I did a funeral today of a man I had never met.  He had lived all of his life in the Sandy Row part of Belfast.  There was a big crowd of people from all parts of the country and beyond.  They came from both of the main Irish tribes as well.  some even came who looked like they had not been ina tribal buuilding for a long time.

The reason - Jimmy had beaten alcohol 45 years ago and had spent those 45 yeasr selflessly helping others through AA.  Many of them  turned up to say farewell and what a motley crew they were, and what a courageous and hopeful crowd they were.  The stories they told were great.  Many were clerly still fightin, but all were thankful for Jimmy.

This the spirit of Jesus - ministry that flows from compassion and clothes itself in humility.  What a hero!

It also turns out he is a well-loved painter!  Get your head round that as well.  I have had a great day.

This is the next part after you have read Ryan's styuff on exile and empire

There is a silence for 400 years and then secretly the presence of God slips back into the world.  A young girl in a backwoods village, a barren woman married to a quirky priest, a carpenter, an angel, a star, a few nomadic travellers from the east…a new king is born.

He walks into a world that has the stench of Egypt all over it.

Again there is a huge empire weighing heavily on the people of the world, never mind on God’s people.  The religious system has bought into it and is walking hand in hand with it.  A slaughter of baby boys seems like some horror memory from the past and yet it barely makes a ripple on the psyche of the people of its day.

Jesus Christ, the anointed one, comes with a message of a new kingdom which will be written in the heart.  But it is no philosophical idea alone, it has reality and revolution built into it.

He begins his mission from a desert place, preferring the fringes and the outsiders. 

He seems to be wandering with purpose around the desert fringes of Judea.  As a child he even came through and from Egypt, is this another exodus?

His wanderings gather momentum along with people who are also more comfortable at the fringes –

·      a prophet who is the son of a priest but who lives wild and rails at the system of religion and its false gods and godless attitudes,

·      a woman caught in adultery whom he accepts rather than judges,

·      a tax collector to whom he extends the jubilee principle and who then goes on to extend that principle to his clients who are under a heavy weight,

·      lepers, whose greatest wound is exclusion,

·      a Samaritan village which he releases from the weight of thinking that Jerusalem is the centre for worship and they cannot go there,

·      a Pharisee who hides in the darkness but is desperate to find a way of living in the light,

·      a centurion in whom he finds more faith than in all Israel

·      a murderer who hunts down people of the new way and destroys the new community by filling it with fear and violence. 

He sets up moments of enormous importance and prophetic challenge –

·      he breaks Sabbath rules and sets the whole thing free,

·      he feeds the people with food in the desert and tells them it is a re-run of their Sinai desert experience,

·      he stands on the temple steps and when the water is poured as a  memorial of water pouring from the wilderness rock he claims that he is that water. 

·      He institutes a water ritual that is prefigured in the crossing of the Red Sea, that will replace circumcision, that speaks of death leading to life and when exercised with faith in God actually writes the new law on the hearts of people and sets them free to live by it. 

·      He uses the name of God as given to Moses – the I AM – and he uses it of himself repeatedly and deliberately.

·       

 Slowly but surely he works his way inwards until the last week of his life is spent at the core of all that has become corrupt – Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, the empire. 

He scatters the market place of the temple.  The significance of this is not lost on those who understand the scriptures. 

This man is attacking the core of the system, it is not really about bad trading practice, it is about a corruption that runs deep.  He sets the blind free so that they can see who he is and see the new way, yet those who can see remain blind and in the darkness. 

Just like at Sinai, he institutes a festival, literally a new Passover meal with a sharing in another blood ritual which ironically requires no more blood to be spilt, the blood that is remembered will be spilt once for all for ever. 

He goes face to face with the high priest and the Roman Governor, he speaks of being a king with all the authority to bring this whole thing crashing down. 

They plot his death but in actual fact they plot his accession to the throne which is achieved by death and curse. 

As he is enthroned on yet another mountain top he cries out the secret of the new kingdom – forgiveness and redemption, a kingdom of grace and mercy where all are welcome, even those who are in the final throes of their own execution at the hands of the empire.

Now with huge amounts of symbolism the third day becomes the new Sinai (which was also designated as the third day). 

The real presence of God, no longer limited by human constraint, appears repeatedly in upper rooms and on mountain tops, on beaches and roads across deserts and intentionally and deliberately speaks of the new kingdom and how it will work.

After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God. As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but "must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon."

 ⁶When they were together for the last time they asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?"

 ^7-8He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."

A few days later the kingdom explodes into the heart of Jerusalem on what we now call the day of Pentecost and the Sinai covenant becomes a reality. 

A new community is born, a community that seems to grasp the ways of God immediately although we soon realise it is embryonic and has to go on exploring and discovering the new life and power.

That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

 ^43-45Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.

 ^46-47They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

EXILE IS DISSIPATING; BUT WILL EXODUS BECOME THE NEW REALITY?

WHAT ABOUT THE EMPIRES?

WHERE IS THIS NEW COMMUNITY?

HOW CAN THEY BE FOUND?

HOW CAN I BE PART OF IT?

This can be a bad time of year for many –

·      the summer is over and it is difficult to get moving again

·      the light is diminishing and the darkness is increasing

·      summer sun is giving way to rainy season hahahahhaha

·      routine is taking over from holiday freedom

·      exam results were not great

·      new courses/schools/colleges etc are quite daunting

·      I haven’t turned into the Adonis I hoped to over the summer break

A mixture of the above can lead to

·      Feeling useless

·      Feeling ineffective

·      Feeling controlled by events, feelings, and others

·      Feeling of isolation

·      Negative self-belief

·      Feelings of guilt, shame, insecurity, and anxiety

·      Feeling unsupported

·      Feeling victimised

There is no doubt that there is a serious version of all of this that may need some serious help.  For many of us we may just need to begin to get up and get on. 

·      Get with God (tell him about it and ask for his help)

·      Get with other people.  Join in.

·      Get with what God says about you in his word.  Try reading Psalm 139.

·      Start again.

·      Realise you are not alone

·      Decide to make a difference somewhere somehow

·      Take control of some aspect of your life

·      Be assertive about something (not the same as aggressive)

·      Be sociable

·      Help someone

·      Change a routine

·      Let something go that isn’t going to get any better

 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

close bosom friend of the maturing sun...

See you in the spring!

The point of this blog is to try to make us a wee bit more self-aware (just in case it applies).

The context is that since i have declared myself (in my own head mainly) to be more like an urban missionary rather than a minister/pastor I am becoming incresasingly conscious of how bad we are (as Christians) at relating to normal people.  I have found myself unconsciously trying to keep some Christians away from the normal people - thinking there is more hope of them encountering Christ through direct revelation from source than from the people who represent him.
 

Here's why...

I am sure you have all known people who can turn any conversation around to themselves.  This is not a good behaviour pattern and puts people right off you.  In the sweetness of the Christian fellowship we put up with this sort of behaviour cos we are full of grace.  Maybe a bit more truth would help (that was a reference to Jesus being full of grace AND truth - John 1).  Needy people behave like this but they cannot approach relationship with new people on this basis.  It will be a non-starter.

I am sure you have known people who can be moody and don't mind using their moodiness to affecta relationship or group of people.   These people should stay at home until they grow out of it or keep it for the Christian meeting where they will be ministered to by people willling to treat this as spiritual condition.  But don't let them near groups of people you are trying to make friends with.

I am sure you have known people who are so intense you feel like you have been in a driving exam by the time you have had a cup of coffee with them.  For God's sake lighten up (that was not a profanity).  Don't even take this one to the Christian fellowship - it will suck the life out of the most saintly.

 Sorry for the ranting - this was an exaggeration aimed at getting us all to think about how we can be more normal and natural and easy to get along with.  Cos if we can't make friends how will we ever get the opportunity to minister or share the life of God with each other and with those around us?

More rantings very soon...

A few months back I realised, with some shock, that I am not sure if I have any friends.  Let me qualify this by defining "friends". 

I have masses of "brothers and sisters in the Lord" by nature of my working environment.  As a church leader type I am constantly in demand from all and sundry for my time.  This can fool one into thinking one is popular and/or needed.  I am begining to wonder is the demand for my time also related to the fact that everyone else is in a friendship vacuum! 

If I have been saved for a reason, and not just so I can attend worship meetings in the hereafter, and if I am to make my desginated inpact in this world then I need to be seriously thinking about how.  Maybe you have an incredibly important job which makes an impact on people's lives.  Probably all our jobs do but is it enough impact to make you feel that this is what God put you here for and there is nothing else to do?

What about if we are supposed to live out our lives (and our faith) in the presence pf those who have not yet understood or grasped faith for themselves?  Rather than keeping up appearances around the work place and at the football etc and keeping all the serious stuff for the "behind closed doors of our Christian community" meetings, should we not be real among those other people?  That is what became clear to me a few months back.  I don't have any friends out there that I really share my life with.  So how are all those people out there going to see what it is like to live in economically depressed world and fear-filled world and immoral world and beautiful world if I keep all my real stuff for my Chirstian sub-world?

 The enormous question for me is can i make friends out there and share my life with them genuinely?

I can spend eternity with my "saved mates". 

Just back from a busy weekend away with a group of young adults from the Diocese of Lismore.  I am an INTP in my Myers Briggs personality profile.  If you know what that means it means (among other things) that I recreate in quietness and alone-ness. So a weekend away with a whole crowd of people I don't know and am expected to get to know is really quite a draining thing.

I have planned two days at trhe beginning of this week where I am almost entirely alone with my books, my lap top, my iphone, my God, myself, my dog, my family...something wants me to feel guilty about this.  But I am not taking that sort of nonsense from anyone or any other source any more.

 Why am I writing this?

It has taken me over four decades to become this familiar with myself; to know how i work and how i can work better.  So don't disturb me until tomorrow.  I am far too busy doing what I have to do to survive to be bothered with you.  From tomorrow I will be even better for you if you want to disturb me.

 Don't take forty five years to find out how you work!

 I am away this weekend at someoen else's expense!  Ryan Mitchell and I are going to meet with a group of young adults from the Diocese of Kilmore (loosely Sligo and surrounding district).  You would think i would be happy about thsi.  I am partly and i know that by lunchtime tomorrow we all be mates and having a great time in the hotel swimming pool/bar/restaurant...

But I am equally filled with dis-ease.  What will they be like?  Will they like me? Is the stuff I am preparing at all relevant?  Will I put on weight?  Will it cost me money?  

As I look back over my working life, which is nearly thirty years, some of the happiest times were on the bin lorries, washing cars, and as a postman.  Something gloriously satisfying about doing something that has immediate results and carries little responsibility.

I remember the woman who ran out of her house just after i had delivered a Christmas card.  She was so excitied and grateful.  Apparently it was from her son in Canada and she had been waiting and watching every day for this one card.  I was the deliverer.  You would have thought I had been to Canada to pick it up.  Oh, happy day!

All I want to do this weekend is deliver a card to someone, anyone - someone who has been waiting and watching.

But I am equally filled with dis-ease.  What will they be like?  Will they like me? Is the stuff I am preparing at all relevant?  Will I put on weight?  Will it cost me money?  

As I look back over my working life, which is nearly thirty years, some of the happiest times were on the bin lorries, washing cars, and as a postman.  Something gloriously satisfying about doing something that has immediate results and carries little responsibility.

I remember the woman who ran out of her house just after i had delivered a Christmas card.  She was so excitied and grateful.  Apparently it was from her son in Canada and she had been waiting and watching every day for this one card.  I was the deliverer.  You would have thought I had been to Canada to pick it up.  Oh, happy day!

All I want to do this weekend is deliver a card to someone, anyone - someone who has been waiting and watching.

But I am equally filled with dis-ease.  What will they be like?  Will they like me? Is the stuff I am preparing at all relevant?  Will I put on weight?  Will it cost me money?  

As I look back over my working life, which is nearly thirty years, some of the happiest times were on the bin lorries, washing cars, and as a postman.  Something gloriously satisfying about doing something that has immediate results and carries little responsibility.

I remember the woman who ran out of her house just after i had delivered a Christmas card.  She was so excitied and grateful.  Apparently it was from her son in Canada and she had been waiting and watching every day for this one card.  I was the deliverer.  You would have thought I had been to Canada to pick it up.  Oh, happy day!

All I want to do this weekend is deliver a card to someone, anyone - someone who has been waiting and watching.