Category: Religion

Martyn Atkins’ Presidential Address

… can be found here. He calls Methodism to rediscover its original spiritual DNA, rather than hanker for a golden age. Here are some juicy quotes:

I understand God best in missiological terms.

The Church is first and foremost the product of God’s mission, and then participants and partners in God’s mission to restore and renew all things. … Whenever pre-occupation with its own survival takes centre stage then the Church has lost sight of its true nature and purpose.

Consequently when the Church is missionary and evangelistic in this cosmic, wide and wonderful sense it is never more truly being itself, and when it is not, it is never more ‘unlike’ its true self.

My own view is that new ways of being Church are called into being by the Spirit of God whenever existing expressions of Church are unable or unwilling to share effectively in God’s mission in a new time, place and context. God does not shape the mission to the Church, but reshapes Church around God’s mission of reaching out, redeeming and restoring.

we should proceed apace with new ways of being Church, working out our issues as we enable their emergence, rather than kicking them into the long grass until we’ve got it all sorted. And if they are God’s idea then we must continue to take ever more seriously the strategizing and management required to redirect our resources, reconfigure our ministries, and revisit and re-envision what it means to be the People called Methodist.

Methodism was brought into being by the restoring, renewing God with a particular DNA – or better, particular Charisms, – grace gifts of a gracious God – so as to be able to play a particular role in God’s conspiracy of goodness.

My own ‘two-pennyworth’ is that the People called Methodist – lay and ordained, one People in Christ’s ministry – are a movement ‘charismatised’ with an engaging evangelicalism. The roots of some traditions are found in doctrinal disputes; the Wesleyan tradition emerges from an evangelistic imperative. Our ecclesiology is essentially missiological. Our charisms include humbly but clearly sharing Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, by word and action. They include a reliance on the prevenient work of the Spirit, God going before and beyond and urging us to follow. They include living – individually and corporately – lives of social and personal holiness and responsibility, all arising from taking the scriptures with the utmost seriousness. Each of these involves a pragmatic, incarnational engagement rather than an unresponsive, distant disengagement. As a movement, we are created to move, being dynamic rather than static in terms of embodying the hope that is within us.

Steve Wild talks about Methodist evangelism as ‘evangelastic’; that which stretches and alters so as to be what it is. I like this term because it also hints at a lifelong process of conversion and discipleship, an Emmaus road journey, on which Damascus road encounters occasionally break in and lead on.

renewal, true renewal, is fundamentally and ultimately a sovereign work of God. We can’t create it or command God to bring it about. We can’t strategize or scheme so that renewal must come. On the other hand renewal is not totally disconnected from human longing and preparation.

My favourite model of renewal arises from Vatican II and catches this energizing balance between what God alone can do, and what lies with us. The first is to return to the gospel, and more particularly to those words of Jesus which most powerfully articulate ‘who you are’ as a community of Christ; the ‘loud’ words which speak prophetically to you, and relocate you in the gospel tradition.

The second is to return to the founding charisms, to revisit why God raised you up in the first place. Not that renewal comes because you have rediscovered your charisms. Rather that through the challenging process of identifying charisms, then retrieving them, and then reproducing them for today, you rediscover who you are in God’s continuing call. You find yourselves again.

Thirdly, to do all this as you read the signs of the times. To take seriously that you live in world radically different to that of your founding mothers and fathers, and therefore although the charisms remain, how they are expressed and embodied changes.

The continuing call of God to the People called Methodist involves fresh expressions of our DNA, for today. It is more about raising children than making clones.

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Martyn Atkins’ Presidential Address

… can be found here. He calls Methodism to rediscover its original spiritual DNA, rather than hanker for a golden age. Here are some juicy quotes:

I understand God best in missiological terms.

The Church is first and foremost the product of God’s mission, and then participants and partners in God’s mission to restore and renew all things. … Whenever pre-occupation with its own survival takes centre stage then the Church has lost sight of its true nature and purpose.

Consequently when the Church is missionary and evangelistic in this cosmic, wide and wonderful sense it is never more truly being itself, and when it is not, it is never more ‘unlike’ its true self.

My own view is that new ways of being Church are called into being by the Spirit of God whenever existing expressions of Church are unable or unwilling to share effectively in God’s mission in a new time, place and context. God does not shape the mission to the Church, but reshapes Church around God’s mission of reaching out, redeeming and restoring.

we should proceed apace with new ways of being Church, working out our issues as we enable their emergence, rather than kicking them into the long grass until we’ve got it all sorted. And if they are God’s idea then we must continue to take ever more seriously the strategizing and management required to redirect our resources, reconfigure our ministries, and revisit and re-envision what it means to be the People called Methodist.

Methodism was brought into being by the restoring, renewing God with a particular DNA – or better, particular Charisms, – grace gifts of a gracious God – so as to be able to play a particular role in God’s conspiracy of goodness.

My own ‘two-pennyworth’ is that the People called Methodist – lay and ordained, one People in Christ’s ministry – are a movement ‘charismatised’ with an engaging evangelicalism. The roots of some traditions are found in doctrinal disputes; the Wesleyan tradition emerges from an evangelistic imperative. Our ecclesiology is essentially missiological. Our charisms include humbly but clearly sharing Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, by word and action. They include a reliance on the prevenient work of the Spirit, God going before and beyond and urging us to follow. They include living – individually and corporately – lives of social and personal holiness and responsibility, all arising from taking the scriptures with the utmost seriousness. Each of these involves a pragmatic, incarnational engagement rather than an unresponsive, distant disengagement. As a movement, we are created to move, being dynamic rather than static in terms of embodying the hope that is within us.

Steve Wild talks about Methodist evangelism as ‘evangelastic’; that which stretches and alters so as to be what it is. I like this term because it also hints at a lifelong process of conversion and discipleship, an Emmaus road journey, on which Damascus road encounters occasionally break in and lead on.

renewal, true renewal, is fundamentally and ultimately a sovereign work of God. We can’t create it or command God to bring it about. We can’t strategize or scheme so that renewal must come. On the other hand renewal is not totally disconnected from human longing and preparation.

My favourite model of renewal arises from Vatican II and catches this energizing balance between what God alone can do, and what lies with us. The first is to return to the gospel, and more particularly to those words of Jesus which most powerfully articulate ‘who you are’ as a community of Christ; the ‘loud’ words which speak prophetically to you, and relocate you in the gospel tradition.

The second is to return to the founding charisms, to revisit why God raised you up in the first place. Not that renewal comes because you have rediscovered your charisms. Rather that through the challenging process of identifying charisms, then retrieving them, and then reproducing them for today, you rediscover who you are in God’s continuing call. You find yourselves again.

Thirdly, to do all this as you read the signs of the times. To take seriously that you live in world radically different to that of your founding mothers and fathers, and therefore although the charisms remain, how they are expressed and embodied changes.

The continuing call of God to the People called Methodist involves fresh expressions of our DNA, for today. It is more about raising children than making clones.

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Methodism, According To Garrison Keillor

I found this amusing reflection on what it is to be a Methodist on Facebook. It needs some adaptation for British circumstances (tea and biscuits, not coffee and doughnuts; we’re probably less averse to sharing the peace, and so on), but there is enough familiar in here for a wry smile or chuckle:

Methodists
(Adapted from an essay by Garrison Keillor)

We
make fun of Methodists for their blandness, their excessive calm, their
fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret
fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them. If you
were to ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Methodistless
place, to sing along on the chorus of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,”
they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to
their underwear. But if you do this among Methodists, they’ll smile and
row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Many
Methodists are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It’s a
talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or
tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little
head against that person’s rib cage. It’s natural for Methodists to
sing in harmony. We’re too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing
in unison. When you’re singing in the key of C and you slide into the
A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it’s an emotionally
fulfilling moment.

By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise
that we will not forsake each other. I do believe this: People, these
Methodists, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of
people you could call up when you’re in deep distress. If you’re dying,
they’ll comfort you. If you’re lonely, they’ll talk to you. And if
you’re hungry, they’ll give you tuna salad!

1. Met! hodis ts believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.

2. Methodists like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

3. Methodists believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don’t notify them that they are there.

4. Methodists usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

5.
Methodists believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially
during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

6. Methodists feel that applauding for their children’s choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.

7. Methodists think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace.

8. Methodists drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

9. Methodists feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.
10. Methodists are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.

11.
Methodists still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the
season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much
color.

12. Methodists believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

And finally,
you know you’re a Methodist when:

— It’s 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.

— You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can!

— Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.

— When you watch a “Star Wars” movie and they say, “May the Force be with you”, and you respond, “and also with you”.

— And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say “good-bye”.

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Lying

Fred Peatross has a useful short piece on the ethical problem of lying. He tells of lying at Ukrainian customs by not declaring medications, knowing that if he told the truth they would be confiscated by corrupt officials. Against this he pitches Proverbs 12:22, ‘The Lord detests lying lips’, but in its favour Exodus 1:15-20 where the Hebrew midwives are commended for lying to protect the baby Moses.

It reminded me of when I left Israel/Palestine in 1989 after a three-week trip for theological students. We were told that Israeli security would ask us whether we had had visited any Palestinian homes (and remember how hospitable they are). The Christians who had hosted our visit advised us to say, ‘No.’ We were told that if we admitted to entering the homes of Palestinians, we would be asked for the name and address. If we supplied it, that person would then be investigated by the Israeli tax authorities. If they were behind with their taxes,the tanks would roll in and flatten the dwelling.

Fortunately, I had not been invited into a Palestinian home while I was there, but I still think the right Christian thing to do was to lie. Whatever Proverbs says, the Ten Commandments do not prohibit lying but ‘bearing false witness against your neighbour’, which is not only about truth-telling, it is also about justice. So small matters about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq fall here, for example. There remains the fundamental obligation to honesty, because it is linked with integrity and reliability. But like Fred, I am convinced it is still occasionally the Christian duty to lie for the sake of mercy and justice. What do you think?

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The Pope, The Latin Mass and Judaism

Pope’s move on Latin mass ‘a blow to Jews’ | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited(-)

Here’s a difficult one: the Pope is under fire from Jewish groups, because his willingness to allow the Latin Mass to be said again means that on Good Friday Catholics will pray for Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism. The rite calls for God to ‘lift the veil from the eyes’ of the Jews and to end ‘the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ’.

Am I the only person to feel somewhere in the middle on this? As a Christian, I am a member of a missionary faith, and if I believe Christ is the light of the world, then I cannot but want anybody and everybody to know that. If the call is for conversion specifically to Catholicism (as it would have been pre-Vatican II), I obviously beg to differ, but I cannot deny even an unreformed Catholicism’s right to prosyletise and organise its spiritually appropriately, just as I would want to with my different convictions. There is also the question of how Christian converts from other faiths feel about moves to oppose evangelism across the faiths. In this specific case, there are many Jewish people who have concluded that Jesus is Messiah, and who will equally be upset.

At the same time, it is one thing to be committed to evangelism in principle, and it is another thing altogether how one goes about it. Here the history of Christian-Jewish relations especially bears upon the Jewish reaction to the Pope’s decision. The forced conversions of the past (for which today we condemn Islamists) and other atrocities understandably make Jewish people nervous about Christian evangelism. I want to pray that people may find the light of Christ, but one of the big problems is that we Christians are often those who have interposed darkness between people and his light. It simply isn’t right to cast liturgy and policy in terms that construe us as purely the goodies and everyone else as the baddies.

There are other problems with the Latin Mass, not least that it is in Latin. The Observer article linked to at the top of this post quotes a thirty-year-old Frenchman, Mathieu Mautin, on why he favours it. His reasons are illuminating:

‘I want my children to enjoy it too,’ Mautin said. ‘The liturgy creates
a universe that makes the mystery palpable. The fact that the priest
faces the altar signifies for us that he is leading the people of God.’

Everything about that is curious to me. I welcome the idea that liturgy creates a universe of palpable mystery. It is frequently missing in the clinical, rationalist worship of Protestants (can I still use that word?). There is a recovery of concern for a sense of mystery in alternative worship and emerging church circles. But mystery by putting things in a language that is not ‘a tongue understanded of the people’, as the English Reformers put it, defeats biblical worship. Paul’s very point in 1 Corinthians 14 about tongues and prophecy is that in public worship the content has to be understood by those present. We have to introduce mystery into worship differently – by symbolism and the creative arts, for example.

My other concern is Mautin’s notion of Christian leadership. If the priest faces the altar as a sign of leadership it means his back is to the people. For a Brit this is culturally rude – perhaps it isn’t in other places. But it codifies a sense of ‘Catch up with me.’ The leader on this model is Moses coming down from Sinai with the tablets, where no-one else has the same level of access to God. It stands for a deeply unreformed Catholicism.

At the same time the problem cannot be solved simply by the priest turning to face the congregation. That still gives what Alan Hirsch and others call a ‘Christendom’ model of church, where most of the Body of Christ are passive, watching a performance. In some congregations, woe betide the preacher who makes a gaffe and mistakenly thinks that we’re all family together. In today’s western culture, as Hirsch points out in ‘The Forgotten Ways‘, it makes the congregation into consumers, with all the attendant idolatry. Church leaders must not only face the congregation, but be part of it. Unlike Hirsch I still think there is some place for certain Sunday services that are led from the front – there are issues of group dynamics and how we use particular gifts that lead me to that conclusion. However his basic point is right, and in any case leadership is something that is led, not simply spoken. We could all do with a measure of self-examination.

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Oops

Yesterday morning I preached the sermon I posted here on Saturday night, and got an interesting reaction afterwards. One lady swore I had preached it before.

‘But I couldn’t have done,’ I replied, ‘ that passage only crops up in the Lectionary every three years.’

‘Oh, I’ve got a very good memory for these things,’ she said. ‘I told you at the time how you had preached on the passage very differently from your predecessor.’

I had another conversation with a member of the congregation, who was quite animated about the story. As she talked, there was something vaguely familiar about the language she used.

So I searched the computer when I got home. The first lady was right. I preached on this very passage in February last year. The sermon is here, on the ordinary website where I used to post my sermons. Thus my text document for it was in a different folder from the one I use now. No wonder the sermon seemed to come easily (something that relieved me at the time of writing, because all Saturday afternoon had gone to seeing our daughter perform for the first time with her ballet school).

Now apart from those of you who might like to do a bit of deconstruction by contrasting the two sermons, I had a more prosaic question in my mind: has anybody else had a similar experience? It’s not like the times when I deliberately repeat a sermon, after all.

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Oops

Yesterday morning I preached the sermon I posted here on Saturday night, and got an interesting reaction afterwards. One lady swore I had preached it before.

‘But I couldn’t have done,’ I replied, ‘ that passage only crops up in the Lectionary every three years.’

‘Oh, I’ve got a very good memory for these things,’ she said. ‘I told you at the time how you had preached on the passage very differently from your predecessor.’

I had another conversation with a member of the congregation, who was quite animated about the story. As she talked, there was something vaguely familiar about the language she used.

So I searched the computer when I got home. The first lady was right. I preached on this very passage in February last year. The sermon is here, on the ordinary website where I used to post my sermons. Thus my text document for it was in a different folder from the one I use now. No wonder the sermon seemed to come easily (something that relieved me at the time of writing, because all Saturday afternoon had gone to seeing our daughter perform for the first time with her ballet school).

Now apart from those of you who might like to do a bit of deconstruction by contrasting the two sermons, I had a more prosaic question in my mind: has anybody else had a similar experience? It’s not like the times when I deliberately repeat a sermon, after all.

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Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Conspiracy Of The Insignificant

2 Kings
5:1-14

Introduction
In early 2005, we realised that Debbie’s car, a Peugeot 306, was no longer
going to be functional as family car. It was insufficiently like the Tardis to
cope with the amount of clutter we needed to cart around with two small
children. Through friends and family, we were quickly converted to the virtues
of a ‘people-carrier’.

We short-listed three different cars: a Vauxhall
Zafira, Renault
Scenic and a Citroen
Picasso. Despite three recommendations for the Zafira, we eliminated it as
too expensive and with too small a boot.

That left the Scenic and the Picasso. For a while, we couldn’t
tell the difference between them in appearance, but we settled on the Picasso and
once we bought one we found that whenever we were out we were always spotting
Picassos on the road. Had they suddenly increased in number once we became
interested in them? No; we had simply become more tuned into them.

Sometimes I find reading the Bible is like that. It isn’t until
I get interested in a particular issue that I realise how much of the Bible
reflects that concern, or is relevant to it.

I had one of those experiences this last week. You will know
by now that one of my concerns is how we are faithful Christian witnesses in a
society where Christianity is no longer central, but on the margins. We live in
a culture whose values have been changing rapidly in recent decades. The Gospel
may not change, but many of our old ways of being church have become obsolete.

I have read the story of Naaman and his healing since Sunday
School. Perhaps you have, too. However, this week when it came up in the Lectionary
I found it was no longer a charming Sunday School story. It was a model for
mission in today’s world. I see it, because the story is set in a time when
Israel was under the cosh from Aram (verses 1-2). A pagan nation with alien
values has mastery over the people of God. Within these strictures, fruitful
mission happens – just as it can in our day when forces are pushing the church to
the margins of society. This week we saw the church-state ties loosened as
Gordon Brown relinquished
some powers over the appointment of bishops other senior clergy. It opens
up again the whole issue of the Church of England’s established status – and in
my Methodist opinion, that’s a good thing.

So in this context, where the church is less central to our
society, how does the story of Naaman encourage us in our mission? I find it by
exploring the three Israelite characters connected with him: the slave girl,
the king of Israel and Elisha.

1. The Slave Girl
How many of us were shocked by the news a couple of days ago that a
three-year-old girl was kidnapped in Nigeria?
Perhaps we need to think of something like that to understand the horror of
what happened when this young girl was taken captive by the Arameans in 2 Kings
5. Granted, she is probably older than three, given the way she speaks, and
neither is she being threatened by death. However, if you want a sense of the
horror, think Nigeria.

Yet in this situation of trauma and oppression, the young
girl is a star:

She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the
prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ (verse 3)

Here is a wounded, marginalised person offering love. Here
is one who as both child and female has no status, yet she offers love. Forgiving
love and compassion for one who has done wrong to her, her family, her religion
and nation. Truly, a little child leads here, as she blesses an enemy.

How does this translate for us? Isn’t one of the dangers of
being a minority that has been sidelined more and more that all we want to do
is carp and snipe at the society that has done this to us? We criticise this,
we declaim about that and we lay into something else. If we’re good, we pretend
we are offering a prophetic critique of the world, but if only we were. More likely,
we are laying bare the chip on our shoulder and giving energy to the resentment
we feel that people no longer see the church as an institution whose opinions
should be sought and respected.

The young slave girl says, bless those who have done this to
you. Look for ways to love and serve them. Search out opportunities to tell
them the good news – not that God can’t
wait to singe them in Hell, but that he is crazy with love for them and
passionate that they find him.

When I ministered in Kent, there was a branch of Ottakar’s bookshops
in Chatham High Street. They regularly displayed and promoted occult books. Alongside
the display there was sometimes the opportunity to sign up for occult meetings.
I shared this with a prayer meeting. The response was interesting. I thought
they would be the kind of Christians who would want to instigate a prayer march
against the shop, and perhaps a letter-writing campaign, too. They didn’t.
Their immediate response was to pray that God would bless the shop and its
employees, because that would be a better way of making a gospel difference.

For us, our ‘Naaman’ might be an unpleasant boss at work. What
might happen if we showed Christian love and concern for that boss’s needs and
difficulties? Or today’s Naaman could be an unjust political group or multinational
corporation. How might we show the love of Christ to them? (And this is the end
of International Boycott Nestlé Week!)

I am not saying we should never criticise or boycott, but we
have to be sure our motive is God’s love, not vindictiveness. The slave girl reminds
us to love and make a difference.

2. The King Of Israel
Naaman goes to his king, who prepares a letter for his opposite number, the
king of Israel. Leave aside for a moment the naïveté that assumes the Israelite
king can heal the soldier. We have to excuse that as innocent ignorance: it’s
something Christians encounter often from people who make requests of them. I often
find it comes in terms of expecting that the minister can do something, which
another Christian can’t. There is no point in criticising this: we cannot
expect complete understanding of our ways.

What is more disappointing is the king of Israel’s response.
He doesn’t give a theological lecture – that would be bad enough. Instead, he
goes on the defensive:

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes
and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to
cure a man of his leprosy?
Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’ (verse 7)

The king of Israel cannot see human need for what it is and
respond appropriately. It is as if he knows the story of the Trojan Horse and
sees Naaman’s illness as the way in which Israel will be further weakened.

Is that so far from some of our responses as a Christian
minority today? I don’t think so. There are those who think we shouldn’t
support environmental causes, because we become ‘guilty by association’ with
some crazy green campaigners who happen to think that planet Earth is actually
a goddess named Gaia, and we shouldn’t get our names tarnished by working with
such fruitcakes. The fact that there is ample biblical material for being
environmentally conscious should be enough: God calls us to be stewards of the
earth, not rapists of it.

Alternatively, consider how long it took some Christians to
become concerned with fighting HIV/AIDS, because of its association with sexual
practices that lie outside traditional Christian morality. Thank God that
mentality has changed through the example of organisations like ACET AND TEAR
Fund, who hold orthodox Christian beliefs, but are at the forefront of
medical prevention and political campaigning.

In a world packed with terrible needs, it would be spiritual
suicide to follow the example of the king of Israel. It’s no good getting on
our high horse about certain moral evils in our society, but doing nothing to
heal the pain.

But let’s bring it close and personal. Who are the people we
know, who have made a mess of their lives, perhaps through their own fault, but
whom we have been resisting the idea of helping? Is now the time to see that we
have made a mistake and need to reach out with Christian compassion? For Debbie
and me recently it’s been about being available to two pregnant women: one is
living with her partner and already has one child by him, the other had a
second child on her own without ongoing involvement from the father of either
child. Neither of these women lives lifestyles with which we agree as
Christians. However, would it surprise you if I told you that one of these
mothers is now asking questions about baptism?

3. Elisha
Surely the story is going to end up with Elisha performing an amazing miracle. It
builds up that way. The slave girl calls him ‘the prophet who is in Samaria
[who] would cure [Naaman] of his leprosy’ (verse 3). The writer of 2 Kings
describes Elisha as ‘the man of God’ (verse 8) and Elisha himself urges the
king of Israel to forward Naaman onto him so ‘that he may learn that there is a
prophet in Israel’ (verse 8).

Therefore, it’s a surprise when Naaman arrives at Elisha’s
house and the great man doesn’t come out to greet him, but sends a messenger,
telling Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan (verse 10). What’s going on?

Here’s my theory: Naaman has some kind of superstar complex.
He’s miffed that the spiritual hero won’t come out to him (verse 11), and he’s
insulted by the thought of washing in that feeble, insignificant river the
Jordan. He’s got celebrity rivers back in Damascus – the Abana and the Pharpar
(verse 12). So not meeting Elisha and suffering the indignity of the River Jordan
force Naaman away from this hero-worship attitude.

And isn’t that just what we need today? We live in a culture
that needs to be weaned off celebrity adulation, and where people – ooh, let me
think, Chantelle
Houghton and Paris
Hilton – are merely famous for being famous. So addicted are we to this
that an informed politician like Al Gore
needs to utilise gas-guzzling pop stars to communicate his planet-saving message. By a conspiracy of
insignificant non-celebrity Christians, operating without spin doctors or
street teams, armed only with the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit,
we subvert a sick culture and bring healing in the name of Jesus.

And that means that the church needs to be healed of her own
addiction to celebrity, too. We may not have the hype and publicity tools
available to entertainers and politicians, but there is an unhealthy reliance
upon famous Christians and Christian leaders. We believe, however, in a priesthood
of all believers, and so it’s time to stop this dependency upon such people and
realise this is a call to all Christians.

In fact, one Christian leader from the Southern Hemisphere, Alan Hirsch, tells a story in his
recent book, ‘The
Forgotten Ways’ about the early growth of a church
he and his wife led in Melbourne. It did not happen under their leadership, but
before they arrived. George the Greek was a drug dealer who once chose prison
instead of a fine for his crimes. While there he read the Bible and God
encountered him. Upon release, George and his brother John set about sharing
their faith. Within six months, fifty people had become disciples of Jesus. There
were gay men, lesbians, Goths, drug addicts and prostitutes among the converts.
No Christian celebrity or authority figure did this: just George the Greek and
his brother John, loving people into the kingdom.

Conclusion
Ultimately, this takes us full circle, back to the young slave girl, who
blessed her needy, oppressive master. She, Elisha’s messenger and the river
Jordan are the heroes of the story. Elisha knows well to get out of the way
rather than garner praise for himself; sadly, the king of Israel sets no
example at all.

For we who are squeezed daily further to the margins as
Christians in our society, the message is clear: a generation of nobodies, operating
from the fringes of our culture, is God’s apostolic team for the salvation of
the world and the healing of the nations. This morning, as we take Holy
Communion, we enlist for that call.

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Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Conspiracy Of The Insignificant

2 Kings
5:1-14

Introduction
In early 2005, we realised that Debbie’s car, a Peugeot 306, was no longer
going to be functional as family car. It was insufficiently like the Tardis to
cope with the amount of clutter we needed to cart around with two small
children. Through friends and family, we were quickly converted to the virtues
of a ‘people-carrier’.

We short-listed three different cars: a Vauxhall
Zafira, Renault
Scenic and a Citroen
Picasso. Despite three recommendations for the Zafira, we eliminated it as
too expensive and with too small a boot.

That left the Scenic and the Picasso. For a while, we couldn’t
tell the difference between them in appearance, but we settled on the Picasso and
once we bought one we found that whenever we were out we were always spotting
Picassos on the road. Had they suddenly increased in number once we became
interested in them? No; we had simply become more tuned into them.

Sometimes I find reading the Bible is like that. It isn’t until
I get interested in a particular issue that I realise how much of the Bible
reflects that concern, or is relevant to it.

I had one of those experiences this last week. You will know
by now that one of my concerns is how we are faithful Christian witnesses in a
society where Christianity is no longer central, but on the margins. We live in
a culture whose values have been changing rapidly in recent decades. The Gospel
may not change, but many of our old ways of being church have become obsolete.

I have read the story of Naaman and his healing since Sunday
School. Perhaps you have, too. However, this week when it came up in the Lectionary
I found it was no longer a charming Sunday School story. It was a model for
mission in today’s world. I see it, because the story is set in a time when
Israel was under the cosh from Aram (verses 1-2). A pagan nation with alien
values has mastery over the people of God. Within these strictures, fruitful
mission happens – just as it can in our day when forces are pushing the church to
the margins of society. This week we saw the church-state ties loosened as
Gordon Brown relinquished
some powers over the appointment of bishops other senior clergy. It opens
up again the whole issue of the Church of England’s established status – and in
my Methodist opinion, that’s a good thing.

So in this context, where the church is less central to our
society, how does the story of Naaman encourage us in our mission? I find it by
exploring the three Israelite characters connected with him: the slave girl,
the king of Israel and Elisha.

1. The Slave Girl
How many of us were shocked by the news a couple of days ago that a
three-year-old girl was kidnapped in Nigeria?
Perhaps we need to think of something like that to understand the horror of
what happened when this young girl was taken captive by the Arameans in 2 Kings
5. Granted, she is probably older than three, given the way she speaks, and
neither is she being threatened by death. However, if you want a sense of the
horror, think Nigeria.

Yet in this situation of trauma and oppression, the young
girl is a star:

She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the
prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ (verse 3)

Here is a wounded, marginalised person offering love. Here
is one who as both child and female has no status, yet she offers love. Forgiving
love and compassion for one who has done wrong to her, her family, her religion
and nation. Truly, a little child leads here, as she blesses an enemy.

How does this translate for us? Isn’t one of the dangers of
being a minority that has been sidelined more and more that all we want to do
is carp and snipe at the society that has done this to us? We criticise this,
we declaim about that and we lay into something else. If we’re good, we pretend
we are offering a prophetic critique of the world, but if only we were. More likely,
we are laying bare the chip on our shoulder and giving energy to the resentment
we feel that people no longer see the church as an institution whose opinions
should be sought and respected.

The young slave girl says, bless those who have done this to
you. Look for ways to love and serve them. Search out opportunities to tell
them the good news – not that God can’t
wait to singe them in Hell, but that he is crazy with love for them and
passionate that they find him.

When I ministered in Kent, there was a branch of Ottakar’s bookshops
in Chatham High Street. They regularly displayed and promoted occult books. Alongside
the display there was sometimes the opportunity to sign up for occult meetings.
I shared this with a prayer meeting. The response was interesting. I thought
they would be the kind of Christians who would want to instigate a prayer march
against the shop, and perhaps a letter-writing campaign, too. They didn’t.
Their immediate response was to pray that God would bless the shop and its
employees, because that would be a better way of making a gospel difference.

For us, our ‘Naaman’ might be an unpleasant boss at work. What
might happen if we showed Christian love and concern for that boss’s needs and
difficulties? Or today’s Naaman could be an unjust political group or multinational
corporation. How might we show the love of Christ to them? (And this is the end
of International Boycott Nestlé Week!)

I am not saying we should never criticise or boycott, but we
have to be sure our motive is God’s love, not vindictiveness. The slave girl reminds
us to love and make a difference.

2. The King Of Israel
Naaman goes to his king, who prepares a letter for his opposite number, the
king of Israel. Leave aside for a moment the naïveté that assumes the Israelite
king can heal the soldier. We have to excuse that as innocent ignorance: it’s
something Christians encounter often from people who make requests of them. I often
find it comes in terms of expecting that the minister can do something, which
another Christian can’t. There is no point in criticising this: we cannot
expect complete understanding of our ways.

What is more disappointing is the king of Israel’s response.
He doesn’t give a theological lecture – that would be bad enough. Instead, he
goes on the defensive:

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes
and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to
cure a man of his leprosy?
Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’ (verse 7)

The king of Israel cannot see human need for what it is and
respond appropriately. It is as if he knows the story of the Trojan Horse and
sees Naaman’s illness as the way in which Israel will be further weakened.

Is that so far from some of our responses as a Christian
minority today? I don’t think so. There are those who think we shouldn’t
support environmental causes, because we become ‘guilty by association’ with
some crazy green campaigners who happen to think that planet Earth is actually
a goddess named Gaia, and we shouldn’t get our names tarnished by working with
such fruitcakes. The fact that there is ample biblical material for being
environmentally conscious should be enough: God calls us to be stewards of the
earth, not rapists of it.

Alternatively, consider how long it took some Christians to
become concerned with fighting HIV/AIDS, because of its association with sexual
practices that lie outside traditional Christian morality. Thank God that
mentality has changed through the example of organisations like ACET AND TEAR
Fund, who hold orthodox Christian beliefs, but are at the forefront of
medical prevention and political campaigning.

In a world packed with terrible needs, it would be spiritual
suicide to follow the example of the king of Israel. It’s no good getting on
our high horse about certain moral evils in our society, but doing nothing to
heal the pain.

But let’s bring it close and personal. Who are the people we
know, who have made a mess of their lives, perhaps through their own fault, but
whom we have been resisting the idea of helping? Is now the time to see that we
have made a mistake and need to reach out with Christian compassion? For Debbie
and me recently it’s been about being available to two pregnant women: one is
living with her partner and already has one child by him, the other had a
second child on her own without ongoing involvement from the father of either
child. Neither of these women lives lifestyles with which we agree as
Christians. However, would it surprise you if I told you that one of these
mothers is now asking questions about baptism?

3. Elisha
Surely the story is going to end up with Elisha performing an amazing miracle. It
builds up that way. The slave girl calls him ‘the prophet who is in Samaria
[who] would cure [Naaman] of his leprosy’ (verse 3). The writer of 2 Kings
describes Elisha as ‘the man of God’ (verse 8) and Elisha himself urges the
king of Israel to forward Naaman onto him so ‘that he may learn that there is a
prophet in Israel’ (verse 8).

Therefore, it’s a surprise when Naaman arrives at Elisha’s
house and the great man doesn’t come out to greet him, but sends a messenger,
telling Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan (verse 10). What’s going on?

Here’s my theory: Naaman has some kind of superstar complex.
He’s miffed that the spiritual hero won’t come out to him (verse 11), and he’s
insulted by the thought of washing in that feeble, insignificant river the
Jordan. He’s got celebrity rivers back in Damascus – the Abana and the Pharpar
(verse 12). So not meeting Elisha and suffering the indignity of the River Jordan
force Naaman away from this hero-worship attitude.

And isn’t that just what we need today? We live in a culture
that needs to be weaned off celebrity adulation, and where people – ooh, let me
think, Chantelle
Houghton and Paris
Hilton – are merely famous for being famous. So addicted are we to this
that an informed politician like Al Gore
needs to utilise gas-guzzling pop stars to communicate his planet-saving message. By a conspiracy of
insignificant non-celebrity Christians, operating without spin doctors or
street teams, armed only with the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit,
we subvert a sick culture and bring healing in the name of Jesus.

And that means that the church needs to be healed of her own
addiction to celebrity, too. We may not have the hype and publicity tools
available to entertainers and politicians, but there is an unhealthy reliance
upon famous Christians and Christian leaders. We believe, however, in a priesthood
of all believers, and so it’s time to stop this dependency upon such people and
realise this is a call to all Christians.

In fact, one Christian leader from the Southern Hemisphere, Alan Hirsch, tells a story in his
recent book, ‘The
Forgotten Ways’ about the early growth of a church
he and his wife led in Melbourne. It did not happen under their leadership, but
before they arrived. George the Greek was a drug dealer who once chose prison
instead of a fine for his crimes. While there he read the Bible and God
encountered him. Upon release, George and his brother John set about sharing
their faith. Within six months, fifty people had become disciples of Jesus. There
were gay men, lesbians, Goths, drug addicts and prostitutes among the converts.
No Christian celebrity or authority figure did this: just George the Greek and
his brother John, loving people into the kingdom.

Conclusion
Ultimately, this takes us full circle, back to the young slave girl, who
blessed her needy, oppressive master. She, Elisha’s messenger and the river
Jordan are the heroes of the story. Elisha knows well to get out of the way
rather than garner praise for himself; sadly, the king of Israel sets no
example at all.

For we who are squeezed daily further to the margins as
Christians in our society, the message is clear: a generation of nobodies, operating
from the fringes of our culture, is God’s apostolic team for the salvation of
the world and the healing of the nations. This morning, as we take Holy
Communion, we enlist for that call.

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Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Conspiracy Of The Insignificant

2 Kings
5:1-14

Introduction
In early 2005, we realised that Debbie’s car, a Peugeot 306, was no longer
going to be functional as family car. It was insufficiently like the Tardis to
cope with the amount of clutter we needed to cart around with two small
children. Through friends and family, we were quickly converted to the virtues
of a ‘people-carrier’.

We short-listed three different cars: a Vauxhall
Zafira, Renault
Scenic and a Citroen
Picasso. Despite three recommendations for the Zafira, we eliminated it as
too expensive and with too small a boot.

That left the Scenic and the Picasso. For a while, we couldn’t
tell the difference between them in appearance, but we settled on the Picasso and
once we bought one we found that whenever we were out we were always spotting
Picassos on the road. Had they suddenly increased in number once we became
interested in them? No; we had simply become more tuned into them.

Sometimes I find reading the Bible is like that. It isn’t until
I get interested in a particular issue that I realise how much of the Bible
reflects that concern, or is relevant to it.

I had one of those experiences this last week. You will know
by now that one of my concerns is how we are faithful Christian witnesses in a
society where Christianity is no longer central, but on the margins. We live in
a culture whose values have been changing rapidly in recent decades. The Gospel
may not change, but many of our old ways of being church have become obsolete.

I have read the story of Naaman and his healing since Sunday
School. Perhaps you have, too. However, this week when it came up in the Lectionary
I found it was no longer a charming Sunday School story. It was a model for
mission in today’s world. I see it, because the story is set in a time when
Israel was under the cosh from Aram (verses 1-2). A pagan nation with alien
values has mastery over the people of God. Within these strictures, fruitful
mission happens – just as it can in our day when forces are pushing the church to
the margins of society. This week we saw the church-state ties loosened as
Gordon Brown relinquished
some powers over the appointment of bishops other senior clergy. It opens
up again the whole issue of the Church of England’s established status – and in
my Methodist opinion, that’s a good thing.

So in this context, where the church is less central to our
society, how does the story of Naaman encourage us in our mission? I find it by
exploring the three Israelite characters connected with him: the slave girl,
the king of Israel and Elisha.

1. The Slave Girl
How many of us were shocked by the news a couple of days ago that a
three-year-old girl was kidnapped in Nigeria?
Perhaps we need to think of something like that to understand the horror of
what happened when this young girl was taken captive by the Arameans in 2 Kings
5. Granted, she is probably older than three, given the way she speaks, and
neither is she being threatened by death. However, if you want a sense of the
horror, think Nigeria.

Yet in this situation of trauma and oppression, the young
girl is a star:

She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the
prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ (verse 3)

Here is a wounded, marginalised person offering love. Here
is one who as both child and female has no status, yet she offers love. Forgiving
love and compassion for one who has done wrong to her, her family, her religion
and nation. Truly, a little child leads here, as she blesses an enemy.

How does this translate for us? Isn’t one of the dangers of
being a minority that has been sidelined more and more that all we want to do
is carp and snipe at the society that has done this to us? We criticise this,
we declaim about that and we lay into something else. If we’re good, we pretend
we are offering a prophetic critique of the world, but if only we were. More likely,
we are laying bare the chip on our shoulder and giving energy to the resentment
we feel that people no longer see the church as an institution whose opinions
should be sought and respected.

The young slave girl says, bless those who have done this to
you. Look for ways to love and serve them. Search out opportunities to tell
them the good news – not that God can’t
wait to singe them in Hell, but that he is crazy with love for them and
passionate that they find him.

When I ministered in Kent, there was a branch of Ottakar’s bookshops
in Chatham High Street. They regularly displayed and promoted occult books. Alongside
the display there was sometimes the opportunity to sign up for occult meetings.
I shared this with a prayer meeting. The response was interesting. I thought
they would be the kind of Christians who would want to instigate a prayer march
against the shop, and perhaps a letter-writing campaign, too. They didn’t.
Their immediate response was to pray that God would bless the shop and its
employees, because that would be a better way of making a gospel difference.

For us, our ‘Naaman’ might be an unpleasant boss at work. What
might happen if we showed Christian love and concern for that boss’s needs and
difficulties? Or today’s Naaman could be an unjust political group or multinational
corporation. How might we show the love of Christ to them? (And this is the end
of International Boycott Nestlé Week!)

I am not saying we should never criticise or boycott, but we
have to be sure our motive is God’s love, not vindictiveness. The slave girl reminds
us to love and make a difference.

2. The King Of Israel
Naaman goes to his king, who prepares a letter for his opposite number, the
king of Israel. Leave aside for a moment the naïveté that assumes the Israelite
king can heal the soldier. We have to excuse that as innocent ignorance: it’s
something Christians encounter often from people who make requests of them. I often
find it comes in terms of expecting that the minister can do something, which
another Christian can’t. There is no point in criticising this: we cannot
expect complete understanding of our ways.

What is more disappointing is the king of Israel’s response.
He doesn’t give a theological lecture – that would be bad enough. Instead, he
goes on the defensive:

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes
and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to
cure a man of his leprosy?
Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’ (verse 7)

The king of Israel cannot see human need for what it is and
respond appropriately. It is as if he knows the story of the Trojan Horse and
sees Naaman’s illness as the way in which Israel will be further weakened.

Is that so far from some of our responses as a Christian
minority today? I don’t think so. There are those who think we shouldn’t
support environmental causes, because we become ‘guilty by association’ with
some crazy green campaigners who happen to think that planet Earth is actually
a goddess named Gaia, and we shouldn’t get our names tarnished by working with
such fruitcakes. The fact that there is ample biblical material for being
environmentally conscious should be enough: God calls us to be stewards of the
earth, not rapists of it.

Alternatively, consider how long it took some Christians to
become concerned with fighting HIV/AIDS, because of its association with sexual
practices that lie outside traditional Christian morality. Thank God that
mentality has changed through the example of organisations like ACET AND TEAR
Fund, who hold orthodox Christian beliefs, but are at the forefront of
medical prevention and political campaigning.

In a world packed with terrible needs, it would be spiritual
suicide to follow the example of the king of Israel. It’s no good getting on
our high horse about certain moral evils in our society, but doing nothing to
heal the pain.

But let’s bring it close and personal. Who are the people we
know, who have made a mess of their lives, perhaps through their own fault, but
whom we have been resisting the idea of helping? Is now the time to see that we
have made a mistake and need to reach out with Christian compassion? For Debbie
and me recently it’s been about being available to two pregnant women: one is
living with her partner and already has one child by him, the other had a
second child on her own without ongoing involvement from the father of either
child. Neither of these women lives lifestyles with which we agree as
Christians. However, would it surprise you if I told you that one of these
mothers is now asking questions about baptism?

3. Elisha
Surely the story is going to end up with Elisha performing an amazing miracle. It
builds up that way. The slave girl calls him ‘the prophet who is in Samaria
[who] would cure [Naaman] of his leprosy’ (verse 3). The writer of 2 Kings
describes Elisha as ‘the man of God’ (verse 8) and Elisha himself urges the
king of Israel to forward Naaman onto him so ‘that he may learn that there is a
prophet in Israel’ (verse 8).

Therefore, it’s a surprise when Naaman arrives at Elisha’s
house and the great man doesn’t come out to greet him, but sends a messenger,
telling Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan (verse 10). What’s going on?

Here’s my theory: Naaman has some kind of superstar complex.
He’s miffed that the spiritual hero won’t come out to him (verse 11), and he’s
insulted by the thought of washing in that feeble, insignificant river the
Jordan. He’s got celebrity rivers back in Damascus – the Abana and the Pharpar
(verse 12). So not meeting Elisha and suffering the indignity of the River Jordan
force Naaman away from this hero-worship attitude.

And isn’t that just what we need today? We live in a culture
that needs to be weaned off celebrity adulation, and where people – ooh, let me
think, Chantelle
Houghton and Paris
Hilton – are merely famous for being famous. So addicted are we to this
that an informed politician like Al Gore
needs to utilise gas-guzzling pop stars to communicate his planet-saving message. By a conspiracy of
insignificant non-celebrity Christians, operating without spin doctors or
street teams, armed only with the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit,
we subvert a sick culture and bring healing in the name of Jesus.

And that means that the church needs to be healed of her own
addiction to celebrity, too. We may not have the hype and publicity tools
available to entertainers and politicians, but there is an unhealthy reliance
upon famous Christians and Christian leaders. We believe, however, in a priesthood
of all believers, and so it’s time to stop this dependency upon such people and
realise this is a call to all Christians.

In fact, one Christian leader from the Southern Hemisphere, Alan Hirsch, tells a story in his
recent book, ‘The
Forgotten Ways’ about the early growth of a church
he and his wife led in Melbourne. It did not happen under their leadership, but
before they arrived. George the Greek was a drug dealer who once chose prison
instead of a fine for his crimes. While there he read the Bible and God
encountered him. Upon release, George and his brother John set about sharing
their faith. Within six months, fifty people had become disciples of Jesus. There
were gay men, lesbians, Goths, drug addicts and prostitutes among the converts.
No Christian celebrity or authority figure did this: just George the Greek and
his brother John, loving people into the kingdom.

Conclusion
Ultimately, this takes us full circle, back to the young slave girl, who
blessed her needy, oppressive master. She, Elisha’s messenger and the river
Jordan are the heroes of the story. Elisha knows well to get out of the way
rather than garner praise for himself; sadly, the king of Israel sets no
example at all.

For we who are squeezed daily further to the margins as
Christians in our society, the message is clear: a generation of nobodies, operating
from the fringes of our culture, is God’s apostolic team for the salvation of
the world and the healing of the nations. This morning, as we take Holy
Communion, we enlist for that call.

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