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A Hawk in Doves Clothing

I don't know if you are following the story from the US of a pastor of a small church of 50 members who has called for people to burn the Qur'an tomorrow on the anniversary of 9/11.

The congregation is called, wait for it... Dove World Outreach Centre. I'd have them on trades description straight away. Then if that didn't convince anyone I'd get them for just being stupid.

The Pastor said he'd prayed about it. Now this causes me another problem about hearing what we want to hear in prayers recognising our own voice and thinking it is God's. I am sure this happens a lot. Sometimes we get so convinced about our own cause we can't hear the stunned silence of heaven at the foolishness and utter audacity of what we pray for.

He says that you have to say something about the radical elements of Islam. Does he realise he is the parallel element in Christianity? We're praying to God, not a flag. Why not do what Jesus did? Go read the sermon on the mount for starters, then listen again to the parables, and then go and follow up on the people he broke bread with, and sat and drank with. There was at times an angry voice in Jesus, a calling to account for the consequences of our actions, but a vision of building relationships that were compassionate, just and loving. It's with news stories like this that I want to say I'm no longer a Christian. I'm a follower of Jesus.

Betwen the Headlines

We're starting a new wee discussion group on Thursday evening.

Quite simple. We bring the weeks newspapers with us and take the stories and unfold them thinking about faith and culture and how these things speak into each other. It's not exactly rocket science but we haven't done that in any regular way before.  It is a way of tangling the different strands together that given meaning to things.

7.30 in the church Thursday.

What stories do you imagine we'll be thinking about...

Chocolate Teapots (Sunday 12th September 2010)

Luke 15:1-32 (Lost Sheep)

Are you the lost sheep or one of the ninety-nine back at the ranch? Sadly, personally, I'm one of the ninety nine. Little imagination, little sense of adventure that would take me away from all that is familiar and safe. But there is a big role of grace for those of us left behind. Do we have the grace to let those who do the seeking to go off looking for those who are lost. Ought not these leaders be back with us good folk, nurturing and supporting and caring for us? There is a lesson about letting go and letting the shepherd find those who are lost.

The other image in this passage that might need a comment in the paranoid shepherd who is always counting the sheep. It that our image of God, stressed about losing a lamb. Perhaps God is the sort of love that is always seeking and never counting. Love is not an accountant tallying how many have been saved but always out there carrying sheep home because numbers are unimportant but adventures are.

The Cost

A contemporary reading and action based on this Sunday's gospel passage. It is for four readers each of whom pick up a paper cross at the end with the invitation to invite other to come forward an pick up a cross as well

The cost of following is not
the cost of a flat screen TV
the cost of a holiday
the cost of a new sofa

the cost of following is not:
the cost of a car
the cost of the weekly shop
the cost of a new outfit

the cost of following is not:
the cost of a train journey
the cost of a book
the cost of an illness

it is the cost of saying, “Love your neighbour’
    and showing it
the cost of believing, “I am the resurrection"
    and letting ourselves be renewed in spirit and action
the cost of trusting, “Behold I make all things new”
    and engaging in that renewal
the cost of “not storing up riches for yourself”
    and sharing what life we have with others
the cost of letting someone strike you on both cheeks
    and walking away even as everyone thing you are a fool
the cost of knowing “we do not living by bread alone”
    and dividing that very bread with the rich and the hungry
the cost of “give to everyone who asks you"
    and finding a new way to live together to do so
the cost of “loving your enemy"
    and the outcry this shape of justice brings

the cost of being a disciple
is picking up the cross
and traveling the journey
of word into flesh

When there is no big idea

A group of us have just come back from Greenbelt which for me has always been the leading edge of the church. It is where I'm most comfortable within the church because ideas area allowed, radical thinking is encouraged, questions are there to be asked and followed through and worship isn't predictable.

But this year, none of that seemed to happen. Perhaps I went to all the wrong things but in worship we were doing the same things we did 10 years ago, there was nothing fresh. Even at the morning eucharist we sang the same hymns we did last year. The only place I was encouraged and got new ideas was Wild Goose.

Very few of the speakers had any big new idea, there wasn't a lot of new radical thinking, no new example of faith communities. Everything was safe and pedestrian.

But then maybe that is where the whole church is at the moment, even Greenbelt: there is no new big idea. Maybe we're all so scared of the future none of us are daring to dream a new dream when this is just the time to dream such a dream. Is this really where we are?

Here is...

...a small thing for a call to worship on Sunday. For us it is communion Sunday as well as a day where we welcome back folk who are returning after some away from the weekly ritual of worship. Clearly as each stanza is spoken the item referred to is set on the table

Here is:
a table for the hungry (table cloth)
waiting to feed those starved of righteousness

Here is:
bread for the broken (bread)
a banquet for those whose hunger is real

Here is:
wine for the doubter (goblet)
to taste and see the journeys God sets free in every question

Here is:
a word for the silenced (bible)
that proclaims a place by the right hand of God

Here is:
a light for the imprisoned (candle)
that streaks through the darkness and can never be put out

Here is:
a place for everyone (cross)
a welcome that says, “You have come home.”

 

Chocolate Teapots (5th September 2010)

Luke 14:25-33

Okay, there is a cultural moment here because when Jesus talks about hating family, he doesn't mean hate. Surely.

Culturally family was the safe zone. It was where your roots, foundations, security and future all lay. Families stayed together. It was the place called home in ever full sense you can imagine. So, Jesus being Jesus, turns round and tells everyone they ought to hate all that. Hate is a very strong word, or so my mother always told me when I was describing my relationship with my sister. Of course Jesus didn't exactly have a good relationship with his family at times though I suspect he didn't build a kingdom value on that personal state of affairs.

Perhaps what Jesus is meaning is that what was once your ground of being now ought to be the love and justice of God's way. That the realm of love means not being parochial in that love, that the support structure of love is not only in one individual family but broader, wider and deeper. The horizons are further away with the Reign of God. The family is bigger. That each person is your family and your compassion and justice and support can't be focused only on those you love best but in the whole community.

But even then, hate is still a strong word to use...