Glimpse of the Kingdom

Picked this up from Brian McLaren’s blog:

“While in Sydney, I had my first day “out of the pulpit” as a pastor. (The previous Sunday didn’t count because we crossed the International Date Line, passing from Saturday night directly to Monday morning!) It was a completely free day for us. We had an experience that I thought I’d share. It was a truly holy and glorious moment and I felt God spoke to me through it.

We walked down to the “Circular Quay” where the famous Sydney Opera House is situated. Across from the Opera House is a district called “The Rocks” – full of shops, sidewalk booths, etc. It was a perfect summer day, beautiful breeze, blue sky, sailboats filling the bay behind us. A jazz group was playing on a stage in a courtyard, and we got something to eat and enjoyed their music. A middle-aged couple got up and started dancing – they were amazing! Then an old lady got up, then an old man, and soon there were half-a-dozen people spontaneously dancing to this beautiful music – blues, swing, etc.

Near the stage, I noticed a five or six year old boy who appeared mentally handicapped. He was absolutely entranced with the music. He put up a fist to his mouth as if it were a trumpet and pretended to play it with his other hand. Soon, without realizing it, he had moved out beside the stage. His eyes were closed and he was playing his heart out on his imaginary trumpet. The sax player noticed this, and the hopped off the stage and stood beside the young guy. When he opened his eyes, the sax player started dancing around as he played and the little boy followed his lead. Then the trumpet player saw them, and he came down. The little boy in between the two musicians … “playing” and dancing in an obvious state of ecstasy – the audience started applauding and I know my eyes were overflowing with tears to see something so beautiful and spontaneous and glorious.

Then I looked back to where the boy had been, and his grandfather was standing there in obvious delight to see his grandson so happy. I leaned over to Grace and whispered, “It’s a glimpse of the kingdom of God.”

It was a perfect end to our time in Sydney, and that scene will stay with me as a reminder that God is at work everywhere, if only we have eyes to see.”

Breakfast

Been reading through the post-resurrection stories and got to John 21 tonight. Peter, rather forlornly gives up the journey and decides to go back fishing and was dutifully followed by the others. Jesus wanders down the beach, urges them to cast their nets again despite a fruitless night, and they draw in a net-busting load, only it didn’t – a detail which the fishermen remark on in the story.

Peter impulsively dives into the water once he recognised who their shore-based fishing consultant really was and by the time he swims the 100 yards to the shore Jesus has a coal fire burning with fish a-frying. How infuriating this could be for the professional…just where did he get them from? And when Jesus orders them to bring some of their own catch, Peter is back into the water, and, it appears, dragging the net of 153 fish ashore by himself.

Given the origins of this blog, Jesus invitation to them stands out:

“Come and have breakfast”

When they accept the invitation the simple meal of bread and fish becomes a moment of communion with the risen Lord. The Gospel says,

“Jesus came..
took the bread and gave it to them..
and did the same with the fish.”

Middle Ground

Gods message to Amos: ‘I’m not putting up with this any longer’ presents a question to the breakfasteers: why does the thought of ‘judgement’ on this scale sit so uneasy in these days of ‘grace’? Is it because we treat it as an old fashioned idea or has God mellowed over the centuries? If God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow then why are we not subjected to His “roar” which could so easily shrivel the Mourne peaks? My head was gently reaching its own meltdown trying to apply a formula of thought usually saved for Sudoku when I arrived at the ‘middle’ ground.

It was a Good Friday church service and the words from John Chp.19 were being read, recounting the journey of Jesus from the residence of Pilate to Golgotha and onto the cross: “Here they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle” (vs18). The last four words stayed with me for the rest of the service. It got me thinking: Jesus in the middle or just one in a row? Today we often associate ‘middle’ ground with neutrality. For Jesus, middle ground meant heartland. He always told it as it was, not afraid of offending where appropriate. Which is why on Golgotha, Jesus is not just one in a row but right in the centre and thick of it. For all my recent attempts at teasing apart the relationship between judgement and grace whilst reading Amos, the shocking image remains of Jesus crucified: judgement and grace meet in holy alliance. God roared in Amos’ day, but would it be pushing it to suggest that he roared loudest at Golgotha? To deny the place of Gods ‘roar’ of judgement in 2006 is to deny His grace offered by the death and resurrection of his Son.

I recently watched a documentary about storm chasers in USA, and although gobsmacked at the visuals, I was struck at the audio recordings of the twisters. The rushing winds were described (accurately) as the sound of a lion roaring. Then came the ‘eye’, the middle ground, of the storm were the roar disappeared and a reassuring calm, a contrary environment prevailed. I offer this as a limited image of the relationship between judgement and grace: the reassuring environment of one set within the inseparable context of the other. Not neutral ground but ‘middle’ ground where Jesus stands.

Greentea

Good Friday

Matthew’s Gospel says the following in chp 27 and verses 50-51:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Yes, that meant access for all people to the presence of God.

But it also meant freedom for God. God was now free to leave the confines of temple and restrictive religious practices and to move out into the world. On Good Friday, the way was cleared for God to come out from behind the curtain.

Gwanyeboyye 2

I should’ve expected it really …. Not long back from yet another injury, I was trying to lift my weekly running mileage in preparation for running a leg of the Belfast Marathon relay in May. So on Friday, instead of having my usual rest day, I decided to try to run a “hard 3” on the treadmill. To be frank, I never really got going. At 2 miles I was really struggling and at 2.5 miles the wheels came off. I was disappointed, dejected and depressed. I just wished I had taken the rest day. I just wished that I hadn’t bothered trying to do that little bit extra.

A lot of preachers and speakers, especially those with an athletic background, will use the race analogy to describe the Christian’s journey through life. Sure I’ve done it myself in a 10 minute Centre spot at our church youth club! Let’s face it, Paul makes it pretty easy for us: “let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12.1); “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4.7). All we need to do is extend the analogy to include proper preparation (the various running training sessions twinned with Bible Study, Prayer & Meditation), right diet (physical v spiritual nourishment – we’re on a roll here!), training with friends (Bible Study & prayer with friends), avoiding temptation etc and hey! It’s just like the God channel! Show ‘em your London Marathon medal, high fives all round, no bother!

So it’s a real bummer when your running is rubbish, when the knees always feel sore, when the hamstrings always feel tight, when it’s hard to get out of bed for the training session, and your subscription to “Runner’s World” has lapsed so you’re reading “What Car?” instead? But it’s a much more sobering thought when you realise that your training for your real judgement day leaves a lot more to be desired. And the sad thing is that while there’s an excuse for middle-aged legs packing in, there’s no real excuse for curtailed devotions, rushed Bible Study and missed prayer meetings.

When you tell another runner you are running badly, they will invariably tell you that you need a target; that having the race in your calendar will focus the mind, squeeze that bit extra out of the body and help you deal with the discomfort. But every Christian already knows their target, so why do we so often neglect our preparation for it? Maybe if Paul was around today he’d write something like “of course it’s hard sometimes. Of course there’ll be nights when the wind and rain is lashing in your face. But remember who is at the finishing line waiting for you. Remember He will never judge harshly those who give of their very best whatever the result. And remember how lucky you have been that your entry form for this race was so willingly accepted……. So get your bloody finger out and Just Do it!”

Justcoffeeforme

Got me Again

Just when I thought the boys were winning me over to the Old Testament, our Chef points us in the direction of Amos. At first reading it appeared that all of us whose initial thought about Amos was “miserable get from a farming community with big sideburns” were not too far off the mark!

But “Emmerdale” left Mr Wilkes’ sidekick behind a long time ago. Shouldn’t we Christians do the same with this bloke? And yet …….

Hear we are reading about inhuman treatment of fellow human beings a day after 90 people are slaughtered coming out of Friday prayers in Iraq.
Here we are reading about injustice and oppression of the poor during a time of great prosperity at a time when, even after Live 8, people are starving to death in Africa.

Here we are reading about young men being carried off into exile at a time when the world’s most powerful nation is breaking international law and detaining hundreds of people of around 35 different nationalities in Guantánamo Bay, without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits.

So lesson 1 then: Amos is as important to Christians in the Western World today as it was to the people of Judah and Israel some 2,700 years ago. Heat up the coffee Chef, you were right yet again!

Justcoffeeforme

Seeker-sensitive Communication

Don’t you just love the way Amos preaches? First of all, he’s the true outsider, coming as he does from Judah and preaching at the religious headquarters of Israel, the northern kingdom. But his message wins them over quickly. As they engage in their religious activity, no doubt also lamenting the godlessness of their enemies, Amos contributes to their religious xenophobia by condemning the surrounding nations in uncompromising terms.

“This is what the Lord says, ‘I will not turn away my wrath from Damascus…’ [cue the nodding of pious heads]. “And this is what the Lord says about Gaza…’ [more pious nodding and a shy Amen!], “and Tyre, they’ll not escape…” [prompting some loud applause], “And just in case you thought Edom had got away” [to the sound of vigourous applause and several 'preach it brother!'s] “neither is there hope for Ammon or Moab…” ['now we're talking' some are even doing what vaguely resembles a dance]….but wait, what’s that I hear Lord? JUDAH IS DONE FOR!…’ [to the sound of wild, hysterical cheering, several worshippers are slain in the spirit and awake with gold teeth in their mouths]

Then, “This is what the Lord say: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath…’”

Silence.

Too Much Judgment

It’s the message of judgment that is most disturbing. Several people referred to our preference these days for messages of grace. We did something that wouldn’t happen too often I guess; we read straight though from chp 1:1 all the way to 2:5, out loud and it was just unremitting in its intemperate language. God roared at the beginning, like a lion pouncing on its prey, and kept it up right through our reading, and I confess, that I wondered where we were going to go with this series of breakfasts.

As someone said, the various oracles against the nations unfolded with all the pattern and poetry of a Dylan song and boy did they hit home. What struck me was how each nation was condemned for their relational abuses. Damascus threshed Gilead, says the Lord, not with wooden threshes filled with wooden teeth, which normally separated the grain from the ears, but in a move of callous cruelty, replaced the wooden teeth with iron ones. Gaza held people captive, Tyre sold people into slavery and disregarded their common humanity, Edom pursued his brothers ruthlessly without compassion, Ammon destroyed generations of people to extend borders, Moab usurped the government of Edom, and Judah, for them it was worse. They rejected God’s law and were led astray by false gods.

All relational abuses. But since they were framed in terms of nations we all too easily jumped to the international level and saw these sins repeated by US and UK governments against Afghanistan and Iraq. Much harder to see how my individual behaviour abuses people for my own ends. Could it be that by drinking non-fairtrade coffee for instance I am contributing to the abuse of generations? Is my environmentally unfriendly lifestyle destroying the planet for the children of the future, and tantamount to ripping open pregnant women and killing the children.

The imagery is violent and disturbing and as such easily sidestepped by pious believers. Much harder to drill down into the material to see how it spotlights me, or my friends, or my church.

That’s why it’s best not to read it at all.

Live and Dangerous

A lot of people can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news that J.F.Kennedy had been assassinated. For me the same is true when I heard of the death of Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) on Jan.04 1986. This particular band formed a large part of my teenage formative years reflecting a mixture of rebellion, romance and rock – not necessarily in that order. I never could afford to go to a live concert so had to be content with wearing down the vinyl groove until distortion kicked in. Consequently I was left with the ‘cartoon’ image of the rock star in my head, which is exactly what Phil Lynott had intended, as I discovered having just finished Mark Putterford’s biography of the singer. Lynott loved to perpetuate the mytholological existence of the’rock star’ with a message at every gig. To to be honest the book was a little disappointing. I guess the bias in the book is more towards the origins of albums and their labels, for the anoraks, than it is about the life and person of Lynott. Still, it was important for me to revisit an old hero with a different mind set.

I have also recently been re-introduced to another man of stature, a character who I first came across at the same time of listening to Lizzy guitar riffs and pondering Jim Fitzpatrick album covers. At the men’s breakfast we have opened the can of social and moral worms (can you get worm flu?) that is Amos. A focussed individual with a hard hitting message at every gig. Here is a guy who could really get a crowd going. From the outset, Amos uses shocking lyrics to whip the fans up to a frenzy of righteous indignation against the injustices of another land. But this is where any comparison to a self obsessed rock star breaks down. Amos will go on (we sneaked a peek at the next gig) to unleash even greater venom and judgment on the fans themselves: the hard core, ticket touting, t-shirt selling, ballot rigging, head banging, boot legging, autograph hunting unwashed fans. And you wondered why he didn’t release more albums. There is a different ‘roar’ to be heard at these events: a roar that starts in those precious few moments before the main act takes to the stage. A roar that comes from backstage whilst the audience stand in stunned silence. It is the roar from Zion: God’s roar.

Is Amos the Geldof of his day? The scene is set for an interesting series of studies in Amos and I for one am looking forward to the challenges the book offers to my own faith walk (from paper recycling to music tastes). One thing is for sure: the boys are back in town.

Greentea

Message?

The dominant theme is summarised in 5:24, another one of those well-worn phrases, “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream”. Amos calls for social justice to be the hallmark of their faith. Israel believed they could act how they pleased so long as they turned up for the rituals of faith. But without justice God despised their performance. The threat therefore was to uproot them by the hand of a pagan nation, unless they repented, in which case God would preserve a remnant (5:15).

To this end God ROARS. The God who is more than just the God of Israel, but the God who sits in judgment over all the nations of the earth (1:3-2:3; 4:13; 5:8; 6:14; 9:7).

Motyer summarises his message this:
1. privilege brings peril (3:2) not security, as they thought.
2. Past history cannot take the place of present spiritual and moral commitment (5:6, 14,15,24)
3. Religious profession and religious practice are repulsive to God unless verified by clear evidences (7:7-8)