Lama's log

Greenbelt

2008-08-29T08:59:18+00:00

I've just come back from Greenbelt and frankly, it was brilliant. I thought I'd mention some good bits. I really enjoyed hearing for the first time a guy called Frank Schaefer, a son of a founder of the religious right in America. He was great although was obviously still struggling with some of the stuff he grew up with. A couple of things that he talked about which resonated were around Christians doing things well and for their own sake rather than with the hidden agenda of propaganda.

That hit home and if we follow through on this would impact mission well. So, write a song but primarily set out to write a good one not necessarily one which must advertise Jesus. Feed people, but not in order to get them into church etc etc. It sounds like common sense but how much of our church work really is about propaganda and how much is about excellence through the love of Christ?

He also talked about returning to the language of belief rather than knowing and this theme was picked up in a session with Ikon and with Brian Mclaren. The speakers wanting people to move away from Christianity as a rational and towards Christianity as a lifestyle and 'being'. Ikon described an activity they had done to try and enable people to hold their most precious beliefs 'lightly' and there give room for God to move and for transformation.

Brian Mclaren talked about the knowledge you gain through apprenticeship which you would be unable to gain through a book. My own example for this was my Grandmother who was from Italy. She would often make gnocchi and as a child I would help her. When I would ask how to know when the dough was ready she would frustratingly tell me, ' it will feel right'. I eventually learned but it wasn't through rational. If we read the Bible we can know about salvation, Mclaren made the point that if we live it we can be saved. We 'get it' in a way beyond our constructs, structures and denominations.

Frank Schaefer too talked about a moment of realisation for him when he was questioning someone about the validity and appropriateness of giving a child communion. He asked how this could be OK when a child cannot understand what they are doing. He was asked if he understood what he was doing when he took communion. Our self imposed rules then become absurd.

Undercover

2008-08-21T14:27:44+00:00

So, I was thinking...... is all this discipleship angst really necessary? Perhaps a bit of undercover following would be just fine. Gaining a bit of power and influence so you can pull it out of the bag now and again to do the odd good thing, even brave thing. For the rest of the time though, you could be .... well...... incognito so to speak.

Joseph of Arimathea would be a precedent. Member of the Sanhedrin involved in the decision to crucify but at the point of death, uses his clout to get the body and do (quite literally) the world a favour. (For this interpretation you have to ignore Mark's account, as he makes it out to be a rush job before the Sabbath so the Jewish authorities can bury the bad news).

I have had the conversations which tell me you need influence and money in order to make a difference. I understand that declaring yourself Christian can be counter productive in an environment that thinks it outdated, unintellectual and inhibitive.

So, take seriously a call to follow provocatively and counterculturally, or go the way of Joseph and try make it through with some walking in the shadows?

Promo Homo

2008-08-21T13:57:09+00:00

asbojesus.com

This may be an unwise post but while on holiday I thought a lot about Christian reactions to homosexuality. My conclusion? I think it's one of the issues which makes me ashamed of my context. I don't mind that people disagree with me. I don't mind that people think homosexuality sinful or against God etc etc. I mind that people are abused and sidelined because of their relationships. I mind that homosexuality is talked about in the same conversation that paedophilia is mentioned. I mind that church communities, whatever they think, do not campaign vigorously for gay rights, because no one should be discriminated against. I mind that a newly accredited minister is not supposed to get involved in civil partnerships because it may jeopardise their accreditation (this last one makes me madder than I am able to communicate). I mind that church communities often side with harsh reactions rather than graceful. I mind, I mind, I mind.

I have read the biblical verses. I know the arguments. But then I've read lots of Biblical arguments for lots of things and I engage in enough Biblical interpretation to have a mass of humility before declaring that I know the mind of God, and God must think like me. The study of doctrine taught me that we can try and define God all we want but God is beyond our boxes and our perspectives and we would do well to hesitate before we declare a body of people innately sinful and more importantly, we declare them worthy of our scorn and wrath.

I want to see our churches a little bit fuller of gay people, why aren't I breaking bread with more homosexuals? I don't think I want you to tell me the answer, I'm too aware of the reality.

Too long to be a comment.........

2008-07-07T17:44:20+00:00

Mmmm. Thanks Tim. With regard to your comments on passive resistance the key thing for me is when you say, 'Passive resistance was pretty successful in India, but it wasn't sufficient in South Africa.' That would be exactly my point, that we stop looking at what would be the desired outcome but trust that Kingdom living even if it leads to a 'sense' of failure, is what is sought after. That passive resistance is sought because it is felt to be right before God but not because it is necessarily effective. That is not at all how I or most people seem to act. It is though what I see in Christ. Obedience and walking with the Father whatever the outcome. The cross wasn’t sensible or effective or productive but it was Holy. That’s what is redeemed. Resistance to Rome the Jesus way was not effective in any sense except for that God honoured it and in some unknowable way it is salvific. If Christ had thought about the difficult moral choices then maybe he would have aligned himself fully instead of only partially with the Zealots. Christ the agitator would have not also been Christ the peacemaker.

In the end then I think that for all my love of Bonhoeffer his ultimate choice to seek to kill Hitler was wrong. Understandable, applaudable, but a desire to take fate into his own hands rather than stand with Christ I think was mistaken. It also comes from a place which sees death and suffering as the worst possible things. Hitler is causing so much pain and suffering he must go. If we have an eternal viewpoint is this still the case though? And if we follow a passive political agitator who demands a taking up of our cross then where does that leave us?

There is also a slippery subtlety to this. I agree that what this could descend into is some sort of blind rule following and an abdication of responsibility. We construct what following is, do it and ignore real human issues and needs. That’s not where I want to end up. I understand a Kingdom life to be one with a high degree of both individual and communal responsibility, this coupled with an altering of a mind set which says that success or failure looks unlike the picture we’re given in British culture. That we surrender outcomes because we care deeply about wider community not because we abdicate responsibility.

In the end I have limited if not little credibility because of my privilege and the fact that I choose to hang on to it on a daily basis. Bonhoeffer has bags of credibility not only because he was a good theologian but because of his life and circumstance.

As for evangelism, yes Glen ‘bearing faithful witness.’ But really what the hell does that mean in contexts and circumstances of vast privilege? What does that mean when people are often not living out salvation but thinking themselves saved ‘ I believe x,y and z’ so I am part of the in crowd now lets go home to the semi in our big car’. Faithful witness to be and tell will mean not really expecting people to follow because it really does make no earthly sense. So mission then without agenda of outcome would again probably look very different to agendered giving, ‘special events’ and a constant measuring of numbers. Bearing faithful witness scares the life out of me whilst simultaneously allowing a soft option. Andy Jones’ example does chime with me – and so it goes on.

What's On Your Agenda

2008-07-04T10:24:00+00:00

We've been looking at the beatitudes in Stone Soup and using Dallas Willard's The Great Omission to lean on through it. Along with this I'm re-reading Power & Passion by Samuel Wells. All these strands seemed to have converged this week onto the topic of agendas. When is OK to push your agenda and where do you get this authority to know what the right agenda is? Why is my perspective better than someone else's?

In terms of passive resistance then, why is calling someone to die for a cause better than telling someone to kill for a cause? I know that harm to the other person is involved here but isn't that the same as inciting someone to give up their lives? How am I not involved in killing when I ask someone to matry in passive resistance? Isn't that just pushing and promoting a different cause?

What Willard and Wells both hint at is surrender of power and plan. In other words if, through seeking Christ what you do is try to live in a Christlike way, you try to be disciple to the extent which you then stop trying to manipulate outcomes. You are faithful to a way of being so much so that you are prepared to be the loser ( I am taking what they say and running with it a bit here).

This does make Jesus being abandoned on the cross really important. If Jesus really felt alone, abandoned and without help then everything he did could have been pointless, meaningless and all for nothing. In the face of this though, he still hung there. He had surrendered his agenda, in fact any agenda really. He was a fairly spectacular loser. And those he had asked to follow and live like him? Those he invited to live kingdom lives, us now who chose to either stick with him or not bother? There can be little doubt that if we want this kind of God then it involves us being perpetual losers to. Our agendas will rarely make it into the daylight. We will lack credibility.

On the plus side though, it also means absolute freedom. To live in Christ means I can't be owned by state or media, materialism or ambition. If I really have no agenda other than being faithful to God then I have no vested interest in the outcome of situations only in the process of conduct. I think this is more exciting than it sounds. I know I'm not going to actually get to the state that I'm so in with JC that holiness emanates from me and I have no selfish desires or agendas. I'm not totally deluded.

I can start to think though that I don't understand God's agenda therefore it's not my job to push it. It's just my job to be faithful.

The glaring question that then comes up for me is, where does this leave evangelism?

It makes you wonder.....

2008-06-23T08:46:03+00:00

I preached yesterday afternoon to a congregation of no more than ten. A normal service was inappropriate but we ploughed on regardless because that's what was wanted and required. The guy on the piano was sweet but at 92 and hard of hearing was struggling which meant that we in turn struggled. All of that, as surreal and off the wall as it was, was OK though. In fact I found quite a lot of it very amusing. The notices were the place where my ass got bit. The usual was given until we heard that next week there will be a strawberry tea. Quite lovely. Tickets £3.50 please buy one 'you don't need to come just buy the ticket'. Right there was a significant reason there were just 10 of us. It didn't so much matter about relationships or Christ. Just pay your subs and go.

Where are all the normal families?

2008-06-19T15:39:52+00:00

This was a line passed on to me. It referred to a friendly lament about the type of families coming into a particular church community. I know what they mean. Often I am in wonderment at the lives of people around me. Sometimes in their complexity or brokenness. Here's the thing though.... I would have joined in the friendly lament except for the fact that I too am now one of the abnormal families. I am now one of the complicated ones with a slightly if not, predominantly broken edge to them.

Problem is, I'm a bit touchy about it. I hate being divorced. Really hate it, its hard and painful and the car crash of it goes on and on and on. I also hate the connotations it carries, you know, took the easy way out, not committed enough, not quite the right Christian model. The reason I know some of these connotations (and a few more besides) are around is that lots of people aren't able to mention the 'd' word to me, eyes are averted and subjects changed. On other occasions I myself struggle to utter the words 'ex-husband' without feeling shame and inadequacy. There is an immediate desire for me to start explaining myself to people coupled with the overriding factor that it's none of their sodding business.

So... where are all the normal families? I have no idea. I know I'd like to still be classed as one. It gives you a bit more clout and credibility. Stops you feeling like you have to apologize for how your life's turned out.

Then again maybe there is something about my own view being a bit skewed. I can only feel this suggested shame if I buy into the criteria set. I don't need to adopt people's bench marks as my own. It's hard though. Its much more comfortable to show benevolence and understanding than it is to rely on someone else's. Damn my pride.

In the mean time I hope to see many more abnormal families in church this week if for no other reason than to keep me company.

Mining the minors

2008-05-30T10:15:22+00:00

This week I'm preaching on Obadiah. A couple of weeks ago I dabbled in Hosea. Am I enjoying it? Not really but looking at why it's because it's making me work HARD. Basic message of lots of the minors. God's going to smite you unless you repent and in Hosea's case, God's going to smite you whether you repent or not. It's not cheery stuff.

Given my predisposition though to doom and gloom I am starting to think they're on my wave length. God does love us which is fab but it is a love of great expectation. This weeks jaunt into Obadiah looks at a people still tied up with familial fight between Jacob and Esau and a desire to win at all costs. Esau's descendants will watch as their brother's people suffer because it feeds their hunger to win an argument and be vindicated. I can relate on a personal level I love winning arguments, but really this story is about corporate feeling. This is about how a people are acting. All my time in church doesn't prepare me for this story because church, as we all know, was only invented for our own personal salvation. Church is to develop our individual relationship/walk with a loved up messiah. All this talk then in Obadiah of a nation being out of kilter with God we put in the back of the mental filing cabinet and label it out of date.

Corporate sin though is still mega bucks. Lots of the minors are drawing our attention to this. It matters how we act as a body of people. It matters what our corporate identity looks like and what the values and beliefs are that make up that identity. This value base is what's going to shape how we act.

Who are my people then? Will I describe myself as English? Will Baptists be a people I own? It's important. Humans need a sense of who we are to be healthy. We also need to own it and take responsibility before God for it. God will call us to account for who we collectively seek to be. I'm not going to get away with blaming Gordon Brown when it comes down to it, I can't write off the slavery debate as irrelevant just because I don't feel personally responsible for what happened and what continues to happen. It involves my people so I'm culpable and responsible.

Lets leave it with Obadiah:

You should not march through the gates of my people
in the day of their disaster,
nor look down on them in their calamity
in the day of their disaster,
nor sieze their wealth
in the day of their disaster.
You should not wait at the crossroads
to cut down their fugitives,
nor hand over their survivors
in the day of their trouble.

The day of the Lord is near
for all nations.

alcoholtastic

2008-05-17T08:24:36+00:00

Church meeting. We've just had one. It was the alcohol debate. Many things now come to mind as a result.

Firstly was my appreciation of a meeting well run. Mazza kicked things off and the atmosphere was one of reflection and worship. This really did put into perspective how we go about speaking to each other and what it looks like to be a Christian community. I think the way she started the meeting had a massive effect on how things were said.

That was the next thing then - people spoke from directly opposing views with tolerance and without personal insult. It's harder to do that than it should be. I came away from the meeting feeling I had input from other people that has has altered my view point. That would have been unlikely had there been a lot of shouting.

After that, our voting requirements suck. We need a 2/3rds majority to pass something, be it a leadership vote or a new proposal. It's inadequate. For my money we should be working very hard at seeking a 'mind' at trying to find the spirit and following God. 66% doesn't hack it for me. Also this discussion highlighted a real problem. In the end the vote was split, fairly evenly. This meant that the proposal didn't fly and 50% of folk were not happy. Because the proposal didn't go through though this issue will be dropped.

I reckon this was not so much a decision made but that a 'mind' wasn't reached. We highlighted that we still had more to do. If we implemented a change here we would have needed at least 80-90% of the meeting to go with it for it to fly with no ill will. Similarly though if we want to keep a dry church then we would need a 80-90% in this direction for that to show we are in agreement. It's hard to put figures down about it but surely we should be working very hard at seeking a way forward and finding some sense of clarity and God? Until then couldn't we allow ourselves time to journey? It can't be done on this issue now because people would perceive an agenda. But it has brought the need for us to look at this in all aspects for me both with leaders and decision making.

As for the issue itself. Well we did manage to touch upon the bigger issues. That of how we use alcohol not just in the church but also in how we socialise and live outside the building. We touched upon it but didn't run with it. That needs to take off. Suggestions for getting behind a campaign for plastic cups rather than glasses to reduce injury and an alcohol fast by certain groups have been suggested and now we need to put some energy into them.

If I'm honest I was also staggered by the majority of those who wanted church to be an alcohol free 'oasis' were also the ones running the fund raisers and social events involving alcohol, the 'wine pudding and plonk', the caleigh with a bar, the nights out where people staggered home from the club. I've staggered home too on various occasions. I'm not so proud of them but it happens and these events and times highlight a need for all of us to understand Kingdom as the place we find ourselves. That we are a people of God right where we stand and s/he celebrates and weeps with us wherever we are.

The high points for me in the meeting were listening to those who had managed to take a consistent approach throughout their lives with drink. Those who drank in moderation and those who were deciding or had made the decision to stop. I was both challenged and inspired and that was the meeting doing it's job and looking different from debate or politics. That was us operating in the spirit.

Writer's Block

2008-04-19T15:54:12+00:00

It's been a long while since I blogged and quite simply it's because I've had really nothing of note to say. There are a few things that have been buzzing around in my head of late which I may well comment on now, but I think I am still only writing out of a sense of duty to a space I seem to have been neglecting.

So; where to start. Easter day, which seems to have been a very long time ago was marked with me being a little, well, depressive. By that I mean that by the time I reached Sunday morning this year I had undergone such a journey through Holy Week that I felt very responsible for the crucifixion of Christ. That's not such a bad thing in as much as I really did walk the walk this year. However, it did mean that come Easter Morning a congregation who were expecting a rather chipper preach on the risen Christ instead got hit with, 'Christ is risen, feel the fear'.

It was an interesting take for me as well. Lets face it though if you actually were part of the crucifixion, you know, one of the ones baying for blood, or even a disciple fleeing the scene, then you have to wonder at just how pleased you would be to see the risen Lord. The feelings of guilt and mastodonic error, the fact that not only had you fled the scene but then have been caught doing it by God himself. Peter must have squirmed in Jesus' presence (which was then preached on rather brilliantly by Andy the following week from John). Yep, on Easter morning it wasn't simple joy floating around me, there was a tangible sense of the fear of God

Other than that, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini which prompted me to enter the world of women's oppression again. It's a good read, well written and I advise you not to let the fact that it's been in Richard and Judy's book club recommendations put you off. I am often awed by the fate of most other women in the world. Gender issues brush me but lightly and there have only been 2 occasions in my life where my gender has put me in a position of real powerlessness. Realisation that other people live in such a way day to day provoked both an emotional and practical reaction in me. It also prompted a recurring thought that in the normal sphere of things, fiction may well be a much more powerful medium than academia.

In and amongst things there's also been a lot of 'stuff' at church which has meant huge numbers of conversations which have been both draining and enlightening. All in all I look at 'church' and think it's bloody marvellous. People are glorious with tendencies towards mass lunacy. I stand in the midst and alongside the madness for the most part, and so it goes on......