Rupert’s Blog

Well that was the title of an email I got this week. My favourite Bishop in the Anglican church NOT going to heaven. I assumed it was some nutter who thought that God would only let the doctrinally pure into the pearly gates, and that somehow NT Wright’s theology had been found wanting in some way…

But no, apparently NT Wright himself is admitting that he won’t be going to heaven. Is he admitting that he is woolly liberal after all? Perhaps admitting that he doesn’t take the atonement seriously? Or perhaps that Bishops themselves are somehow barred?

No, even more shockingly than that, the Bish says that no Christians will go to heaven and perhaps surprisingly to some of our evangelical brethren that the Bible doesn’t ever promise that we will!!! In fact he says the Bible says that Jesus is coming here to earth, to “join together the heavens and the earth, in an act of new creation”.

Perhaps we have the beginning here of a worldly spirituality?

See the article on N.T. Wright’s new book, Hope, where he expresses these views.

Tags: NT Wright, Surprised by Hope, Heaven, Christians

I will look at some Scriptures that I think describe this experience of “desert” in another post, but here I want to introduce other phrases that describe this “desert” time.

Some people use the phrase absence when describing this season of God not seeming to be present - and it can seem that God is absent. However, it is only our perception that God is absent, as we know that God can’t really be absent and, in any meaningful sense, still be God! God, by definition, is present. All the time. Everywhere. What I am describing in this series is times when it seems to us that God is absent.

Actually God is with us, but in a different way from the way we usually discern Him. It is as though He moves from staring into our face to standing behind us. If we are very quiet and still we can possibly feel the faintest movement of air as He “breathes” on the back of our neck. God is with us, but we have very little sense of his presence. So I have coined the phrase the “withness of God“. So often we when we talk about the presence of God we are talking about something tangible, experiential. People say how wonderful it is be in the presence of God (and it is!). But for some people, when in a “desert” season, the presence of God is not a reality. But the withness of God is always a reality, regardless of what we feel or experience. Sometimes, the difficulty is discerning how God is with us.

Due to God’s withness, I prefer not to use the term absence. Therefore, others use the term hiddeness to describe times when God seems absent. God is not absent, but is also not always clearly seen. Sometimes, he is hidden from our spiritual sight, our ability to discern Him. What we are facing here is the difficulty of sensing and knowing a God who can’t be seen by our normal eyes. He is Spirit. We are confined by our physical bodies. So as Paul says in Corinthians, “we see in part”. Dimly. Unclear. There are times when God seems to come into focus, and we have a sense of clarity. Other times He seems invisible, unclear, out of focus. These are the seasons of hiddeness.

I prefer the term hiddeness to absence, although I am still not totally happy with the phrase. It can seem that God is playing some cosmic game of hide and seek, and while there maybe some truth in that some of the time, there are many times when this doesn’t seem the case. We will look in future posts, at the reasons why we might end up in a season of “desert” but it isn’t always because God is playing a game with us.

Hence I have used the term “desert” to describe these seasons. The image is strong and alive. Desert is a very strong metaphor (and reality!) in Scripture. I love the visual picture of walking across the desert, of a journey with companions, moving from one terrain (perhaps a fruitful place?) to another. The journey is part of the process, not just the destination. In this picture we can embrace the desert experience as part of God’s leading for us. It doesn’t have to be bad or negative. It isn’t always easy. But it is part of walking with God throughout our whole live, and one that I think we would do well not to run away from.

The more a human being advances in the Christian faith, the more they live in the presence of God as an absence, the more they accept to die to the idea of becoming aware of God, of fathoming Him. For they have learned, while advancing, that God is unfathomable. And from then on the presence of God assumes value in their eyes only against the backdrop of absence. The mystic, in his long and complicated pilgrimage experiences alternately the presence and absence of God. But, by degrees, the absence of God is felt more and more and the mystic understands that the absence is now the norm. Thus the mystic is someone who has had a long-term confrontation with God, like Jacob in the struggle that he waged all through the night, someone who does not cease to confront God. God always precedes us, we see Him only from behind, He walks ahead. He is ahead of us. What the mystic experiences - and every Christian is a mystic because it is not the great illuminations that are the mark of the mystic but the night, an everyday night - is a kind of distancing from God in proportion to advances in the deepening of their faith.
Jean Francois Six

Tags: Christian Life, Desert, Wilderness, Hiddeness of God, Absence of God

See previous posts:

• Living in the Desert 2
• Living in the Desert 1

Image: www.everystockphoto.com

I am tentatively attempting to return to occasional blogging, when I have time (rather than when I have something to say - which I pretty much do most of the time … whether it is worth listening to is another matter!).

My first post back was an opening shot looking the subject of “living in the desert“. Today I want to try to define what I mean by desert times in our faith.

One of the things that I have appreciated about my church tradition is the emphasis that God is present. He is not remote, far away, uninvolved, removed, uninterested. He is present, here, now, you can experience Him, He can fill you with His Spirit, empower you, touch you. You can have a relationship with Him. He speaks. He guides.

It brought faith alive to me in my late teens, having had no such expectations in my childhood church experiences. God became real. Exciting. Like a bubbling spring at the top of a mountain. Twisting and turning, sloshing and splurging, speeding its way down the mountain. Faith seemed so vibrant.

The problem is the expectation this emphasis produces in us or in our church culture: “It should always be like this“. For some people it sometimes seems as though it is. Although I do sometimes wonder what is happening beneath the surface, the mask, the hype. Is it real? Or are they statements of desire, rather than reality? Or are the harder, dryer times forgotten?

If you do find yourself in a “dry” time, I have been left with the impression that is not good, something to avoid at all costs, and get out of as quick as possible. It is as though we are standing on the beach, and the waves should constantly be crashing down over us. If they are not, it is because we have wandered too far into the sand dunes, and we just need to get back into the sea. “They are not in a good place spiritually” people cry. “If you are dry, lets us pray for you to be refreshed“. If only it was that easy all the time!

There are seasons when we do walk through different terrains. Sometimes the terrain is fruitful, full of life, green, vibrant, alive. But sometimes we find ourselves walking through a desert: dry, barren, lifeless, hot, dusty, and very quiet. God seems very distant or absent. It seems as though he has deserted us! He doesn’t seem to be speaking or guiding us any more. When we pray we don’t have any sense of someone we are talking to or communing with. The Bible is dry, and we end up reading without any sense of God speaking or understanding. Worship is difficult; church gatherings, especially the exuberant sort, are painful and excruciating, only emphasising our sense of aloneness and desolation. We seem so different from all these people who are passionately praising and thanking God for his presence and activity in their lives.

In previous seasons, we probably learnt particular ways of pursuing our relationship with God. We have found ways of prayer, reading, worship and other spiritual disciplines that help us to come into God’s presence and listen to His voice. But as we enter the desert, these disciplines no longer have the same effect. No longer do they bring life and nourish us. They seem dry and empty.

This can leave us feeling adrift, the anchor points that held us in our relationship with God seem no longer that strong. Our sense of drifting can be exacerbated by our sense of aloneness, a road less travelled, and often with a strong sense that we have done something wrong, we have missed a signpost somewhere along the way and ended up a desert that God didn’t want us to be in, and nor did we!

I will look in future posts some of the reasons why we do end up in these desert seasons, but suffice to say at this point, that often God seems to be the one that leads us into the desert. Sure sometimes the deserts of faith of our own making, but often they are not. God leads us into a desert, as He led Jesus into a desert. He leads us into the desert to meet with Him, meet with ourselves and be transformed. But more of that in later posts…

We need to find a way of positively speaking about these seasons and helping people to navigate these terrains. There aren’t many people who are desert dwellers, but there are some, and they are great companions for the journey. I am interested in being one of those desert companions, and hearing of your experiences of desert in your faith. Perhaps we can learn together about the often uncharted territory of walking with God in the desert.

What are your experiences of desert seasons of faith? What was it like?

Tags: Desert, Wilderness, God, Christian Life, Prayer

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dear readers … it has been a long time.  I have done some “cold turkey” on my blogging addiction (or has life just been too busy?), but I have even been encouraged by a few people to venture back into the world of blogs.  So I thought I would write the occasional blog post and see how it goes.

I will try to write something more on this over the coming weeks, but here is a talk that I gave at our church before Christmas on times when God seems absent in our lives.  God is never absent, but there are times when it seems as though He has left us; times when when we seem to praying to the ceiling; when all we hear is silence; when we have no sense of God’s presence.  We are in a barren place, which can become a place of incredible fruitfulness, if we know how to walk with God in these seasons.  Often we think we have done something wrong or we try to go back and do what we were doing in times of blessings.  We can be tempted to give up.  But if we can discern the “withness” of God, that God is with us in a unique, but different, way, we can learn to love the desert.  And find it a place of transformation.

Intrigued?  Well listen, and let me know what you think.

Living in the desert - Talk 4.mp3

This weekend, I was invited to Ivy Cottage Church in South Manchester to preach on Sunday morning. It was great to be with some old friends (Lynn Swart is now based there and I have know Frank and Debra Green for probably nearly 10 years now), and to be in a thriving and growing church.

They were starting a new series on “renewal” and I had been asked to introduce the series. I have become increasingly bothered by our often very self centred focus on faith: God meets my needs, makes me feel good, heals me etc. Faith in God seems to revolve around “me” rather than the other way round. Funnily enough, the last time I spoke in Ivy a couple of years ago, I spoke on that very thought, and the process in which we learn that God is the centre and not us.

Anyway, back to renewal: often renewal has been very individual, personal, and self-focussed. I think the work of the spirit is essential and much needed in restoring us to the people that God made us to be, but it can never be an end in itself.

So I spoke from Ezek 47, where the river flows from the temple. Often we have focussed on how deep the river was, rather than where the river flows … to the Dead Sea to bring life. The Dead Sea is about 30-35% salt (whereas the Mediterranean is only about 3.5%) and nothing lives there, no fish, no plants, nothing…

But the river flows to the dead places to bring life. Renewal of individuals and the church must flow out to the dead places of our communities to bring life and restoration. Interestingly, in the passage (vs 11) there are marshes and swamps where the salty water doesn’t turn fresh. Where the water doesn’t flow, but stagnates, then the river dries up and doesn’t bring the life it was intended to.

People sometime ask why the Spirit (in their opinion) isn’t moving as much as He used to. I think God is changing church around, so that the river flows to the deadest places of our society, so that when the river rises it doesn’t stagnate, but flows to bring about transformation of culture, communities and people that currently are dead.

I talked once more about the thought that God is going to renew the heavens and earth (not destroy and mentioned the paper by Michael Goheen) … you can read a longer post and comments here.

If you were there at Ivy, have you any comments on what I said? And if not, what is your experience of renewal? Did it flow from you to others to bring life?

Tags: Ivy Cottage, Manchester, Michael Goheen, Ezekiel, River, Life, Missional Church

On Sunday, we looked at the final parable of the Kingdom (after a week break at the beginning of September) - the Parable of the Talents found in Mt 25:14ff.

We also gave away £20 to everyone that wanted … well we actually had a limit of one hundred £20 notes! This was to enable us to practically live out the parable over the next few months. If you were there, I would love to hear what you thought … If you weren’t, you can add “gutted” to the comment section!

But first the parable. For me one of the keys to understanding the parable is to know how much a talent is worth. Nobody knew on Sunday, and to be fair, I didn’t either until I looked it up! A talent was originally a measure of weight, but in NT times it was also a currency, and was worth 3000 shekels or 6000 denarii. Enlightened? Well, a denarii was a days wages, say for someone working in a vineyard (unskilled worker). In the UK an unskilled worker might earn £60 for a day’s work, which would make a talent worth £350,000!

So the story goes: A wealthy man went away for a long time, and he entrusted his wealth to his servants. To one servant he gave nearly £2million, and he put the money to work, and doubled it! To another, he gave about £700,000 and he also doubled the money. To a third, he gave £350,000 and he hid it under his mattress! What? He had that much money and hid it under his mattress (well actually he buried it … but hiding it under his mattress adds a bit of poetic licence to the story!).

No wonder the master was angry. But his response is astounding when you think about it?

you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest (vs 27)

The sense of what Jesus is saying here is: “You could have done anything with the money … apart from doing nothing!”

He could have paid for his ill mother to visit a doctor, he could have given the money to the poor, he could have thrown a party … just not hide it away and do nothing.

Jesus is talking about how we should live in light of the Kingdom that has come, but is yet to come fully. It isn’t really about money, but the wonderful gift of the live we have: our gifts, abilities, education, opportunities, time, money, our physical bodies … everything. When we are constrained by fear (vs 24), we aren’t present, don’t show up, and aren’t the contribution that we are meant to be to the world we live in.

So we gave £20 to every person who wanted it. It was a ridiculously small amount, compared to outrageously large amount each servant was given. But it represents everything that we have. We are to put it to work in some way … maybe to multiply the money, or maybe to do something that we have wanted to do, but just seems a bit risky. It could be baking cakes to sell; buying material for a painting; printing up business cards; or joining a community group or learning opportunity etc. etc. We aren’t looking for tangible results (although getting some of the money back would be nice!), but the stories of what God does in us as we engage with him and our fears …

In February, we want to hear stories of what we have done, and what changes and opportunities have emerged because of this small £20. We want to see a community than learns more to take risks, to trust God, to be present, to show up …

OK, preach over.

If you were there, what did you think? What are you planning on doing with the £20? If you weren’t (and you have managed to get to the end of this massive post!) what do you think about interpretation of the parable? And what would you do if you had been given £20 (about $40) to take some risk?

Tags: Community Church Edinburgh, Parables of the Kingdom, Preaching, Parable of the Talents, Talents, money

Apologies folks for the complete silence on this blog the last couple of weeks.

I read somewhere that it is impossible to blog, read other blogs, and have a job and a life as well. Well the last couple of weeks I have been concentrating on job and life, and blogging and blog reading has fallen completely by the wayside.

On holiday, my wife and I talked about some changes that we want to see in our lives. We don’t have any solutions yet, but do want to spend less time working and doing jobs. So I have been trying to work a little less late, and consequently blogging has gone out of the window.

We have had quite a busy family time too over the last month, with visits from both sets of parents, and in the last two weeks our 22 month son decided to emulate his 3 1/2 year old brother and climb out of the bath, landing on the tiled floor face first, knocking half a tooth out in the process. So a few visits to dentists later, he had the rest of the tooth removed last Friday.

I want to keep blogging, but do need to do less too, so not sure how that is going to work. I have a ridiculous number of people’s blogs I read, so that needs to get culled (I haven’t opened bloglines for over 10 days, so I hate to think how many blog posts there could be waiting for me there!). I think I will concentrate on reading blogs from people I know, or who comment on my blog. But does anyone else who blogs feel guilty for not reading other people’s blogs?

I also really want to spend more time praying! So nothing changes there then..

I will write a follow up to a previous post, engaging with Scripture, soon. I you haven’t done so, so drop a comment on what you do to interact with the Bible.

But here is the next parable in our series. I am passionate about us taking some time to allow the passage to percolate in us, for God to speak, for insights to come, to see ourselves in relation to God more clearly.

This Sunday we will create some space, in silence, for us to listen to the words of the Jesus, and to what Jesus might be saying to us today. There will then be three people who be sharing for 5 minutes some of their personal reflections, followed by some more space to integrate all together. Leave a comment below if you have some insights you want to share.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant - Mt 18: 23-35

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.

Questions for Reflection:

Something different this week. Image you are in the story, rather like a movie; you could play each of the three main characters in turn. As you see the scene unfold before you, ask yourself some questions: What are you seeing? Hearing? Or other senses? What do you notice about the other characters? What are you feeling? What motivates each of the characters?

As you do this, what you learn about yourself and God? Where do you identify with the story? What might Jesus be saying to you today?

Tags: Community Church Edinburgh, Listening to God, Jesus, Parables, Bible, Meditation, Parables of the Kingdom, Lectio Divina

I have been having a few interesting conversations recently with people about how we engage with Scripture. I am really passionate about this at the moment, and the series we are currently doing in church on the parables of the Kingdom was inspired by this.

Bottom line: I think we need to be engaging with Scripture.

I think often we lose sight of the wood from the trees on this one, and become dogmatic about HOW people SHOULD engage with the Bible. I think there are huge number of different ways that we can do this, and each person, and probably each generation need to find fresh ways of doing this that brings them life.

I will write some of my thoughts in a few days, but in the meantime I would be really interested to hear your experience:

What do you do to engage with the Bible? Use notes, read, sermons, study, lectio divina, meditate, Bible in a year, random pickings, listen …

Which of these have brought about the most personal change and transformation in your life?

It would really help my thinking in this to hear your experience, so please don’t just lurk, but add some of your thoughts. Go on…

Tags: Bible

Sorry for the lateness of this going up this week …

The next parable in our series is actually two very short ones found in Mt 13: 31-34. Jesus uses these brilliant little pictures to communicate something about the Kingdom. Often I think he is deliberately ambiguous, allowing for different interpretations; sometimes it is uncomfortably clear what he is getting at.

However, he always seems to expect us to identify with the story or the picture, and somehow discover our true selves in what he says. They are a mirror that we can put in front of us, to see our lives more clearly in light of the Kingdom. What do you see as you reflect on these parables? … do leave a comment below …

The Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast. Mt 13: 31-33

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Questions for reflection:

These parables would have been a surprise to the disciples who were expecting a triumphant and very visible kingdom. What surprises you here? What might you miss of the Kingdom as it does look the way you were expecting?

What qualities of yeast is Jesus alluding to? What implications does that have for your life?