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Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence praise.

The hymn we know so well is part of a 17 verse poem, ‘The Brewing of Soma’, in which the hymn-writer, a Quaker, was critical of one form of religion in India which required intoxication in worship. By contrast, the final verses describe a form of prayer and worship in which silence, thoughtfulness, holiness of life and loving service to others is the most worthy expression of worship. The contrast between ‘foolish ways’ and ‘our rightful mind’ signals a prayer of repentance, our wish for a change of life habits and a cleansing of thought and emotion. Each day this week, looking on a world that often seems foolish, cruel and an unholy mess, pray these words to reorient your own life around the wisdom, holiness and love of God. 

Tuesday

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
beside the Syrian sea,
the gracious calling of the Lord,
let us, like them, without a word
rise up and follow thee.

A Christian life that is wise and knowing, holy and reverent, begins with the grace-filled call of Jesus. Responding to the call of Jesus is an act of lifelong obedience, a willingness to count everything else as secondary. Much recent scholarship on what ‘faith’ is makes clear that the core of faith is trust, a relationship based on love and obedience. Yes, faith is about what we believe, but faith begins, grows and comes to full fruit in our relationship with God in Christ, by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Those last two lines can also be our daily prayer, to rise up and follow Jesus.

Wednesday

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with thee
the silence of eternity,
interpreted by love!

In an over-busy, anxious world, distracting itself with noise, connectedness, competitive consumerism and constant nagging towards self-development, we need space and time if God is going to get a look-in, or a word in edgeways. This lovely verse takes us into the Gospels to the kneeling Christ. Those last two lines are amongst the most effective descriptions of the loving communion of Father, Son and Spirit. They also point us to the secret of Jesus faithful obedience to the Father, and the resources of a life that was endlessly outgiving in self-expenditure for others. Sabbath rest is making time for such sunbathing in the life-renewing love of God.    

Thursday

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

There is some irony in the fact that life coaching is a growth industry in a culture geared to hoovering up all the spare time and money that can be sucked out of a society revolving around money! The first line is a biblical reference to the manna that is God’s gift. The strain and stress of career, making ends meet, finding a work –life balance, it gradually grinds the joy and hope down. The hymn-writer knew nothing of digital finances, social media, globalised trading, climate change, and much else that falls like a cataract of concerns on contemporary life. Nevertheless, his words touch deep into those familiar strivings of our 21^st Century everyday. These are words intended to draw us into a different way of being. The background words come from Jesus, “My peace I give to you.”

Friday

Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

Poor Elijah. Scared, exhausted, and desperately needing the confirmation that God was present with him, standing on Horeb shaken by earthquake, buffeted by gales, the air scorched by fire. But God was not to be found in elemental power that destroys. A hymn that started “Dear Lord and father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways”, ends in a prayer of listening for the still, small voice of God addressing the broken prophet. When life becomes too much, this whole hymn is a gift to the heart. When we don’t know what to pray, this hymn is ‘one that was prepared earlier’ for immediate use; by a Quaker who understood the importance of “the silence of eternity interpreted by love.” 

Saturday

James 1. 5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.”

This is another way of recognising our need for a wisdom beyond our own foolish ways. Indeed, wisdom starts when we recognise the limits of our own or any other person’s insight, intelligence and confidence. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” is the advice of the Sage to cultivate reverence for God, to give God his place. In Jesus words, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything else will fall into place.” James was a good pastor – he emphasised the generous grace of God, and pointed out God is not in the blame game!

Sunday

Colossians 2.2-3 “My goal is that you may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that you may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Here is Paul writing to Christians who are just as shaken up and uncertain as any of us in our own time. Often we haven’t a clue what’s going on in the world, and it’s hard to find a stable place to stand. Paul does what he always does. The focus is Christ. When we are called by God into fellowship and union with Christ, we are drawn into the mystery of God. Christ to whom we belong, is the one in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” We can be encouraged in heart because we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and we are held and we are safe. We are those who “heard the gracious calling of the Lord.” In Jesus we have beheld “the silence of eternity, interpreted by love.”

…………………………………………..

The hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” was written by John Greenleaf Whittier, an American Quaker. He once said, “I am not really a hymn writer, for I know nothing of music. Only a very few of my poems were written for singing. A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted but I do not claim that I have been successful in writing one.”

The hymn has consistently been voted in the top two or three most popular hymns over decades of polling. It’s a hymn that shapes the spirituality of those who sing it. Read as a prayer at times of stress, hurt, worry or weariness, it takes us to Galilee, to Jesus in the lonely place praying, to Elijah for once silenced by the gentle whisper of God. In reading it, we too can be re-clothed in our rightful mind.

Monday

Matthew 23.36-8 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” This is the first and greatest commandment.”

In his answer Jesus concentrated all the questions about what true obedience to God might look like. Love God with everything you have, and all that you are. Worship, adoration, praise and thanksgiving are the first response of our hearts to God’s gracious love and faithful mercy. To love God is to give God that space in our lives where we grow, and are transformed by the Spirit who pours God’s love into our hearts. We love because God first loved us – the initiative always comes from God. Our response is loving gratitude and faithful obedience to that love. 

Tuesday

Matthew 23.39-40 “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus links love for God and love for neighbour. And don’t bother trying to define neighbour to make it manageable and convenient. The Good Samaritan story put an end to all that moral squirming. To love God, we must love those made in God’s image, and in whom we meet those Jesus called sisters and brothers. Forasmuch as you love the poor, hungry, hurting, lonely, scared, struggling person you come across on each day’s journey, to that extent you love Jesus, and show your love for God to be genuine, because costly, generous because a sign of the grace that has helped us.

Wednesday

John 13.34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

The commandment is new because it has a new point of reference; “As I have loved you.” Jesus is the exemplar of what Christian love looks like, how it speaks and acts. Jesus had just washed the feet of each disciple. This wasn’t an act of passive humility; this was Jesus’ answering all the earlier arguments about who was the greatest. The one who serves, who takes care of others’ needs, they are the greatest. That kind of servant love is the logo of the Christian community. Wear it – with humility!

Thursday

1 John 4.7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 

John never forgot the lesson of the foot washing. Now 50 years later he keeps coming back to love as the authenticating test of Christian experience. To know God is to know we are loved with an infinite and inexhaustible love. It is the love that bore the sins of the world, forgives our sins, holds us safe, fills our hearts and guides our ways of being. That’s why whoever does not love does not know God. “God is love” is not for bumper stickers. It’s the theological reason why Christians of all people, love – because it is our calling, and our clearest witness to the love of God.

Friday

1 John 4. 19-21 “We love because he first loved us.  Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

This is logic on fire with truth. In three lines all objections or suggested limits for the scope of love to others are brushed aside by an unbreakable argument. We are loved, not because we deserve it, but because God’s love has been made known to us in Jesus. Therefore, it follows, by force of love’s own logic, and as a truth that has to be lived from the heart, we cannot now hate others while saying we love God. The brother and sister are there before our very eyes, their presence is God’s call to do to others as God has done to us. No ifs or buts. We love because he first loved us!

Saturday

Matthew 5. 43-4 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is Jesus the revolutionary asking what seems impossible. Only by grace can we even think like this, and only because God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But it’s a start, to pray for those we don’t like, who are a problem to us, and when we pray for them, the face we dislike, even hate, can become the face of one we are learning, by God’s mercy and grace, to love as an also child of God.

Sunday

1 John 4.10-11 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

The cross of Christ is the defining truth of God’s love. Once we understand that, and receive the gift of God’s love and grace into our hearts, to live in that love becomes our way of life. If God loves us like that, then we ought to love others out of sheer gratitude! Ought is a word of obligation placed on all who stand beneath the Cross.

This is a follow up to the previous post. In that piece I told of the difficulty I had following up on a reference to Rudolf Bultmann's essay "To Love Your Neighbour." You can read that post for the full story of how eventually it was traced, and a copy kindly sent my way.

But there were leftover questions. Why would Rudolf Bultmann have an essay published in the first issue of an obscure Scottish journal? What was Scottish Periodical in the reference? How long did it last? Are there hard copies in existence anywhere?

One of my friends, John Dempster, a professional (retired) librarian, found the answer to some of these questions which unlocked the big one – how did an essay by the leading New Testament scholar of the age end up being published in a completely unknown journal in Scotland in 1947? I had asked John if he could find any trace of a publication titled Scottish Periodical. This was his response:

"I did a little bit of rooting around, and found the attached record in the British Library Catalogue – it suggests they have something called 'Scottish Periodical', and it gives a shelf mark in the record store at Boston Spa. However, there are no bibliographic details present."

But John also sent two extracts from The Scotsman – one  from August 1947 announcing a new Journal, and the other from October 1947 listing the contributors and subjects. I knew it was gold as soon as I saw the name of the Editor – none other than Ronald Gregor Smith! Here are the two Scotsman extracts John sent – now you can see why they are gold!

Ronald Gregor Smith was one of Scotland's most significant theologians in the 1950s and 1960s In 1946, while still a military chaplain, Gregor Smith was appointed Education and Control Officer for the University of Bonn, where he was responsible for the de-Nazification of the University. He was already acquainted with Bultmann, and in the following years he would be instrumental in disseminating German theology in Britain and particularly in Scotland, through his work as a translator and editor. Smith translated and guided the publishing of works by Martin Buber (he had translated I and Thou as a young student in 1937), Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Soren Kierkegaard. As the later Editor of SCM press he ensured the early publication in English of some of the most influential writings of German biblical and theological scholarship. 

So when in 1947 Ronald Gregor Smith went into full time publication with the launch of Scottish Periodical, of course he would ask Bultmann for permission to publish one of his essays, and one pertinent to the moment. And that's how 'To Love Your Neighbour' was translated into English by the Editor of Scottish Periodical, Ronald Gregor Smith. It had previously been published in German in 1930, then in another journal in French later that same year, but Gregor Smith saw it as important enough to be the first piece of Bultmann he translated and saw through publication for the post-war era. That in itself makes it a significant publishing occasion.

There is more. The Contents announcement in The Scotsman (above) mentions several contributors who became significant Scottish literary figures, including David Daiches, Edwin Muir, Andrew Young and Norman McCaig – Bultmann was in good company! These were Gregor Smith's friends, to whom we can add Edwin Morgan and T. S. Eliot. Eliot wrote very encouragingly of Ronald Gregor Smith's own poems, urging him to keep writing them, not so much for publication but as accounts of spiritually authentic searching. There were only two issues of Scottish Periodical, one in 1947, and one in 1948. By then Gregor Smith, and the post-war world, were moving on.

So all this started by chasing a footnote! That footnote occurs in the important book on New Testament ethics by Victor Paul Furnish, The Love Command in the New Testament. With considerable help from several friends, a modest-sized essay first published in 1930 in German and French, is traced to a now forgotten journal from 1947, and lands in my inbox from a generous scholar in 2025. Then its context and provenance are revealed through the detective work of my friend John. Then after some further digging into the life and times of an unjustly overlooked Scottish editor, translator, minister and theologian who was Primarius Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow from 1956 till his early death in 1968, we can understand how this overlooked gem is well worth bringing to light again. Well, at least I think so!

Monday

Matthew 5.7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

It isn’t often that the word mercy becomes headline news; or that a plea for mercy becomes politically controversial. For readers of the Bible from the Psalms to the Prophets, and from Micah to Jesus, mercy is one of the moral imperatives of a life obedient to God. “Mercy is a generous attitude which is willing to see things from the other’s point of view and is not quick to take offence or to gloat over others’ shortcomings.” Being merciful is a requirement of all those who follow Jesus, seeking the Kingdom of God, Jesus couldn’t be clearer on God’s approval of being merciful!

Tuesday

Luke 6.36 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Jesus has just spoken about loving and doing good to those we consider enemies. Loving our enemies seems entirely counter-intuitive. However, Jesus is calling his followers to a radical transformation of how we restore, sustain and redeem relationships that have gone wrong. Mercy is to be our first response. Mercy is a personal initiative, a freely offered invitation to a new beginning. The best part is, by being merciful we act in ways that affirm and imitate the generosity of God. It’s a very short step from praying “Lord have mercy” to praying, “Lord make me merciful.”

Wednesday

Psalm 103.8 "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love". 

When Jesus calls us to be merciful, it helps if we can define “mercy” clearly, so there can be no misunderstanding – or get-out clauses! If we are to be merciful as God is merciful, our verse above gives an expansive paraphrase – gracious, slow to anger, and filled full of the love that stays faithful and dependable. So when Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”, this is the familiar understanding of mercy he was working from. Interestingly, the Sermon on the Mount has quite a lot to say about the blessings of mercy, the dangers of anger, and the love that reaches beyond what makes sense to us. The Sermon describes this astonishingly gracious and steadfast love of God which we are called to model as followers of Jesus.

Thursday

Micah 6.8 “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

These three requirements are all part of the one consistently righteous life before God. Justice, mercy and humility can’t be separated in our life of obedience to God. What’s more, these are not options, they are obligations under God. Micah is spelling out God’s priorities, those acts and attitudes that control how the people of God speak and act, how we conduct our relationships and use our money and belongings in all the transactions of daily life. It’s a searching check-list of what community life should be like, first in church, then as witness to the world – justice, mercy, humility.

Friday

Matthew 9.12-13 “Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sacrifice was one of the central acts of worship in Israel. Sacrifice was an act of devotion to God, from which a life of obedience and righteousness followed. One of the essential marks of a righteous life is mercy, compassion for the poor, care for the suffering, welcome to the stranger, feeding the hungry. Sacrifice without mercy is hypocrisy; worship by those who couldn’t care less for others is not only a waste of time, it’s offensive to God. As John says, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.“ (1 Jn 4.20)

Saturday

James 2.13 “Judgement without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgement.”

A heart that does not do mercy is judgemental, and sets the rules by which it too must be judged. When we pray “Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors”, that isn’t just pious window dressing. If we refuse to forgive, close our hearts to someone else’s pain, or fault, or predicament, then we nurture hardness in our own spirit. We are a hard path on which the seeds of forgiveness cannot grow, a calloused spirit unable to recognise our own need of mercy. When the choice is between judgement and mercy, it is mercy that is the game changer and life giver.

Sunday

Psalm 23.6 “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, for ever.”

And there it is. Our whole life long we have been pursued by the goodness and mercy of God. We have lived and loved, worked and rested, given and taken, grown up and grown old, and never once has God’s mercy been absent. Mercy is the compassion of God’s grace, the gift of God’s peace, the assumption on which all that is most important in our lives is securely founded. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love". So, if God is merciful, go and do likewise!

Shalom.

Of course it means peace.

But shalom is a word that overflows the boundaries of its own letters and irrigates other words.

Wellbeing. Harmony. Justice. Fruitfulness. Righteousness. Welcome. Union. And yes, Peace.

"Shalom bears tremendous freight – the freight of a dream of God that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness and misery…It refers to all those resources and factors which make communal harmony joyous and effective." (Brueggemann, Living Toward a Vision.)

Shalom is when there are streams in the desert, and the wilderness blossoms. Shalom is an oasis of rest where there are green pastures and the refreshment of water. Shalom is when eyes are opened, the silenced burst into song, the lame dance in freedom, and the broken-hearted learn to smile again.

Shalom is when the heart opts for mercy rather than indifference, chooses compassion instead of blame, urges conciliation in place of conflict, argues that healing is always preferable to wounding, seeks unity and community above division and self-interest, nourishes neighbour love and resists the discourse of division.

For all who, today as every day, long for shalom, in our heart, community, and world, this is a good prayer:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Monday

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

“Trust and obey.” For over a hundred years those two words have provided a condensed strapline of what it means to follow Jesus. A young convert at a D. L. Moody testimony meeting was unsure what the decision for Jesus would involve. He is quoted as saying, “I am not quite sure-but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey." Those words were later the basis of the hymn we will think about this week in TFTD. Faith and works, belief and practice, trust and obedience. As we trust and obey we are enabled by God’s love and grace, and so our own love and joy in Jesus grows.

Tuesday

When we walk with the Lord, in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way;
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Our daily walk is always part of an accompanied journey in which each day the direction we take and the destination we reach are guided by the Lord. Jesus told the disciples, “if you keep my commandments” and “If you abide in me” you will bear much fruit. The glory shed on our way is no more than the joy of obedience and the trust of faith. Discipleship is a shared journey with Jesus, who goes ahead of us. A later NT writer wrote about “looking to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  

Wednesday

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh nor a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.

There are going to be scary shadows and dark clouds at different times and in different places for all of us on our lives’ journeys. To trust would be unnecessary if there were never challenges, disappointments, anxieties, and losses. Life has its risks and surprises, and we won’t be exempt from troubling doubts and tears of sadness. In every human life there are times when faith comes hard and trust takes great courage and strength, such as only God can give. But in it all, and through it all, there is the promised presence of the Lord. Nothing changes God’s grace towards us and nothing can separate us from God’s love. It is that love, that grace, that Presence that we trust. “He who did not spare his only Son, will he not, with Him, freely give you all things?” (Romans 8.32) That includes the faith to trust, and the grace to obey.

Thursday

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.

The reward, the repayment, for carrying the burdens and sharing the hard times of others is the same as it always is in a relationship of love and trust. Love is strengthened, trust is deepened, and life is made easier for others. All around us there are situations of struggle that we can make easier for folk, things going wrong we can help to redeem, by bearing their burden or sharing their sorrow. To trust and obey Jesus in practical terms is to notice and enter into all those experiences around us where we can make a real difference, being blessed by being a blessing in Jesus’ name.

Friday

But we never can prove the delights of His love,
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favour He shows and the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

We don’t inhabit a culture where sacrifice, selfless service, costly compassion, or time-consuming commitment to loving our neighbour, are thought to be the road to the good life. Following Jesus in trust and obedience is the opposite of a zero-hour contract – it’s a life commitment and a new way of being in the world. Laying all on the altar is an act of reckless risk. Paul describes it like this: “The life I now live in my body, I live by trusting the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2.20) The obedience of faith is lived out in the ordinary routines and daily commitments of our lives, as by God’s grace we give ourselves in love and service to one another, to our neighbour, and so to God.    

Saturday

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet,
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do; where He sends, we will go,
Never fear, only trust and obey.

There’s a healthy balance here – sitting and walking. Like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus to listen, learn and love. But also like the disciples walking to Emmaus, listening and learning, before breaking bread and going out into the world to spread the good news. Prayer and action, learning and teaching, listening and proclaiming, serving and being served, loving and being loved – these are the beating rhythms of life that express the faith that trusts, and the love that serves. The rhythms of Christian service are like the diastolic and systolic rhythms of the heart, relaxing and contracting, bringing oxygen and energy to the body. We are in closest fellowship with Jesus when we live in that stabilising rhythm of trust and obedience, both of these energised by the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Sunday

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

So we return to the refrain and those two words that sum up the call of God. To trust is to put our faith in someone, to believe they are trust-worthy. But even then we need God’s help to have faith that risks life itself by entrusting our lives to Christ. Faith isn’t something we have to work up, it’s a work of God in our hearts.  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2.8-9) And yet. Faith is also the response of our heart to the call of God, to receive forgiveness, to be made new in Christ by the Spirit of God, and then to follow him in the obedience of faith. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way…” But what a Way!

Prayer for the Week

Eternal God and Father,

You create us by your power

And redeem us by your love,

Guide and strengthen us by your Spirit;

That we may give ourselves in love and service

To one another, and to you,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

When someone states the obvious, and it comes as a surprise, it's time to pay attention. I was minding my own business, reading this commentary on Paul's letter to the Galatians, nodding my head in agreement with the author, Richard Hays. Then I read this:

"The connection between zeal and persecution is another theme worth pondering in this passage. Religious conviction and passion can have an ugly side. Paul sadly recognises in his own past that his zeal for the traditions of his ancestors led him to sanction and  commit act of violence…Those who take seriously  the holiness of the one God find it difficult to tolerate people who blasphemously deny that God or transgress God's revealed law." (p.219)  

I've been a Christian long enough to immediately recognise the truth of that. The connection is obvious between passionately held religious convictions and a dangerous hostility to those who contradict, mock or are indifferent to those convictions. What I found interesting was I both knew this, and needed to be reminded of it. Those who hold religious convictions as the certainties on which they build their lives are likely to feel threatened or outraged when others just as strongly deny the reality or relevance of such strongly held beliefs. 

In a world where there are now deep fault lines of division between religious traditions, ethnic diversities, cultural traditions, economic powers and freedoms, and political commitments, the same principle holds. Differences deeply felt as a threat provoke hostilities. These are often expressed in combative rhetoric, defensive postures, and eventually a hard to resist push towards confrontation. What I found interesting in Hays stating the obvious about potential connections between zeal and persecution, is the way that obvious danger has often been ignored in the ways we organise our communal, economic, cultural and social lives. Which raises the practical question of how Christians deal with plurality, diversity and differences in fundamental convictions.

How as a Christian do I avoid defending Christian convictions by methods, attitudes, words and actions that alienates those from whom I differ? Is zeal a bad thing? Is tolerance unfaithfulness and even betrayal of faith, if I attempt to understand those who differ from me at deep levels of life commitments? Does dialogue merely risk dangerous compromise? Here is Hays further down the page:

"In the case of the Christian gospel, the cross is the central symbol that short-circuits justifications of violence: God's way of dealing with dissenters and adversaries was not to destroy them, but to give his Son to die for them."

To those who name Jesus Christ as Lord, zeal for the truths, realities and convictions of our faith is converted and authenticated by following the way of the cross. That means loving our enemies, praying for those who "despitefully use you" which at the very least means those with whom we strongly disagree; it means doing good to those who would do us and our faith harm; and yes, it requires of us the prayer, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!" As Hays concludes, "Our responsibility is not to eradicate the enemies of God but to announce God's reconciling power in the world. (See 2 Cor. 5.17-20)"

I am so glad Hays planted this way of thinking in the deep soil of those later verses of Paul to the recalcitrant, fractious, Corinthians with their conflicting agendas, competitive spiritualities, cherished certainties of their own rightness, and need to be reminded in no uncertain terms that God's love is both powerfully constraining and expensively generous. As those who have been given the ministry of reconciliation, zeal has a new focus.

To be zealous in the love of God in Christ, to be zealous in conciliation and peace-making, to be zealous in love for neighbour, to be zealous in living as well as speaking the good news of Jesus – that is to be converted at the central core of our identity as followers of Christ. Or as Paul will write later to those same Galatians: "I am crucified with Christ; I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live, I live in the body, I live by faith in the son fo God who loved me, and gave himself for me."    

Monday

Psalm 24.1-2 “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;  for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.”

Stewardship is very different from ownership. Earth with all its diversity and potential for life belongs to God. It is not ours to do what we want with it. Humanity is entrusted by God with the care of the whole environment in which we live and move and have our being. “All who live in it” includes, along with humanity, all living creatures. Creation care is not a ‘green thing’, it’s a God thing. You cannot love the Artist and waste his masterpiece. This Psalm ends by telling us that human glory is transient and limited; God’s glory is ultimate, radiates authority, and invites worship.

Tuesday

Psalm 24.3 “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?”

Two questions about admission to worship. What makes us worthy to come anywhere near a holy God? We come in the name of Christ, and by the grace of God. Yes, but. The faith we profess, the Name we confess, call us to a life that is faithful and obedient, showing integrity of life and sincerity of heart. What we do, how we behave, the values that matter most, the character revealed in our behaviour, the inner life of thought, emotion and conscience – God knows and sees all that. What practical evidence do we have of a life made righteous in Christ? Well, we could start with asking how well we ourselves have looked after God’s creation!

Wednesday

Psalm 24.4a “He who has clean hands and a pure heart…,”

Clean hands are about actions, and a pure heart about motives. Together in practical terms they come pretty close to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Clean hands negatively do no harm, and positively act in compassion, kindness and generosity. A pure heart is a heart with a single intent – “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” Those who come to worship God do so as those who love God from first to last, and whose actions are consistent with the faithful mercy and steadfast love of God. Or, those who live on the assumption that, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all who live in it.”

Thursday

Psalm 24.4b “Who does not lift up his soul to an idol, or swear by what is false.”

Idolatry and lying go together. Both are an assault on truth. Whatever we make the most important and controlling thing in our lives is an idol, a usurper that takes the place of God. The three big idols are money, sex and power, and all of them have to do with our desire to possess. It turns out, what we think we own, actually owns us; what we think we control, eventually controls us. Whereas, true worship of the true God is what keeps us free, valued, and true to the purpose of our creation. Only when we lift up our soul, and give our very selves in love and service to God in Christ, does the heart find its true home.

Friday

Psalm 24.5-6 “They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Saviour. Such is the generation of those who seek your face, God of Jacob.”

True worship is not self-seeking, it’s not about us at all. Worship is an opening up of our minds to God’s truth, and the seeking of our hearts to know and acknowledge God’s presence in God’s world, and in our lives. We don’t seek God for his blessing, but for Himself, and yet in seeking God we are blessed. It follows then, that by ‘standing in his holy place’, with clean hands and a pure heart, we are serving and loving God. So our lives are vindicated, and shown to be rightly directed, by God.

Saturday

Psalm 24.7-8 “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.”

The Psalm begins with the sovereignty of God over the earth and all who live in it. Now it ends in a blaze of royal glory in the presence of God Almighty. It would be wrong to think of God’s glory as being absolute, unconstrained power. When the glory of God passed Moses, God was described as “The LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Ex 34.6-7) God’s glory is not raw power, but the power to create, redeem, forgive and renew.

Sunday

Psalm 24.9-10 “Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty— he is the King of glory.”

Repeated for emphasis. Now go back to the first verse. God the Creator is none other than the Lord Almighty. Care of creation, stewardship of ‘the earth and all who live in it’ is not just a good idea, something we should maybe think about some time. Nor is care for the earth important only because our lives depend on this small, green planet. We care for our world as an act of reverence to the Creator, as evidence that our worship is more than words. Stewardship happens when we take responsibility before God for His beautiful world, and do so as the outworking of our worship.

If you know me, you'll know I am a committed footnote chaser! I don't mean those avalanches of tedium that sometimes serve as a disclaimer 'here's everything I read when writing this!" No, judicious footnotes, clear footprints on the scholars path, and where it's an extensive note, perhaps a signpost pointing back to how we got here, and pointing forward to other possible paths. Here's how this odd but happy exercise in scholarly serendipity works if you go chasing footnotes.

At the end of this seasonal festival, perhaps Good King Wenceslas gives good advice for footsteps, and footnotes! "Mark my footsteps, good my page; /Tread thou in them boldly."!

This particular jaunt began with re-reading a chapter of I (Still) Believe, a book in which 18 biblical scholars write about the relationship between their faith and their scholarship. The line-up is impressive including some of the best known biblical scholars of my generation – I mention only five – Walter Brueggemann, J. D. G. Dunn, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Richard Bauckham, John Goldingay. I've read books by all the contributors, and several of them I've read enough to know why what they are saying is well worth the reading. 

The chapter I re-read is the one by Andrew Lincoln: he chose the title 'Responding to and Searching for Truth.' In it he refers to one of his previous books which I had read, describing it as "probably the one with the most orientation to contemporary appropriation…" (p.151) I knew the book, and had much enjoyed reading the section he referred to in his clear exposition of the theology of Ephesians. I went looking for it to re-read it. It's still a brilliant summary and guide to the theological and practical appropriation of Ephesians.¹

Oh, then there was footnote 12 in which Lincoln left clear footprints showing where some of his ideas came from! Footnote 12 reads: cf. W. Brueggemann, 'Covenanting as Human Vocation'. This was first published in the journal Interpretation in 1979 – outside the dates for which the University has access. But wait a minute, I've read this. I knew I had it in one of Brueggemann's many volumes of collected essays so I went hunting. Sure enough, there it was in one of Brueggemann's most significant essay collections, The Psalms and the Life of Faith. I read it again and was astonished at how relevant Brueggemann's essay is for a world more sold on contract and competition than covenant and co-operation. 

Brueggemann does footnotes, and he does them with considerable diversity of sources across biblical studies, sociology, cultural criticism, philosophy and psychology. There it was again, a footnote that sent me further down the promising paths of possible discovery. Footnote 36 contains a telling quotation from  A. J. Heschel, from his 1963 lectures Who is Man. I've read Heschel for years, and that book more than once. But I took it down and read that final lecture on 'How to Live' as a human being in the presence of God in God's own world.

So there's the footnote circle that took about an hour to complete. A New Testament scholar sends me to another of his own books, which shoves me in the direction of an Old Testament scholar whose essays I consider hard wearing gold, and he in turn points to a Jewish philosopher whose thought remains seminal in my own understanding of what it is to be human before God. Ignore the footnotes and you miss so much.

^{1 The Theology of the Later Pauline Epistles. (CUP: 1993)}