Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during July 2020]

At first appearance, ‘them’ and its linguistic partner ‘they’ are simply third-party pronouns that occur frequently in every-day communication. However, the two words have acquired a deeper significance in popular parlance. Both ‘them’ and ‘they’ imply a distinction, a separation, a distancing; in short, ‘they’ are not us.

Of course, we all know to whom the words refer. ‘They’ take the last custard cream biscuit; ‘they’ have their tvs too loud late at night; ‘they’ are too impatient at the traffic lights and too slow at the check-out; ‘they’ make the wrong decisions when in authority; ‘they’ even dream up stupid rules without any understanding of what ‘they’ are talking about. In fact, all of life’s problems are due to ‘them’.

The prophet Amos recounts a series of warnings against ‘them’. He starts with Damascus, located at some distance to the north. Damascus represents a nation which oppressed the nation of Israel so retribution against them was no doubt a positive thing in the eyes of the Israelites.

Amos then pronounces judgement on Gaza, neighbours to the south. Getting closer, but they weren’t very friendly so that’s ok. He then addressed Tyre. Tyre was a trading partner and had treaties with Israel; any disruption there would be inconvenient but not intolerable. Next come Edom, Ammon and Moab. The Edomites were descended from Esau whilst the Ammonites and Moabites were descended from Lot. All three nations could be regarded as ‘family’ but there was an historic enmity between these nations and Israel, and few Israelites would be upset by their fate.

Amos turns his attention to Judah. Israel and Judah are like brothers and this is getting too close for comfort. Finally Israel itself comes up for judgement. From an Israelite perspective, ‘them’ has finally become ‘us’ and the outcome is not comfortable.

In our modern context, how should we address this syndrome of them and us? Should we try to move from “them and us” to “we”? The passage in Matthew 5 v44-48 offers a clue.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Later in Matthew (chapter 25) we read of the final “them and us” separation.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
…
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
…
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Are you with them or with us?

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during July 2020]

In most of my formative years my church attendance was predominantly under the auspices of a denomination that majored on Bible study and teaching. The mature men in the congregation were expected to be able to expound the Scriptures and the young men were encouraged to study to show themselves to be worthy successors. Of course, all this was based on the King James version (as used by the apostle Paul himself); it seemed that other resources and the preceding 18 centuries of church history were largely irrelevant.

I soon found out that this picture of the Christian life wasn’t quite complete. There were other translations of the Bible, using up to date language, there were outside sources that gave some context to the Bible stories and there were even Christians in other denominations! Nevertheless, I am grateful for the firm foundation that this early experience provided.

This expansion of knowledge and experience has continued as I have been preparing this series of Reflections. Starting with the Bible itself, and using online tools that our forefathers could only dream of, various themes and threads have opened up a vista of knowledge and opinion.

An example is the book of Revelation. I had assumed that, apart from the first three chapters, John’s vision concerned a still-future sequence of events that could be triggered at any time. But not everyone thinks the same. On the one hand, there are some scholars who see the seven bowls and seven trumpets as having a close correlation with events during the early years of church history. On the other hand, there are those who argue that the prophecies cannot be fulfilled until a temple is re-established in Jerusalem. In the middle are those who use COVID-19 as evidence of the imminent start of the end-times.

So who to believe?
Acts 17 tells us that the Jews in Berea “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”.

Later, Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

Both passages represent good advice for us too.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 19/Jul/2020]

I’ve been unable to shake off what Martin said recently about the ‘lazy’ servant in Matthew 25 v 26. And what I’ve been led to is a reading (and re-reading) of the above chapters of Romans in several versions.

I think you’ll find that Paul is doing more than expounding the issue of Jewish law vs God’s grace. He is profoundly exploring his, and our, personal battle with sin. Pushing aside any consideration of individual ‘sins’ he is insisting that in each of us there is a deep-rooted, persistent drive which unfailingly fouls up even our most determined efforts to do good, to live up to God’s ‘laws’. It’s our indwelling ‘sinful nature’.

Why have these chapters been bugging me? Because, in me at least, is a lifelong laziness! Martin has been challenging me (us!) to see church and our individual lives transformed. In myself, I don’t have enough strength to begin to shift 80 years of ground-in habit so as to become a new person. And that’s Paul’s point exactly! It’s only the life of Jesus’s Holy Spirit in me that can and WILL transform me.

If we are indeed a living organism, a body having Jesus’s DNA, He – as He promised – will grow His church, feeding, watering, pruning as it becomes what He will make it.

But my resistance to His ways is much stronger than I like to admit. I’m lazy. “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it” (Romans 7 v 18). I need the encouragement, grace, and prodding which you can give me.

Let’s run with all we’ve got (1Cor 9 v 24 -27) and feel His wind in our sails!

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[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during July 2020]

Dave Prior recently reminded us of an everyday story of country folk in which economic difficulties and the death of loved ones led to two widows finding fulfilment in the formation of a new family and living happily ever-after. It sounds like the type of apparently-mundane story that publishers of romantic fiction would use as a basis onto which they could add various details and sub-plots, hoping to have their readers engrossed to the final page.

The material of pulp fiction? Maybe, but surely not appropriate to a weighty tome like the Bible. Yet it is there – the book of Ruth recounts the story, including its romantic theme and yet omitting enough details to keep the reader intrigued. Who was this wealthy relative? What was his back-story? Where was he during the famine? Why chose a poor foreigner instead of someone from his own social network?

Who, what, where, why – the questions that lift a mundane historical report onto a new level. Is someone manipulating the pieces in this game of life? Maybe not in so many words but God is working His purposes out and the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1 shows how these people fit into the Grand Plan of salvation.

Are you fed up with lock-down, distressed by distancing or resenting the restrictions? Are you missing those things that you used to call mundane and boring, do you long for what you remember of normality? God is still working His purposes out, and perhaps you are the small link that completes the chain that leads to salvation for someone. He is still using the normal and abnormal circumstances of life to achieve His objectives but He often leaves us to guess at the who, what, where, why.

All great stories have an underlying principle and this is no exception. The moral here is that being a member of a family or society entails both obligations and benefits. While the majority of the story shows the positive outcome for those who take their responsibilities seriously, it starts with the fate of one who tried to avoid his obligations. Mundane as they may seem, your actions and reactions today will have consequences that you cannot see. Be assured, the Author has a plan.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 12/Jul/2020]

Walking in the unforced rhythms of grace (Matthew 11 in The Message)

The good thing I’ve learnt during lock down is you can’t rush it!I thought my daughter was joking when she said to me, at the beginning of this Corona virus,“Mum, you have to stay in your house and garden, you can’t drive and you’re only allowed to go out once a day for a walk for just one hour”

What me – who needs to be out socialising, going out for coffee and lunches, going to toddler group, hugging all and sundry, laying hands on the sick, blessing those who need loving and a hundred other things that need doing, YOU ARE JOKING!!

I love to buck the season. In April I was looking for bedding plants when they hadn’t arrived yet, wondering why the roses hadn’t come out and where were the baby birds? It seemed like Jesus was saying in quietness and confidence will be your strength.

During this time of enforced separation from church and fellowship I’ve learnt to come apart with Jesus and sit in His presence and listen to His voice.I love the words to this old song:

I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear the son of God discloses,
And He walks with me and he talks with me and He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there None other has ever known

As the days go on I realise God has a plan and a purpose to bless His people. He wants us to hear His voice and be obedient to His nudges. To learn to prophesy and declare His word.

Happy social distancing to all my lovely Christian brothers and sisters, may we reach out for words and visions that will bless and encourage each other, growing closer to Him who doesn’t require any distancing at all.
Every blessing, Chris

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[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], July 2020]

Are you feeling it difficult to find any get up and go? Has lockdown left you feeling listless and unsure of your purpose? Are you being honest about the reasons why?

A few years ago now myself and a bunch of other teachers took a group of school children on a coach trip to Austria. It was going to involve a 24 hour coach journey which I was dreading so I splashed out the cash and I bought myself a portable DVD player. This is in the days before smartphones so I turned up at the coach and I got on with my portable DVD player and a bunch of DVDs, and I found a space at the back of the coach and got myself comfortable. The weird thing was was that in all of those 24 hours not once did I manage to switch the DVD player on; I was too comfortable, I was just felt unable to pluck up the energy to push that button and set myself up with a film.

I think that we are finding ourselves in a similar sort of situation. We’ve been in lockdown for a while now and although restrictions are easing, although we are able to do more than we were able to before, I sense and I sense it in myself, this reluctance to actually do anything. There’s a dormancy, there’s an inertia that has kicked in. We’ve become settled, we’ve become comfortable and we’re feeling it really difficult to actually get up and do anything now.

In Matthew’s Gospel in chapter 25 we’re told of an occasion when Jesus told one of his most famous parables. Parables are stories about earthly things but which have a heavenly, a Godly meaning. He tells a story of a master who goes away on a journey and he summons three of his servants to him and he gives each servant a different sum of money. To one he gives five bags of gold, to another he gives two bags of gold and to the final one he gives one bag of gold. The master sets off on his journey and the guys with the five bags of gold and two bags of gold straightaway go off and invest the money and they double what they have got but the last servant, instead of investing, instead of maybe taking a bit of a risk, he goes away and buries the money in the ground.

When the master returns he calls these three servants to him. The first two come along and said “Look, I’ve doubled your money” and he says to them “good and faithful servants I’ve entrusted you with a few things; I’m going to give you even more things to look after”. But when it comes to the final servant the servant says “look, I know you’re a hard master master, you reap what you don’t sow and I was a scared so I buried the money and here’s your money back” The Master’s reply was “You wicked and lazy servant!”. He wasn’t very impressed and ended up taking the money that that servant had and gave it to the other two servants instead.

You see, we need to ask ourself the questions “what is stopping us from stepping out of our comfort zones? What’s stopping us from doing what God has called us to do? What has created this inertia in our life?” We seem to have lost momentum and at this time of a virus it’s very easy to come up with the excuse of fear – we’re fearful, we’re scared of what might happen, we’re scared of catching the virus. Well actually, maybe our fear is fear of the unknown. Perhaps you’ve always been used to being on church rotas and doing things within the church context and suddenly find yourself out of that context and unsure of how you are supposed to serve God in these circumstances.

It’s very easy to blame fear but we’ve got to ask ourselves the question “Is that really the reason?” The master saw past the servant’s claim of fear and instead saw the real reason behind his inability to do what he had been asked to do and that was laziness.

You see, you have a purpose, you have a task, you are God’s workmanship and you have been created for a reason – to do good works. This isn’t about salvation, this isn’t about earning your way into heaven because we know that’s just not possible and it’s been done by Jesus already. No, this is about you being who you have been designed to be, who you have been called to be. There are many things that stop us but when I come to the end of my life I want to be able to stand before God and hear him say the words “good and faithful servant” because I’ve stepped out, I’ve taken risks and I have used the gifts and the opportunities given to me by God. I certainly don’t want to hear the words “you wicked and lazy servant”.

[1] YouTube link: Have You Lost Momentum?
Bible references: Matthew 25 v14-30

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