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God is love. An entire creed condensed into a phrase. In the age before sound-bytes one of Jesus' closest followers was writing letters littered with sound bytes. God is love. God is light. God is spirit. The First Letter of John has been a deep well of water to which I return regularly for inner refreshment, restored faith, re-energised devotion, and no nonsense reminders of what it is I'm saying when I use the words God is love.

Autobiography first. Not long after my conversion I was thirsty for knowledge, not knowing what I needed to know. I was pointed to the then premier Christian Bookshop in Scotland, Pickering and Inglis in Glasgow. For reasons now forgotten, I picked up the Tyndale Commentary on The Epistles of John, by John Stott, and bought it, my first purchased commentary, and the start of a lifetime's immersion in exegesis as devotion.

Ten years later in my first pastorate I was preaching through John's Letter. My companions were John Stott, Robert Law's quite outstanding The Tests of Life (1909), and the just published Epistles of John in the prestigious NICNT series by Howard Marshall. My memory is the congregation appreciated, sometimes perhaps affectionately tolerated, my attempts at communicating the passionate confession and defensive polemic of an apostle whose entire core was energised by the eternal coincidence of Divine love and human response – "we love because He first loved us", and in an older translation, "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us."

1982 saw the publication of Raymond Brown's ridiculously massive commentary in the Anchor Series, 800+ pages on a letter of 2000 words. It's brilliant, exhaustive and exhausting to use, but crammed with information and deep scholarship. Names like Schnackenburg, Brown, Smalley, Lieu, Youngblood and many other mid level commentaries, demonstrate a diversity of theories and interpretive options.

I've kept up with much of that scholarship, learned new ways of reading and understanding John, and had to think and rethink again. But what remains constant is that urgent voice arguing and commending, expounding and defending, explaining and contradicting, reassuring the faithful and condemning those who mess with the heads of "his little children."

The relevance of my own journey with John, for me at least, is the attractiveness of his mixture of passion and precision – passionate love for Christ because in Him we see the passion of God. In words like these:

"God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (4.9-11)

The love of God is both centre and circumference in my spirituality and theology, and therefore in my preaching and understanding of the motives and energies of pastoral care. The letter of John runs like a continuous thread through the story of my life and how I've tried to live it as a Christian, a minister and a human being called to live responsibly and responsively before God. This text is a vocal, persistent and penetrating critic of my failures in the Tests of Life. But it keeps me honest, it keeps me wanting to be more faithful, and it keeps me hopeful.

For John there are unbreakable links between being loved by God, loving God in response, and proving that love by loving others. You can't say you love God if you hate your brother – not shouldn't, can't! The commentary by Robert Law I mentioned earlier says it in the title: John's letter provides the Tests of Life, the criteria by which we can claim to be Christian. John doesn't do compromise or exception clauses. John delivers an ultimatum like Jack Reacher, perhaps without the physical intimidation! Love! You're loved by God who is love. So love in the same way, to the same extent, to the same people. That's how it works. God loves you, you love others. Give what you get. Freely you received, freely give.  

Oh yes, John has a lot to say about sin, confession, cleansing and being made righteous. But the test of righteousness is love. And yes, John insists that a Christian is someone who confesses that in Jesus the fullness of God's love is revealed, but the test of such confession is love in practice, that is, the same love of God revealed in Jesus is to be evident in those who confess they have experienced and live by the love of God. 

At this stage of my life, half a century on from my first reading of Stott on I John, I'm ready to try to preach the message of 1 John again. Maybe five sermons, core samples of a text that really ought to upset us as much as uplift us; that is, if we can be honest before God and confess the sin of not loving. And if we can seek again the inner renewal of the heart that comes from opening ourselves to the love that opens us up in vulnerable, humble and determined love of others.

Meantime here's John the pastor, who manages to be both compassionate and uncompromising: 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

    

This was for the Aberdeen Press and Journal for last Saturday 12 March. Nothing in the current world news requires it to be edited or changed.

Saturday Sermon 

With saturation news coverage from all directions it’s impossible to avoid the hard thoughts and distressing images that war brings. Why the wicked prosper, or how it comes about that one man can command an army and threaten world peace. Far less can I understand the broken hearts of mothers shielding their children from missiles, with no one able to stop the bombardment; or figure out how it’s possible to bring about a peace which is more than the surrender and oppression of an entire people, culture and nation.

What I do see, clearly and unwaveringly, is God’s call to us to care for the broken, and to share the burdens of suffering, to give generously to purchase and procure food, medicine, clothes and shelter. And yes, to pray without ceasing for peace, and the justice and righteousness that alone makes peace possible.

In the face of suffering on a scale beyond our experience and imagining, it seems trivial to talk about what we are giving up for Lent. So instead, let Isaiah the Prophet readjust our ideas of what matters, and what matters most.

“Is not this the fast I have chosen, to loosen the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke….is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the wanderer with shelter.” (Isaiah 58. 6-7) These are the values of the Kingdom of God, the moral landmarks of the Christian church. These are the key objectives of our praying, giving, protesting and active discipleship as followers of Jesus. This isn’t about what we give up, it’s about what we give – to others.

That is what we pray for in those words that now need to be hoped and lived, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” I know. It’s hard to even imagine something we can actually DO that will end the brutality and danger of war. But don’t underestimate the power of the prayers of millions, the moral force of courageous acts of protest, and the strategic value of financial kindness.

Someone defined charity as “reading statistics with compassion.” Refugees, millions of people, are being processed. The statistics make grim reading. Isaiah tells us the humane ways and human values that are evidence that we read statistics with compassion, and answering actions.

 

Some Afterthoughts.

 

Today a good friend told me he and his daughter Charlotte designed a cookie cutter in the shape of a map of Ukraine. Charlotte who came up with the idea is happy for me to tell the story, and sent a couple of pictures. Cookies were baked and iced with blue and yellow icing for the flag of Ukraine. Sometimes it's the young who have the sharpest eyes and the imagination to dream of making the kind of difference Isaiah dreamed about too. 

The cookies are being sold by the church and in the community. The cutters can be downloaded for 3D printing at this link for as little as 50pence! the link is here, just click

All proceeds going to the European Baptist Federation Appeal which delivers aid direct to refugees on the Polish-Ukrainian border and other immediately responsive locations.

Charlotte's dad (who is also quite clever) told me "our cookie cutter was downloaded by someone in Lviv yesterday." In case you don't know, Lviv is one of the cities currently under missile and artillery attack. And someone is baking cookies in the shape of their country. Just think about that. 

“Is not this the fast I have chosen, to loosen the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke….is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the wanderer with shelter.” (Isaiah 58. 6-7)

Isaiah didn't say anything about cookie cutters. He left that to the imagination of those who look for ways of living his words!

 

Recently I wrote this Lectionary Reflection for the online website Good Faith Media over here

The tapestry is an original design of my own based on Isaianic texts about streams in the desert and the desert blossoming. 

“I sing in the Shadow of Your Wings…” Psalm 63:1-8

This Psalm is not for the nonchalant. It vibrates with emotional intensity and assumed intimacy. Body and soul, the whole person is defined at least for this moment, by longing for the felt nearness and accompanying assurance of God. Thirst for God and prolonged longing for God is experienced as the persisting presence of an absence. As parched land languishes for want of water, so body and soul suffer the want of the presence of God. There are parched episodes in every life, miles of the journey when we thirst for rain, times of emotional exhaustion and bone weariness that make prayer seem a waste of time.

These verses, and the images of this Psalm inspired a hymn that anticipates how to survive the desert, and emerge from the wilderness.

Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand;

The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.

A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way

From the burning of the noontide heat and the burdens of the day.

That beautiful fable, The Little Prince, is a story of a pilot whose plane crashed in the desert. One of the many wise sentences in this slim masterpiece has found its way into many an anthology: “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” The Psalmist knows this.

Actually so did the apostle Paul, making one of his boldest rhetorical moves. This from another of our lectionary passages about God’s provision for the children of Israel in the wilderness: “They drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” (I Cor.10.3-4) 

Whether a subterranean well, or a mobile rock doubling as a fountain, the promise of refreshment and recovery are woven throughout these 8 verses. The spiritual psychology is sound. First remember, think back, and recall God’s goodness and mercy that has followed you all the days of your life. (v2) Second, take hold of that covenant word love, and speak that steadfast, faithful love that can be trusted whatever. That love of God is better than life because it makes life possible and alone guarantees life’s meaning, purpose and fulfilment. (v3) Third, praise God every day into the future, because that future is safe and enfolded in purposive love and sustaining mercy. Praise is an act of faith, anticipating blessing going forward because born of past blessing (v4)

The result of remembering God, speaking God’s faithful love, and praising God for the future is summarised in v5. Lips that were parched will sing God’s praise, and a soul hungry for God will be “satisfied with the richest of foods”. (5)

Faith is much more than a grim hanging on when life seems barren, and God far away. This Psalm is defiant of despair. It resonates with the trustful optimism of one who knows, just knows, that somewhere, beneath the desert, is a well. And if that sounds like a miracle, you’re on the right track. Because wherever we are in the wilderness, and however weary, a spiritual rock accompanies us, and that Rock is Christ.

Then the Psalm moves from the desert to the safety and comfort of bed! This time the Psalmist isn’t tossing and turning, anxious and restless. When I’m awake “I remember you, I think of you through the watches of the night.” We’re back to the importance of memory, the recalling of our story, the restorative power of trustful optimism; trustful because God has proved faithful and God keeps his promises.

For years that remarkable Christian and United Nations diplomat, Dag Hammarskjold, kept a notebook by his bed, in which he noted thoughts of deep spiritual honesty and wise counsel. My guess is he knew the wisdom of Psalm 63 when he wrote this brief prayer: “For all that has been, thank you. For all that is to be, Yes!”

Such words presuppose levels of confidence that must find their energy somewhere. “You are My help. I sing in the shadow of your wings.” Is that mothering image of the eagle’s wings, or the gathering close of a mother hen, or perhaps the wings of the cherubim on the altar in the sanctuary? No need to choose. It is an image of protective care and dependable safety.

The Psalmist settles down, and as we read and pray his words, so do we. Our soul clings to God, we are held in the strong right hand of God. There are desert journeys, wilderness wanderings, times of weariness and thirst, experiences that bring us to our wits end. But note where this Psalm starts – verse 1 naturally enough! “O God, you are my God.” This Psalm can be distilled to the lines of another hymn:

“O Love, that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee.” That’s for the desert, and those times of thirst and seeking that have to be lived through.

“I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thine ocean depths its flow, may richer, fuller be. That’s for the bed, the place of rest and peace, when the soul is satisfied with good things, and we intentionally remember the goodness and mercy that has followed us all the days of our life, think of God who is our help, and sing praise in the shadow of God’s wings.

Wandering in someone else's garden (centre),

three degrees under a dazzling sun set in a sky blue sky,

inwardly sorrowful at the ugliness, cruelty and culpable intransigence

of those bent on stealing someone else's country, culture and identity,

I stopped, or rather was arrested,

by the miracle that is the possibility of such astonishing beauty,

and its power to argue back against the ugly nihilism of human hubris,

simply by announcing its loveliness,

without rancour, violence or noise,

as a vision of grace, a moment of gift,

a coaxing tug towards hope for a heart tempted,

however briefly, to despair.

Today was a Zoom meeting of the Aberdeen Theological Circle. Each of those present at today’s meeting offered a few minutes of reflection on a chosen poem, book or Bible passage. Here are some brief notes on what was shared between us. :

 – W H Vanstone’s book, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense and its concluding poem, “Morning glory, starlit sky.” Kenosis as a key concept in Christian theology, particular mention of Inhabiting the Cruciform God, Michael Gorman (Eerdmans: 2009)

-The connection of land, people and liturgy in poetry. Read God’s Grandeur as a poetic vision of human activity overshadowed by the Spirit of God.

– John Betjeman’s poem, ‘The Conversion of Paul’, a serious exploration of the religious experience of being righted by being turned round the other way.

– the complexity of choice, and the unforeseen consequences of choices made and ways not taken. Robert Frost poem, ‘Two Roads’, (The Road not Taken).

Quotation from In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling, Emmanuel Lartey. Recognising there are needs everyone has, needs only some have, and needs no one else has. Pastoral responsiveness seeks to be sensitive to those distinctions.

– Two quotations; the first from William Penn on true spirituality as engagement with the world of action, the second from Kahlil Gibran on reason and passion, and the need for a proper equilibrium between these in dealing with human complexity.

– A recent TV programme on Ian Crichton Smith, Consider the Lilies. During the clearances the church was so close to the established order and status quo it was unable to support the powerless. It is hard for the Church to speak truth to power when it is allied to the power that needs spoken to!

– Psalm 30.5 as a statement of trust and hope, for those times when life is overshadowed and overburdened. Sorrow is finite, hope and joy are promised as realities embedded in the faithfulness of God.

– Poem by George Mackay Brown, ‘The Harrowing of Hell’, narrating the spiralling downward journey of the crucified, clothed in his five wounds.

– In response to the Ukraine crisis, the use of social media to bring people together and to hear from Ukraine “your intercessions are imperative. Reading of Psalm 46, a powerful mix of hopeful and reassuring metaphors, and faith as both trust and defiance – much circulated on social media these past few days.

Read as a continuum these reflections are a richly textured testimony to our diversity and unity, and the gift we each are to the other. While the research paper and exploratory discussion will always be our primary way of  engaging in thought, discussion and learning together, perhaps once a session there should be a smorgasbord approach much like today’s experience. It was a good way to spend 75 minutes. 

Yesterday morning, as news was breaking of the invasion of Ukraine, I read Psalm 46. It seems the place to go at dangerous times. The Bible is a book that’s familiar with empires and dictators, armies and invasions, allies and enemies, violence and oppression, and all the other inhuman ways that human beings treat those they consider as a threat, or ‘other’, or an obstacle to political ambition.

The starting point of this call to courage, trust and hope is God. “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Whatever the threat of conflict and political collision, God is not going anywhere, other than where God is – in the midst of the conflicting ambitions and military power-plays of nations and people.

This verse is not a way of saying keep your head down, God will deal with it. We are right to be concerned, to fear war and to defend peace. But in all our worrying and working remember this. God is ever-present, a place of refuge and strength whatever happens. As often in the Bible, one of the most important words is “therefore.” Precisely because God is a place of refuge and safety for our souls, and the source of strength for the life we are called to live, “THEREFORE we will not fear.”

We wouldn’t be human if we were not afraid of the outbreak of war, wherever that is in the world. Perhaps especially when war begins to feel near to us, literally too close for comfort. It’s then we come back to those words, “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…”

What difference does God make to the geo-political earthquakes which shake our confidence and undermine the foundations of our lives? How are we to think about tanks and missiles, fighter planes and attack helicopters, hundreds of thousands of heavily armed and intensively trained soldiers focused on simply taking over another country?

This Psalm writer has seen these tragedies and outrages before. He shows us the way to hope, to believe in justice, and the possibilities of peace. “Come and see the works of the Lord…he makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear.” God’s purpose is a kingdom of peace. Whatever else the cross of Christ stands for in our world, it is a declaration of God’s opposition to sin and his redeeming purpose, a demonstration that God’s ways are justice, forgiveness, mercy, peace, and reconciliation.

“Come and see the works of the Lord…” Faced with military aggression against another country, and threats against other countries including our own, what are we to do? It is one of the most frustrating and perplexing experiences in any of our lives when huge events that cause suffering, disruption and death for others, are so far beyond our power to help or heal. What can we do? While world leaders agonise over decisions and consequences, risks and dangers, there seems very little left to us to influence events, or make any real difference to what is happening and what will happen, regardless of how we feel about it.

But then there’s this. “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.” Twice the emphatic statement, “I will be exalted.” Christian faith is embedded in our experience of God, our refuge and strength, who breaks bows and shatters spears. We rest in Him, our shield and our defender. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

These are words we sing because God has revealed himself in Christ. The resurrection is God’s no to death, and God’s yes to life; God’s no to violence and God’s yes to peace; God’s no to hate and God’s yes to love; God’s no to despair and God’s yes to hope.

So, what to do? Be still and know that God is God, and pray. To think about the world situation as one who knows God is God and Christ is risen. Someone has said, “Prayer is the slender thread that moves the muscle of omnipotence.”

To believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, and to pray in His name, is to bring to bear on even the most frightening situations, all the resources of Eternal love poured out in merciful purpose, divine power and redeeming intent.

Be still, and know that. Be still, and acknowledge that God is God. Be still, because God is our refuge and our strength, therefore, we will not fear. Be still and pray for peace in our time. Don’t do nothing, pray, and when you pray you’re not doing nothing. Remember the words of our Lord, and finish your prayer with them in full assurance of being heard, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…for Yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory – and You will be exalted among the nations.”

“God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Amen.

I've been designing and working tapestries for a long time now. My first serious attempt was maybe 30 years ago. There was a long chunk of time in the period since then – 15 years, when I had other things to do and came back to doing tapestry again maybe 12 years ago. I'll do another post soon with some of the older ones that I still have around.

For now, I'm intrigued yet again at how appropriate and theologically sensible are the sayings that surround working tapestry as a parable, metaphor, or narrative imagining of how the presence and activity of God is woven through the texture of our days and years. It's a commonplace to compare the back of the canvas with the front, with the intended encouragement that the messiness has a pattern; be patient and wait until the work is complete. God weaves the varied strands and colours of our lives into a unique pattern that cannot be achieved any other way. You know the kind of thing.

Here is a quotation that is a classic example of trust in the providence of God, and persevering trust despite only seeing the underside of the tapestry:

 “It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand. In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.”   ― Maria von Trapp

As one who designs tapestries, I know that improvisation and ad hoc decisions mean that the finished work can vary considerably from what was first conceived and planned. I must also say that I have done several tapestries, beginning with an idea, and starting from the centre allowing the shapes and colours to develop in what feels like a random process of choosing to do what I feel like, what I think might work, and that can reflect the mood at the time as much as anything else. The point is, each tapestry is a creative process, an evolving concept in which the final form becomes clear quite late on in the process.

Years ago I learned a verse that has stayed with me and has in turns reassured, disturbed and even annoyed me. But I keep coming back to it. The lines come from the poem 'Regret' by Jean Ingelow:

This life is one, and in its warp and woof

there runs a thread of gold that glitters fair,

and sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet

where there are sombre colours. 

I bring the words of Maria von Trapp and Jean Ingelow together in this activity involving needle, stranded cotton and canvas in a work of art that becomes the visible consequence of inner thought, prayer and imagination – these three. The current tapestry is one articulation in colour and form of Revelation 21.9-21, John's vision of the New Jerusalem. His description is a verbal symphony, geometry set to music, an imagined place of universal welcome, a home for a broken and now redeemed Creation, illumined by the Love dwelling at its precise centre. To take in any literal sense John's words of how the Ineffable might appear to eyes dazzled by the light of eternal truth, divine goodness and love in purest holiness and redemptive purpose, is as wonderfully futile as standing beneath Niagara with a bucket hoping to capture and contain the essence of a power that annihilates all presumption and preconceptions.

Yet John wrote to be read, and understood, and with pastoral purpose and spiritual imagination about what he saw when he saw heaven opened. And near the end of the drama, there is the crowning vision of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, with its twelve gates where all who would might enter, and no one was denied. It is a vision of redeeming love, eternal purpose, and is intended to comfort, strengthen and give hope to those who can make no sense of the underside of the tapestry that is their life. So in this tapestry, without intending it there is the messy underside and the changing and evolving pattern that emerges from the continuing work of the needle-worker.

The second photo is the upside of the tapestry – but at a quite early stage. When it's finished I'll post again and try to explain a bit more what I think I'm playing at! Theology is often more free when not confined to words, even if, as in John's Revelation, words with all their limitations are all he has to describe the indescribable and communicate the incomprehensible. John's geometric precision conveys the exactitude and detail of a city whose builder and maker is God. Incidentally there are several pieces of music I have listened to while doing this work – that will be another post perhaps.