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Today was a busy day with several appointments to see people, do stuff and have stuff done to me. Coming out of the doctor's surgery facing me was a ridiculously blue sky and two trees that looked made for such an azure background. And not 50 metres from Tesco's car park!

 

My day also took me down to the University and King's College. On a frosty sunny morning it's difficult to believe that this is a modern University campus, so I sat in the quad for some minutes, chilled but cheerful, and watched the world amble past slowly. I love the old crown on the chapel, and in the sunlight it looked its best. Then a cappucino to go, a walk up the high Street, and an impulse buy of three books for the price of two. Work done, folk met, several important conversations, and then tonight five a side football, that spiritual stress buster in which there is an entire absence of the fruit of the Spirit!.

I recently had to write something on the pastoral theology and practices of the Early Church Fathers. Much of what they thought, wrote, did and understood now seems strange, from another world, unenlightened in the view of post enlightenment minds! And yet.

The pastoral heart is evident in
many of the Church Fathers. The inevitable tensions between compassion and discipline, the intellectual and spiritual wrestling over the relationship between the life of grace, the struggle with sin, the holiness and mystery of the Triune God, and the nature of prayer, worship and Christian living as the proper response to the love of God in Christ.Their primary goal and foundational value was
growth in the love of God, towards the perfect love of God and all inclusive love of neighbour.

The route to this love was a
long training, an instilling of spiritual disciplines to train the personality
in the fruits of the spirit, to educate the soul in self-critical ethical
scrutiny, to co-operate with God in the restoring of the image of God, which
though marred remains the defining truth of every human being. To be made in
God’s image is to be able to know God choose the good and learn to love – it is
to have the capax dei, to train the passions by spiritual discipline in
order to love God with that balance of mind, heart strength and will.

Reading some of the Fathers today is an exercise in strangeness, but sometimes that's what a church which is now overfamiliar with God needs; and a church confident of the can do approach to theology can be reminded that living for God isn't about our can do, but about God's enabling grace; and a humbling corrective to theological and pastoral practitioners, that in the end we are all unprofitable servants, and what we seek to practice is a life rooted and grounded in the eternal love of the Triune God, seeking to know and make known the love that is beyond knowledge.

So we ignore the Fathers to our
loss. In the history of the cure of souls they had their own spiritual
psychology, their unique sense of the sacred, a profound sensitivity about sin
but matched by a diamond edged view of grace sufficient to cut and shape
character towards Christlikeness.

Looking for a poem online ( because my own collection of Elizabeth Jennings' poems is at home) I Googled the line "Forgiveness – the word we live by". Still the mighty Google couldn't give me the poem I want. So it made a polite suggestion that maybe I meant something else. "Did you mean 'Forgiveness – the world we live by'?"

Oh well, yes! And no. But Oh my Lord, Yes! The insertion of one letter magnifies the entire idea of forgiveness into one that has global consequences, worldwide opportunities to begin again, intimations that at last, spears might yet become pruning hooks.

So I said the Lord's Prayer in the Office this morning ( the prayer cycle not my College study – though I say the Lord's Prayer there too) with knowing smirk at the subversion of that word, 'forgive', its potential to change a world, whether my inner world of resentments and walls of remembered hurt, or that big world out there where Gaza, Israel, Syria, Afghanistan, and  any other elsewhere where dividing walls of hostility still contradict the peace made by the blood of the cross. 

Your will be done…our daily bread…as we forgive our debtors….deliver us from evil….for thine is the kingdom, and your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. No wonder that prayer holds countless gigabytes of the truths and realities by which the world lives.

Forgiveness – the word we live by. Forgiveness – the world we live by. So that forgiveness isn't the occasional giving in to our better nature and letting go the odd grudge – it is a way of life, and the way to life.

The photo is from Minsteracres Retreat Centre – "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself."

I spent the last couple of days at Minsteracres Retreat Centre near Consett at the second Annual Convocation of the Order of Baptist Ministry. It came at an awkward time for me, half way through Semester but I wanted to be there to explore and discuss the purpose and motivation for such an Order. The members of the Order can explain best what it is all about, and why this particular way of following faithfully after Christ in ministry has commended itself as a significant expression of pastoral spirituality today.

The background and the plans for the future are explained here.

The climax of the time together was when a number of members took vows and entered the novitiate, a way of exploring if this way of ministry is right for them. This was both solemn and informal, taking place within a communion service, and affirmed and supported by others who were there. One of the strengths of the Order is the Daily Office – you can see the text for these on the website, and you are free to experiment and try them for yourself. I now use them and try to be faithful in observing the Office, in fellowship with others.

I guess I have some questions and hesitations, but I also find something compelling and attractive and urgent about a group who wish to root their ministry in the spirituality of a Daily Office, to journey in the supportive company of fellow travellers, and to explore for themselves a contemplative and attentive approach to ministry that is resourced from the wide and cathholic tradition of Christian theology and spirituality. I am both a critical and sympathetic friend, but the word critical is not in any sense negative or carping. It is encouraging and curious, humbly inquisitive and gently excited by the fusion of Baptist ministry with contemplative reflection, and the combination of Daily Office and spiritual welcome to insight and nourishment from across the Christian traditions.

I met up with people I love and respect as friends of some time, and others I hadn't met before who were immediately friendly and welcoming. I came away with food for thought, and with a spirit already nourished by the food of shared vision, hopes and struggle. It was a good time.

The self portrait was taken standing inside concave steel mirrors – I took the photo:) 

 

 

 

"The doctrine of the Trinity declares –

and that is the point it stands up for on its fighting front –

that and how far

He who reveals Himself to man according to the witness of Scripture

can be our God,

that and how far

He can be our God."

 

 

Like a compacted gem of enigmatic Zen poetry, Barth pursues the truth of the Trinitarian love of God, aware he will never find, and even if he could would never find the words, to adequately explain, extol or adore the mystery. But mystery or not, Barth has unabashed confidence that this God of love and mystery, of distance and nearness, of transcendent power and inexhaustible love, this God is for us.

And this Lord can be our God,

He can meet us and unite us to Himself

because He is God in these thrtee modes of existence

as Father, Son and Spirit,

because creation, reconciliation, redemption,

the entire being, language and action,

in which he wills to be our God,

is grounded and typified in His own essence,

in His goodness itself."

(Quoted from German original in Karl Barth,  David Mueller, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1972, page 69)

Nobody does it better!

 

 

 

 

Autumn is a season of mixed emotions, the beauty of warm colours sharpened or softened by sunlight, the sense that the trees are bleeding out the remainder of this year's vitality, and can no longer hide the obvious signs of fading glory, life retreating to replenish, leaves falling as they inevitably do and of biological necessity must. Poets and artists, novelists and naturalists have all written about the gentle melancholy of Autumn, the combination of regret and relief as life moves on and a new cycle begins.

Earlier today I sat looking out at the trees, now passed their best colours and semi-naked following the high winds, and listened to Vivaldi's Autumn. Gentle melancholy set to music. Early this morning I took this photo, of two leaves lying in the gutter beside my car, frosted but the sun beginning to melt the crystals. The amazing complexity of a leaf, its skeleton becoming visible, one of thousands of leaves that ensure the tree lives and grows and fruits; and the equally astonishing architecture of ice crystals; together they provide no conclusive evidence of the existence of God, nor require the assumption of a Creator.

But once recognise in our encounter with the Divine, the Love that creates and sustains, that gives richness and diversity out of a nature infinitely and eternally giving, and the vast intricacies of our universe and the micro-miracles at our feet and in the gutter, become not clues to a possibility, but glimpses of a reality beyond the controlling reach of our intellectual categories.

The other moment of significance was on the way back from Banchory, I slowed down to let a red squirrel cross the road safely. Rare beautiful little animals, and against the golden sunlight and amber leaves, a joy to behold.

Muriel Lester

“The day should begin by focusing on God as

     shining beauty,

          radiant Joy,

               creative power,

                    all-pervading love,

                         perfect
understanding,

                              purity and peace.”

We spent some time today in class finding out about this remarkable woman. 

This website gives you a good summary –
deatspeace.tripod.com/muriel.html

Once a week I play five a side football for an hour.

We play for fun, fitness and nobody needs to get hurt

There was a time when I was quite good at football, so also an exercise in nostalgia.

I watch Match of the Day, pre-recorded so I can fast forward the post mortem pundits.

But recently football has gotten too big for its boots.

Beautiful has become ugly, fun turns to fury, cheating is the new professional skill, money talks but mostly it spouts spite, and celebrity egos grow like giant hogweed, which is poisonous.

1. Global coverage of accusations and counter accusations of racism,
2. controversies about diving and simulating and cheating,
3. the crowd psychology of abuse rising at times to levels measured in units of hatred, 
4. levels of club indebtedness or billionaire subsidy that work on the economics of another planet,
5. expectations that match officials are omniscient, omnipresent and emotionless robots,
6. player celebrity status that achieves the rare combination of self-parodying silliness and ludicrous self importance.

These are only a few of the malignant prodigy growing inside a game ironically called the beautiful game.

A Christian critique of this cultural unwellness would provide considerable even formidable evidence of how far such a cultural phenomenon is from the Kingdom of God and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

No. Don't laugh. 

There's a research paper waiting to be written on values such as

1. meekness, peacemaking, and thirsting for the rightness of things
2. walking second miles,
3. not murdering others in our heart,
4. learning the meaning of standard of living from birds and flowers,
5. giving thanks for bread enough for today,
6. the lifegiving possibilities of forgiveness,
7. prayer as the daily recognition we are not the centre of the universe, even  our own inner universe.

Maybe I'll get to it. If football mirrors realities in our culture, such an analysis might show us some missiological open goals

For now – read the sensible, sane, humane and clear-eyed blogpost on the link below. It comes from a Eurosport reporter and it says of Premier League football – 'The Unhappiest Place in the World."

It combines social analysis, cultural critique, basic ethics of community life, informed reflection, and the honest way of seeing that notices the Emperor id naked.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/armchair-pundit/unhappiest-place-earth-161812042.html

I park my car in my designated space in the University Car Park.

It is 7.30 am and a cold drizzly day.

Crisp autumn leaves now a layer of mashed soggy brown.

The car park is on a steep slope.

For breakfast I have an intentionally healthy combination.

It includes a banana and a large red apple.

As I get out the car I fumble with the keys and drop the apple.

It rolls under the car and determinedly down the hill, gathering pace.

By the time I get round the car it is bouncing its way towards the rhodedendron bushes.

Dilemma One – do I pursue an apple downhill handicapped by manbag and half put on jacket?

If I do I will be on security CCTV, – and the apple has now disappeared under a bush.

Dilemma Two  – should I now ferret around in the bushes while also on CCTV?

So I reluctantly relinquish half my breakfast.

Existential Question – why couldn't it have been the banana I dropped??

Theological Reflection – what is it about apples, human frailty and a fallen world that frustrates our good intentions?

Thought for the Day – Was I meant to have a bacon roll instead?

Just because something is overstated doesn't make it wrong. I'm readinjg a book which sometimes overstates, generalises and makes claims that need some qualifying. But it is a good book, written by a genuinely interesting and thoughtful pastor. David Hansen's The Art of Pastoring is being read by our Pastoral Care class, and it is all the things a good text book should be – accessible, written out of experience, and sufficiently self deprecating for readers to feel they are learning from a fellow traveller rather than deferring to an expert.

The sub title is Ministry Without All the Answers, and throughout the book there is a refreshing acceptance that much of ministry is ad hoc, instinctive, gift and opportunity, serendipity subverting strategy, a way of being that leads to certain actions and activities – but all such activity governed by who it is done for, Jesus Christ.

So, here is an overstatement – "…time management is the new eschatology. Theology's venerable "already and not yet" has become "what needs to be done today and what can be left till tomorrow". Earlier Hansen had a go at "How to" books on pastoral tasks, and warned, "pastoral ministry is a life, not a technology." By which he means a way of being rather than a set of practical and relational skills. What he is after is a view of ministry that is not trend driven, task driven, or identity conferring. Then he says something not so much overstated as often overlooked – "The pastor as a parable of Jesus Christ" (p.11). 

Balance in ministry is both doing and being, who we are influencing and motivating what we do. It is not mere technique, but neither is it mere trial and error, accidental or incidental. It is a rich and unpredictable mixture of many things, including careful planning, alert adaptability, contemplative reflection, imaginative compassion, spiritual instinct for the significant, attuned listening to others, discipline and organisation balanced with intuitive and subversive openness to change.

Time management need not be the division of the day into quarter hours and each one accounted for – though John Wesley in his own neurotic self-censorship did indeed keep account of such micro-managed life. Nor should ministry be measured bytasks completed, boxes ticked, or skills demonstrated. Like all good books on pastoral theololgy, Hansen's book is a refreshing corrective, and a very good guilt reducing tonic. His key insight, that the pastor is a parable of Jesus Christ informs the whole book. Hansen is obviously not afdraid of the tough theology either – he quotes Eberhard Jungel, "This christological statement is to be regarded as the fundamental proposition  of a hermeneutic of the speakability of God." Ehh…Quite!

Hansen explains, "If Jesus is the parable of God and preaching the story of Jesus brings God to people, if we live our lives following Jesus, maybe our lives canb bring Jesus to people. Maybe we can be parables of Jesus." (p.24) Jesus is the Word of God, God articulated in human life and personality, the Word become flesh. Hansen is arguing for an incarnational ministry in which Jesus is glimpsed, explicated, demonstrated, not in the fullness of the glory beheld in the Word full of grace and truth, but in the much more limited, but no less graced life of following Jesus in the service of the Kingdom of God. As Jesus is the exegete of God, the pastor is called to be exegete of Jesus, His Way, His Truith and His Life.

We await the class discussion.