Presently Absent

Advent is a season for waiting patiently for the LORD to come, to act. ‘Since ancient times no-one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.’ (Isaiah 64:4, NIV). Scripture and liturgy together encourage us to reflect, to meditate, to pray, all the while using the time and space afforded by Advent wisely to anticipate God’s coming and action in the man Jesus of Nazareth.

But I struggle with this noblest, this most pious of attitudes, for I have difficulty focussing on the One who is to come. Instead, I focus on the One who is presently absent.

Presently absent. This is a curious phrase. It suggests that God is silent; that God is uninvolved and unconcerned; that God has withdrawn from God’s people and the world that God made. God is presently absent. But contained within the phrase is a glimmer of light, the faintest, occasional flicker of a single candle in the darkness of a night-time wilderness. God is presently absent, but soon – soon, God will be present.

Nonetheless, it takes only a zephyr nearly to extinguish that dim, distant flame. Every time I yearn for evidence that the Father has embraced me in his Son’s arms; every time I knock, knock, knock on heaven’s door and find its impenetrability a source of frustration; every time I sin a sin I’ve sinned before; the light dances its death throes, and the Spirit appears a spectator, another of the great cloud of witnesses that encourages from afar. But amazingly, even comfortingly, the light shines in the darkness but is not overcome by it.

Advent is a season for waiting for the LORD to come, to act; but I hesitate to include the qualifying patiently. The reason that Advent is a season for waiting is because God is presently absent. And this is where Scripture and liturgy together are vital, literally so, for maintaining my direction and sanity, as I enter the prayers of the longing impatient and make them my own. God knows it’s hard to wait for God, and that’s why the silence of Advent is a deafening cacophony of the discords of protest, lament and questions taken into God’s awesome symphony, the incarnation of God’s eternal Son, the man Jesus Nazareth.

Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him.…
O my people, trust in him at all times.
Pour out your heart to him,
for God is our refuge.

Psalm 62:5, 8 (NLT)

Holy, holy, holy

This week my Thursday evening study group will complete a short Advent series using the 5 O’s of the great Advent hymn O come, O come Emmanuel. As you might expect as well as the study there will need to be food shared on this final meeting before the New Year.( being in Yorkshire this is sure to include Christmas cake and Wensleydale cheese).
This ancient Advent hymn is well known with its Old Testament words about the Messiah and the haunting tune to which it is sung. It certainly has gone round and round in my mind over the past few weeks.
The description of Jesus as the ‘rod of Jesse’ took us to one of the great Advent readings - Isaiah 11 - ‘a shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse and branch shall grow out of its roots’. Following on from this statement is the poetic description of the promised One.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.


In his book ‘The way of Jesus’ Eugene Peterson draws this reading together with chapter 6 of Isaiah. He suggests that preachers tend to concentrate on the beginning of Isaiah 6 which describes the awesome experience of the prophet in the Temple as he responds to the call of God. On hearing the call the prophet boldly reacts, ‘Here I am; send me.’
Peterson complains that by not continuing to read the rest of the chapter we neglect the word which immediately comes to Isaiah and which sets out the unenviable task facing him. Peterson suggests that we need to reflect on the whole description of the call of the prophet which includes the worrying word that he receives as part of his call. This word indicates that his own people will not listen to him and even worse is to come because he is about to see his nation destroyed. The Assyrians will march through the land and the barren image given is that of a forest that has been cut down and all that is left is the tree stumps. But the final word is that ‘the holy seed is its stump’. All is not lost.

As Peterson reflects on this he comments:

“Isaiah provides an abundance of metaphor and vision so that we are able to recognise the way of The Holy in unlikely circumstances, wilderness circumstances, among neighbours who are deaf and dumb and heartless. The Holy, God’s unmanageable but irrepressible life is ever present and hidden within and around us. Unpredictably but most surely it breaks forth into our awareness from time to time. The bush blazes, the heavens open, the temple rocks, the stump puts forth a green shoot. Holy, Holy, Holy.”

The same Holy, Holy, Holy that filled the Temple is a holy seed in a field of stumps and a holy child in a borrowed manger and………..

I leave the final ‘and…………’ for us to reflect on our own experience of those unexpected and holy moments.

8.30am, and once again struggling to cram onto a packed tube carriage, jacket dripping with rain water and clammering around for something to hold onto before the inevitable jolting into action.

20-40 minutes later, you jolt to a stop somewhere, battle your way off the train (how do you always end up on the opposite side to where the door opens?), negotiate through the crowded platform, perilously close to the edge, up the escalators and out into the street on autopilot.

You then run the chicane past hawkers, salesmen, leafleters and advertisers, and dash along to whereever you are going wrapped up in waterproofs and under little twinkly lights that have been on for over a month and have now become part of the street furniture.

A typical Advent morning for some 3.4million people.

This morning, rather than fostering contempt at the world which created this surreal daily ritual, I decided to switch what was on my MP3 player to something, anything, calming. I stumbled upon some Taizé.

And suddenly, even in the bustle, everything seemed a little calmer, a little brighter, and a little more human.

Advent for many of us is far from a time of quiet reflection. There's just too much to do at this time of year, without any other demands on our time. Today, I've decided maybe Advent isn't about doing something, but about being something; about being reflective, rather than setting time aside to reflect?

The Word of God comes to . . . who?

In the 15^th year of the emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, when Herod was Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip prince of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias prince of Abilene, during high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Luke 3:1-2

The evangelist Luke believes it is important to situate his story about Jesus in its wider historical context. Why else would he take such pains both here and in others parts of his Gospel, to inform us who the various important people are: emperors, governors, rulers, princes and high priests. Yet, whether he intends it or not, he sets up irony by first telling us who the powerful people are, what position they hold, and then informing us that the word of God came not to any of these but to John the Baptist in the wilderness. Compared to all these powerful and influential figures, John is a nobody. Yet it is to John that the word of God comes.

It would be like saying that in the 56^th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, when David Milliband was Foreign Secretary and his brother Ed Milliband was Secretary of State, during the Archbishopric of Rowan Williams, the word of God came to Doris the open air preacher in rural Essex!

When those who should be open to God's Word are not; God bypasses them in favour of those who are open and courageous and obedient. However, to the hearers and readers of Luke’s Gospel, John is not a nobody. In chapters 1 and 2 we are introduced first to Zechariah, a priest, and then to his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the cousin of Mary who will be the mother of Jesus. Old and childless, Zechariah receives a visit from the angel Gabriel who announces that Elizabeth will conceive a bear a son to be called John. It is this John who is born and grows up to be a preacher in the wilderness. John goes all over the Jordan valley proclaiming that God’s chosen people need to turn away from their sinful ways of life, seek God’s forgiveness, and as a sign that they have done this they need to be baptised in water. John calls them to do this because he is preparing the way for the Messiah and the coming Kingdom of God. There are many ways through which we can prepare the way for God's Word to come to others: friendship, empathy, critique, service and honesty being some of them. It matters not who we are but whether we are open and willing.

quiet day ponderings

Tuesday was College Quiet Day marking the last day of term for us ministerial students. We were led this time by Steven Bevans (who has been the CMS missiologist in residence this term). I missed the morning session but was there afternoon has Steve led us in reflecting on Luke 10.21-24:

At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to the childlike; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.’

Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

As we read and reread this passage different things jumped out ... that revelation is always a gift of God ... what does the word 'rejoice' mean? ... what are 'these things' that the disciples have seen and heard? ... the tension between the blessing of having seen and heard and the demands of discipleship that follow ... the problem of the feeling around advent of having 'seen' and 'heard' the stories so many times ... is there more light and truth to break for ... what new (or old) things will God's Spirit - the giving gift - reveal this time? ... is Jesus being negative about wisdom and intelligence or is his point that we should approach learning like the child - with wonder, with questioning, with joy, with frustration, with dependence on one who will provide answers? ...

In this season of beginnings and endings, looking forward and looking back, in this season of familiar stories, we wait for the advent God to come and reveal himself, God's gift to the world, we wait to join in the rejoicing, we wait with children as they struggle to wait when everything around them suggests the time for celebration has already arrived, we wait to see what 'things' we will see and hear this year, we wait for the Son ...

Take A Moment

This is a very busy week at a very busy time of year. And it is all too easy for me to get swept along in a tide of doing: partly that's how I like it, partly that's how I'm made, and partly that's just the way it is. If I'm honest I woke up thinking 'oh heck, it's my turn to post today and I haven't had time to think about it...' So what I am writing is to myself as much as, if not more than, to anyone else.

Yesterday I briefly re-engaged with a lifestyle I'd left behind long ago, rushing through airports among be-suited professionals and hi-viz-vested staff, hearing the ubiquitous 'I'm just calling from the airport on my mobile' calls designed to impress someone, somewhere, seeing the EXCEL spreadsheets on the laptops, the pencils poised over the latest report on that all important project.... Busy, busy busy.

Two contrasts.

Yesterday I was conducting a funeral 300 miles from home. The format was church then crematorium, and it is a 30 minute drive between the two. One of the practices I have developed for such occasions is to invite families to choose a piece of quiet music to be used for a short time of quiet reflection between the opening sentences, prayer and Bible reading the final act of committal. Just a couple of minutes of stillness, a 'few moments pause to reflect' as I usually say.

Today is our second lunchtime Advent reflection and prayer. Here, too, is space to be still, to listen to music, to reflect on words of scripture or simply to be. Today the theme is 'the miracle of hospitality' and the focus on the beginning of Luke 2.

Psalm 46 includes some words that boil down, broadly, to this:

Desist! Stop it. Take a moment
Focus on me, on God
Be still and allow yourselves to be aware of me...

Wherever we are, and whatever we are doing, no matter much how we thrive on activity, it is good to take a moment, to reflect on God's blessing received, to enjoy God's presence now, and to hope in God's promises to come. Take a moment...

Children's View of Jesus

I'm really blessed to have a senior pastor who doesn't just welcome opportunities for children and young people to play a full part in the life of the church but proactively makes space for that to happen. We see children worship alongside adults in many of our Christmas activities over a three week period - and far beyond. This is very liberating for me as a children and family pastor.

Something has struck me this year: the wide-eyed innocence of very young children; the longing to belong and share in our Big Story of younger primary kids; the bounce and sparkiness of older children as they challenge and ask questions; the aloofness of some teenagers which actually belies a deep desire for authentic faith: all of these are characteristics of growing and developing faith and are engaged by the Christmas story. It transcends age and stage and language development and understanding and intellect.

Why is this?

Because in the person of Jesus we have one who allows us to talk to the Father face to face - as a man talks to his friend

He is glorious and immanent but he is engaging and loving.
He is far away, ascended to heaven, but he is also near.
He is omnipotent but also personal.
Children understand this far, far better than some adults think they do.
He was Mary's child and God's son, his life spanned the gap between humankind and heaven. The verse quoted from Exodus 33:11 demonstrate his incredible attraction for children - his life gives us ALL access to the Father.

Advent - to wrest with mystery, and rest in mystery

"Arise! Shine! Your light has come." Light exposing the ultimate nothingness of darkness is a primary colour in my advent theology. "The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not..." The King James rendering has a cadence and tone solemn enough to remind us we deal with the vast intricacies of a universe when we say "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...and the life was the light of all humanity".

Throughout Advent I will be slowly reading my way through Rebecca Elson's A Responsibility to Awe. So I'll spend Advent in the company of one who made no bland confessions of faith, Christian or otherwise. What Rebecca Elson trusted deeply, is the capacity of the human mind to wrest with mystery as hard and as long as intelligence could go, and then she had the confidence to rest in mystery, awed into acceptance by that which is beyond our grasp but not beyond our wonder.

Thus some of the most spectacularly learned scientific essays and papers emerged from the same mind as some of the most sublime poetry offered in praise of the vastness of existence and the delicate fragility of the human mind. Wresting with, and resting in, mystery. That's how I feel during Advent. The poet astronomer studying stars to discern the origins of being, and setting her mind to measure the range of human intelligence, content to know beforehand that what is, is greater than those who ponder it.

The poem which gives the volume its title is a confession of intellectual humility, a surrender to the ethic of learning, both a celebration and a caution about how the fascination of science can so easily lead to missing the significant because we are too preoccupied with the obvious. This Advent, that is my prayer - to not miss that which is significant, in my own life and in the lives around me. To "wonder as I wander", to look where I'm going, to listen for vibrations of human hopefulness and good intent that is the music around me, to ask questions deep enough that they honour mystery and acknowledge that divine subterfuge by which God perlexes, bewilders and persuades us that love is eternal, and has entered our time and space. Answering the wistfulness of Elson's poem, the astonishing claim, "In him was light, and the light was the life of all humanity. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never been able to extinguish it...."

We Astronomers by Rebecca Elson

We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the earth our tent.
We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honour our responsibility to awe.

But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,

And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,

Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things.

Advent Shaking

"...the celestial powers will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming with power and great glory." Luke 21:26-27

The compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary, in assigning this text for the First Sunday of Advent (Year C), seem to be deliberately wrong-footing us. We are expecting to prepare for the coming of Christ as the infant Jesus; instead we are confronted with predictions of the return of the glorious Son of Man. This return, it is claimed, will be preceded by a shaking of earth and heaven. Our planet, with its land-masses, waters, mountains, ravines and craters, is living testament to an ongoing shaking as tectonic plates move and asteroids collide. This ball of magma with its hardened crust and breathable atmosphere, rotating and orbiting in space, is always moving and changing. The shaking of which Jesus speaks, however, is different than this perpetual motion. It is the shaking that God causes; a shaking that coincides with the Advent of the Son of Man.

If, as interpreters of this text, we move from the literal to metaphor, we find that shaking is not restricted to Christ's return but is part of what God does with his people. God shook Israel's moral and religious order out of idolatry and polytheism when God made covenant with it and gave it the Law. God shook Israel further through foreign exile and occupation. But perhaps the greatest shaking occurred in the person of Jesus of Nazareth; a shaking of the very foundations of what it means to be in right relationship with God. Andrew Shanks interprets the Beatitude blessings that Jesus pronounces as, 'How blessed are those who are shaken'. In other words, how blessed are those whose attitude to being shaken in life (poverty, sorrow, gentleness, seeking righteousness, merciful, pure, peacemaking, persecuted) makes them open to God and to others. But those who hate change, except on their own terms, would not tolerate shaking of this sort and therefore nailed down the one who so unsettled them. As Colin Morris writes, "...in crucifying Jesus the 'powers that be' imagined they were doing one thing; in fact they were being used to accomplish another. They became instruments of the God who shook the tomb until it fell apart and let loose his great agent of change into all the world and for all time.” (pp. 157-8, Things Shaken - Things Unshaken)

We who identify with the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended and returning Christ—we who worship the God who is Spirit and is therefore 'pure activity'—cannot avoid being shaken. Yet we are given courage and hope by the author of The Letter to the Hebrews, who writes that after God has finished shaking "...what cannot be shaken [will] remain. The kingdom we are given is unshakeable…" Hebrews 12:27b-28a

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His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

[I'm cheating by doing 3 books. His Dark Materials is a sequence of 3 books called Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass].

I first read Northern Lights as a teenager, when it was first published in the mid 1990s. My school librarian gave it to me, saying she knew I'd like it. Of course I'm sure she thought she was just doing her job. I ended up as a school librarian (was I inspired by her knack of picking me decent books?!) and spending a year reading it over and over, writing 20,000 words about the sequence for my MA Children's Literature dissertation. Luckily it is the type of story you can debate for hours upon hours in pubs with people like Andy G and never get bored.

It may seem a little strange that I'd pick this book (really it's only in 3 parts because the book would be too big otherwise. And Pullman probably couldn't afford not to publish it in bits) to write about on this blog. Many Christians have heard of Pullman and his work in the media - Peter Hitchens calling him 'the most dangerous author in Britain'(1) and the Catholic Herald condemning the books as 'the stuff of nightmares' (2).

So surely I don't agree with anything Pullman is saying? Actually, yes. He raises interesting points about the Crusades, witch hunts, the way Christians can think they're right about everything, the way Christians can think only Christians can be decent people, the corruption of power within the church, the outdated views, this either / or position between religion and science. Things like that which I have encountered growing up in the church, things that I'd also like to criticise the church about sometimes!

Whether Pullman sat down one day and realised before he began what an epic he was writing is hard to say. It depends which interviews you look at. On a very basic level, it's just a good story, although I don't say that in a dismissive way. It's not like he has written a mediocre story into which he decided to cram all the things he hates about the church into. He says, quite rightly when people try and pigeonhole him, that 'I'm not making an argument, or preaching a sermon or setting out a political tract; I'm telling a story... My intention is to tell a story - in the first place because the story comes to me and wants to be told.' (3)

And whilst you can sit and analyse how he portrays the church as The Church in his books, with its evil followers, servile priests, endless rival factions and evil leaders going about chopping out people's souls at puberty to stop them sinning, or his portrayal of a dictator God, who he refers to as The Authority, as a senile, Gnostic angel who's so decrepid he blows away like a dandelion, or the afterlife as a meaningless holding pen for ghosts which is a bit fat lie the church tells people so they'll behave, it's not that shallow. He wrote an amazing story, one with characters who are good, kind, brave, exciting, awe-inspiring. It's a story with adventure, fantasy, multiple universes, deep relationships. It's a story where you meet armoured bears, gyptians, people whose souls are manifested as animals, witches, spies who fly on dragonflies, children who battle against the odds to save the people they care about. It's the kind of thing you read, and you feel that it's true, it resonates, in the way that characters experience and what they say. Pullman wrote a story which contains echoes of classic mythology and Christian tradition.

It's one of those stories which reminds us how inseparable our culture is with the power of story - and that in fact 'the story of the Fall is the key story of contemporary children's literature'(4) if not of our whole culture. When he said in his acceptance speech for winning an award for NL he said 'Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever" he had a point. Whilst I'm obviously not dismissing the 1o commandments [disclaimer!], our culture, whether we're looking at the Bible or other traditional oral tales, is based on stories. And fantasy is a genre which takes us away from our normal surroundings, to then reflect back on them. 'Trues fantasy' as Natalie Babbitt says, 'aims to define the universe'. (5)

Children's author Gillian Cross (she of The Demon Headmaster fame) nailed it when she said 'when it [HDM] is most truly a story, it is close to the central insights of Christianity'(6). Pullman wants to take all the good stuff about being a Christian, but manage it ourselves, without the need for God. Ultimately it can't work, but that doesn't mean the story doesn't work. This is a book that inspired me to really look at what being a Christian meant, more than any "Christian" books I have read.

(1) The Mail on Sunday, Jan 27 2002, p.63
(2) The Times, Oct 18 2000, p.12
(3) 'Heat & Dust' , Third Way, April 2002, p.23
(4) Neil Philip, Signal, 37, Jan 1982, p.21
(5) RN Lynn (1989) Fantasy Literature for Children & Young Adults: an annotated bibliography, NY: RR Bowker.
(6) Books for Keeps no. 140, May 2003, p.11

Loving God with heart, soul, mind and practice.

Gazing at my bookshelves looking for the book that has influenced me most is not easy. Some, which felt influential years ago now seem less so. Others authors continue to be important in shaping who I am (Eugene Peterson and Stanley Hauerwas for example).

Of the books, I’ve read in the last year, one that is worthy of mention is Tony Jones’s ‘The Sacred Way’. I read it whilst on the train to London and Didcot last autumn and have suggested it to a number of people in church since. The book, subtitled ‘Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life’ looks at different approaches to spirituality along with some pointers to help integrate them into our daily lives; contemplative approaches such as the Jesus Prayer, Sacred Reading and the Daily Office; bodily approaches such as pilgrimage and fasting together with some thoughts about developing a Rule of Life.

For those who have experience of these different approaches the book may seem lightweight but for those with little exposure to them it may be just the encouragement you need. Jones grew up in a church-going family and went to a Christian college in the US. As he puts it, “by the time I was 25, my views of God, prayer, the Bible, etc. were pretty screwed up.” The shallowness of this eventually provoked him to look at how people had connected with God in past generations, whereupon he discovered, “the incredible richness in the spiritual practices of ancient and modern Christian communities from around the world.”

This is a book for those whose prayer life and walk with God has become stale. It is accessible without being lightweight, insightful but generous, practical because it is about God and about the practice of daily living. Buy a copy, read it and then give it away to someone who will need it more than you.

As Julian of Norwich wrote:

“Therefore we can with his grace and his help persevere in spiritual contemplation, with endless wonder at this high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us; and therefore we may with reverence ask from our lover all that we will, for our natural will is to have God, and God’s good will is to have us, and we can never stop willing or loving until we possess him in the fullness of joy.”

Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant

Back in the nineties, a couple of years into my ministry in a local church, I had something of a personal crisis. I found myself seriously questioning my call as the minister of that church, and indeed my call to Baptist ministry.

I’m glad to say that I survived the crisis, and this was due to at least three factors. The first was the wise and calm influence of my Regional Minister, who in the process introduced me to the insights of Family Systems Theory. The second was the support and prayer of some excellent friends. And the third was the writing of Eugene Peterson, and in particularly his trilogy for pastors: Working the Angles, Five Smooth Stones, and Under the Unpredictable Plant.

While I feel very un-trendy, I still hold to his emphasis upon the three basic pastoral acts which determine the shape of everything else: praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. I resound to his statement that ‘The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.’ (Working the Angles)

However, it was the third of these books, Under the Unpredictable Plant, which helped save my life! Using the Old Testament book of Jonah, Peterson clarifies the pastoral vocation in terms of helping to recover what he calls ‘vocational holiness’. I’ve returned to this book on countless occasions; I’ve recommended it to many; and I’ll continue to do so.  But let Eugene Peterson speak for himself:

‘It is necessary from time to time that someone stand up and attempt to get the attention of the pastors lined up at the travel agency in Joppa to purchase a ticket to Tarshish. At this moment, I am the one standing up. If I succeed in getting anyone’s attention, what I want to say is that the pastoral vocation is not a glamorous vocation and that Tarshish is a lie. Pastoral work consists of modest, daily, assigned work. It is like farm work. Most pastoral work involves routines similar to cleaning out the barn, mucking out the stalls, spreading manure, pulling weeds. This is not, any of it, bad work in itself, but if we expected to ride a glistening black stallion in daily parades and then return to the barn where a lackey grooms our steed for us, we will be severely disappointed and end up being horribly resentful.

There is much that is glorious in pastoral work, but the congregation, as such, is not glorious. The congregation is a Nineveh-like place: a site for hard work without a great deal of hope for success, at least as success is measured on the charts. But somebody has to do it, has to faithfully give personal visibility to the continuities of the word of God in the place of worship and prayer, in the places of daily work and play, in the traffic jams of virtue and sin.

Anyone who glamorizes congregations does a grave dis-service to pastors. We hear tales of glitzy, enthusiastic churches and wonder what in the world we are doing wrong that our people don’t turn out that way under our preaching. On close examination, though, it turns out that there are no wonderful congregations… I don’t deny that there are moments of splendour in congregations. There are. Many and frequent. But there are also conditions of squalor. Why deny it? And how could it be otherwise?… Ordinary congregations are God’s choice for the form the church takes in locale, and pastors are the persons assigned to them for ministry…’

Seeking God and Benedictine Spirituality

In 1984 I bought a small Fount Paperback. It was called Seeking God, by Esther de Waal. It was an Archbishop of Canterbury Lent book, an exposition of the Rule of St Benedict intended to encourage non monastics to live by the key principles of the Rule. This wasn't as odd, quaint, daft, as some people thought at the stime. Nor was it an attempt to make the Saul's armour of monastic spirituality fit spiritual striplings facing their own Goliaths in the culture wars of the eighties!

Instead De Waal presented a sensible, attractive and simple set of ideals that had helped transform the outward direction and inner temper of Christian spirituality. By placing several spiritual practices at the centre of community life, the Rule aimed to create a balance between individual and community, to provide liturgical rhythm and equilibrium, and to establish Christian community as a stable commitment of covenant relations intended to last for life. I'm on my third copy of De Waal's book - the first turned brown and the glue on the spine cracked leaving me with a collection of ad hoc pamphlets held together with a rubber band - cannae be daein wi' that! The replacement second copy I lent to someone about 1997, and I hope they still enjoy it (I'm not bitter, honest). My current copy has also now been read and used enough to show signs of wear and tear - but it's still in print. And I'm not surprised because it is a life enhancing and life affirming book - and completely transformed my understanding of what that journey we call seeking God is like. It also provided a short list of essential virtues for pastoral work, and a framework within which virtues grow out of values by being practiced with disciplined regularity, as habits of the heart lived out in relationship with others.

Listening, to God, to each other, and to God through each other, and listening as alert docility before the text of Scripture; stability, that commitment to people and place that does not see walking away as an option; change, as conversion of life, the transformative shaping of the Spirit through the sacrament of community; balance, avoiding those excesses and extemes so characteristic of overspiritual drivenness, opting instead for moderation in all things bu the love of God; material things, to be enjoyed and gratefully recieved, and also to be enjoyed and generously given away; people, those whom God gives to us to be part of the community in which we live and move and have our being - not our choice who God sends, just our requirement to love; authority, in Benedictine terms under the Abbott, and while I resist the idea that one person has authority over another's spiritual life, I do recognise the wisdom of willing submission to the wisdom and guidance of the trusted friend, even the trusted community; prayer as way of life, as daily rhythm, as lectio divina, as the offer of praise and intercession, love for God and others enfolded in the love of God.

All this and more, distilled from the Rule opf St Benedict and written in accessible style by one who herself practices the Rule in a lay context. As one example of the pastoral wisdom of the Rule of Benedict:

Your way of acting should be different from the world's way:

the love of Christ must come before all else.

You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge.

Rid your heart of all deceit.

Never give a hollow greeting of peace,

or turn away when someone needs your love.

Imagine reading that, and committing to living it, on a Monday morning at the beginning of whatever your week looks like - how transformative of workplace, community and home if that ideal of the monk were the reality of Christian daily practice..........hmmmm?

Jim Gordon.

Christology by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Apologies that this is a day late.

There's a lot that is inspiring about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so much so, in fact, that he has often been referred to as a 'protestant saint'. Bonhoeffer was born in Germany in 1906, and had a doctorate in theology. When the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany, Bonhoeffer was offered several oppourtunities to move to the USA and work there, but chose to remain in Germany. Bonhoeffer taught and preached against Hitler's regime and was involved with a secret group that helped Jews escape into Switzerland and plotted to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer was banned from preaching, imprisoned and finally executed in 1945, aged 39.

Bonhoeffer writes in an accessible way that I think anyone can read, and this may well be one of the reasons he has become so popular. I think most of us are put off theological writing because it's so often written in dense, difficult language. Christology is about 100 pages long and the dimensions of my copy would enable it to fit into a shirt pocket. This is no dense tome, then, and it's style is immensely readable.

The reason I have chosen Christology to write about is two-fold. The first reason is simply because I think it is a book that anyone can read. I think too often theology is too removed from the Church. Theologians write for other academics, and for these ideas to affect the Church, we either have to wait for someone to write a book that summarises their thoughts in easier language, or we have to wait for a generation of teachers who teach a new generation of church ministers with these ideas in mind. Theologians can often forget that the purpose of theology is to inform, help, build up or sometimes challenge the Church, not just the university.

Which leads me on to my second reason. Bonhoeffer moves the Christological discussion on in an important way. Christology, typically, has been concerned with the question of how Jesus can be both God and human. There have been many complex attempts at answering this question throughout Church history, the earliest authoritative example being the Chalcedonian Definition. Bonhoeffer argues that we should move the discussion away from the traditional 'how?' question, and focus instead upon a new question: 'Who is this God-Man?'

This is important because it shifts our theology out of purely intellectual realms and into real-life. The question 'who?' demands relationship, in this case, demands relationship with Christ. We can't really say who someone is, after all, until we get to know them personally. For me, Bonhoeffer's Christology reminds me that theology without a relationship with God is pointless, and acts as an encouragement for me to try and go deeper in my faith as well as in my theological studies. I think this book, more than any other, has impacted my life and thinking.

Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses

It was good to read the previous post about Eugene Peterson's The Jesus Way. I have been nourished by another of his books called Run with the Horses. It is much older, written in 1983 but, along with much of his work, has a sense of timelessness about it. I first read this book when I was doing a correspondence course on the prophet Jeremiah about 9 years ago. The insight Peterson gives combines theological and pastoral commentary. He delves into the interior life of this notable Old Testament prophet and lets his ministry speak into the heart of contemporary ministry today.

What I particularly found nourishing was the way he wove the themes of exile, hope and imagination into his interpretation of Jeremiah's life. I will briefly mention three sections of his book under these three headings.

Exile (based on Jeremiah 29:4-14)

Peterson comments 'Exile is traumatic and terrifying. Our sense of who we are is very much determined by the place we are in and the people we are with. When that changes, violently and abruptly, who are we?... We don't fit anywhere... We are extra baggage... Israel was taken into exile in 587BC... leaving home, temple and hills' (p147).

But Peterson draws out the benefits of exile, highlighting the spiritual growth that it offers. Jeremiah told the exiles to stay rooted in exile, to make their home there, to get their hands into the Babylonian soil, to settle down and marry and seek the city's welfare. Peterson says 'The result was that this became the most creative period in the entire sweep of Hebrew history. They did not lose their identity, they discovered it' (p154). He ends this chapter by saying 'Exile is the worst that reveals the best' (p156).

Hope (based on Jeremiah 32:9-10, 15-17, 24-27, 42-44)

This is the story of the prophet buying the field at Anathoth, a thoroughly practical act. Peterson makes the point that his action was also intensely prophetic. Buying a plot of land at the very moment the invading armies were camping on it does have the mark of folly about it and exposes Jeremiah to ridicule. Theologically and practically, it was an investment in God's future. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land" (Jer 32:14-15). Living lives of hope in God's future may look incomprehensible but is a mark of buying into what we believe. Peterson concludes 'It takes courage to act in hope. But it is the only practical action, for it is the only action that survives the decay of the moment and escapes the scrapheap of yesterday's fashion' (p178).

Imagination (based on Jeremiah 18:1-4)

When Jeremiah visits the potter's house he is exercising his God-given imagination. I love the concept of imagination as a gift from God. It's so easy to think that God is only interested in our reasoning-power and intellect, but it is often imagination that fires us forwards to new creative initiatives in God's kingdom and saves us from a cerebral faith. Peterson believes Jeremiah had an artistic imagination which served his vocation well. He says 'The great masters of the imagination do not make things up out of thin air; they direct our attention to what is right before our eyes. They then train us to see it whole - not in fragments but in context, with all the connections. They connect the visible with the invisible...' (p75). Jeremiah was able to see God as the divine potter, making a people for his glory. He concludes 'Being a Christian is very much a matter of the flesh - of space and time and things. It means being thrown on the potter's wheel and shaped, our entire selves, into something useful and beautiful. And when we are not useful or beautiful we are re-shaped. Painful, but worth it' (p81).

(Andy Scott)

Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

A book that has had a profound impact on me over the last year is The Jesus Way- a conversation in following Jesus (Eugene Peterson). We have been using it as a basis for study in the evening congregation I am a part of. I have learnt so much and seen many things anew since starting to read it, but one chapter stands out for me in the journey.

Even as I committed my life to God (aged 7) I had a deep sense of my own sinfulness and my need for God. At best, this can be a strength which keeps me humble and reliant on God. In weaker moments, this always spills into a cycle of setting unrealistically high standards for myself, inevitably failing to reach them, then condemnation, new resolve, new standards, etc. In my teenage years I heard many sermons unfolding the simple 3 points to a more effective passionate Super-turbo boosted-Christian life which I could only copy at best for a few days. And so the cycle continued…

Although I felt like I had gained some understanding of this “thorn in my side”, reading the chapter on David was a revelation to me. Peterson defines the way of David as “…from start to finish, the way of imperfection.”
It was all too familiar to me as I read his descriptions of perfectionism: “It is a way of perceiving Christians in two categories: carnal and spiritual Christians…Perfectionism has a way of claiming the term “spiritual” for itself- some Christians are spiritual, and by implication the others are not.”

He states in the strongest terms: “Perfectionism is a perversion of the Christian way. It is responsible for disabling countless sincere Christians for common usefulness in the company of their neighbours on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”

Peterson underlines that fact that David, despite flashes of brilliance- e.g. slaying Goliath, cutting Saul’s cloak instead of a revenge killing- was continually messing up. David did some pretty terrible things. And yet not only is he recorded as a man after God’s own heart but Jesus was not embarrassed to be called the Son of David.
The big lesson David has to teach us is not his good acts or his great faith, but his relationship with God and his honest desire to be close to God through confession and repentance. Many of his psalms contain such prayers.

As Peterson says in the chapter, “The story David lived and the psalms he prayed provide us with an imagination that is capable of understanding the operations of God to do his perfect work in us, not our capacities to perfect ourselves.”

For me, this chapter not only gives a healthy framework with which to view sin and imperfection- where there is plenty of conviction but no condemnation- but it is also extremely salutary in thinking of what we communicate to others. We all have the responsibility to encourage our fellow believers into the freedom of relationship with God- to understand how to journey with “God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us”.
Let me never by my words or example disable my sisters or brothers but let me live and pray and model a life which gives God space to be God and do his perfect work in me.

Jeremy Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music

I’ve chosen this book because it’s a book I eagerly awaited and, when it was published at the beginning of 2008, it would be an understatement to say that it didn’t disappoint. I knew what to expect having read some of other Jeremy Begbie’s writing, and having heard him speak on a number of occasions.  He is an accomplished musician, a theologian of substance, and an excellent communicator, and the way in which he has brought music and theology together has sounded a deep resonances in me.

Jeremy is part of a movement which calls itself, ‘Theology Through The Arts’.  Theology of the arts asks what theology can bring to the arts. But theology through the arts asks what the arts can bring to theology: how can the arts help us think and re-think the gospel that we hear?  ‘Resounding Truth’ focuses especially upon music, an area which has been hugely neglected.

At the start the book he spends a fair bit of time bringing clarity to what music is, and in the process providing a hugely useful map of the current musical landscape.  He goes on to look at music in action in biblical times, before moving rapidly through church history, hitting on prominent thinkers in relation to music. A chapter on JS Bach leads into a chapter on three musical theologians, Schleiermacher, Bach and Bonhoeffer; and then two theological composers, Messiaen, and James MacMillan. There is superb material in these chapters, but the study expands in the next section of the book.

Jeremy Begbie puts forward ‘a Christian ecology’, ‘ecology’ in the sense of ‘a guiding framework’ but also in the sense of a doctrine of creation asking what kind of world does God create and relate to, and what might our role be in relation to the created world at large?  Having laid this foundation he asks this question: ‘Where might music find a place in the ecology sketched in the last chapter? In the purposes of a Triune Creator who has created and gathered up all things in Jesus Christ and now perfects all things by his Spirit – what can music contribute? In a world crafted out of freedom and love that praises God in its goodness but is never divine, a world made to flourish toward its end, a world of ordered openness and diverse unity – where do the sounds of singing and playing belong? And in the human vocation to focus and articulate creation’s praise, to discover, respect, develop, heal, anticipate, together – how might music play a part?’

I can’t do justice to the answer to these questions that he pursues and develops in the rest of the book, except to say that I’m still exploring them!  So, if this flicks your switches, go read! But in the meantime, try this nugget, ‘The church is the song of God – God’s “breathing out” of his own trinitarian polyphony.  It is the way the world hears the music at the heart of God and joins in.’

For me, this book is absolute gift, because it brings together the two worlds I know best. And I confess to frequently drawing on the creative thinking that I’ve found here and will continue to do so. Thank you Jeremy!

Books Half Remembered

One of the challenges of serving a small, mainly elderly congregation whose outreach work is mainly to another 70 or so elderly people is that sometimes they get sick or die. In recent months they seem to have decided that at any one time no less than three of them will need to be visited in hospitals scattered across the county, hence opportunities to read are few and far between. So, what you have is more an account of ‘books half remembered’ and I crave your forgiveness and indulgence.

The brief was ‘choose a book that has made an impact on your life or thinking’ – which in itself made me think, which are these books? In the forty or so years I’ve been able to read, to which books have I returned because in some small way they inspire me? I identified a whole heap of storybooks and novels and I don’t think that’s a bad thing; after all countless theologians use fiction – film, drama, poetry and prose - in their work, and my own research has uncovered people using anything from Sleeping Beauty to Bridget Jones as resources for reflection.

My earliest recollections are the Happy Venture (Dick and Dora) and Beacon readers (Old Dog Tom and Briar Rose come to mind) and they are important because they taught me my love of reading – whole worlds waiting to be explored and ideas to be discovered. I also recall blagging my first reading lesson – a full two terms younger than the rest of my class, I had not yet done letters never mind phonics (as they’re now known) so I listened carefully to what the children ahead of me said, and casually repeated it when my turn came. I still recall my fear of being found out as illiterate and my joy at this new ability; fortunately I quickly learned to read!

The first book I read ‘over and over’ was Ladybird Sleeping Beauty. Something about love that overcame ugliness (from Beauty) and the love that would let its beloved go free (from Beast - who looked more like a chimpanzee than a monster) struck a chord I guess. Having tracked down and bought a copy of it to re-read ahead of this post, I discovered that forty years on it doesn’t work as it once did – not only have I grown (much) older but the world has changed: the language and pictures are of a bygone age. However, I like to think that my memory of the book’s significance outweighs its merits in the present.

A book to which I do return every few years is Jane Eyre and the yellowed pages of my well-thumbed Dean and Son Ltd (abridged) edition have accompanied me since I was ten. As a child I guess it was the young Jane with whom I identified, and over the years, in some ways, I probably grew up with her, reading the book through different eyes. The assumed backcloth of Christianity of this book and of others I read at the same age – Tom Brown’s Schooldays (same edition) springs to mind – undoubtedly shaped my thinking in some way but it would be as an adult revisiting these beloved tales that I spotted it.

Teen years saw me devouring Christian biography and autobiography – Corrie Ten Boom (The Hiding Place), Brother Andrew (God’s Smuggler) and Gladys Aylward (The Small Woman) stand out, and I even named my first car ‘Corrie’ in honour of the first of these! In each of these accounts was evidence of struggle as well as triumph, of human nature as well as divine calling, and, although I never seriously entertained the ideas of overseas mission or active Bible smuggling, these people’s lives impacted on my thinking.

Adult life has been filled with reading – from thermodynamics to theology, nuclear fusion to pneumatology, mathematics to missiology; along with any amount of fiction, classical and pulp. Choosing significant books is not easy but I do recall one of the oft derided ‘Kingsway paperback’ genre. Today’s Christian Woman by Ann Warren, published in 1984 and costing the princely sum of £1.60, was the book that gave me permission to explore my Christian vocation in ways the church (in many denominations) had failed to do, and showed me that it was, after all, OK for women to be ordained. I’d hesitate to re-read it in case, like my Ladybird book, later learning and more sophisticated theology break the spell, but I’m glad I read it when I did because its effects were liberating.

So, finally to books that shape my current thinking. There are too many to name, but I’m very glad to have read Paul Fiddes’ Participating in God and David Bosch’ Transforming Mission whose relational Trinity and authentic missional diversity respectively underlie so much of my understanding of ministry and mission.

I apologise again if this is mere self-indulgent waffle but I am still left wondering if, after all, the most transformative book was Dick and Dora Book 1?!

Evangelicals in Exile

I first read Evangelicals in Exile (DLT, 1997) by Alistair Ross in 1998/99. I was at the time in my final year of A-level studies. The book is an account of Alistair's spiritual journey from a child to training for baptist ministry, being a church minister and pastoral counsellor. It was the honesty of Alistair's account and the questioning of faith, and specifically as the title suggests, an evangelical faith, that grabbed me. Around the same time I had also read Clark Pinnock's book on the openness of God, which was in a different way a questioning of the generally accepted evangelical theology.

Reading it again this last week, the chapter about Alistair's time at a baptist theological college was particularly interesting, as I saw how training for ministry has both changed since the late 70's/early 80's and in some ways some of the experiences (perhaps obviously) are the same. On one particular, and hear I cannot speak for the other colleges, but it does feel as I am currently training that spouses and families are still often left on the fringes of 'formation' process, despite the fact that they are experiencing everything you are feeling. Colleges I think must do more to recognise and find ways to engage with and support the families of students - what does it mean to be married to a minister? what does it mean to a child or a young person who's mother or faith is a minister?

The book's real strength is its integration of biography and theology. Another book that made a similar impact on me was Frances Young's Face to Face. I firmly believe we need more theology like this, theological reflection that arises out of and engages with one's life story and experiences. Evangelicals in Exile is a book that deserves repeated readings, the other book, I look forward to reading again and again is Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson, which incidently Geoff is blogging about later. The repeated readings remind us of important truths and differente sentences to stick-out.

I haven't got to the end of the book on this current reading, so here's a quote
from early on: there is an appalling danger in the Church, especially in the
evangelical tradition, of 'splitting' between theory and practice and between
good and bad. We affirm the good and deny the bad. We work hard at clarifying
the theory and in doing so somehow assume that practice will just happen. [Me -
Interestingly I think that the reverse is also true, we get stuck into
practice and hope that the theology grounding will just emerge, sometimes
what feels like thin air!]. Real life has a way of blasting holes, like rock from quarry, in our careful archaeological dug-out theology. (p.52)

Alistair Ross is a Baptist minister and is currently a lecturer in counselling at Birmingham University, where he is also pursuing doctoral studies. He is the author of several books beside Evangelicals in Exile, including Understanding Friends (1993) and Counselling Skills for church and faith community workers (2005).