Blogs for June 2017
The Circle Game. I woke up in a funny place this morning. Thoughtful. Sentimental. Sad - though not for myself (or maybe in part it was for myself). None of these words really do justice to how I am really feeling today. I was thinking about a man in our Church who has been given a short while to live and I was trying to put myself in his shoes. And I thought of that song by Joni Mitchell - the Circle Game. In it she cycles through the seasons and stages of early life - though all too quickly; growing up seems to take a long time, at the time, but we suddenly look back and where has the time gone? We cannot redeem the time. We cannot go back and do it again or stay in childhood or indeed in any of the previous stages of our lives that we might have defined as the "good times". Her song explores childhood and growing up into being a young man as a series of seasons. Suddenly you arrive and then the time to leave is all too soon upon us. So this morning I'm thinking of old age and the end of a life. It's not morbid - it's profound, it's glorious. And to be honest I'm struggling a bit to put my feelings into words though I must admit, my thoughts have taken me to this place before. Most of our lives are lived not on the basis of just a short time left to live (and practically nor could they be) but as though we are physically immortal and will go on here forever with little or no thought as to what lies ahead. So when, in the end we have just a short time to live what will those last few days and weeks going to be like. Precious. Intense. Breath taking. Everything compressed into a short space of time. Firstly - we don't want to die because of the loss of loved ones - the ones we, the dying, will be seperated from when we have to leave and they in return are feeling the same about us. And, within our ability to understand heaven, who knows afterall, when and if we will ever be re-united in quite the same way ever again. Some even hold that there is no marriage in heaven which I find to be a painful thought. I have a task driven personality and have been driven in some way all my life, so I will almost certainly want to leave things in order yet I hope I don't waste all the precious time that remains in those few days and weeks when they come, in tying up all the loose ends. There is so much more to relish and experience in making sure of a good death. They talk about good deaths don't they? Things like, "Oh! He had a good death didn't he?". A glorious death. Moses had a good death in the end, so did Jacob and Joseph. I pray that my Christian brother will not be too ill in his last days to have at least have some precious moments and interludes to enjoy with his wife: good weather, birdsong, good conversation, his favourite music, a good meal, friends coming around, photographs, memories, visitors, family, (and this applies to us all) just being able to say all the things we ought to have said to each other but never got round to saying. So as I close I don't think copywrite will allow me to reproduce the entire Joni Mitchell song but here's just a few snatches from it in which I've changed the age of the boy to that of an old man: So the years spin by and now the boy is And go round and round and round Songwriters: JONI MITCHELL 3 June 2017 StanH In Spirit And In Truth. John 4 and the account of the woman at the well is a story I frequently return to. I've just recently started reading one of my wife's books, a book [arguably just] for women, written by Alice Mathews entitled 'A Woman Jesus Can Teach'. I needed something to read and thought no-one's looking, "so why not?". John 4v23 grabbed my attention this morning. This is Jesus speaking: "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for these are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks". In Spirit and in truth. It's an intriguing and enigmatic statement. How many Christians think they know what that means yet in truth are no wiser about it than this woman at the well or any better than Nicodaemus in Johns previous chapter 3. They both thought they knew what it meant to be religious. Well! maybe they did but they didn't know what was needful to have a proper relationship with God. Let me quote Alice Mathews:"Jesus wanted her to understand a different [better] kind of worship, an internal worship. In the process.....He moved her away from holy mountains and temples and rituals". Oh! that we all might move away from our religions and into a true worship that is In Spirit and in truth. We need to ask God to show us what that really means. It's the Nicodaemus Story equivalent of and on a par with "you must be born again". John Piper, an American Calvinist Baptist Pastor, gives this personal testimony about how these words of Jesus have impacted him: I hope this encourages you as much as it does me. Sometimes I feel so dead and so sinful that I don’t see how I can be of any use to the church any more. But up till now God has always come to me at those times and graciously shown me something like this — the hope that a worldly, sensually-minded, unspiritual harlot from Samaria can become — not just saved (which would be wonderful enough) — but a fountain of life. She can be used to give life. And I take heart that if I just turn from my sin and keep drinking at the well of Jesus’s words, I may still be of some use to this congregation. And so can you if you just drink deep at the right well. 6 June 2017 StanH The story of Martha and Mary is not just for women. I think we all know the story of Martha and Mary don't we? And in our hearts we also know which one we're like. I'm back in the Alice Matthews book again this morning - ' A Woman Jesus Can Teach'. So no-one can ever accuse me of not writing for women in my blogs ! It's a joke! Not! It's a beautiful story though and so true to life as are all the stories in the Gospels. "All human life is here", is a saying I think someone might have said; if not I take full credit. I could simply summarise what Alice Mathews said about Martha but I got a slightly different take on it for myself which is the one I want to share with you this morning; because I can readily confess to being a Martha figure.These truths are not just for women afterall. This is the story recounted in Luke 10v38-42. When I just turned to it now what struck me was that its amazing how this tiny cameo story of just five verses can have such an enduring charm and appeal and has that ability, like a double-edged sword, to get you where it really hurts every time - because you just know that God is talking to you. You might not align yourself with the woman at the well in yesterdays blog [John Piper actually describes her as an harlot] and you might be too serene and otherworldly to align yourself with Martha swetting over an hot stove in her kitchen, but here's the thing: they both got their names in the Bible! They both got to talk to Jesus and be in His presence! Like Rahab the prostitute in Joshua chapter 2, who is honoured and counted amongst the heroes of our faith in Hebrews 11v31, they have taken her place amongst the great bible characters in the Church. For myself I know and freely confess I spend almost no time at all sat at the feet of Jesus. For I am a Martha. I fret and worry and whittle on about details and jobs and am a task-oriented lost cause. But that's my loss. Don't you miss out is all I'm saying to you this morning. My wife sometimes tells me that I missed our kids growing up because I was too busy with work or down on site building our new church, Fellowship House, or off working away which is the curse of the construction industry. Mary did not miss out but Martha did. The thought that came to me this morning was none of those however. It was the funerals I missed because I had, as they say, "too much on", or thought I had. It's all about priorities and getting the right balance in our lives. Don't get me wrong, I've been to my fair share of funerals over the years, but I've not turned up at plenty as well. A funeral is one of those "rites of passage" in which The Family come together to see one of its loved ones off. And we shouldn't miss those occasions and the contact with old friends and family afterwards. I know I'm drifting off here but my childhood best friend, Mervyn, missed his own fathers funeral because it clashed with a pre-arranged cycle event from Lands End to John O'Groats. He was a keen cyclist and so was his father at one time. I saw a miracle that day and I've never got to the bottom of it. I had just walked out of the Methodist Chapel after the funeral service and looking up in the sky I saw [and this is an absolutely true story] three classic WWII planes going over - a Wellington, a Spitfire and a Hurracaine. They were probably going to another Air Show somewhere but I'd like to think they were saluting the passing of Jimmy Wright that day (himself a former WWII navigator in the RAF). Getting this story right back on track and about your relationship with God - don't miss out is all I'm saying to you this morning. Be like Mary. 7 June 2017 StanH. One of the best known "Mary's" in the Bible is Mary Magdalene. She was the first recorded person to see the risen Lord Jesus Christ! Because of this St. Augustine accords her the greatest of honours as an "Apostle to the Apostles". She was the one who ran back to tell the disciples (John 20v18).This refines my understanding of what an Apostle really was - which is more than I thought - just someone who was with Jesus during His earthly ministry but, better than that, an actual witness to His resurrection. [In much greater detail, if you ever get the time to read it, Paul the Apostle, perhaps more than any of the other Apostles, understood the central importance of Christ's resurrection to us all in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15]. She was the Mary who cried tears of great loss at the empty tomb on that first Easter Sunday Morning. John in his gospel tells us that her cries were first heard by two angels in white who asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?", and her reply was, "They have taken my Lord away and I don't know where they have put Him". Her crying was next heard by someone "greater than the angels" which is a phrase taken by Carol Matas from Hebrews Chapter 1 as the title of her book about life in a Nazi concentration camp. As Mary turned away from the empty tomb she almost bumped into the risen Jesus without realising who it was. He also asked her: "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" As Mary again tells her tale of woe, Jesus just has to say her name, "Mary". Remember Mary Magdalene had not introduced herself by name to this stranger but had just begun to again tearfully pour out her story. So when this unknown "gardener" spoke her name in a way that must have been intimately unique to her and Jesus, her cries turn to an ecstasy of joy; "Rabboni!" (Teacher). So this Mary, Mary from Magdala near Caperneum, released from demonic posession by Jesus, Apostle to the Apostles, fulfills her important lifes work that first Easter Sunday Morning by bringing the gospel message of Christ's resurrection to His disciples. She then disappears from history that same day, almost like a short-lived butterfly, and nothing more is recorded of her. It is then for the emerging Early Church to take that gospel of His Resurrection forward. It is clear from the important prayer that Jesus makes in John Chapter 17 that we who are alive now have to share in and pass on the joy that Mary felt that first Easter Sunday Morning. Jesus prays these words to His Father:"....I pray also for those who will [future tense] believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me". 17 June 2017 StanH You have thirty minutes. In no more than 200 words explain the miracle at Cana. If this was a theology exam I'd be struggling. I'd need more than thirty minutes for a kick-off. I'd need to write a thousand words in which to merely circum-navigate the question and then pick out the best two hundred words and in the end I would probably not have done justice to this question. It's a story often included in a modern wedding ceremony because the events took place at a wedding and its nice, isn't it, to be able to weave the bible into one's special day. Even if you're an outright heathen. It's that "feel good" factor. Am I being cynical ? I'm sure many preachers have preached on the subject of this particular miracle but for the life of me I can't remember any. And I'm trying very hard, as well, not to cheat and use the internet. How many words have I got left - thirty-two ! I'm not going to pass the exam am I? In this story Jesus, as a guest at the wedding, is clearly relaxing and off-duty. That's if God can ever be off-duty? Afterall, how many "off-duty" policemen, firemen, ambulance-men and soldiers have you heard of who run to an emergency incident when they're on holiday or "off-duty". Loads ! So Jesus is off-duty. As I read it - Mary is the primary guest in her group and Jesus and the disciples were secondary, almost tagging along. Probably he's lifted a glass of bubbly from a tray and is promenading around the garden with his disciples when an emergency occurs. No blood, no fire, no carnage - the only crime, it seems, is that they are fast running out of plonk! It's His mother that alerts him to the problem. Probably no-one else could when you think about it; the few disciples He had at that point were mere babes, days old. It's no different today really - its up to us Christians (we who are in the know) to bring the World's needs to God. We're the one's who know God. We're the one's who pray. We're the one's who know the Gospel. We're the one's who know God's word. We're the one's who know God's promises. It falls to us Christian brother or sister, whether we are off-duty or not, to participate in a move of God. This miracle would not have occurred without the catalystic intervention of Mary's faith. Similarly, Mary understood, indeed she had always known who Jesus was, who His Father was; His provenance and His origins. She knew something was afoot, that He had suddenly started choosing disciples, that His public ministry was on the very cusp of its beginning - so why not today Son? Even though Jesus protested that He was not ready. Oddly, as I'm blogging just now an email has landed in my Inbox asking for prayer. Who should pray - me or someone else ? Jesus, typically, did not wander around Galilee and Judea knocking on doors asking whether he could heal the sick or shouting through the letter-box "bring out your dead!". Needy people came to Him or the friends of needy people brought them - like the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends. People like us. So Jesus was never looking for work and certainly not at that particular wedding. So it took a Mary to push Him into action. Thinking about your Church - when a church has corporate faith as a congregation it is probably (and you need to look out for this next time it happens) that just one or two individuals are by their faith central (like Mary) to moving the church forward. Faith, by implication looks to God, looks to Jesus, for help. Are we a church that looks to God in the life and doings of the church? There are just two kinds of churches as I see it: (A) those which long ago lost sight of and their connection to God and run it by the will of the most influential people in the congregation and (B) People of faith (or at least enough people of faith to form a "critical mass" of faith), responding to the moving of the Holy Spirit. In Church type (A) the work of the Holy Spirit is stifled and quenched. See 1 Thess 5v19. In Church (B) He is free to work. 20 June 2017 StanH
What if they hadn't? You'll soon get the idea. What if Jesus mother Mary hadn't got Him involved at the wedding reception. She couldn't know how He would do it. How did she imagine He would do it? When we have a problem how do we imagine God is going to solve it? And what about the woman at the well? What if she hadn't turned up? What if she had been on her way, seen a stranger there as she approached and turned back home until later? What if Nicodeamus never turned up that night at the house where Jesus was staying - who would have helped Joseph of Arimathea? Is it possible Jesus chose Nicodaemus to be the one that very night? What about the four friends who couldn't get their friend through the crowds? It would never have occured to me to break through the roof, to damage someone else's home .It would not have been the decent thing to do. But maybe Jesus doesn't want us to be conservatively "decent" but as outrageous in our worship og God as that other Mary was with her expensive perfume. If Jesus had spoken to me the way he spoke to the Syro-Phonecian women I think I would have walked away and missed the blessing. Well! - no-one's going to talk to me like that are they? So what am I saying here? Well we God's people, we the Church, those individual men and women in all the well-known bible stories are as important to the story as Jesus himself. Their actions, their reactions and their responses drew something out of Jesus just as He drew something out of them and its clear to me that this is what He wants from us today. History (His Story) would have been a very different one if all those people had been indifferent to Him. What could the Church be like today, even yet, if it received it's Lord and got fully engaged in His story? Not indifferent. 25 June 2017 StanH
The story of the Prince and the Pauper reminds us that some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and into a life of priviledge whilst others are born into poverty and hardship. "Haves" and "have nots". Some enjoy good health others suffer. Some live long lives others die in infancy. Some live normal sensible conservative lives - others end up in prison for murder or any number of even more dispicable crimes. Some live illustrious lives holding high office whilst others are chimney sweeps or barrow boys. Some go to Oxford or Cambridge, some are dunces or end up in borstal. Some parents encourage their children to do well and reach for the stars whilst other parents don't know how to. I think maybe there is some correspondance in the lives of Christians. Some equivalence. Some of us are "spiritual princes". Some are "spiritual paupers". Some of us are soundly and gloriously saved but sadly some of us mistakenly only think we are saved. There's a line on a CD I've got which basically says that to be nearly saved is to be totally lost! Thats the stark truth of it. Some of us enjoy fulfilling and purposeful lives in the Kingdom of God and are making progress in that direction - yet most of us live mediocre lives in the Kingdom, never really knowing a proper relationship with God. We kid ourselves if we think any different. I hope I'm wrong but some Christians are going to hell. I am reminded of the woman at the well in Sycar. She was a Samaritan. She thought the Samaritans were right. Jesus clearly told her she was wrong. Jesus told her plainly but kindly enough: "You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews". Some of us live impoverished spiritual lives. We live on the backs of other Christians' glorious testimonies about their lives pretending that our own lives are somehow bound up with theirs. Some of us hope that we are safe because our parents are saved, that our spouses or our friends are saved. This is going to be painful for some of us and for that I apologise - but it has to be said. Jesus wasn't afraid to say it. He said it to Nicodaemus. He told him straight. Read his story again in the light of what this blog is telling you. To Nicodaemus He said: "You must be born again Nicodaemus!". We may be unable to do much about our status in life - I'm still a comparative pauper! But on this one subject we can get it right. We can know a real, genuine, truly saved relationship with God. He does not make it hard. He will not give us a scorpion if he can possibly avoid it. We may never be rich in this world but we can definitely be rich in the next. We have to start being real, being honest with ourselves, being finally serious about our relationship with God. To those of us, the majority, who have been born into impoverished lives by this World's standards, can be born again into the Kingdom of God where the King is our friend and our close relative and our Kinsman Redeemer. 27 June 2017 StanH Personal Encouragements. Every so often my attention is drawn back to the personal greetings that characterise the end of the Apostle Paul's Epistles. I don't personally do Facebook, neither does my wife really, but for some reason she still gets copied in on them and there are often many encouragements to be found there. Paul's letters serve to make the early church very real to us, real people and church life then that is not that different to ours now. The end of Romans is a very good example of what I mean. In many churches today it is the women, or the ladies if you will, who do a lot of what has to be done to make the church work. And it seems, things haven't changed that much then since those early beginnings of First Century church life. Phoebe was commended by Paul: it seems she was a deacon in the church at Cenchreae (modern name Kechries - nowadays a tiny village but formerly a flourishing port in Roman times). A number of wealthy women were in the entourage that followed Jesus and it seems, Phoebe was a benefactor like that to Paul and many others. Paul wrote: Greet Priscilla and Aquila my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. It is interesting that Paul saw himself and others as "workers" in the Kingdom. Do we see ourselves in that way ?Historically, men were more prominent in First Century society than women but that was not the case with Priscilla. This couple taught and encouraged in the Early Church but Priscilla was, it seems, the most educated; so much so that she was thought to be the anonymous writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Priscilla and Aquila also ran a house church in their home. Going back to our thought about women in the Church the Epistle to the Romans records and gives credit to several women for their hard work: Greet Mary who worked very hard for you (Rom 16v6); greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord [and] greet my friend Persis, another women who has worked very hard in the Lord. One other interesting observation from this chapter in Romans is reference to some outstanding apostles. There are those in the wider church who hold that the only persons qualified to be called apostles are the original men known as the "Twelve plus Paul. But in Rom 16v7 one of those we hold to be an apostle (Paul) himself includes others in a much wider group that he calls apostles. Paul says this: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews whom have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles and [mark this] they were in Christ before I was ! So, as this blog brings June 2017 to a close, I hope we recognise that encouragement was and still is an important ministry in the Church even today. In closing this Epistle to the Romans Paul as clearly scrolled through in his mind and memory all those fellow Christians who have encouraged him and whose progress in the Lord give meaning and value and purpose to the legacy that he would soon be leaving behind. It would be good if we could also leave a legacy when we eventually go. 30 June 2017 StanH |
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