Star Crossed Christians?

As I wandering through Sunae, in Korea, I was listening to another episode of the Boundless show. The hosts were having a round table discussion on who to date and who not date. There is, after all, a tendency of some people not to date anyone unless they know everything about the other person, from their denomination to their sexual history. Boundless thought, correctly, that this is unreasonable. It was their opinion that the criteria of who is eligible for an eligible date boils down to one thing: is that person a Christian?

This a good thought, but you can't help but wonder if it is that simple. Evangelical Christians and non-Evangelical Christians should be able to enter into a relationship. Yet simply adding religion to a relationship creates an entire spider web of issues that must be dealt with one way or another. Can Evangelical Christians and Non-Evangelical Christian date? (note, I'm asking about romantic involvement prior to marriage, not marriage.)

On facebook, my friends Andre and Nicole rightly mentioned that the terms need a bit more qualification. As a starting point for discussion here are three different pairs of potentially star-crossed lovers. Let's assume that all couples here are in their 20s and have never been married.

First, She's new to Seattle and joined Mars Hill Church! He's a nominal Methodist. They met at a friend's birthday. Star-crossed?

Second She came from a Catholic high school and he's a big fan of Rob Bell! They both attend UC San Diego! Star-crossed?

Third He's from the PCUSA and a conservative Calvinist. She's from Calvary Chapel. They've both been in marathon training. Star-crossed?

So the door is open for discussions. Ponder a bit before you respond. Also, don't feel like you have to share you own observations and experiences, though it would be nice to see some real life examples here.

For my part, there is one thing worth mentioning. One of favorite theologians once explained that Aristotelian Love is "like seeks after like." Christian love includes this, but it must go one step further. Christian love loves what is different, alien, and foreign.

In light of that I would like to believe that I am still open to dating an Evangelical despite shedding the Evangelical mantle years ago. Yet I am not naive. I know that evangelicalism has its own list of customs, expectations, and rules that I am not sure if I could fit into.

Yet there is hope. As I type this, I have one friend who is engaged to someone outside of his tradition. He is not the first either.

I look forward to everyone sharing their thoughts, especially those long explanations hinted at on facebook.

What Do You Do? I love...

I don’t really like those social events that you sometimes get invited to to where you have to do small talk. I always wonder where you go after ‘hello my name is Simon.’ One of the easy next questions is something like ‘How long have you lived here?’ or ‘What do you do?’ It’s a conversation starter, but we so often define people in those ways, and leave them at that most simplistic level - oh he’s an accountant, she’s a housewife, she works with kids and so on.

We do this in other ways too - we make assumptions about people all the time because of their height, weight, sexuality, gender, hair colour, and so on. Apparently though, we each have already made an assessment of someone and have weighed up their qualities as a person before they have even opened their mouth. We make thousands of subconcious judgements about each other because of our mannerisms and the way we look. It is something we have learned to do.

Today is a day of unlearning. Instead of defining people by what they do, Jesus encourages us to define people by what we do for them and what they do for us. Don’t define people by what you have already made up your mind they will be - an ex con, therefore they cannot be trusted - instead says Jesus, define them by what they are - fellow human beings, made in the image of God, precious to Him from all eternity and therefore loveable by you.
There seems to be a double focus to today - on the one hand the reading from 1 Corinthians designates today as the day Jesus celebrated Passover before he was betrayed, tried and crucified, and instituted what we recognise as the Eucharist. On the other hand our Gospel reading tonight does not emphasize the institution of the Eucharist. Instead Jesus emphasizes that his disciples need to continue to unlearn all of the social rules.  Today is Maundy Thursday from the Latin mandatum, from Jesus’ words - a new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you... Jesus says eat bread and drink wine to remember his presence in our lives and in the world, but He also calls us to loving service of others and we are to do both in remembrance of Him. Both are essential to our following of Him.

The last few years of our life together here at Holy Trinity have been about unlearning a way of being church, unlearning what we thought being a disciple was about. We have rediscovered that we are each in charge of our destiny with Christ and what we must decide is - do we follow Him or not, do we listen to God or not, do we take seriously that we are loved by Him or not. We have have been unlearning that church is something that is done to us, where we dutifully and gratefully received from Him, and learning rather is is something we are as His body here. As we gather at His table for the family meal in the Eucharist, we do as His brothers and sisters. Here He is remembered, re-membered, not as a historical figure on the pages of history, but as we eat bread and drink wine, He is literally present here amongst us - in each other, expressed by the quality of our love.

But we fail as his disciples if our remembrance of Him is forgotten as we step away from His table or as we leave the church building.  For tonight Jesus gives us a new commandment - yes, listen to what He teaches, yes love God and your neighbour and yourself, but that only has any worth if we are practically showing love to one another as Christ himself has loved us.

This is an abstract sort of comment for Jesus to make, so to show what he means Jesus takes off his outer robe, picks up a bowl and towel and begins to undertake the task of the lowliest of servants. ‘Remember me’ says Jesus, ‘by demonstrating the quality of your love practically to others.’

But Jesus, this night, is not interested in forming a heirachical community where everyone knows their place from the master of the house to the footwashing servant, where there are those who wash feet and those whose feet are washed, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ There is to be a mutuality in Jesus’ body where master and servant alike wash each others feet and love each other in turn.

In a world where we make snap judgements on each other’s character, on who are we are deep down in a blink of an eye, Jesus gives us His church, his body fed with his own body and refreshed into eternal life with His blood, a new commandment, a new way of being which calls us to give to others in acts of loving service, but also to receive love from them in the same way in return. It is a way of being which, when people try to catagorise us as a builder or a teacher, and they subconciously make all sorts of judgements  about us but the thing they notice about us is not what we do, but what we do for others - our expression of God’s love for His world and our receipt of in turn.

We love as He loves every time we support a grieving family. We love as He loves every time we visit someone lonely. We love as He loves every time we play a part in encouraging people out of poverty at home or abroad. And we are able to love because he loved us first by touching the leper clean, by raising the dead, by socializing with tax collectors and sinners, by taking a towel and washing my and your feet and dying for us.

It is not possible to make sense of all that Jesus does today and what he will do in us from Sunday onwards, without acknowledging what he will do tomorrow. It is Christ’s willingness to accept the Cross that makes sense of this self-giving love which we are offered and are to offer in return.
Today Jesus gives His disciples a new command as we remember Him - unlearning our ways of judging others, and as we follow Him learning new ways in love. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it we are all called into deeper relationship in God. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh that reaches out and through our actions and words, God makes new disciples. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it, and our changed lives, that whole communities can be transformed as we each unlearn how to be simply human, and learn from Christ’s loving actions how to become children of God. Amen.

The Refreshing love of our Motherly Father

Some people are not sure if this is supposed to be mothering Sunday or Mother’s day. I prefer mothering Sunday because it gives more attention to activity of mothering rather than on particular group of people.

Mothering is more than just giving birth. Some say giving birth is the easy bit.
9 months of expectation followed by 24 hours of excitement and pain. These are just a drop n the ocean compared to the years of pain and frustration, which are about to come your way after the child is born!

For mothering is really about two things both of which have to be done with huge amounts of love. One is the protection of the child and the other is development of that child to maturity.

Our reading today Paul takes about putting on the right clothes. We all have spent ages dressing children why? There are two reasons. One practical and hygienic and the other social.

The practical reason is so they are protected and kept warm or cool. We also teach them how it is put on and that it’s clean. The other reason the social one is so they are acceptable to others and fit in.

But that is only part of our task we dress the to develop them. For we are also teaching them to do all that for them selves. Put the clothes on for themselves Put on the right things at the right time Put them on in the right way and make sure they are clean.

This does not just apply to clothes, this applies to every thing we do for children. What Paul says was meant for a church but it could equally to parents and children. Paul says the church must get rid of thing it wears that are unbecoming and put on things appropriate to the new family we have joined.

Once everyone was little better than a slum dweller living on a rubbish heap, as many do in the third world, now we are princes and princesses, living in the palace of king Jesus so we need to wear the new clothes he provides. For when we become Christians, we join a new family Father God’s family.

Now he could have said put on success, fame, and power but he does not, for what we wear effects what we are and what we do. Success, fame, and power are dangerous things and very few are string enough to have them and use them with out hurting themselves and others.

Remember Jesus is more concerned with the content of our characters that the scale of our achievements. That is how he thinks of us as his children. Now we want the best for our children, but so much of what we are told to do is about developing skills, abilities, and intelligence. Not about Character.

According to St Paul, the key values, the Christlike character we should dress our selves are: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, Bearing with each other and forgiving each other, forgiving as the Lord forgave us. And putting on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The sort of forgiveness Jesus wants is a huge and wonderful thing and it starts long before anything goes wrong. It is the giving of complete forgiveness. And as far as God is concerned, everything is forgotten. Then and only than can there be true forgiveness and new life. But if you fail and know you have failed, and if then when you are truly sorry and you find forgiveness, then the liberation that is found is truly life changing. The child who knows all this will be more secure in themselves and their world, and more affirmed and content. They will be wiser than their years, and is more likely to become a mature and well-balanced adult.

And all this is best learned from all those who mother us if they understand it because they have been forgiven too. If you can teach and model true forgiveness to your child, it is probably one of the best things you can do. Any child who knows what it is to be forgiven and is able to forgive freely from its heart has an almost God like personality. The point is we are all children of God. Even Jesus calls himself our elder brother. It is he who goes before us and brings us to God. It is he and asks for us to be forgiven, and he does this even at those times when we do not want to be forgiven our sins yet. Now we know that when child disobeys us, say when they go out into the cold with out a coat. We know it can be dangerous for them and we are right to tell them off. But God commands us to dress properly at all times because of what it cost him to give us to us.

This is Mothering Sunday we should be praying to the father so we will all be better parents. And to say thank you for those who cared us so well. Let us also rediscover today how to teach our children to forgive. Let us do that by learning how to forgive ourselves. And finally let us get our forgiveness from God. We would never dress our children in rags. Our heaven father does not want us to dress in rags either.Let us put off the dress of this world and put on the royal robes of Jesus, which are freely and lovingly given to us. And let us walk in joy peace and freedom that is ours. And let us walk in love. The love that can only be found and shared, when we forgive because we know we are forgiven. Amen.

Wednesday's homily - Love is the fulfilling of the Law

Here's a short (5 min) homily based on tomorrow morning's Gospel reading from Matthew 5:17-19:


‘...Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one lett not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven...'

I would really value some comments please!

~~~~~~~

Not many days go by when certain sections of the British press decry the erosion of our legal sovereignty, especially to the European courts. But history shows that the laws of our land have been far from static. Over time, the Law has been applied, reapplied and redefined in differing times, places and situations.

Laws are sometimes introduced to respond to situations that with hindsight might be considered to be heavy handed where, if you like, the letter of the law is very different from it’s spirit; a sort of legal knee jerk.

The Law of Moses of which Jesus speaks in this morning’s Gospel reading, has been a source of light and inspiration to us over the centuries. It is foundation of the British legal system after all, but it was given by God in a particular time and place, to mark out the distinctiveness of His nomadic people - no intermarriage, the dietry laws, no mixed fibres, the avoidance of foreign Gods - are all about an ancient very practical holiness.

It is very tempting to looks at some of the Old Testament laws and dismiss them as being out of date, not fit for 21st century Christian living, but Jesus reminds us this morning, that he came not to do that,
‘...Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished...’

These words of Jesus are part of his Sermon on the Mount, which begins with a topsy turvey vision of God’s kingdom values where the last are first in the Beatitudes, and includes some very practical if not sometimes shocking teaching about faithful and Godly living. What Jesus teaches here does not remove the Law because it has been deemed unfulfilable, rather he reinterprets and reinforces the Law with words like, ‘...You have heard it said and eye for and eye... but I say to you...

History has proved that some laws no longer have relevance (the requirement to practice archery after Sunday worship for example), but Jesus comes to his own time and ours this morning, and reminds us that He comes not to sweep the law away, but to complete it. He calls not for law breaking but for Law keeping. Just as in his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well that we heard about in Sunday’s gospel reading - where Jesus broke every religious and social law - when asked about the nature of right worship, Jesus said it was not so much about the right place as the intent of our hearts. Being faithful to God, says Jesus, is about the spirit not the letter.

How we live as God fearing people still matters says Jesus. He is not advocating a sort of spiritual equivalent of what happened on London’s streets on Saturday, nor is He seeking the continuation of an almost Lybian style tyrannical rule of spiritual law.

Being faithful to God is about walking with Jesus on the Emmaus road of life, listening to him open the scriptures and revealing afresh to us the love of God. He calls us to a very practical holiness when we allow our lives to be viewed through the lens of the Gospel to see whether out living is loving to others, to God and ourselves; whether our living is compassionate and seeks to forgive and be forgiven; whether we live lives as people who long to to heal and to reconcile.

God’s Law of love calls us individually and together to be reconciled to Him and each other. This isn’t just when we break the Law of Moses, but rather when we fail to grasp the call of the Gospel - when we put ourselves before others or place them on the edge of our concern.

In this holy seasons of Lent - as we look to go deeper into God, to make new disciples, and to see Him transform our communities, let us be like the first disciples of Jesus, seeking to be like their Rabbi, and follow in the dust of his shoes. We come to Jesus with questions about how to go deeper, how to make new disciples, how to transform communities. As we walk and as we prayerfully wrestle with these questions Jesus comes alongside us, listens to our questioning and refocuses our searching through the Gospel’s lens and says, “you have fulfilled the law” or you are on the Way. Amen.

Living the Love of God

Uwe Holmer with Margot and Erich Honecker.

Eight times the Ministry of Education in East Germany said no to Uwe Holmer's children when they tried to enroll at the university in East Berlin. The Ministry of Education didn't usually give reasons for its rejection of applications for enrollment. But in this case the reason wasn't hard to guess. Uwe Holmer, the father of the eight applicants, was a Lutheran pastor at Lobetal, a suburb of East Berlin. For 26 years the Ministry of Education was headed by Margot Honecker, wife of East Germany's premier, Erich Honecker....

Then when the Berlin wall cracked, Honecker and his wife were unceremoniously dismissed from office. Under indictment for criminal activities the Honeckers were evicted from their luxurious palace, suddenly finding themselves friendless, without resources, and with no place to go. No one wanted to identify with them.



Enter Uwe Holmer. Remembering the words of Jesus, 'If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,' Holmer extended an invitation to the Honeckers to stay with his family in the parsonage. His charity was not shared by the rest of the country. Hate mail poured in. Some members of his own church threatened to leave. Pastor Holmer defended his actions in a letter to the newspaper. "In Lobetal," he wrote, "there is a sculpture of Jesus inviting people to himself and crying out, 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' We have been commanded by our Lord Jesus to follow him and to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden, in spirit and in body, but especially the homeless. What Jesus asked his disciples to do is equally binding on us."

In this morning’s Gospel reading, in this section of what some call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to what may seem an impossible task - to love our neighbours, to pray for our persecutors and, in so doing, to become more like our heavenly father.

1. Love Your Enemies. The love that God commands of us is love so great that it even embraces our enemies. When Jesus said he must have startled his audience, for he was saying something that probably had never been said so succinctly, so positively, and so forcefully before. We naturally love people or things which are beautiful. The love of which Jesus speaks here, however, and which is most spoken of in the New Testament, is agape. It is the love that seeks and works to meet another’s highest welfare. This kind of love is the love that God is and shows us, and expects of us.


God’s love sees all the hatefulness and all the wickedness of the enemy yet desires to free them from his hate, to do them the highest good, to rescue them from them sin, and save their soul. Our “enemies,” of course, do not always come in life–threatening forms. Often they are people who are simply mean, impatient, judgmental, self–righteous, spiteful. God commands us to love them. Whether a conflict is with our spouse, our children or parents, our friends or a devious business opponent or spiteful neighbour, our attitude toward them must be one of love. Others say retaliate. Jesus says reconcile. Jesus commands us to love our enemies. How can we do that when we don’t want to?


2. Pray for Your Persecutors. Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. ” When we start to pray for someone you don't get on with, God begins to answer your prayer by changing our attitude toward them. We must love them because of who they are—sinners in need of God’s forgiveness and grace, just as we were and do. We must pray for them that they will, as we have done, seek His forgiveness and grace. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor who suffered and eventually was killed in Nazi Germany, wrote of this teaching of Jesus, “This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. For if we pray for them, we are taking their distress and poverty, their guilt and perdition upon ourselves and pleading to God for them.” Love our enemies and pray for them. Why? Because God’s desire for us is thirdly,

3. Become Like Jesus. To love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors shows that we are children of our Father who is in heaven. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” The heart of all that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount—in fact, the heart of all that He teaches—is contained in these words. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

God’s will is nothing less than that we become like him and love like Him. But what does that mean?

If I say I love my wife, you can see evidence that I do by the way that I support her, the way that I care for her, the way that I react to her and so on for she is worth loving!

What of our enemies though? Are they worth loving? Enemies usually stand against us, oppose us, hamper our hopes and dreams and sometimes endanger us. Yet Jesus asks us to love even these because God does.

We can only love even those we find unloveable and pray for them, when we consciously, daily, willingly, lay aside our reputation, lay aside our rights, lay aside our self-righteousness, lay aside our pride, and lay aside a version of Christian faith that is all too often so heavenly so as to be of no earthly use, and instead stand with Uwe Holmer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Martin Luther KIng jnr., Maxamillian Kolbe, Gordon Wilson, Desmond Tutu and countless others known and unknown to us, and trust Jesus Christ to give us His love and enable us to live His love for all, friend, neighbour, enemy. Amen

Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter - Official Video

Having chatted with someone about love and lost love and broken hearts and hope, I found myself singing this exquisite song from Damien Rice.

The lyrics, below, are all about love, life, loss, broken hearts and ...

Well I hope you enjoy this fragile, musical beauty.

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

Preaching - the congregation's view...

Got this from the excellent Asbo Jesus blog...

So this is what you are thinking whilst I am preaching eh?

Migraine Mysticism...

Not a good day really I have to say. All was going well this morning...

After having finally extricated myself from the kids' breakfast/dressing routine (today was an inset day for them - term begins tomorrow) I set down to deal with a lot of admin. I popped Spotify on and began to enjoy albums by Oceansize (the new love of my musical life), The Portico Quartet, and The Pineapple Thief. I was making good progress. Then...

About an hour or so into making headway, it started. It is almost spiritual as it comes over the horizon. The egg of molten lava behind my left eye began to hatch allowing it's nauseous core to seep into my system.

At first I tried to ignore it, but then the peripheral vision in my left I went and the pain ratcheted up a notch. I had to go out...

On my way home, I felt what had started to erupt in my head, begin to awake in my stomach and the first thing I did when I came through the door was be sick. Oh no... the inevitable decline.

I have spent the rest of the day in bed, sleeping, trying to push the pain out of my mind (no not literally), reading a little and managing to vomit the pain in my head out of my stomach. It's not very graceful.

This forced inactivity has made me think. I have received the love and care of my family. Especially touching was the reaction of my children who came in to see me in bed, holding my hand and talking gently to me. A little later my oldest (his own initiative) organised and brought up a glass of water for me and my younger sons came to ask if I wanted some toast or an apple. Touching... Most touching of all was my 2 younger boys brought me some of their favourite teddies to keep me company. They would want them close by if they were ill. So should I.

I have also reflected on how we take good health for granted, and we do. I have been reminded today of how fragile the line between health/ill health is and how being the one side of the line rather than the other can lead to enforced inactivity.

I don't get migraines very often and they tend to last about half a day. For that I am thankful, but there is also something deeply spiritual going on in the physiology. The loss of sight, the dulling of senses, the enforced slowness, even the pain are all best described using deeply spiritual or mystical language. I wonder what St Theresa of Avila, St John of the Cross or Mother Julian would make of what I have experienced today?

Mother Julian's Revelations of Divine Love were given to her after serious illness, and it is perhaps that which enabled her to see the fragility and yet sacredness of life at the closeness of all things to the heart of God. She saw God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a small brown nut, which seemed so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it did not crumble before her eyes. She understood that the thing was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, “God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.”

I am not trying to suggest that God was necessarily trying to reveal himself to me in between bouts of vomiting but I have prayed more than usual today (perhaps selfishly), I have been forced to be still and reflect on my lot, and I have received unconditional love. I am feeling significantly better tonight, and some words of Mother Julian ring in my ears, "... All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well..." but does my afternoon get more spiritual than that...?