Category: Uncategorised

Sometimes it's fun to do some redaction and source criticism of our favourite writers. Yesterday I read an essay by Richard Hays, one of the most astute New Testament scholars of my generation. The essay was exploring the Gospel of Mark, and especially the significance of Mark's portrayal of the cross and discipleship in the narrative structure of Mark. The title is 'The Crucified One', and it can be found in Cruciform Scripture. Cross, Participation, and Mission, a volume of essays in honour of Michael Gorman.

 Hays displays all his characteristic precision in a close reading of Mark, analysing how the Cross is hinted at from the beginning, and then increasingly emphasised in more explicit words of Jesus. The disciples are not only slow to understand, they seem incapable at times of believing Jesus is serious about his destiny. That slowness of understanding linked to the call for disciples to bear the cross and follow after Jesus, drives the narrative towards its conclusion in the passion of Jesus, the resurrection, and the call to disciples to walk into an unknown future with all its risks and costs. 

The later part of the essay analyses Mark's use of the verb "to hand over", usually translated into English as to betray, particularly when Judas is either the agent or the one described. The word expresses the passivity of Jesus, a willingness to be "handed over". The resolute walk to Jerusalem, the anguished wrestling in prayer in Gethsemane, the matter of fact account of the trial and crucifixion are an enacted kenosis, the self-surrender of Jesus to the Father's will. The word that describes that surrender, that "handing over", is freighted with a profound theology of the passion as kenosis, expressed in obedient sacrifice and self-giving love.  

As I read the essay I recalled two books I had read as a young minister, a long time ago now – Following Jesus. Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark, by Ernest Best and The Stature of Waiting by W. H. Vanstone. I took Best's volume on a week long retreat, something I'm not sure the author would ever have envisaged given it was published as a scholarly monograph in the fledgling JSNT at Sheffield University Press. Twenty years later, at the British New testament Conference, I sat at breakfast with Professor Best and thanked him for a book that deepened my understanding of Mark, and challenged me at levels considerably deeper than exegetical learning.

To my knowledge, Best was amongst the first to focus on Mark's theme of the obtuse disciples presented as exemplars of how hard it is to take up the cross and follow. Here is a summary of Best's book, demonstrating how technical analysis yields practical interpretation:

They show many failures in understanding, but that is not the whole story, for they are on the road and it is to them that the task of mission and the task of cross-bearing are entrusted.

The cross and resurrection of Jesus are behind them, but their own cross (and resurrection?) is very much ahead of them or actually with them in the suffering to which they are called. The cross is always calling for the denial of self and the search to serve others; it is always calling for a community in which commitment and openness are not opposed to one another but two sides of the same fundamental challenge which is also an opportunity.

Jesus is not to be
imitated so much as obeyed and followed on the road which he alone has made possible by his act of ransoming in the giving of his life. (Prof. Robin Barbour, Scottish Journal of Theology, 1983, Vol.36 (1), p.107-109)

Vanstone's book, The Stature of Waiting, I read on the back of his still remarkable first book, Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense (1977). It remains one of the most telling practical theologies of kenosis in pastoral life. The Stature of Waiting is a full pastoral exploration of "to hand over" as it is used of Jesus in the Gospel story. His exegesis highlights the kenotic significance of both the word itself, and the actions in the Gospel story that it signifies. His aim is to apply it to our all too human experiences of suffering, loss, and disappointment, using Jesus' acceptance of his own suffering as a lens through which to view our own human responses to those situations and circumstances that overtake all of us at some time or other. 

I find it intriguing to discover such parallels between a highly suggestive essay written a few years ago by a leading New Testament scholar, and two books from almost half a century ago. One was written by an obscure Anglican priest, the other by an Irish Presybterian minister also a NT Professor. What I know of Richard Hays from his books is that he was an alert listener to Scripture. Some of his most influential books are excavations of the text looking for precursors of thought, and listening closely to hear intra-textual echoes of Scripture, and using his sharp recall of the text and its world to identify allusions which might aid interpretation. 

The point of this post is to recognise that process of echoes and allusions, not only in written texts, but also in the intellectual and spiritual traditions that make up the atmosphere of biblical studies as they filter into our own theological thought and spirituality. I doubt Hays read Vanstone, and if he read Best it was probably decades ago. The common tradition of what we learn and live, what we retain and what had its time and then was gone, what still pulses with significance for us and drives us to dig deeper, think harder, and practise more faithfully – that shared environment of scholarship is one of the sustaining gifts entrusted to the church. I am grateful to those who keep adding to that tradition, bringing forth things old and new, for them let us give thanks – for me, that includes an appreciation of Richard Hays who taught us to appreciate the surprising complexity and contemporaneity of the text before us. It was good to remember him in the reading of his essay, 'The Crucified One.'      

Monday

Psalm 1.1 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers…,”

Many governments are putting a lot of time and energy into regulating the content of social media. In a best case scenario, the policies that are eventually applied will aim at removing what is thought to be harmful or hateful. But there is also a clear Christian responsibility for self-regulation. As Christians we all have to find ways of processing what we read, watch, and listen to online. That means paying attention to what we ‘like’, the comments we make, the content we ourselves post, so that it’s neither harmful nor hateful. As a start I suggest regular reading of Psalm 1. It is about the company we keep, the ideas to which we give living space in our heads and hearts, how we speak and respond to others – remembering God, not Facebook, is our moderator!

Tuesday

Psalm 1.2 “…but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.”

The law of the Lord provided the conditions of God’s covenant relationship with his people. Loving obedience to God’s Torah (Instruction) would lead to a healthy community in which justice, honesty, fairness, mercy and kindness would flourish, and consequently so would the people. In our online world, at its worst populated by shameless self-promotion, avalanches of fake news, and anonymous nastiness, Christians living out the teaching of Jesus and the Gospel realities of the transforming Spirit of God, can be salt and light and agents of grace. Love faithfully contradicts hate, truthful words work at rebuilding trust, and habits of encouragement offer support to folk who are struggling. 

Wednesday

Psalm 1.3 “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.” 

A well irrigated tree stays healthy, fruitful and has deep roots. Likewise the person who delights in and meditates on ‘the law of the Lord.” And when that Scripture soaked mind applies itself to the keyboard or smartphone, those fruits become evident – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now that’s a set of filters that would revolutionise and regulate the content and impacts of social media!

Thursday

Psalm 1. 4 “Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.”

‘Wicked’ is a catch-all word that includes most of the ways we cause harm to others and to the world around us. The wicked have no interest in the common good, no felt obligation to care for others, use words as weapons and delight in anything that makes them bigger and others smaller, make up their own truth and couldn’t care less about the damage they cause around them so long as they are OK. They have no moral kernel, no grain of responsibility, no seed of goodness that contributes to a more just, kind and safe future. Christians cannot be keyboard warriors – we are called instead to “like and share” the teaching of Jesus and the hope of the Gospel!

Friday

Psalm 1.5 “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”

The wicked, those who undermine community, damage the social fabric, who are the enemies of compassion, for whom God is irrelevant and God’s ways are a nuisance, – they won’t have a leg to stand on. Like every sinner we all stand self-condemned by the way we have walked the way of our lives. But to have found Jesus as “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, is to be renewed, forgiven and given a ministry of reconciliation. As Christians we belong to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Our presence online, and in fact our behaviour wherever we are, becomes a sharing of our renewed true self as we are in Christ.

Saturday

Psalm 1.6 “For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”

This is the classic contrast. The narrow way and the broad way, the wise man and the foolish man, right and wrong, truth and lies, righteous and wicked. There’s no room here for smug complacency that we are the one or the other. Our calling is to live worthy of our calling, to “shine as stars in a dark universe”, to follow faithfully after Jesus – and in our time that includes our online presence. Be a star in the night sky of whatever online platform you use – and in whichever encounters and conversations make up your daily life in family, neighbourhood and church, and as you try to walk the way of the righteous, remember the Lord watches over you. 

Sunday

Philippians 4.8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

If Paul was writing that today he might change only that last phrase, and urge Christians living in the digital age – “post about such things”!

Monday

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept the folded grave-clothes where Thy body lay.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.

BY Monday morning the Easter eggs are on sale and the boom in chocolate sales is passed. But Easter is forever. Jesus is risen! Death is defeated! The best hymns push us back into Scripture, and this hymn picks up the detail in John’s Gospel of angels left looking after carefully folded grave clothes. In John, Jesus speaks of being glorified in his death, and rising again. Easter glory blazes with life, and grave clothes are now redundant. Christian faith is a resurrection faith in the living Lord!

Tuesday

Lo, Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb.
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
let the church with gladness hymns of triumph sing,
for her Lord now liveth; death hath lost its sting.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.

I’m not sure any other Easter hymn has a stronger line declaring Christian comfort and hope in the risen Lord. Christian faith is an encounter with the living, risen Lord Jesus in which we are made alive in Him by the power of the Spirit. The hymn imagines that meeting of human hearts with the loving Presence and life-giving power of the resurrected Lord. The risen Christ calls together a church, a fellowship of believers, a company of the committed, an incendiary fellowship, ignited and united in Christ.

Wednesday

No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life!
Life is naught without Thee; aid us in our strife;
make us more than conquerors, through Thy deathless love;
bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.

The One who scatters fear and gloom brings to every Christian heart a deepening assurance that establishes faith and overcomes doubt. The glorious Prince of Life makes each life worthwhile, gives to life purpose and meaning, so that compared to life in and with Christ, living for ourselves becomes mere existence. “Make us more than conquerors, through thy deathless love” is a one line prayer any time we are struggling. Because the resurrection of Jesus is about life, and a love that will never give up on us, that cannot be extinguished, and that will bring us safely home to God.

Thursday

Love’s redeeming work is done. Hallelujah!

Fought the fight, the battle won. Hallelujah!

Vain the stones, the watch, the seal. Hallelujah!

Christ hath burst the gates of hell. Hallelujah! 

The word triumphalist is often used negatively to rebuke those who over-celebrate, or who taunt the losers. Fair enough. But when it is death that is defeated, the grave that is outmanoeuvred, the murderous intent of a world’s sins being borne and overcome, then to quote our earlier hymn, “Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing, for her Lord now liveth, death has lost its sting!” Love’s redeeming work is fulfilled, completed. The world did its worst, and failed to silence the Word of Life. Even hell has no finality for its gates are burst, its locks broken.

Friday

King of glory! Soul of bliss! Hallelujah!

Everlasting life is this: Hallelujah!

Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Hallelujah

Thus to sing, and thus to love. Hallelujah

Wesley deliberately uses the longest word in the verse to convey its own meaning – everlasting. What is everlasting life now that we stand this side of the resurrection? First, to know Jesus in a personal relationship of trusting love. Second, to experience and rely on the power of the risen Jesus in the living of our own lives. Third, to rejoice and sing and live in the confidence that the world’s worst failed, and Christ has burst the gates of hell. Fourth, to love and serve the risen Lord, in grateful service, in glad obedience, and by loving as we have been loved.

Saturday

This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow.

My Love, the Crucified, has sprung to life this morrow.

Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst his three-day prison,

Our faith would be in vain, but now has Christ arisen!

This hymn deserves to be better known. Once again it pushes us into Scripture, this time Paul’s great argument about the resurrection as the central pillar of Christian hope. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile…But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…” (1 Cor. 15.17, 20) The fatal consequences of sin and sorrow, away with them! Christ has burst his three day prison, and life is set loose to redeem and save and keep those who believe and trust and receive the life of the risen Lord. Because the ground of all hope is established in that last line, “But now has Christ arisen!” The hymn celebrates the love of God in Christ, and the gift of life in Christ. Then there is the answering love of the repentant, grateful heart of each believer, gladly sung and spoken  – “My Love, the Crucified, has sprung to life this morrow.”  

Sunday

One with the Father, Ancient of Days
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with power and authority.

And we are raised with Him
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered
And we shall reign with Him
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead

“See what a morning” has become an Easter anthem for many of our churches. Some of its lines compare with the best hymn writers, making it hard to choose one verse. I chose the final verse because it sums up Easter and what an Easter way of living might look like. One or two spiritual writers make Easter into a verb – Eastering. It’s a way of describing the Christian life as a perpetual Easter journey, walking with Jesus the risen One, being raised with Him to newness of life. “And we are raised with Him, death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered.” That too can be a one line prayer in defiance of everything in our world that contradicts life and seeks to frustrate God’s redemptive purpose. A verb is a doing word, and Eastering is what Christians do! We are an Easter people, followers of the crucified and risen Lord.

Iona. I had never been there. It was one of those places I have had to imagine, so that Iona was an idea, not a place; at least not a place I knew by having been there and could revisit in memory. Yet I have read widely and sometimes deeply around the importance of Iona for Scottish history, culture and spirituality. 

George Macleod is one of the Scottish Christians I have admired most ever since I learned of him when I was a teenager still glowing in the aftermath of conversion to Christ. In that quite enclosed early Evangelical context, George Macleod was viewed with deep suspicion as a liberal to be avoided, not least because he was critical of the theology and practice of Billy Graham's form of evangelism.

But George Macleod was outspoken and actively protested against the creation, even the concept of nuclear weapons. He was one of the first notable Christians I had come across who applied his faith to the huge political issues of his time, and mine. I was wholeheartedly, almost instinctively with him in a shared revulsion that the fundaments of matter, the stuff of creation, was being exploited by military co-option towards indiscriminate destruction.

Which brings me back to Iona, and especially George Macleod. I have wanted to visit the abbey that was resurrected by the sheer thrawn persistence of George Macleod. The rebuilding of Iona Abbey was both a monumental achievement of one man's vision, and a process that gave birth to forms of Scottish spirituality that combine contemplative prayer, social activism, political protest, environmental care, and a prophetic and biblical tradition expressed in liturgy, hymn, music and art. Peace and justice lie at the heart of Iona's concern with and for the world. 

So on our recent visit to the West Coast, we spent a day on Iona, and in several occasional posts I will reflect on what I saw and felt, and discovered and rediscovered. The photograph is of the cross that is the theological core, and the theological engine that inspired and energised George Macleod as parish minister, and as founder of the Iona Community. He would have resisted being singled out, or being so dominant in the narrative that he got in the way of the real spiritual vision of Iona. So let me leave Lord Macleod of Fuinary to the side for now.

The forecast was rain with a following wind. The photograph shows why it is that Scottish west coast weather is not to be trusted. On a beautiful breezy and mostly blue sky day we sailed from Mull to Iona. There is no easy, quick, convenient way to reach Iona. That's as it should be for pilgrims. A pilgrimage was never meant to be an indulgent dawdle. We walked slowly, in company with others mostly unknown, up the brae towards the Abbey. I had seen programmes, read books, looked at photographs – the concrete reality was something else, both ordinary and extraordinary.

Ordinary because it is small, sits on a prominent raised setting, and is built in grey stone sympathetic to the surrounding landscape. Extraordinary because built in with those stones are the prayers and dreams, visions and activities, hopes and fears of generations of pilgrims who have come to this place for reasons of their own. And regularly all those inner longings are gathered and spoken in liturgy and song, and in prayer and action.

There's a small rocky hill fifty yards from the front door, from which you can look at the abbey and its entrance. I stood there, thankful and content that I had come. We all have our story, and carry within us memories and imaginings, longings and disappointments, our borne griefs and our heart-held gladness. This place called Iona is now part of that inner life.

As I was standing looking down at the other large stone cross dominating the entrance, I was aware that one of the reasons for my sense of spiritual affinity with George Macleod's political theology is my own experience of the cross as the place where I stand, theologically and existentially, head bowed in wonder. That other irascible Scottish theologian, P. T. Forsyth complained about the toil of mind and heart involved in theological writing about the cross of Christ: “Words are hard to stretch to the measure of eternal things without breaking under us somewhere.”       

So when words live up to their highest capacity to communicate our deepest experiences, they are still inadequate, but perhaps they are all that we have. Perhaps. Because there is always image, and place, and community, and all that can be conveyed by beauty, location, and relatedness to others. Iona facilitates that inner conversation with self and others, with the world around us and the Creator and Redeemer God who surrounds and pervades and besieges our lives. 

I'm writing this on Good Friday. Tonight I will lead the service, based on the the hymn "The Servant King." The key lines, according to Graham Kendrick, and supported by most who sing the hymn: 

Hands that flung stars into space,

to cruel nails surrendered.

This is our God, the servant king! 

Iona was a good place to prepare the heart for such taking, and blessing, and breaking, and sharing of the terrible and good news of Christ crucified. Because there is yet Saturday before Sunday. But Sunday is coming.  

Monday

Romans 5.1-2a “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

At the start of Holy Week, when we remember the surrender and suffering of Jesus, the Son of God, we start with peace, and grace. Christ is our peace, through the cross. We are justified, made right before God, by grace, through faith in Jesus. And through that faithful trust in the faithful Christ, we stand upon, and are surrounded by, and kneel before, the grace, mercy and peace of God. The death of Jesus is what makes that dreadful last week of Jesus’ life a Holy Week; and the resurrection of Jesus is what makes Easter the pivotal event in the history and future of the universe.  

Tuesday

Romans 5.2b-4 “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

No, Paul is not glorifying suffering, he is showing how out of and beyond the deepest and darkest suffering of Jesus, God has brought hope, life and joy. Christian character grows through resistance, struggle, and our own walk, following faithfully after Jesus, bearing the cross of Christian witness. During Holy Week, in mind and imagination, we each follow in the steps of Jesus, remembering the One through whose death and suffering we have come face to face with the grace of God, “in which we now stand.”

Wednesday

Romans 5.5 “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

“Emptied himself, of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race! Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God should’st die for me.” Our hearts are like buckets under Niagara! God’s love is an inexhaustible deluge of grace, experienced and known through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian heart. And all this rooted in eternal love, and revealed in human history at Bethlehem and Calvary, – and in a garden ‘just as the sun was rising’, – hope does not disappoint us!

Thursday

Romans 5.6 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

I’ve always paused in puzzlement that Christ accepted and walked the way to the place of powerlessness out of love for the powerless. Like every Christian since, Paul never found words adequate to that occasion. “The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” “He who knew no sin was made sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” “I am not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”  The power of God is seen in the weakness of Christ; the wisdom of God revealed in the foolishness of the cross.

Friday

Romans 5.7-8 “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

James Denney was one of Scotland’s greatest theologians of the cross. He once spoke of his envy of the Catholic priest with his crucifix. In a sermon he said he wanted to walk up and down the aisle with a crucifix, telling that Free Church congregation, “God loves like that!” Later in another sermon he wrote this: “What is revealed at the cross is redeeming love, and it is revealed as the last reality of the universe, the eternal truth of what God is…you wish to know the final truth about God; here it is, eternal love bearing sin’

Saturday

Romans 5.9-10 “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Holy Saturday is that liminal in-between time between death and life, darkness and light, Friday and Sunday. Today reflect on those contrasts and that phrase so reminiscent of Jesus in his teaching: “How much more.” Reconciliation is always costly, and the willingness to take the first steps, to persuade and negotiate with goodwill, sincerity and compassion for the one who is alienated – if we would find that hard, “how much more” for God. “He who did not spare his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, how will he not – along with him – freely give us all things?”

Sunday

Romans 5.11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Rejoice! Rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is the day of resurrection joy, and celebration of the reconciling love and power of God in Christ. As promised by the angels, “Peace on earth and good will to all the people.” And that word ‘now’ – reconciliation is in the present tense. Truly, hope does not disappoint us! Christ has died! Christ is risen! Hallelujah – “we have been saved through his life.”

Monday

Mark 10.44-5 “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

There are various ways we can understand power. One of the words I struggle to accept today is “influencer”. To be called, or to call one’s self an ‘influencer’ as our goal in life, raises all kinds of questions about what kind of influence we have. Is it for good or ill, for self-promotion or the benefit of others? The only valid way a Christian can be called an influencer is if their life reflects the way of Jesus. Imagine being an influencer whose way of being and life is about serving others out of love for God!

Tuesday

Romans 12.6,7,11 “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if service, in our serving…Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.”

Grace is given to all of us. We are each gifted by God with who we are, and what we are able to bring of blessing into the lives of others. Zeal is shorthand for motivation, emotional commitment, perseverance; being aglow with the Spirit is a visual image of energy and enthusiasm. Put them together and we have love, gratitude and obedience, a cluster of grace and responses that make it possible to “serve the Lord”.

Wednesday

1 Peter 4.10 “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

That last clause, “as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” Each of you is an inclusive you plural. It is the Christian community to which we belong which receives God’s grace in its various forms. Like a well-disciplined orchestra we are to be faithful stewards of our particular gift, skilled practitioners of whatever instrument we play, and alert and responsive to our part in the composer’s script. To be a faithful steward is to look after, take care, and perform well the gift God has given in creating, redeeming and commissioning us to perform in His service.

Thursday

2 Corinthians 4.6 “For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

God is Light. From the first day of Creation, God has commanded, “Let there be light!” From Creation to Calvary and beyond God has commanded, “Let light shine out of darkness.” The resurrection of Jesus was discovered ‘just as the sun was rising’. From that first discovery Christians have known the light of Christ blazing across creation and giving light and life into their own lives. In all our service to God we are merely enacting, performing, putting into practice, the light of Christ shining in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God made visible in Christ.

Friday

Colossians 3.17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Paul quite often makes these sweeping statements, big generalisations that are all inclusive. Whatever you do, spoken or enacted, do it ALL as if you’re doing it for Jesus – because you are! There’s no wriggle room, no convincing excuse, no get out clause. If Paul’s stylus could dig deep into the papyrus with bold, italic, underline and upper case then that’s how he would have written ALL! As it is, he is encouraging an all-inclusive gratitude that finds ways of expressing itself in loving service to the Lord.

Saturday

Ephesians 1.22-23 “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Now and again we can do with being reminded that being a member of Christ’s church is a big deal! When Paul says, “You are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it”, he is describing the organic connection between our lives and the life of the risen Lord Jesus. To be in Christ, and to know Christ in us the hope of glory, is to be held within the living community which by the Spirit is filled with the fullness of God. All week we have been thinking about what it means to serve in the name of the Lord Jesus. This verse describes the majesty and authority of the One we serve, in whom is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Sunday

1 Peter 2.9 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

What is the Church, and what is it for? This is as complete an answer as we need. Chosen is a call both to privilege and to service. Our purpose as the Church, and as individual Christians is to work out and speak out the good news of God’s love in Christ. Like stars in a dark universe, like a floodlit city, to make Christ known through the evidence of our service to God, doing all things to the glory of our Saviour. 

This prayer was written as part of a service based on the parable of the prodigal son – or the prodigal Father as I prefer to name it. Those days of humiliation and loneliness, that dangerous downward spiral of lostness – there are many who experience that, their own far country. This prayer is for some of them. 

Prayer for Those in the Far Country

Our Father, who waits with patient love and runs to meet us as soon as we turn to return to you, we pray for all those who today are feeling lost, unloved, unwanted, far away from the love and safety of a community.

Those whose lives have slowly broken down into loneliness and loss of love - May they discover the friendship and acceptance of Jesus and his followers, including us.

Those who no longer have a home and safe space in which to live - May they find welcome and support in the company of Jesus and his followers, including us.

Those who struggle against the inner anguish of depression loss of meaning and purpose in their life - May they recover hope and strength to go on because they are cared for, and looked after by those whose compassion, like God’s love, never gives up on them,

Those who are travelling in the far country of grief and loss, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar landscape of their life - May they know the strong comfort of faithful friends, the accompanying love of God who knows their sorrow and shares the burden of the days.

Father, we all know people who are struggling, who are in the far country, and who want to find their way back to a life of safety, community and welcome. God of compassion, we bring each of them into our minds and hearts, and so into the presence and reality of your grace, and peace and love in Christ.

May they each discover the outstretched arms of your welcome, and recover a new sense of their own place in your love, and in the communities of Jesus and his followers, here in this church, and in all the gathered communities of Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen

Monday

Psalm 4.1 “Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress, be merciful to me and hear my prayer.”

This is a Psalm for unsettled times, for when we are struggling with the way the world is. The psalm poet is right in there, telling his heart to God and demanding an answer. God is righteous and faithful, so the person praying assumes God is for all those who seek to live righteous and faithful lives in a world where that is difficult and costly. God’s response is immediate, even as the prayer is uttered God hears. This is a prayer for resilience under pressure, and wisdom to live well.

Tuesday

Psalm 4.2 “How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?”

What causes distress for the psalm poet is all the evidence pointing to a society where God is side-lined and replaced with more immediately satisfying life goals. God is whatever we can own, enjoy and control – except such things finally control us – false gods. To love delusions and seek false gods is to turn away from the source of life, and to spend life chasing after ‘emptiness’ or ‘delusions’. It is an inescapable cost and consequence of loving God to feel in our own hearts the insult to the glory and love of God that comes from God being ignored, mocked, or replaced with the false gods that promise much and deliver only emptiness.  

Wednesday

Psalm 4.3 “Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him.”

‘Godly’ is an old fashioned word these days. But it does give the strong hint that such a person thinks, lives, feels and acts with reference to God, and not to false gods! God has set apart the committed person, the one who stays faithful to the call and the commands of God. Godliness is a lifestyle, a following of Jesus that is a way of being; what Paul meant when he urged the Galatians ‘to keep in step with the Spirit.’ In the loud cacophony of competing voices claiming our allegiance, the Lord hears the cry of the heart, and every prayer of lament or praise, of trust and love. 

Thursday

Psalm 4.4-5 “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Offer right sacrifices, and trust in the Lord.”

Not all anger is sin. But if anger is allowed to simmer into resentment, or explode in abusive words, or distil down into despair, or corrode goodwill so that it turns to bitterness – then, yes, such anger is sin. I’m not sure lying in bed going over the things that disturb, trouble or upset us is good for us – unless that whole fankle of feelings, with its knots and messiness, is handed over to God because it’s beyond our patience and capacity to make everything right! And yes, I know that’s a tapestry illustration! In an upsetting world, the psalm poet is giving good advice on dealing with the inevitable emotional fallout – hand it over and trust God to sort it.

Friday

Psalm 4.6 “Many are asking, who can show us any good? Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.”

We are now in a culture and society where sensitive souls wonder at the way things are going. The marginalisation of God, the stampede for stuff, the looming threats to stability, peace and human flourishing daily foregrounded on 24/7 news outlets – can anyone show us, remind us, what goodness looks like? Yes, that’s exactly what Christian witness is. The light of God’s face in Jesus Christ, shining from the faces and hearts of Christians whose actions and words tell a different story. “Shine Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory, blaze Spirit, blaze, set our hearts on fire.”

Saturday

Psalm 4.7 “You have filled my heart with greater joy than when grain and new wine abound.”

Good harvests and a full wine cellar were signs of joy, security and God’s blessing in the world of our psalm poet. But there’s a greater joy than even these. Yes, even in an unsettling world, where are faced day and daily with dire news and a world breaking up in division, hostility, suspicion and fear, those who trust God hold within themselves, as a gift of grace and a sign of hope, the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Sorry. Long sentence. Please read it again!

Sunday

Psalm 4.8 “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Now there’s a verse to memorise, and say to ourselves just as we put the light out at the end of the day! Something is incongruous when it’s the last thing we would expect! Like this Psalm which started with a prayer “Give me relief from my distress” and ends with “I will lie down in peace.” How do these two things make sense at the same time? It’s those last words: “You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Those words stay true even when they are hard to believe – so sleep well. And if you don’t, remember – “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” God has your back.