Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

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

Do you think that mankind is basically good, generally co-operative and generous but marred by a relatively small number of miscreants, or do you think that mankind is intrinsically evil, largely selfish and intolerant but constrained by social norms and the need to find some way of living together?

Two apparently-irreconcilable points of view, but I suspect that most people would see a sliding scale between the two extremes. They would place the majority of people somewhere in the middle and could name a few candidates for both ends of the scale. But what about the person whose image appears in your bathroom mirror? Somewhat biased towards the positive, I suspect.

In 1954 William Golding wrote “The Lord of the Flies”, an account of what happens when these two social extremes meet in the absence of any moderating authority. But we don’t have to turn to a 20th century novel – our 21st century TV screens regularly report the same scenario.

Nor is this something new. Genesis chapter 6 describes the times of Noah when

“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

Later the Lord said to Moses,

“I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” [Exodus 32 v9-10]

Justice requires retribution yet love requires restoration. How does God, who epitomises both love and justice, reconcile these two extremes? The apostle John tells us the answer:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”.

Condemned or saved – two extremes with no middle ground. Where is that person in the mirror now?

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 26/Jul/2016]

I’ve been drawn again to God’s exciting promise in Psalm 8 v 18: ‘He brought me out into a broad place (a wide-open field); he delivered me because he delighted in me.‘

As I watch Jesus living in a freedom which baffled his followers and infuriated the religious leaders, and hear him say things like ‘Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly‘ (Matt 11 v 30, The Message), something stirs in me!

I guess I’m really asking a big question: Has lockdown been God’s way of teaching me – us – a new way of living, of being called-out ones, people with a passionate purpose, impatient – even angry! – with anything that constrains or limits us? One Bible translation of Galatians 5 v 23, after listing the fruits (or ‘harvest’) of the Spirit, reads: ‘Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless‘. That, I think, is living freely … against that kind of life, as in most translations, ‘there is no law‘.

A prophecy I read yesterday referred to the last lines of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken‘. He looks back over the life choices he has made and concludes:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
Took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I think God has put us in an urgent position. If we can hardly wait for a return to church ‘as normal’, is it possible that we’ve not learned the lessons of the Exodus? That we’re still at the cross-roads?

For me, lockdown has only deepened my determination to follow Jesus wherever he goes and whatever we face together. There are battles to be won and a harvest to bring in!

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[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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