Jack In The Box

The Long, Lost Relative

2009-03-03T17:45:00.000Z

Foreword
This paper is written for the professors of the Bakke Graduate University in Seattle as part of an assignment for the Doctor of Ministry program, but to the “Research and Resources” committee of the Board of Mission in Ireland, of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The aim is to describe some aspects of the Orthodox model of ministry and mission and to set out some lessons we can learn. This is paper is the conclusion of extensive reading and a visit to Turkey and Romania with a group of other students, professors and Romanian Orthodox Priests. We began in Istanbul, made our way to Cappadocia and Ephesus before traveling through Bulgaria and into Romania to Bucharest and Iasi. We walked in the footsteps of Paul and saw the ancient remnants of the Church of Jesus Christ before observing and experiencing the living church in a former communist country. These are my own personal reflections. This was never intended to be a tourist trip but more of a pilgrimage and an opportunity to experience and rediscover our long lost family in the Orthodox tradition. It turned out to be a very long pilgrimage but these experiences and reflections were made with a group of people who have come to know each other better because of the many hours we spent together on the bus. We came to admire and wonder at the physical endurance of Paul who made the same journey without modern transport.
In seeking to understand this church, which has been isolated from the west since the split with Rome in 1054, we will look at its doctrine and practice. One becomes very aware of the distance between us but also the faith and practices that we share: it’s not always clear that in using familiar words we understand the same familiar things. J.I Packer reflects this line of thought when he describes the perceived distance between |Orthodoxy and traditional Evangelicalism, using the words of the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go’’ . George Bernard Shaw said much the same when he described the usage of English on both sides of the Atlantic as ‘’a common people separated by a common language’’. The average person is not familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church, we are not taught about it and so the assumption is made that there is little, if any, difference between the Christian and the Roman Catholic Christian. It is my contention that there are similarities as well as differences that we can learn from and even adopt to make valuable contributions to any living church for the glory of God.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank those who journeyed with me on the Orthodox Trail and those who have helped me along the way and in the process of producing this paper and pray that it will help someone somewhere on their journey through life.
Dogma, the practical theology of Orthodox Faith
Before investigating some of the beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy we need to give some consideration as to what we understand it to mean by ‘’orthodoxy’. The literal meaning of Orthodox is that it is the right teaching or right worship, being derived from two Greek words: orthos (right) and doxa (teaching or worship). As the false teachings and divisions multiplied in early Christian times, threatening to obscure the identity and purity of the Church, the term Orthodox quite logically came to be applied to it. Hence we have then term applied to Judaism with Orthodox Jews As opposed to Reformed or liberal and orthodox Protestants in contrast to liberals. The Orthodox Church considers itself as something of a guardian of truth against all error and schism, both to protect its flock and to glorify Christ whose body the Church is. Another way of considering Orthodoxy is to think of it in the light of those churches which call themselves ‘Orthodox’ meaning those churches who belong to a loose federation of churches who split from the Latin church in 1054AD [some of them are aligned to the council of Chalcedon and others opposed] giving special honour to the see of Constantinople. They were part of the eastern flank of the Roman Empire, where Constantine had his capital. After the historic split with Rome it became detached and developed an independent identity. Today, because of mission and political decisions, there has developed a Diaspora throughout the world but especially in the United States of America.[check this definition]. We will be using the second of these understandings in this discussion.
We are what we are because of what we believe and so in studying Orthodox faith and practice we need to reflect on the theological perspectives that make her what she is. When a people are separated by thousands of years it is quite natural that they should take some time to get to know each other once they have been re-acquainted. Before our trip we spent much time in reading about the life and faith of Orthodoxy but we have also been in discussion and spent time with those involved in ministry. In seeking to get a basic understanding of the dogma of the church one of the books we read was ‘’Introducing The Orthodox Church’’ by Anthony M. Coniasis . This covered such basics as liturgy, prayer, scripture, salvation, the sacraments and the controversial areas of Mary, the saints and the use of icons. Like other churches the Orthodox see themselves as the ‘’one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’’: they consider themselves,’ as the only way, and the truth to be the guardians of that truth for over 2,000 years. For a deeper understanding of dogma we read ‘’The Experience of God’’ by Father Dumetru Staniloae . This gives, not only a deeper understanding of Orthodox faith but also a different way of understanding dogma, which in turn gives us a better understanding of the nature of this church.. For Orthodoxy, dogma is not about those rules and regulations of the faith that are rigid and fixed. In some of the English translations the ‘’Dogma’’ was omitted from the title for fear that it would be understood only in the western way. For Father Dumitri this is not about a bald exterior appeal to the magisterium but…’’to indicate the inner coherence of dogmatic truth and the significance of each dogma for the personal life of the Christian’’ He goes on to say that what is needed is a ‘’concrete theology’’. For him theology presumes a personal relationship and that makes it less theoretic and more dynamic than the normal, western Dogmatic Theology.: it’s not about placing beliefs in various boxes, it’s more about living an integral faith where each part of the faith relates to all the others.
In studying the theology of Orthodoxy we find both continuity and discontinuity with ourselves and with the early church, at least as we understand it. Unlike the western or Latin Church the Orthodox have not been subject to the Reformation nor the Renaissance and they were never influenced by the Age of Reason and governance has not been by dictate of Pope or prelates but by the collective decision of the church: the Patriarch is merely the first among equals, as is the Moderator of the General Assembly, with his brother bishops. Anthony M Coniasis writes that ‘’The holiest moment in the church service is the moment when the Church-God’s people-strengthened by preaching and sacrament-go out the church door into the world to be the Church. We don’t merely go to church; we are the Church’’ . This view is similar to the Roman Catholic practice as the priest declares at the end of the Mass, ‘’The Mass is ended, go and serve the Lord’’. The division and schism of 1054 represents the separation of the brethren and a very long period of isolation, which has been aggravated by the historical events, such as the sacking of Constantinople in the thirteenth century by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. One of our problems is that we think by using the same word s we are meaning the same thing but that is not always the case. J.I Packer makes this point in his foreword to ‘’Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism’’ when he says
A venerable British ballad [or was it Irish?] begins by declaring, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.’’’. Substitute for Tipperary the desired togetherness between, on the one hand, North America’s evangelical church- as the great cluster of evangelical denominations, freestanding Bible churches, and evangelical networks within the subevangelical mainline are currently called-and the western outposts of the Eastern Orthodox communion on the other, and words of the song fit with ominous exactness: indeed, ’’it’s a long way to go.

Continuity
Theology of Mary
There are apparent similarities with the Western Church in the theology of Mary and the saints but also discontinuity when we begin to unpack what the words actually mean: for the Orthodox Mary, the mother of Jesus is Theotokos, the God bearer and any icons of her are always with the child, Jesus. In Orthodoxy Mary is never alone and she is always pointing to the Son of God she is looking inwardly in contemplation. She is not holding the child. The child blesses her for her willingness to be the one who brought him into the world. In the Latin Church Mary is seen alone. In Orthodox understanding Mary gives Jesus the place of priority and honour which is in line with our reformed view. [picture of Mary here?]
Ian Bria takes this further by saying that ‘’an ecclesiology which does not include Mary the mother of Jesus is unbiblical.’’ We may have to take this as a valid criticism in that we do not give Mary the position of honour that she has in scripture as the one ‘’most highly favoured’’. Timothy Ware states that anyone who fails to honour Mary is usually someone who does not really believe in the incarnation. He tells us that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus insisted that Mary be called Theotokus because honouring her would safeguard a right doctrine of Christ’s person. He says that ‘’anyone who thinks out the implications of that great phrase, ‘The word was made flesh’, cannot but feel a profound awe for her who was chosen as the instrument of so surpassing a mystery’’
The Communion of the Saints
Like the Roman Church Luke there is a theology of death which means that life is not defeated or interrupted by death: the Church is quick and dead, militant and triumphant.. There is little practical evidence to show that we believe in a church militant in our practice: we remain orthodox in our liturgy if not in our praxis. Some believe that we ignore the saints who have departed unless they were born in the nineteenth century and were sent out as missionaries. To some we act as if nothing of any importance happened before the Reformation if not prior to the Revivals of the nineteenth century. More familiar to us is the view that the Church is not the building rather it is the gathering in the name of Jesus and the fellowship of the saints which means that a Christian is never alone. Upon entering an Orthodox sanctuary one becomes immediately aware, we are told, of the great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the book of Hebrews: they are on the walls and on the roof and on the Iconostasis, which is viewed as a window onto heaven. To those of an evangelical and minimalist view it appears to be more of a barrier between the clergy and people. The saints are very important to any Orthodox worshipper because they are part of the triumphant church. . Just as evangelicals look with great reverence to the Old Testament patriarchs and to the missionaries of the eighteenth century so the Orthodox looks to the Patristic Fathers with veneration. In visiting the region of Turkey known as Cappadocia we were reminded of the Cappadocian Fathers and the part they played in making of the church. In our reading we were reminded of the part played by the patristic thinkers in the theological formation of John Calvin .
The Trinity
Then there are similarities with the evangelical world too. We have the world of Orthodoxy to thank for giving us a focus on the Trinitarian nature of God. All too often today we observe those Christians who pay little attention to the Fatherhood of God and give too much on Jesus [they tend to be Reformed Christians], those who give all the attention to the Spirit [charismatic or Pentecostal] and then there are those who deny the trinity altogether and we call them Unitarians, while the Orthodox are very careful to hold on to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ever three, ever one. In the Trinity we have the model for fellowship and partnership which results in service. It’s in the Trinity that we get the imperative to serve and to engage with each other. It’s in the trinity that we are reminded that ministry is all about relationships: our relationship with God, the triune God and our relationship with other human beings. We are all made in the image of God and that means we are fulfilled when we are like God, this is what the Orthodox call ‘theosis’, or the process of deification, what we prefer to call sanctification. This is what gave the Celtic Christians their relational ministry: this way of doing evangelism makes the person more important than the program and is more person-directed and less aggressive, more Christ-centred because the centre is not what we are doing but on Christ Himself. This is the approach we have taken in our church when we set up our prayer table in the community market. In this approach we allow people to come to us and request prayer rather than being direct and aggressive. As the Father relates to the Son and as the Spirit energizes the Son and makes sure the will of the Father is done so there is inter-dependence on each other, and that is how we are to relate to each other. Out of this approach we empower people rather than make them dependent, they become inter-dependent. In any community every member should have responsibilities and gifts for the benefit of the whole body.

Incarnation
This Trinitarian approach also leads on to the Incarnational approach of the Orthodox. In the incarnation the son of God came to earth as a real man, of flesh and blood. He took on our humanity, cleansed it and transformed it into a holy and glorious humanity. God became like us that we might become like Him. The flesh is important and not to be despised, rather we are to give thanks for it: the Romanian Orthodox, we soon discovered have a great facility for moving easily from the holy to the earthly, they can worship and celebrate without any difficulty. It is because of this incarnation emphasis and their trinitarianism that they thought it important to work and worship and study in the monastic settlements, so on these settlements there were sanctuaries with elaborate icon pictures along with libraries and refectories and fields to work in. In this model there is a holistic or integral approach rather than a pietistic, individualistic and private faith. The church building and the liturgy is designed to be heavenly and God –centred so that the worship becomes a drama: gospel is processed through the door of the iconostasis and the priest is dressed in his finery with the cloud of witnesses looking in the presence of the icon of the Theotokos and the pantokrator on the doom of the roof [God is panokrator or creator]. In ‘’The Liturgy after the Liturgy’’ Ion Bria makes the starting point that the word, ‘liturgy’ has its derived meaning in the words leiteros meaning public, and ergon, meaning work. He goes on to say that ‘
’the liturgy is not just a commemoration of Christ’s ministry to the world, teaching, healing, feeding the people; it is the realization, in each new context, of the history of the world, of ‘what the lord has done’ [psalm 64:8]|The faithful can see with their eyes and hear with their ears and hearts the message of the gospel in the symbolic language of Jesus…Again, this is a matter not just of visualizing the Word of God, but also of partaking the Body of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life’’
In the participation of the people in the liturgy there is an appeal to all the senses: to sight as they see the architecture, the icons and the actions of the priest; to smell as the sweet fragrance of the incense rising up in worship; to hearing as the y hear the bells in the liturgy, as they listen to the singing, telling the story and the words of the priest and the reading of the Gospel and preaching of the word; to touch as they venerate the icons and feel the bread; and to speech as they respond in worship and as they bless themselves in the Trinitarian blessing. For Orthodoxy worship is central to life and living and does not remain in the sanctuary. How often do we need to remind ourselves, in the west, that worship is intended as our spiritual sacrifice, not to be restricted to church, not something we leave in the pews but in everything we do. If we believe in the Trinitarian God then we will follow His example of relational service. Worship is more than singing a few songs and praying a few prayers, it’s about the way we live. Music is of vital importance in the worship of Orthodoxy. In this heavenly drama that can last up to 150 minutes without seating the singing of the liturgy becomes vital. Listening to the harmony which tells the drama it is easier to attend to and remember than the spoken word. From blessing themselves to entering church the Orthodox believer remains thoroughly Trinitarian. Getting the worship right will lead to the right way to live. Like the Celtic Christians life and faith is relational rather than programmed, the ‘’Gospel Driven Church’’ becomes the ‘’Community Church’’ driven by the triune God. Many evangelicals are time driven: we have trained our people to come to worship which will fit into the lifestyle they have chosen. This may well be to do with the music of their choice or the liturgy that suits them best or even the length of the service so that once the magic hour arrives they are keeping an eye on the clock.
Worship
For Orthodoxy it’s not about the time spent in the sanctuary. There is an impulse for the faithful to be totally involved in the action of the liturgy. There is a desire to see, to enter into the holy place, to concelebrate and to take Holy Communion. It’s not a matter of time, but of moving towards the throne to praise in the presence of God. Ian Bria says that it is impossible to be uninvolved. Personally I can verify this. In a visit we made to a church in Iasi I felt caught up in the worship, by the beauty of the singing, by the spirit of worship in the place. Several times I wanted to leave but felt the tug to remain. I had no idea what was being said but that did not seem important. I was struck by the desire of the faithful to be there and to take the blessed bread with them. I was struck by the humility expressed by the women who stayed on their knees for long periods of time, blessing themselves, not in a way which seemed calculated to use the least possible amount of energy but reaching from their heads to the ground. At another church I was struck with a mixture of admiration and suspicion as I saw some women crawling on their hands and knees, blessing themselves in the name of the Triune God making their way through the icon of the virgin and child, pleading for health and healing. We in the reformed tradition remain suspicious of such practices, naming this as superstition and earning their salvation: do they not know that Christ forgives as we ask? But then I find myself asking ‘’how do we express our humility?’’ I think we would be too proud to humble ourselves .Metropolitan Anthony covers this in ‘’School for Prayer’’ saying that if we wish to pray we must start with a certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation. We need to realize that we are naturally cut off from God and that we cannot live without him. All we can offer is our longing to be changed that we may meet him. He says that ‘’prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn God wards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be in judgment’’ Such real humility is not always at the top of evangelicalism
Vertical faithfulness
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is seen as vertical faithfulness rather than horizontal persuasion. For most evangelicals the Great Commission drives them on so that ministry becomes an objective to be reached: targets are set as to how many can be reached with the message this week or this year, we seek to pack as many as possible into the church or the theatre or the tent. For Orthodoxy the target is to pass the faith on to friends and family that they may pass it on to their children and their children’s children. That seems like something Paul said in 2Timothy 2:2. For many generations now the Presbyterian Church has played lip service to this approach: the practice, on the other hand, has been less committed: we have made such demands on members to spent all their waking hours in the church that spending time with family and being in the community has become a rarity with the resulting outcome that we have become detached from the community in which we live and, worst of all, estranged from our families. We have become too individualistic and private and personal, failing to understand that our Trinitarian faith means we were intended to be the corporate body of Christ, and to have fellowship with one another, bearing one another’s burdens. In seeking to be faithful to the Great Commission we have actually become disobedient and have distorted it. Surely this command of Christ is both vertical and horizontal. There are some implications of this vertical faithfulness that local churches need to attend to.
Then there is the thorny question of the unity of the church. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that the believers would be one but as the years go on then fragmentation becomes greater. In the ‘’Liturgy after the liturgy’’ we read that,
One of the issued raised by the liturgy after the liturgy is the question of Christian unity. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that all the believers should be one: today we are more fragmented than ever, not just across the denominations but within them also. For may years now the Orthodox have kept the World Council of Churches together given the absence of the Roman Catholic Church. By their presence they have demonstrated a commitment to church unity. Since the early years of the infant church Christians from the east have been in the vanguard of doctrinal purity and guardianship, hence the ecumenical councils that defined the divinity and humanity of Christ an other important doctrines we now affirm. On the more local scene the division among local churches whom largely share the same core values is a real obstacle to the gospel and the cause of Christ. While we cannot merely sweep aside the differences between us we should be deliberate and intentional in the engagement we have with those with whom we disagree. In 1974 the World Council of Churches meeting in Bucharest pointed to the necessity of churches working together in communion which would reflect in history the Trinitarian existence of God Himself. It goes on to say that,
The church is meant precisely to be that. Mission, therefore, suffers and is seriously distorted or disappears whenever it is not possible to point to a community in history which reflects this Trinitarian existence of communion. This happens whenever the church is so distorted or divided that it is no longer possible to recognize it as such a communion, or whenever mission is exercised without reference to the church, but with reference simply to the individuals or the social realities of history.
This means that getting our ecclesiology wrong may well make mission impossible. We need to have a correct view of the church, not as something separate from daily life but as an integral part of life. Our worship is another way of preaching the gospel to a secular world. This was highlighted at the W.C.C meeting in Canberra in 1991which spoke of the fundamental nature of the Christian life in sacramental terms.
Every worshipping community should be a model for an inclusive community. Worship space needs to be designed so that all people are able to participate fully. A lively ministry of hospitality, welcoming all in the name of the Lord, is most important. The plea of young people for forms of worship and celebration which fit their culture must be taken seriously.
With the attitude of intentional engagement there will be opportunities to agree and to disagree and to witness to the power and love of the Trinitarian God. Hospitality means being open to the thoughts and traditions of others, it means an openness to light from any quarter with the spiritual faculty of discernment. In our working with churches outside our comfort zone we have tended to isolate ourselves and remain aloof with the danger of remaining closed to the work of the Spirit of God.
Discontinuity
Some of the difficult areas of belief and practice include icons, the place of Mary and the saints and the attitude to tradition. At the beginning we quoted the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary’: recalling icons, is one of those areas were the distance seem the greatest. When a westerner looks at an icon he sees something quite weird, he sees something which evokes feelings of idolatry and exaggerated, cartoon-like thoughts. When the case for icons is put forward it appears very reasonable but the problem is that observation leaves us less than satisfied. This is an important topic because in a post modern society art and music have a very important place in worship and if we can learn from that we should.
Iconology
The trouble with icons and iconology is that we can only look at it from a western point of view. For the Orthodox there are three purposes in using them: one is to create reverence in worship, the second is to instruct those who cannot read; and the third is to serve as an existential link between the worshipper and God. The point is made by the Orthodox that while the Hebrews have always rejected any visible representation of God they did not appreciate that the use of letters can do the exact same thing: for example the use of Chi-Rho and HIS stand for Christ and Jesus respectively. St Basil said that ‘’what the word transmits through the ear, that painting silently shows through the image, and by these two means, mutually, accompanying one another…we receive knowledge of one and the same thing.’’ We are to understand that the Orthodox has two gospels: the one is visual and the other is the verbal to appeal to the whole person. The idea of icon has also become more a feature in the lives of people in popular culture: the communist regime of the USSR made it their practice to display photographs of their leaders to keep people focused on the right issues and the other is contemporary use of icons which act as windows to their programs; we understand that in the Presidential election in the USA on November v4th 2008 many African Americans took pictures of their forebears with them into the voting booths with them as a way of including them in this momentous event; then we are also reminded of the iconic nature given to celebrities and the description of Jesus Christ by the Apostle Paul as an icon of God long with his call for all the faithful to be like Him.
When it comes to prayer there are important lessons for us to learn from the Orthodox Christians and some things which call for critical thought. Take a look at the list set out by Anthony Coniasis and you can only agree that here we have a treasure for us to meditate upon. Here are just a few of these gems of understanding, taken at random, to demonstrate the wealth of wisdom as to the nature of prayer:
• Prayer…uplifts and unites human beings with God [St Gregory Palamas]
• Prayer is our personal communication system with our home base
• Prayer is opening the door of our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit
• Prayer is not bargaining with God, trying to convince Him to change. It is, rather, our asking Him to change us so we see His ways and His plans more clearly
• Prayer is raising my eye to God lest I begin to think that I am the highest point in the universe.
At the heart of eastern Christianity there is mysticism, there is a call to go beyond the cognitive thought forms that we in the west have iconized . There is much here that we can agree with and much that must challenge us. Theophan the Recluse calls for the worshipper to come before God with ‘’’the mind in the heart’’ He says that we need to pray with the mind but also with the heart. He says that we must pray with the mind so that it is not merely words, but the heart has to feel what the mind is thinking. Metropolitan Anthony says that ‘’unless the prayer which you intend to offer to God is important and meaningful to you first, you will not be able to present it to the Lord’’ He sets out three types of prayer: spontaneous; short vocal prayers and ready-made prayers. Discounting the possibility of being spontaneous all the time and rejecting set prayers he talks of the need for which is rooted in conviction. He suggests learning the Psalms by heart so that they can be used, drawn up from the well whenever they are needed and of the Jesus prayer. None of the above should present us with any problems and the idea of practicing daily prayer devotion at each end of the day should encourage us all. Coniaris sets out the daily cycle as one way of putting this into practice. Where many evangelicals have difficulty is with prayer to and with the saints.

What lessons can we learn?
Having tried to tease out any family resemblance I want to try to suggest some practical lessons we can learn from our long, lost relatives. To do this we will need to set out some of the features of the family. Firstly there is the Trinitarian doctrine, which sets the context for much of what is Orthodox Theology and practice. From the fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comes the monastic communities. Since the fourth century monasticism has been organized into communities, some surviving to the present day. The monastic initiative was the response of the believers to the spiritual struggle. They went to the places that others would not go to. They took the gospel to those places where it had no gone before. When the gospel was taken to Russia monasteries appeared immediately; when the communists left Romania the monasteries began to multiply. Michael Oleska tells us that when Russia, Central Asia and Siberia were settled it was not by adventurers or frontiersmen, as in America, but by monks who went to the remotest corners of Eurasia to continue the struggle against the devil, in the world and within themselves. John Binns reminds us of the problem when discussing Eastern approaches to theology: the words used are often used by east and west but have different meanings. It is also useful to note that both sides have different ways of understanding the nature of this theology. In the east the understanding is not about an academic knowledge but of personal knowledge. Dumitru Staniloae makes the same point when he declares that dogmatics is about ‘concrete theology’…a theology of experience’’ this is not about abstract systems nor philosophical theory but the expression of personal experience and a living encounter with the divine. John Binns quotes the words of Evagrius of Pontus who described a theologian as one who prays and one who prays is a theologian. The reason for this is that theological understanding has developed in the Monasteries rather than the universities, in the rough and tumble of daily life rather than in the ivory palaces of academia. We must wonder how the increasing importance of the universities may influence the life of the church in the days ahead or if the strong link with monasticism will act as a practical bulwark. It would be a mistake to think of the eastern monasticism as remote and distanced from church and people. The fact is that from the very beginning, and we saw this in Turkey, the monasteries were tightly linked to the community. This is seen in the fact that they were centres of learning, places of hospitality and places of work. In times of economic difficulty they provided employment, places for prayer and contemplation. They had their origins in the gospel call to complete commitment and to leave family and friends. I the trinity there is a call to service and interaction. They saw themselves as ‘’white martyrs’, called, not to die, but to give up all for Christ’. John Binns reminds us that the first monks we re just ordinary people who committed themselves to live as the people around them lived. There was nothing very unusual about them. They lived in groups or alone; they ate the same food, wore the same clothes and did the same work as the people around them. Their aim was to live as an alternative communities so as to be critical friends, sometimes challenging, at other times encouraging society. It was in the monastery that people found training and education and sometimes employment. In the early days membership was flexible: monks could leave the monastery and work m in the community and community people were able to join the alternative community for a [period of time. This was an intentional community. we have to ask the question, especially in those places which are often considered God-forsaken, where are the intentional communities in our western societies? These communities were so successful at what they did that they attracted financial support from government and people with great resources. They even played a part in the national defense, making the point that all defense is not military but also spiritual. Emperor Basil II wrote: ‘what foundations are to a house and oars are to a boat, the prayers of the saints are to the Empire. Who can doubt that what the sword, the bow and military strength could not achieve, prayer alone has brought tom pass easily and splendidly’
Stemming from Monasticism we have another feature which is their servant attitude. This also stems from the emphasis on the incarnation. In the triune relationship there is the interaction and mutual service of their fellowship which explains their desire to serve. In Christ God planted Himself in our world, the tabernacle with humanity for a while. Unlike other kings he came to serve rather than be served and it is the responsibility of every Christian to do likewise: not that they speak of responsibility but rather of doing what should come naturally. In the various countries where Orthodoxy is found you will find the liturgy in the national language. You will also find a strong nationalist spirit. Sometimes the question is raise as to how the eastern European nations managed to keep their religion going. The answer to this question raises another characteristic which is that of a survival mentality: in Ireland we call it stubbornness. What that means in the Russian and Romanian context is that they choose to be with their people instead of holding on to religious purity. A pietistic view in Belfast has denuded the community of vibrant Christian witness today.
When Dumitru Staniloae was asked about the cost of surviving communism he said it was two-fold: fear and lies. The persecution was great and they had to pretend to be faithful to the atheist regime. The alternative was top resist, remain pure but be destroyed and be of no use to their people. The Romanian Patriarch during the Ceaucesu years decided to collude rather than resist and this choice was accepted by the population: when he resigned after the revolution the people persuaded him to return because they understood his decision. The same course of action was taken in Russia. The affect in Russia and Romania was to outlast communism: as in China the philosophical premise of Leninist-Marxist ideology was seen to be defeated. The premise was that eventually the success of communism would destroy the foundations of the church and that would lead to a rejection by the people. Unfortunately, for the regime, this did not work out and that was re-enforced when they turned to repression and persecution. When the communists left the church was there to pick up the pieces.
Next, we see that they are clearly intentional in their engagement, both with those they agree with and with those they disagree with. This is illustrated by their involvement in the ecumenical movement where they have held the foreground and in the way they have decided to stay in communities. Where are our intentional communities engaging with the enemy as well as with friends? We have been slow to join the discussion table. We have deserted those communities which need people to fight the spiritual battles which face them every day and that helps to explain why there is a major dislocation of church and community.
Another feature, already mentioned elsewhere, is their grounding in the saints, especially the patristics. They have a clear view of their place in history as the people of God: they are part of a long line of saints who have held true to the faith. While this history can imprison, as it tends to do with us, it can also liberate and inform. The ruins and relics in Turkey and elsewhere can give rise to hope as well as to despair as they consider the sovereign will of God
Application
Having suggested some features of our Orthodox brethren let’s spend some time in setting out how we can benefit from them. Living in a post modern world we need to consider how we can make more use of, and, appeal to the senses. The way we live and worship is very cognitive and while it is necessary for us to have strong minds as well as strong bodies we need to become more holistic in expressing our faith. While we may have difficulties in using icons as a way to focus the worshipper’s mind on Christ we may be able to use art in other ways. In our church we already have a stained glass window of Jesus but we may be able to highlight it more often using creative methods.
In thinking of the great cloud of witnesses we can include the example of the early church fathers along with the missionaries of the nineteenth century.
In thinking of mission we can take the approach of other congregations, along with our Orthodox brothers of making the worship service be the place to help people to become disciples of Christ and leave the liturgy with the understanding that the service has only begun.
Following the implications of the incarnation we need to be intentional in our approach to community. One of the strategies used by John Perkins is to call Christian people to relocate in tough urban communities. We need to attract those people who can, and will, be open to minister and live in the most difficult places, be they in the inter-faces of our cities or in the rural border areas. We can decide to make housing available in areas of acute housing shortage without giving up ministry opportunities. We could set up Intentional Christian Communities in the various areas of Urban Belfast, and why not on the Crumlin Road? In a community which is so segregated into Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist we need models which can give example to how the two major traditions in Belfast can live together in harmony. If an experiment in integrated living is to succeed and space is to be shared we will need to create communities which have a certain degree of protection and control. Here is one suggestion or line of thought which is worth considering for our congregation and community:we could use our site to build some housing. A chaplain/warden and other necessary members of staff would be appointed. Places could be allocated with a mix of Christian and non-Christian people, young and old. A cross community aspect would be both essential and inspirational for the greater community. At the same time we could go into partnership with statutory services to build a sports hall/community hall which could also be used by the church.
This would be a renewing resource because it would get regular funding from government and it would dove-tail with the both the Vine and the other churches in the Greater Shankill Community-if it was thought appropriate we could be done with leadership coming from the shankill worship centre. We could be in partnership with the Shankill churches / or with Immanuel-there are models in the US [e.g. Redeemer Presbyterian in New York] and the Vine would play a vital part.
This would enable us to keep the present congregation going and keep a foot on this important arterial route. At the same time the outreach could go on, in parallel with the Vine and other congregations. Being intentional means that we have decided to do this rather than just let it happen. We have decided that we need to attract some Christians who will live in community to help us to model what it means to be a Christian in the urban community. Who else is going to be prepared to live in the places that even Christians have left. Living in community makes it all the more possible. If we were able to build as high as the church then we could have all the more accommodation. There would also be the possibility of extending the services in the future.
Outreach at the vine would be more likely to attract non-Church people. Alpha type courses as well as other topical services. This can only be of encouragement to the other churches and to the Vine-there is no need or desire to do what others are doing.
While the development of a worship centre’s on the Shankill Road is a laudable idea it would be even better if there were people living in community. Along with the work on the Shankill this could be an urban community, where in-service training could be received and students placed to find out the realities of urban life in Belfast.

1. We can also seek to be critical friends to both community and government. This has already begun but what we need to do, by way of intention, is to make it clear to the community which feels deserted by the church is that we are committed to and actually passionately love our communities. In the best practice of development principles we would seek to work with people rather than for them.
We could also make places of spiritual retreat available all the time: turning desert waste places into spiritual oases. We need to consider how to make our worship glimpses of heaven. Our sanctuaries should use the best of art and music and appeal to a many of the senses as is possible, given our theology and they should be as open as possible that people can make use of these sanctuaries.
We need to take biblical reality much more seriously: for them Pentecost is a continuing reality.
We should also consider the implications of vertical faithfulness in our models of ministry. As Presbyterians we speak often of the importance of family and of the responsibility of the family in passing on the faith to the next generation rather than delegating this to the local fellowship. One of the people in the UK to take this seriously has been the of Rev William Still of Gilmartin Parish Church in Aberdeen. Here the congregation is freed to work in the community as active members of the community and to minister to their families. In many of our Presbyterian congregations the expectations on the minister are very high which has tended to make people dependent rather than mature and active. I am not sure if these expectations are driven by ministers or by their congregations or by both. The effect is to increase the pressure and stress on the minister. We have forgotten that the work of ministry starts at home and when it looks outward it requires ministers who are well rounded people; people take time to think and pray and are not afraid to take creative opportunities to meet people where they are. We need to think out of the box. Too often we think, like the institutions we serve, in straight vertical lines. Too often we are overly concerned with our part of the Empire we call church when we need to take the rest of the body of Christ into consideration. We need to ask how to help one another in the spiritual battle.
In seeking to be faithful to creation we should seek to build any new plant using environmentally friendly actions. We should also be concerned with social justice issues so that we will stand up for those who are oppressed in any way.
Conclusion
In this paper I have tried to tease out the family resemblances and to look for lessons to be learnt. A church which has kept the faith for over 2,000 years, through years of persecution by Ottoman and Communist regimes is worthy of investigation, at least. I wonder how we would have fared if we had been the ones who had suffered what they have suffered?

The Long. Lost Relative

2009-03-03T17:39:00.003Z

Foreword

This paper is written for the professors of the Bakke Graduate University in Seattle as part of an assignment for the Doctor of Ministry program, but to the “Research and Resources” committee of the Board of Mission in Ireland, of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The aim is to describe some aspects of the Orthodox model of ministry and mission and to set out some lessons we can learn. This is paper is the conclusion of extensive reading and a visit to Turkey and Romania with a group of other students, professors and Romanian Orthodox Priests. We began in Istanbul, made our way to Cappadocia and Ephesus before traveling through Bulgaria and into Romania to Bucharest and Iasi. We walked in the footsteps of Paul and saw the ancient remnants of the Church of Jesus Christ before observing and experiencing the living church in a former communist country. These are my own personal reflections. This was never intended to be a tourist trip but more of a pilgrimage and an opportunity to experience and rediscover our long lost family in the Orthodox tradition. It turned out to be a very long pilgrimage but these experiences and reflections were made with a group of people who have come to know each other better because of the many hours we spent together on the bus. We came to admire and wonder at the physical endurance of Paul who made the same journey without modern transport.
In seeking to understand this church, which has been isolated from the west since the split with Rome in 1054, we will look at its doctrine and practice. One becomes very aware of the distance between us but also the faith and practices that we share: it’s not always clear that in using familiar words we understand the same familiar things. J.I Packer reflects this line of thought when he describes the perceived distance between |Orthodoxy and traditional Evangelicalism, using the words of the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go’’ . George Bernard Shaw said much the same when he described the usage of English on both sides of the Atlantic as ‘’a common people separated by a common language’’. The average person is not familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church, we are not taught about it and so the assumption is made that there is little, if any, difference between the Christian and the Roman Catholic Christian. It is my contention that there are similarities as well as differences that we can learn from and even adopt to make valuable contributions to any living church for the glory of God.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank those who journeyed with me on the Orthodox Trail and those who have helped me along the way and in the process of producing this paper and pray that it will help someone somewhere on their journey through life.
Dogma, the practical theology of Orthodox Faith
Before investigating some of the beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy we need to give some consideration as to what we understand it to mean by ‘’orthodoxy’. The literal meaning of Orthodox is that it is the right teaching or right worship, being derived from two Greek words: orthos (right) and doxa (teaching or worship). As the false teachings and divisions multiplied in early Christian times, threatening to obscure the identity and purity of the Church, the term Orthodox quite logically came to be applied to it. Hence we have then term applied to Judaism with Orthodox Jews As opposed to Reformed or liberal and orthodox Protestants in contrast to liberals. The Orthodox Church considers itself as something of a guardian of truth against all error and schism, both to protect its flock and to glorify Christ whose body the Church is. Another way of considering Orthodoxy is to think of it in the light of those churches which call themselves ‘Orthodox’ meaning those churches who belong to a loose federation of churches who split from the Latin church in 1054AD [some of them are aligned to the council of Chalcedon and others opposed] giving special honour to the see of Constantinople. They were part of the eastern flank of the Roman Empire, where Constantine had his capital. After the historic split with Rome it became detached and developed an independent identity. Today, because of mission and political decisions, there has developed a Diaspora throughout the world but especially in the United States of America.[check this definition]. We will be using the second of these understandings in this discussion.
We are what we are because of what we believe and so in studying Orthodox faith and practice we need to reflect on the theological perspectives that make her what she is. When a people are separated by thousands of years it is quite natural that they should take some time to get to know each other once they have been re-acquainted. Before our trip we spent much time in reading about the life and faith of Orthodoxy but we have also been in discussion and spent time with those involved in ministry. In seeking to get a basic understanding of the dogma of the church one of the books we read was ‘’Introducing The Orthodox Church’’ by Anthony M. Coniasis . This covered such basics as liturgy, prayer, scripture, salvation, the sacraments and the controversial areas of Mary, the saints and the use of icons. Like other churches the Orthodox see themselves as the ‘’one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’’: they consider themselves,’ as the only way, and the truth to be the guardians of that truth for over 2,000 years. For a deeper understanding of dogma we read ‘’The Experience of God’’ by Father Dumetru Staniloae . This gives, not only a deeper understanding of Orthodox faith but also a different way of understanding dogma, which in turn gives us a better understanding of the nature of this church.. For Orthodoxy, dogma is not about those rules and regulations of the faith that are rigid and fixed. In some of the English translations the ‘’Dogma’’ was omitted from the title for fear that it would be understood only in the western way. For Father Dumitri this is not about a bald exterior appeal to the magisterium but…’’to indicate the inner coherence of dogmatic truth and the significance of each dogma for the personal life of the Christian’’ He goes on to say that what is needed is a ‘’concrete theology’’. For him theology presumes a personal relationship and that makes it less theoretic and more dynamic than the normal, western Dogmatic Theology.: it’s not about placing beliefs in various boxes, it’s more about living an integral faith where each part of the faith relates to all the others.
In studying the theology of Orthodoxy we find both continuity and discontinuity with ourselves and with the early church, at least as we understand it. Unlike the western or Latin Church the Orthodox have not been subject to the Reformation nor the Renaissance and they were never influenced by the Age of Reason and governance has not been by dictate of Pope or prelates but by the collective decision of the church: the Patriarch is merely the first among equals, as is the Moderator of the General Assembly, with his brother bishops. Anthony M Coniasis writes that ‘’The holiest moment in the church service is the moment when the Church-God’s people-strengthened by preaching and sacrament-go out the church door into the world to be the Church. We don’t merely go to church; we are the Church’’ . This view is similar to the Roman Catholic practice as the priest declares at the end of the Mass, ‘’The Mass is ended, go and serve the Lord’’. The division and schism of 1054 represents the separation of the brethren and a very long period of isolation, which has been aggravated by the historical events, such as the sacking of Constantinople in the thirteenth century by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. One of our problems is that we think by using the same word s we are meaning the same thing but that is not always the case. J.I Packer makes this point in his foreword to ‘’Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism’’ when he says
A venerable British ballad [or was it Irish?] begins by declaring, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.’’’. Substitute for Tipperary the desired togetherness between, on the one hand, North America’s evangelical church- as the great cluster of evangelical denominations, freestanding Bible churches, and evangelical networks within the subevangelical mainline are currently called-and the western outposts of the Eastern Orthodox communion on the other, and words of the song fit with ominous exactness: indeed, ’’it’s a long way to go.

Continuity

Theology of Mary

There are apparent similarities with the Western Church in the theology of Mary and the saints but also discontinuity when we begin to unpack what the words actually mean: for the Orthodox Mary, the mother of Jesus is Theotokos, the God bearer and any icons of her are always with the child, Jesus. In Orthodoxy Mary is never alone and she is always pointing to the Son of God she is looking inwardly in contemplation. She is not holding the child. The child blesses her for her willingness to be the one who brought him into the world. In the Latin Church Mary is seen alone. In Orthodox understanding Mary gives Jesus the place of priority and honour which is in line with our reformed view. [picture of Mary here?]
Ian Bria takes this further by saying that ‘’an ecclesiology which does not include Mary the mother of Jesus is unbiblical.’’ We may have to take this as a valid criticism in that we do not give Mary the position of honour that she has in scripture as the one ‘’most highly favoured’’. Timothy Ware states that anyone who fails to honour Mary is usually someone who does not really believe in the incarnation. He tells us that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus insisted that Mary be called Theotokus because honouring her would safeguard a right doctrine of Christ’s person. He says that ‘’anyone who thinks out the implications of that great phrase, ‘The word was made flesh’, cannot but feel a profound awe for her who was chosen as the instrument of so surpassing a mystery’’
The Communion of the Saints
Like the Roman Church Luke there is a theology of death which means that life is not defeated or interrupted by death: the Church is quick and dead, militant and triumphant.. There is little practical evidence to show that we believe in a church militant in our practice: we remain orthodox in our liturgy if not in our praxis. Some believe that we ignore the saints who have departed unless they were born in the nineteenth century and were sent out as missionaries. To some we act as if nothing of any importance happened before the Reformation if not prior to the Revivals of the nineteenth century. More familiar to us is the view that the Church is not the building rather it is the gathering in the name of Jesus and the fellowship of the saints which means that a Christian is never alone. Upon entering an Orthodox sanctuary one becomes immediately aware, we are told, of the great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the book of Hebrews: they are on the walls and on the roof and on the Iconostasis, which is viewed as a window onto heaven. To those of an evangelical and minimalist view it appears to be more of a barrier between the clergy and people. The saints are very important to any Orthodox worshipper because they are part of the triumphant church. . Just as evangelicals look with great reverence to the Old Testament patriarchs and to the missionaries of the eighteenth century so the Orthodox looks to the Patristic Fathers with veneration. In visiting the region of Turkey known as Cappadocia we were reminded of the Cappadocian Fathers and the part they played in making of the church. In our reading we were reminded of the part played by the patristic thinkers in the theological formation of John Calvin .

The Trinity

Then there are similarities with the evangelical world too. We have the world of Orthodoxy to thank for giving us a focus on the Trinitarian nature of God. All too often today we observe those Christians who pay little attention to the Fatherhood of God and give too much on Jesus [they tend to be Reformed Christians], those who give all the attention to the Spirit [charismatic or Pentecostal] and then there are those who deny the trinity altogether and we call them Unitarians, while the Orthodox are very careful to hold on to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ever three, ever one. In the Trinity we have the model for fellowship and partnership which results in service. It’s in the Trinity that we get the imperative to serve and to engage with each other. It’s in the trinity that we are reminded that ministry is all about relationships: our relationship with God, the triune God and our relationship with other human beings. We are all made in the image of God and that means we are fulfilled when we are like God, this is what the Orthodox call ‘theosis’, or the process of deification, what we prefer to call sanctification. This is what gave the Celtic Christians their relational ministry: this way of doing evangelism makes the person more important than the program and is more person-directed and less aggressive, more Christ-centred because the centre is not what we are doing but on Christ Himself. This is the approach we have taken in our church when we set up our prayer table in the community market. In this approach we allow people to come to us and request prayer rather than being direct and aggressive. As the Father relates to the Son and as the Spirit energizes the Son and makes sure the will of the Father is done so there is inter-dependence on each other, and that is how we are to relate to each other. Out of this approach we empower people rather than make them dependent, they become inter-dependent. In any community every member should have responsibilities and gifts for the benefit of the whole body.

Incarnation

This Trinitarian approach also leads on to the Incarnational approach of the Orthodox. In the incarnation the son of God came to earth as a real man, of flesh and blood. He took on our humanity, cleansed it and transformed it into a holy and glorious humanity. God became like us that we might become like Him. The flesh is important and not to be despised, rather we are to give thanks for it: the Romanian Orthodox, we soon discovered have a great facility for moving easily from the holy to the earthly, they can worship and celebrate without any difficulty. It is because of this incarnation emphasis and their trinitarianism that they thought it important to work and worship and study in the monastic settlements, so on these settlements there were sanctuaries with elaborate icon pictures along with libraries and refectories and fields to work in. In this model there is a holistic or integral approach rather than a pietistic, individualistic and private faith. The church building and the liturgy is designed to be heavenly and God –centred so that the worship becomes a drama: gospel is processed through the door of the iconostasis and the priest is dressed in his finery with the cloud of witnesses looking in the presence of the icon of the Theotokos and the pantokrator on the doom of the roof [God is panokrator or creator]. In ‘’The Liturgy after the Liturgy’’ Ion Bria makes the starting point that the word, ‘liturgy’ has its derived meaning in the words leiteros meaning public, and ergon, meaning work. He goes on to say that ‘
’the liturgy is not just a commemoration of Christ’s ministry to the world, teaching, healing, feeding the people; it is the realization, in each new context, of the history of the world, of ‘what the lord has done’ [psalm 64:8]|The faithful can see with their eyes and hear with their ears and hearts the message of the gospel in the symbolic language of Jesus…Again, this is a matter not just of visualizing the Word of God, but also of partaking the Body of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life’’
In the participation of the people in the liturgy there is an appeal to all the senses: to sight as they see the architecture, the icons and the actions of the priest; to smell as the sweet fragrance of the incense rising up in worship; to hearing as the y hear the bells in the liturgy, as they listen to the singing, telling the story and the words of the priest and the reading of the Gospel and preaching of the word; to touch as they venerate the icons and feel the bread; and to speech as they respond in worship and as they bless themselves in the Trinitarian blessing. For Orthodoxy worship is central to life and living and does not remain in the sanctuary. How often do we need to remind ourselves, in the west, that worship is intended as our spiritual sacrifice, not to be restricted to church, not something we leave in the pews but in everything we do. If we believe in the Trinitarian God then we will follow His example of relational service. Worship is more than singing a few songs and praying a few prayers, it’s about the way we live. Music is of vital importance in the worship of Orthodoxy. In this heavenly drama that can last up to 150 minutes without seating the singing of the liturgy becomes vital. Listening to the harmony which tells the drama it is easier to attend to and remember than the spoken word. From blessing themselves to entering church the Orthodox believer remains thoroughly Trinitarian. Getting the worship right will lead to the right way to live. Like the Celtic Christians life and faith is relational rather than programmed, the ‘’Gospel Driven Church’’ becomes the ‘’Community Church’’ driven by the triune God. Many evangelicals are time driven: we have trained our people to come to worship which will fit into the lifestyle they have chosen. This may well be to do with the music of their choice or the liturgy that suits them best or even the length of the service so that once the magic hour arrives they are keeping an eye on the clock.
Worship
For Orthodoxy it’s not about the time spent in the sanctuary. There is an impulse for the faithful to be totally involved in the action of the liturgy. There is a desire to see, to enter into the holy place, to concelebrate and to take Holy Communion. It’s not a matter of time, but of moving towards the throne to praise in the presence of God. Ian Bria says that it is impossible to be uninvolved. Personally I can verify this. In a visit we made to a church in Iasi I felt caught up in the worship, by the beauty of the singing, by the spirit of worship in the place. Several times I wanted to leave but felt the tug to remain. I had no idea what was being said but that did not seem important. I was struck by the desire of the faithful to be there and to take the blessed bread with them. I was struck by the humility expressed by the women who stayed on their knees for long periods of time, blessing themselves, not in a way which seemed calculated to use the least possible amount of energy but reaching from their heads to the ground. At another church I was struck with a mixture of admiration and suspicion as I saw some women crawling on their hands and knees, blessing themselves in the name of the Triune God making their way through the icon of the virgin and child, pleading for health and healing. We in the reformed tradition remain suspicious of such practices, naming this as superstition and earning their salvation: do they not know that Christ forgives as we ask? But then I find myself asking ‘’how do we express our humility?’’ I think we would be too proud to humble ourselves .Metropolitan Anthony covers this in ‘’School for Prayer’’ saying that if we wish to pray we must start with a certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation. We need to realize that we are naturally cut off from God and that we cannot live without him. All we can offer is our longing to be changed that we may meet him. He says that ‘’prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn God wards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be in judgment’’ Such real humility is not always at the top of evangelicalism
Vertical faithfulness
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is seen as vertical faithfulness rather than horizontal persuasion. For most evangelicals the Great Commission drives them on so that ministry becomes an objective to be reached: targets are set as to how many can be reached with the message this week or this year, we seek to pack as many as possible into the church or the theatre or the tent. For Orthodoxy the target is to pass the faith on to friends and family that they may pass it on to their children and their children’s children. That seems like something Paul said in 2Timothy 2:2. For many generations now the Presbyterian Church has played lip service to this approach: the practice, on the other hand, has been less committed: we have made such demands on members to spent all their waking hours in the church that spending time with family and being in the community has become a rarity with the resulting outcome that we have become detached from the community in which we live and, worst of all, estranged from our families. We have become too individualistic and private and personal, failing to understand that our Trinitarian faith means we were intended to be the corporate body of Christ, and to have fellowship with one another, bearing one another’s burdens. In seeking to be faithful to the Great Commission we have actually become disobedient and have distorted it. Surely this command of Christ is both vertical and horizontal. There are some implications of this vertical faithfulness that local churches need to attend to.
Then there is the thorny question of the unity of the church. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that the believers would be one but as the years go on then fragmentation becomes greater. In the ‘’Liturgy after the liturgy’’ we read that,
One of the issued raised by the liturgy after the liturgy is the question of Christian unity. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that all the believers should be one: today we are more fragmented than ever, not just across the denominations but within them also. For may years now the Orthodox have kept the World Council of Churches together given the absence of the Roman Catholic Church. By their presence they have demonstrated a commitment to church unity. Since the early years of the infant church Christians from the east have been in the vanguard of doctrinal purity and guardianship, hence the ecumenical councils that defined the divinity and humanity of Christ an other important doctrines we now affirm. On the more local scene the division among local churches whom largely share the same core values is a real obstacle to the gospel and the cause of Christ. While we cannot merely sweep aside the differences between us we should be deliberate and intentional in the engagement we have with those with whom we disagree. In 1974 the World Council of Churches meeting in Bucharest pointed to the necessity of churches working together in communion which would reflect in history the Trinitarian existence of God Himself. It goes on to say that,
The church is meant precisely to be that. Mission, therefore, suffers and is seriously distorted or disappears whenever it is not possible to point to a community in history which reflects this Trinitarian existence of communion. This happens whenever the church is so distorted or divided that it is no longer possible to recognize it as such a communion, or whenever mission is exercised without reference to the church, but with reference simply to the individuals or the social realities of history.
This means that getting our ecclesiology wrong may well make mission impossible. We need to have a correct view of the church, not as something separate from daily life but as an integral part of life. Our worship is another way of preaching the gospel to a secular world. This was highlighted at the W.C.C meeting in Canberra in 1991which spoke of the fundamental nature of the Christian life in sacramental terms.
Every worshipping community should be a model for an inclusive community. Worship space needs to be designed so that all people are able to participate fully. A lively ministry of hospitality, welcoming all in the name of the Lord, is most important. The plea of young people for forms of worship and celebration which fit their culture must be taken seriously.
With the attitude of intentional engagement there will be opportunities to agree and to disagree and to witness to the power and love of the Trinitarian God. Hospitality means being open to the thoughts and traditions of others, it means an openness to light from any quarter with the spiritual faculty of discernment. In our working with churches outside our comfort zone we have tended to isolate ourselves and remain aloof with the danger of remaining closed to the work of the Spirit of God.
Discontinuity
Some of the difficult areas of belief and practice include icons, the place of Mary and the saints and the attitude to tradition. At the beginning we quoted the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary’: recalling icons, is one of those areas were the distance seem the greatest. When a westerner looks at an icon he sees something quite weird, he sees something which evokes feelings of idolatry and exaggerated, cartoon-like thoughts. When the case for icons is put forward it appears very reasonable but the problem is that observation leaves us less than satisfied. This is an important topic because in a post modern society art and music have a very important place in worship and if we can learn from that we should.
Iconology
The trouble with icons and iconology is that we can only look at it from a western point of view. For the Orthodox there are three purposes in using them: one is to create reverence in worship, the second is to instruct those who cannot read; and the third is to serve as an existential link between the worshipper and God. The point is made by the Orthodox that while the Hebrews have always rejected any visible representation of God they did not appreciate that the use of letters can do the exact same thing: for example the use of Chi-Rho and HIS stand for Christ and Jesus respectively. St Basil said that ‘’what the word transmits through the ear, that painting silently shows through the image, and by these two means, mutually, accompanying one another…we receive knowledge of one and the same thing.’’ We are to understand that the Orthodox has two gospels: the one is visual and the other is the verbal to appeal to the whole person. The idea of icon has also become more a feature in the lives of people in popular culture: the communist regime of the USSR made it their practice to display photographs of their leaders to keep people focused on the right issues and the other is contemporary use of icons which act as windows to their programs; we understand that in the Presidential election in the USA on November v4th 2008 many African Americans took pictures of their forebears with them into the voting booths with them as a way of including them in this momentous event; then we are also reminded of the iconic nature given to celebrities and the description of Jesus Christ by the Apostle Paul as an icon of God long with his call for all the faithful to be like Him.
When it comes to prayer there are important lessons for us to learn from the Orthodox Christians and some things which call for critical thought. Take a look at the list set out by Anthony Coniasis and you can only agree that here we have a treasure for us to meditate upon. Here are just a few of these gems of understanding, taken at random, to demonstrate the wealth of wisdom as to the nature of prayer:

• Prayer…uplifts and unites human beings with God [St Gregory Palamas]
• Prayer is our personal communication system with our home base
• Prayer is opening the door of our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit
• Prayer is not bargaining with God, trying to convince Him to change. It is, rather, our asking Him to change us so we see His ways and His plans more clearly
• Prayer is raising my eye to God lest I begin to think that I am the highest point in the universe.
At the heart of eastern Christianity there is mysticism, there is a call to go beyond the cognitive thought forms that we in the west have iconized . There is much here that we can agree with and much that must challenge us. Theophan the Recluse calls for the worshipper to come before God with ‘’’the mind in the heart’’ He says that we need to pray with the mind but also with the heart. He says that we must pray with the mind so that it is not merely words, but the heart has to feel what the mind is thinking. Metropolitan Anthony says that ‘’unless the prayer which you intend to offer to God is important and meaningful to you first, you will not be able to present it to the Lord’’ He sets out three types of prayer: spontaneous; short vocal prayers and ready-made prayers. Discounting the possibility of being spontaneous all the time and rejecting set prayers he talks of the need for which is rooted in conviction. He suggests learning the Psalms by heart so that they can be used, drawn up from the well whenever they are needed and of the Jesus prayer. None of the above should present us with any problems and the idea of practicing daily prayer devotion at each end of the day should encourage us all. Coniaris sets out the daily cycle as one way of putting this into practice. Where many evangelicals have difficulty is with prayer to and with the saints.

What lessons can we learn?

Having tried to tease out any family resemblance I want to try to suggest some practical lessons we can learn from our long, lost relatives. To do this we will need to set out some of the features of the family. Firstly there is the Trinitarian doctrine, which sets the context for much of what is Orthodox Theology and practice. From the fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comes the monastic communities. Since the fourth century monasticism has been organized into communities, some surviving to the present day. The monastic initiative was the response of the believers to the spiritual struggle. They went to the places that others would not go to. They took the gospel to those places where it had no gone before. When the gospel was taken to Russia monasteries appeared immediately; when the communists left Romania the monasteries began to multiply. Michael Oleska tells us that when Russia, Central Asia and Siberia were settled it was not by adventurers or frontiersmen, as in America, but by monks who went to the remotest corners of Eurasia to continue the struggle against the devil, in the world and within themselves. John Binns reminds us of the problem when discussing Eastern approaches to theology: the words used are often used by east and west but have different meanings. It is also useful to note that both sides have different ways of understanding the nature of this theology. In the east the understanding is not about an academic knowledge but of personal knowledge. Dumitru Staniloae makes the same point when he declares that dogmatics is about ‘concrete theology’…a theology of experience’’ this is not about abstract systems nor philosophical theory but the expression of personal experience and a living encounter with the divine. John Binns quotes the words of Evagrius of Pontus who described a theologian as one who prays and one who prays is a theologian. The reason for this is that theological understanding has developed in the Monasteries rather than the universities, in the rough and tumble of daily life rather than in the ivory palaces of academia. We must wonder how the increasing importance of the universities may influence the life of the church in the days ahead or if the strong link with monasticism will act as a practical bulwark. It would be a mistake to think of the eastern monasticism as remote and distanced from church and people. The fact is that from the very beginning, and we saw this in Turkey, the monasteries were tightly linked to the community. This is seen in the fact that they were centres of learning, places of hospitality and places of work. In times of economic difficulty they provided employment, places for prayer and contemplation. They had their origins in the gospel call to complete commitment and to leave family and friends. I the trinity there is a call to service and interaction. They saw themselves as ‘’white martyrs’, called, not to die, but to give up all for Christ’. John Binns reminds us that the first monks we re just ordinary people who committed themselves to live as the people around them lived. There was nothing very unusual about them. They lived in groups or alone; they ate the same food, wore the same clothes and did the same work as the people around them. Their aim was to live as an alternative communities so as to be critical friends, sometimes challenging, at other times encouraging society. It was in the monastery that people found training and education and sometimes employment. In the early days membership was flexible: monks could leave the monastery and work m in the community and community people were able to join the alternative community for a [period of time. This was an intentional community. we have to ask the question, especially in those places which are often considered God-forsaken, where are the intentional communities in our western societies? These communities were so successful at what they did that they attracted financial support from government and people with great resources. They even played a part in the national defense, making the point that all defense is not military but also spiritual. Emperor Basil II wrote: ‘what foundations are to a house and oars are to a boat, the prayers of the saints are to the Empire. Who can doubt that what the sword, the bow and military strength could not achieve, prayer alone has brought tom pass easily and splendidly’
Stemming from Monasticism we have another feature which is their servant attitude. This also stems from the emphasis on the incarnation. In the triune relationship there is the interaction and mutual service of their fellowship which explains their desire to serve. In Christ God planted Himself in our world, the tabernacle with humanity for a while. Unlike other kings he came to serve rather than be served and it is the responsibility of every Christian to do likewise: not that they speak of responsibility but rather of doing what should come naturally. In the various countries where Orthodoxy is found you will find the liturgy in the national language. You will also find a strong nationalist spirit. Sometimes the question is raise as to how the eastern European nations managed to keep their religion going. The answer to this question raises another characteristic which is that of a survival mentality: in Ireland we call it stubbornness. What that means in the Russian and Romanian context is that they choose to be with their people instead of holding on to religious purity. A pietistic view in Belfast has denuded the community of vibrant Christian witness today.
When Dumitru Staniloae was asked about the cost of surviving communism he said it was two-fold: fear and lies. The persecution was great and they had to pretend to be faithful to the atheist regime. The alternative was top resist, remain pure but be destroyed and be of no use to their people. The Romanian Patriarch during the Ceaucesu years decided to collude rather than resist and this choice was accepted by the population: when he resigned after the revolution the people persuaded him to return because they understood his decision. The same course of action was taken in Russia. The affect in Russia and Romania was to outlast communism: as in China the philosophical premise of Leninist-Marxist ideology was seen to be defeated. The premise was that eventually the success of communism would destroy the foundations of the church and that would lead to a rejection by the people. Unfortunately, for the regime, this did not work out and that was re-enforced when they turned to repression and persecution. When the communists left the church was there to pick up the pieces.
Next, we see that they are clearly intentional in their engagement, both with those they agree with and with those they disagree with. This is illustrated by their involvement in the ecumenical movement where they have held the foreground and in the way they have decided to stay in communities. Where are our intentional communities engaging with the enemy as well as with friends? We have been slow to join the discussion table. We have deserted those communities which need people to fight the spiritual battles which face them every day and that helps to explain why there is a major dislocation of church and community.
Another feature, already mentioned elsewhere, is their grounding in the saints, especially the patristics. They have a clear view of their place in history as the people of God: they are part of a long line of saints who have held true to the faith. While this history can imprison, as it tends to do with us, it can also liberate and inform. The ruins and relics in Turkey and elsewhere can give rise to hope as well as to despair as they consider the sovereign will of God
Application
Having suggested some features of our Orthodox brethren let’s spend some time in setting out how we can benefit from them. Living in a post modern world we need to consider how we can make more use of, and, appeal to the senses. The way we live and worship is very cognitive and while it is necessary for us to have strong minds as well as strong bodies we need to become more holistic in expressing our faith. While we may have difficulties in using icons as a way to focus the worshipper’s mind on Christ we may be able to use art in other ways. In our church we already have a stained glass window of Jesus but we may be able to highlight it more often using creative methods.
In thinking of the great cloud of witnesses we can include the example of the early church fathers along with the missionaries of the nineteenth century.
In thinking of mission we can take the approach of other congregations, along with our Orthodox brothers of making the worship service be the place to help people to become disciples of Christ and leave the liturgy with the understanding that the service has only begun.
Following the implications of the incarnation we need to be intentional in our approach to community. One of the strategies used by John Perkins is to call Christian people to relocate in tough urban communities. We need to attract those people who can, and will, be open to minister and live in the most difficult places, be they in the inter-faces of our cities or in the rural border areas. We can decide to make housing available in areas of acute housing shortage without giving up ministry opportunities. We could set up Intentional Christian Communities in the various areas of Urban Belfast, and why not on the Crumlin Road? In a community which is so segregated into Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist we need models which can give example to how the two major traditions in Belfast can live together in harmony. If an experiment in integrated living is to succeed and space is to be shared we will need to create communities which have a certain degree of protection and control. Here is one suggestion or line of thought which is worth considering for our congregation and community:we could use our site to build some housing. A chaplain/warden and other necessary members of staff would be appointed. Places could be allocated with a mix of Christian and non-Christian people, young and old. A cross community aspect would be both essential and inspirational for the greater community. At the same time we could go into partnership with statutory services to build a sports hall/community hall which could also be used by the church.
This would be a renewing resource because it would get regular funding from government and it would dove-tail with the both the Vine and the other churches in the Greater Shankill Community-if it was thought appropriate we could be done with leadership coming from the shankill worship centre. We could be in partnership with the Shankill churches / or with Immanuel-there are models in the US [e.g. Redeemer Presbyterian in New York] and the Vine would play a vital part.
This would enable us to keep the present congregation going and keep a foot on this important arterial route. At the same time the outreach could go on, in parallel with the Vine and other congregations. Being intentional means that we have decided to do this rather than just let it happen. We have decided that we need to attract some Christians who will live in community to help us to model what it means to be a Christian in the urban community. Who else is going to be prepared to live in the places that even Christians have left. Living in community makes it all the more possible. If we were able to build as high as the church then we could have all the more accommodation. There would also be the possibility of extending the services in the future.
Outreach at the vine would be more likely to attract non-Church people. Alpha type courses as well as other topical services. This can only be of encouragement to the other churches and to the Vine-there is no need or desire to do what others are doing.
While the development of a worship centre’s on the Shankill Road is a laudable idea it would be even better if there were people living in community. Along with the work on the Shankill this could be an urban community, where in-service training could be received and students placed to find out the realities of urban life in Belfast.

1. We can also seek to be critical friends to both community and government. This has already begun but what we need to do, by way of intention, is to make it clear to the community which feels deserted by the church is that we are committed to and actually passionately love our communities. In the best practice of development principles we would seek to work with people rather than for them.
We could also make places of spiritual retreat available all the time: turning desert waste places into spiritual oases. We need to consider how to make our worship glimpses of heaven. Our sanctuaries should use the best of art and music and appeal to a many of the senses as is possible, given our theology and they should be as open as possible that people can make use of these sanctuaries.
We need to take biblical reality much more seriously: for them Pentecost is a continuing reality.
We should also consider the implications of vertical faithfulness in our models of ministry. As Presbyterians we speak often of the importance of family and of the responsibility of the family in passing on the faith to the next generation rather than delegating this to the local fellowship. One of the people in the UK to take this seriously has been the of Rev William Still of Gilmartin Parish Church in Aberdeen. Here the congregation is freed to work in the community as active members of the community and to minister to their families. In many of our Presbyterian congregations the expectations on the minister are very high which has tended to make people dependent rather than mature and active. I am not sure if these expectations are driven by ministers or by their congregations or by both. The effect is to increase the pressure and stress on the minister. We have forgotten that the work of ministry starts at home and when it looks outward it requires ministers who are well rounded people; people take time to think and pray and are not afraid to take creative opportunities to meet people where they are. We need to think out of the box. Too often we think, like the institutions we serve, in straight vertical lines. Too often we are overly concerned with our part of the Empire we call church when we need to take the rest of the body of Christ into consideration. We need to ask how to help one another in the spiritual battle.
In seeking to be faithful to creation we should seek to build any new plant using environmentally friendly actions. We should also be concerned with social justice issues so that we will stand up for those who are oppressed in any way.

Conclusion

In this paper I have tried to tease out the family resemblances and to look for lessons to be learnt. A church which has kept the faith for over 2,000 years, through years of persecution by Ottoman and Communist regimes is worthy of investigation, at least. I wonder how we would have fared if we had been the ones who had suffered what they have suffered?

INSIDE OUT OUTSIDE IN

2009-01-31T20:51:00.000Z

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

Some time ago my wife gave me a funny look. You may not think that as being particularly strange, not when you know me and you know my wardrobe “elegance”. What was funny was that somehow I had managed to put my jumper on “inside out” or was it “outside in”? That’s one way of getting more use out of it. It’s a bit like the case of the student who never washed his socks; he just recycled them in the wash basket! Who is to decide what is the right way anyway? My guess is that there are night clubs in Belfast where you would not get in if you wore your clothes that way, whether the article was a stripy jumper or not
That got me thinking about how important it is, or is it, to look well and to do things which look good. Some people are very concerned about the way they look so they spend hours getting ready to go anywhere: they have to wear the right clothes, having everything colour co-ordinated. Most women need to have their make-up on first thing in the morning and men who would not be seen dead without their latest electronic gadget. For me the most important thing in the morning is breakfast and taking the dogs out for their walk.
I guess the normal thing now would be to remind us all that God looks at the heart and not the outside appearance and that is we concentrated on that it would be a better idea than thinking of how we look. That would be normal and true but I want to take a sidewise glance at this from another angle. We are all too familiar with the decline in numbers attending the institutional churches. I only say the institutional church because that is where my experience is and not on those churches which are emerging in various places. Sometimes I feel very defeated by the downward trend and then I have to remind myself, to quote Jonesy in Dad’s Army, “don’t panic, don’t panic”.
This is where I come back to the truth I learnt from my wardrobe malfunction. Unless we in the church are ready to turn our churches “inside out” or “outside in” we are never going to make a difference in our society. What I mean by this is that we need to keep our focus on God and on Jesus Christ in particular but we need to draw alongside people. We need to put the community back into the heart of the church. Presently our church buildings tell the world that we are different, set apart, a place where ordinary people do not go. Jesus Christ was always part of his community. I want our building to say to the world, “you are welcome” I want the Christians to say to the world, “church is a place of sanctuary, of peace and of acceptance”. We are not a private club; we are a people who are literally on the move. I know that the worry is that if we do not take care of ourselves we will lose our edge. Can we not leave the health of the church to the God who owns the church? Can we not trust God so that as we become more community minded He will look after our spiritual health or is that ok for missionaries in Africa and different for us in Belfast? Why not, for example, share our buildings with the community?
It’s time for all Churches to turn the inside out. Maybe my mistake was worth making after all!

What kind of society do we want?

2006-10-02T22:39:00.000+01:00

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

The call came at 6.30am on Sunday, 1^st October to tell me that the church minibus had been torched and all that remained was the shell. My first reaction was one of thanks that no one had been hurt or worse. But now I would like to ask a very important question- what kind of society do we want? Another question is what are we prepared to do to get that society?

We were only one of a number of incidents that night in the district around the church and the damage that is done by this affects the whole community. What we struggle with is the fact that we are really trying to develop projects to work for a better society. Crumlin Road Presbyterian has been one of the lights in this district all through the troubles- on Friday night I was at the Boys Brigade Company section where there were teenagers meeting in the upper hall and next week the plan was to take these boys to Dundonald to go ice skating. Every week there are groups of people meeting in the church and the bus is used to collect and return people of all ages to church. Over the years we have taken people on various trips and outings,. Only this summer we hosted a team from the USA who worked with local people to clean up the district and to improve the environment by helping with gardens and giving flowers and plants in window boxes. We took a large group of local residents to the Giant’s Causeway for the day. The bus was used every day to ferry the team to various places to help them do their work

In our reading of the bible we understand the Christian’s calling is to serve and to help to rebuild civil society. Over the last 12 months we have been asking questions about how we can best serve our community- we are not going away, not to the suburbs, not to the green countryside, we are staying because this is where we are called to work and serve. We have had many meetings where we have considered whether or not we should sell the bus just because of the expense of it upkeep- the insurance alone costs £1,800 a year- but we have always decided that the need and the use has outweighed the cost and so we have made a commitment to keep it.

Thankfully there was no one hurt. Thankfully all that was lost was a material asset but we need that asset to do this work. This is not the time to talk about those who did this in negative and harsh ways because, like it or not, they are part of this community and an outburst of moral indignation will serve no one, even if the temporary feeling is good. What we do want to say is that it is completely counter-productive to destroy the work of those who want to help. Yes the bus was insured but that will not be enough to buy a new one- we do not have the money-you will not find big expensive cars parked outside our church. We do not have the professional people with the healthy salaries. Any that we did have, have left for the more comfortable places- we are a truly indigenous church and that means we have ordinary working men and women struggling to keep above the debt line. We are running an overdraft. Earlier in the year our data projector was broken – it cost £1800 four years ago- to day the same model costs about £500 but we do not have even that amount to get a new one and will have to hope that the insurance company pays up.

Is this the kind of society that we want? Yes we can turn the other cheek because we know that in the end no one gets away with the consequences of their actions but if we are to continue working for the community we need help.

ALL PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD ALL THE TIME

2006-09-06T10:41:00.000+01:00

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

As a child I went to two primary schools: the first one was in Danube Street just a few doors up from my granny's shop and the other was Cliftonville Primary. The head teacher in my time at Cliftonville was Mr McLaughlin and the two teachers most etched on my memory were Mrs McGaughy and Mrs Flanaghan. I remember Mrs McGaughy because I experienced her "discipline" all too often and Mrs Flanaghan , partly because that was a happy time but also because her classroom was different. My memory tells me that it was a semi-circle of glass and so was a very bright place to be.

When I begin to think back the memories come to the fore - it was a year when my friend at that time and myself looked longingly at one of the girls in the class but she was much cleverer than either of us. We played kiss-tag in the playground and sometimes we even followed her home but the relationship never developed any further. Then I remember the injustice we boys felt because our toilets were outside while the girls were inside the school! Every morning about 11am the senior boys of the school would come round with a crate of school milk, free to everyone. I'm sure that some people will remember those 1/3 pint bottles with milk which was cold in the winter and warm in the summer, enough to put some people off for life.

If you remember the milk of those days you will remember that the cream was always at the top of the botttle and so the custom was to give the bottle a shake so that the cream was mixed though with the rest of the milk. Some people, on the other hand, liked to drink the cream off first. Today our children do not get any free milk and there is a variety of milk to choose from. Go to the shop now and you have to choose from "whole milk", "semi-skimmed milk", "skimmed milk" and even "1% Milk".

When I look at our society today I see much the same kind of divisions. The United Kingdom and Ireland is quickly coming to look like that plural society that many have talked about for some time. I recently heard that there are over 60 different languages spoken in Northern Ireland today [ not to mention Irish and Ulster Scots]. That being so we have to ask the question: what do we want our society to look like? Do we want to see people keeping to their own territory or do we want to become like the homogenised milk where everyone is mixed together? We often talk today about a growing ethnicity within our society and when you register for the doctor today you are asked to complete a form which deals with your own ethnic origins. Few people want to see a society were there are ethnic ghettoes of people but would prefer one where it is possible to be different yet respectful of others. Jesus did not recognise ethnicity just people and people matter to God and to His son and to His people. This is certainly a more difficult road to travel because each of us has our own political, social and traditional zones of interest but the rewards of a society where people are the primary importance is a society worth having.

Jesus never forced people to believe and it is no different today but he loved people because they mattered to him. He was not judgmental or patronising but caring. In Sunday school we used to sing, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world red and Yellow, black and white all are precious in his sight Jesus loves the little children of the world". And its not just the children either but the men and women as well, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the protestants and the Catholics. the Hindus and the Jews and He is "not willing than any should perish but that all SHOULD come to eternal life".

Grist to the Mill

2006-07-20T20:17:00.000+01:00

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

Thursday 13^th July 2006 and we can all rise after a very successful and peaceful 12^th. “No tidy up and no inquisition” was the report from the BBC. The quietist 12^th for many years without the help of the army. Like other congregations our prayer last Sunday was for a peaceful day. Thanks to the grace of God and the good work of many people at political, community and church level we are able to enjoy the 12^thas well as the 13th.

As a child the 13^th of July was always one of my highlights of the year. The reason for this was that it was one of the days of the year when our shop was closed and we went away for the day as a family – that included my mum and dad and my aunt and uncle and my sister and cousin- and we usually went to Donegal. That meant making the mysterious and magical journey “across the border” as if it was like a bridge connecting two separate islands. We children got really excited in the anticipation of that “exciting” event and going to another country complete with trip tick and customs officers

Sometimes life is great but sometimes it is anything but great. Life can go sour without any warning when the sunshine turns to rain. Because of this we need to be equipped to face the difficulties as well as the joy. When Jesus tells us we can have “life to the full” and be friends of God He intends that friendship to be more than fair weather camaraderie. His desire is that we remain his friends forever.

The other week we went to visit our daughter who lives in Dublin and we took the opportunity to visit the Guinness factory, a vast complex of 55 acres which tells the story of how the drink is made and of the great success that has\resulted in Guinness being a trade mark recognized world-wide. The process of manufacture requires that the barley is milled so that the flavour can be released – it’s from this process that we get the phrase, “grist to the mill” and it brings to mind the crushing of the barley into a grist. Its all too evident that there are people among us who seem to be crushed by life’s experiences. I have met inspiring people who have gone through so many tough situations and come through as better people but there are also others who just seem crushed.

There is a popular myth around which tells us that if you take the decision to follow Christ your life will be full of joy and success without a cloud in the sky. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere does the bible make this promise. In fact Jesus tells the disciples to take up theirs and follow after him. We do no one any favours by telling half truths or by spinning them a line to get them into the kingdom, what we need to understand is that he has promised us is that he will never leave us.

Street Level Christianity

2006-06-27T22:27:00.000+01:00

In our church we have a stained glass window which puts our challenge and vision very well. In the fore front there is a big Jesus standing with his palms open. In the background there are the industries of old Belfast- the two giant cranes, Goliath and Samson, once used to build and repair major ships and then there are rep[resentations of the linen mills and the engineering works.

They remind us of the days when Belfast was famous for industries and made her name for the Irish Linen used in so many homes within and outrside of this island. The congregation came into being because of the expansion of linen which, in turn , came about because of the American Civil war which resulted in the rising price of cotton leadiong to the diversification into Linen- at one time there was a mill on every street corner but now all those industries have gone. At one time there were over 30,000 men working on ships but today there are less then 200 and the mills have gone and too too have the machine shops whih have been priced out of the market.

BUT Christ is still here- he is notsome far removed icon but the LIVING Christ who has remained with his people and has no intention of leaving until he returns in the flesh to declare that the time has come and the end is nigh.

Here we have the Christ of the street who has called all Christians to play their part in fulfilling His commion to go into all the world and make disciples for him. here we have the God who wants His people to be his followers wherever they find themselves. That means in the neighbourhood, in the leisure centre on the city council, wherever. We are to play our part in making Christ known and i teaching men and women what it means to be a Christian at street level.

In the early church the believers were of one heart and mind and no one considered his possessions to be his exclusive property, when there was a need they pooled their money to help their brothers and sisters. Being a Christian at street level means rejecting sectarianism and racism and all kinds of unacceptable behaviour like homo-phobia. It means leading an honest and ethical life-style, caring for what happens in Africa and Asia as well as in little old Northern Ireland. It means taking the lessons and exortations of the bible and applying them to every day use. While we reject the idea that anyone can win their salvation and that all men can be saved only through the grace of God in Jesus Christ we also believe that life-style is important.

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

Tenants not Owners

2006-06-03T11:54:00.000+01:00

A good few years ago now John B Keane’s novel was transferred onto the big screen. The central figure of the story is a man called Bull McCabe, whose family had farmed a small piece of land in a remote part of the west of Ireland for many generations. The time came when Bull had enough finance to make this arrangement permanent and so he entered the auction not knowing that a wealthy American with very big pockets had the same idea. The result led to tragic consequences!

This film struck a raw nerve in Ireland because we live not only in an island of small fields but because while we share the territory we spend a lot of time fighting over its ownership. Each community is able to present its title deeds to whoever is willing to listen- one looks back to the plantation and the other to the rebellion in an attempt to make their case clear and unambiguous but failing, perhaps, to realise that history is seldom that simple. While giving America back to the Indians seems to be a simple matter and not without logic and justice there have been an awful lot of people living and working on those land since the first while man arrived and settled.

Today the fundamental question for us is this: how are we going to share the shared space that everyone can be at peace with each other? Various ideas have been tried in various parts of the world; in Israel the government has built a huge wall to keep one set of the sons of Abraham out and the others safe. In the Balkans ethnic cleansing was tried and in Africa it was apartheid .Each and every logger-head attempt has failed to bring better relationships.

When we look at the bible we discover the answer to the land question- we are all wrong. The land “belongs to the Lord and everything in it”. The story of the bible is about the attempt of men to take this land off God and make it their own. Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who left his land in the hands of some tenants. The story tells about how even the son of the owner was not safe. Right at the start when God made Adam and Eve they attempted to rebel against God and take the garden for themselves. That had tragic consequences also and we are living in the shadow of them today. Ever since that day there has been a fault line of selfishness and rebellion in the heart of us all. The prophets warned of the judgement of God and yet, God was not, and is not “willing that any should perish but that all should come to eternal life”. No one could have complained that the owner of the land should have his justice and he will have it yet but before that is meted out He has given grace and mercy and new life to anyone who is willing to take it accepting that God is the only sovereign Lord.

Tennent Street is a permanent reminder that this land does not belong to Protestant, Catholic or dissenter but to God and we are his tenants.

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

blogger blogger

2006-05-26T12:50:00.000+01:00

Hello young lovers were ever you are

Learn to think!

2006-04-05T23:52:00.000+01:00

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

About a year ago Dr Jonathan Saccs, the chief Rabbi for Great Britain said on BBC radio's "Thought For The day":

If discipline is a problem in our schools it isn’t only because of the schools. Teachers are just one of the many influences to which our children are exposed. There are parents, neighbours, culture and society and if discipline isn't a value there, then schools can't create it alone.

There’s a moment in the Bible that's long fascinated me. When Moses addressed the Israelites as they were about to leave Egypt after two centuries of exile and slavery, he didn't speak about freedom, or about the land flowing with milk and honey. Instead he spoke about the duty of parents to educate their children. Why? Because to defend a country you need an army; but to defend a civilization, you need education.

When we pay our taxes we don't always do so with delight but my guess is that there are some things which most people would be fairly happy about forking out for. The National Health Service would be one and another would be the education of our children. The area of North Belfast is a part of the realm which stands, not so proudly, at the top of the , not so sought after, table when it comes to social deprivation. We have a very low expectation when it comes to education and very few of our children go on to third level education. Not all children can go to university or college but all children should be given the opportunity to learn to think for themselves while they are in full-time education. All children should be inspired to read and to discover the world of imagination and knowledge. In recent days we have had local politicians and independent members of the various Education and Library Boards being forced to make stringent cuts in the schools' budget. Only a few people are in the position to decide why the boards have been unable to balance the books but surely we owe our children and young people a sound education beyond the "3 rs".

Today the film industry and the television companies are often blamed for capturing the reading audience but, at the same time, the successes of movies like Harry Potter, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Lord of the Rings etc can also be used to inspire the movie goer to be a reader as well. Our school libraries need to have the money to buy the books and allow teachers the time to read to the children, using the picture medium as a spur and bridge into the literary world.

C.S Lewis, the Belfast literary giant says that to read is to learn to think- that’s what we want, men and women who can stand on their own feet and think for themselves. In our society it is imperative to move beyond the accepted thinking and even identities to develop our own thoughts and be able to express those thoughts in coherent and acceptable ways. We are a society which is hardly at peace with itself. We re-act to opposition and to the opinions of others without allowing our thought processes to take control and this means that we are often aggressive to others and very much an "in-your-face " people. We need to take the time to study what we read and we need to read and re-read until we understand and formulate our thinking and we need to allow what we read to make a difference to our lives. we will not always agree with what other people say but the way we disagree is important. too often we loose the debate, not because of the substance of what we are saying but because of the way we are putting the case forward.

When we read the bible we discover that because we are entering a world which is so distant from where we are today that the temptation is to give up or to stick to the passage we love so much to the impoverishment of our daily walk with God and the building of our spiritual character. Today we are led to believe that education should always be fun but that cannot always be the case, sometimes we have to do the long hard slog. We live near to the Cave Hill and we often take a walk up to the top. The walk is fairly steep at the end, especially for the not so young any more but when you get to the top the effort is all the more worthwhile. Standing at McArt's Fort the whole city lies at your feet and the view and experience is breath-taking every time. So it is in learning, we need to make the effort and not to give up. When you finally understand what God is saying it is very special. As someone has said, if it wasn't my father, "if a thing is worth doing its worth doing well!

Education will not change the world, only Christ will do that but it is well worth paying for and even being happy to pay for it. What do you think?

Groaning For Belfast

2006-03-23T12:35:00.000Z

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location [right click]

There are people and they like nothing better than a good old moan and groan- they are what some broadcasters have called the “whingers”. They sound like people who give little or no credence to the redemptive power of Christ in people’s lives.

Back in the 16^th century the words of Shakespeare fit nicely with this when he said

“life is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing”

or the more contemporary person who said that life was

“little more than the slow march towards death”

I came across this depressing understanding of life:

Think of the typical life of a person living in the Western world at the moment. They are born, are educated, get a job, find a partner, have a family, make enough money to stave off discomfort, live the constant struggle of existence, get old, weak and sad, and then die. It makes as a much sense as Eamon Dunphy's weekly column in the "Sunday Independent".

Many people love to talk about the good old days and about how bad life is today but here is the real question- How are we to make life today better?

The Chinese proverb says- “stop complaining about the darkness and light a candle”

Yes the world is in a terrible mess but – and you should not be surprised at this-it’s been like that since the fall in the garden of Eden- the real question for Christians is how can we play our part in restoring and redeeming the world. The story and message of the OT prophets is just how they went about doing that. The story of Jeremiah and Nehemiah and also of Joseph in Genesis is how they played their part-

Nehemiah started with lamentation and prayer

“Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace.” Later he says “See the trouble we are in” He spent days “mourning and fasting and praying” and then he acted.

Likewise Jeremiah saw the disgrace of his people- the people of God and worked for restoration. The lament of the prophet was a common thing in the OT times- the book of Lamentations is one long dirge or lament about the state of the city of Jerusalem

“How deserted lies the city once so full of people”

….Bitterly she weeps at night

after affixation and harsh labour Judah has gone into exile…her foes have become her masters…all she splendour has departed…all her people groan …how the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger….my eyes are frail from weeping I am tormented from within…”

and so it goes on but then in the middle of all this it says

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are NOT consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion: therefore I will wait for him”” [sounds just like a hymn???]

In Luke 13 Jesus looks at the city of Jerusalem in his day and sees that nothing has changed- the glory days are gone- for the moment anyway. Yes there have been good days as well as bad ones between the days of the OT prophets and the day of Jesus but at this time its all a mess and Jesus laments over his beloved city. For Jesus these were. literally, mean times and mean days- in the double sense of being the days in-between- good days and bad days but also in the sense of being sorry days- we too are living in mean times, between the bad days of sin and condemnation and the return of Jesus. Yes He has defeated both sin and death but there is still that one final declaration of victory- if sin and death were human enemies we would say- yes they are defeated but they have not finally recognized their defeat – they have not surrendered in unconditional surrender and laid down their arms- they have not been decommissioned but that will happen when Jesus returns and God declares- IT IS FINISHED- echoing and bringing to mind what Jesus has already achieved. Here he too laments the state of the beloved city

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you…..”

and you can almost imagine him taking up the posture of the Rabbi in lament- look at the Jewish people praying at the Wailing Wall and you get the idea- swaying back and forth and praying at the same time- the passionate prayer does more than speaking words-that passionate person’s whole body tells the story- they want to bash the wall and let their whole body weep and wail- this is the story in a few words of the desolation of the people-

can you imagine coming home to find your house gone, your children or parents or brothers and sisters dead like happened at the Tsunami or hurricane Katrina? Can you imagine the horror going through your body? We have made Jesus like a cardboard cut-out and then wonder why so few in our community seem to be moved by him. They are not seeing the real Jesus because we are portraying a very different version- one which is sanitized one which reflects our society- a thinker and philosopher but Jesus was a doer of compassion and miracles-

who came to preach good news to the poor

to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and the recovery of sight to the blind and release for the oppressed and to proclaim the year of God’s favour

This cannot be done dispassionately but with excitement and a sense of anticipation. Today Jesus would say something along the lines of

“O Belfast, O Belfast….I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, BUT you are not willing”

Now have we wept for this city? Do we really think that our city needs to be redeemed and you and I with it? And the next question is – are we ready and willing to DO what we can to rebuild this city so that we have not only a better place in which to live but one which shows the world how to live? Or do we agree that life is a story told by an idiot signifying nothing?

Jesus came to bring the good news- he did not send it, he brought it. But he was not content to declare the problem and issue the condemnation- he did the one thing which made it possible for men and women to live with hope and to do the work of reconstruction-he did the work of “driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow and on the third I will reach my goal”

There is a personal cost to all of this- for Jesus it cost him his life- yes he had raised up the heckles of the Pharisees by making it clear that they were on the wrong track and he had Herod as an enemy and that led to his arrest and trial and death but God used it all for His purposes- as Joseph said what you meant for harm God intended for good-it was God’s desire to free the people and the only way to do that was for Jesus to become the scapegoat. But God also raised him to life on the third day.

This was God’s work and it cost Jesus his life but what about us? Are we ready to pay the price? Are we ready to give to God as generously as he has given to us? Financially? Emotionally? With our talents and skills?

We have to ask- why has this good news which we continue to declare because we believe it- why does it appear to have lost its electricity when it comes to those outside? The message has not changed- so the answer must be to do with you and me in the way we are living and failing to touch them and the answer must also be to do with the way we are declaring it- we must think through how we explain the gospel and present it in ways that are faithful to the actual message and we must be working to restore the kingdom- the message is more than words its God’s unfailing power.

Whatever we do as a result of “Church, Community and Change" we desire that it be a demonstration of the love and care of our God and that means we have to love and care also- words of condemnation change nothing- they only makes us feel that bit better and more righteous but they change nothing- we are in the business of change for the better.

When will they ever learn?

2006-03-04T01:13:00.000Z

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

Here we are sitting in Seattle, Washington State. In yesterday's edition of the Seattle Times we were told that during the last couple of weeks of February there were something like 400 people killed in Iraq. Since the end of the lst Iraq war the inforced peace and cohesion has fallen apart. This seems to have come as a surprise to many in the USA but what more can you expect- the cohesion prior to the war was enforced by Sadham Hussein. When a society is fractured before a conflict it will surely remain fractured afterwards. When Iran was the great danger the enemy was perceived to the Shiites but now it is the sunni.

Rahim Abdul Karim is quoted as saying "I don't want tgo be brothers with Sunnis, because tghey continue to kill Shiites so it's very hard to follow the religious leadership [who caling for an end to all sectarianism] onthis matter."

Illustrating this the story nos told of Salim Rashid a 34 year old Shiite labourer in an overwhelmingly Sunni district. At 6pm on Friday evening he was told to leave his home otherwise he would be killed.

To somone like me living in Northern Ireland this could well have been said to someone living in an area in Belfast were the predominent population is from the "other side". This is not the action of a real Muslim any more than the same kind of actio in Belfast was from either of the Christian communities.

We are not unique in the world as people who cannot live with one another, even though we like to think that we are. Like many other people we are fractured because of the old enemy-sin! We are known the world over as a people who will respond in great generosity when people are in trouble, as was so during the recent Tsunami - while we have given freely and without question to Muslimsand Hindus in the far east we cannot give the time of day to our neighbours because they are another branch of thre Christian faith!! Weird or what?

Perhaps the lessons are best learnt when they are taken from far off places? Perhaps we can really understand the need for reconciliation when we see the protests after those infamous cartoons.

Iraq stands at the crossroads which our society has faced so many times- will we learn from them or will they learn from our mistakes? The Christian gospelhas reconciliation at its very heart- the heart of God has the dna of reconciliation and that is why he sent his son to die that we might be forgiven. How many more people will have to die before we learn of a better way? How long will it be before our world leaders learn that the answer to the problems of the world will never be solved by democracy alone.

"ULSTER SAYS NO"

2006-02-17T00:05:00.000Z

“

Ulster

says NO!” is a well known slogan which many in this community have heard and said. The question is, what do we say “No” to? Here are three suggestions:

Firstly we say no to creeping secularism. There is something like 36 churches around the Shankill but how many are full on Sunday morning? How many have a significant number on Sunday evening when the opposition is the TV? Secularism is when we say no to God and declare our independence to God. Secularism is when we believe we can do as well, if not better, than God.

Secondly we say “No” to the retreat of the Church. The church has allowed herself to be intimidated by those who say that Church and politics are to be kept separate. We have been intimidated into a retreat into our places of worship, closing the doors behind us and going into the safety of the sanctuary. The Great Reversal of the early part of the twentieth century resulted in a walking away from our calling to incarnate the Gospel. The well known theologian Carl Henry said that the Church was central to the well-being of any society and Jeremiah and Nehemiah and many others in the Old Testament agreed. He went on to say that “it is time for church-goers to take a rightful place in American society.” Saying “No” to secularism and to the retreat of the church means that we decide to take our rightful place in Ulster society.

Thirdly, saying “No” means an end to Christian flight from our streets. We have to say that this is not the time to retreat. Not the time to stay in our locked churches. It is time to be pro-active and to engage with men and women that we may serve them as Christ served the church.

Why would we do this? Quite simply because Christ has called his people to a live of love and service. Quite simply because this was what he did himself. For a while he lived among us and became one of us. We are living at a time when Britney Speers is considered more inspirational than Jesus Christ and we, the Christians, are to blame because we have remained asleep on the job. We have taken our eyes of the ball and allowed secularism to be crowned sovereign.

Someone has said that Christians are literally “lucky bastards” because they have received forgiveness and new life. No longer illegitimate but now legitimate sons of God. Too true we are but this gift is not for the in-crowd, it is to be shared with others. While politics has let us down Christ has not and he wants his church to get her hands dirty in service. Can you say “No” to this?

Good Leaders

2006-02-09T00:48:00.000Z

To many people today the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is so remote as to be useless for modern living. It may well fascinate actors and authors by its Shakespearian language but it remains a dust collector when it comes to any modern application. Yet the other day I was looking at the prophet Jeremiah and found some very sound instruction for all leaders.

Every leader will work for and be an example of justice and right living.

The New Testament tells us that every leader from PM down is a minister of God and not just state. According to Romans 13 whenever elected that leader is no longer just a private citizen they are role models.

Are we to be concerned when our political leaders lie to us as has happened in Westminster in recent days or been economical with the truth? Yes, I think what is happening to the United Kingdom of GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland is a cause of great concern: “RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTS A NATION”

Taking this onboard will have its affect upon how I use my vote and how I live my life. What it means is that I should vote for the people who will uphold righteousness and justice even if they are not in the party I usually support since God is in control and he uses all men to do His will.

Secondly leaders are to do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless and the widow. It is often said that a good way to judge a nation is by looking at the way it treats its minorities. Today the demographic shift in a place like North Belfast mirrors what is going on in much of these islands and indeed in Europe- today the church is challenged by the arrival on our doorstep of Africans and Asians, along with people from Eastern Europe and how are we to react?

Finally leaders are to make sure that the courts honest and just. We need a justice system which is both fair and is seen to be fair. This was to apply to both King Zedekiah and the foreigners who were invading the nation and its still true.

Even when the nation was suffering financially the king made sure that he had a mansion to live in, even when the temple was looted he had his big house. In our society we know of examples where this has happened but it must not happen when God’s people are in leadership. God used the great enemy from the north to discipline his people and He never failed to be in control. What is our hope for our children? That this same God is still in control and has set sound principles of leadership, which are as relevant today as in the far off days of Jeremiah.

THE DROP

2006-01-25T16:06:00.000Z

The Drop is the latest ad in the Guinness “Knowing What Matters” series, featuring characters who go out of their way in pursuit of what’s truly important in life.

At the outset we meet Seany, an intense young Irish-American on a mission. Quite what he’s looking for, we’re not sure, but we have a strong sense that he’s up to no good. We follow Seany on his increasingly frustrated quest through his blue-collar Brooklyn neighbourhood as friends and acquaintances declare themselves unable or unwilling to help him out. Finally, Seany’s luck turns – a contact leads him to a truck-stop diner where he picks up an ominous package.

We cut to Seany making his way stealthily into a suburban house and sneaking up on an old man sitting inside. The mysterious package is produced – and turns out to contain a pair of all-Ireland tickets. As his amazed father embraces him, the now-smiling Seany explains:

“It could be a long time before they make the finals again, Pops.”

It is truly amazing what some people will do in the pursuit of their dreams: athletes will hit the streets in all kinds of weather to get fit for that big race and to win the prize; actors and entertainers will go to the clubs and do their gigs in the hope of getting the recognition that will give them their big break; mothers and fathers make big sacrifices for their children.

Jesus calls for every believer” to take up his cross and follow” after him. While we in the developed world are currently called to make little sacrifice or suffer little persecution our churches are struggling to be relevant to the community, but our brothers and sisters in the under-developed world, who are daily paying a high price, are experiencing church growth. Why is that so?

The Tsunami of 2005 was just a reminder of how privileged we are in comparison to others- we are very fortunate that this community was able to present £1,750 to Christian Aid for the benefit of third- world families. How far are you willing to go to learn about being a disciple of Christ? What price are you willing to pay? It is truly amazing that we are willing to give generously to such far off communities where there are Muslims, Hindus and Sheiks and yet we find it so difficult to speak to some who are so near at home. Is it just possible that part of the price of following Jesus Christ is to find a way whereby we are able to agree to disagree and to do so agreeably? How much effort are we willing to make to reach out accross the sectarian divide?

In Jeremiah 35 the prophet describes how the Recabites showed such loyalty and obedience tro the instructions of their fathers while the Israelites have failed to obey God. If men will go to such lengths to obey other men and ancient customs why will they not obey God who is so much more worthy of obedience and trust?

Seany was willing to leave no stone unturned in his effort to seek out some tickets for his father because he loved him, how much more will the love of God move us? This is of eternal worth.

Patrick the politician?

2006-01-05T17:59:00.000Z

What do you think Patrick, St Patrick that is, would think about the partition of Ireland? What would he have to say about priestly celibacy or the doctrine of the real presence? Do you think he would approve of the flying of the Union flag or the Tricolour of the Irish Republic? Did he speak Irish or English?

Why, you may ask, would anyone be asking questions like these? After all we have no reason to think that Patroick was even interested in the politics of his own day. He was a religious leader and his sphere of interest was in the spiritual realm. He was not even an Irishman butb then neither was Dev and unlike the unionists of our day he was not even born on this island. When he was growing up and when he ministered to the people of Ireland the label of Protestant or Catholic, or even Ropman Catholic had no meaning.

Is it not ironic that the flag that many will desire to take to the celebrations on the 17th March, [hopefully they will be disciplined and see evvery reason to take no flags with them] is not welcomed by the majority of people within this modern province of Ulster and yet so many fly it. It is not welcomed by the Republican section because it represents a PARTITIONIST Ireland and it is not welc0med by the unionist sector because it represents a brewak with the rest of the UK and rule from Rome. This is ironic when you take a look at the flag- on it is represented the two religious communities in equal measure even though they are certainly not numerically equal. Is it not also ironic theat the Union flag which clearly recognises the flag of St Patrick, is not welcomed by the Republicans and forgotten by the unionists.

If the city hall is bedecked with the tricolour on the 17th of March the cross- community aspect will be lost and there will be a danger of someone somewhere reacting and causing trouble which will send community relations back by years. It is time for Protestants to re-capture Patrick- for too ,ong he has been seen as a catholic or nationalist saint when he is no such thing- his sainthood is solely based on his faith in Christ and nothing else. Patrick ids our saint and he could be a figure of unity instead of disunity.

It is also time for the gaelicisation of Patrick to cease- we need to make him a modern figure for a modern Ireland. With all due respect we should stop misusing him for our own political purposes

Patrick was a man of faith in Christ and his ministry was one of reconciliation ans that is our ministry also. Christ destroyed all the barriers between God and man and between Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. March the 17th could be a day when this community is turned round, when we show the world that it is possible to differ and yet respect each other and that we are, at last, growing up to be a mature political people- no one is being asked to end their political convictions just to realise that not everyone shares them. have lived in the Republic of ireland for nearly 15 years and I come from Northen Irealand and have returned to Belfast and know that it is possible to live as a peculiar people and even to revel in that distinction.

Lets depoliticise this man Patrick and celebrate his gospel message- the message of Christ in a new Ireland with a new breed of Irishmen!!

Jesus The Man

2005-12-13T16:44:00.000Z

When I was a student in the 1970s there were, at least, three TV programmes which has reached cult status. Programmes which were guaranteed to fill the TV room each week:

Top of the Pops
Mont Python’s Flying Circus
and Star Trek

Star Trek was launched in 1968 in a pilot programme called, “The Cage” but it was dropped because of poor ratings – it was only in the 1970s when it was re-launched that it became so popular and remains so to this very day. It is one of those programmes which appeals to a wide range of people and ages and there are many thousands proud to call themselves "TREKIES"

On of the characters is the first officer of the SS Enterprise, a man called Spock. Most of the time he is articulate, measured and logical in speech and stoic in his character. Within a matter of minutes you realise that he is not like other human beings and the reason is simple- he is not entirely human he is partly Vulcan.

Vulcans hail from a planet where they have no emotional baggage and we find this just that wee bit odd. It’s odd because humans are emotional beings- we cry and laugh, we get angry and we can be happy, we love and are loved in return. Spock looks like another human being but….there is something not quite right.

At Advent we remember the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that God-Man who came from heaven into this world exchanging His divinity for our humanity, yet remaining divine. Confused? That’s understandable. The fact of Jesus dual identity is unquestioned within the faith and no one has doubted his historical humanity outside the faith. In the early days of Christianity some found it difficult to see how this remarkable man could be a human being like us; others defended his divinity at the expense of his humanity. The end result of this was that some thought of him as one who resembled a man, one who looked like a man, just as Spock looked like a man but maybe not completely a man. Maybe, like Spock, he was only 50% man. In the early church the fathers of the faith declared this to be the heresy of docetism. Today we are still struggling with a Jesus who is completely God and completely man.

The Victorian poet A.C. Swinbourne painted a cruel caricature of Jesus when he wrote these words:

“Thou has conquered, thou Pale Galilean,
And the world has grown grey with thy breath;”

Was Jesus a “pale” figure? If that is the image we have of him then we are greatly mistaken, and don’t understand the biblical record. Let me ask you this: do you think He is he like Spock? I don’t think so. The bible tells us that real blood pumped around his body and still does today even though in a spiritual dimension. When He stood at the grave of Lazarus he wept because he was grieving for the life of his good friend. Christians need to learn that there are times when it is ok, more than that, right, to weep. That it is very wrong to pretend that all is well when it is anything but well. So at the funeral of a loved one we expect the family to grieve and weep and that is why Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn”….

When Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and saw what was going on he was very angry and drove out the offenders. Hardly the image of a “Pale Galilean”. Here we have a man of Sorrows” who was acquainted with grief and yet we live in a society which does its best to deny grief, pain and sorrow. Christians are called to be real people just as Jesus was real. On every page of the gospels his heart pumps with emotion. Sometimes Christians do appear to be “pale” two dimensional characters just as Swinborne describes but this is definitely not a fair picture of the Nazarene. He was a working man who knew all about the sweat of work and the frustrations of life

One of our problems today is to locate good role models for us to follow? Since we all have feet of clay and our national and sporting heroes are no different how are we to know how to live? In our human arrogance we sometimes think we have solved problems only to discover that, at best they are no better and at worst we have made them more ingrained, more intractable. I guess Iraq is a current example- some thought that getting rid of Saddem Hussein was the answer and that we could impose democracy only to find that we can’t and the hidden ghost of Viet Nam threatens to be revealed all over again. . Too many on all sides have died in this vane human effort, and we say this in the context of our own shattered society, reaping the results of the sins of the fathers.

To have a better world we need better human beings and to have better human beings we need the perfect one to follow- what is so special about Jesus is that he is completely human and yet he made a success of life. He is neither a Spock-like figure nor a “pale” character. He is one who is worth following because He is the God-Man.

” The Word became flesh and lived among us” as one of us. He is the normal human being and to be normal we need to be more, not less, like him.

REMEMBER WHAT?

2005-11-12T12:42:00.000Z

In one of Winston Churchill’s famous speeches, given to the House Of Commons on the 18th June 1940, just 4 days after Dunkirk, after setting out the disastrous news to the assembled MPs when Britain stood alone to resist the massive juggernaut of Nazi troops he ended with these words:

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, ‘This was their finest hour’”

It is often the case that nations are at their best in times of national disaster . Churchill had the ability to get everyone behind the cause and be ready, no matter what the cost , to fight to the bitter end. He had managed to capture the spirit of the hour and challenge the people to commit themselves to the cause. Now he did not KNOW that victory would come but he had the gift of making people believe that they would even against the disaster of the fall of Paris and the rest of the European allies and without the support of the USA.

On 4th June he had already said:

“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty,,,,……we shall prove ourselves, once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone……….we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island , whatever the cost may be, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight them in the hills, we shall never surrender…..”

History tells us that this country was perilously close to destruction
- almost starved
- almost defeated
- almost invaded

By every measure the country was at the end of all its resources- the coming of the cavalry could not come too soon and , thanks to the Imperial might of Japan, it came and not a moment too soon. Today, as we look back, we celebrate the might of right but we also tend to concentrate upon the power and the might which overcame the enemy and, in the end it was the might of the atomic weapon of mass destruction which forced the Japanese to their knees.

As Jesus chose and set apart the 12 Apostles he begins to teach them and also the bigger group of disciples along with those on the fringes. What is immediately apparent is that this group is very different and this Kingdom that He promises is very different. HE USHERS IN A NEW KINGDOM

They are not promised that they will be among the great and powerful- not like the Romans -indeed this kingdom is not a picture of strength and power- that was seen clearly in the kingdom of David and his successors- God tells them at the outset, that He doesn’t want them to have a king because he is the only king they need but they think differently.

This Kingdom is all about:
poverty
hunger
weeping
and being among the hated.

Here He eyeballed them- both friends and enemies. This kingdom, he says, is like no kingdom you have experienced before.

This kingdom is made up of the weak and the powerless, the hungry and the poor- they are the beggars who sit with longing and hungry eyes beseeching us for help.

Paul says much the same in 1Corinthians 1:18-25
This runs totally contrary to what we believe and to the experience of the people of God in the history of Israel- they were the chosen
They were the blessed
They were “THE PEOPLE” and now this Rabbi pulls that all down and inverts it- it is the negative of the picture- he gilds no lily but tells it like it is- if you want to be part of my kingdom you will have to take this view- but that is only half the story.

There are three groups of people here- Disciples, fringe members who can be won over and who might because they have spent time with Jesus and with His people and then there are the enemies who have nailed their colours to the mast- they are against him – as He speaks He looks at each in turn

To the opponents He says- live only for today and you will be rewarded today-v24-26

To those who have an eternal perspective to life He says- “you will be rewarded tomorrow”
You will be satisfied
You will laugh

To one he says :

YOU are BLESSED and to the other he says
WOE to YOU

To the one he says “Rejoice….for that is how they treated the prophets” and to the other he says

“Woe…. For that is how their fathers treated the false prophets”

No one is won over to a cause which lacks demand- we need to set the challenge before men- its not for wimps, its not for those who can spare a few minutes a day its for those who will invest their time and energy in the things of God- living today but with an eye on a time beyond all time when Christ will be our companion.

The challenge set forth by Churchill was awesome but the Challenge set by Christ is infinitely greater but also more certain. This is the kingdom that God does desire and has made possible for us to be a part of.

Verses 46-49 tell the familiar tale about the need for a firm foundation- to make a house secure and able to stand up wind and wave it is necessary to spend a lot of time on building the foundations and so it is in the Christian life- we need to build on the teaching of Christ and His Apostles.

Now the big question is this- what DOES THIS KINGDOM LOOK LIKE, in practical ways?

We now come to the radical and challenging verses of 27-45
In our every day experience and certainly in the wartime experience you need to know who is your friend and who is your enemy- you need to, “cultivate your friends” [Oscarv Wilode]but Jesus adds- MAKE YOUR ENEMY YOUR FRIEND.

This kingdom is like no mother kingdom you have experienced- in this kingdom the heroes are not the strong and the brave, not the rich and the powerful- in this kingdom LOVE IS THE KEY

The Beatles said – “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE” But in our thinking this is the romantic love which has led men to give up thrones and devote their lives to the one they love or even the love of your country which has inspired great devotion in wars and other conflicts- but this love which Jesus speaks of is the love of God- the love which God demonstrates in this

“while we were yet sinners Christ died”[Romans 5:8]

This love is all about giving and not receiving- Jesus says LOVE:

your enemies
do good to those who hate you
bless those who curse you
pray for those who ill-treat you
if your enemy strikes you on one cheek turn the other
if he takes your coat let him have the other one also

In other words, make a friend of him!
There is nothing special about loving those who love you- even the sinners do that
Nothing special about inviting your friends to dinner even the sinners do that.

Let the love of God be clearly demonstrated among you:
Make friends with your enemy- lets God’s love reign
Treat others as you would like them to treat you
Don’t be critical of others
Look to correct your own sins
Once you can see then you can lead others
V45 “The good man brings good things stored up in his heart”

Challenging or what? If we, in Belfast, could do that what a witness that would be- then we would truly have had the "war to end all wars".

A Prayer For The Community

2005-10-27T23:23:00.000+01:00

Lord Jesus we are in great trouble and destress. Community life is at an all time low- our people are at odds with each other, the police have lost the support of the community and our elected politicians feel under great pressure to conform to what the people want. Everyone does what they feel is right in their own eyes. we have lost our vision and are in danger of perishing.

Will you forgive us for the sins of the past? We confess to you that we have not kept you at the centre of all that we do. In days past our community has not always treated those who do not share our political vision with the respect and courtesy they deserve and your word expects. There have been times when we have failed to speak out when wrong things have been done in our name and we have given cover to those who have done the wrong things. We have not looked to you alone as the one to save us.

Will you help us through the work of re-construction in society and revival in your church?
Empower us to be the people you want us to be and strengthen your people to serve the community and to live our lives in such a way as to bring glory and honour to your name. Help us to work for peace in our land and in our times.

My prayer is that Northern Ireland will no longer be a by-word for sectarian strife but a name which inspires hope in the hearts of all divided people. Help us to live with differance and make us eager and willing to accommodate one another. May our slogan be "Ireland For Christ and Christ alone".

This is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ Amen

TRUE GREATNESS

2005-10-01T23:56:00.000+01:00

True Greatness

The other night we had the battle of the giants- the English Premier Champions against the European Champions. While it was a draw the European champions had the moral victory! What make a team great? What make a nation great? What is it about Britain that makes her great? When Knox Mitchell was ordained in this church as the first minister in 1867 everything about Britain was great and Belfast was a great city within a great Empire. Britain was, as the USA is today, the richest nation in the world- the globe was predominately pink to show that the British Empire reigns without challenge or equal-from Canada in the west to New Zealand in the east and that included huge swathes of Africa in the middle. Belfast was the 20^th largest city in the UK and was a world leader in Ship buildings, engineering, rope making and, of course in the Linens industry.

In parallel to this the working man and woman was experiencing life at the raw edge- while they helped to make Britain great a Belfast a leading city of industry they experienced few of the benefits and when they were unemployed or sick they were shown little sympathy or practical help. In 1900 an article in Bibby’s Annual had a picture of some unemployed men and it goes on to say,

“These men should be made to feel… that their condition is a disgrace…Teach them how to play, run, jump, sing, to get a move on things. Play is action and all action is good!”

At the same time Belfast remained fairly unaffected by the famine which was hitting the rest of the country cutting the population from 8million to 4 million in a matter of years.

When people came here to worship they knew that they were part of a great nation in a great city and that the population had increased extremely quickly because of the expansion in the linen industry- what you find as a rule is that at a time of poverty people rush into the city to find work because the irony is that while the city was becoming prosperous many ordinary people were not-at a time of general prosperity people rush out of the city to seek the better life- so today the trend is in reverse to that of the 19^th century. As people gathered here they gathered in a great city to worship a great God.

Today we find ourselves in a nation which has lost its position as top dog and is seeking to adapt to being a nation of equals in an international scene where empire is no longer acceptable and we are just one of many equal nations and what makes matters worse for us is that our nearest neighbour across the border has been on a fast track of prosperity. We are like the once great football team who can only look back to the glory days.

Belfast City Council has a development department which has produced a document which looks back in history but also looks to the future and concludes with this statement:

“All cities need a clear sense of direction to achieve their goals and, for too long, Belfast has not had a clear vision of what it wants to become.”

That is a very interesting statement. The name of our city comes from the Gaelic –Irish and Scottish- BEAL FEIRSTE and it takes the name from the river Farset [as in the Farset Hostel on the Springfield Road]. The meaning in English is

“the mouth of the sandbank”

Belfast is built on the sand! No wonder we have problems. Here we have a living parable which stands to warn us.

G. K. Chesterton once said that when a people stop believing in God its not that they stop believing in anything but that they start believing in everything and s0 they loose both cohesion and a sense of direction. We need to gain our direction and start to build on the ROCK. For some their direction is on the aspiration of a united Ireland and for others it is a return to the Ulster of old- both aspiration and both impossible for life moves on.

WE need to get back to basics and realise that these aspirations are illusionary and lead to nowhere acceptable for anyone. While we have been pre-occupied by holding our ground and we have lost sight of the God we worship. WE are looking at the wrong things- some are looking intently at the unity of an Ireland which has never existed and in the process have lost the people they want to unite and for others they have focused upon maintaining a colonial Ulster as part of a Britain which no longer exists.

While nations rise and fall God remains the same. If we ask the question- what kind of city do we want to be we can only begin to answer that by centring our focus on the one who si truly great.

Isaiah was a prophet for a people rather like us and for our times. He was speaking to a people who were

discouraged and despondent
who felt that the tide of events had been against them for a very long time
who feel like king Kinute
who have ceased believing in the cause of Christ in this place

WE make a big mistake if we think this is the worst of times and that there have never been such bad times, the truth is well put by Charles Dickens in a “Tale Of Two Cities” when he said,

“It was the worst of times, it was the best of times”

read the Bible and see if that is not true0- we are not unique either in the world today or in the history of the world.

As we prepare for celebrating communion together lets focus on the one who is Sovereign Lord of ALL.

A great nation and people is a people who follow a great leader and the leader we follow is incomparable because he is the divine Lord. Isaiah says look at Him very carefully and then you will see that he is worth following and will not let you down and will form your vision.

Look at :

What He has DONE v12-he created the world from NOTHING. In the NT He completes that creation by sending Jesus Christ who gives us SALVATION from our past sins and a HOPE for the future. In Adam we are in bondage, in Christ we are free. This is a freedom which is infinitely greater than any political freedom or franchise. Even those who live under tyranny are free. At present we are free within the confines of our humanity but the day will come when we will be free without restraint.
NATIONS- In the past Great Britain ruled the world. Today it is the USA and tomorrow? China?

God says that God looks at them and calls them insignificant and meaningless- they rise and they fall at the hand of God.v15

WORLD- today the world has a huge population of over 6billion and rising every second but when compared to God they are like grasshoppers and yet he also says that God knows the name of every one of the stars in the sky at night.
LEADERS- When Knox Mitchell was minister it was Gladstone the GOM [later the MOG] and Disraeli [immortalised her in the name of the street.. Today it is Bush, Blair and Putin and many others whose names are not known to us but who wield awesome power and Isaiah says v23 He brings them to nothing.

In short we come to worship the incomparable Lord, God and Saviour and if we focus on him then we will see that being like him is our goal- that is our vision. In Him we have real and true greatness so lets look to him and we will be a great people once again, a Great Britain, a United Kingdom and a people at peace with ourselves and that will transcend political greatness and a desire to accommodate one another. I doing this we will build on the rock and not the sand and we will unite with one another in true unity.

Authorative Christians

2005-10-01T23:29:00.000+01:00

At the moment I have an uncle who is very seriously ill in the hospital and watching him in the bed WE ALL FEEL TOTALLY HELPLESS. There is nothing we can do apart from be there and watch his slow deterioration

There are times in all our lives when we can only feel our powerlessness. How often have you heard someone say- “My hands are tied, I can do nothing”?

The other week when the human barricades where up from 4pm each day and the nights were filled with rioting it was perfectly obvious that the police were helpless. When I found myself closed in by lines of women and children and a few angry men the police could only keep a watching brief. One man in a long queue of cars asked me “can you do anything here?” In a word no.

In Luke 4 the context is about the power of Jesus [Holy Spirit]- he leaves the wilderness where he was tempted to imitate Adam in taking control himself and away from God.

He begins his ministry full of the Spirit only to face another temptation- to give in to the crowd but he challenges them instead and walks through the opposition

Then he enters Capernaum and is opposed by this man who is possessed by demons and he begins to work out his manifesto, which he had set out when he read from Isaiah about setting free the prisoners and forgiving sin and recovering the sight of the blind.

All the people were amazed, again at the authority he was showing, this son of Joseph the carpenter. Here is the key word is authority – this man who had such power was also a man with authority. Power and authority are not the same- sometimes people have power and no authority and at other tomes they have the authority and no power

The police have the authority vested in them by the people to maintain law and order but they only have the power when they police with the consent of the same people. Of course they can take power by the force of arms but when they do that they have to be convinced that the end will be justified by the means- past history has shown that there are times when less is best- how often have we seen the authorities, in the movies and in real life, going into a situation with all guns blazing only to discover that more people ,innocent people, were killed in the process and so the short term gain has lead to long term defeat?

When the human barricades went up there was a withdrawal of consent from the unionist population either directly or indirectly when the majority acquiesced. In contrast to that the protestors had the power but no authority. Their authority was not legitimate.

Here we see that Jesus had both power and authority. In Matt 28 he tells us that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him. This power is from above and here everyone was amazed by his power to deliver from sin and the demons and to save men from their sins- what a man this was. We also see that this was the legitimate power of God it was authorised by Him. He was the Messiah and here lies the whole issue- who was this man really? Was He the Messiah?

In these stories we have that authority manifested over:

sickness
the demons
people

1. DEMONS

This was a time when demons were very prominent in the thinking of the people. They were implacably opposed to this man Jesus Christ- they had no doubts as to who he was. While the religious people questioned his identity the demons knew exactly who he was-

“What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God”

Later in the letter of James he says something similar

James 2:19 “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder.”

Jesus shows his power and authority by saying “BE QUIET”

Now here is the difference between authority and power- when the policeman stands in the middle of the road with his hand up or that red torch the traffic stops. If I did the same they would blur the horn and drive on. The uniform tells you that he has the right to stop the traffic. When the women and children stood in the road they had no authority but they had a kind of power, that kind which assumes its own authority for a while- they had little power themselves for they were weak and anyone could have defied them and driven through the ranks but their power was behind them in the community.

In Jesus we have one who has both power and authority- so when he commanded the demons to leave they did so. The result was an utter amazement at his authority.

2. SICKNESS

News about Jesus spread like wildfire and the crowds followed him out of the synagogue and to his mother-in –laws. When he arri8ves there he finds that she is sick with a fever and the family ask him to help her so he bends over her and REBUKES the fever and she gets up at once-again we see his power and authority. Then he spend all night healing the sick and setting them free from the demons. Again they recognise him immediately.

Now he faces another temptation- the temptation to curry favour but he knew that his time was not yet right- he had no desire for them to make him king- like the devil they promised something which they could not give as he was king already.

He was ready to give his all in healing yet not to the point of neglecting his mission to preach the gospel in other towns and cities. Just as he had authority over sickness and the demons so he has control over us also. He can cast out our demons- personally and collectively. He can set free Northern Ireland, Ulster, Ireland and Britain and give us life to the full, if we will just pay attention to him and allow him to direct our ways.

3. PEOPLE

In Chapter v5 we have the calling of Peter as one of his disciples.. While he takes the opportunity to preach to the crowd using the boats as a makeshift platform or pulpit he also draws Simon to himself.. He had seen what Jesus had done for his mother-in-law and for here friends and neighbours and now he experiences this great catch of fish – there are so many fish that the boats began to sink with the weight and peter and the others are left in awesome wonder at this man. Even though they were tired and weary from fishing all night and catching nothing they did what he commanded and their obedience was rewarded way beyond their expectations

Do you stand in wonder at Jesus Christ?

Are you ready to obey him even though you are tired and weary? Are you amazed that he gave his body and his blood that you might have life to the full?

What is your reaction to this wonder? Peter became acutely aware of his own sin and could only feel dirty and unworthy- “Go away from me Lord I am a sinful man”

There is no presumption here only an acute sense of personal failure and sin. Sa we come to the table of the Lord Jesus we too are to come with a deep sense of sinfulness yet also knowing and experiencing His forgiveness- this bread and this wine speak of total forgiveness and complete fellowship with the living Lord. We should never stop being amazed at His grace and mercy. We wants us to be complete human beings just as Jesus himself was-so today we come to accept his forgiveness

To realise his promised new life

And to live in his power and authority.

Yes we are totally helpless when faced with the magnitude of our sin and our hands are tired but this table reminds us that in His power we are “more than conquerors” we are victors and not victims.

Accommodation

2005-09-19T23:32:00.000+01:00

Accommodation can refer to things like help, assistance, aid, obliging, indulgencing or it can mean making alterations to fit new cicumstances requiring adaption, adjustment, modification, reconciliation, fitting and harmonization.

When used in connection with our political stalemate I think it is a concept very worth consideration. Usually when people are in dispute the talk is of compromise. When the Whiterock parade was re-routed by the Parades Commission for the second tiome there was a hope that a compromise could be achieved but there is the fundamental difficulty with all compromises and that is that it looks for the middle ground and often means that no one is really ever happy with the solution and so it is no solution at all. We need a much more creative way to square the circle and create a much more long term solution. I think the idea of accomodation is a better way forward. If both sides start from the view of accommodating the other side the conclusions will be much better than the middle way- in the middle way both parties take up their negotiating positions which are not realistic positions at all but positions from which they can allow for movement. If I am willing to accommodate you then I will be looking for way to make us both happy.

How can the Loyalist accommodate the Nationalist and how can the Nationalist accommodate the Loyalist? To start with each will WANT to look at the problem from the other's point of view. To be able to do this they will have to take up positions to view the other side. Can we get to that place where we both want the best for the whole people? Can we get to the place where we are both willing to make changes to accommodate the other? To begin this proces of thought we will have to find ways of taking the heat out of the situation. What is it that adds heat for both sides?

A Community at prayer

2005-09-19T19:39:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we had a morning of prayer and reflection in the church. This had been arranged in connection with the Community Council. The turn out was not great but that can be, partly, explained by the haste in which it was organised. There had beeen no time to announce it on a Sunday but we wanted t9o act immediately. I thought it was encouraging that the council would be prepared to advertise it in the press and make it an initiative of its own. The News Letter, one of the biggest papers in Northern Ireland, covered it on tweo days including this photograph.
Thankfully the Lord is not moved by the number of people nor by the sound of our voices- C.S.Lewis onece saud that when menm prayer its not that God changes His mind but that they change theirs. We need to be in the vanguard of working for change in our city and country. WEe cannot just sit back and do nothing, not even be satisfied with praying-sometimes we become the answer to our own prayers. Sometimes we have to act as a result of praying. What should the church be doing in Belfast?

Faith .gif
Originally uploaded by jack in the box.

Flickr

2005-09-19T15:43:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flickr

2005-09-19T15:42:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Love Ulster

2005-09-15T22:42:00.000+01:00

When does patriotism become idolaterous? In the midst of the street protests and the street rioting in Northern Ireland there is the "love Ulster" campaign. In the community of Belfast and all over this tiny province there are people who are deeply frustrated and angry about what they perceive to be the gross injustice that they have experienced over the last 30 years since the begining of the, so-called, troubles. Talk to anyone of the majority of Protestants [also called Unionists or loyalists depending on how they see themselves] and they will give a list of concessions made or taken and always demanded by the nationalist [or republican] community: the loss of the RUC and the Stormont government are only two examples.

The "love Ulster" campaign have published a newspaper which perports to be a record of the death and suffering of their community and I am quite sure that it has not had a healing or calming effect on the population- some had hoped that it would give people a chance to tell their story as was the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I am also sure that it would be of great benefit if people were given the chance to talk to one another about their stories from both sides of the community and indeed even from within the community: we forget and some do not know that there are several communities within the protestant community and the strife between two parts in recent days is an example of that.

In this common territory the mix of denominational allegiance and political allegiance is very strong but there are people who have bucked the trend. My feeling is that there is something very wrong about the thinking behind "for God and Ulster" as if God were subservient to Ulster. I have no quibble with those who have a patriotic heart but we need to question if it is the land or the people that we love? Someone said to me the other day, as we waited for the street protest to be lifted, "I'm sure Mars is a nice place". It might be but without any people the peace must be deafening. When Jesus talks about peace he was not thinking about the peace of the school that has no children he was thinking of harmony between people. Does patriotism have any real meaning if it only relates to the soil? does peace have any real meaning if it excludes those we don't like?

If I am to really love ulster I will have to love all her people- those who share my faith and those who don't, those who agree with my political aspirations and those who don't. There will be peace in heaven but it will be a totally differant knd of peace. In this land or is it country or nation or just province, we are are a part of a tangled mess. We were not alone in creating that mess but we all have to live with its effects and surely we all have a part in straightening out the wool. But how can I love those who are different to me? Put another way, how are they to love me? I think Christ sets me free to serve and free to live with those of another culture and religion.

The more purest out there each want nothing less than the whole cake but the reality is that none of us can have the whole thing and we will have to accomodate each other - is that different to compromise? i think it is. In compromise no one is happy but in accomodation we all seek to reach out to the other party- could we do that? Are there Christians who can do that in Northern Ireland, in Belfast? If Christians can't do that no one can since we have benefited greatly, even eternally from the work of Christ which accomodates us in our state of sin- he gave all that we might live. If I love Christ I will also love Ulster including all her people.

Broken Relationships

2005-09-13T23:27:00.000+01:00

This morning I was reading from Romans 12 in which Paul says that we are not to let evil overcome us and "as far as it depends on you be at peace with all men". In the last while we in Belfast have been engulfed in evil and have been experiencing a mighty web of tangled relationships. None of this tangle was made by us, we have inherited it from a previous generation. We have been experiencing the results of that web so that there is a total breakdown in our society between various factions; between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, between the differant loyalist factions and between the government and the unionist people not to mention the breakdown between the police and the loyal sons of ulster. I use the various names to illustrate the nature of the web and the complications cretaed. All of this means that there is no simple solution yet we have to struggle to find a way of living together in respect and peace.

Then this afternoon I had a meeting with some community leaders and a little light has begun to shine and evil is not just as prevalent. in that meeting it was decided to sponsor a time of prayer and reflection in our church on Saturday morning!

There is much anger in the community in which I live and work and it is an anger by various differing people for various reasons. There are those who are angry at the peace decifit being experienced by the unionist community who see themselves as the sacrificial lambs being led to the slaughter by the British government and some unionist MPs. They think that violence has been seen to pay and so they have turned to that route but they have failed to see that violence has produced another kind of fruit where families are in crisis and anti-social behaviour is rife in the lives of many of the young people who have been allowed to roam the streets. They are the christians and the more right wing thinking people. The big question for every Christian is how do we support the community without being pompous and condemnatory and how do we maintain the standards lived and declared by Christ?

On Saturday we will pray and we will encourage the community to pray with us and ask God to do His work among us even if that means Him doing things which we will not even like. At the heart of our problems is an evil and a sin which must be dealt with. there are those who consider that these are days of exile for western Christians and we need to learn how to function as Christians in exile which is very different to Christians in "Christendom". Yet even in exile Christ is still King and God has not gone away"

One of the casualties in all of this is the Christian witness of a professed Christian order. The Orange Order stands for religious and political freedom and every new member pledges to be a Christian by profession of his lips and lifestyle.

One of Us

2005-09-03T16:34:00.000+01:00

He starts with the fake- those who want to be baptised just because it is the popular thing to do and he ends with the real McCoy- the Lamb of God

He rejects their outer conformity and pointed to inner cleanliness
He minimised his own baptism as a mere washing with water but maximised the baptism of Jesus as a baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit.

He points to the sin of man and looks to the sinlessness of the Son of God

This was a time of great darkness- but here we have the light of the world. There had been a silence from God for many years

Roman Empire was beginning to decline. It had begun with the ideology of the Republic but had become corrupt and morality had gone through the floor

family life was in tatters- divorce was so common people began to date their years according to who they were married to
the democracy of the Republic was replaced by government by a small ruling clique
corruption was rife

Look at the names of the people mentioned by Luke- Herod Antipas, Philip his brother, Pilate the Roman governor and Tiberius himself.

We know a little about Herod- he ruled for 40 years at the pleasure of Rome. He had John imprisoned because he didn’t like what John was saying about him- iy was the truth but that did not matter- John told him he was immoral and needed to repent- he was married to his wife only for political reasons and when he got tired of her he divorced her to marry [?] Herodias the daughter of his half brother who was also the wife of his other half brother. When her father acted violently against Judea and did great damage many people thought it was divine retribution.

Tiberius himself had grown tired of Rome and went of to the island of Capri and allowed his political cronies to lead the Empire while he lounged in decadence and immorality.

For just a time as this the sovereign God raised up John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus the Lamb of God, the Messiah. Luke’s intention in writing this Gospel outline is that men would know the “EXACT TRUTH” about this man Jesus.

John came as a chinck of light at a time of darkness and points to one who was the light. He wants to reach the people about their spiritual heritage at a time when they had lost of sense of the divine God of Israel.

How do you preach the gospel to a people who have lost their spiritual anchorage and get their instruction from the street?
God’s answer was by the INCARNATION of God and by that I mean by making God come to the people in the flesh of humanity. John came to introduce Jesus and to prepare the people for Jesus- everything about John was a message-
His clothes
His food
His language he used

The wild prophet from the Old Testament preached about repentance and redemption- he was a black and white character, right was right and wrong was wrong. There was no grey areas.He was no respecter of persons be they king or pauper- everyone needed to turn to the living God and the way to demonstrate a willingness to change was to come forward to the river for baptism. What was new about this was that in their tradition no Jew had a need to be baptised- that was for converts to Judaism- that was for gentiles who were dirty and needed to be cleansed, not for law abiding Jews but John is preaching to Jews!

He told them that they were not safe just because they were children of Abraham-

Some will say “but I am a protestant” or “I am a Presbyterian” and others will say “I was brought up in a Christian family”

On Friday night there were Protestants and Presbyterians marching down the Shankill Road in the regalia of soldiers and with the flags of triumph but no sense of the Protestantism they profess- they too have lost their anchorage.

- How does the church of Jesus Christ reach them?
- How does the church of Christ reach those who have no time for sectarianism and perhaps because of it have even less for Christ?
- How does the church of Jesus Christ reach out to a whole section who will never read the Bible or hear the gospel of Christ?

Luke’s whole message is that “You will be my witnesses”. We are His witnesses. The gospel message is SEEN in Christ. Why do you think it was necessary for Jesus to be baptised?

This was no Christian baptism- it was a call to REPENTANCE- this man Jesus had no sin to confess and nothing to repent of, so why be baptised?

Why would a man who was without sin allow himself to be baptised by a man who had?

To repent means that we are agreeing with God about our need for forgiveness
It means that we want to change direction and live differently- that was the thrust of what john was saying-

the crowd came to him- “what are we supposed to do? “If you have two coats give one away”
the tax collectors came and asked “what are we to do?”- “no more extortion…”
the soldiers came and asked “What are we to do?”- “no more shakedowns, no blackmail be content with your rations”

Repentance is an inner choice which leads to an otter change in the way we live- how could Jesus change to become a better person, inside and outside? How can you improve on perfection? You can’t, Jesus was not baptised because of any imperfection. So why was he baptised?

Here we have the crux of the story right at the beginning of the story-

“Lord Jesus Christ
you have come to us
you are one of us
Living Lord”

Jesus came, as one of us. We know that Jesus was a man of compassion and as he looked at the city of Jerusalem he wept for her.
We know that he was a man of sympathy and even empathy- and that means more than feeling sorry for the people-

- for the hungry
- For the blind
- For the sick
- For the dying

What it means is that he could understand them, he spoke their language, he felt their pain. The reason? He BECAME one of us.

I don’t think we understand the extend and depth of the incarnation nearly enough- from the moment of Jesus birth he took on human flesh and really did become one of us.
When he went forward to be baptised by John he was saying “I am one of you”
He had no sin of his own to repent for and when he died on the cross he had no sin to die for but he BECAME SIN that we might have life.

God tells us that He loves us and it is crucial that we understand that He loves us- there are many people in this community who feel worthless but the gospel informs us that we are not worthless, this community is not Godless, the reason we work for the betterment of this society is that it is not rejected by God but loved.

When Jesus died he died AS SIN. It is the sin that God rejects not the person and in Jesus Christ it is sin which is out to death. Jesus’ identification with us is so great and so complete that HE BECAME OUR SIN.

Now here is the application- trust him to deal with your sin. The fact is that he has already put it to death so trust him to make you into the person he created you to be.

Right at the start of a new session of the church year begin by telling him that you trust him- that he has put your sin to death and that he will make the necessary changes in your life to improve your experience of it.

This is no lecture or school lesson. – he understands us

he knows about death in the family as one who lost his father early in life
he knows about death and dying from personal experience
He understands the trouble keeping the family business going
He understands the temptations which are all around- the temptation to show the world that he was the boss, the temptation to put an end to his captors
He understands the frustrations of working with your hands and with your mind.
He understands justice and miscarriages of juestice

This is where the action is- here we have a God who is with us all the time and for all the time. Will you trust him?

Going The Extra Mile-Jeremiah 29

2005-08-29T23:26:00.000+01:00

If you are old enough you may remember the film [before they became known as movies] "The good, the bad and the ugly". When you read the bible you soon discover that this is good title for its contents:

there are cert 18 stories containing sex and violence in the extreme- rape, prostitution, adultery and fornication
there is swearing
there is treason and treachery
and there are wars and rebellions

But there are also heart rending stories such as
the loyalty of Ruth
the love poetry of Solomon and
the divine love expressed by Paul
and then there is the gospel account which speaks of the great grace of God who came to rescue us from certain death.

Then there is the sheer ugliness of the cross where men were executed for treason as decided by Rome

The days of Jeremiah were difficult days for the whole nation as they came to terms with their change in circumstances- here we have the people of God living in exile under the heal of a foreign dictator. The Psalmist expresses their turmoil well when he says, rememmering their days in exile-

Ps 137 v1 "By the waters of BVabylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion"

The question the Jews were aasking was is God still sovereign even in this foreign land, even in this god-forsaken place? V4 The answer comes from their personal experience and it is a clearl yes, even here.

Jeremiah goes further than this and he tells them to pray for the welfare of the city , even that heathen city because they have a vested interest.

Go into the street and ask the question- "do you think it has ever been this bad?" and many will say an emphatic no- it has never been so bad.

It grieves me that so many are leaving or have left North Belfast- seeking out the "godlife2 in the subburbs just mimicking the way of the world when here we are at the cutting edge with a great opportunity to demonstrate the power of the gospel . Even though we have been called to preach the gospeland make disciplesofall nationsmany evangelical Christians are heading out of the city. One preacher said that as he was returning to the city the church was leaving!.

If we run away we only give evil an opportunity to gather momentum- if we surrender, it wins- we need to be clear about this - there is no sense in complaining about the darkness if we are unwilling to light a candle.

When you really love someone there is nothing you would deny them or refuse to do for them, if it is for their welfare.

Here is a question for each of us as we begin a new session of work, both in the vine and in the church- do you love this place?
Do you love this city?

I came back to Belfast, to the streets were I was born and bred because this is my city- you cannot minister effectively to any people unless you love them- that was one of the lessons of Jonah. Yes God will do His work anyway but we will miss the blessing.

If you really love this place you will want to go the extra mile- for you this work is not just the thing you do- not just what you are paid to do, it will be your very life blood, the thing which motivates you to get out of bed and face another day
it is this divinely given love which keeps you going even though the feud is ongoing, even though there is more sectarian violence only a "stone's throw away" [forgive the pun]

We are called to be enablers- helping people to be reconciled to God and to each other, called to be the conscience of the community and so we must be in the community- yes we are to go the extra mile because God loves us with an extra-ordinary love.

Invasion North

2005-08-07T17:26:00.000+01:00

Invasion North

What a fortnight we have had in Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church. Invasion north is an initiative under the leadership of Global Passion which seeks to send young people to various places all over the world to serve the global church. This was a joint initiative between the Americans from California, and Nevada, and the Irish churches of Crumlin Road Presbyterian and the Rock, assemblies of God church on the Shankill Road in North and west Belfast. On the face of it we are separated by theological, ecclesialogical and geogrphic differances but united in our desire to see Christ presented in an attractive and positive way so that the people of this area are equipped to make a decision about the relevance of Christ to them personally.

During the first week we cleaned up the streets and painted some parts of the church and got to know each other. We also had -B-Qs and a street party and a couple of trips to the ulster Folk and Transport Museum and to the Giants Causeway. On Saturday evening we walked up to the top of the Cavehill and prayed over the city.

During the second week we had a children's Bible club in the afternoons and then An American Dinner for the teenagers in the evening. I have to say that Pastor Drue, from Las Vegas and Robin from California led a very dedicated bunch of people whose aim was merely to serve the kingdom of God.I also have to praise the servant attitude of Johnny Caldwell and those at the Rock Centre.

On Thursday last the loyalist feud spilled out onto the streets and there was fair degree of anxiety on the part of some of our visitors who were living in the hall. Some made their way onto the roof of the church and others remained in doors but we took some time to walk the teenagers home and then settled down to pray and tpo praise the God we serve and asked him to quieten things down and to bring glory for his name.

on Friday I was asked to appear on TalkBack on BBC Radio Ulster and was able to give a very positive witness to the work of Christ which had been going on all week. Our feeling was that when you rattle the cgae of the devil he will respond but that Christ has already won the victory and we have nothing to fear. As far as I know everyone has arived home safely and was able to sleep in a real bed, cot, for the first time in 14 days.

we are grateful to God for His work among us- he has begun a work here - it's a work in progress but he will finish the work he began and we need prayer support
we need the energy to work creatively for him
and we need a committment to him and the resources to do the work.

Thank you Drue and your team
Thank you Johnny and your team
We look forward to the fure when we can co-operate together once more for the sake of the kingdom of God.

My Time Has Not Come!

2005-07-23T21:23:00.000+01:00

Time just seems to fly passed without us noticing- it seems like only yesterday I was at the birth of Peter, my first son, in the hospital in Liverpool and today he is thousands of miles away in Washington State. Times waits for no man and it can’t be bought back no matter how much money you have- once it is spent it is gone. And you cannot just rewind it.

There are three ways to think of time:

SPAN OF TIME or Calendar time. At primary school- Medieval history. A-levels I studied Ancient and Modern history. Jesus was not thinking of time like this. He did not have a date in mind.
POINT OF TIME [Clock time] When we make appointments we need more than a calendar, we need a clock. I have become aware of time now because I know that at 12noon here is is 3am in Seattle. When we phone Peter we have to bear this in mind!! What Jesus had in mind was not the time of the clock or even of the sun
OPPORTUNITY OF TIME [open and closed doors]. God’s appointed time- it was an idea very familiar to the Jews who had, and still have, a keen sense of destiny and time. WE see examples of opening and closing doors in Acts 15- one opens for Paul to go to Europe to take the gospel into a whole new dimension but other door closed- Bithynia and Mysia. What he was saying was that the time that God had in mind for the climax of his work- his death and resurrection- had not come just yet. He knew that it was close and that if he went to Jerusalem and made his work public the Jews would respond and the plot against him would thicken and develop. So he stayed away for a while longer.

The Jews were very conscious of their calling to obey God- they knew that they were not just pawns in the major game- they were not like little boats blown about on the sea by the wind- God was in control- he is above time and space- to him there is no past, no future- for him the past and the future are all laid out in front of him.

He is still experiencing the coming of Jesus into the world

Still experiencing the pain of the crucifixion and still seeing his glorification on the mountain of transfiguration and his ascension as he returned to heaven from where he came.

They knew that God had appointed a time for the Messiah and for the day of the Lord. As Christians we do too and that is what makes us different to the rest of the world. We too know that God has a plan and God has his time scale all worked out- he is not thinking on his feet looking for the best time.- Economists look closely for the best time to buy houses and to invest in business- God knows the time already- we know that time is limited and will not go on for ever- God has appointed a time for everything- Eccles 3:1—

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven;

…born and die…

plant and to uproot

..to kill and a time to heal….”

What makes the difference between the believer and the unbeliever is that the believer makes God the centre of his life- he does that by being a follower of Jesus Christ who is the “way the truth and the life”

This God we worship is not some kind of passive being who looks on from above but one who is intimately concerned about all that happens to us.

He is active,

he is personal

he is called YHWH- the one who was and is and will be, always.

Paul tells us that this God has begun a good work in the lives of the Philippians and that he means to complete that work- he knows what he wants them to be like and he will not cease until he is finished- it is the same for believers in Belfast and in the Crumlin ward.. In the spin of Tony Blair this time that Jesus speaks of is the hand of history tapping him on the shoulder. This time for us, between the great acts of God in the past and the great acts of God in the future is a time of opportunity-if God can see and experience past, present and future then this time is surely and truly a time of opportunity- he delays his return and the end of the world as we know it that more men and women may have an opportunity to know God and the power of His salvation.

Jesus was just waiting for the time,. His time, to come and he would begin the final phase of his work- are we ready to work in this our time?

What is this good work that Paul speaks of? It’s not about doing good works that we might gain life in eternity- that is what many people seem unable to understand. Good living is not a pre-requisite to being “saved” Being a Christian is not primarily about moral behaviour- not that good behaviour is not important but the good work that God does within us does change behaviour but it comes after we receive the gift and its not the reason for the gift.. Being a Christian is all about allowing God to do His good work in us. Its’ about trusting God and letting Him make us normal and normal is being like God because that was His original wish. The point is that it is God who does the work- Paul tells us

“When the time had fully come God sent His son….to redeem those under the law….”

For Jesus that time had not yet arrived- it was close but not quite . He knew that the time for public disclosure would mean a heightening of the tension and the plotting. Jesus had no fear of this because he knew his father and the plans he had- he did feel the pain and he did look to the future with concern but he knew that God was in control and this was all part of His plan and so wanted to do it.

The point is not that Jesus died

Nor even that he died an innocent man

The point was that this was part of God’s plan and initiative for insubordinate sinners like you and me.

His brothers failed to understand and they did not believe in him.. For them it was simple- go to Jerusalem where all the people are congregating and prove yourself to them and we might also believe. This was His opportunity to become famous- as the Messiah so he should go up to Jerusalem to the festival of Tabernacles and make a name for himself.

Do you see what they were doing? Possibly without knowing it they were tempting Jesus once again just like Satan did in the wilderness-

Turn these stones into bread and feed yourself and the people
Just follow me and I will give you everything you ever dreamt of!!
Throw yourself off the church tower and the angels will save you- prove it!!

This was the work of the devil as he tempted Jesus and this is what His brothers were doing also! But Jesus remained true to His Father and listened and looked for His directions.

We think that we can do things better than God only to find out the truth- Jesus demands our allegiance- above everything else

Above family
About nation
Above politics
Above ambitions
Above material possessions.

In Ps 46 the Psalmist says, in the midst of great distress and turmoil-

”Be still and know that I am God”

We have all been disturbed by the recent bombs in London but at times like these we have to make important decisions about the right way to respond. Surely we in Northern Ireland have learnt after 30 years of this kind of thing that there are some things that will not solve the problem:

security is not the answer
democracy will not either- even is Messers Bush and Blair keep telling us that it is the answer.
Covert intelligence will not save us

The Psalm tells us the answer- “Cease, be still” these are the words and this was the reaction of Jesus in the middle of the storm- when he told the wind and the rain to stop- this nation is at a cross roads- will we trust in God or will we trust in ourselves? Will we respond like with like or will we demonstrate the love of god in Christ?

The Christian is called to trust in God through Jesus Christ. While most of us have been brought up with a knowledge of the evangelical language- being born again and being saved yet that does not mean that we have the experience which they describe. The point behind the Psalm is that we should know, as in experience, that God has His hand on the tiller of the ship. He is the captain- at this point Jesus knows that God is the captain and pretty soon God will call Him to action and the last days of His earthly life.

What is the relevance to you and me?

Jesus was waiting for God to tell him his time but this is our time. We are called to reach out with the gospel today and in this place. We need to think and pray and plan about how to reach the so far un-reached. WE need to take every opportunity

When Habitat For Humanity begin to build on Danube Street, Geoffrey Street and McChandless Street we need to be right there helping- that will be a gospel opportunity

When there is a problem on the streets we need to be ready to speak up with the word of truth

We need to be involved in the community and take the opportunities which will present themselves. The world needs to see practical Christianity and we need to have an answer for the hope which is within us.

We have an important message for these streets of people

“YOUR WORTH IS MEASURED IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST”

There is Hope in Christ. THIS is our time- its NOT our time WILL come, OUR TIME HAS COME. CARPE DIEM

The Insubordinate Rebel

2005-07-16T12:41:00.000+01:00

If you like to watch Wimbledon you will be amused by the apparent change in the character of John McEnroe which is akin to the poacher turned gamekeeper. In the days when he played he was the most rebellious of players who would disrupt matches by his antics as he complained about any line call he thought went against him and on a number of occasions called for and even demanded the attention of the referee and abused the umpire and the line judges. As he commentates he is among the most affable and amusing not to mention knowledgeable and intelligent . Interestingly enough he said recently that the one time when he remained silent and controlled was his first final with Bjorn Borg when he said he lost the game but won the hearts of players and spectators alike.

Last week we went to Dublin to spend a few days with Ruth and Hugh, [my daughter and her husband]- on Monday we went to Kilmainham Gaol – for a visit you understand [it has been closed for many years] This was the prison where the 1916 rebels were held and executed. The only exceptions among the leaders of the rebellion not shot were Eamon De Valera and Countess Markevitch – Dev was given a reprieve because he was an American citizen and the countess because she was a woman. Here we had the men who had been considered rebels and treacherous before the executions but heroes after. They, like McEnroe and countless others were considered INSUBORDINATE because they were rebelling against the powers that be- just as you would be if you refused to comply with a court order.

As the Jews listened to the teaching of Jesus they came to the conclusion that he was totally INSUBORDINATE- and that made his teaching offensive and his word had to take, hard to stomach.

They came to him because they thought he was another prophet or even the Messiah- they thought that like any prophet he would show obedience towards the patriarchs and , of course, to Moses himself but here he was putting himself on the same level as God and making himself MORE IMPORTANT that Moses. This was in the class of Adam and Eve who wanted to be like God. No man like this was worth following and so they left him- His way was just too hard to take. In telling them to eat his flesh and to drink his blood he was putting himself on the level of God- Ezekiel was told to eat the parchment which was placed in front of him because it was the word of God

He tells them that “I am the bread of life”

They came looking for satisfaction v26 and found criticism
They wanted to know what they should do to please God v27-29 and he tells them to trust HIM
they wanted another sign and he pointed to Himself.

Whenever we reach v34 it looks like He has won them over and gained their allegiance but they could not accept that this plain unlettered man could possibly be greater than Moses. They wanted the Manna of the desert but he told them that his bread was infinitely better. The result of this was that they turned away. Jesus’ reply?

“If this offends you what if you see the son of man ascend to where he was before?”

Would that be more convincing? Or would that very suggestion make matters worse? From the apparent high point of v34 we sink to the low of v66

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”!

On a human level this must have been very difficult. Our values tell us that the numbers are all important in gauging the success of a ministry; our values tell us that losing people is a sign of failure and yet with Jesus it was all different.

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO DECREASE BEFORE YOU CAN INCREASE.
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO DIE BEFORE YOU CAN LIVE.

Now I want you to notice that the problem here was not with any understanding or with an intellectual issue, the problem was that Jesus was claiming to be God and claming the allegiance of the disciples. They were used to contributing to their salvation by good works but Jesus was promising a salvation by the grace of God by faith in Christ. Jesus rejected the power of works and of human effort and pointed to the work of God in the lives of men and women- after His resurrection this power of God was identified as the power of the Holy Spirit. Their other problem was that the standards of Christ were even higher than the standards they liked to think they lived up to but failed.

Most of the time our problems are not with the things we don’t understand but with the things we do understand and fail to obey.

Barclay says that

“to this day many a man refuses Christ, not because he puzzles intellect but because he challenges his life”

When Jesus made this claim on the lives of men and women he got various responses. What we have here is the dynamics of human and divine relationships. This story seems, on the surface, to be about an issue but, actually it’s about the way we relate to God through Jesus Christ. It’s about whether we accept Jesus’ claims on our lives or not. Here are some responses to Jesus.

Temporary Disciples.

Jesus was a very dynamic and powerful person who attracted great attention and the fact of his miraculous sings and wonders made him all the more attractive and we are told in 2:23 that many believed in his name. So many came to be baptized by his disciples that it was all a bit embarrassing 4:1-3
In Galilee the crowds flocked after him just the day before 6:2 but at this time the tone began to change and some began to plot against him. Now with the onset of trouble we begin to see who is really numbered among his followers.
Now we see that some decided to follow no more.
some could see where it was all going to end and decided to get out while the going was good. Fair weather disciples- like the seed sown on the hard ground
others just didn’t fancy the hard work in following him- they came looking to get something from him only to find that they needed to give something as well. We have to come with open hands and then we find that he fills them with good things- opening our hands is a response of faith not fearing what we will loose but hoping for what he will give.

For a while they were among the people of God. Today there are people who have responded to the call of God but, for whatever reason, they have not, yet, understood what it is all about and then they give up.

They never were Christians but were among the Christians and are, even yet, perhaps to be found on the periphery of the fellowship- these are the people we need to reach out to with the gospel of Christ.

Defecting Disciples

These are the people who were at the very heart of the visible church but have defected to the enemy. During the years of the Soviet control of Eastern Europe it was fairly common for sportsmen and women or musicians or politically motivated people to try to escape from east to west and they became known as dissidents and defectors. Judas was a defector- he had joined the band of disciples after being chosen by Jesus with high hopes- he had all the opportunity in the world to grow in Christ and to make a huge contribution but he decided to go the other way. He could have been a hero but he became a villain.
He could have become a saint but he became the very symbol of shame, disgrace and treachery.

There is a story about an artist [p229 Barclay]

An artist weas painting the last supper. It was a great picture and it took mamny years. As model for the face of Christ he used a young man with a face of transcendent loveliness and purity. Bit by bit the picture was filled in and one after another the disciples were painted. The day came when he needed a model for Judas whose face he had left to the last.He went out and searched the lowest haunts of the city and in the dens of vice. At last he found a man with a face so depraved and vicious as matched his requirements. When the sittings were at an end the man said to the artist; ‘You painted me before.’ ‘Surely not,’ said the artist. ‘O yes’ said the man, ‘I sat for your Christ.”

Over the years he had deteriorated. When a person steps over the line from friend to foe their very appearance changes and it can happen to anyone if they are not rooted and established in Christ.

PERSISTING DISCIPLES.

When Jesus looked at his disciples He knew from day one that Judas would defect and that the rest, even though they would have their low points, would persist to the end. Here we have a key moment – as Jesus looks at His men and perhaps at Peter in particular we have this important response

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and KNOW that you are the Holy One of God.”

This was Peter’s reaction from his heart not his head. This was a response which sprung from the personal relationship he had with Jesus. There were many things which puzzled Peter and there were times when he would let Jesus down but he knew this man and was learning to love him and never wanted to let him down in any way. In the final analysis Christianity is not a philosophy which we accept nor a theory to which we give our allegiance it is a personal response to Jesus

What horrified many of the disciples was Jesus attitude to all that they considered sacred- the prophets, Moses and the Father in heaven. To them he was being rebellious and INSUBORDINATE.

Right at a time when they were celebrating the hand of God in their wilderness experience He was claiming to be more important than Moses and just as important as God himself.

It was just too hard for them to accept Him. Is it too hard for you to accept Jesus? Too hard to accept that he is Lord of your life, community and family?

Is it too hard to accept that you can contribute nothing to your salvation- its all a gift? “nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling”

Are you clinging to the cross or to your own goodness? God wants fewer decisions at meetings and more disciples for life.

Prayer
Lord Jesus this is very difficult for me. Not difficult to understand with my mind but to accept with my will. Difficult to give up my own ambitions, my own dreams and hopes and to place literally everything in your hands. I pray that you will give me your grace to allow you to take complete control over my life and for me to give complete trust in you.

I have nothing to contribute to this new relationship. Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee..

Amen.

Jesus had just 12 disciples but they changed the world simply by allowing Jesus to change them. We too have that power. While all of us have contributed to the mess of Northern Ireland all of us can make a difference.

Thinking out of the Box

2005-06-17T20:30:00.000+01:00

What is going on here with all thids talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
The Jews of Jesus' day, as with some Christians of our day, are unable to think outside the box. Some have constructed a very narrow and restrictive doctrine of scripture which comes close to idolatory. Jesus tells us that the word is like a signpost pointing to God and to Himself- when we say that the word is truth we need to understand also that Jesus is the word in the flesh and that He sets us free.

Thinking in the box limits us and restricts us but Christ sets us free. Our evangelical tradition led me to believe that Christians had to be protestant and unionist and from the evangelical tradition.

The Pharisees saw the Torah as something which sets out the rules for living and keeping the detail was vital and led to salvation as the work that pleases God- Paul said that Jesus was the end of the Torah. Yet Jesus did not abolish the Torah, He completed it. It was abhorrant to the Jew to drink the life blood of an animal and yet Jesus says-"drink my blood and eat my flesh" and He was not advocating cannaballism or a breaking of the Torah but He was, surely, advocating thinking outside the box!!

Needs of Ministers

2005-06-15T13:23:00.000+01:00

Needs of Ministers/pastors
Recently I received an email from someone who had read my blogger page, www.jackdrennan.blogspot.com where I have sermon notes and some thoughts. Hw wanted to ask the question, "what encourages the minister?" in his/her ministry. That is a good question given that we rarely hear about the good things and the encouraging things in moinistry. Everyone needs those people who ghet alongside to encourage- people like Barnabas who was such a supporter of St Paul. Here are some things which I find encouraging:

* those who show themselves to be dependable and faithful

* those who demonstrate loyalty

* those who can see the big picture and not just their own little corner

* those who can add to your work and are not always out to kill and destroy anything which has not originated with themselves

* those who share your vision

* those who are teachable* those who show that they care about you as a person and they care also for your family and make it quite clear that they do.

In short I find it encouraging to work with a team of like-minded people who share my vision and share my work and care about me and my family. We work in isolation far too much and, what's more, our congregations have come to acceopt this as the norm and while we all believe in the priesthood of all believers, in theory, the practise is very different.

Fear of loosing

2005-06-10T19:49:00.000+01:00

Do you think it’s true to say that everyone is afraid of something? Is there anything you have realised that you are afraid of? When I was much younger I used to fear my parents would have a fatal accident or I would die of some awful disease. Fear is a God-given part of our make-up which protects us from danger, so we learn not to touch the fire or the electric ring of the cooker. But taken to extremes it makes us paranoid and is only destructive. It can paralyse us into inactivity and make us ultra conservative and cautious.

Master Yoda, in the latest Star Wars film, says to Anakin Skywalker, “The fear of losing leads to the dark side”. At the heart of the story Anakin feared loosing his wife in childbirth just as he lost his own mother. He became consumed with protecting her and in his paranoia he became susceptible to the manipulation of the evil chancellor who wanted him to cross the line from light into darkness to further his plan to take over the Republic and become the Emperor. In the end he became the very thing he had dedicated his life to resisting and lost the very person he wanted to save by crossing the line from light to darkness.

Fear is a very potent emotion which leads people to do and to act in ways which they would not normally. Fear can lead them to take violent action to defend their community or their home or to exhibit other negative qualities which later they regret. In the heat of emotion they think they are acting for those they love only to find that they too have crossed that line in the sand which makes them part of the problem rather than the solution.

The New Testament makes it clear that the way to be free from fear is to trust in Christ. The Apostle Paul says that “nothing separated us from the love of God” and asks:

“If God for us, who can be against us?” Who indeed?

Renewing Hope

2005-06-06T21:55:00.000+01:00

Renewing Hope
As Christians concerned about our communities and compelled by our faith in Jesus Christ, Lord of Creation and Head of the Church, we commit ourselves to building a future where -
Everyone enjoys freedom from violence, intimidation, criminality, paramilitary activity and sectarianism that tear our social fabric and block political progress
Local politicians and people take responsibility for political progress, co-operating to secure a stable and inclusive society
Healthy and robust relationships flourish based on a generosity of spirit and a realistic recognition of diversity
Truthfulness and honesty create relationships of trust and provide the basis for dealing with the past and engaging with the present
Hope and imagination, justice and love transform our public life as people accept their responsibilities and exercise their rights with due concern for the rights of others.
Do not be weary in doing what is right! 2 Thessalonians 3:13
We invite you to join us in committing to work for such a future.

What do youn think of this statementJ

You can find this statement and much more at www.renewing-hope.org

Will you join with others in debating and discussing the issues?

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!

2005-06-02T22:31:00.000+01:00

What a night, what a game or was it two games? Perhaps it was all a dream, “Boys Own” stuff. At half time I thought they were going to get a hammering and then I thought that they could come out after the interval and give it a go and stem the tide, at least. I thought the manager would tell them to play for pride but what a complete change.

I have supported Liverpool since the birth of my first two children who were both born in Liverpool. Those were the glory days when Liverpool dominated the league and Europe and then it all went badly wrong with the Heissel Stadium disaster and then the Hillsborough fire and it has not been the same since. With the coming of Gerard Houllier there was a suggestion of glory when they won that treble but this is something altogether greater.

In this football match we had a game of two halves and in the history of the club there is the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Champions League final 2005 was all about character in the midst of difficulty- the refusal to throw in the towel and to “hold your head up high” in the midst of a storm. What about the church of Christ? We have a much better story to tell. We have a divine commission to obey and we have been assured of the presence of God in the good, the bad and the ugly. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a great song, with an inspiring theme but Bill Shankly was wrong, if I dare I say so. Football is not more important than life and death.

Our story is about the coming of God into the world to bring us forgiveness and a new start and with the promise that we will “never walk alone” because Christ is with us, today, tomorrow and for ever and all we have to do is trust him.

How To Avoid Becoming A Christian!

2005-05-21T11:59:00.000+01:00

So you would rather not become a Christian. Well then I have some very important advice to give you. If the rest of the world is anything to go by you will need some very good advice in resisting the power of God. I suppose that is the very place to begin- at the back of all my advice I would say the place to begin is to deny, as strongly as you can the very existence of God-that way he is stripped of all his power and authority. But that is very difficult for a couple of reasons:
we live in a God believing, if not God-fearing, society and its hard to swim against the flow
the logic and the evidence seems to be too strong- how can you blame God for things if he doesn’t exist in the first place

I think we need to be more pragmatic that that- lets begin accepting that some kind of God does exist and loom for ways to ignore him- here are three broad principles:

1. Lesson one is to BECOME VERY RELIGIOUS

That may seem an odd way to ignore him but Jesus Christ told the religious leaders of his day that they had never see God, heard God or allowed His word to dwell in their hearts even though they had him before their very eyes- he told the that even though they had all the benefits of being the people of God they had missed him altogether.. I think the best thing is for you to become as religious as is possible- go to all the meetings under the sun
Carry out all your religious duties- without much thought and always remember that what is important is that you do what is required- never miss church or reading the bible, stay away from those people who are not religious. Leave your friends and family firmly I second place- or even third.

Stick rigidly to the letter of the law and never mind the reason for that law, never mind the spirit of the law. Get to know the slightest minutiae of the law- know all 600 rules about the Sabbath but forget about the importance of people.

2. Lesson two is

Don’t even try to understand the bible properly

Always take it at face value- forget about the context of the verses in the promise box or on the pictures on your walls-that will only require you to think for yourself. Forget all that and those so-called paradoxes that Christians speak of will confuse you and frustrate you that you will want to give up and go back to your old life. Don’t concern yourself about how all the verses fit in with the rest of the Bible- e.g. The NT says- Love your enemy and the OT says An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

It would also be good to forget about what the Bible really is- it is God’s way of pointing to Jesus Christ Heb 1:2

“…in these last days God has spoken to us by His son…”
and John 5:40

“these are the scriptures which testify to me”….

If you could get to the place where you begin to worship the Bible- see the actual words as the word of God it will help. Begin to see that there is only one translation that would also be good. Keeping your eyes on the wood will mean you fail to see the trees-anything to confuse you.

3. Third lesson is to keep looking at other people and NOT JESUS.

Let’s face it- it is pretty safe to look to and compare yourself with other people- they are sinners just like you and looking at them means you can blame them for not listing to God. How often have you heard it said of someone – I could never be a Christian if they are all like old Jones down the road?

There are many reasons for rejecting Christ if we only ever look at the Christians:

There is Mr. A who never tells the truth on the Income Tax form- or so we believe
Mrs. B who is among the greatest of gossips in town
Mr. X who is plain mean
Mr. Y who beats up his wife on Saturday and then goes to church-to be forgiven on Sunday morning.
And was it not the Christians who persecuted the Jews and attacked the Muslims in the Crusades?
And what about all those pedophile priests?

That’s the way to look at God- through the filter of His people- that will keep him at a safe distance. It is fatal to look at Jesus Christ- take a serious look at him and you are well on your way to faith- to giving in to His power.

Forget that Mr. C has really changed since he gave way to God and became one of his people. Forget that the local fellowship of believers down the road are helping the poor and the down cast and empowering the people of the community- that is negative thinking and leads to a negative step-BE WARNED. Listen very carefully-

5:36 “…I have a greater witness [than john] – my teaching and my miracles. They have been assigned to me by the Father…”

BE WARNED

4. Lesson four is to IGNORE THAT INNER VOICE

We call that the voice of conscience and Christians say it is the voice of God. You can’t afford the luxury of listening- it will lead to doubts- so keep busy and never think. If you allow yourself the time to listen and think about it he will draw you to his side and that would be fatal to the person wishing to remain independent of God. You can accept that he exists but that doesn’t mean you have to follow him. Spend your time with the religious people, if you have to- they will leave you alone to your own devices. You see they are only concerned with the things of today- those things which are here and now- they have no time for this voice of God. Jesus says in v44

If you do all this then you should be safe

On the other hand if you want to know God for yourself it will involve every part of you. Jesus says that faith includes:

1. Seeing God
2. Hearing God
3. Allowing His word to dwell in your heart.

Jesus did not need any human witnesses but because he wanted them to be saved the destruction of sin he did appeal to both John the Baptist and Moses. In arguing the Hebrew way he was giving them three witnesses and they rejected all three. They thought of themselves as a privileged people who had the scriptures and spent their lives on studying them but they missed the point- they were so busy looking at the jot and titles of the law that they missed the spirit of the law and the whole point- the whole point was that they pointed, like signposts, to Jesus Christ, God’s messiah.

Paul had the same background as they had yet he came to faith- Phil 3:5

“If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh I have more: circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legal righteousness, faultless.”

Presbyterians have a great spiritual heritage also- with the right commitment to the Bible but we do not worship the bible, we allow it to point us to Jesus.

Its too bad when people reject what they think is the truth when, in fact, it is a parody of the truth- they reject Christianity because they think it is the same as religion when it is nothing of the kind- religion is all about rules and regulations, Christianity is about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells these religious leaders that it was his relationship with his father which empowered his work and that is the key for us also. Knowing Jesus Christ is the key and that is more interesting and more fulfilling than any religious practice.

If you want to be left alone:
Stay away from Christ
Stay away from the Bible
Stay away from the still small voice

Jesus Himself says- “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”

2005-05-19T15:30:00.000+01:00

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humans

2005-05-17T22:02:00.000+01:00

Human Beings? Who needs them?

955 dead; 2,436 injured; 56,885 houses destroyed!

It all happened as the result of a couple of air raids by Hitler's
Luftwaffe in 1941. Crumlin road Presbyterian Church was one of a number of
building destroyed in North Belfast. At a time when the collective memory is
taken back to VE and VJ Day we are reminded of the pain caused by National
Socialism but carried out by ordinary men and women just like us.

On the other hand this time of extreme violence was a time for heroes and
community spirit. There was the story of Lance Corporal Gordon Cowell of the
5th Royal West Kent Regiment. On the 5th August 1941 he, along with Sergeant
William Chick rescued the pilot of a spitfire which had crash landed in
minefield.

Without any regard for themselves they headed towards the minefield. People
were standing by the railings, shouting, 'Don't go in there, you'll get
blown up,' but the only thought they had was to reach the stricken pilot and
get him out. They reached the smouldering plane, and after a struggle with
the pilot's straps, got him out of the cockpit. The soldiers could see his
leg was badly injured. They carried him back over the minefield and when
they got back to the railings, the Spitfire blew up. Each one of us is
capable of being heroes one day and villains the next

In a recent edition of the London Times Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi
in the UK, said that

"God does not want us to cease to be human, for if He did, He would not have
created us"

Jesus is the complete man, the second Adam who was at peace with His
heavenly father and with men. Becoming a better human being means becoming
more like Jesus.

Human beings? Who needs them? We do, when they are like Christ. After all
Jesus was a man. Hitler destroyed our church and all our records and he
butchered many millions of people but he did not, he could not, destroy the
work of Jesus Christ.

"Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin,
another person did it right and got us out of it"

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humans

2005-05-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

Human Beings? Who needs them?

955 dead; 2,436 injured; 56,885 houses destroyed!

On the other hand this time of extreme violence was a time for heroes
and community spirit. There was the story of Lance Corporal Gordon Cowell of
the 5th Royal West Kent Regiment. On the 5th August 1941 he, along with
Sergeant William Chick rescued the pilot of a spitfire which had crash
landed in minefield.

Without any regard for themselves they headed towards the minefield.
People were standing by the railings, shouting, 'Don't go in there, you'll
get blown up,' but the only thought they had was to reach the stricken pilot
and get him out. They reached the smouldering plane, and after a struggle
with the pilot's straps, got him out of the cockpit. The soldiers could see
his leg was badly injured. They carried him back over the minefield and when
they got back to the railings, the Spitfire blew up. Each one of us is
capable of being heroes one day and villains the next

In a recent edition of the London Times Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief
Rabbi in the UK, said that

"God does not want us to cease to be human, for if He did, He would
not have created us"

Jesus is the complete man, the second Adam who was at peace with His
heavenly father and with men. Becoming a better human being means becoming
more like Jesus.

Human beings? Who needs them? We do, when they are like Christ. After
all Jesus was a man. Hitler destroyed our church and all our records and he
butchered many millions of people but he did not, he could not, destroy the
work of Jesus Christ.

"Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with
sin, another person did it right and got us out of it"

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2005-05-17T20:54:00.000+01:00

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untitled

2005-05-17T12:24:00.000+01:00

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People Person

2005-05-07T19:42:00.000+01:00

If I were to sum up the ministry of Jesus I would say that He was a people person who came to save us from our sins. He was always with people:
Lived with the 12 disciples
Ministering to their needs
He talked to the crowds and to the individuals like Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman

We were created for fellowship- God’s purpose was to make Adam to have fellowship with her and with himself- God took delight in all of his creation.
When Jesus sent the disciples out into the countryside he sent them in pairs. We all need friends and everywhere you look you see people in groups of two three and more. When we are alone we feel less content and at ease- if you have ever eaten in a restaurant alone or even bought a cup of coffee alone you feel a little self- conscience. He reason is that we were never intended to be alone.

Our modern society has driven us away from the collective community to the self- sufficient individual- today we have:

Personal computers
Personal stereos
TVs in bedrooms
Now you can even get a personal computerised tracking device so that you can never get lost

Mobile telephones etc- all are great devices but they also make each of us independent of each other. BUT there are times when we clearly need each other-

The football team needs 11, or more , players to win a game
An army needs many men to fight the enemy

Last Bank Holiday my wife and I did the marathon- we walked- it ended up 27 miles because of the diversion- we would not have managed it had we been on our own- we needed each other just to keep going. I was wearing the wrong footwear and my left foot was hurting from about 6 miles- by 17 miles I was wilting- it helped neither of us that one of the officials had told us that we had travelled 16 miles when it was more like 14 miles and there was no lucazade when we were expecting it

I was struggling from 17-22 miles and neither gave up and Gillian was struggling from around 20 miles- if wee had been alone we would have given up but I was determined that she would not finish without me and she was determined likewise- it was determination and each other’s company which kept us going- then we were told- only round the corner and 500 meters to go!!! The end was in sight!! And at the end there was the medal- or so we thought- they had run out of medals and we are still waiting!!!!

The lesson is that you need people you can depend on to support you and they need you also. Galatians 6:2ff

Sometimes ministers and pastors are thought to be the special people or the professional people who have it all sewn up- not so- we are also vulnerable people who struggle with sin and who sometimes get it all wrong and we need the support of praying Christians.

This Christian fellowship is very powerful. For over 250 years Christians have been at the front of change- in various parts of society Christians have been spurred on by their fellowships and by the teaching of the word of god to step forward and help to change the world- not a wee bit but a great deal- here are a few examples

Lord Shaftsbury

We have a square and a hospital named after him. Ashley Cooper, later Lord Shaftsbury, was moved by his Christian faith to work tirelessly for the rights of women and children and he had children banned from the mines and improved the conditions in the factories

If you go to Piccadilly Circus in London you will see the statue of Eros-
Eros was the Greek God of love- sexual love- the Romans called him cupid but actually it was intended to be about the agape love- the love of God for men- a love which moved people like Shaftsbury to act for the betterment of men. The problem was that the artist made him look like Eros and so the name stuck but it has nothing to do with Eros and is to commemorate the life of this Christian man.

William Wilberforce was a member of the Clapham Sect in London who met to support each other and to work for change in society- they were spurred on by the word of God as taught by men like Charles Simeon who preached in Cambridge and influenced many important people not least the Cambridge Seven- such as C.T.Studd. Wilberforce worked tirelessly for the abolition of the Slave Trade in the UK

And then there was Dr Barnardo who set up the children’s homes and still today.

All these people and others have made a big difference for individuals and for all of our society- where are the leaders today in Northern Ireland, who will step into the breach and work for change, because of their faith in Christ?

In the VE celebrations we know and you can remember the importance of a good strong united army- made up of ordinary people who will
Pray for the church
Who will encouraged those who are on the front line
Who will give to the work

We all have a part to play- here you know the advantages of being with other people and not staying alone in your room- so it is on the battlefield and in the boardroom and in the church of Christ- we are not alone.

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God's Demands

2005-05-07T15:39:00.000+01:00

God roars to 6 nations. Two of them are His people and the others are Not His People.
He roars as the Lord of Zion. He is the sovereign Lord, the creator and the Almighty whether people believe in him or not. He is the Lord, YAHWEH, the one who WAS and IS and WILL BE for ever and ever. As the creator He has certain demands and expectations of people. That is not what we usually think- in a world were people look to their RIGHTS we can easily forget that God makes DEMANDS on all people. It was true then and it is still true today.
God ROARS out His judgement as the Lion of Judah to all men.
Let me repeat again, like the politicians and like the media men-

When God created the world and everything in it and when he created the man, Adam, and the woman, Eve, He did so that they might know him. The shalom that the Jews speak of is a harmony between men and God and between men and men and men and women and even between men and nature. This Shalom has been broken and there is conflict all around

Internationally
Nationally
And in families and communities

Amos stands in unity with the other prophets and also the apostles who say that every person has the remnant of the image of God- while that image was marred at the fall when Adam decided to do his own thing, it was not totally destroyed- the doctrine of total depravity does not mean that every part of every man is depraved, it does mean that all men and all women have been thoroughly tainted because of sin but there is some hope, at the same time. Part of that image means that we are all born with is our conscience which helps us to know right from wrong. So, in Romans 1 Paul makes the point that there is no excuse for any man who rejects God-

“since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

So God makes His judgement on the grounds of conscience. The point is that whether or not a person is a Christian he is required, by God Himself, to live with certain agreed principles of conduct in regard for other people. He begins with the people that Israel regarded as her enemies and is very critical of them and declares His punishment for them and that makes Israel feel good but then he turns his attention to Judah and Israel herself and he is even more critical.

Lets look at 6 principles of right living according to Amos:

1. PEOPLE ARE NOT THINGS

Amos 1:3-5 The sins of Damascus or Syria are extensive- this phrase “For three sins…even four” is to give the idea that her sins have been many and God has given opportunities to repent and be forgiven so Peterson says, “I’m not putting up with her any longer”

And what has her crime been that she is to be punished?

“She threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth…”

The point is that Damascus in the time of king Hazael had no mercy for its prisoners of war. Even though she was carrying out God’s will she has gone much too far.

We have heard it before- in a time of emergency the normal rules and principles go out the window and in come the emergency powers- we heard Mr Bush saying that the prisoners at Guantanamo were not POWs but terrorists so they did not deserve the protection of the Geneva Convention and we have witnessed the charges brought against soldiers of Britain and the USA who dished out degrading treatment and we know that no trials have been given to the detainees . We know too that there have been suspicious goings on in our conflict over the thirty years of turmoil- these are not only wrong according to the laws of God but they are counter-productive, as they only build up further resentment so that the turmoil continue to destroy lives, on both sides.

Amos said that this was a moral imperative that you should treat people as people and not as things and that is true for your friends and for your enemies.

2. GIVE PEOPLE PRIORITY OVER MONEY

v6-8

Gaza “took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom.”

Here we move from the battlefield to the boardroom. Money talks, does it not? All the slave owner wanted to know was how much he would get for his slaves.

What they were doing was selling God’s people to Edom. – remember Edom was descended from Esau who had been cheated by his brother Jacob and now his descendants seize the opportunity to get revenge. Even given the truth of this grievance by taking their relatives into slavery they were breaking the covenant with Abraham and Gaza was aiding and abetting her and in ancient times that was just as bad. So they were to be punished- “til the last Philistine is dead” What do you do with your grievances? What does this community do with them?

When we look at a person, what do we see? If we can only see their money or their power or some talent or ability we are in danger of being guilty also. If we only make friends with those who are wealthy in one way or another we are guilty
In some congregations people are elected to positions of responsibility because of their business success or their money and that is wrong as far as Amos is concerned- we are to prefer people over money.

3. BE A PERSON WHO KEEPS YOUR WORD

9-10 they “disregarded a treaty of brotherhood”

Like Gaza Tyre was involved in the buying and selling of human flesh but the difference was that Tyre could not be trusted to keep her word- she spoke with forked tongue. We all like those who keep their word, whose word is their bound. Sometimes, though it is not possible for us to keep our word and might even be wrong to keep it because it should not have been given in the first place. Take Herod as an example- he gave his word to Herodias and that cost John his head – he should NOT have given his word in the first place and he would not have been wrong to break his word in this situation- prefer people over things and even principles- tell that to our politicians also

4. DON’T KEEP HATRED IN YOUR HEART

Edom had a long history of antagonism against Israel which later would come to a head when Jerusalem fell- Ps 137:7- -See also Numbers 20:18-21]

“Remember. O lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down.” They cried, tear it down to its foundations” Hs anger against Israel raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked.”

Remember that prayer which says- “As we forgive those….” The implication is that there will be no forgiveness for those who harbour hate and refuse to forgive.

Matt 6:15 Those who cannot forgive have forgotten or have yet to learn that they too have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Motyer says

“Those who allow old sores to fester proclaim that they are not interested in forgiving, they do not see it as having anything to contribute, it is not important to them: how then can they ask for it?

This is something that our community will have to come to terms with so that we can be at peace, shalom, with God, with our enemies and with ourselves.

5. LIMIT YOUR AMBITION

The desire to do well in life is a good thing but not at all and any cost. V13

“…they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to extend their borders”

Naked ambition has wrecked marriages and families and even communities. There is nothing wrong in a business man doing all he can to make his business successful
There is nothing but good in a minister who has great ambition for his ministry and church- but not at the cost of family life, not at the cost of other businesses in the area- slashing the price so much that other businesses can’t compete and then go out of business- that is a different matter- is there a warning for the big boys like Tesco? Is there a warning for the workaholic man or woman? I think so. Ammon was extending her borders at the cost of others and Amos says they are wrong and they will suffer for it.

The unborn babies, never mind their mothers had done nothing against Ammon- no wonder God ROARS at them- we would expect him to. Even those who are critical of God for his judgements against the good people like them and give the impression that they would expect a loving God to suspend his judgement, would demand that he do something in a case where there is Ammonite ambition.

6. RENOUNCE REVENGE

This burning of the king’s bones was an act of revenge by Moab on Edom. Edom was no innocent party- she was involved in the slave trade and she had been treacherous but no one deserves this kind of treatment- it was an act of sacrilege Moyter says

“ could anything publicize more clearly the senseless irrationality of a nourished hatred than to see a venerable corpse [the King of Edom] dragged from its tomb to suffer pointless indignities?”

2Kings 3:26,27 is best understood in the light of the hatred between the two peoples- Moab was pinned down by a coalition of Edom, Israel and Judah- the battle was going against him and so he decides to plan to hurt Edom, at least, before defeat. So he attacks with 700 cavalry but that failed so he took Edom’s son and sacrificed him in front of everyone- this enraged Edom and also destroyed the coalition- Israel went home. This explains the reaction and action of Moab but does not excuse it.

Hatred like this poisons the heart more than it hurts the object. Here we have an important lesson for people like us because he teaches us about the past- our history has divided us and continues to divide us, revenge only keeps the circle going and makes things worse.

Drawing a line in the sand is not enough- we need to renounce the sins of the past and to look to the God of Grace to see us through and to allow him to deal with it- he is well able and he will, Amos tells us, deal with it, don’t let it fester- too late but God can still deal with it, IF WE WILL LET HIM. We need safe places were we can begin to talk over our past and allow God to deal with it.
So the 6 lessons which set out God’s expectation for our society are:

1. PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THINGS.
2. VALUE PEOPLE OVER MONEY
3. KEEP YOUR WORD
4. DON’T KEEP HATRED IN YOUR HEART
5. LIMIT YOUR AMBITION
6. RENOUNCE REVENGE

So you want to be healed?

2005-05-05T22:35:00.000+01:00

Picture a courtroom scene On the prosecution we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees . On the defence we have the Apostle John representing Jesus Christ. The charge is that Jesus is claiming to be the Son of God. John 5:16 tells us that he was being persecuted by the Jews.

On the one hand there is no argument with this “charge” after all Jesus IS the Son of God but what they didn’t accept that he was , only that he CLAIMED to be him and what they were really worried about was that men and women would follow him. They want the people to follow their way but many were showing signs of following this Jesus instead.

John’s desire is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”

John says that this Jesus has invaded the earth and lived among men and women for three years. In that time he showed the way to God and it was a different way to that of the religious powers. By way of evidence he presents John the Baptist who says that this Jesus, who came after him in history, was more important than he was - even though he came after him he was “before him” He calls him the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”

He also introduces the reader to the disciples who lived with Jesus for three years and whose conclusion was that he was exactly who he claimed to be.

Then we are introduced to Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman and the whole of the Samaritan community.

By the start of chapter 5 we are given a very interesting contrast between Jesus and his accusers, the religious leaders. In defence John calls to mind the work of healing and forgiveness and contrasts it with the pettifogging doctrinaire approach of the church leadership who care nothing for the man only for the strictest interpretation of the Law. He cleverly uses leaders to undermine their case and make the case of the defence for them.

As the story who are you attracted to and who are you repulsed by?

Jesus was the one who talked to the man. HE SPENT TIME WITH THE MAN Time and time again we see that Jesus is the one who takes the initiative with people-

HE ALWAYS HAS TIME FOR PEOPLE <>

he refuses to sit back and wait for people to come to him- he takes up every opportunity to reach out to people in need. His desire is

“to preach good news to the poor….to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”

This is the manifesto of Jesus. This is what he did when he spoke to the Samaritan woman and with the official in Galilee and now he does it for this man. He had been on his way to the temple to celebrate one of the Jewish festivals whenever he came across this very sorry individual- this man had been an invalid for most, if not all of his life and had being coming to this place which was supposed to have healing qualities but only at the time when the angel disturbed the waters- he had to wait for a window of opportunity but unfortunately for him other people kept bunking the cue and getting in before him

When Jesus saw him he spoke to him and asked him

“Do you want to be healed?” May seem a strange question. Perhaps there was an implication behind the question or perhaps he just wanted to know if the man really wanted healed as some people find dependence of others a pleasant experience. Sometimes people fail to take opportunities to help themselves because they are quite comfortable as they are but this man was not- did he shout at Jesus or did he reply quietly and just explain the situation?

As we look at this story we need to realise that the way we live our lives, the lifestyle we have adopted, will say more about us than any amount of words. In the post modern society in which we live this is absolutely clear

“Christians proclaim the gospel through their lives, manners and morals in an instant fashion.” [Roger Johnston]

In this age of MTV the camera follows your every move- if the message is good enough to attract people on the evening news certainly it will be good enough to attract people on the streets and sidewalks of our neighbourhoods.”

This gives us a great opportunity to proclaim, to persuade and to argue the case for Christ in the public square. This is not the time to silence the gospel, it’s a time to enter the public square with confidence. Look at Jesus and look at the religious leaders and tell me which one you believe- if you were on the jury would you go with the prosecution or with the defence?

We see Jesus TALKING TO THE MAN HE IS PEOPLE MINDED and his church is to be PEOPLE MINDED

In contrast the Pharisees had nothing to say to him about being healed- after 38 years he is up and able to walk and all the church leaders were worried about was that this was the Sabbath. Notice that Jesus did not give the man a lecture about being superstiticious! He just told him what to do to be healed and he did it and was healed

Every year thousands of people travel to the south of France to get to Lourdes- in our days in the Kildare and Monaghan there was an annual pilgrimage to the place recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as a place of healing- in the 19th century a young girl called Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary. She came to tell the people to repent and came back several times – the result was the creation of a lake with healing properties. Now we may have something to say about this but there are many Protestants people who have their own superstitions. What Jesus’ message is, is that waiting upon him is the way to go.. Instead of waiting by the pool for this disturbance he should have been waiting for Jesus.

One of the callings of the church is to be a model of the reign of God- remember Jesus’ prayer where he said

“thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

we should be bringing the sick and depressed to the throne of God that we may all find the shalom of God. We should be seeking the health, the peace and the welfare of the city. This man had been coming to this place for some time and no one had helped him- it was every man for himself- the way of the jungle- and no from the local congregation was helping him. We should be:

praying for the city- take part one way or another in the prayer shield each first Tuesday of the month 10-11am- in the church or at home.
Concerned for justice- we need to be involved in social justice and that is not a matter of negotiation, it’s a divine imperative- if we are to be the people of God we will be found doing what God does. Justice is like charity, it begins at home but does not stay there- for many people within north and west Belfast this is a real issue and a real barrier to Jesus Christ- we can accept the need for justice for our own people and even for people like the McCartney sisters but when it comes to justice for the Finucanes or for Bloody Sunday- we need to make sure there is justice for ALL the people.
Taking every opportunity to speak to the community in the public square in the language that they understand and not in our ecclesiastical language.

The case is put for the defence and it continues to be put and Jesus contrasts with the religious leaders of the day- did they do anything to help the man?
No
Did they rejoice that he was able to walk again?
No
All they were worried about was that it was on the Sabbath..

Which of the sides are the most appealing and attractive and which are the most off putting? I think I know, do you?

Who would you want to be like? Which one do you think you want our church to be like?

I finish with a quote from Rev Tim Keller who is minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York in the centre of the city:

“We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than the words in gaining plausibility. The leaders of most towns see “word-onl” churches as costs to their community, not a value. Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “we cannot do without churches like this.” Mercy deeds give the gospel words plausibility. Therefore, evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and should celebrate what is being done.”

2005-05-05T17:51:00.000+01:00

"Give me the child, till he's seven, and I'll give you the man"
This was the Jesuit belief upon which they build their educational system - we are all greatly influenced by our society and culture, no man is an island, we all carry the marks of our upbringing. Paul recognized this when he told the Roman Christians not to be 'conformed' to this world, we are not be imprisoned or held captive, we are to be 'transformed' by the power of God.

Jonah was a man of his time and the particular mark on him was "Nationalistic Patriotism" which had no desire or intention of sharing God's love with these pagan Gentiles in Nineveh. He failed to see that his identity was strong enough to accept the Gentiles as members of God's family. He failed to see that they had responsibilities as well as privileges - to be a light to the Gentiles, to bring them to faith - he wanted to keep them out of the Kingdom. He was, what we would ,today, call , a Zionist. A Jewish people in a Jewish state. He wanted to look after his own- that too is contrary to scripture!
For this kind of Nationalism to flourish a separate identity is needed- a separate language and literature and perhaps sport, but also an enemy to despise. A kind of Sin Fein mentality which excludes all others.

Examples: Hitler's Germany it was the Jews, Gypsies and
Communists. In S.A. it was the blacks and in Ireland we have two kinds of Nationalism; for the Ulster Nationalist the enemy is the Republicans and for the Irish it is England and all things English (with the possible exception of Jack Charlton?)

Jesus gives three words which undermine this basis:
"love your enemies"
The results of this kind of Nationalism in this country have included some less desirable one:
bitterness, polarization - those seeking unity by force have only succeeded in driving a wedge between the communities- the Belfast-Dublin railway line is symbolic of this.
population shift-1911- 4% protestant; 1971-4% protestant.

How are we to relate to Nationalism from a Biblical point of
view?

Definition given a few weeks ago: "Patriotism should mean being thankful for one's nation without idolizing it, facing the reality about it, appreciating its heritage and the guilt trapped in it, refusing to link patriotism with militarism, seeing ones nation in relation to the whole world of humanity"

We can take three basic points out of this:

1. Thankful People

There is much that we can be thankful for. We live in a democracy were decisions are made, after discussion, for the benefit of the people. We have freedom of religion were we can worship and teach and evangelize.
We have freedom to organize and be involved in political discussion, even to the point of criticizing the government of the day. We are free to associate with whoever we want and we are free to express our point of view in the media.

As Christians we are admonished to pray for our nation
for those in leadership and authority. We do this privately and corporately. I think it right that we extend this to the organizations that we are members of. So we pray for the leaders of the UN and the EC - hence our gathering for prayer last week and I would thank those who came, I'm only sorry that the urgency has either not reached some or has receded. Then we care also linked in with the UK by way of N.I and the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

As Christians we are admonished to Submit to authority
Leadership is ordained by God and we are to be law-abiding subjects so long as God's law is not in danger of the lives of the people put at risk.

That was the position of Paul and the early Church. So we are to be a thankful people but this is not an uncritical passive role, we are also called to

Challenge

The Coleraine Declaration reminds us of this. My country right or wrong has no part in the Christian scenario. We have all asked the question: why didn't the church in Germany oppose Hitler more vigorously?

In a book about Martin Niemoller- a German Army officer who became a pastor, it becomes clear that patriotism is part of the reason. An uncritical patriotism which failed to see the progression from love of country to persecution of all outsiders. National pride is one thing but a jingoism which excludes others and rejoices in their harm has no place in the Christian church. In this book the story is told of how, after the sinking of a French tanker the crew triumphantly played "Deuschland ubber alles" and after the sinking of another vessel they harassed the French destroyer which was picking up the survivors from the sea. We do well to ask questions.

Is it good to have a close alliance between church and state?
The C of E has been described as the Tory Party at prayer (not always an accurate description). It is wrong for one denomination to be closely aligned to the state. Not talking about a separation of church and state, just a recognition that there are different denominations in the state.

We might also want to question the idea of Church controlled and segregated education. Is the work of Christian primarily the work of the family and the church or of the state?
Why is integrated education such a good idea until you cross the border? Luther talked of the two kingdoms and saw church and state in separate compartments while Calvin saw them much closer together and we need to include both these positions in our thinking. Calvin's system is no longer practical but neither is it good to keep them separate. Jonah was challenging God instead of letting God challenge him.

2. Then we are to be an AWARE PEOPLE

Too often we ignore politics and the politicians and allow them to do what they want and then we criticize them when things go wrong or some corruption is brought to light. Politics, which has been described as the art of the possible, involves people and decisions - we have a vital part to play and we should be playing it. Democracy is more than a system of government- there are plenty of countries who claim to be democratic- in fact most countries. SA is a democracy and East Germany was called the German Democratic Republic . A real democracy needs to have active people in order to work. While we give our TDs the responsibility of sitting in deliberation that does not mean that we abdicate the responsibility of keeping a watching brief.

There are times when it is right to lobby our TDs and to write to the Newspapers to express our point of view.
e.g. we have UN obligations to give aid to the hungry- we have been less enthusiastic about this than about Kuwait- in fact aid has been cut. Not to say that people must be made to see things my or our way and to do things the way we want- you can't make people believe, that is a gift of God. We cannot insist that everybody keeps the Sabbath Day holy, but I think we can ask that the state passes laws which do not prevent me from keeping it holy. We need to keep in touch by reading the
papers and watching the news or listening on the radio.

Jonah gives us an example that we are not to follow. Our relationship to the family of God is more important than membership of any state-that makes life more complicated but that's where we need to ask God for wisdom and courage.
For our nation we say thank you but we also hold the right to be critical and to be aware of what is going on. If we do this we will not be following Jonah. We look for God's spirit to make a transformation in our lives and in the life of the nation.

Jonah the Bigot

2005-05-05T17:44:00.000+01:00

"Give me the child, till he's seven, and I'll give you the man"
This was the Jesuit belief upon which they build their educational system - we are all greatly influenced by our society and culture, no man is an island, we all carry the marks of our upbringing. Paul recognized this when he told the Roman Christians not to be 'conformed' to this world, we are not be imprisoned or held captive, we are to be 'transformed' by the power of God.

Jonah was a man of his time and the particular mark on him was "Nationalistic Patriotism" which had no desire or intention of sharing God's love with these pagan Gentiles in Nineveh. He failed to see that his identity was strong enough to accept the Gentiles as members of God's family. He failed to see that they had responsibilities as well as privileges - to be a light to the Gentiles, to bring them to faith - he wanted to keep them out of the Kingdom. He was, what we would ,today, call , a Zionist. A Jewish people in a Jewish state. He wanted to look after his own- that too is contrary to scripture!
For this kind of Nationalism to flourish a separate identity is needed- a separate language and literature and perhaps sport, but also an enemy to despise. A kind of Sin Fein mentality which excludes all others.

Examples: Hitler's Germany it was the Jews, Gypsies and
Communists. In S.A. it was the blacks and in Ireland we have two kinds of Nationalism; for the Ulster Nationalist the enemy is the Republicans and for the Irish it is England and all things English (with the possible exception of Jack Charlton?)

Jesus gives three words which undermine this basis:
"love your enemies"
The results of this kind of Nationalism in this country have included some less desirable one:
bitterness, polarization - those seeking unity by force have only succeeded in driving a wedge between the communities- the Belfast-Dublin railway line is symbolic of this.
population shift-1911- 4% protestant; 1971-4% protestant.

How are we to relate to Nationalism from a Biblical point of
view?

Definition given a few weeks ago: "Patriotism should mean being thankful for one's nation without idolizing it, facing the reality about it, appreciating its heritage and the guilt trapped in it, refusing to link patriotism with militarism, seeing ones nation in relation to the whole world of humanity"

We can take three basic points out of this:

1. Thankful People

There is much that we can be thankful for. We live in a democracy were decisions are made, after discussion, for the benefit of the people. We have freedom of religion were we can worship and teach and evangelize.
We have freedom to organize and be involved in political discussion, even to the point of criticizing the government of the day. We are free to associate with whoever we want and we are free to express our point of view in the media.

As Christians we are admonished to pray for our nation
for those in leadership and authority. We do this privately and corporately. I think it right that we extend this to the organizations that we are members of. So we pray for the leaders of the UN and the EC - hence our gathering for prayer last week and I would thank those who came, I'm only sorry that the urgency has either not reached some or has receded. Then we care also linked in with the UK by way of N.I and the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

As Christians we are admonished to Submit to authority
Leadership is ordained by God and we are to be law-abiding subjects so long as God's law is not in danger of the lives of the people put at risk.

That was the position of Paul and the early Church. So we are to be a thankful people but this is not an uncritical passive role, we are also called to

Challenge

The Coleraine Declaration reminds us of this. My country right or wrong has no part in the Christian scenario. We have all asked the question: why didn't the church in Germany oppose Hitler more vigorously?

In a book about Martin Niemoller- a German Army officer who became a pastor, it becomes clear that patriotism is part of the reason. An uncritical patriotism which failed to see the progression from love of country to persecution of all outsiders. National pride is one thing but a jingoism which excludes others and rejoices in their harm has no place in the Christian church. In this book the story is told of how, after the sinking of a French tanker the crew triumphantly played "Deuschland ubber alles" and after the sinking of another vessel they harassed the French destroyer which was picking up the survivors from the sea. We do well to ask questions.

Is it good to have a close alliance between church and state?
The C of E has been described as the Tory Party at prayer (not always an accurate description). It is wrong for one denomination to be closely aligned to the state. Not talking about a separation of church and state, just a recognition that there are different denominations in the state.

We might also want to question the idea of Church controlled and segregated education. Is the work of Christian primarily the work of the family and the church or of the state?
Why is integrated education such a good idea until you cross the border? Luther talked of the two kingdoms and saw church and state in separate compartments while Calvin saw them much closer together and we need to include both these positions in our thinking. Calvin's system is no longer practical but neither is it good to keep them separate. Jonah was challenging God instead of letting God challenge him.

2. Then we are to be an AWARE PEOPLE

Too often we ignore politics and the politicians and allow them to do what they want and then we criticize them when things go wrong or some corruption is brought to light. Politics, which has been described as the art of the possible, involves people and decisions - we have a vital part to play and we should be playing it. Democracy is more than a system of government- there are plenty of countries who claim to be democratic- in fact most countries. SA is a democracy and East Germany was called the German Democratic Republic . A real democracy needs to have active people in order to work. While we give our TDs the responsibility of sitting in deliberation that does not mean that we abdicate the responsibility of keeping a watching brief.

There are times when it is right to lobby our TDs and to write to the Newspapers to express our point of view.
e.g. we have UN obligations to give aid to the hungry- we have been less enthusiastic about this than about Kuwait- in fact aid has been cut. Not to say that people must be made to see things my or our way and to do things the way we want- you can't make people believe, that is a gift of God. We cannot insist that everybody keeps the Sabbath Day holy, but I think we can ask that the state passes laws which do not prevent me from keeping it holy. We need to keep in touch by reading the
papers and watching the news or listening on the radio.

Jonah gives us an example that we are not to follow. Our relationship to the family of God is more important than membership of any state-that makes life more complicated but that's where we need to ask God for wisdom and courage.
For our nation we say thank you but we also hold the right to be critical and to be aware of what is going on. If we do this we will not be following Jonah. We look for God's spirit to make a transformation in our lives and in the life of the nation.

The Creeds of the Church

2005-05-05T10:13:00.000+01:00

In much of today's Christian literature there is the call for the church to speak with a prophetic voice in the public square. At present I am taking a look at the minor prophet Amos who has much to say about such issues. As I was browsing the bloggers of the web I came accross a submission in "cross Blogging" which is not entirely off the issue. It was asking a number of questions but one was raised due to the election of the new pope and by the poublication of his first homily and the question was asked about the place and value of the Creds of the church in equipping the faithful to become mature in Christ.I have read Benedict's homily and have to confess thast there is little in it which I disagree with- but I am not happy to go with a faith which is based upon the creeds of the church. The creeds of history have prooved to be very helpful for us all but we need to realise that they have their limits simply because they do not carry the same authority as scripture [scriptua sola]. Whjen I read the homily I wondered if he was actually saying thae same thing in a different way- if we rely on the creeds of the church alone will we not remain immature and childish which is the very opposite of what scripture says and what Benedict's objective is- i.e making Adults. He wants Christian maturity and which of us would be against that? He is right to say that a "faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this frindship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us knowledge to judge truth from evil...."
I welcome this but am a little confused.

Election 2005

2005-05-04T02:47:00.000+01:00

I watched a couple of TV programmes on the election on BBC and UTV- they had representatives from the 4 main parties last night. I was left with the question- who is going to help us to get out of the mess we are in? Who is speaking with the voice of leadership? None of the representatives gave the impression that they were really interested in the needs of the people just in getting power for their party. I know that it is the nature of the party political system to put the party's best foor forward and to leave enough "wriggle space" as possible but do they all expect us all to believe that they are the next Messiah for Ulster/Ireland when they ignore 50% of the population? We had one party who stae their allegiance to the Good Friday Agreement but refuse to leave behind those who have their guns still in operation and so loose the spirit of the agreement if remaining faithful to the word- one wonders if the real reason is not fear of loosing votes to the more extreme party. Then there is another party who have never pledged any allegiance to the agreement yet were ready to take the departmental posts and are now sitting at tables in public with those who have not surrendered, something they said they would never do- never, never , never, and who were just a breath away from mmaking their own agreement. Then there is the party who will kick everyone out who is not of their persuasion even though some of their founding fathers were born outside of Ireland and they have refused to surrender the guns, although we are waiting for that to happen tomorrow, perhaps. And the other party who seem content in presenting themselves as decent people and spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder at the more extreme version of their views.

The other programe I saw very briefly had a politician who was part of the team that produced the agrement but changed his mind at the 11th hour and much later changed parties as well.

Then my mind goes to the Old Testament book of Nehemiah who looked back to the province of his birth and was humbled by the state it was in- here we had a man who turned to God in prayer and who rallied his people to the cause of re-bulding the city- who is going to re-build Belfast? Who is going to step out of the shadows and lead all the people to the throne of God? This is the time and the hour when Christian men and women need to rise up and take every opportunity to build and not destroy, to reconcile and not separate. I really do get fed up with the negative political stance and yet this is part of what we are and of this community in which we live and God has called us to be here- when Nehemiah's work was finished God re-populated the city and he did it by lot!!! Where are the people, the good evangelical Christians who are radical enough to take their turn to live in the inter-face areas of this divided city so that it becomes less divided? Where are the people fighting over who will take up the privelige of doing this work which no one but the people of God can do? If the local church is the hope of the world- God's hope at that- where are the people of hope on the Shankill Road and on the Crumlin Road and on the Falls Road? Where are they?

2005-05-01T21:23:00.000+01:00

INTRODUCTION

As the general election looms closer we have seen the rash of accusations about the Prime Minister and we have heard the in-fighting in the Unionist camp. We are living in a society were gangerism is all around- the housing is made more expensive because of the demand for protection money and businesses are held to ransom by some traveling families. We hear about the sexual abuse of children by professional people – even within the church.

The reason for the campaign against third world debt and the push for fair trade is that there is much in the world which is unfair and its not against the powerful and the wealthy but against the poor and disadvantaged.

The quotation I read this morning from Tim Keller-

“We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than the words in gaining plausibility. The leaders of most towns see “word-only” churches as costs to their community, not a value. Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “we cannot do without churches like this.” Mercy deeds give the gospel words plausibility. Therefore, evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and should celebrate what is being done.”

This can work for us but it can also work against us
The Prophet Amos has much to say today about practical Christian living and about social justice and the need for the church to speak the prophetic word because his society was just like ours-he could speak of

* sexual indulgence [2:7],
* transgressions
* sins [5:12]
* commercial sharp practice [8:5,6].

This was a time of luxury, they had never had it so good-some lived in ivory houses [Amos 3:15,6:4]. Jeroboam was an astute politician who had made much territory. Upper class women spent their time
listening to the music of their day, eating the best food and drinking the best of wines and taking beauty treatments.

The men too were indifferent to the needs of the poor within their gates and were happy to take bribes and generally do whatever they could get away with in business.

At the same time his society made a big thing of religion and religious practice. The church had become self absorbed in the status quo-its tradition was all important but had little interest in hearing from God [7:12,16]. It was a church with a severe attack of hypocrisy.

He saw this in society generally and his words were for those who were guilty-in a sense he speaks to anyone who finds that the "cap fits"

Yet God called him to address the church-the "people of God", in particular. It was because of the state of the nation that he swopped the shepherd’s crook for the pulpit. Over the years the emphasis of the church’s message has lurched from the , so- called social gospel to the, so-called spiritual Gospel when the complete gospel will always have spiritual, social and materialist and economic repercussions and demands.

It's in this context that the lion roars with judgment. Amos comes to us as a source of great encouragement, why? I say this because he was not a professional prophet like Elijah he had no formal training or teaching-he was no prophet or the son of a prophet. What was he then - HE WAS A SHEEP FARMER.

Farmers and factory workers have this one thing in common-they very often have a very low self esteem- yet we need to remind ourselves that God accepts us as we are- not because of our wealth or education or good looks, as we are. One consequence of this attitude is the 'I couldn't do syndrome'.

Sometimes this is just a tree to hide behind, sometimes it is true but the only way to find out for certain is to be willing to have a go. Take a step of faith.

I well remember the days when I was in the C.E. and was asked to do something up front. I couldn't do it and as a teenager no one would have thought I would be here no doing what I do. I am still a shy person but that's no excuse. Amos was called as a sheep farmer to do a work for God and when this job was completed he
went back to his day job.

Today we take an overall view of the work of this farmer/shepherd prophet. His word is a word to the church today-we are separated by thousands of years and by cultural differences-like another world altogether but the situation he faced is very like today and so as we look at Amos we look at a man and hear his words we are hearing the word of God for our situation today.

Lessons of Amos in brief

* Privilege brings peril and responsibility

* Past history cannot take the place of present spiritual and moral commitment

* Religious profession and practice are blood brothers.

1. Privilege brings peril & responsibility.

They thought that the privilege of being the chosen people only brought benefits. They were secure-the other nations would be destroyed but they were OK. God had shown at various times that he was on their side.

-Look at the picture of David and the might of Goliath. God did a mighty work in that mans life and in the life of the nation-the shepherd boy became a mighty king look at the way his kingdom had become so strong

-look at the way the promised land was given to them even though it was a land full of giants. God did a mighty work.

Now Amos shows them that they had got it wrong, this was only one side of the covenant-there's two sides to it. he gave them, and he gives us gifts to use, money to share and time to spend on others. His particular stress is that the nearer to God the closer the scrutiny and the more certain the judgment- that's why the NT says that teachers will be judged differently that others.

It is an easy thing for those in places of power to abuse their power- that was seen in many of the worlds empires-and it would be wrong of us to take the attitude that now I'm saved I can do what I want-now that I'm a member of the most exclusive club of all I'm alright. We've only just begun.

The church is not exempt from judgment- there's no guarantee that the PCI or this particular congregation will still be here in 200 years time-history is cluttered with churches that rose up are now no more.

Jesus spoke very sharply against hypocrisy and when we see it we are very critical also. Looking back or looking out we are able to see inconsistencies and hypocrisies but its another thing looking inward.

There are times when people could, with justification, say to us-Physician heal yourself!

As a church we need to maintain a continual walk with God-not to keep our religion but to be real and allow Him to keep us pure.

There are two realities in the world and in the church- sin is a very real reality even in our lives and now's the time to acknowledge it
the other reality is the power of Jesus Christ to change us but we need to realize that he does that all through our lives. Its an ongoing work not just a once off.

Religion was a potent force in Israel but it didn't touch peoples lives-Amaziah was a priest who was one of the best of worshippers-yet he had no interest in hearing God's word. The people liked their traditions and way of doing things but they "pooh-poohed" the preachers of judgment preferring to think "it could never happen to us". We make a grave mistake if we think that worship is simple
singing psalms and hymns-its offering our whole lives to the living God!

2. Past history is no substitute for present spiritual and moral commitment.

A stale testimony of what God has done for you years ago is an interesting history lesson but God wants a current relationship. He wants us to be walking with him and he wants us to be people of high moral commitment-we shy away from the idea of Christians being good living people-yet that IS our calling-not that we can
use this as a way of getting into heaven-we can only do that by GRACE-but that is the way we are to live once we are saved.

So often I have heard people talking about those who profess to be Christians but who have questionable business practice or whatever-there are two things to say about this-

A. To the Christian-you have a responsibility to live your live in a way that honours and doesn't defile the name of Christ. The best way to do this is to keep a vital spiritual relationship with Him and make a solid commitment that with His help you will live a high moral lifestyle

Don't place stumbling blocks in the way of people who may be thinking of coming to Jesus-remember how stern Jesus was to the disciples when they tried to keep the children away from him?

B. To the non Christian-you have no right to demand a standard of morality or spirituality of someone else if you are not willing to live it also. Don't look only at me look at Jesus.

Most of us don't have very dramatic stories to tell. Not had a problem with drink or been wife beaters or done anything we consider terrible or notable but God needs us to relate to people just like us. I don't. Don't feel that this disqualifies you from telling your story, God works with people in different ways and we all have a story to tell. Your life is like a bank you can live on the capital but only for a while. If you do this too long you will only get frustrated and lose your joy of salvation.

3. Profession and practice are blood brothers.

Profession without practice is repulsive to God and that’s why he rejected their sacrifices in Isaiah. When you stand before the congregation and profess faith be warned and be careful-its easy to say the words but to BE A CREDIBLE
PROFESSION is another thing. Don't make the profession unless it is true-that's what you do every time to sit at the Lords table or have a baby baptized. Be wary of making this p[profession if your words speak differently.

True religion is, in the thinking of Amos, to respond fully to the grace and law of God, living out the law in a life of obedience, resting on the grace both for ability and forgiveness; towards God, true religion is a reverent hearing and receiving of His word; and towards other people it appears as honesty, considerateness and unfailing concern for the needy."

To take these elements away is to invite the judgment of God.

Do you want to be healed?

2005-05-01T21:19:00.000+01:00

Picture a courtroom scene On the prosecution we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees. On the defence we have the Apostle John representing Jesus Christ. The charge is that Jesus is claiming to be the Son of God. John 5:16 tells us that he was being persecuted by the Jews.

On the one hand there is no argument with this “charge” after all Jesus IS the Son of God but what they didn’t accept that he was , only that he CLAIMED to be him and what they were really worried about was that men and women would follow him. They want the people to follow their way but many were showing signs of following this Jesus instead.

John’s desire is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”

John says that this Jesus has invaded the earth and lived among men and women for three years. In that time he showed the way to God and it was a different way to that of the religious powers. By way of evidence he presents John the Baptist who says that this Jesus, who came after him in history, was more important than he was - even though he came after him he was “before him” He calls him the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”

He also introduces the reader to the disciples who lived with Jesus for three years and whose conclusion was that he was exactly who he claimed to be.

Then we are introduced to Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman and the whole of the Samaritan community.

By the start of chapter 5 we are given a very interesting contrast between Jesus and his accusers, the religious leaders. In defence John calls to mind the work of healing and forgiveness and contrasts it with the pettifogging doctrinaire approach of the church leadership who care nothing for the man only for the strictest interpretation of the Law. He cleverly uses leaders to undermine their case and make the case of the defence for them.

As the story who are you attracted to and who are you repulsed by?

Jesus was the one who talked to the man. HE SPENT TIME WITH THE MAN Time and time again we see that Jesus is the one who takes the initiative with people-

HE ALWAYS HAS TIME FOR PEOPLE <>

he refuses to sit back and wait for people to come to him- he takes up every opportunity to reach out to people in need. His desire is

“to preach good news to the poor….to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”

This is the manifesto of Jesus. This is what he did when he spoke to the Samaritan woman and with the official in Galilee and now he does it for this man. He had been on his way to the temple to celebrate one of the Jewish festivals whenever he came across this very sorry individual- this man had been an invalid for most, if not all of his life and had being coming to this place which was supposed to have healing qualities but only at the time when the angel disturbed the waters- he had to wait for a window of opportunity but unfortunately for him other people kept bunking the cue and getting in before him

When Jesus saw him he spoke to him and asked him

“Do you want to be healed?” May seem a strange question. Perhaps there was an implication behind the question or perhaps he just wanted to know if the man really wanted healed as some people find dependence of others a pleasant experience. Sometimes people fail to take opportunities to help themselves because they are quite comfortable as they are but this man was not- did he shout at Jesus or did he reply quietly and just explain the situation?

As we look at this story we need to realise that the way we live our lives, the lifestyle we have adopted, will say more about us than any amount of words. In the post modern society in which we live this is absolutely clear

“Christians proclaim the gospel through their lives, manners and morals in an instant fashion.” [Roger Johnston]

In this age of MTV the camera follows your every move- if the message is good enough to attract people on the evening news certainly it will be good enough to attract people on the streets and sidewalks of our neighbourhoods.”

This gives us a great opportunity to proclaim, to persuade and to argue the case for Christ in the public square. This is not the time to silence the gospel, it’s a time to enter the public square with confidence. Look at Jesus and look at the religious leaders and tell me which one you believe- if you were on the jury would you go with the prosecution or with the defence?

We see Jesus TALKING TO THE MAN HE IS PEOPLE MINDED and his church is to be PEOPLE MINDED

In contrast the Pharisees had nothing to say to him about being healed- after 38 years he is up and able to walk and all the church leaders were worried about was that this was the Sabbath. Notice that Jesus did not give the man a lecture about being superstiticious! He just told him what to do to be healed and he did it and was healed

Every year thousands of people travel to the south of France to get to Lourdes- in our days in the Kildare and Monaghan there was an annual pilgrimage to the place recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as a place of healing- in the 19th century a young girl called Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary. She came to tell the people to repent and came back several times – the result was the creation of a lake with healing properties. Now we may have something to say about this but there are many Protestants people who have their own superstitions. What Jesus’ message is, is that waiting upon him is the way to go.. Instead of waiting by the pool for this disturbance he should have been waiting for Jesus.

One of the callings of the church is to be a model of the reign of God- remember Jesus’ prayer where he said

“thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

we should be bringing the sick and depressed to the throne of God that we may all find the shalom of God. We should be seeking the health, the peace and the welfare of the city. This man had been coming to this place for some time and no one had helped him- it was every man for himself- the way of the jungle- and no from the local congregation was helping him. We should be:

praying for the city- take part one way or another in the prayer shield each first Tuesday of the month 10-11am- in the church or at home.
Concerned for justice- we need to be involved in social justice and that is not a matter of negotiation, it’s a divine imperative- if we are to be the people of God we will be found doing what God does. Justice is like charity, it begins at home but does not stay there- for many people within north and west Belfast this is a real issue and a real barrier to Jesus Christ- we can accept the need for justice for our own people and even for people like the McCartney sisters but when it comes to justice for the Finucanes or for Bloody Sunday- we need to make sure there is justice for ALL the people.
Taking every opportunity to speak to the community in the public square in the language that they understand and not in our ecclesiastical language.

The case is put for the defence and it continues to be put and Jesus contrasts with the religious leaders of the day- did they do anything to help the man?
No
Did they rejoice that he was able to walk again?
No
All they were worried about was that it was on the Sabbath..

Which of the sides are the most appealing and attractive and which are the most off putting? I think I know, do you?

Who would you want to be like? Which one do you think you want our church to be like?

I finish with a quote from Rev Tim Keller who is minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York in the centre of the city:

“We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than the words in gaining plausibility. The leaders of most towns see “word-onl” churches as costs to their community, not a value. Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “we cannot do without churches like this.” Mercy deeds give the gospel words plausibility. Therefore, evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and should celebrate what is being done.”

2005-04-30T17:44:00.000+01:00

www.presbyterianireland.org/

2005-04-29T20:36:00.000+01:00

Today we got some literature from the political parties- perhaps they are interested in my vote afterall, but each leaflet was delivered by the Postman- I am still waiting for some answers to my questions.

If all the unionist parties are on the political right what about those voters or potential voters who sit on the left? All the unionist parties favour academic selection at 11+ so what about those less academic children who come from homes where there is little, if any, encouragement for academic advance? Why is there not some party whose education policy is to enhance every sector of education?

A Time to Act

2005-04-27T15:30:00.000+01:00

It's less than a week no to the "big day" [what day do I hear you saying?]. No one, absolutely no one, has been to my house or even stopped me in the street to win my vote. Nothing new in this, I hear you say but I would have thought that every single vote in North Belfast was worth contending for. I have even sent a list of 10 questions to some of the parties and received exactly no answers, one of the parties has acknowledged the email. According to the latest email from the "Centre For Contemporary Christianity In Ireland" even Paddy Power has lost interest- the assumption is that the next government will be a new Labour administration with Tony Brown or Gordon Blair as Prime Minister [or is it Tony Blair and Gordon Brown?] The odds for this are 1-25. in Northern Ireland there is a growing belief that we are edging towards a defacto two party province and we are all helpless, like lemmings heading towards the cliff tops.
as a Christian, never mind an evangelical Christian I have a vested interest in this community and refuse to believe that I am just a victim of various other forces in the community. I believe that I have a divine imperative to be involved in this world and this country and using my vote is the bottom line. Politics is too important to be left to the politicians. I agree with David Buckley as he writes in the above mentioned email. He says:

"not voting is an abdication of responsibility that no amount of other public work can replace, because the act of voting is an absolutely unique participation in public life. To abstain is to use freedom as a pretext for evil, misunderstanding it as freedom from responsibility rather than freedom to be responsibile
At the same time some young people, including Christian young people who are highly committed to the cause of Christ, think that they cannot take part in the process by voting because there is no one in the public square, who will be in a poisition of power, to vote for. There is no one , with any clout, who represents their view point and they feel disgusted with the stalemate of local parties who cannot get beyond the constitutional issue which means that real politics is lost. Could our parties function if they were faced with the politics of bread and butter issues and what would it do to the political alignment of the parties on both sides of the constitutional question?Where does the practice of political pragmatism when that can often mean a negative action- voting for someone to keep another candidate out? all Christians are facing the issue of holistic Christianity and mission- we sd that in the way that NGOs like Tearfund are fully behind the “makingpoveryhistory” campaign. In the past evangelicals have stayed away from social justice and the “soicial gospel” for fear of beiong unafithful to the pure gospel and loosing the edge of evangelism.

We could just give up in dispair and take a fatalistic approach but I refuse to believe that we should be dictated to be circumstances- we need to take up the challenge and fight for the sake of the kingdom, be pro-active and build bridge heads into the community to challenge the assumptions that reign supreme. How can we have an effective gospel, which we surely have, if we separate it from politics and health and education etc? This is no time for swimming with the tide, its a time to be active and sieze the initiative.

Make The Cross Work

2005-04-26T05:44:00.000+01:00

The Chritian group Care has come up with the slogan, "Make The cross Work" for the General Election Campaign and we have to ask ourselves, as Christian voters, as evangelical Christian voters what does that mean for northern Ireland? There are a number of candidates who claim the name of Jesus Christ and profess to be Christians but what differance does it make to them and to us?
Do we give them our vote just because they are Christians? How does a Christian make the cross work by voting for secular political parties and we need to remember that when we vote we are voting, by and large , for the parties and not just the individual. There are some MPs who are very good at representing the community but is that a good reason for voting for them? There are a number of politicians who seem happy to slate the other side just to get the party tag and the votes that go along with them. I believe that we have a civic duty to use our vote but that may mean destroying the vote because we have no one we feel we can vote for or we may even vote for someone who is the least of evils or even vote for someone even though we know that they will not get elected because of the electoral system used in the Westminster elections. How important are the national and international issues-e.g. The Irag War and the Makepovertyhistory campaign and the environmental isuues when all we can think of is the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, when to everyone else in the world we are , pure and simply, Ireland??
How can we use our electral muscle to unite instead of dividing and to create harmony instead of division- I have issued 10 political questions to some of the political parties and have only received an acknowledgment form one and no answers from any.
What would the parties do if we had real issues to worry about? Who is speaking up for the ordinary man and woman? The uniuonist parties are middle class parties with tory values and expectations but the people of both protestant and Catholic Belfast and Derry/Londonderry are ordinary working people- who speaks for them? Once the battles are over there will be real politics to worry about- the water charges, the educatucation and the health service etc and is anyone preparing for that day or are the nationalists the only people who have people who will fight for them? Does anyone else have these questions?

SECOND HAND RELIGION? OR FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE OF GOD HIMSELF?

2005-04-22T10:29:00.000+01:00

“Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man is the saviour of the world” Jn 4:42Many claims have been made for this man and about this man. We have heard volumes about him:on the TVon Films such as “The Passion of the Christ”Church and Sunday SchoolBooks from the De Vinci Code to the Bible itselfFrom parents and family and friendsStreet preachingDoor to door visitation etcIncreasingly the gospel message is filtered and processed through the radio talk shows in bits and pieces and the real and complete gospel message is hidden and we know that half the truth is much more dangerous than none of the truth.Too often the gospel has become politicised by the political machine.Thankfully there have been campaigns like t “MakePovertyHistory” which have given the opportunity to the believers to give another aspect, all to often forgotten or neglected- Christian lifestyle and social justice.Where do we find Christ today? The primary way we see him is through the people of God in the church of Jesus Christ. This “chance meeting” with Jesus begins the fist phase in the developing relationship between the woman and Jesus and so it is with us- we need to be:INTRODUCED TO CHRIST PERSONALLYShe had the benefit of being with the living Christ but the bible tells us that where two or three are gathered together in His name, he is with them and there you have the church- so we are responsible for introducing people to Christ. We need to speak with the prophetic voice and that means there are times when we will challenge our society and culture and it also means that we will need to provide opportunities for people to see Christ for themselves. All too often all that people get is A SECOND HAND RELIGION when what they need is a FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE. We have never had a new car, not brand new- one of the reasons for that is that we have never been able to afford one but we have also said that it would be difficult for us to justify all that money when a fairly new second hand one would do just as well. Driving a new car is a great experience and there is quite a difference. Hat God offers us and here this woman was offered a first hand experience of the living God- Jesus describes it as the living water- drink this and you will never be thirsty again,.This woman came to know God for herself and all the friends she brought with her.Every Christian parent has a responsibility to bring Jesus Christ to their children [Presbyterians believe that this is the particular challenge to parents] but also to those people they rub shoulders with. This calls for a lifestyle and not JUST words. This is what we mean by covenant theology- there is no cast-iron guarantee that because you believe so will your children because God allows people the freedom to make up their own minds and has no desire to pre-programm people and his timescale is not the same as ours but it does mean that what should be guaranteed is that every child of a Christian home will be given every change and every example which will equip them to make up their minds with all the facts. This woman made up her mind and discovered that being a believer was more than a name. Then she brought her friends to meet him.Merely following the crowd was not for her- she was doing the leading because she had done the thinking and had met the man who changed her life. There is a struggle going on in the world- a struggle for our minds and our attentionThe media has its point of viewOur friends have their viewsOur society is more concerned with political correctness than with truth and has become the religion of our daye.g The Student’s Union of Stirling University has decided to give permission to the students to remove the Gideon Bibles from their rooms because they might offend some people!!!The second phase in this developing relationship is that they WANTED TO SPEND TIME WITH JESUSAs Jesus looked over the land he saw the crowds coming towards him- this is when he said- “The fields are white and ready for harvest”They were all dressed in white and it looked like the fields were literally white- here we had something of an awakening- something akin to the prophecy he would make later as he told the believers to go into the neighbourhood including the rebel land of Samaria to preach the gospel.Every now and again we hear of politicians or talk show hosts who rise to the challenge of living with some marginal people- could be like the travellers as was the case with Kilroy Silk or with a poor family or single- parent family and the result is that it changes their views and sometimes their life attitudes- this woman and these people were radically changed by being with Jesus.It is the responsibility of the church to make to proclaim the word of God but also to live the life of Christ- this is no inner clique or closed shop- rather we are to be an inclusive community- that does not mean that we loose our principles or we allow the world to mould us but that we reach out and make the necessary changes so that people who come into our fellowship feel welcome and comfortable. In a recent survey it became clear that the majority of people in the 21st century are looking for intimate relationships and not just entertainment. Entertainment id necessary and people do flock to the places where they will enjoy themselves but at the very heart they want acceptance and support and true friendship.Sometimes the church has felt the need to entertain people and often people will flock to the mega churches but what they really lack is accountability and individual care.The third phase in this relationship is when they MAKE THE COMMITMENT TO JESUSNow we know for ourselves and KNOW that this man is the saviour of the worldIf they KNOW- not think or hope or guessIf they know for themselves then the next step is easy and straightforward.- If this man really is the saviour- the one who has brought shalom or complete peace then they need to commit themselves to him. In making this decision and commitment they become part of the solution to the world’s problems and they become the people of God They listened to Him and they watched him and concluded that he was the real thing- now they could see that he was the Messiah.Let me ask you- have you discovered Christ for yourself?Our hope today for Christian is that he would decide for himself one day – that he would be Christian in more than name- too many of us are Christians by name but not in fact- too many of us have only had a second-hand religion when we could have a firsthand experience of Knowing Jesus Christ personally.This man was more than a prophetMore than a teacherMore than a controversial characterMore than a holy manHe was and his and always will be the Son of god who offers us life in all its fullnessDo you want to be more than a Christian by name?If you do then you need to commit yourself to him personally

SECOND HAND RELIGION

2005-04-22T09:21:00.000+01:00

“Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man is the saviour of the world” Jn 4:42

Many claims have been made for this man and about this man. We have heard volumes about him:

on the TV
on Films such as “The Passion of the Christ”
Church and Sunday School
Books from the De Vinci Code to the Bible itself
From parents and family and friends
Street preaching
Door to door visitation etc

Increasingly the gospel message is filtered and processed through the radio talk shows in bits and pieces and the real and complete gospel message is hidden and we know that half the truth is much more dangerous than none of the truth.
Too often the gospel has become politicised by the political machine.
Thankfully there have been campaigns like t “MakePovertyHistory” which have given the opportunity to the believers to give another aspect, all to often forgotten or neglected- Christian lifestyle and social justice.

Where do we find Christ today? The primary way we see him is through the people of God in the church of Jesus Christ. This “chance meeting” with Jesus begins the fist phase in the developing relationship between the woman and Jesus and so it is with us- we need to be:

INTRODUCED TO CHRIST PERSONALLY

She had the benefit of being with the living Christ but the bible tells us that where two or three are gathered together in His name, he is with them and there you have the church- so we are responsible for introducing people to Christ. We need to speak with the prophetic voice and that means there are times when we will challenge our society and culture and it also means that we will need to provide opportunities for people to see Christ for themselves. All too often all that people get is A SECOND HAND RELIGION when what they need is a FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE. We have never had a new car, not brand new- one of the reasons for that is that we have never been able to afford one but we have also said that it would be difficult for us to justify all that money when a fairly new second hand one would do just as well. Driving a new car is a great experience and there is quite a difference. Hat God offers us and here this woman was offered a first hand experience of the living God- Jesus describes it as the living water- drink this and you will never be thirsty again,.
This woman came to know God for herself and all the friends she brought with her.

Every Christian parent has a responsibility to bring Jesus Christ to their children [Presbyterians believe that this is the particular challenge to parents] but also to those people they rub shoulders with. This calls for a lifestyle and not JUST words. This is what we mean by covenant theology- there is no cast-iron guarantee that because you believe so will your children because God allows people the freedom to make up their own minds and has no desire to pre-programm people and his timescale is not the same as ours but it does mean that what should be guaranteed is that every child of a Christian home will be given every change and every example which will equip them to make up their minds with all the facts. This woman made up her mind and discovered that being a believer was more than a name. Then she brought her friends to meet him.

Merely following the crowd was not for her- she was doing the leading because she had done the thinking and had met the man who changed her life. There is a struggle going on in the world- a struggle for our minds and our attention
The media has its point of view
Our friends have their views
Our society is more concerned with political correctness than with truth and has become the religion of our day
e.g The Student’s Union of Stirling University has decided to give permission to the students to remove the Gideon Bibles from their rooms because they might offend some people!!!

The second phase in this developing relationship is that they WANTED TO SPEND TIME WITH JESUS

As Jesus looked over the land he saw the crowds coming towards him- this is when he said- “The fields are white and ready for harvest”

They were all dressed in white and it looked like the fields were literally white- here we had something of an awakening- something akin to the prophecy he would make later as he told the believers to go into the neighbourhood including the rebel land of Samaria to preach the gospel.

Every now and again we hear of politicians or talk show hosts who rise to the challenge of living with some marginal people- could be like the travellers as was the case with Kilroy Silk or with a poor family or single- parent family and the result is that it changes their views and sometimes their life attitudes- this woman and these people were radically changed by being with Jesus.

It is the responsibility of the church to make to proclaim the word of God but also to live the life of Christ- this is no inner clique or closed shop- rather we are to be an inclusive community- that does not mean that we loose our principles or we allow the world to mould us but that we reach out and make the necessary changes so that people who come into our fellowship feel welcome and comfortable. In a recent survey it became clear that the majority of people in the 21st century are looking for intimate relationships and not just entertainment. Entertainment id necessary and people do flock to the places where they will enjoy themselves but at the very heart they want acceptance and support and true friendship.

Sometimes the church has felt the need to entertain people and often people will flock to the mega churches but what they really lack is accountability and individual care.

The third phase in this relationship is when they MAKE THE COMMITMENT TO JESUS

Now we know for ourselves and KNOW that this man is the saviour of the world
If they KNOW- not think or hope or guess
If they know for themselves then the next step is easy and straightforward.- If this man really is the saviour- the one who has brought shalom or complete peace then they need to commit themselves to him. In making this decision and commitment they become part of the solution to the world’s problems and they become the people of God They listened to Him and they watched him and concluded that he was the real thing- now they could see that he was the Messiah.
Let me ask you- have you discovered Christ for yourself?

Our hope today for Christian is that he would decide for himself one day – that he would be Christian in more than name- too many of us are Christians by name but not in fact- too many of us have only had a second-hand religion when we could have a firsthand experience of Knowing Jesus Christ personally.

This man was more than a prophet
More than a teacher
More than a controversial character
More than a holy man
He was and his and always will be the Son of god who offers us life in all its fullness
Do you want to be more than a Christian by name?
If you do then you need to commit yourself to him personally

Ramblings of a fool

2005-04-21T10:58:00.000+01:00

Here we are again- making our way to the polls and exorcising our democratic rights and responsibilities. The problem for us in Northern Ireland is that many people feel completely alienated from the political landscape and that has laid to a democratic deficit. In the past the reason was the community strife but now it's because the politicians are unable to get round the table.

What kind of politicians do we want and what kind of leaders do we deserve anyway?

On the one hand we have a whole batch of politicians who want to be elected, want to have the power to radically change the community but who refuse to take their seats in Westminister. They will not even recognise the authority of parliament nor the police but are willing to call for the help of the courts- something, in the heady days of the troubles they refused to do- they call for the "Brits Out" neglecting to understand and accept that there are many people within the island who have come from families who have lived here longer than the age of the American Stte they love to court.

Then we have a batch who have refused even to sit at the same table but who today will sit at the table on TV and on Radio talk shows and even to share power at local governmnet level and even during the Assembly but not around the cabinet table. They seem to be more at odds with the other unionist party and the hatred between the two grows with time.

Then there are a group of people who talk a lot about democracy and about maing the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement work but who refuse to work with those who want it to work because those they do not trust are not involved.
No wonder so many young people refuse to be involved and yet if they do not become involved the problem will only get worse. Which of us are proud of those who cmew to the microphone complete with their stougies [spelling??] either looking suitably smug or downright gloomy?

As Christians some of us are embarrassed by the actions and words of fellow believers but brothers are brothers! Which of the parties are doing their best to help both communities, or both parts of this community, to live together in such a way that we can respect each other even when we disagree so profoundly? Who is going to teach us how to live at peace with our neighbour be they Irish, British, British-Irish, Scotch-Irish, or whatever?

What about the churches- are we ready to walk a few yards to stretch out the hand of friendship? How come we were able to send great generous amounts of money to help people who are Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Sheiks, athiests etc and yet we cannot live with our neighbours who differ in their view of the christian faith? When are we going to become mature enough to hold on to what we are and what we believe without being sectarian? Is it possible for men and women of faith and good will to create safe places for people to come together and do some real talking? If we were able to do that hen our political leaders would be freer to take the same kind of risks- when are we going to be ready to be fools for the sake of Christ and His people and church?

Elections

2005-04-20T22:47:00.000+01:00

Once again we are off to the polls to elect those politicians who will represent us in Westminster, the mother of all parliaments. What kind of leaders do we want and what kind of leaders do we deserve? Some have said that a people get the leaders they deserve, is there any truth in that? If we look at those who represent us at the moment at the various levels of government what do we find? On the nationalist side we have those who refuse to take their seats because they still do not acknowledge the right of "England " to be ruling in Ireland and continue with a "Brits Out" mantra, even though it is less often heard quite like that. What we have to ask is- what about those people who are just as Irish as the republicans and nationalists but consider themselves to be British? And who are the real republicans anyway? In the usual understanding of the term a republican is a democrat and a democrat is a person who accepts the result of the ballot box minus the armolite. Is it not strange that in politics we have those who are republican and yet they are monarchical in church matters and those who are monarchical in political matters are very often democratic in church matters and that the most democratic church gave the structures of government to even the democratic loving Americans.

On the unionist side we have two parties who are made up of very middle class people, with a proponderance of soliticors and barristers, who seem to find it more difficult to get on with each other than they do with their traditiojnal enemies. What about the working man? Who or which political party in Northern Ireland is putting his case before the mother parliament? Can anyone answer this question? When do the people become more important than political creed? Which of the parties are going to help us to live together and to be reconciled to the way of life of the other side of the community?

Safe Places?

2005-04-20T21:41:00.000+01:00

Here is a big question for those who are living and working on the inter-faces of places like North Belfast- how are local fellowships going to teach their own members, never mind those who share the same community space, how to live together in an agreed, peaceful yet plural space? We are given the ministry of reconciliation and are to be the light in the world; we are responsible for demonstrating lives which are, as far as [possible, at peace with all men. How do we begin to create safe spaces where people from different backgrounds can talk and argue and learn from each other and about each other?How are we to be tolerant and yet hold to our own views of the bible and society and how to worship and live? For too long thew churches have been PERCEIVED as part of the problem, now it is time to be seen to have and be part of the solution.

2005-04-20T21:40:00.000+01:00

Safe Spaces

2005-04-20T19:02:00.000+01:00

Here is a big question for those who are living and working on the inter-faces of places like North Belfast- how are local fellowships going to teach their own members, never mind those who share the same community space, how to live together in an agreed, peaceful yet plural space? We are given the ministry of reconciliation and are to be the light in the world; we are responsible for demonstrating lives which are, as far as [possible, at peace with all men. How do we begin to create safe spaces where people from different backgrounds can talk and argue and learn from each other and about each other?How are we to be tolerant and yet hold to our own views of the bible and society and how to worship and live? For too long thew churches have been PERCEIVED as part of the problem, now it is time to be seen to have and be part of the solution.

Free Lunch??

2005-04-20T12:08:00.000+01:00

Free LunchThey say there is no such a thing as a "Free Lunch" but what else do you call it when the churches are doing 50% of the youth work in the community and doing so for nothing? In a recent series of lectures the Prime Minister, Michael Howard and Charles Keddedy addressed the "faithworks" conference and each one told the audience that church and faith groups deserved to receive funding for the valuable work they did. If a congregation accepts funding for projects does that represent a step forward? Does such partnerships with governemnt bodies represent engaging with the community? Or does it mean the leraving of faith behind? Lets leave the lottery funding to the side and consider the possibility of other funding. Is there a better group of people which the local and state bodies can trust? Would it be better from their point of view to filter money through the local churches and other faith groups than to alow the money to get into the hands of less charitable and trustworthy organisations and we, in Northern Ireland know all about the money getting into the wrong hands. Or does this , inevitably mean that we will loose the edge of our faith and come to trust in national prosperity and government good will rather than in the grace and mercy of our heavenly father? What do you think?