The
Sun knew how they could easily tap into that. They knew popular sentiment. Rather
than address it, they exploited it.
Maybe some of the Church hasn’t helped itself in the
controversy, either. Williams had a good point for us in his lecture. We have
been used to asking for exemptions to allow for our conscience in society. Years
ago, medical staff got exemptions from involvement in abortions if it offended
their beliefs. More recently, however, members of the current Government have
seen the sexuality issue as a chance to hurt the church, especially the
Catholics: witness the agony over adoption agencies. There is a Christendom
mentality still operating in our midst that expects favours for the Church, but
for nobody else. If we want our exemptions (and on these issues, I for one do),
then we need to extend a generous spirit to other parties in a diverse society
like ours. Social cohesion is the buzz phrase: there are politicians who prefer
to treat it as social coercion. It is even more surprising (except when you
allow for this Christendom mentality) to hear Christians say there is one law
for everybody, when we have wanted a different law. Some of us are living in
the past, and it’s dangerous to do so. As a free church Christian, I am nervous
about Williams’ claim that as a pastor of the Church of England he should speak
up for other religious groups. It may be well intentioned, but it smacks of
Anglican imperialism. Would it not be better for us to help other parties get
their voice heard on their own terms – if they need the help, that is?
In summary: let us pray for more ‘public intellectuals’ from
the Church. Maybe Tom Wright and John Sentamu could step
into the rôle. However, let us still be prepared for ridicule. In the meantime,
let us contribute to the social cohesion debate, while recognising that we Christians
are not the only group in our society that will want exemptions on grounds of
conscience.
Technorati Tags: EugenePeterson, RowanWilliams, Sharia, NeilPostman, JamesEmeryWhite, CSLewis, GoreVidal, GeorgeCarey, SpittingImage, NTWright, JohnSentamu
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Admirer Or Disciple?
[NB: The Lectionary
only goes up to verse 17, but in doing so it stops in the middle of John’s
thought, and omits the awkward stuff about judgement. I don’t think that’s
responsible treatment of the text, hence the slightly longer reading here.]
Introduction
From the Department of Corny Jokes: who is the only Irishman in the Bible? Nick
O’Demus.
If you want to know who to blame for that terrible joke, I
heard Graham Kendrick tell it in a concert many more years ago than I care to
remember. Actually, blame me for repeating and perpetuating it.
So we come to this familiar story of Nicodemus meeting
Jesus. What’s it doing as a Lectionary Gospel reading during Lent? I would
guess it’s here to make us think about the basics of faith and discipleship at
this time. Sometimes the ‘going deeper’ of Lent is best done by returning to
the basics, rather than by getting more complicated.
I see Nicodemus as a confused character. He comes to see
Jesus by night (verse 2). ‘Night’ is usually symbolic for something bad in John’s
Gospel. Night comes when no-one can work, according to Jesus. When Judas goes
out to betray his master, we read that ‘it was night’. It is night when
Nicodemus comes. As a Jewish leader, he has to meet Jesus under cover of
darkness. Showing a keen interest in the unconventional rabbi from Nazareth
will not endear him to the other leaders on the Sanhedrin. Later, Nicodemus
will speak in defence of Jesus, and he will assist Joseph of Arimathea with the
burial arrangements after Calvary.
But Nicodemus comes in his own ‘night’, his darkness, the
teacher of Israel who doesn’t understand basic spiritual issues. He admires
Jesus’ miracles and teachings, and knows there is something of God about him
(verse 2), but it hasn’t clicked for him. He’s not that different from many
people today, who admire Jesus, but haven’t crossed over into the kingdom of
God. Some of his admirers who haven’t made that step are in our churches.
Essentially, Jesus tells Nicodemus, there are two elements
to life as God intended. Centre on these, and you’ll be a disciple, not merely
an admirer.
1. Born of the Spirit
No doubt Nicodemus’ compliments and pleasantries are sincere. But they don’t
impress Jesus. He comes straight to the point:
Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see
the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ (Verse 3)
Straight to the point, but what did he mean? Nicodemus
certainly didn’t understand. He took him literally:
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having
grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’
(Verse 4)
Jesus explains the being born from above (or ‘born again’)
is about being born ‘of water and the Spirit’. Water is an image for the
Spirit.[1]
Only the Holy Spirit can bring spiritual life, says Jesus.
But what is this being ‘born of the Spirit’ or being ‘born
again’? That latter phrase, ‘born again’, has become a loaded one in the last
thirty years. I think it first came to prominence outside church circles when
Jimmy Carter ran for President of the USA in 1976. However, he was soon
disowned by certain Christians who thought he wasn’t born again enough, as it
were. ‘Born again’ then became associated not only with conversion, but with
particular viewpoints: a literal six-day creation, conservative politics and
unquestioning support for the State of Israel among other things.
However, according to Jesus, being born again of the Spirit
is simply conversion to faith and discipleship. So, take an occasion when as a
teenager I was taken by a school friend to a midweek youth meeting at his
Baptist church. Someone greeted me with the words, “Am I shaking hands with a
born-again Christian?” Believing I was a Christian, I said, “Yes.” My friend
looked on with some concern. His problem wasn’t that there were two types of
Christians, ordinary ones and born-again ones. His difficulty was that he didn’t
believe that at that point Christ had transformed my life. And he was right. But
– like Nicodemus – I didn’t understand.
When Jesus explains this spiritual birth to Nicodemus, he
says:
‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of
it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (Verse 8)
Jesus is making a play on words. It’s the same word for wind
as for Spirit. The wind (or Spirit) blows where it chooses. They didn’t have
meteorologists two thousand years ago to say where the wind was coming from, or
headed. It was a mystery. You expect Jesus then to say, ‘So it is with the
Spirit.’ But he doesn’t. He says, ‘So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ If you are born of the Spirit, says
Jesus, your life will take on a certain character.
Put it this way: some people worry that they cannot put a
date and time to their conversion. They have the impression that all Christian
conversion should be like Paul’s on the Damascus Road. However, as I once heard
it said, you don’t have to remember your own birth to know that you are alive. You
just need to recognise the signs of life. And so it is with the life of faith. You
may not know when you were born of the Spirit; what’s important is that you
recognise the signs of the Spirit leading your life.
And, says Jesus, those signs look rather like being blown by
the wind. You will not have a quiet life, but one where you are blown in
surprising directions. The wind of the Spirit will blow you where you think you
cannot go, or do not want to go, or do not feel equipped to go. Yet the same Spirit
will empower you for the journey. Here is an
amazing story of one man’s journey of being blown by the wind of the
Spirit:
Kumar comes from Chennai, India. One day, on a bus, he twice
heard God say to him, “Seek me.” However, which God? He was a Hindu. A highly
qualified man, he isn’t stupid, and after eliminating certain possibilities,
someone lent him a Bible and started following Jesus.
His parents were unhappy and scheduled an arranged marriage.
He told his bride and her family the day before the wedding about his new
faith. Six months later, when it hadn’t blown over, a hundred and fifty
relatives and friends confronted him. When he wouldn’t recant, he escaped to
the United States.
There, he found a job, and a big church. At the church, he
became caught up in the emotion of a testimony time. He declared that he didn’t
want riches or a Mercedes; he wanted to return to India and tell people about
Jesus. Inwardly, he knew he had lied, but before he could do anything about it,
people prayed for his vision.
He took a fortnight’s holiday from his job in the computing
industry. He flew home, and went from house to house, talking about Jesus. Forty-five
people started following Jesus during that trip.
Today, it’s a hundred thousand. Many have been persecuted
and even killed for their new faith. There are a hundred pastors. 139
communities. Orphanages for children with AIDS. Schools for Dalit children, the
lowest caste of all. Shelters for young girls rescued from prostitution. Food. Medicine.
Kumar won’t allow any of these ministries to be named after him. They don’t
raise funds publicly: they pray instead. His mega-church gives just $1000 a
year.
Kumar is a man blown by the wind of the Spirit. Look what
happened. Granted, church can’t be exciting every week, but when so much of
typical church life is so terminally boring, might it just be the case that we’ve
forgotten this fundamental dimension of Christian living: if we are born by the
Spirit, we are blown by the wind of the Spirit into surprising places, and
Jesus is glorified?
2. Faith in Christ
Crucified
Remember poor Nicodemus, who just doesn’t understand Jesus? If he can’t
understand earthly things, what chance does he have with heavenly things? And
Jesus, the Son of Man, is uniquely qualified to speak of heavenly matters
(verses 11-13). So what heavenly things does he address?
‘And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life.’ (Verses 14-15)
Then, having said that, we then get the famous verse 16[2]:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
You want to see God’s love? You see it, says John, at the
Cross. This is how we know God loved the world. For it was at the Cross that
Jesus was ‘lifted up.’ Believing in Christ who was crucified because of divine
love for sinful people is the entry point to eternal life, to the kingdom of
God.
Jesus’ death for the sins of the world is what Christians
call ‘the atonement.’ Out of love, he dies in our place, as our representative,
and conquers the forces of evil, reconciling us to God. And a big problem for a
society that has largely rejected Christianity is atonement. How can we put
right our misdeeds? That’s why Ian McEwan’s novel that was made into a film
last year (and is now out on DVD) was called ‘Atonement’.
Briony, a thirteen-year-old girl, is jealous of her sister Cecilia’s
relationship with a young man called Robbie. She wrecks the relationship by
having Robbie framed for a rape. However, she regrets her mistake later in life
and wants to put it right. Can she?
The Christian answer is ‘no.’ We cannot atone for our sins
and mistakes. But Christ has done so in our place. And in atoning for us on the
Cross, he makes eternal life possible. For John’s Gospel defines eternal life
not simply as life after death, but as knowing God (17:3). And knowing God is
not possible until the barrier of our sin has been dismantled. Jesus does this
in a way we don’t fully understand at his crucifixion. Now, those who trust in
him enough to follow him find the way open to God.
All this should be basic Christianity. It is. Most of us
should be nodding in recognition – not just at the description, but also at the
experience of sins forgiven and a consequent knowledge of God the Father. And
yet, and yet …
… Isn’t the greatest tragedy in our congregations when we
have a conversation with somebody, who speaks about faith in terms of trying
their best to be good enough for God? The old heresy lurks large, that we can
be good enough for God. If we are more good than bad, if are more than 50%
good, if we are sincere, God will accept us. To all these aspirations, the
Cross speaks a decisive ‘No’. However good we are, we have an inbuilt tendency
to sin. A holy God can’t ignore it. Nor can a loving God.
That’s why Christian discipleship is Cross-shaped. ‘Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling.’ And not merely when following
Jesus begins. We can never walk away from the Cross. Faith in Jesus who died
for our sins not only brings us into the knowledge of God, it keeps us there. The
tendencies to justify ourselves, and to try to atone for our misdeeds,
boomerang back on us, or creep up quietly from behind. Without noticing, we
slip back into the unredeemed ways of self-justification.
The Cross of Christ says ‘no’ to all of this. It says, kneel
here. Believe that Christ has died for our sins. Believe for the first time, and
believe every day. Then, let the wind of the Spirit blow you where it wills on
the adventure of faith.
[1]
See Colin G Kruse, John
(Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), pp 106-8 for a summary of four
different possible interpretations of ‘water and the Spirit’.
[2]
Note I am ambiguous about whether Jesus or John speaks the words of verse 16. I
am inclined to the view that it is John. There are no quotation marks in NT
Greek. You have to judge, therefore, where a quotation ends. I believe it ends
at verse 15, and that from verse 16 we get John’s commentary.
Technorati Tags: Nicodemus, JosephOfArimathea, HolySpirit, bornagain, BrantHansen, atonement, IanMcEwan, ColinKruse
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Admirer Or Disciple?
[NB: The Lectionary
only goes up to verse 17, but in doing so it stops in the middle of John’s
thought, and omits the awkward stuff about judgement. I don’t think that’s
responsible treatment of the text, hence the slightly longer reading here.]
Introduction
From the Department of Corny Jokes: who is the only Irishman in the Bible? Nick
O’Demus.
If you want to know who to blame for that terrible joke, I
heard Graham Kendrick tell it in a concert many more years ago than I care to
remember. Actually, blame me for repeating and perpetuating it.
So we come to this familiar story of Nicodemus meeting
Jesus. What’s it doing as a Lectionary Gospel reading during Lent? I would
guess it’s here to make us think about the basics of faith and discipleship at
this time. Sometimes the ‘going deeper’ of Lent is best done by returning to
the basics, rather than by getting more complicated.
I see Nicodemus as a confused character. He comes to see
Jesus by night (verse 2). ‘Night’ is usually symbolic for something bad in John’s
Gospel. Night comes when no-one can work, according to Jesus. When Judas goes
out to betray his master, we read that ‘it was night’. It is night when
Nicodemus comes. As a Jewish leader, he has to meet Jesus under cover of
darkness. Showing a keen interest in the unconventional rabbi from Nazareth
will not endear him to the other leaders on the Sanhedrin. Later, Nicodemus
will speak in defence of Jesus, and he will assist Joseph of Arimathea with the
burial arrangements after Calvary.
But Nicodemus comes in his own ‘night’, his darkness, the
teacher of Israel who doesn’t understand basic spiritual issues. He admires
Jesus’ miracles and teachings, and knows there is something of God about him
(verse 2), but it hasn’t clicked for him. He’s not that different from many
people today, who admire Jesus, but haven’t crossed over into the kingdom of
God. Some of his admirers who haven’t made that step are in our churches.
Essentially, Jesus tells Nicodemus, there are two elements
to life as God intended. Centre on these, and you’ll be a disciple, not merely
an admirer.
1. Born of the Spirit
No doubt Nicodemus’ compliments and pleasantries are sincere. But they don’t
impress Jesus. He comes straight to the point:
Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see
the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ (Verse 3)
Straight to the point, but what did he mean? Nicodemus
certainly didn’t understand. He took him literally:
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having
grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’
(Verse 4)
Jesus explains the being born from above (or ‘born again’)
is about being born ‘of water and the Spirit’. Water is an image for the
Spirit.[1]
Only the Holy Spirit can bring spiritual life, says Jesus.
But what is this being ‘born of the Spirit’ or being ‘born
again’? That latter phrase, ‘born again’, has become a loaded one in the last
thirty years. I think it first came to prominence outside church circles when
Jimmy Carter ran for President of the USA in 1976. However, he was soon
disowned by certain Christians who thought he wasn’t born again enough, as it
were. ‘Born again’ then became associated not only with conversion, but with
particular viewpoints: a literal six-day creation, conservative politics and
unquestioning support for the State of Israel among other things.
However, according to Jesus, being born again of the Spirit
is simply conversion to faith and discipleship. So, take an occasion when as a
teenager I was taken by a school friend to a midweek youth meeting at his
Baptist church. Someone greeted me with the words, “Am I shaking hands with a
born-again Christian?” Believing I was a Christian, I said, “Yes.” My friend
looked on with some concern. His problem wasn’t that there were two types of
Christians, ordinary ones and born-again ones. His difficulty was that he didn’t
believe that at that point Christ had transformed my life. And he was right. But
– like Nicodemus – I didn’t understand.
When Jesus explains this spiritual birth to Nicodemus, he
says:
‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of
it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (Verse 8)
Jesus is making a play on words. It’s the same word for wind
as for Spirit. The wind (or Spirit) blows where it chooses. They didn’t have
meteorologists two thousand years ago to say where the wind was coming from, or
headed. It was a mystery. You expect Jesus then to say, ‘So it is with the
Spirit.’ But he doesn’t. He says, ‘So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ If you are born of the Spirit, says
Jesus, your life will take on a certain character.
Put it this way: some people worry that they cannot put a
date and time to their conversion. They have the impression that all Christian
conversion should be like Paul’s on the Damascus Road. However, as I once heard
it said, you don’t have to remember your own birth to know that you are alive. You
just need to recognise the signs of life. And so it is with the life of faith. You
may not know when you were born of the Spirit; what’s important is that you
recognise the signs of the Spirit leading your life.
And, says Jesus, those signs look rather like being blown by
the wind. You will not have a quiet life, but one where you are blown in
surprising directions. The wind of the Spirit will blow you where you think you
cannot go, or do not want to go, or do not feel equipped to go. Yet the same Spirit
will empower you for the journey. Here is an
amazing story of one man’s journey of being blown by the wind of the
Spirit:
Kumar comes from Chennai, India. One day, on a bus, he twice
heard God say to him, “Seek me.” However, which God? He was a Hindu. A highly
qualified man, he isn’t stupid, and after eliminating certain possibilities,
someone lent him a Bible and started following Jesus.
His parents were unhappy and scheduled an arranged marriage.
He told his bride and her family the day before the wedding about his new
faith. Six months later, when it hadn’t blown over, a hundred and fifty
relatives and friends confronted him. When he wouldn’t recant, he escaped to
the United States.
There, he found a job, and a big church. At the church, he
became caught up in the emotion of a testimony time. He declared that he didn’t
want riches or a Mercedes; he wanted to return to India and tell people about
Jesus. Inwardly, he knew he had lied, but before he could do anything about it,
people prayed for his vision.
He took a fortnight’s holiday from his job in the computing
industry. He flew home, and went from house to house, talking about Jesus. Forty-five
people started following Jesus during that trip.
Today, it’s a hundred thousand. Many have been persecuted
and even killed for their new faith. There are a hundred pastors. 139
communities. Orphanages for children with AIDS. Schools for Dalit children, the
lowest caste of all. Shelters for young girls rescued from prostitution. Food. Medicine.
Kumar won’t allow any of these ministries to be named after him. They don’t
raise funds publicly: they pray instead. His mega-church gives just $1000 a
year.
Kumar is a man blown by the wind of the Spirit. Look what
happened. Granted, church can’t be exciting every week, but when so much of
typical church life is so terminally boring, might it just be the case that we’ve
forgotten this fundamental dimension of Christian living: if we are born by the
Spirit, we are blown by the wind of the Spirit into surprising places, and
Jesus is glorified?
2. Faith in Christ
Crucified
Remember poor Nicodemus, who just doesn’t understand Jesus? If he can’t
understand earthly things, what chance does he have with heavenly things? And
Jesus, the Son of Man, is uniquely qualified to speak of heavenly matters
(verses 11-13). So what heavenly things does he address?
‘And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life.’ (Verses 14-15)
Then, having said that, we then get the famous verse 16[2]:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
You want to see God’s love? You see it, says John, at the
Cross. This is how we know God loved the world. For it was at the Cross that
Jesus was ‘lifted up.’ Believing in Christ who was crucified because of divine
love for sinful people is the entry point to eternal life, to the kingdom of
God.
Jesus’ death for the sins of the world is what Christians
call ‘the atonement.’ Out of love, he dies in our place, as our representative,
and conquers the forces of evil, reconciling us to God. And a big problem for a
society that has largely rejected Christianity is atonement. How can we put
right our misdeeds? That’s why Ian McEwan’s novel that was made into a film
last year (and is now out on DVD) was called ‘Atonement’.
Briony, a thirteen-year-old girl, is jealous of her sister Cecilia’s
relationship with a young man called Robbie. She wrecks the relationship by
having Robbie framed for a rape. However, she regrets her mistake later in life
and wants to put it right. Can she?
The Christian answer is ‘no.’ We cannot atone for our sins
and mistakes. But Christ has done so in our place. And in atoning for us on the
Cross, he makes eternal life possible. For John’s Gospel defines eternal life
not simply as life after death, but as knowing God (17:3). And knowing God is
not possible until the barrier of our sin has been dismantled. Jesus does this
in a way we don’t fully understand at his crucifixion. Now, those who trust in
him enough to follow him find the way open to God.
All this should be basic Christianity. It is. Most of us
should be nodding in recognition – not just at the description, but also at the
experience of sins forgiven and a consequent knowledge of God the Father. And
yet, and yet …
… Isn’t the greatest tragedy in our congregations when we
have a conversation with somebody, who speaks about faith in terms of trying
their best to be good enough for God? The old heresy lurks large, that we can
be good enough for God. If we are more good than bad, if are more than 50%
good, if we are sincere, God will accept us. To all these aspirations, the
Cross speaks a decisive ‘No’. However good we are, we have an inbuilt tendency
to sin. A holy God can’t ignore it. Nor can a loving God.
That’s why Christian discipleship is Cross-shaped. ‘Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling.’ And not merely when following
Jesus begins. We can never walk away from the Cross. Faith in Jesus who died
for our sins not only brings us into the knowledge of God, it keeps us there. The
tendencies to justify ourselves, and to try to atone for our misdeeds,
boomerang back on us, or creep up quietly from behind. Without noticing, we
slip back into the unredeemed ways of self-justification.
The Cross of Christ says ‘no’ to all of this. It says, kneel
here. Believe that Christ has died for our sins. Believe for the first time, and
believe every day. Then, let the wind of the Spirit blow you where it wills on
the adventure of faith.
[1]
See Colin G Kruse, John
(Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), pp 106-8 for a summary of four
different possible interpretations of ‘water and the Spirit’.
[2]
Note I am ambiguous about whether Jesus or John speaks the words of verse 16. I
am inclined to the view that it is John. There are no quotation marks in NT
Greek. You have to judge, therefore, where a quotation ends. I believe it ends
at verse 15, and that from verse 16 we get John’s commentary.
Technorati Tags: Nicodemus, JosephOfArimathea, HolySpirit, bornagain, BrantHansen, atonement, IanMcEwan, ColinKruse
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Admirer Or Disciple?
[NB: The Lectionary
only goes up to verse 17, but in doing so it stops in the middle of John’s
thought, and omits the awkward stuff about judgement. I don’t think that’s
responsible treatment of the text, hence the slightly longer reading here.]
Introduction
From the Department of Corny Jokes: who is the only Irishman in the Bible? Nick
O’Demus.
If you want to know who to blame for that terrible joke, I
heard Graham Kendrick tell it in a concert many more years ago than I care to
remember. Actually, blame me for repeating and perpetuating it.
So we come to this familiar story of Nicodemus meeting
Jesus. What’s it doing as a Lectionary Gospel reading during Lent? I would
guess it’s here to make us think about the basics of faith and discipleship at
this time. Sometimes the ‘going deeper’ of Lent is best done by returning to
the basics, rather than by getting more complicated.
I see Nicodemus as a confused character. He comes to see
Jesus by night (verse 2). ‘Night’ is usually symbolic for something bad in John’s
Gospel. Night comes when no-one can work, according to Jesus. When Judas goes
out to betray his master, we read that ‘it was night’. It is night when
Nicodemus comes. As a Jewish leader, he has to meet Jesus under cover of
darkness. Showing a keen interest in the unconventional rabbi from Nazareth
will not endear him to the other leaders on the Sanhedrin. Later, Nicodemus
will speak in defence of Jesus, and he will assist Joseph of Arimathea with the
burial arrangements after Calvary.
But Nicodemus comes in his own ‘night’, his darkness, the
teacher of Israel who doesn’t understand basic spiritual issues. He admires
Jesus’ miracles and teachings, and knows there is something of God about him
(verse 2), but it hasn’t clicked for him. He’s not that different from many
people today, who admire Jesus, but haven’t crossed over into the kingdom of
God. Some of his admirers who haven’t made that step are in our churches.
Essentially, Jesus tells Nicodemus, there are two elements
to life as God intended. Centre on these, and you’ll be a disciple, not merely
an admirer.
1. Born of the Spirit
No doubt Nicodemus’ compliments and pleasantries are sincere. But they don’t
impress Jesus. He comes straight to the point:
Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see
the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ (Verse 3)
Straight to the point, but what did he mean? Nicodemus
certainly didn’t understand. He took him literally:
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having
grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’
(Verse 4)
Jesus explains the being born from above (or ‘born again’)
is about being born ‘of water and the Spirit’. Water is an image for the
Spirit.[1]
Only the Holy Spirit can bring spiritual life, says Jesus.
But what is this being ‘born of the Spirit’ or being ‘born
again’? That latter phrase, ‘born again’, has become a loaded one in the last
thirty years. I think it first came to prominence outside church circles when
Jimmy Carter ran for President of the USA in 1976. However, he was soon
disowned by certain Christians who thought he wasn’t born again enough, as it
were. ‘Born again’ then became associated not only with conversion, but with
particular viewpoints: a literal six-day creation, conservative politics and
unquestioning support for the State of Israel among other things.
However, according to Jesus, being born again of the Spirit
is simply conversion to faith and discipleship. So, take an occasion when as a
teenager I was taken by a school friend to a midweek youth meeting at his
Baptist church. Someone greeted me with the words, “Am I shaking hands with a
born-again Christian?” Believing I was a Christian, I said, “Yes.” My friend
looked on with some concern. His problem wasn’t that there were two types of
Christians, ordinary ones and born-again ones. His difficulty was that he didn’t
believe that at that point Christ had transformed my life. And he was right. But
– like Nicodemus – I didn’t understand.
When Jesus explains this spiritual birth to Nicodemus, he
says:
‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of
it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (Verse 8)
Jesus is making a play on words. It’s the same word for wind
as for Spirit. The wind (or Spirit) blows where it chooses. They didn’t have
meteorologists two thousand years ago to say where the wind was coming from, or
headed. It was a mystery. You expect Jesus then to say, ‘So it is with the
Spirit.’ But he doesn’t. He says, ‘So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ If you are born of the Spirit, says
Jesus, your life will take on a certain character.
Put it this way: some people worry that they cannot put a
date and time to their conversion. They have the impression that all Christian
conversion should be like Paul’s on the Damascus Road. However, as I once heard
it said, you don’t have to remember your own birth to know that you are alive. You
just need to recognise the signs of life. And so it is with the life of faith. You
may not know when you were born of the Spirit; what’s important is that you
recognise the signs of the Spirit leading your life.
And, says Jesus, those signs look rather like being blown by
the wind. You will not have a quiet life, but one where you are blown in
surprising directions. The wind of the Spirit will blow you where you think you
cannot go, or do not want to go, or do not feel equipped to go. Yet the same Spirit
will empower you for the journey. Here is an
amazing story of one man’s journey of being blown by the wind of the
Spirit:
Kumar comes from Chennai, India. One day, on a bus, he twice
heard God say to him, “Seek me.” However, which God? He was a Hindu. A highly
qualified man, he isn’t stupid, and after eliminating certain possibilities,
someone lent him a Bible and started following Jesus.
His parents were unhappy and scheduled an arranged marriage.
He told his bride and her family the day before the wedding about his new
faith. Six months later, when it hadn’t blown over, a hundred and fifty
relatives and friends confronted him. When he wouldn’t recant, he escaped to
the United States.
There, he found a job, and a big church. At the church, he
became caught up in the emotion of a testimony time. He declared that he didn’t
want riches or a Mercedes; he wanted to return to India and tell people about
Jesus. Inwardly, he knew he had lied, but before he could do anything about it,
people prayed for his vision.
He took a fortnight’s holiday from his job in the computing
industry. He flew home, and went from house to house, talking about Jesus. Forty-five
people started following Jesus during that trip.
Today, it’s a hundred thousand. Many have been persecuted
and even killed for their new faith. There are a hundred pastors. 139
communities. Orphanages for children with AIDS. Schools for Dalit children, the
lowest caste of all. Shelters for young girls rescued from prostitution. Food. Medicine.
Kumar won’t allow any of these ministries to be named after him. They don’t
raise funds publicly: they pray instead. His mega-church gives just $1000 a
year.
Kumar is a man blown by the wind of the Spirit. Look what
happened. Granted, church can’t be exciting every week, but when so much of
typical church life is so terminally boring, might it just be the case that we’ve
forgotten this fundamental dimension of Christian living: if we are born by the
Spirit, we are blown by the wind of the Spirit into surprising places, and
Jesus is glorified?
2. Faith in Christ
Crucified
Remember poor Nicodemus, who just doesn’t understand Jesus? If he can’t
understand earthly things, what chance does he have with heavenly things? And
Jesus, the Son of Man, is uniquely qualified to speak of heavenly matters
(verses 11-13). So what heavenly things does he address?
‘And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life.’ (Verses 14-15)
Then, having said that, we then get the famous verse 16[2]:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
You want to see God’s love? You see it, says John, at the
Cross. This is how we know God loved the world. For it was at the Cross that
Jesus was ‘lifted up.’ Believing in Christ who was crucified because of divine
love for sinful people is the entry point to eternal life, to the kingdom of
God.
Jesus’ death for the sins of the world is what Christians
call ‘the atonement.’ Out of love, he dies in our place, as our representative,
and conquers the forces of evil, reconciling us to God. And a big problem for a
society that has largely rejected Christianity is atonement. How can we put
right our misdeeds? That’s why Ian McEwan’s novel that was made into a film
last year (and is now out on DVD) was called ‘Atonement’.
Briony, a thirteen-year-old girl, is jealous of her sister Cecilia’s
relationship with a young man called Robbie. She wrecks the relationship by
having Robbie framed for a rape. However, she regrets her mistake later in life
and wants to put it right. Can she?
The Christian answer is ‘no.’ We cannot atone for our sins
and mistakes. But Christ has done so in our place. And in atoning for us on the
Cross, he makes eternal life possible. For John’s Gospel defines eternal life
not simply as life after death, but as knowing God (17:3). And knowing God is
not possible until the barrier of our sin has been dismantled. Jesus does this
in a way we don’t fully understand at his crucifixion. Now, those who trust in
him enough to follow him find the way open to God.
All this should be basic Christianity. It is. Most of us
should be nodding in recognition – not just at the description, but also at the
experience of sins forgiven and a consequent knowledge of God the Father. And
yet, and yet …
… Isn’t the greatest tragedy in our congregations when we
have a conversation with somebody, who speaks about faith in terms of trying
their best to be good enough for God? The old heresy lurks large, that we can
be good enough for God. If we are more good than bad, if are more than 50%
good, if we are sincere, God will accept us. To all these aspirations, the
Cross speaks a decisive ‘No’. However good we are, we have an inbuilt tendency
to sin. A holy God can’t ignore it. Nor can a loving God.
That’s why Christian discipleship is Cross-shaped. ‘Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling.’ And not merely when following
Jesus begins. We can never walk away from the Cross. Faith in Jesus who died
for our sins not only brings us into the knowledge of God, it keeps us there. The
tendencies to justify ourselves, and to try to atone for our misdeeds,
boomerang back on us, or creep up quietly from behind. Without noticing, we
slip back into the unredeemed ways of self-justification.
The Cross of Christ says ‘no’ to all of this. It says, kneel
here. Believe that Christ has died for our sins. Believe for the first time, and
believe every day. Then, let the wind of the Spirit blow you where it wills on
the adventure of faith.
[1]
See Colin G Kruse, John
(Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), pp 106-8 for a summary of four
different possible interpretations of ‘water and the Spirit’.
[2]
Note I am ambiguous about whether Jesus or John speaks the words of verse 16. I
am inclined to the view that it is John. There are no quotation marks in NT
Greek. You have to judge, therefore, where a quotation ends. I believe it ends
at verse 15, and that from verse 16 we get John’s commentary.
Technorati Tags: Nicodemus, JosephOfArimathea, HolySpirit, bornagain, BrantHansen, atonement, IanMcEwan, ColinKruse
Deportations
How evil is our Government on the question of deportation? There have been enough cases where Christians genuinely frightened of persecution, even including death, have been treated with shameful ignorance by the Home Office (or whatever it’s called this week). A friend was involved in this many times when he was a minister in Doncaster: they had a number of genuine converts from Islam, and formed a new congregation as a result. Now I read this in yesterday’s Newswatch email from the Bible Society (the text is pasted from the email, as there isn’t a link to give):
DEATH THREAT CHRISTIAN IS
DEPORTED
A Nigerian Christian who
received death threats on four occasions has been deported after the failure of
her 18-month asylum claim. A representative of the Baptist Church in Leeds
where Grace Cole had been a valued member said she was ‘ashamed’ at the way the
Home Office treated Mrs Cole and her children. Her case reflects calls for
reform of the UK’s ‘inhumane’ asylum system, made by West Yorkshire Ecumenical
Council last week. Mrs Cole was threatened on four occasions in Nigeria and the
Gambia after avoiding an arranged marriage to the son of a Muslim imam.
Disowned by her family after becoming a Christian, she was said to be ‘very
frightened’ at the prospect of returning to Nigeria. On a wider front,
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports a fresh wave of attacks on churches and
Christians in two of Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated states and mounting tension in
a third.Source: Baptist Times (14/2)
Technorati Tags: deporation, persecution, HomeOffice, BibleSociety, GraceCole, Nigeria, Gambia, Christianity, Islam
God’s Junk Mail
The other 20 million finalists might as well give up. One of the gold-sticker-laden sweepstakes entry forms and magazine sales pitches that show up just about weekly in most Americans’ mailboxes has been sent to God.
American Family Publishers sent its computer-generated entry form to “God of Bushnell,” at the Bushnell Assembly of God, a church in central Florida.
“God, we’re searching for you. You’ve been positively identified as our $11 million mystery millionaire,” the form read.
The fine print showed the Creator was merely a finalist, but the letter encouraged him to try his luck.
“Imagine the looks you’d get from your neighbors … but don’t just sit there, God, come forward now and claim your prize.”
Bill Brack, the church’s pastor, told the Tampa Tribune that he had not yet decided whether the church would enter the sweepstakes. “God already has $11 million,” he said.
(From today’s Church Laughs email.)
God’s Junk Mail
The other 20 million finalists might as well give up. One of the gold-sticker-laden sweepstakes entry forms and magazine sales pitches that show up just about weekly in most Americans’ mailboxes has been sent to God.
American Family Publishers sent its computer-generated entry form to “God of Bushnell,” at the Bushnell Assembly of God, a church in central Florida.
“God, we’re searching for you. You’ve been positively identified as our $11 million mystery millionaire,” the form read.
The fine print showed the Creator was merely a finalist, but the letter encouraged him to try his luck.
“Imagine the looks you’d get from your neighbors … but don’t just sit there, God, come forward now and claim your prize.”
Bill Brack, the church’s pastor, told the Tampa Tribune that he had not yet decided whether the church would enter the sweepstakes. “God already has $11 million,” he said.
(From today’s Church Laughs email.)
God’s Junk Mail
The other 20 million finalists might as well give up. One of the gold-sticker-laden sweepstakes entry forms and magazine sales pitches that show up just about weekly in most Americans’ mailboxes has been sent to God.
American Family Publishers sent its computer-generated entry form to “God of Bushnell,” at the Bushnell Assembly of God, a church in central Florida.
“God, we’re searching for you. You’ve been positively identified as our $11 million mystery millionaire,” the form read.
The fine print showed the Creator was merely a finalist, but the letter encouraged him to try his luck.
“Imagine the looks you’d get from your neighbors … but don’t just sit there, God, come forward now and claim your prize.”
Bill Brack, the church’s pastor, told the Tampa Tribune that he had not yet decided whether the church would enter the sweepstakes. “God already has $11 million,” he said.
(From today’s Church Laughs email.)
Sunday’s Sermon: Lenten Discipline
Introduction
Fabio Capello made an impression when he got his England football squad
together at the beginning of the week, prior to the friendly match with
Switzerland on Wednesday. There was a new régime at work. The players weren’t
allowed their mobile phones, games consoles or iPods. Capello referred to them
by surname. They had to wear uniform. They were to sit down for meals together,
and leave together. No wonder that highly intellectual player Rio Ferdinand
astutely observed that it was like being back at school.
Capello has instilled a culture of discipline. And discipline
is central to our thinking, now that we have entered Lent. Much as I like
three-point sermons, I’m not going to look at the three temptations Jesus faced
in the wilderness. Instead, I want to look at the disciplines Jesus employed. Although
there are many spiritual disciplines, coincidentally I find three in this
story.
1. The Discipline of
the Spirit
At the risk of alienating the sport-haters even more, let me tell a story not
about football but about that even more wonderful game, cricket. It was the
only sport I was ever remotely good at playing. I was a left-arm bowler (seam
and spin – I’ve always been indecisive!), and a specialist number eleven
batsman. When I fielded, I liked to be close behind the batsman, in the slips. There
were two reasons for this: one was that in that position, you didn’t have time
to be scared if the ball came hard and fast. The other was that if I was a long
way from the bat, on the boundary, I didn’t have a strong throw to get the ball
back to the wicket-keeper. Yet there was one time when I was playing for my
primary school in a tournament when I was fielding on the boundary. I remember
hurling the ball back as best as I could to the wicket-keeper, and our teacher
called out, ‘Good throw, David F!’ I didn’t think it was a good throw, but he
did.
What does that have to do with Lent disciplines and the Holy
Spirit? Bear with me for a moment. Our story begins with these words:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. (Verse 1)
‘Led by the Spirit’? Many Christians talk about feeling they
are being led by the Spirit. They feel led by the Spirit to serve God in Outer
Mongolia, the inner city or leafy Surrey. They feel led by the Spirit to change
job, marry a beautiful blonde, move church, or buy a Mars bar. They feel led by
the Spirit to tell you something.
But the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. There’s
nothing warm and fuzzy about it. He has just had an amazing experience of the
Spirit descending on him at his baptism – a spiritual ‘high’ if ever there was
one – and now he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
What does it have to do with throwing a cricket ball? Simply
this: ‘led by the Spirit’ is altogether too twee a translation. The Greek
means, ‘Jesus was thrown out by the Spirit.’ Ekballo is the Greek verb: ‘ek’, meaning ‘out of’, and ‘ballo’, to
throw, from which we get our word ball. The Holy Spirit hurls Jesus into the
wilderness.
There’s a lot of traditional ‘led by the Spirit’ language
that I approve of. I do believe the Holy Spirit leads people to share insights
with others that the speaker couldn’t otherwise have known would be helpful to
the hearer. I do believe the Holy Spirit does remarkable works of power that
transform lives for the better. I believe all that stuff. But I also believe
the Spirit leads us into the tough places, the wildernesses of our lives and
this world, just as Jesus was led. It is therefore a Christian discipline to
listen to the Spirit’s promptings, even if they are uncomfortable.
So is there an area of life where you felt led by the Spirit,
perhaps forcefully, but where you are unhappy or at least uneasy? It might be a
job, family situation or something to do with church. It’s easy to want to run
away sometimes, but if the Spirit has thrown us into such an environment, then
escape should not be our first option. The season may well come to an end, just
as it did for Jesus in the wilderness, but we are wise to allow the discipline
of following Spirit’s leading to teach us more of God’s ways and shape us more
like Christ.
2. The Discipline of
Self-Denial
If there’s one thing we associate Lent with, it’s giving up something for the
forty days. Last year, we invited a couple of families around one day and got
out our chocolate fountain. It was agony for some of the girls, who had decided
to renounce chocolate for Lent!
You may have seen other initiatives publicised this Lent.
There is TEAR Fund’s Carbon Fast,
which encourages us to cut our carbon use and reduce further damage to the
climate. There is the Church of England’s Love
Life Live Lent project, with us for a second year this year. It features
booklets for children, youth and adults, suggesting a new action for each day
of Lent.
All of this comes from Jesus’ actions in the wilderness:
He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he
was famished. (Verse 2)
It wasn’t unusual for a Jew to fast. Forty days was extreme,
though. It goes close to the limits before lack of food has an irreversibly
detrimental effect on the body. Remember that those IRA hunger strikers who
died, such as Bobby Sands, fasted for fifty or sixty days. Why does Jesus do
it?
As I explained in a couple of school assemblies this week,
Jesus shows us a Christian value of giving up something good for the sake of
something better. The ‘something better’ here is prayer. For Jesus, being in
close communion with his Father was essential throughout his life. However, here,
at the outset of his ministry, it is particularly vital. Prayer becomes more
important than food.
It also becomes a counter-cultural witness. How easy it is
to conceive of life as being about self-fulfilment. It’s an immature society where
people gratify their every desire. The other day, Rebekah has a friend come
back after school to play with her. When her father came to pick her up, he
said in all innocence, ‘They’re having fun. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t
it?’
Psychologists tell us that the ability to defer personal
gratification is a sign of maturity. Those that can’t do this are not grown-up
people. On that basis, we have developed a whole culture of adolescence – we have
adolescents of every age!
On a purely human level, this is of course what Fabio
Capello knew in imposing a disciplined approach in his management of the
England football team. A group of people whose lifestyle affords them every
opportunity for self-indulgence run grave risks of undermining the very skills
that have earned them their outrageous wages in the first place. In the
sporting arena, Capello knew that success would require self-denial.
So it is for us, too. I’ve just started a Lent course at
Broomfield where we are studying the DVD version of John Ortberg’s book If
You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat. In the first
session, he makes an important point: Christians have to choose between comfort
and growth. If we opt for comfort, we shall not grow spiritually. If we are
committed to growth, we shall have to become uncomfortable in all sorts of
ways. Self-denial will be required.
Is God, then, calling us to give up something, not so that
we might be miserable, but rather because he is training us for something
better? Is God calling us to the discipline of denying ourselves in some area
so that something better might happen for his kingdom? If that is the case,
then there is real incentive for the discipline of self-denial.
3. The Discipline of
the Scriptures
When the pressure is on, Jesus responds the same way every time to the tempter.
He answers each of the three temptations in the same way: ‘It is written’
(verses 4, 7 and 10). He dismisses every temptation with Scripture.
And it’s not merely a case of Jesus shooting back a
proof-text. In the second temptation, where he is tempted to throw himself off
the Temple, it’s as if the devil has become wise to this, because he quotes the
Bible, too. I can remember a radio phone-in presenter banning his callers from
quoting the Bible, because he said people could quote it to support any
position. The devil treats Scripture like that.
But Jesus doesn’t. He can dismiss the temptation with more
Scripture, because he knows his Bible better. He knows the big story of
Scripture, the story of God, his ways and his character. In fact, every time
that Jesus fires back a verse at the devil in this story, each quotation comes
from the same part of the Bible. They all come from Deuteronomy, and the
account of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Clearly, Jesus sees great
significance in that for his forty days in the desert.
Ah, you say, but Jesus was the Son of God. He knew the
Scriptures because he was deity. We’re not like that. However, wait a minute –
remember his humanity. Remember that Jesus conducted his ministry as a man
acting in the power of the Spirit. Without that, he couldn’t be our example for
living. And as a human being, a Jew of two thousand years ago in Palestine, he
would have gone as a boy to synagogue school. From an early age, Jesus was
steeped in the Scriptures.
I see Jesus, then, as someone who had engaged in a
disciplined reflection on the Scriptures. He read them, meditated on them and
prayed them. It was as if they became woven around him like a garment. For years
before this event in the wilderness, Jesus has engaged in the discipline of
Scripture. It is stored up in his life.
I have taken to comparing this to the Old Testament story of
Joseph in Egypt. You will recall that when he becomes Pharaoh’s trusted
adviser, he institutes a policy where during the seven years of plenty, grain
is stored ready for the seven lean years. In a similar way, the discipline of
Scripture is one where we store up the goodness of God’s Word, ready for the
lean or wilderness times. When we hit a crisis, God may graciously direct us to
some Scripture that will help us. But I believe his best for us is that we immerse
ourselves in the biblical material now, before the crisis hits.
So how do we come to the Bible helpfully? I recently found
some helpful
and challenging words from an American Methodist, William Willimon[1].
He says we can’t just come to Scripture, condemning it for where it doesn’t
meet our preconceived ideas. For example, how can we condemn it for being
violent when our society is extremely violent (just not always in front of our
eyes)? We spot what we think are cultural limitations in the Bible, such as
where we think it is sexist or racist, but we are blind to our own. Our big
mistake is in trying to conform the Bible to our view of the world. Here are a few
sentences from Willimon:
Scripture is an attempt to construct a new world, to stoke,
fund and fuel our imaginations. The Bible is an ongoing debate about what is
real and who is in charge and where we’re all headed. So the person who emerged
from church one Sunday (after one of my most biblical sermons, too!),
muttering, “That’s the trouble with you preachers. You just never speak to
anything that relates to my world,” makes a good point.
To which the Bible replies, “How on earth did you get the idea that I want to
speak to your world? I want to rock, remake, deconstruct and rework your
world!”
…
Thus when we read Scripture, we’re not simply to ask, “Does
this make sense to me?” or “How can I use this to make my life less miserable?”
but rather we are to ask in Wesleyan fashion, “How would I have to be changed
in order to make this Scripture work?” Every text is a potential invitation to
conversion, transformation, and growth in grace.
So a true discipline of Scripture shapes us. We are thus ‘in
shape’ to face the wilderness and temptation, whenever they occur. That discipline
of Scripture becomes our primary way of disciplined listening to the Spirit,
thus leading – amongst other things – to the discipline of self-denial. In all
these disciplines, we become fitter, more trained for the battle against evil,
in which victory is already assured – because of Christ’s obedience, even to
death on a cross.
[1]
See his book United
Methodist Beliefs.
Technorati Tags: FabioCapello, RioFerdinand, Lent, wilderness, HolySpirit, self-denial, TEARFund, CarbonFast, LoveLifeLiveLent, JohnOrtberg, WilliamWillimon
