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Weekly Pastoral Letter for our church in Montrose:

written the day of the Elections to the Scottish Parliament

I am writing this just as the polling stations are about to open. You will be reading it before the final Scottish results are announced some time on Saturday. Campaigning is finished, the promises are made, the policies are stated. An ocean of words and a forest or two of paper have been used to persuade, warn, promise, criticise, and even scare us into voting for ‘us, not them’. And perhaps that’s the point really. We are presented with a them-or-us mentality, reinforced by political arguments and competing visions of what is best for us, our families and our country.

Words are so powerful. Strap lines and sound-bytes, slogans and dog-whistles, truth and lies, fairness and prejudice, promises and trust; words can unite or divide, give hope or increase despair, encourage understanding or fuel anger. In our own country of Scotland we are deeply divided about how we see the future, how we navigate the present, and how we understand our past.

As Christians we are citizens of heaven. That comes first and last, because our allegiance is to the One who is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. For us the most important events of the past took place in Bethlehem, Calvary and a tomb in a garden. Likewise, the future we envision has Christ at the centre, the one we call Lord and whose coming we await. And as for the present, we pray every day, regardless of who forms the Government, “Hallowed be your name; your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Politics is about power. Who has power, who is in power, how power is used. Whoever is Prime Minister, First Minister, or President, Christians are citizens of heaven, and our first allegiance is to the one we call Lord, the crucified and risen Christ. The Lord’s Prayer is precisely that, the prayer taught to us by the one we call Lord, who claims, and shall have our allegiance.

So however we have voted, and whoever forms the next Government, we are still called to follow faithfully after Christ As agents of the Kingdom of God we will live our daily lives for Christ as individuals, and as part of a country and community, where we are sent as salt to season, as light to shine, as messengers of love and peace and hope, and as ambassadors of Christ.

“Jesus is Lord” is for Christians not a political slogan, but a confession of faith, a cry of worship, and a statement of intent about how we will live our lives. Christ calls us to a radical obedience to his way of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace-making and compassionate service to all who are our neighbours.

Political elections come and go. I’ve never been all that impressed by the cynical observation that an election is nothing more than one lot of sinners out and another lot of sinners in. Our responsibilities under God are deeper and too important to buy into such cynicism. Rather, we are citizens of Heaven, living in Scotland in the here and now. We bring to the life around us different values, a different vision of human community, a commitment to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.

That has consequences. Every time we hear exaggerated promises, divisive rhetoric, dishonest claims, distorted statistics and power plays of those aspiring to political power, it is time for a reality check.

We are called to hear the sound of a different voice, the One who says it is truth that sets us free, and it is service that brings greatness.

We will be reminded by the prompting of the Holy Spirit of Truth that every word we speak is overheard by God. And as for the daily lives we lead, we will remember that peace-making is the family trait of the children of God.

We will go on believing that the love of God in Christ is the benchmark of our behaviour, and that we are ministers of reconciliation in a world with far too many divisions already for us to add to them.

In our prayers and actions, our attitudes and decisions, may we be good citizens of Scotland because good citizens of Heaven,

“He has shown you, every one of you, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6.8

Creator God, thank you for the goodness of your creation,

for the fruit of the earth, human work and skill,

and for food and home, clothes and comfort.

Lord God, when we come to worship you,

what else can we bring but ourselves?

We come not because we are worthy,

but because you are worthy – of our praise.

 

And so we come to praise and pray

and to be changed by your Holy Spirit.

We come to worship,

and then to go out into your world in your peace,

and by your grace, to live the life of Christ within us.

 

God of justice and what is right, help us to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Teach us to care about justice in our world, our country, and our town.

Help us to care enough to do something about it

when people are struggling – and we can help.

 

Lord of compassion, you are merciful and kind,

and you call us to be the same.

Give us eyes that look for and find opportunities

to make a difference in other people’s lives.

 

Lord we have a lot to be humble about,

especially in the place of worship.

In our daily lives we depend on your grace,

and trust in your goodness and mercy.

Keep us humble in heart and mind.

 

God of justice, make us a people hungry for justice for ourselves and for others

God of mercy, so fill us and surprise us with your love that

we cannot contain it and your love overflows in deeds of kindness to others.

God of humble love, who in Christ came amongst us

to live human life as you intended,

humble us in gratitude, love and service.

 

All this we ask, so that our worship may be real and true,

and so become acceptable in your sight.  AMEN

This Week's Pastoral Letter for our folk in Montrose.

In Germany in the late 1930’s a young pastor called Dietrich Bonhoeffer became involved in training other young pastors. But this was to be a very different theological seminary, and a very different kind of pastoral training. With the rise of Nazism, the German Church came more and more under the control of the National Socialist Government. The swastika flag was to be hung in churches, an oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer to be sworn, church youth groups were subsumed into the Hitler youth activities and even what was preached was increasingly censored and directed towards pro-Hitler propaganda.

There was an increasing threat to Jewish citizens, and a growing menace towards synagogues, Jewish businesses and families. Those who resisted all of this organised themselves and formed the Confessing Church. They were forbidden to train pastors for their churches, but Bonhoeffer was put in charge of a secret theological seminary in Finkenwalde. It was there that Bonhoeffer wrote one of the most powerful Christian books of the 20^th Century. Translated into English it was called The Cost of Discipleship. It has never been out of print since.

The thing about Bonhoeffer and his book is, his writing still speaks with deep power today. Teaching young pastors in secret, risking his freedom, and ultimately his life, Bonhoeffer understood the importance of formation. Every day he taught the disciplines of Christian living that enable Christian faithfulness: prayers of intercession, deep reading of Scripture, worship together, love as humble service, standing up for justice, and speaking truth to power. Against the Nazi ideology of power, force and divisive prejudice, Bonhoeffer trained pastors in service to Christ, love as generous self-giving and community building centred on Christ.

In a world like our own, those same social forces swirl around us; love of power, hanging loose to the truth, free for all greed to acquire and possess, social divisions of ‘them’ and ‘us’. For Christians seeking to faithfully follow after Jesus, Bonhoeffer’s words still speak. They are worth pondering:

“Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it?…Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know that it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. Discipleship is joy.”  

Yes, you read that right. Discipleship is joy. What it must have been like to hear such words spoken? For young men in training for ministry, in a secret seminary, knowing that soon they would be pastors of congregations many of which would meet in secret, and under threat of imprisonment, and later for many of them, death. Discipleship is joy.

Over this past year the big theme amongst Christians has been hope. Our need to be a hopeful people, to be communities of faith and love that bring a message of hope to a troubled, anxious world. And that has been right. But there is something deeply subversive about those words of Bonhoeffer, “Discipleship is joy.” Following Jesus might be hard, costly, and at least inconvenient. It will certainly mean that we are out of step with much that is the expected norm in a society fixated on material security and possessions, and where life satisfaction is linked to connectivity, social media presence, even entertainment as escape from the harder truths of life.

But the follower of Jesus, the Christian believer, is a citizen of another world. Our deepest joy is not personal freedom, accumulating money and things, the status and rewards of our job. It is to follow the path of mercy beyond measure. It is to love God who first loved us. Joy is the deep fulfilment of knowing that how we are living our lives is pleasing to God, and in grateful obedience to our Saviour.

The joy of discipleship, of taking up our cross and following Jesus, mirrors what Jesus himself did: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12.2)

The restrictions of the past year have been a downward drag on much that we often enjoy. Meetings with friends wherever and whenever; not allowed except under strict conditions. Going shopping without a care about who is near us, what we touch or what we wear; now it's face mask, distancing and hand sanitiser. 

We all find our ways to cope. For me it has been walking with a camera. The aim is not to be fussy, or pretend professional, and not to overthink it. Just click, and see what happens. The results are always mixed. I delete more than I keep.

But occasionally an image announces itself. I mean that. When you're not looking around for what to photograph, suddenly you notice, your attention is apprehended, what you hadn't realised was there suddenly speaks. 

The other day walking on a now familiar path, scarred deeply by huge machinery tracks which had filled with rain water, I looked down and saw my own reflection. Then I stepped back far enough to remove my face and looked at the trees and sky reflected with astonishing clarity. The resulting photo is joyfully ambiguous. Is it trees on a steep hillside, or a blue sky reflection of trees in peat dark water? Use your imagination. It's either, or both.

One of the most difficult to process parts of this past year's experience has been relentless sameness. It's the tethered goat syndrome; unless the rope attached to the pole has a loop, the goat eats its way round and the rope gets shorter and shorter. Sometimes it has felt like that, walking the same paths and pavements, unable to travel beyond whatever 'local' is, no shared hospitality in our homes, and we can each add to this list of limited horizons and confined perspectives.

And then a photo reminds me that how we see life might change what we see. Different perspectives – pines on a steep mountainside as a gift from a puddle. A gift from whom? I choose to believe that this wonderful world we walk through is itself a gift, the outflowing love of the Creator God. And every now and again I have been apprehended, arrested in a non-threatening way, by unexpected insight, a glimpse of alternative ways of seeing, a helpfully unsettling nudge that awakens us from boredom and sameness. 

Augustine's words are true enough, as far as they go. "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." But there is that in the ways of God that disturbs a too easy rest, and triggers a healthy discontent with sameness. Sometimes restlessness is the stirring of something new, a gift of urgency to look again and see new possibility. The photo of the pines in the puddle is infinitely more significant for the absence of my face! Looking at myself looking back at me from a puddle is itself a powerful image of self-absorption, and of that niggling thought we all entertain that the world should dance to our tune, serve our personal agenda, and make allowances for my hopes.

Instead, step back, and look again at the world. Those pine trees on a mountainside, that blue sky looking back up at you instead of you looking up at it! In those moments of discovery – can we call them revelation? – I sense the quiet movement of the Spirit of God creating newness, opening eyes, changing perceptions, replenishing hope. "…and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit." Aye, that! 

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…”

This Psalm sets the tone for the whole book of Psalms. And it starts with a Beatitude. To be blessed is to walk with God, to know God’s company in daily life, to be on God’s side of holiness, justice, mercy and peace. Our culture measures success differently, but for the Psalmist the true measure of life is the blessing of God

Tuesday

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…”

Who do you walk in step with? Whose company do you keep? Important, life changing questions. In the choice between reverence for God and mockery, where do we sit? This first verse is a three times warning. Beware the places and the company, the behaviour and the words, of those who would be embarrassed if your friend Jesus was there!    

Wednesday

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

Delight isn’t a word we use a lot these days. The Psalmist used it often – here’s another time from Psalm 37: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” Delight is when you are doing what matters most, with the One who matters most.

Thursday

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 tree beside a river has an inexhaustible supply of water, nourishment and life giving resources. To delight in the Scriptures, and to live by them, hold them in the heart and mind, that too is to stay near the streams of living water. A Bible guided life bears the fruit of true worship, fruitful living, and all year round human flourishing in justice, mercy and neighbourly love.

Friday

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

The Psalm is an exercise in contrasts between being blessed and being lost, reverence and mockery, law and disobedience, the righteous and the wicked. The contrast is between flourishing and withering, being a seed kernel or disposable chaff. Blessed are those who delight in the law of the Lord, think about it constantly, and allow the Lord to lead and guide us on the journey of our lives.

Saturday

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

To stand is to have a firm foundation. This verse is about integrity of character, a track record of righteous obedience to God in our way of life. We don’t have our own righteousness, we are righteous in Christ, saved by grace through faith. We are not accepted by our good works, but having been accepted in Christ, we are called to righteous living. Ephesians 1.10 – "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Sunday

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

So here is the final contrast. Jesus closed the Sermon on the Mount with the same choices – the narrow way and the broad way, the house on rock or the house on sand. Psalm 1 invites us to walk with God, to live by faith and trust in the righteousness of Christ, to practice the way of Jesus, following after him. The alternative leads to loss, destruction, life wasted, and a judgement before which we cannot stand. Psalm 1 is a Wisdom psalm; like the old advert for seatbelt wearing, “You know it makes sense.”

I still remember the first edition of Luke Timothy Johnson's The Writings of the New Testament forty years ago. It is still in print in its 2010 third revision. From there his commentaries on Luke-Acts, Hebrews, James, and a wide range of other publications on New Testament background, theology, religious experience, and hermeneutics have continued to flow. But now we have a two volume magnum opus on the Apostle Paul, the first volume published in May 2020.   

Constructing Paul vol 1 by Luke Timothy Johnson is readable scholarship, authoritative and persuasive, independent in its conclusions, and is a constructive account of Paul's life, social context, cultural environment, and relations with the churches with which he corresponded. Johnson does two things that make this book an important contribution. First, he uses all the canonical letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. His defence of this approach is based on his deconstruction of the critical consensus that there are only seven "undisputed letters". Johnson insists that using the thirteen letters provides a much more rounded picture of what he calls the canonical Paul. I have always been hesitant about the confidence with which Pauline authorship of certain letters has been dismissed; I found Johnson's reasoned rebuttal persuasive in itself, and more so when the results are then set out in a way that allows for the complexities and ambiguities of Paul's personality and compound identities as Jew, Greco Roman, apostle and controversialist.

In addition to using the entire canonical corpus of Paul's letters, Johnson gives decisive weight and substance to the New Testament accounts of Paul's personal experience of Christ. Johnson is known for considering religious experience an essential body of evidence in constructing a credible account of Paul's life, the lives of the earliest Christian communities, and indeed for understanding the faith and practices of contemporary Christians. Paul's encounter with Christ, his experience of life in the Spirit, and the reconfiguration of his worldview, created for Paul a radically new understanding of God's purpose for Israel, the Gentiles and the new mission of the communities formed by faith in Christ. But that radical newness was not seen by him  as a final discontinuity, but a fulfilling of God's purposes through Messiah Jesus. While Johnson has long insisted that the religious experience of believers is relevant data in trying to understand the historical, social, cultural and ecclesial context of those early Christian communities, it is in this book that he pursues that line of investigation in constructing Paul. The result is a tour de force, readable, persuasive, and for me, convincing in its portrait of Paul.

The one time famous Methodist preacher, W E Sangster, once advised someone who was struggling with ill health, family problems and money worries, to “take time to enjoy the Sabbath moments of the soul.” Now I have to be honest, if I was crumbling under the weight of so many difficulties, I’m not sure I’d even recognise “a Sabbath moment of the soul”!

But Sangster was a wise pastor, a man who experienced fragile health himself, and wrote some of his books to supplement a very low stipend. He knew the depths of depression and the long climb upwards. So his advice is worth hearing. Ever since I read that advice in the biography written by his son, I’ve tried to do what this experienced spiritual guide advised.

Last Tuesday I stood at my study window watching five geese in line, heading for Loch Skene. For the first time ever, I noticed they took turns gliding for a few wing beats, pulled along by the others. Like a well-oiled machine, they each took a few moments respite, then resumed the hard work. They were out of sight in thirty seconds, but my inner grin lasted longer!

The Sabbath moments of the soul are those brief glimpses we all have of unexpected wonder, unlooked for surprise, being ambushed by beauty. “Consider the lilies…” “Look at the birds of the air…” “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills…” Sangster taught me to look for joy, to pay attention to what’s going on, to hold life carefully as the precious gift it is, to notice when God is nudging us awake to blessing.

Even when life turns darker, and we know the deeper valleys where the sun is hard to see behind looming horizons, God is there, and blessing is to be found. Not the answers to all that we need or want; and not easy ways out of hard places. But those small signals of hope, those touches of goodness and unlooked for moments when kindness, comfort or laughter come as gifts.

The life of faith isn’t a life immune to the hard knocks of life. We all bear the consequences of our humanity. We experience suffering and illness in ourselves and those we love, and there are bereavements and losses. We have times of mental ill-health, or difficult work or family circumstances. And then, this past year and more, we have lived with the grinding realities of a pandemic. Covid 19 has so disrupted our lives with restrictions, losses and anxieties, that it has been hard at times to keep going, stay hopeful and do much more than pass time, till life gets better.

Recovery from the pandemic will take a long time, and will mean large scale investments of energy, money, skills, new knowledge and commitment to the common good. But at the individual level, as we live through these next months, take time to enjoy the Sabbath moments of the soul. Live in the moment God gives you. And perhaps like the five geese, we will enable each other to take a rest and be carried for a while. Look for joy, pay attention to what’s going on, hold life carefully as the precious gift it is, notice when God is nudging you awake to blessing.

Who knows what church will look like in another year, and where we will have reached on our shared journey? But in our travelling together, be sure of this. God is with us. And in the thick mixture of our lives, if we look daringly and trustfully, there are clues to God’s presence. Often those clues will come in the unexpected moment, as for example, when five geese fly past, heading home. Let us learn together to live gratefully, and enjoy the Sabbath moments of the soul.

Every couple of months I meet with a group of friends online to talk about a book we have chosen to read and discuss together. Forget the book! It’s the meeting, the seeing of faces, the interactions of laughter and shared concerns, the small talk and the deep talk that matter most. We are a group of friends who have stayed in conversation for much of our lives since we came into ministry. We are either retired, or pushing in that direction.

But the important thing is that we have stayed together in our friendship, and accompanied each other through the varied experiences of our lives. We all have connections with the Scottish Baptist College. We are collegiate. That gave us our group name, The Eejits. We are now pretty scattered, one in Nova Scotia, one in Alabama, and the rest of us from different parts of Scotland. But we are there for each other, and there are deep ties of affection, commitment and shared life experiences going back decades.

I mention this because we’ve just had a Zoom meeting, with the usual laughter, banter, serious discussion, and asking after each other. Contrast that with the experience of many folk in our communities, maybe including some of ourselves. On Wednesday loneliness made headline news. The most recent report about how the Covid crisis has affected people in Scotland identifies loneliness as a widespread experience. Indeed one reporter described the results as pointing to “an epidemic of social loneliness”

 Around 27 percent of our young people report that feelings of isolation, loneliness and lack of social contact, are having an effect on their mental health and emotional wellbeing. Amongst those over 55 years, 71 per cent have struggled with lock down and the prolonged restrictions on social mixing with friends, family and the wider community. It isn’t hard to imagine the sadness and emotional struggles of folk who need to see familiar faces, hear friendly voices, and be in supportive company where they know they matter.

Whatever else the church is, it is a place where loneliness is acknowledged and friendship is offered, to everyone. Christian community is about welcome, belonging, sharing, understanding, listening, laughing, reassuring, encouraging, valuing, and caring. We are called to embody and practice all of these, but the energy source and motivation is, and must be, the love of God.

When Paul wrote, “Hope doesn’t disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us”, (Rom. 5.5), he was telling the church where it could find the resources to be the loving Body of the compassionate Christ. “We love because God first loved us”; our love for others is the overflow of God’s love, channelled through our words, actions and relationships to others. Those early Christians, and just as much, you and I, “Once we were no people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy but now we have received mercy.” (I Peter 2.10) And so, having freely received, we are called to open our hearts and freely give.  

It’s hard to know how and when this pandemic will be over. But however that comes about, here is a cry of the heart from all around us. In a lonely society, we Christians can be conduits of friendship, a community where love and compassion flow freely. We are God’s people, a community of the Gospel, a place of welcome, a safe place in a world that feels unsafe and uncertain. I can think of few more important acts of mission and Good News sharing, than us becoming a befriending community reaching out with the welcome of God to people brave enough to admit they are lonely,