Be still and know that I am God

I am not writing a blog this week. Standing back and pondering the above, seeking guidance about the future.

Psalm 46:10 NIV

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The poor

The Lord hears the cry of the poor;blessed be the Lord! Psalm

Looking at his disciples, he said:  “Blessed are you who are poor,     for yours is the kingdom of God.
Luke 6:20 NIV

The second quote is from Jesus and part of a longer passage.

Here was a man whose words were like fire.

Even now Jesus words can penetrate our comfortable world and challenge us so that we can dare to be different.

Here is a man who presents to us an altered perception of what it means to be living the human life. Here is a man whose words can make us question our existing value system and drag us out of our introspection.

Jesus trades in paradox. We start to listen to him and when we hear him say "BLESSED", "POOR", "KINGDOM OF GOD" in the same sentence we begin to question what he could possibly mean.

The Good News translation even says "Happy" instead of "Blessed "How can poor people be happy? How can the hungry be satisfied? In a way the beatitudes are one of the most frightening passages that Jesus teaches. Because what he says invades our life. We spend most of our lives working hard to feed our family, clothe them, pay a mortgage, buy a car (and of course be a success in the process) and yet Jesus comes close to us in today's gospel and says "alas for you who are rich: you are having your consolation now."

It is not something that we should explain away or dilute. Jesus words are addressed to us all at an individual level. To each one who listens they are a challenge. They are a challenge to our hearts and directly to our interior lives. Jesus is prompting us in a very direct way to change the orientation of our lives, so that we put the God who Is Love first and everything else second. He is inviting us to have spiritual integrity and part of having this is to be able to detach from material possessions so that they no longer own us.

You could also say that Jesus words are addressed to us so that we change our hearts from stone to compassionate hearts of flesh. This invitation is from a Jesus who wants to usher in the new reign of God. A lot of the teaching in the gospel of Luke is about the "Kingdom of God" and how to bring it into our lives. Jesus expects his followers to be "yeast" in society, to have integrity. Changing society by their very presence. If our hearts are in the right place then this starts to happen. Christians are not called to be passive. If our faith does anything for us at all it should stir us into a more pure kind of love which isn't at all selfish.

...and yes then the beatitudes start to come true. We are happy (or happier) when we change and live by the gospel.

Of course we are only human and will struggle with temptation and even fall back at times. But what we need to watch is that the direction of our lives is going the right way. That is towards God and towards each other and not the other way... We need to set our rudder straight. Set our love straight. Set our integrity straight and head for the goal. Then rich or poor becomes irrelevant. I remember a good friend reminding me that we pray daily for our food in the Lord's prayer "give us this day our daily bread"

Dear Jesus, I have so much help me to know this and to live fully as an heir to the kingdom. Amen

Avoiding the dragnet of evil

Put at its starkest level sometimes Christianity is about the struggle between good and evil. The struggle between love and hate. And the choice between what helps us and that which harms us.

What has provoked those thoughts in me is rather randomly last Thursday I put my toe in the water of the book of Habakkuk. The same day I started to read Christine Caine's book Undaunted. Both books gripped me and started me thinking along the same lines.

To be a follower of Christ rather than just a believer means that we are called to an active opposition of evil. You could term it spiritual opposition but it can also be said that we are called to a direct opposition of evil where it is manifest in our world. Bear with me please and follow me to where I go with this.

First Habakkuk. I put my toe in the book thinking I was just going to read a passage but had to read the whole of the short book in order to try and understand it. I found myself thinking about a description that the prophet uses, "dragnet of evil, " he warns us that we are like fishes in the sea and that we can be unwittingly caught up in that dragnet of evil. Sucked into evil without at first being aware of what is happening. The dragnet can plunge towards us and before we know it we can be deep in the net with our tail flicking in panic.

I have come to realise that the main times that this happens is when we come into contact with the off-shoots of organised crime or institutional and corporate sin.

We have to allow the scales to fall off our eyes and to be aware that these "dragnets" reach our local communities. Our first response should be to say "no" to their products ourselves and teach our children to. That's a definite no to soft drugs, money lending, counterfeit goods, heroin, pimps, pornography. If they can't sell their products they lose the incentive to be in your neighbourhood. All these products are produced through coercion in some way and to deliver the product a human has suffered. Even if the first fix was free.

The link to Christine Caine's book Undaunted is that she brings, as her witness to us, a meeting that she had with some young women who had escaped human trafficking. The account is very moving and should be of concern to us. She explains why she started the A21 campaign in 2007.

For reflection

• Does the dragnet of evil come near to me or someone I care about?
• Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?  You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.  The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.  Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.  Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy? Habakkuk 1:13-17 NIV
• Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,  yet I will rejoice in the Lord , I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. Habakkuk 3:17-19 NIV
• Be under obligation to no one—the only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law.  The commandments, "Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not desire what belongs to someone else"—all these, and any others besides, are summed up in the one command, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law. Romans 13:8-10 GNT

Dear Lord, open my eyes. Purify my heart and my intentions, free me from pressure to do things I don't want to do. I want to freely dedicate myself to seeking your peace and your love for my life. Amen

My Lord and my God

Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus replied, “You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:24-29)

The full version of this passage is here. It has some very strong messages in it and can be a turning point for us in our understanding of Jesus.  Thomas actually put his finger into the wounds of Jesus. This quelled his doubt. Just before this Jesus had said to him ‘Peace be with you’ and then ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.’

It emphasises for us that there has been a physical resurrection, that Jesus literally got up after being dead and that he walked about. Something seemingly impossible for someone who had been wounded and killed so thoroughly, but to God everything is possible.

To help us believe this we have the witness statements of those that saw him. John the author of this gospel is one of the disciples that met the risen Lord. We can say as St Paul says in one of his letters "We don't rely on made up stories" and it is evident that he made close enquiry into this when he first became a Christian as he says elsewhere "I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the scriptures; that he was buried, that he was raised to life three days later, as written in the scriptures; that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles. Then he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died. Then he appeared to James, and afterwards to all the apostles." Paul knew most of these people and his summary is the result of careful enquiry. 

The resurrection is the essential proof that Jesus is the Son of God. If there is no resurrection there could still be doubt. We might say as the centurion did that "Jesus was a good man" but because Jesus rose from the dead we can go far beyond this and say Jesus is the Son of God that only God could snatch victory from the closing jaws of sin and death.

The reading also speaks powerfully about the suffering of Jesus. As any nurse will tell you there is great intimacy in touching the wounds of another. It excites compassion in the most stony hearted of us. Thomas must have felt that in touching the wounds of Jesus. WE can imagine with some certainty that Thomas was dissolved as he saw at close sight what Jesus had gone through. No wonder Thomas said to Jesus "My Lord and my God."

What is important to remember also today is that Jesus gives the disciples the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit transforms them from fearful timidity, after all they had been described as "cowering," into people who can boldly share their faith. The Christian faith is about people whose lives can be transformed. When invited God's Holy Spirit comes into our life - He stands by us as our advocate and strengthener.

.... I pray today for all readers of this blog, wherever we are in our faith may we be strengthened by what we have read, let us be inspired by Thomas words and say to Jesus "My Lord and my God."

Significant encounter - Jesus at the Last Supper

If you had fore knowledge that you were going to be killed you would feel a distinct unease, you would reconsider how you used your last hours wouldn't you? Your life would all of a sudden be in sharp focus.

Luke and John's gospel account of Holy Thursday give us insights into both the humanity of Jesus and into his God understanding of what was going on. Fully human and yet fully divine he was subject to human emotion and human fear whilst also knowing what was before him. I am not sure we can understand at  all what that felt like but we can empathise with the fear.

He uses his last hours before his arrest 

• to celebrate the passover feast and within the framework of that Jewish ritual to institute the gift of communion among his followers. A gift that encourages us to be united. But most importantly a New Covenant "sealed with my blood and poured out for you."
• He uses his last hours to have a long conversation with his disciples. What he said is a bit like a last will and testament in that he talks of the things that are most important to him so that we as followers can be faithful to his vision. The fullest version is recorded in Chapters 12 through to 18 of John's gospel and talks of radical things. such as what it means to have a servant heart, how God is making friends with humankind, what it means to be part of the vine and then he "prays that they may all be one"
• Jesus washes the disciples feet. An extraordinary act of humility. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am.  I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another's feet.  I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.  I am telling you the truth: no slaves are greater than their master, and no messengers are greater than the one who sent them.  Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice!"
• His meal is shared with the twelve, two of whom were betrayers. We tend to think only of Judas. But  Peter's denial is predicted although he subsequently seeks forgiveness and is then  forgiven 
• He reassures his disciples and promises them that the advocate, the Holy Spirit will come.
• Finally  when the meal is over Jesus spends some time alone in the garden of Gethsemane.  In crisis  both ritual and meditation are things to hold onto.

When we think of the enormity of those last hours of Jesus before his crucifixion and read the words recorded in John's gospel, we are so challenged. Are we true disciples or are we like Peter or Judas?  Do we betray the gospel through lack of courage like Peter? Or sell out the gospel like Judas?

To understand the mind of Jesus go to John Chapter 12 and read. Jesus can challenge you again today just as he did his disciples.

“Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in him who sent me.  Whoever sees me sees also him who sent me.  I have come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.  If people hear my message and do not obey it, I will not judge them. I came, not to judge the world, but to save it.  Those who reject me and do not accept my message have one who will judge them. The words I have spoken will be their judge on the last day!  This is true, because I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has commanded me what I must say and speak.  And I know that his command brings eternal life. What I say, then, is what the Father has told me to say.”

Come let us go up to Jerusalem!

Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.  He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him;  they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again."  The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about. Luke 18:31-34 NIV

Shortly after  is the start of a journey for Jesus which will lead to his death and resurrection.

But it starts triumphantly, the crowd rapturous, waving palm branches "the whole crowd of disciples joyfully giving praise to God"

A journey that in some eyes can be seen as a demonstration of how fickle we can be as humans. They say "a week can be a long time in politics..." but in the Spirit led life of the Son of Man a week was the difference between the excitement and adoration of the crowd, and them baying for his blood.

If we run with the crowd we can be very contradictory! We need to be independently minded and led by the mind of God. Not swayed and washed around by the tide of human opinion.

For example in the readings for the procession it says that as Jesus entered Jerusalem the crowds that processed with him were all shouting:

  "Hosanna to the Son of David
  Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!
  Hosanna in the highest heavens!"

When the people who were already in the City saw this they started asking, "Who is this?" The answer was,"This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."

Yet, as I said we know less than a week later the crowd turns on Jesus and cries out for his blood.

There is a message for us in this. Political leaders like Pilate are pragmatists and like to go with the crowd.  Although they may try and influence and move opinion, ultimately for them the majority opinion rules.  The crowd shouting "Crucify him" about  Jesus, swayed Pilate.

I think that the message for us is that we should be sure to listen to God's voice and let it be present in our lives.  God does not speak in a strident way and we need to discover how to let his truth filter into our hearts so that we are people who are constant and in tune with the will of God in our lives.  If we are like this we will be able to stand firm in our faith and stand in the "truth of God" which is present in our faith and not to lose sight of it.  When we are in the "eye of the storm" we will be able to hold onto what we have already discovered to be true and not be blown off course and lose sight of God's insight into our situation.

The irony is that in their procession with the palms the crowd had correctly identified Jesus' ministry.  They give him honour and called him a prophet.  Remember they said "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee".  A prophet is one who speaks God's truth into a a situation (to people) allowing  God to have a say in the affairs of men. They treated him as a King too! And that is true he is the King of a spiritual Kingdom of God.

Christians are called to be Kingdom Builders.

One of the psalms says of God "indeed you love truth in the heart" and elsewhere it says, "wear your integrity like a blanket."  I think that this means we should be taking care to be so anchored in God that when we are in the crowd we can still keep sight of what God wants in our lives.

We pray as we start Holy Week that we will be able to focus on what God is saying to us at this time. That he will be present to us and that we will find new meaning in our faith.

We are blessed to be living in a time when our faith can be set to "expectant" - they say "May you live in interesting times" - well Jesus means to challenge your preconceptions and your contentedness with a life that is bitter tasting to him. Why would you accept a life that is second best when you can become a son or a daughter of "the living God"

Dear Lord, strengthen and renew our faith this Easter, may we be challenged by the enormity of the journey that you took from Palm Sunday to resurrection. May we understand that there is a place on that journey for us too. Bless us O Lord, may we surrender our complacency and come to know you as you really are! Amen

I want you to know

When I was 17 or 18 and found my way back to going to church. One of the things I learnt pretty soon was that God expected me to be very ecumenical in my heart. That's a fancy way of saying I understood pretty soon that God works across man-made boundaries.

A lot of my early bible study was led by the Holy Spirit. And my thinking has been formed by three statements:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24 NIV

The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3.8

" no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit." 1 Corinthians 12.3

Jesus instructed my heart to respect anyone who professed that Jesus is Lord. To try and listen to what the Spirit is saying across boundaries.

To understand that the letter to the Hebrews is right when it says:

"In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets,  but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. He is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end.  He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power."

I want you to know what I know in the core of my being. That when you accept Jesus as your saviour your life is changed. Changed for the better.

You may feel "poor in Spirit" but Jesus says to you right now - "blessed are the poor in Spirit because they shall inherit the Kingdom of God"

The Spirit is waiting to renew you.

Let Jesus have a foothold in your life and it will be changed beyond all reckoning.

Dear Jesus, accept me as I am. I am weak but you are strong. Help me to surrender that which is not of the Kingdom of God. Amen

⅞