Rules and laws come in a variety or shapes and sizes, from international law down to local custom. They tell you what you can or cannot do, threatening punishment to anyone who steps out of line. From speed limits to dress codes we are used to our lives being boundaried in this way, and are generally aware of the sanctions that will be applied if we don’t obey.
Laws come in a pecking order: international law is at the top, then European law, then national law, all the way down to the places we work or the clubs we belong to. At the bottom of this legal ladder we have our own household rules - the way we expect things to be done in our homes. At their best household rules require no threat of punishment. The message is simply: this is how we do things here; if you are part of our family, please do things our way - thank you.
And then there is God’s law. How does that fit into this picture? Religion and law have gone hand in hand as long as there has been religion, and religions have a bad habit of placing their laws high above all others. The threatened sanctions of religious law are no less ambitious: if you don’t keep within this god-given law (as we interpret it) you will be eternally damned. No pressure then!
In his letter to first century Christians, John, like Jesus and Paul before him, sought to turn this right upside down. We are not God’s subjects or his servants, such that we would be subject to his laws. We are God’s children. There are no laws for God’s children, and if there are no laws there can be no law-breaking (sin), and if there is no law-breaking there is no fear of punishment.
As God’s children we are not threatened into submission, we are loved into loving.
As God's children, all we have to do is follow two household rules: Love God (who loved you first), and look after each other. (You achieve the former by doing the latter.) This is how God does things; if you are part of his family, please do things his way - thank you.
Sadly, down the centuries, those who have claimed to be following Jesus have failed to keep it that simple. Laws have crept in, lots of them, with the religious leaders claiming that the laws came from God.
They didn’t.
God doesn’t do law and punishment, he does love and forgiveness. There's just the house rules. That’s all.
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
God Goggles - Sunday 13th August 2017
Most of us have a wish list of things we would like to have, places we would like to go and things we would like to do. Every time we turn our our televisions or our computers we get bombarded with new ideas to add to the list. The world around us wants us to have more stuff, to do new things and go to different places. It’s good for the world’s economy.
With this constant bombardment of potential wants, our wish list can easily turn into a life plan. The things we want become the things we need. The places we’d like to go become the places we must go. And, little bit by little bit, our wishes take over our lives.
John (Jesus’ beloved disciple) wrote a letter to the followers of Jesus scattered across the Greek speaking world. In it he did his best to express the essence of Jesus’ message. No surprise - it is all about love. John reminds us that loving people needs to be a higher priority to loving the things that the world has on offer.
Imagine going about your daily business wearing a pair of glasses that only showed you people, and not things. Your view of the world would be very different. None of the stuff, or fashion, or style would show up - just the people. Then imagine a further feature to these remarkable glasses, so that people’s primary needs were highlighted. You would see the loneliness of the lonely person, the hunger of the hungry person, the sadness of the grieving person and the fear of the scared person. Imagine that view. You would go about your business with your attention continually drawn to the things you can do to be practically useful to the people around you.
This is how Jesus looked at the world around him - indifferent to wealth or status, yet keenly alert to people’s needs.
Sadly, such God Goggles are not available on the internet. Instead we need to develop godly vision by going about our lives with hearts that are open to God and to the people we meet.
With this constant bombardment of potential wants, our wish list can easily turn into a life plan. The things we want become the things we need. The places we’d like to go become the places we must go. And, little bit by little bit, our wishes take over our lives.
John (Jesus’ beloved disciple) wrote a letter to the followers of Jesus scattered across the Greek speaking world. In it he did his best to express the essence of Jesus’ message. No surprise - it is all about love. John reminds us that loving people needs to be a higher priority to loving the things that the world has on offer.
Imagine going about your daily business wearing a pair of glasses that only showed you people, and not things. Your view of the world would be very different. None of the stuff, or fashion, or style would show up - just the people. Then imagine a further feature to these remarkable glasses, so that people’s primary needs were highlighted. You would see the loneliness of the lonely person, the hunger of the hungry person, the sadness of the grieving person and the fear of the scared person. Imagine that view. You would go about your business with your attention continually drawn to the things you can do to be practically useful to the people around you.
This is how Jesus looked at the world around him - indifferent to wealth or status, yet keenly alert to people’s needs.
Sadly, such God Goggles are not available on the internet. Instead we need to develop godly vision by going about our lives with hearts that are open to God and to the people we meet.
Monday, 17 July 2017
Who to Choose - Sunday 16th July 2017
Imagine yourself in a familiar place where there are a number of other people as well as yourself. Then imagine that Jesus walked into that place. Who would he go to first? Who would Jesus sit with, or stand with, or talk with?
The general practice of Christian worship is that people sit in rows while the leader addresses everyone at once, so the scenario above doesn’t come quickly to mind when we think about Jesus. But we know from the Gospels that he did a lot of his ministering on a one to one basis, often ignoring the larger gathering to focus on an individual.
So, in your imagined situation, who would Jesus go to?
A year or so into Jesus’ public ministry, John the Baptist was having second thoughts. It seems that Jesus wasn’t being the kind of Messiah that John was expecting. So he sent some of his disciples to Jesus to double check. Was Jesus the one whose arrival John had been proclaiming, or should he look out for someone else?
Jesus drew the visitors’ attention to the rag-tag assortment of humanity that surrounded him. "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”
The emphasis here is not on the miracle cures, but on the people themselves: those who are blind, or lame, or disfigured, or deaf, or dying, or poor - the disenfranchised people who begged a living on the suspicion-clouded fringes of ordinary society. These people - as Jesus saw it - were the shining stars of God’s kingdom. And the fact that they were being loved and helped, was the best available proof that God’s anointed one had indeed arrived.
When Jesus walked into a place, he looked out for the person who most needed his love - be that a blind beggar, or a staggeringly wealthy but guilt-ridden and lonely tax collector. As we seek to continue his work in our daily lives, we need to do the same.
The general practice of Christian worship is that people sit in rows while the leader addresses everyone at once, so the scenario above doesn’t come quickly to mind when we think about Jesus. But we know from the Gospels that he did a lot of his ministering on a one to one basis, often ignoring the larger gathering to focus on an individual.
So, in your imagined situation, who would Jesus go to?
A year or so into Jesus’ public ministry, John the Baptist was having second thoughts. It seems that Jesus wasn’t being the kind of Messiah that John was expecting. So he sent some of his disciples to Jesus to double check. Was Jesus the one whose arrival John had been proclaiming, or should he look out for someone else?
Jesus drew the visitors’ attention to the rag-tag assortment of humanity that surrounded him. "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”
The emphasis here is not on the miracle cures, but on the people themselves: those who are blind, or lame, or disfigured, or deaf, or dying, or poor - the disenfranchised people who begged a living on the suspicion-clouded fringes of ordinary society. These people - as Jesus saw it - were the shining stars of God’s kingdom. And the fact that they were being loved and helped, was the best available proof that God’s anointed one had indeed arrived.
When Jesus walked into a place, he looked out for the person who most needed his love - be that a blind beggar, or a staggeringly wealthy but guilt-ridden and lonely tax collector. As we seek to continue his work in our daily lives, we need to do the same.
Wednesday, 12 July 2017
What's the Point - Sunday 9th July 2017
What is the key to true religion? If you consider the world’s major faiths, the central features of religion seem to be: iconic buildings, long-followed traditions, regular rituals, frequent prayer, and particular beliefs. Whatever order you may rank these features in, 21st century Christianity fits the pattern with its church buildings, its services of worship, its customs of spirituality and its core beliefs.
What does God make of all this?
In the final days of Jesus’ life, he laid out to his followers the criteria by which God will judge all the people of our little planet. His message was quite clear. God will assess us according to how we have responded to the practical needs of those in greatest need who are not managing to care for themselves. To make the point quite clear, Jesus repeated it four times. (See Matthew 25:31-46). With that point made, his message makes no mention whatsoever of beliefs, prayers, or patterns or places of worship. These things simply do not feature.
Some decades later, Jesus’ brother, James, turned his attention to the same theme. He expressed a similar understanding to that of his much more famous brother: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress”.
Put simply - if our acts worship, our prayers and our beliefs encourage and enable us to offer practical care to those who need our assistance, then they may be of some value. But if our practice of worship and our understanding of God does not lead us into practical care, then our religion is quite pointless.
What does God make of all this?
In the final days of Jesus’ life, he laid out to his followers the criteria by which God will judge all the people of our little planet. His message was quite clear. God will assess us according to how we have responded to the practical needs of those in greatest need who are not managing to care for themselves. To make the point quite clear, Jesus repeated it four times. (See Matthew 25:31-46). With that point made, his message makes no mention whatsoever of beliefs, prayers, or patterns or places of worship. These things simply do not feature.
Some decades later, Jesus’ brother, James, turned his attention to the same theme. He expressed a similar understanding to that of his much more famous brother: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress”.
Put simply - if our acts worship, our prayers and our beliefs encourage and enable us to offer practical care to those who need our assistance, then they may be of some value. But if our practice of worship and our understanding of God does not lead us into practical care, then our religion is quite pointless.
Monday, 3 July 2017
Immigrants - Sunday 2nd July 2017
Immigration is a major issue across the world at present. It has been a key factor in recent elections including Britain, France and the USA. Italy is expressing major concern about it. This is nothing new. Immigration was a significant issue back in the days of Moses.
As the Israelites were preparing to live in their own land for the first time, God gave them comprehensive guidance through Moses as to how they should conduct themselves. The subject of how they should treat immigrants features repeatedly. That divinely inspired guidance is just as pertinent today as it was over three thousand years ago.
The first instruction is that there should be one law for everyone, native and immigrant. This repeated instruction gives immigrants equal rites and it also gives them equal responsibilities. Immigrants are to be treated no differently from anyone else. This equality extended to worship. All immigrants were invited (but not commanded) to take part in Jewish worship.
The second instruction set up a welfare provision to meet the basic needs of all immigrants who had yet to settle and make provision for themselves. It amounted to a 3.3% tax on all income to provide for people in immediate need of support - whether native or immigrant. There was a parallel requirement on businesses to allow a margin of inefficiency in order to provide for those who were disenfranchised.
All this provided a robust and generous welcome to immigrants in Israel, but Moses’ instruction goes even further. "The immigrant who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the immigrant as yourself.”
This instruction to love immigrants as we love ourselves leaves no room for doubt in how we need to approach this controversial issue.
There is a natural fear of uncontrolled immigration which touches us all in one way or another, but God calls us to rise above it. All the people on this planet are loved by God, whoever they are and wherever they are. We must love them too.
As the Israelites were preparing to live in their own land for the first time, God gave them comprehensive guidance through Moses as to how they should conduct themselves. The subject of how they should treat immigrants features repeatedly. That divinely inspired guidance is just as pertinent today as it was over three thousand years ago.
The first instruction is that there should be one law for everyone, native and immigrant. This repeated instruction gives immigrants equal rites and it also gives them equal responsibilities. Immigrants are to be treated no differently from anyone else. This equality extended to worship. All immigrants were invited (but not commanded) to take part in Jewish worship.
The second instruction set up a welfare provision to meet the basic needs of all immigrants who had yet to settle and make provision for themselves. It amounted to a 3.3% tax on all income to provide for people in immediate need of support - whether native or immigrant. There was a parallel requirement on businesses to allow a margin of inefficiency in order to provide for those who were disenfranchised.
All this provided a robust and generous welcome to immigrants in Israel, but Moses’ instruction goes even further. "The immigrant who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the immigrant as yourself.”
This instruction to love immigrants as we love ourselves leaves no room for doubt in how we need to approach this controversial issue.
There is a natural fear of uncontrolled immigration which touches us all in one way or another, but God calls us to rise above it. All the people on this planet are loved by God, whoever they are and wherever they are. We must love them too.
Monday, 26 June 2017
Sorted! - Sunday 25th June 2017
Jesus’ judgement-related parables do not make comfortable reading for a 21st century audience. There was a time when the fear and threat of divine judgement was the staple diet of western Christianity, but in recent decades churches have tended to shy away from the theme.
What makes us feel uncomfortable is the mental image of God as a high court judge, condemning and sentencing the guilty. However, that is not the image that Jesus was trying to convey. They didn’t have that kind of judge in his day. A judge’s task was to settle disputes and resolve muddle.
One of Jesus’ parables presents a fishing net, full of all kinds of fish. The part that God’s kingdom plays is to sort out the catch, putting the good fish into baskets and getting rid of the bycatch. In another parable he talks in terms of wheat and weeds, but the message is the same. When the right time comes, God will sort it all out. The good grain will be preserved, and the weeds disposed of.
Jesus’ message is - as always - down to earth. What is kept is everything that is fitting, real and genuine. What is thrown out is anything which is tedious, painful or grievous. (This is the true meaning of the words usually translated as ‘righteous’ and ‘evil’)
Putting aside the unhelpful image of a vengeful judge, it would be better to see God as a loving and concerned parent, tidying up their child’s messy room. When the time is right, God will tidy up this world. He will put all the useful stuff in its rightful place, and will deal appropriately with all the rubbish, the dirty washing and the mouldy sandwiches.
Sorted!
What makes us feel uncomfortable is the mental image of God as a high court judge, condemning and sentencing the guilty. However, that is not the image that Jesus was trying to convey. They didn’t have that kind of judge in his day. A judge’s task was to settle disputes and resolve muddle.
One of Jesus’ parables presents a fishing net, full of all kinds of fish. The part that God’s kingdom plays is to sort out the catch, putting the good fish into baskets and getting rid of the bycatch. In another parable he talks in terms of wheat and weeds, but the message is the same. When the right time comes, God will sort it all out. The good grain will be preserved, and the weeds disposed of.
Jesus’ message is - as always - down to earth. What is kept is everything that is fitting, real and genuine. What is thrown out is anything which is tedious, painful or grievous. (This is the true meaning of the words usually translated as ‘righteous’ and ‘evil’)
Putting aside the unhelpful image of a vengeful judge, it would be better to see God as a loving and concerned parent, tidying up their child’s messy room. When the time is right, God will tidy up this world. He will put all the useful stuff in its rightful place, and will deal appropriately with all the rubbish, the dirty washing and the mouldy sandwiches.
Sorted!
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Silently effective - Sunday 18th June 2017
One of my domestic pleasures is baking my own bread. I maintain a small blue pot containing a live yeast culture. All I have to do, each day, is to mix half of my yeast culture into some flour and water, add a little salt, knead it all together, and leave the dough to slowly rise until the loaf is light and fluffy and ready for baking. This is the very same method for baking bread that was used in the ancient world.
Jesus said that God’s work is like yeast, which when mixed into flour, silently leavens the dough.
Christians often make the mistake of muddling up the church and the kingdom of God, assuming that Jesus’ parable is about the growth of the church (their own church in particular). It is not. Jesus parables about God’s kingdom are not about the church as an organisation, but give us insight into how God is working in this world, day by day, community by community.
God’s kingdom is not showy or attention seeking; it does not draw attention to itself in any way. It works silently and unseen to bring life, love and forgiveness to the world.
When I carefully shape my daily bread into a loaf, I cannot see the yeast, or hear it, and it’s effect on the dough is so slow that I cannot see the change taking place. But as long as the yeast is there, doing it’s discreet work, I know my bread will rise and - come lunchtime - I will have a lovely crusty loaf.
We do not need to announce to the world what we are doing in God’s name. We simply need to mix ourselves into our communities and make a godly difference.
Jesus said that God’s work is like yeast, which when mixed into flour, silently leavens the dough.
Christians often make the mistake of muddling up the church and the kingdom of God, assuming that Jesus’ parable is about the growth of the church (their own church in particular). It is not. Jesus parables about God’s kingdom are not about the church as an organisation, but give us insight into how God is working in this world, day by day, community by community.
God’s kingdom is not showy or attention seeking; it does not draw attention to itself in any way. It works silently and unseen to bring life, love and forgiveness to the world.
When I carefully shape my daily bread into a loaf, I cannot see the yeast, or hear it, and it’s effect on the dough is so slow that I cannot see the change taking place. But as long as the yeast is there, doing it’s discreet work, I know my bread will rise and - come lunchtime - I will have a lovely crusty loaf.
We do not need to announce to the world what we are doing in God’s name. We simply need to mix ourselves into our communities and make a godly difference.
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