Category: The text as critic

You know how if you’re reading the Bible in a desultory fashion, …ok, I know we should always read the Bible expectantly, receptively, devotionally or whatever other word best describes paying attention. But to be honest, sometimes reading where you’ve read before, and knowing what’s coming, and being familiar with it all, it takes an ambush to get that attention.

Reading Thessalonians last night I was ambushed. Paul tells them, ‘You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.’ (I Thessalonians 4.9) The point is so important Paul invents a word, "theodidaktos", which means ‘taught of God’. Now how does God teach converted pagans to love one another? What pedagogic methods does God employ? Well, not distance learning because love cannot be taught remotely. Not with multi-media angels making God point with power. And what learning outcomes does God set for us to demonstrate with critical awareness that we have learned what we have been taught?

God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, he tells the Roman house churches. Love is greater than faith and hope he tells the Corinthians. Love fulfils the law of Christ. All true enough. But this hapax legomenon,this word "theodidaktos" which Paul manufactured for the purpose, is a seriously disruptive word, suggestive of personal discomfort which is the inevitable result of being taught, not what to do, but who to be, and who to be like.

Taught by God to love – followers of Jesus are taught by God what love is, what love costs, where love leads, how love works, why love hurts, where love is needed, and when.

Taught by God to love – the greater love that lays down its life, the love that loves to the end, the loves demonstrated not only in words but in actions, – like breaking bread, washing feet, touching the broken, turning water to wine, loaves and fish into nourishment.

Taught by God to love each other – which means when I don’t love I haven’t learnt the first lesson about God, that God is love, and that love is cross shaped, outward reaching, creatively persistent, compassionately imaginative, unafraid of rejection and itself fearlessly welcoming.

God of love, teach us to love, so that others may say of us, theodidaktos, taught of God, to love.

Today has been full, good and just a wee bit fatiguing! I was preaching in Aberdeen at Crown Terrace and met up again with many folk who are the kind of friends sensible people hang on to – and we are sensible people! We drove up this morning and back late this afternoon – life’s lacking some commonsense pace at the moment.

Mind you though they are my friends, that doesn’t guarantee an easy  time. They asked me to preach on Nehemiah 3 – have you ever preached on a passage that reads like a fabric convenor’s report – or a site manager’s worksheets, written up to impress the CEO? Well, here as always in the Bible, chapter 3 only makes sense if it follows chapters 1 and 2 and is followed by the rest of the story. Context. Narrative. Texture of human activity. Removal of pious-find a spiritual application at any cost – spectacles. And what you are left with is the story of how a community rebuilt itself by rebuilding city walls. And that long seemingly tedious chapter 3, written out by some conscientious charge-hand, to record for all who came later, how those who broke sweat together also broke bread together; how perfumers got black nails and goldsmiths got blisters from using a spade; and how they all worked side by side, this one next the other. And don’t tell me they didn’t argue, or fall out, or think negative thoughts about each other – but they got the job done; the building site was the place where community was reborn.

John Newton once likened sanctification to a building site – whether the individual or the church, he saw Christian growth as a sometimes messy, hard to see progress kind of process. The scaffolding, the rubble waiting to be cleared; the messy, dubious, activities of builders and labourers who you hope know what they are doing. I love that image – I used to work in a brickwork so I know about mess, muck and blisters – and I do think there are times when my own inner life, and the life of most Christian communities, is more like a building site than a building, more a work in process than the finished thing. And I happen to think God can live with the mess, so long as it is mess on the way to being something else! Anyway, some of that was what I preached.

Then we had lunch with two of our best friends. I met Douglas and Helen at a mission when Douglas was a young minister in Dundee and we ran a children’s club legendary for its pulsating energy, noise and fun. They are two of the finest people I know, whose service to Christ can’t be calculated on any scale I can think of.

Then back down the road on a beautiful autumn, with the Mearns turning towards yellow, gold and brown, with a blue sky and the bales and rolls of straw in the fields. A beautiful day, and now, after a long soak, I’m just letting you know – life’s good, even if at times a bit messy. But God can live with the mess, so long as it’s on the way to being something else.

Here’s my favourite love poem, written by William Butler Yeats. It expresses the vulnerability and willing risk-taking that I think always gives love its capacity to make, and break and mend again, the human heart. And if anyone calls me a romantic, or a sentimentalist, I can think of worse epithets.

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

But I’m not only quoting a love poem as a piece of emotional exhibitionism. I am at present beginning to build some research and writing around the ideas of vulnerability, love as precarious risk, and self-emptying as a gospel response to self-absorption . There is a paradox in love as risk, because the prayeful hopefulness of our deepest longings arise from our being open to the presence, and the cost of the presence, of the other. Underlying the powerful undertow of Yeats’ poem is the recognition of the lover being open to the risk of rejection, hurt and trampled dreams.

The word kenosis is usually used as a term for a certain approach to Christology. But I am interested in kenosis as a spiritual principle rooted in the mind of Christ and characteristic of discipleship as we follow after Christ, carrying our cross, and loving the world by self giving service, generous space creating hospitality and love that eschews calaculation in favour of risk.

‘He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty might become rich’. Is it stretching too far to see the self-emtpying Christ of Philippians 2, taking the form of a servant, obedient even to death on a cross, as God in Christ spreading his dreams under our feet….tread gently for you tread on His dreams….for you, and a broken but loved creation.

Images of space, stars and all the stuff that’s out there I’ve always found fascinating. Hubble images make me think of John 1 and the hymn to the Logos, the Word. ‘In the beginning was the Word…..’

  Aileen, my daughter, my pal and my humility level monitor, sent me this picture from NASA. She thinks it’s cool – I agree. I love the throwaway line in Genesis, ‘he made the stars also’, stars as an afterthought of Israel’s theologian, telling the story of how all things came to be, a dig at the Babylonians and their belief in the power of the stars. Not so Israel’s God – their God manufactured, shaped, crafted, set in place, arranged in infinitely intricate cosmic filigree, the stars. And when they come out it’s in God’s timing not theirs; and their movements are his to command and choreograph. Genesis isn’t about proving this or that scientific theory, it’s about the theological checkmate of Babylonian power by telling the story of the Creator. Psalm 8 rings with the same defiant praise…when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers….what are human beings like us, that you care for us? The answer to that question is found in the deep dazzling recesses of divine love working out eternal purpose…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory….full of grace and truth….God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself…making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

Browsing innocently in an online bookstore, looking for a copy of the TNIV Bible, I came across two remarkable and disconcerting editions – neither of which appeals!

TNIV STRIVE.THE BIBLE FOR MEN.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION. European Leather / Mahogany / Acorn

  Strive is designed to help you live out your unique calling as God’s man amid everyday affairs–family, work, friendships, church, personal interests, and finances. These are the things God uses to shape Christ’s character in you, and to demonstrate it through you. This Bible speaks frankly and honestly about what it means to walk with valor in a culture that works against God’s will and ways. Made for real-world use, Strive is down-to-earth and packed with spiritual insights. Features include: 100 "Myths" articles, 50 "Things You Should Know About" profiles, 200 "Downshift" notes, 200 "Knowing God" callouts, 300 "At Issue" notes, Book Introductions, Topical Index and Articles.

TNIV TRUE IDENTITY BIBLE FOR WOMEN

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

TNIV – Help for women living in today’s world. Whether you’re starting a new job or a new relationship, whether you’re going back to school, thinking about moving, or facing your first – or fifth pregnancy, TRUE IDENTITY helps you find strength, reassurance and guidance through your relationship with God and His Word. The special features in this Bible are designed to help you nurture a passionate, deeply rooted faith and express that dynamic faith in this world.

Applying God’s Word to the different and sometimes difficult circumstances of your life, TRUE IDENTITY will help you not only get to know God for who He really is, but yourself as well — who you are and whose you are.

• 100 Myths – articles describe a commonly believed myth that the world tell you is true, then refutes the lie with the truth of God’s Word
• 30 "ask me anything" profiles are like one-on-one conversations with the women of the Bible. In an interview format, you’ll discover how each woman dealt with the issues in her life and what advise she’d offer you.
• 200 "conversations" notes offer questions to reflect on as you read the Bible or talk it over with a friend or mentor.
• 200 "He is" call outs help you get to know God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible and show how who He is affects who you are.
• 300 "at issue" notes offer short, relevant teachings on a variety of life topics such as money, sex or pride
• Book introductions furnish essential background information for each book of the bible, including scannable facts, a central theme to keep in mind and thought provoking questions to consider as you read.
• Topical index unifies all the features of this Bible so you can find exactly what you’re looking for in an instant.
• Articles give practical insights on mentoring relationships and how to develop a consistent quiet time.
• Today’s New International Version: Timeless truths in today’s language.

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The women’s one comes in a softcover version with pink and cream tulips; the men’s in a robust leather combination of mahogany and oak. So what does that tell you about stereotypes? Wish they’d got the covers mixed up! There was also a FAITHGIRLZ version, but I resisted the urge to post it.

Question: When does a special edition Bible, complete with notes, directions how to read, pre-programmed menus of texts, imported social roles and values, etc,  ——– when does such a Bible cease to be a Bible and become at best an interpretive grid, at worst a propaganda tool, that gets in the way of encountering the biblical text itself?

I’m reading two books on the Bible. One by Brian Brock on Singing the Ethos of God, is really hard work. Parts of it are a dense and detailed exposition of Augustine and Luther on the Psalms. The whole book is an attempt to find a way of using the Bible in Christian Ethics without ‘using’ the Bible as support for ethical positions arrived at independently of the will and nature of the God encountered in the Bible. To live within the ethos of God, for the presence of God to be the environment we breathe, the affective centre of our lives, the emotional and spiritual expression of doxology and gratitude, is very different from a utilitarian handling of Scripture as a collection of principles, values, virtues or any other set of abstract extrapolations to be taken off the shelf as need requires. Brock is arguing for a much more interactive, dynamic and theologically responsive and responsible use of the Bible. So his book is important, carefully argued, at times lucidly persuasive – but overall I’ve found it hard to follow, and wonder if that’s because it’s too long – some of the exposition of Augustine’s exposition of the Psalms makes its point – but takes too long to do it.

By contrast Eugene Peterson’s Eat this Book, is an uncomplicated appeal for christians to stop playing around with the Bible and eat it – let its words be embodied in blood cells, nerve endings, joints and sinew, muscle and bone. Peterson targets the self sovereignty of contemporary Evangelical Bible readers, who use the Bible for their own spiritual projects, their personal doctrinal choices, to win arguments, settle ethical controversies. This is vintage Peterson as encountered in some of his earliest (and best) work.

One quotation from each of these authors shows why I’ll persevere with reading both.

…for love to be rightly directed we need "God with us". Humans are in need of consolation, not because they have difficult experiences, but because they have lost God and thus no longer know how to love aright. Doxology is the point where the lost meet God…because doxology cries for and dares to enter God’s presence. The Psalms are God’s way of opening doxology to us, and thus they play a crucial role in Christian ethics: they are God’s offer of himself to us, and the promise and the form for our renewal. The new humanity has been renewed in order that they may be entirely given over to good works. (Brock, page 167.)

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We are in the odd and embarrassing position of being a church in which many among us believe ardently in the authority of the Bible but, instead of submitting to it, use it, apply it, take charge of it endlessly, using our own experience as the authority for how and where and when we will use it. One of the most urgent tasks facing the christian community today is to counter this self-sovereignty by reasserting what it means to live these Holy Scriptures from the inside out, instead of using them for our sincere and devout but still self-sovereign purposes.(Peterson, page 59).

Andy (Goodliff) promised to blog on Brock later – I’ll be interested to see if my making heavy weather of chunks of it were due to my reading most of it while on holiday, or a sign of intellectual atrophy, or just the cost of trying to understand someone who is trying to say something significantly new. Either way reading the two books together makes for an interesting trialogue.

Reading in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘You are the salt of the earth….but if the salt has lost its savour…….it fails to be salt.

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In a culture that celebrates, even adulates, success, it can be devastating to fail. Young people aiming for University, or a career opportunity, have their life chances calculated on unforgiving exam grades. Hard working people, in all kinds of jobs, are evaluated, assessed, reviewed, all on the basis of ‘development’, or efficiency, or value for money to the organisation. Elderly people whose lives have been spent believing that National Insurance contributions and income tax would ensure a modest but sufficient income for everyone in later years, face means tested supplements. Schools fail, companies fail, social services fail, football teams fail. Fail. The word is loaded with negativity, unrelentingly judgemental, betraying a view of life that majors on performance and function, rather than on human growth and fulfilment.

One of the temptations the church faces at a time when it is seeming to lack presence and impact on the lives of ordinary people, is to try to be what it isn’t, in order to succeed, in order not to be seen to fail. The irony is, when the church buys into the values and attitudes of the surrounding culture in the search for success, it is the more likely to fail where and when it matters most; in its mission as the body of Christ in the world. Core values of the Christian community such as peacemaking, forgiveness, loving acceptance, justice-seeking and identity with the vulnerable, each provide correctives, alternatives, reminders, and yes even counter-arguments, to the assumptions and values of our success addicted  society.

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Salt is now regarded as a health risk. Too much of it in our food and we are asking for trouble. But when it comes to human community, the cultural and  social world in which we all live, the problem isn’t too much salt, it’s too little, far too little. ‘You are the salt of the earth’, Jesus told his followers. Salt used medically in past days to cleanse open wounds, causes pain as it cleans. It is astringent, it hurts so much that part of us might prefer to take our chances with infection. Salt as a seasoning or preservative stops food from going off. In the absence of freezers, vacuum packing, and tins, people of Jesus’ day knew the importance of salt. Whether used medically or in the kitchen, salt only works if it hangs on to it’s saltness, its essential character and flavour.

Likewise the church. ‘If the salt has lost its savour it is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out’. Amongst the most reported performance indicators demonstrating the failure of the church are falling attendances, closing down buildings, mounting deficits, shortage of ministers and leaders, a burgeoning supermarket of spiritual alternatives. Who knows what the future holds in the light of such signs of institutional failure.

That such crisis indicators need radical thinking and even more radical action is obvious. Perhaps the most radical response of all, though, is for the Christian community to recover its saltiness, its astringent quality of creative critique. In a society that worships success and condemns failure, to go back to the core truth of the faith, Christ crucified, is to regain saltiness. The idea that the power of God was revealed in suffering love, in the shame of public failure, in order to demonstrate once and for all God’s love for the powerless, the vulnerable, the people who struggle with the cost and failures of their lives, is unbelievable, incredible, and for Christians, true. In the power of that truth, whatever the future for the institutional church, Jesus still calls his followers to be the salt of the earth, those for whom failure is not final, and whose judgement of others is not performance related, but on the dignity of each human being as a child of God.

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The picture is of an antique saltshaker – (one description of the church in a success driven world – antique saltshaker? Hmmm?) You can see more of these over here at the atique saltshaker site

Can you be a Christian and drive a car?

Of course you can.

Can you be a good Christian and drive a car ?

Well, sometimes.

I have a theory about driving as a Christian’s moral training ground to see if we’re serious, practical and non-selective about Jesus’ teaching.

When someone makes a mistake, instead of light-flashing and horn sounding, you forgive as you hope to be forgiven. When someone is about to reverse into the same parking space as you intend to take, your parking space, let the last be first.  If someone cuts in and makes you slow down, be slow to anger. If the person at the petrol pump is taking an inordinate amount of time to fill up, then buys half the garage shop before joining the long queue to pay by card to the one attendant, do not worry, because, as I have proved, it doesn’t add a single inch to your stature.

Well, I can wish. But the way people drive their cars is a fairly accurate index of  their attitude to other people. How is it that calm, pleasant, community-conscious people get behind a steering wheel and are transformed into aggressive, abusive liabilities? Has it something to do with the way a car cuts us off from real contact, and face to face relationships? In the privacy of the car we don’t have to take the other person seriously as the human being they are.

The old-fashioned word courtesy describes an attitude that I think at its root is Christian. In fact it was used by Julian of Norwich to describe God. It means to respect and to love, to treat kindly and considerately, to look after the interests of the other person. So when those lit up motorway signs say optimistically to the hurtling traffic – or grid-locked commuters -‘Be a courteous driver’ – I wonder if their script writer had read Julian of Norwich. Nah!

I still wonder though if Christians are more considerate, courteous drivers? Does the Gospel make a difference to my road manners? It should. Used to be a bumper sticker that said ‘Honk if you love Jesus’. How about a more radical one, ‘Don’t honk if you love Jesus’.

  Mostly when we talk about the church we use qualifiers, missional church for example. Rowan Williams in the lecture I noted in yesterday’s blog, suggests an altogether different qualifier. In relation to the Bible and the breaking of bread he understands the church as a listening community. And perhaps listening is a spiritual discipline the evangelical church needs to rediscover, and even as C S Lewis long ago suggested, perhaps we need to repent of our talkativeness.

Listen – to the Word read and proclaimed

Listen to the invitation, this bread, my body broken for you…take and eat.

Williams brings Bible and eucharist together as means of grace, as sources of nourishment and spiritual vitality, as representing the summons and succour of God.

The Church’s public use of the Bible represents the Church as defined in some important way by listening: the community when it comes together doesn’t only break bread and reflect together and intercede, it silences itself to hear something.  It represents itself in that moment as a community existing in response to a word of summons or invitation, to an act of communication that requires to be heard and answered.

Listening to the Bible, listening to the summons of Jesus to His table, is not a passive activity, it is an active alertness to that voice which addresses us. Listening is not a low energy alternative to action it is the necessary prelude to knowing what is required of us, what to do, how to act. Listening is therefore a strategic form of patience, a way of waiting to hear the One who speaks, in their time…and having heard what is required is response. In hearing and responding life is transformed, we are in more sense than one converted, turned again to the ways of Christ.