Sunday, August 30, 2009

Radiohead


I am inspired to write this as I watch Radiohead from the Reading Festival as it sends shivers up my spine reminding me of when I saw them last summer in Victoria Park. And what a set it was...

15 Step/Bodysnatchers/All I Need/The National Anthem/Pyramid Song/Nude/Weird Fishes/Arpeggi/The Gloaming/Dollars and Cents/Faust Arp/There There/Just/Climbing Up The Walls/Reckoner/Everything In Its Right Place/How To Dissappear Completely/Jigsaw/ Falling Into Place/Videotape/Airbag/Bangers ‘n Mash/Planet Telex/The Tourist/Cymbal Rush/You And Whose Army?/Idioteque

I have to say that tonight's is equally good. It reminded me of Rhidian Brook's excellent thought for the day, which I still relate to, and enclose below...

Thought for the Day, 28 June 2008

Rhidian Brook

This week I was at an outdoor rock concert - something that's now as sure a fixture on the summer calendar as Wimbledon or a Bank Holiday. Half way through a beautiful song by the band Radiohead my friend, who as far as I know has no religious affiliations, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said that he was having a religious experience. He wasn't being glib. Something was happening in that moment; something powerful enough to make him cry, embrace me and for both of us raise our hands in a gesture of abandoned praise. We both knew, without saying so, that we weren't worshipping the band - great though they are - and that this 'something' was about more than just music.

But what was it?

Of course, I can I explain it all rationally: the sonic vibrations coursing down the cerebral cortex, the mass gathering of people and the quantity of beer were all combining to produce a heightened feeling of euphoria. But should I write off what my friend was saying purely on the grounds of it being just a feeling? I think he was experiencing something that many of us do but can't always name - that sense of something beyond ourselves and the feeling of rapture and exaltation that goes with it The music - like stunning scenery or a fine painting - was really just a window through which he caught a glimpse of 'the other', the something beyond the veil of what we can see with our eyes and explain with our minds.

As the apostle Paul - a man who had a spectacular 3D religious experience - once put it: 'since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities can been clearly seen all around us.' In all that is beautiful and excellent, in all that is good, creation shouts and whispers the rumour of the divine.

I think those tears at the rock concert were a response to the same force of divine Love that revealed itself to Paul; but I also think there's more. The theologian Rudolf Otto - who called this sense of 'the tremendous' or the mysterious - 'the numinous' -also said that a religious experience required an ethical dimension. Implying that the full measure of the religious experience was not how spectacular it was - but the fruit it bore. A special effect needs to have a special effect.

When the prophet Isaiah' had his fantastic encounter with God his response wasn't so much wow! but woe: 'woe to me for I am a man of unclean lips' he said. And it's this response rather than the seraphim or the blinding light figure on the throne that makes it meaningful. The experience lead to an instant inner transformation. And interestingly, Isaiah doesn't go and tell people about the vision. He tells them to turn to God, to help the sick and the poor and broken. Or as Paul himself bluntly put it: if you really want a religions experience go and look after the widows and the orphans.

copyright 2008 BBC

A Show of Hands...

I was asked earlier this week if I would like to trespass. Now I confess to you brothers and sisters that I have broken the law before. I have never though broken a law that would see me charged a public order offense. What made the invitation to trespass all the more shocking was that it came from Christian Aid. I had to read the small print...

Christian Aid are organising what is called a Mass Visual Trespass - a projection of text, video and photo messages from members of the public to be projected in a place where Gordon Brown can see them. The trespass is calling on Gordon Brown to help deliver climate justice for the world's poorest people at December's crucial Copenhagen summit and begin to see the world changed.

In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees, the crowd, the disciples, Gordon Brown and us what sort of world do we want to live in and are we prepared to live our lives in such a way so that change is brought about in our hearts, heads, hands and indeed into our whole lives.

Jesus is out in the countryside teaching the crowd and his disciples and teachers of the law come from Jerusalem to find him. Why did they go out there? To try to discredit Jesus? To suss him out? Whilst they are there they notice that the disciples are eating without washing their hands.

The disciples are not in breach of the Law by not washing their hands, but they are breaking with tradition. The fact that Mark has the little aside about what the tradition actually entailed, and that he records the Pharisees when they are in conversation with Jesus talking about the ‘tradition of the elders’, might mean that Mark was writing and Jesus was speaking to a crowd that was largely made up of non Jews who will have needed the explanation. Perhaps that is why the Pharisees were there - they had heard that Jesus was teaching Gentiles as well as Jews.

Jesus sidesteps the question about breaking of tradition and instead, he sees really where the Pharisees are at. To Jesus it felt like the importance of these traditions of the Law had become more important than the Law itself. Jesus quotes Isaiah from memory and accuses the Pharisees of teaching others to do as they do - honouring God with words and actions alone but not with holy lives.

Jesus goes on to rubbish the traditions associated with the keeping of the Law, by pointing out how obtuse some keeping of the commandments has become. Jesus refers back to where this discussion began - to ritual cleanliness. What makes someone ritually unclean, asks Jesus - what that person has touched? What they have eaten? What they have done or not done? No, what makes someone unclean, undesirable to God, is what drives the person from the inside of their being, from their heart, not from the exterior world.

In the sort of books about Christianity that I read, over recent years, I have come across the expression ‘radical obedience’ again and again. It sounds good but what does it mean. I have struggled to find a definition. I found one this week this week:

"... To me, radical obedience is obeying God when it doesn't make sense. Radical obedience is doing God's will when our own agenda makes more sense. Radical obedience is not only asking "What Would Jesus Do" but DOING what Jesus did. Radical obedience is denying my flesh while fulfilling God's purpose for me. Radical obedience is heeding the call of God when, by all appearances, it's out of the question. Radical obedience is not compromising even if it means losing friends. Radical obedience is venturing outside my comfort zone no matter how uncomfortable or unreasonable it feels.

Radical obedience demands I do whatever I do so that Christ might be glorified, so that He is the focus of my life, so people see Him and not me. Radical obedience demands I disregard those things which seem to be important to me so that Christ becomes of paramount importance to me..."


The discussion that Jesus had with the Pharisees begins with the washing of hands, and the implications of things that I have touched or not touched have on on my own spiritual wellbeing. I can see how this tradition began and it is a very 21st century one. In an age obsessed with swine-flu and antibacterial cleanliness how we use our hands is a physical and spiritual issue.
The discussion that Jesus had with the Pharisees ends with a call to a radical obedience, as the encounter ends asking questions about not just about my spiritual wellbeing, but about how my whole life honours God.

We live in a world that distances individuals from each other - swine flu aside. More and more new homes are being built for a single occupant. Technology allows us to communicate and shop without interacting with another person. When did you last speak to someone rather than email them? When did you last hold someone by the hand and tell them that you love them? In contemporary culture we need to see each other less and less.

It is all too easy for us as Christians my friends to find ourselves swept up in the traditions of our day from the way we worship to the way we shop. Jesus asks us - do these truly honour God? Who is it, like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day that is encouraging us - our church leaders, politicians, advertisers?

Jesus used his hands in surprising ways to break the traditions of his day with the leper, the syrophonecian or hemorrhaging woman, the poor or blind or even the dead. Touching clean and unclean alike, through the use of his hands the kingdom of God came near.

In a society both locally and internationally that seems to value isolation, how I use my hands indeed my whole self is an act of radical obedience to the God who came to me first in the flesh, in Jesus. How I use my hands shows how my whole being is filled to overflowing with the God who made me and loves me as I am. How I use my hands can not only get behind but begin to breakdown our anti-bacterial, technological and quite frankly increasingly isolated society and see our world transformed in justice and mercy. That beings by building friendships with the lonely, sharing hospitality with the hungry, showing compassion to the grieving, and bringing comfort to the bewildered. But this will only happen if I step out of my comfort zone, out of the traditions that give order to my life, and be radically obedient to Jesus. Amen

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Wasps...


We have a wasps nest in the eaves of the house. It's been there for a few weeks now. I haven't done anything about it until Peter was stung completely out of the blue by one last week.

This afternoon, the wasp man came to deal with the nest. I have to say that part of me was reluctant to do anything as wasps are hopefully munching on the pests on the runner beans etc. I am also now aware that the nest will die out in the Autumn. And yet, the wasp man came, he sprayed stuff, he left, £45 richer. I hope it does the job. My kids will be pleased.

And yet I feel guilty. The wasps didn't really inconvenience us in any way and they were doing some good in the garden. They have their place in the grand scheme of things... so do I. Yet I am able to exercise power over them - with a little help of course.

In Genesis 1, God gives 'dominion' to humanity over the animals, birds and insects etc. Did what I did demonstrate dominion. Hmmm... perhaps not...

God calls humanity, in Genesis 1, to a stewardship of creation, which hopefully jolts the faithful awake in the face of Climate Change, to modify our lives accordingly - in terms of the big things - recycling, green energy, using less, driving and flying less, etc. Dominion as stewardship though should also govern the way I react in small ways too, such has whether I squash the spider or let it out, or what I do (or not) about the wasp's nest.

In Matthew 6:25ff, Jesus suggests that God loves the non-human creation too. In fact, perhaps more powerfully in John 3:16. Christ came to demonstrate God's love in action to the world, in the world, and for the benefit of the whole world... even wasps.

It may not matter to me too much that I squash the spider or employ the services of wasp man. I may feel no sorrow. They don't matter to me. They are pests...

Pests they may be, but they matter to God.

I am all for changed lifestyles in terms of climate change, and I believe that our response is a human and spiritual one, but...

I realise that my thoughtless 'oh-well-it-doesn't-matter-ness' about spiders and wasps shows my contempt of the God who made them and me.

Lord have mercy.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Initial thoughts on Mark 7 for Sunday


Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The sermon on Sunday could be titled 'Faithfulness to God', or 'Lip service vs Heart Service' or 'Going Through the Motions' or something similar. The core of what I will be saying on Sunday is about how we take what Jesus teaches seriously - to heart, to head, to hands indeed into our whole lives.

Jesus is out in the countryside teaching the crowd and his disciples and teachers of the law come from Jerusalem to find him. Why did they go out there? To try to discredit Jesus? To sus him out? They notice that the disciples are eating with unclean hands.

The disciples are not in breach of the Law by not washing, but they are breaking with tradition. The fact that Mark has the little aside, and that he records the Pharisees talking about the tradition of the elders, might mean that Mark was writing and Jesus was speaking to a crowd that was largely made up of non Jews who will have needed the explanation. Perhaps that is why the Pharisees were there - they had heard that Jesus was teaching Gentiles as well as Jews.

Jesus sidesteps the question about breaking of tradition and instead, he sees really where the Pharisees are at. To Jesus it felt like the importance of the traditions of the Law had become more important than the Law - spirit and letter - itself. Jesus quotes Isaiah from memory and accuses the Pharisees of teaching others to do as they do - honouring God with words and actions alone but not with holy lives.

Jesus goes on to rubbish the traditions associated with the keeping of the Law, by pointing out how obtuse some keeping of the commandments has become. Jesus refers back to where this discussion began - to ritual cleanliness. What makes someone ritually unclean, asks Jesus - what that person has touched? What they have eaten? What they have done or not done? No, what makes someone unclean, undesirable to God, is what drives the person from the inside of their being, from their heart, not from the exterior world.

Radical obedience is a phrase I have read and heard Christians use before. It sounds good but what does it mean. I have struggled to find a definition. I found this on another blog,

"... To me, radical obedience is obeying God when it doesn't make sense. Radical obedience is doing God's will when our own agenda makes more sense. Radical obedience is not only asking "What Would Jesus Do" but DOING what Jesus did. Radical obedience is denying my flesh while fulfilling God's purpose for me. Radical obedience is heeding the call of God when, by all appearances, it's out of the question. Radical obedience is not compromising even if it means losing friends. Radical obedience is venturing outside my comfort zone no matter how uncomfortable or unreasonable it feels.

Radical obedience demands I do whatever I do so that Christ might be glorified, so that He is the focus of my life, so people see Him and not me. Radical obedience demands I disregard those things which seem to be important to me so that Christ becomes of paramount importance to me..."


The discussion that Jesus had with the Pharisees begins with the washing of hands, and the implications of things that I have touched or not touched on my own spiritual wellbeing. I can see how this tradition began and it is a very 21st century one. In an age obsessed with swine-flu and antibacterial cleanliness how we use our hands is a physical and spiritual issue.


Jesus' challenge to us through this encounter is one that calls to a radical obedience. We live in a world that distances individuals from each other - swine flu aside - when did you last speak to someone rather than email them? When did you last hold someone by the hand and tell them that you love them? In contemporary culture we need to see each other less and less.


How I use my hands indeed my whole self is an act of radical obedience to the God who came to me first in the flesh, in Jesus. How I use my hands shows how my whole being is filled to overflowing with the God who made me.

As I prepare for Sunday I am left with some questions:

  • What does it mean for me to be really (radically) obedient to God in Christ?
  • Who or what are the Pharisees of our day?
  • What sort of Christianity are they teaching us to live out? What traditions are they asking us to keep?
  • How do we use our hands to come to God ourselves and bring others nearer his Kingdom?

Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Word as a Wordle - Trinity 12B


Here's next Sunday's Gospel reading from Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 as a word cloud...

Life With God

Here is a version of what I said this morning at the Eucharist. At 10am there was a baptism too...! Based on John 6:56-69...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rise to the challenge the advert said. In big bold letters. It made inviting reading, ‘...you’ll engage in life faster and better than most people of your age... you’ll experience things that you never thought possible and go to places that most people only dream about. You’ll learn your capabilities, sharpen your skills, and then push yourself to the limit on a daily basis. You’ll grow stronger physically, mentally and feel a sense of pride that you’ve never felt before...’ Intrueging eh? The and was for...? The US army.

Friends this morning’s reading from the account of Jesus’ life by John, also speaks in the same sort of way of an exciting and engaging life lived richly, diversely, faithfully, divinely and fully.

In this morning’s Jesus begins with some very strange words, words which were destined to shock. In terms of trying to coax people round to his way of thinking, he is not on to a winner here. Not a single mention of challenges to rise to...

Jesus talks about needing to eat his flesh and drink his blood and this providing life. Now to us this sounds rather disgusting. To Jesus’ good Jewish hearers too this would have been deeply offensive.

The book of Leviticus in the Old testament is very clear about what can and cannot be eaten by Jewish people. Only the meat of ‘clean’ animals can be eaten by the God-fearing, but blood can never ever be consumed because the life of the animal is contained in the blood. Talk of eating human flesh and drinking human blood will have taken all of this to a new level. Jesus says, if you find the prospect of eating flesh and blood offensive or difficult try imagining seeing him ascending back to heaven where he was before with God his father. Following Jesus is going to turn our expectations of faith on their head, and to their limit. Jesus is well aware that his teaching can be hard and is clearly turning people off, but what is Jesus actually offering here?

Those who eat and drink Jesus are people who find themselves so completely at one with him, that living the way asks is second nature. Jesus says, if you eat and drink me, I will abide in you. I will be with you always, I will be close by, I will be almost within you. We’ll never be left in any doubt what Jesus would do in any given situation in our complex modern world if he abides in us - we will know him and his hopes and dreams for us so well.

But Jesus isn’t offering just to be some sort of moral compass - should I do this or that? - he offers us ‘life with God.’ Now I am pretty sure that this will not help us ‘engage in life faster than most people of our age’ as the US army promises us. My life moves fast enough thanks. God does offer us a life better than the one we are currently living. It’s not a new improved version of what we are living, only with more time for reading the bible and praying and not financial worries. No, it’s actually an old version of life, and old vision of life, life with God the way He always intended it to be lived.

What does a life with God look like? It is one that acknowledges what Peter does in this morning’s reading - Jesus has the words of eternal life. Throughout the big story of the Bible, God has said again and again ‘I am with you, are you with me?’ God says this supremely in Jesus. But he doesn’t just say it, he shows us what it means and what it looks like.

A life with God is lived by someone who relies totally and exclusively on Him. Not just for food, or protection, or good exam results, or the things we thing we want, but for everything. A life with God is lived by someone who listens to what God says - in the quietness of our own prayers and in what is said to us by God through the pages of the Bible. A life with God is lived by someone who expects their life to change. None of us like change much but if we listen to and live Jesus’ ‘words of eternal life’ we wont just change, rather we will see our lives utterly transformed, completely changed, by God so that we will no longer try to live as Jesus asks us, we will just live it - doing the seemingly impossible - loving our neighbour, loving God, forgiving those who wrong us, and so on.

And yet it is not impossible. Today Ella as you are Baptised, and together as we eat and drink the flesh and blood of Jesus through hearing the Bible read, praying to him in quietness, and sharing bread and wine together, God abides in us. Living with us this way, God promises that ‘...you’ll experience things that you never thought possible... You’ll learn your capabilities, sharpen your skills, and then push yourself to the limit on a daily basis. You’ll grow stronger physically, mentally and feel a sense of pride that you’ve never felt before...’

Ella, this is eternal life. This is life with God. Together as we listen to Jesus, God promises continue to utterly transform us - completely changing our lives for the better - not offering us something new, but rather something old - lives lived fully, richly, and divinely with him the way he intends. Amen.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Bread and Discipleship

I have spent this morning reflecting on this Sunday's Gospel reading from John 6:56-69. It's a challenging passage. I have read the passage in a Lecto Divina sort of way. Here are some intial observations:

1. Talk of eating flesh and blood - offensive. Clean/unclean laws - consuming blood
talk of having life - what does Jesus mean
2. Talk of bread from heaven - ref to Moses and Manna and God providing for the needs to Israel. More than physical needs though.
3. Bread - basic foodstuff. The stuff of life. Bread of the Presence in the Holy of Holies in the Temple reference?
4. Capernaum - what was the setting? Home of Matthew the Tax collector, Peter, Andrew, James and John. Jesus seems to have centred his ministry in and around here. It was perhaps his adult home.
5. Jesus’ words are spirit and life. Spirit to do with the nature and being of God. Life - life in all it’s fulness. The spirit gives life. The spirit of God. Ruach the breath of God breathed into Adam. Eziekel and dry bones....
6. Ref to flesh being useless - ref to inability of us to attain to the life of God by our endevours. This teaching is difficult! The flesh/spirit diachotomy....
7. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ What a confession! Experience of Jesus has led to belief - physical evidence has given Peter at least the ability to make the jump between the physically provable about Jesus, to what he and the scriptures say about him. He has made the existential leap of faith...

Also, looking at the Wordle I created, key words are: life, Jesus, disciples, Father, one, believe, live. There is something about the life of faith leading to life lived fully, richly, and divinely.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Back, back, back...


Yes that's right folks. I'm back. Refreshed and ready to get overwhelmed by the expectations of others and by what God is doing amongst us.

We had a wonderful time in Fife - photos can be seen here...

I enclose a photo of the harbour at Anstruther, which I took and inverted. It reminds me of what God longs to do - invert what we expect our lives to be and orient them to his kingdom values.

Happy Days!

The Word as a Wordle


A beautiful word cloud of the gospel reading for this Sunday - Trinity 11 - from John 6:56-69...