The Last Hour

People have booked. Everyone who has booked is here five minutes in advance so we could start. Seems wrong though. An hour at the cross should be 2-3. We have a track and trace list. Socially distanced seating. A Zoom link for those who cannot be here. We have covered the pictures of the children on the school hall wall. This is peak 2021. This is weird.

I have no part to play. It has been conceived and is being delivered by a placement student from the local Theological College. He has not been to an hour at the cross before and I have deliberately not told him too much about what happens. I am enjoying being led by someone I have helped train and now utterly trust. I can let the hour carry me along, journaling, as is my preference when listening to a well-known tune remixed. This is not weird.

But it is Good Friday. A day we need to remember is meant to be weird. The Romans invented a cruel-spectacle execution for those it wished to use as an example. The gallows is too quick. Insurgents would not be put off by a quick death. Crucifixion is slow. It is said Jesus died in six hours - relatively quickly. The business of breaking the legs of the crucified was to prevent them from pushing themselves up to grab a breath. It hastened the slow death of suffocation. Those executed were not always taken down once dead, as Jesus was. Some were left at cross-roads and other public places to be picked at by carrion. A visual aid. This is what we will do to you if...

We have been following the story of Jesus from Mark's Gospel this year. 'The Tabloid Gospel' we have called our series although that is a bit harsh on a mainly eye-witness account containing much on which to reflect. 'Who is this man?' it keeps asking, telling stories of astounded and astonished crowds hanging on the every word of this unpredictable preacher.

And at some point in his life the destination of his journey became clear to him. One whose family knew nails and wood intimately. And at some point after his death followers tumbled to what his life meant, piecing together prophecy, preaching and pain. 'It is finished.' What is, Jesus? What?

The finish is of the quest for further clues. You can either conclude that life is meaningless or see the answer on a cross. A man, so clearly divine that his chroniclers called him 'Son of God', abandons the otherness of the spiritual world he inhabits to become one like us. There is no glib Christian answer to suffering, just a bow to its inevitability. Demand your money back if anyone sells you one.

'If you must bang your head against a wall...' said my doctrine tutor and hero Tom Smail '...bang it against the mystery of Jesus. Relevant martyrdom.'

Look no further.

Accept no substitutes.

Like no other.

No art, theology or music can do justice to this event. It is the thing that gives all other things the right to happen. They change meaning when juxtaposed. This lovely, messy, unfair world is a place we are free to inhabit because somehow God inhabited it once. We loved him yet also treated him unfairly, messily. We even have the freedom to ignore the story or take it no more seriously than an Easter food ad.

I don't send Easter cards. Well OK, one, but that is for other reasons. This is not a time for commerce. I take this hour (this year) and commit to serving this mystery for another year. I've done this for 37 years, one year at a time. This will be my last time. From next year my time is my own and need not be committed to anyone. Nine more months. Here you are.

Nine more months to the one who knows how insincere, two-faced and hypocritical are my hints to others to have faith. I call no-one. I invite them to investigate what I have investigated as thoroughly as I have and to work out how to respond after doing their own deconstruction.

Put to death by the unspiritual for allegedly claiming to be a human king.

Put to death by the spiritual for allegedly claiming to be divine.

As I try to make sense of the competing imagery I hear some Tallis, see a dead sheep or Christ on a cold, cold stone. And I hear mockery even now, that I would dare to find this important. Because it's not science, it's not cool, it's not very now and it's not monetizable. And I wonder if most people understand what the meaning of life, the universe and everything should look like. For what, if anything, do they search?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John took some liberties with history. We do well to get that out onto the table. Not with the truth but with the reality. Mark took fewer. Some of the stuff they made up was designed to illustrate the truths they had glimpsed. They knew no other way.

Every now and again a chord seems exactly right in an 'If I knew what it meant I'd have said it not painted it' sort of way.

The music of Good Friday must be minor. The art abstract. The theology metaphorical (as all language is). Today is not a matter of history. It's far more important than that.

(Silence)

Good Friday
2021

Joy

I have been most influenced in my spiritual walk recently by the writings of rabbis. Jonathan Sacks 'Not in God's Name' was a profound exploration of the sibling rivalry of the Hebrew Scriptures still playing out amongst nations and faiths today. Danya Ruttenberg's extraordinary use of Twitter as a teaching tool has opened to me the insights of a female reading of patriarchical texts.

Last night I heard a new speaker, albeit one I had read and heard before but not live; one in the great rabbinic tradition. He spoke of joy.

He did it joyously, owing much to the tradition of modern stand-up with a soul. And also to the fine yiddish (can I say that? Correct me if I can't) comedians such as Jackie Mason I recall from days of yore. His jokes were funny, his visuals added much and his observations were er, observant.

Much was made of a few people who added value to what would be expected of them in their day job. Those who offered the unemployed a free dry clean of interview clothes. Those who made an imaginative sign when the door of the shop had failed. Those who played with a kid when they should have been serving the queue. Those who designed sneakers with a unicorn's horn on the top for girls of a certain age. These people, it was suggested 'get it'.

And joy was also to be found in the apparent failures of those who had given a cat-lovers magazine a strange name, or named a road using only consonants. 'They had a meeting and decided that...?'

And joy was to be found in the maths of a romanesco cauliflower (we'll forgive it being described as broccoli).

Yes, joy is knocking around for those who seek it.

The centre piece was an exploration of Ecclesiastes a book which contains the central point that living for the moment is as good as any method because we're all going to die. He exposited the Hebrew word behind 'meaningless' as 'mist or vapour' using a water mist spray as prop. If, he said, someone was being cynical you should take them down with the accusation that they haven't gone far enough because 'We're all going to die'.

So if we should spend more time living in the moment - someone in the audience was called out for taking notes 'There's always someone in the front row taking notes; thanks for doing our accounts' - what is the Christian hope? I had abandoned my iPad this evening for a notebook and pen but I chose to ignore it then and just listen. So my review is based on memory.

Well the Christian hope isn't eternal life. Not for this speaker. The hearers of Jesus would never have understood eternal life as life going on for ever. That would have been more of the same, looking on for the most as the few enjoyed the trappings of success but never enjoying them themselves. No, eternal life's secret is revealed in the 'This is what it's all about' statement as someone enjoys a great family moment, embracing all in the postprandial bloatedness of Christmas lunch.

But, I wanted to shout, there are some looking on who don't get to do that. It's terribly, well, middle class.

In my youth there was this chorus:

If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy
Let Jesus come into your heart
If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy
Let Jesus come into your heart
Your sins he'll take away
Your night he'll turn to day
Your heart he'll make over anew
And then come in to stay
If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy
Let Jesus come into your heart

I hadn't sung it for nearly 40 years and I'm glad but I just wrote out the words from memory,

Christians from all over Bristol, younger than most congregations I serve, flocked to hear this stand-up rabbi. His name? Rob Bell from Los Angeles, California. Christian writer and Communicator, founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and a man with disciples.

What was distinctively Christian about it? I'm not sure. I may have missed something. Help me.

Feeling Fruity? - Article 12/39

XII. OF GOOD WORKS

ALBEIT that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's Judgement; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.

So why not live a riotous life and repent on your death bed? Two problems occur. Firstly, if this was your plan all along then a wise all-knowing, all-seeing God might rumble it. Secondly, not all are fortunate enough to die in bed with family gathered (see previous discussion of what car? Splat).

O'Donovan tells us that the Reformers' doctrine of justification is of moral union with Christ. It is an attack on individualism, especially ethical individualism. Good works, which are akin to a tree bearing fruit and therefore suggestive of a certain inevitability, are acceptable 'in Christ'. They spring out of a believer being united with Christ (and, I would add, thus united with other believers).

It follows that a church where a small number of people are known to have contributed a lot to society will acquire the church a good reputation, even if many are just per-fillers.

What led priests to become Christians in the early church? Luke tells us that a singular influence was the observation that the leaders went to some trouble to organise a fair system for support of widows.

As Matthew put it in his Gospel, 'By their fruits you will know them'. Fruit is the material of numerical growth.

Thought for the Day

As delivered on a cold morning at BBC Radio Bristol just now:

How well prepared should you be for something that happens once in a lifetime?

It is easy to be prepared for terrible weather if you live in a place where the weather is consistently the same sort of terrible every year for four months. Would you be so concerned to invest in the latest snow-removing technology if the machine is likely to become obsolete before you need it?

Jesus posed a couple of questions to his followers. In one he suggested that no-one builds a tower without first working out if they can afford to finish it. Otherwise the half-built structure stands as a memorial to their incompetence.

On the other hand, he said, no-one goes into a battle they cannot possibly win. They negotiate terms.

With some things you figure out if you can afford to. Others, if you can afford not to.

Of course Jesus wasn't talking about towers, battles - or snow for that matter. He was talking about the ultimate statistic. One out of one people die.

Sit down and work out whether you can risk not being a Christian. If you're wrong and head into life's battle unaccompanied you may lose big time.

Likewise sit down and work out if you are in a position to make a commitment to a life's service. Otherwise your half-built life will bear witness to your poor discipleship.

Fancy being a Christian? You can't hack it. You're not tough enough.

Not sure that advertising campaign would get many responders. Or would it? I bet there'd be people up for a challenge.

Come and join my church. It's hard work, there's no salary and if you tell people what we believe they'll mainly think you're bonkers. That's the truth. But maybe you couldn't handle the truth.

Reformed

My perspective right now is Christian, C of E, and, if you'll forgive me, liberal and evangelical. Deal with it.

I have been observing social media whizzing past shouting Reformation jokes out of the window in a nasty outbreak of drive-by Lutheranism today. Some have been quite good although, as ever,  Archdruid Eileen (excuse me) nailed it.

But it is worth taking a moment to ponder the appalling atrocities that were inflicted upon theological dissenters down the centuries, whatever the nature of their dissent. TV's Gunpowder (see previous post) has left the smell of burning, treasonous heretic on the breeze and, frankly, roast Christian doesn't really do it for me. My particular gift has been to be a slightly controversial minister in times when that has been a safe thing to be.

Silence and respect to all who stepped on to the gallows on matters of doctrine or ethics.

But, after centuries of conflict, Catholic and Protestant Anglicans have a gentle truce which only occasionally overspills into minor jibes at diocesan conferences. Here at ground level we rock on pretty well and all pray together nicely. Puritan abstinence and higher tracts are both under the ecumenical umbrella these days. No bad thing.

Most times we don't change the church from the top down.

My concern for the LGBT gang wasn't imposed upon us from above. I like people. Well, most of them.

My desire to occasionally not wear robes is now legal but I have been doing it for thirty years or so. All that happened was that General Synod legislated that it was OK for the ship to sail after it had voyaged a few thousand times, returned and been sold for scrap. It has a reputation for that kind of speed. I need some new not robes.

My reading of the Bible leads me to christocentricity, co-operation, conversation, broad inclusivity, welcome, hospitality and creative exploration of ways to do and demonstrate faith. One supply of  water to return to but few fences to stop me roaming.

I think that is the nature of my Christian belief 500 years on from the Wittenberg church door becoming the centre of attention for a bit. My church don't own a door.

...you died and your life is hidden...

On Easter Sunday morning I preached, although I didn't write anything down, on the epistle.

I discussed what it means to say, post-Easter, that '...you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God...' an assertion Paul makes in Colossians 3:1-4.

It wasn't the greatest sermon I have ever prepared but I had enough to say on our setting our hearts on things above and waiting for him to appear.

The thing that caught me out, and thus book-ended this average sermon and helped lift it, was the version of the Bible in the pews. It was the New International Version, with which I have few problems, but with a sub-heading for the passage.

You can do theology until you're whatever colour in the face excessive theology turns you, but somewhere around line one of paragraph one of reformed Christian thought we might expect to read that the Gospel is a free gift, given by the grace of God. If you are not currently a member of my faith community then please do not feel you are being force-fed this; I simply ask you to accept that it is what we believe and it is orthodox. People went to the stake for the assertion that you cannot buy your way into heaven. Christian behaviour is a response to the Gospel not a cause of it.

So my question became this. How detached do you have to be from that mainstream Christian thought to think that  'Rules for Holy Living' is a good sub-heading for the passage? I am perfectly happy to accept that there are implications for my behaviour based on my beliefs. I am even content to identify with people who set themselves a voluntary code of practice and live under orders. But rules? Not today thank you.

Christian Culture

I was archiving some old sermon and talk/seminar folders from the 1990s when I came across notes I had made for a presentation interestingly entitled 'Are we becoming a Christian counter-culture?' It was delivered first in about 1996 and adjusted and re-used for a few years thereafter.

We are all (Christians) 'in' the world, but to what extent are we of it?

At the time I was using as biblical material Paul's experience in Athens where he encountered  a new culture and explained the gospel to that culture starting from where they were - an unknown god. It was a bit simplistic - I was largely speaking to untrained youth workers - but the questions that follow are a reasonable indication of the extent to which you have separated yourself out from the world in order to live in a Christian counter-culture. I speak as one who has often been warned of going to the opposite extreme.

It included this questionnaire, which I had forgotten all about. Every yes scores a point. The nearer to ten you get the more likely it is that you have lost touch with the real world:

1. Most of my favourite music is Christian.
2. Most of my close friends are Christians.
3. I read more Christian books than popular fiction.
4. I wear a Christian logo/badge over and above a simple cross such as a WWJD wristband.
5. I belong to a Christian group or union at school/work, or work in a Christian environment.
6. I regularly go to national Christian events/festivals - Spring Harvest, Greenbelt, Soul Survivor, New Wine.
7. I have, or aspire to, a career in Christian ministry.
8. I find the world's values a constant source of temptation and try to keep clear.
9. I come from a Christian family.
10. I hardly ever go anywhere where I meet non-Christians socially.

I think I score 3. How about you?

Substitutionary Atonement

A comment in a preachers' support group meeting recently; what is your view of the atonement? Since many great and mighty tomes have been written on the matter, only some of which I didn't understand, I asked for a more precise question to answer.

I have been fond, in recent years, of preaching on Jesus by telling people how others made sense of his life, death and resurrection and inviting them to make their own conclusions. I have avoided putting my own stamp on any one answer.

Here is the question as it has now been posed to me:

Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your personal sin, thereby allowing the only means of your personal salvation?

Let's break it down:

Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross...

Yes. Seems as clear as any historical 'fact' can be that that is what happened to him.

...to pay the price for your personal sin,...

It is hard to tell from the Gospels if that is what Jesus thought he was doing. The New Testament passages giving theological meaning to that which he was about to do were all placed on his lips by the evangelists after he had done it. But Isaiah 53 sits there awkward and needing to be true. He was pierced for our transgressions? Who did the prophet mean?

It is clear that, post-resurrection, theologians tumbled to the truth that sacrifice was needed no more, death had no more threat and the devil (meaning something then that we probably don't mean now) was defeated.

The rest of the New Testament is written trying to make sense of the fact that, despite these truths, the church had problems and Christians were made to suffer.

One way of looking at it is to think of sin needing to be paid for and Christ pays the price. Another, perhaps one I prefer, is that in Christ's death and resurrection we have a demonstration of the futility of self-reliance. In Jesus I prefer the metaphor that something was restored rather than something purchased. I also like the example of the man of perfect obedience pointing us in a similar direction, albeit in intention only for we will stumble.

I do sing at Easter:

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin
He only could unlock the gates
Of heaven and let us in
(There is a Green Hill)

But those verses are pretty metaphor-rich in oh so many ways.

thereby allowing the only means of your personal salvation?

What happens to me is down to God. Trying to be his servant and a Jesus-follower leaves me tentative. 'The only means'? Who could ever know?

Many of my very conservative evangelical friends will go beyond seeing substitutionary atonement as a metaphor. They will say it is what actually happened. It is this attitude that led to Steve Chalke criticising that theology as cosmic child-abuse (which got him into trouble) and, I recall, thrown out of the Evangelical Alliance

Fact is that the cross remains a hinge-point of human history and a turning point of sacred mystery. It calls more for worship than black and white theological insistence. If this gospel was to be grasped by uneducated Galilean fishermen and passed on then it can't be the case that the finer points of Christian doctrine are of any importance. It must be a huge, general question with a huge general answer. Say yes to God. Whatever that means.

So, after almost a year of wondering if I dared write this final sentence. It is this. No.

But I also think the question is inadequately posed to allow for a yes/no answer. Thus the essay, so you could tell, I hope, which bit I was saying 'No' to.

The Dangers of Labelling

This follows on from my post a couple of days ago about not belonging to Christian sub-groups. If you missed that you might find it helpful to go here first.

We have had a lot of discussion over the last few years about packaging. Where was your shirt made? What is it made of? How many calories are there in it and will it contain anything hypo-allergenic. My shirt contains a single nut but let's not go there.

In a world where everything is labelled (cue the movie-trailer voice) one man refuses to put his story on the packaging.

You see as I grew into this whole Jesus-following, truth-seeking business I discovered that people, knowing the church which had brought me to discover shavings of mustard seed in the first place and my journey through training, would ask questions. Are you an evangelical? Are you a conservative evangelical? Are you a charismatic? Are you sound? Are you thoroughly biblical? Do you denounce liberalism and all its ways?

The answers to these have changed over the years and have all, at one time or another, been yes, no and not sure.

I was talking to a Bishop I know on Monday. The bishops of Bath and Wells visit all the clergy in their diocese during Lent over a three year period. Good work. Thanks. In reference to my evangelical credentials I was asked 'You tick all the boxes don't you?' Do I? Three days later I realise I avoided the question.

So part two of my plan for the last ten years of full-time ordained ministry, my second conclusion in my continuing journey of faith is this. I'm going to take the labels off my garments. Labels can be for other people. You watch me and if it helps to decide what I am called then call me it. I won't self-designate any more. It won't be that hard; I've virtually stopped anyway.

I recall my dislike of my school nickname of Willy. I could, with a concerted effort, have become incredibly unpopular by telling everyone who ever used it that I didn't like it and would like it changed, getting teacher support (as if, in those days) if I dared. It would have been like turning back a tsunami.

I am, from now on, seeking to express my conviction that Jesus is worth following, in the freshest words I can find for each person I meet. You may attach labels if you so wish. Hopefully not Willy.

What will they make of us?

Pete Ward wrote, in Growing Up Evangelical (SPCK 1996) that you could tell the issues that preoccupied Christians in any particular decade by the titles of the songs they penned. He charted the evangelical ten year obsessions, I recall, with conquering evil (1970s), claiming the ground (1980s) and telling God how we felt (1990s). It was fascinating stuff and I commend the book.

Interesting conversations today with two or three people led me to ponder what people of the future will make of the church in the early part of this millennium based on the titles chosen for populist Christian books. My thesis was that titles swayed between the words driven and grace - a balance which has been a struggle for many people since the days of the New Testament. John Ortberg's The Me I Want To Be ( I recently finished it) typifed the problem with his sub-title Becoming God's Best Version of You. I fear that God's best version of me isn't the me I want to be. I quite like the lazy, good-for-nothing waster I want to be. It's the me I ought or need to be who is a challenge.

Another insight, provided by one of my colleagues, was the predominance of the word me we will find in contemporary writing. What will they make of our ego-ecenticity? We spoke of cross-carrying but wanted everyone to understand how fully and utterly surrendered we were with some amazing purity of motive. What happened to us.

How do you like your grace? Amazingly, I don't take mine purpose driven.

Why is There Something?

I love the idea, widely being talked about as a result of Stephen Hawking's latest publication and conversation, that the universe bears witness to its own self-creation. The complex physics and maths necessary to grasp this so-called M-theory (no-one is quite sure what the M stands for) are only understood by a very few theoretical physicists in the world. As far as I (O level physics 1971 - fail) grasp it, the existence of a vast number of other universes is implied by the maths.

I do find it fascinating that the never-ending, never-starting universe is both more complex and more simple than we could ever imagine. And I am appalled at the inadequate understanding of the creator and sustainer of the universe that this theory should be alleged to disprove such.

Back in the 1960s, theologians got to grips with the increasing reduction of the size of God caused by childish Christian philosophy and scientific progress. If God is only what remains when you have explained everything you can, then it is not surprising that that God gets smaller and smaller as progress is made. Such a God is like something which slipped down the back of the sofa never to be seen again. In fact the 'God of the gaps' is no understanding of God at all.

Every children's Christian action-song seems to have some way to suggest that God is pretty big. The observation that you don't need an understanding of God to explain how the universe works doesn't mean there is no God. It is a logic-failure of massive proportions. Christians are often criticised, rightly, for saying 'because God could have done something he did do something, therefore the Bible is history, Adam and Eve were real and we can carry on looking for Noah's Ark.' Or some such. M-theory says, 'God needn't have been involved in this process, so wasn't.' God is big, right?

I agree that the creationist bubble gets well and truly pricked by this latest round of thinking. And by creationist I mean all young and young(ish) earth theories. All Christians are creationist to some extent because we believe there is a God who is involved in and somehow loves creation and creativity.

Psalm 14 says 'the fool has said in his heart 'there is no God.'' However clever he might be, whatever unbelievable progress he has made almost single-handedly to fathoming the mysteries of the universe(s), the judgement of Scripture is that Stephen Hawking is a fool.

Once upon a time Hawking said, '...if we do discover a complete theory ... Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.'

This was the final paragraph of A Brief History of Time. Looks like he has changed his mind. Well if he can do that once...

Us Christians do talk disappointing clap-trap about our faith. Maybe we ought to go back to the foot of the mountain and leave God in awe and mystery for a few hundred years. Until the fuss has died down.

The Church, Christ and Christians

In the Guardian on Saturday there was a piece about author Anne Rice quitting being a Christian, a fact she apparently displayed on her Facebook page.

She is quoted as saying that in the name of Christ she refuses to be anti-gay, anti-feminist or anti-artificial birth control. Ah. A Roman Catholic Christian then, we deduce from the final anti. She also refuses to be anti-Democrat and anti-secular humanism, anti-science and anti-life. That's one crazy, mixed-up leaver friends, is it not?

She goes on to explain that she is not anti-Christ, nor indeed the Anti-Christ despite what some southern baptists seem to think. She simply cannot stand the company of Christians any more.

It is interesting how 'Christian,' once upon a time a nickname for a bunch of nutters who got Judaism wrong is now the name of a huge worldwide religious phenomenon which includes some nutters who get Christ wrong.

I reassert my desire to remain within whatever it is that is being described when we talk of the church and to affirm from within that I will do all I can to be Christlike to gays, women, scientists, condom wearers, Democrats and humanists. Which may include finding some of the things representatives of these groupings say, to be wrong.

She is right to say, as she does, that Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity but, once you exclude yourself from the fellowship of others who also believe he came that we might have life to the full, you either have to start a sect of the like-minded or be a solitary Jesus-follower, something the New Testament knows nothing of.

Anne, there's this little church I know, just down the road from where I live, where the vicar affirms all you affirm about Jesus, hates the word 'Christian' because of what it encompasses and will work until his last breath to redeem the word if he can. It may be a bit far to come every Sunday since I think you might live in the USA but...