Category: Uncategorised

A conversation recently veered backwards to what I used to do before I was a minister. Long time ago. Hardly seems relevant it was so long ago. But then I began to think about it. In the years between leaving school at 15 and starting as a minister I was a tractor driver (16 the legal age then), worked in a Clydeside tomato / bulb nursery, did two years as an electrical engineer, worked as a brick setter in a brickworks, two summers at Easterhouse social work dept as a debt advisor, and one or two other bits and pieces including house plant cultivation and greenhouse glass repairing!

The point is I learned stuff doing all these things, and what remains is a set of skills all these years later. I can still drive a 16 gear tractor, make a difference in any garden I'm let loose in, know a good brick when I see one, and have a deep sympathy and at times an angry solidarity with and on behalf of folk caught up in hopeless webs of debt. But more than residual skills, there's the hard to explain and harder to replace experience of finding out what I could do, what I was good at and not so good at. But also the sobering thought that a young and unskilled man with no educational qualifications managed to stay in work for 5 years to earn his way to University. Not sure what chances anyone has today of repeating that career trajectory. Had I needed to draw up a CV then, not sure there was enough relevant content to fill half a page – and much of what was relevant would hardly have encouraged an employer.

But I was given life-chances. There were life chances to be given, and I'm not sure when that will be said again with some confidence about young people who don''t make it in the more fiercely selective and streamlined walkways to a career in a post recession culture sinking beneath the weight of its own debt, and looking to throw overboard anyone unable to pay their way. It's a hard time to be young….or middle aged….or old. It's a hard time. And I'm increasingly impatient with the rhetoric of politics, economics, and social theory that suggests we are all going to have to bear the pain. I'm sorry. But pain is relative, and during a recession there is no equal distribution of financial hardship, no common levels of anxiety, no universal experience of having to choose between food and fuel. Not all of us will have to make that kind of choice – we may have to pay more, but we will manage with a bit of adjustment. Not so for everybody.

So my impatience extends to the church, and the lack of evidence for a new approach to missiology that borrows from Amos, the Lucan Beatitudes and the preferential option for the poor that is definitive of the Kingdom of God. Because wherever else Jesus of Nazareth might place his vote, it would certainly be on the side of those who are the easy targets, the marginal folk who are too easily deprived of social benefits rather than cost us more money in taxes. I just don't think an increase in VAT feels the same for me as it does for a single parent with several children and no full-time job, or an elderly person on a basic pension. The church's voice could do with being heard, and speaking with a Galilean accent.

So that conversation about what I used to do? The great thing was, there used to be things to do that you could be paid for. Now an entire generation of people with skills, training, education, and life hopes and plans, are encountering a world no longer congenial to their life plans, and where life chances have to be fought for, and with no guarantees. Now whatever else I think the Gospel of Jesus means, it has to have something to say not only to people who are struggling to hope, but something to say on behalf of those who struggle to hope, in the face of massive economic and social forces aligned on the side of the haves.

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I've always liked William Sloane Coffin's maxim (slipped into a comment on the Faith and Theology blog recently) as the description of good writing, a good conversation, and maybe even good preaching:

"Think thoughts that are as clear as possible, but no clearer; say things as simply as possible, but no simpler."

No need to enthuse, explain or review this classic of Christian faith as lived in the mid 20th Century. This is engaged theology, hammered out in the context of imprisonment and paradoxically composed out of a mind and soul insistent on freedom under the God  revealed in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Consequently, the academic and scholarly study of Bonhoeffer and its application to the ongoing experience of the Church into the 21st Century, continues to interrogate lesser theologies. Bonhoeffer's thought disturbs settled minds, contradicts received arguments, subverts easy or even hard won assumptions, and simply will not fit comfortably into categories of intellectual control.

Phrases like "world come of age" "religionless Christianity", "the church for others", "worldly transcendence", "who Jesus Christ actually is for us today", act like theological detonators setting off chain reactions of thought and energy that lead to surprising and often disconcerting reconfigurations of theological reflection. As De Gruchy says, these papers contain "theological explorations in a new key…". The new Fortress Edition, volume 8, is complete with Introduction and Afterword, Bibliography and Notes, and provides over 500 pages of Bonhoeffers letters and papers. It is a miracle of production, from the first lonely but determined writing out of a mind soaked in Scripture and prayed theology, to the process of smuggling and accumulating and later editing and publishing after Bonhoeffer's death, till now 60 years later, we have this definitive translation, edition and presentation of the distilled essence of a martyr theology, a theology of witness.

This will be a slow, reverential, and I don't doubt deeply affecting re-reading of one of those treasures of the church, the lasting impact of which we will only finally know when all the broken world is gathered again to the wholeness and hopefulness that Bonhoeffer himself did not live to see, but lived, and died, to point towards. One of the most important parts of the volume is the new translation of the prison poems. These are distilled essence of spiritual search, the legacy of Bonhoeffer's own wrestling in the night at the brook Jabbok. Reading them you can sense, even glimpse the lone figure of Bonhoeffer limping towards the sunrise. Some of these poems should only be read, perhaps, when we have learned the meaning of our own tears, accepted the cost of our own faithfulness in following after Christ, recognised in the deep places of the heart where trust is born, the quiet voice of the God who knows us, and enables us to say, "Whoever I am, thou knowest me: O God, I am thine!"

Been out of touch with other bloggers on my sideabr for a wee while. Which is probably why I have only just learned of the death of Olive Morgan from Rishard hall's Connexions. Olive blogged at Octomusings where she wrote with wit and wisdom about living Christianly in a complex world. Olive was 88 when she died, a committed Methodist, a peace campaigner and much else. There aren't many octogenarians out there blogging and arguing for a world more peaceful, more compassionate, less dangerous. Her last post was on "Ban the Bomblet", her approval of the Bill which bans the use of and the storage of cluster munitions. Her sharp enagagement with the world is a powerful argument against the unspoken but pervasive assumption in too many Christian circles, that the future of the church rests almost exclusively with the young people. The future rests with those who live faithfully in the present, look hopefully to the future, and learn wisely from the past. 

Last few days have been interesting as people have engaged in some conversation about diversity versus division, and the importance of distinctive traditions over and against the overall Christian tradition within which Christians stand. Over at Blethers Chris has been taking her own thoughts deeper into her own traditional territory, and with the usual commonsense caution about whether the church can now afford the luxury of diversification. There are dire predictions for the future of most denominations in Scotland, and past patterns of alignment may not survive the pressures of decline, marginalised influence, muted voice, unattractive ideas in a changed marketplace, and the sheer indifference of most Scottish people to the things Christians get all worked up about.

Happy to keep this conversation going if there are other viewpoints to be heard. Meanwhile there is marking to be done so the blog gets pushed down the urgent list to somewhere near maybe and perhaps if there's time!

I am a Baptist, which doesn't make me any better than any other Christian seeking to live faithfully for Christ within their own tradition. Nor does it guarantee that my theology is any more securely right or doctrinally orthodox than other Christian expressions of faith. And my spirituality, though grown in Baptist soil, is in fact a veritable cottage garden of colours and varieties planted from my own tradition and transplanted from others, and a mixture of overgrown abundance and well controlled tidiness. Nor does being a Baptist commit me to rubbishing, or challenging or choosing to be ignorant of other Christian traditions, expressions and ways of being the Church of Jesus Christ.

No, being a Baptist is an exercise in persuasive humility, acknowledging our limitations but also commending the peculiar perspectives we bring to Christian life and practice. Being a Baptist compels me to ask questions about the relations of church and state; to uphold religious liberty for all; to affirm the nature of faith as a personal response to Jesus that isn't only about what I believe, but has transformative power over character and patterns of behaviour; it compels also an embracing of life-shaping Gospel values such as peacemaking, reconciliation, community building and compassionate service.

Baptist identity is moving to the centre of our denominational thinking. That's why I am writing the disclaimers above. There is all the difference in the world between a denomination so insecure that it bangs on about its own rightness; and a denomination that values who it is and was called to be under Christ, and doesn't have to undervalue other traditions to do so. Where all this will take us I don't know. For myself, I long for a rediscovery of Christian existence shaped by the core Baptist affirmation that "The Lord Jesus Christ our God and Saviour is the sole and absolute Authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures". When the Sermon on the Mount has the same purchase on our thinking and living as Paul's Romans; when the parables are as life-shaping as the epistles; when the example and teaching, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus are seen as the treasured truths of a faith that lives only by that name, Jesus Christ. If that is secured, most other things are too.

There are important people in our world who don't get all the rewards of big salary, career prospects, noticed by the so called movers and shakers, often don't even get noticed. So today is noticing day. One of them is the woman who cleans our College. The great thing about the College being on the campus is the interaction with a whole slice of human life the churches seldom if ever get near, or go near, or it seems at times, want to. At one of the cafes, in the library, along the corridors, up the High Street and random places in between all these, there are folk just getting on with their lives, and in their work helping us all get on with ours.

So our cleaning person ( we use gender neutral as the default discourse here 🙂 is here before me and I get in a wee tad early myself. We take time to chat and laugh and complain and grump, then she gets on with making the world cleaner and I get on with making the world…..well, making the world what?

This cleaner isn't content with the hoover, the jay-cloth and the mop. She washes our mugs; she puts on the kettle; she makes sure there's milk in the fridge cos she knows theologians are a bit otherworldly, and though they may demythologise the land of milk and honey, they soon discover the benefits of a land (or at least a fridge) where at least there is non-mythological milk – provided by the grace and goodness of someone else.

Ecclesiasticus has this wonderful litany of praise for workers – and at the end, when the ploughman and the blacksmith, the carpenter and the metalworker, the potter and the vine dresser, have all been commended for their part in the shaping and making of the world, there are the lovely lines: "All these maintain the fabric of the world, and their prayers are in the work of their hands." Quite so. And that clean mug every morning, the boiled kettle, the conversation that sets the world right, and the milk in  the fridge – tell me they aint sacraments…..

Yesterday I wrote about the durable, faithful Love of God. It would be way too easy to sentimentalise the love of God, unintentionally reduce it to indulgent complacency, describe it with fatal inaccuracy as if it were a celestial flavour of niceness, or mistake it for an anodyne affection lacking the pain of passionate longing. Some of the greatest theology ever written struggles and strains within the limits of meaning to say what the love of God is, or is not. It's an area where I don't want to be dogmatic, but often end up being so! Some of the greatest religious poetry has also explored the ranges of of far distant meaning, or ransacked all the available semantic domains, or has continuously conceived conceited concepts…. 

(I know, just let my own wee conceit pass without comment:)

So when I discover a few lines of prose or poetry that backs up my own dogmatic tendencies, or subverts my equally dogmatic certainties, I copy it, think about it, interrogate it, – even let it interrogate me. One such attempted definition has been in my commonplace book ever since I read it in a poetry anthology years ago. Over the years it has broken down into the diverse butv fertile compost out of which grows my theological life and thought. I share it not because it is the last word, but because it is at least the first word.

Love ever gives, forgive, outlives,

And ever stands with open hands.

And while it lives, it gives.

For this is love's prerogative:

To give – and give – and give.

John Oxenham

I've been doing a lot of thinking about prayer recently. Truth is, I've been doing a lot of praying recently. No. I hope I'm not turning into one of those spiritual show-offs Jesus had a dig at. There's nothing all that worthy or praiseworthy about doing a bit more praying than usual. Mind you it depends how you define prayer.

Driving in the car and looking across at the Mearns Hills at sunrise, sky and mountain playing out a visual symphony of God's beauty

listening to Lesley Garrett singing the Celtic prayer "Deep Peace of the running wave to you" at a volume that is just this side of what I think the sopranos in the heavenly choir might reach

jumping on a trampoline with an enthusiastically joyful young friend whose skill on the bounce is way beyond me, and not sure whether I'm praying for safety, strength or energy to go on enjoying it, but realising too that I can now see over a neighbour's high hedge in defiance of my unaided height

hearing a student talk about the gains and changes experienced in her two years in College, and sharing that with the College community as the gift of encouragement it surely is

unexpectedly meeting a friend at Baxter's Aucheterarder, out for a day trip and attacking a very large strawberry tart with a relish that made us both forget how hard life has become for her

These and much more are times of prayer without ever having been planned as such. They are moments of recognition; interruptions, even eruptions of grace into ordinary life; intimations of God's presence that are quiet, yet unmistakably fluent with significance.

But I mean more than that. A number of special people in my life are having to walk a hard road just now. Big decisions that will affect future plans; health crises that affect them or those they love; hurts and wounds that diminish the spirit and need gentle, strong, patient and faithful companionship to recover a sense of life's worth-whileness; uncertainty and long term worry about job, life-chances and coping with a world that becomes daily less humane; anxiety about family as parents grow older, more vulnerable; elderly folk, like my strawberry tart connoiseur above, living bravely with diminishing freedom and capacity.

It isn't always easy to know what to pray for each of those people whose lives enrich ours and whose hard times we willingly share.
So as I pray, I sometimes use my holding cross, a gift from a friend, and the hand clasped around it becomes something less than words, and yet more than words.
Other times I hold a small heavy pewter dove in flight, inscribed "Live by the Spirit", another treasured gift from a friend which invariably lifts the heart to trust again to the God of new possibilities. And the Rublev Icon above, a masterpiece of theological imagination, drawing me into the circle of love and mutual recognition that is the life of the Triune God. Because whatever else I pray for these my friends, I pray that they may know the grace of Christ, the love of God and the companionship of the Spirit.

And so as I pray for these my friends, I walk with them on their hard road. And because I care for them, their journey becomes my hard road too. And yet. Walking together it becomes clear that the shared journey means we are fellow travellers, and at different times we each walk the hard path – and we give and receive, love and support, pray and care, for each other. I think it's the way God meant it to be – because in the economics of grace-filled friendship, we can never give more than we receive. The blessing is in the giving, and in the receiving, and maybe that's what intercessory prayer really is. The practical, actual, living accompaniment of others and finding that in the exchanges of loving action, even in the dark terrain, God is present, and we are drawn into that circle and cycle of generosity we call grace.

Love ever gives, forgives,
outlives:

And ever stands with open hands.

And while it lives. It gives.

For this is love's prerogative:

To give–and give–and give.

After a conversation with a very patient and courteous support team worker,somewhere on the other side of the world, my broadband is now live and I can get back to doing the things that have been hard to do these past weeks. Email, blog, research, browsing, and the many other time saving and time wasting ways of being online.

From the start I have wanted this blog to be updated and maintained on an almost daily basis, so that regular callers and new visitors are given something to think about, smile about, maybe even get passionate about. The hiatus has been frustrating and I hope over the next few weeks to get back into good habits. Strangely I can't say I have lots of ideas that have accumulated over those weeks – probably because I tend to enjoy the spontaneous rather than the scheduled.

Meantime, thanks to those who kept faith, kept in touch, and trusted my promises to return to literary ways as soon as possible.