andygoodliff

'Rejoice in suffering' (Rom. 5.3-4): A sermon

We suffer.

Unavoidably, inevitably and often painfully.

It comes to us all at some point or another.

A phone-call, a door-bell, a test result.

Suffering finds it way into our lives.

and there it can produce its destruction

of our comfortableness, our happiness, our hope.

Suffering is liable to produce in us

not just pain, but

misery, sadness, a self-centredness,

which can rob us of life and love.

And so Paul’s words that

‘we glory,’ or rejoice, ‘in our sufferings’

offer a discordant sound,

something that jars with our sense of the world:

suffering is not something to be gloried in.

And yet this is a constant theme of Paul’s gospel:

you will find similar claims in nearly all his letters.

Here Paul says we rejoice in our sufferings

because they are a school for character.

Tried and test character results from

those who persevere, endure and are patient

in, and though, suffering.

To be a people of character,

“a community of character”

is to be marked by the character of Christ

baptised into Christ

and so to live lives that cannot be explain apart from the gospel.

And this gospel is one of cross and resurrection,

            of suffering and delight,

            of tragedy and joy.

The suffering that Paul has in mind is the suffering

that those who follow Jesus were to expect –

social exclusion, persecution, unjust jailings, even martyrdom.

He is not saying seek out suffering,

but he is saying don’t be surprised or disconcerted

if suffering comes from following a saviour

who challenged  religious, political, and economic authorities.*

 

Suffering is part of being human,

it is also part of being Christian.

Physical and emotional suffering

are part and parcel of being fragile, finite creatures,

spiritual and political suffering

are part and parcel of following Jesus.

Suffering, says the apostle Paul,

is not a means to doubt God’s grace,

but a means to trust and hope even more in it.

 

The majority of us will succumb, if not already,

to some kind of physical suffering.

As our bodies age, they begin to wear out,

they become more susceptible to illness and pain.

For a good number of years,

we can perhaps overlook this reality,

apart from the “suffering presence”

of those amongst us.

Our physical sufferings don’t make us Christian,

we should not see all suffering as something how identified

with Christ’s suffering on the cross.

We should neither suffer needlessly, or self-importantly,

under the illusion that ‘this is my cross to bear.’

Christians are not in favour of suffering,

we do not welcome it, look for it, or pray for it.

But if suffering doesn’t make us Christian,

bearing it patiently can be part of our being Christian.

So those who are a suffering presence

are a particular gift to us, a sign to us

of what it means to follow Jesus

through the storms and hurricanes of life.

As a church we are grateful for their courage to not hide from us,

without being grateful in any sense for the suffering they are enduring.

Those who are a suffering presence

amongst us display the tested character

of patience and courage.

 

A second type of suffering is not the physical kind,

but a suffering in and of the soul,

a pain and a grief that emerges from being

those in relationship with others beings …

usually human beings,

but I wouldn’t also want to dismiss the pain that can come

from the loss of pet as well.

The suffering that is experienced by a betrayal,

a bereavement, a redundancy, or a broken heart.

To love other people,

to invest our hearts in another life,

is to be opened up to the risk of pain.

What does it mean to rejoice in the suffering of the soul?

It is to hope.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God

and to suffer produces perseverance, character and

hope.

And this hope does not disappoint,

because it is a hope rooted and received

through God’s love given by the Holy Spirit.

Hope does not explain to us why we suffer

Hope is that which comes from standing in the grace of Christ

from being reconciled to God

This hope is not one which explains to us why we suffer,

This hope is not one which is getting through life unscathed,

but a hope to remain faithful to the end.**

It is a hope in God, a hope in resurrection.

Hope in God does not obliterate fear or grief or pain

but it enables us to not be paralyzed.***

Hope is not optimism,

but a conviction, a confidence

that in Christ

we learn to see that our lives

as now in God’s life

and all our grief and brokenness

are therefore recognised as not ultimate;

whilst we may well be overwhelmed by

suffering,

the grace and love of God make it possible for us to endure

to name the silences that our suffering has created.

We endure because we hope,

We endure because God has demonstrated his love for us

by suffering that we might live.

 

A third kind of suffering

we know little of, at least first-hand.

a suffering that is not from

the fragility and mortalities of our bodies,

or from

the brokenness and griefs of human living,

but from the hostility of a world that rejects God

where suffering is for the sake of the gospel.

This suffering is rarely ours to bear – 

which may suggest we have allowed the gospel

to be neutered of its offensiveness –

but suffering for the gospel is a reality that the church knows

in places like Somalia and Syria,

Iraq and Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

That the church has not been snuffed out in this places

reminds us that the gospel is true

for what other explanation can we give for

the endurance of faith in the midst of beatings,

imprisonment, oppression and even death.

And so we pray for those whom Christ names

our brothers and sisters,

that the God of hope and comfort,

the God who suffered that we might

have peace and reconciliation,

would pour out his Holy Spirit

to rest on them,

as they witness to the transforming grace,

that is the love of God in Christ.

 

Paul returns to the language of suffering, perseverance,

and hope later in his letter, in the well-known words

that make up chapter 8:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall trouble or hardship

 or persecution or famine

or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered sheep to be slaughtered”

No, in all these things,

we are more than conquerors

through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that

neither death nor life,

neither angels or demons,

neither the present or the future,

nor any powers,

neither height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sam Wells preaching on these verses says this:

Nothing can separate you from the love of God.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Nothing.

God is with you at every step,

and Jesus has faced everything you’re facing,

and you were with God in the very beginning of all things,

you are now, and you always will be,

and being with God in hardship is always better

than being separate from God in comfort ever could be.****

 

We come in a moment to the table of the Lord

where we remember that God in Christ suffered like us

and for us

and so we bring to this table our sufferings,

and ask that in this meal we will share

that God will offer the healing,

the comfort, the courage we need to

be faithful,

but that we eat the bread and drink the cup,

also reminds us that the way of suffering love

the way of the cross

is our way

bearing patiently, hopefully, faithfully

in the love God.

 

* I’m dependent here on Stanley Hauerwas, Naming the Silences (Eerdmans, 1990), p.85.

** This line comes form Stanley Hauerwas, Approaching the End (Eerdmans, 2013), p.189.

*** This line is helped by Sam Wells, Be Not Afraid (Brazos, 2011), p.7.

**** Sam Wells, Learning to Dream Again (Canterbury, 2013), p.12.

This whole sermon was helped by a sermon in Ralph Wood, Preaching and Professing: Sermons by a Teacher Seeking to Proclaim the Gospel (Eerdmans, 2009)

Baptists, Theology and the Whitley Lecture

It often feels that too many Baptists (in the UK only?) give short shrift to the work of theology. We know we probably need some, but definitely not too much. The Whitley Lecture is one small recognition that Baptists are doing theology. Although it  was founded in 1949, during the 1980s (if not before) it fell by the wayside. It was recovered in 1996 as an annual public lecture given by a Baptist. And every year, apart from 2005, it has been delivered around the Baptist colleges and at the Baptist Assembly. Sadly, at an Assembly reduced to two days (and in following years to one day), there is no space for it to be heard.

This year it has been delivered at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, London and, I'm pleased to say, to a small crowd today at Belle Vue Baptist Church, Southend.

Over the last eighteen years the Whitley Lecture has demonstrated that there are a few Baptists who have been encouraged to think theologically and at depth. Many of those who delivered it have been past recipients of a BU Scholarship to pursue doctoral research. It has also shown a wide range of topics and interests amongst Baptists. So the Lecture has covered issues of political theology, ministry, eucharistic theology, the place of children, violence, tradition, ecclesiology, worship, disability, medical ethics and interpreting the Bible. 

Two of the most important Lectures in terms of helping local Baptist churches and their wider bodies, I think, have been on the matter of biblical interpretation. The first is Sean Winter's 2007 Lecture, 'More Light and Truth?: Biblical Interpretation in Covenantal Perspective' and the second is this year's lecture by Helen Dare, 'Always on the way and in the fray: Reading the Bible as Baptists.' Both lectures seek to explore in related ways the nature of how Baptist communities read the Bible together. Baptist communities are understood as those who have covenanted together before God and with one another, but who find when we pay attention to the diversity of voices amongst us, that there will be inevitable disagreement. Sean Winter reminds us that interpreting the Bible is always an ongoing exercise, that is, there is always more light and truth to be revealed. In her lecture, Helen Dare turns to Walter Brueggemann as a dialogue partner, whose work on the relationship between God and Israel is one that is richly helpful in terms of what it might mean to read Scripture in community.

Both works challenge Baptists to reflect on how the Bible is read within our churches, whether in terms of worship, study or church meeting. Both seek to show how our Bible reading is always 'on the way', its ongoing activity, because we are a community on our way, and 'in the fray', it is a passionate activity, because we are a community with convictions, which in some places can be deeply contested. Both seek to show how we read the Bible is a divine activity, it seeks the hear the Word in the text, but also a human one with all its ability to read coercively.

Both Winter and Dare (and the wider work within the volume edited by Dare and Woodman on Baptist hermeneutics), show the possibilities of a Baptist approach to reading scripture that takes God, the church and particular voices seriously, as we aim to be faithful to scripture and the call of Christ.

Looking Through the Cross 3

Below is my summary of Graham Tomlin's fifth chapter in Looking Through the Cross on 'The Cross and Suffering.' As in other posts, a lot of the summary contains Tomlin's own words.

 

The existence of suffering today

names one of the biggest reasons

people struggle with Christianity:

"why does God not prevent suffering?

that he doesn’t surely is evidence he doesn’t exist."

 

This question of God and suffering

is actually a very modern one.

We – and by we I mean those of us

who live in the West –

are generally used to a comfortable existence

where it is possible to keep suffering at a distance,

which means when it does intrude

it is a shock

disturbing the basic balance of our lives.

 

Look at the cross.

Look at the cross,

for the Apostle Peter

says ‘Christ suffered’ (1 Peter 2.21. 3.18. 4.1).

At the heart of Christian faith:

is the suffering of Christ,

God’s Son.

The cross says that we are not naïve about suffering

we are not ignorant or indifferent

but when faced with evil

the Christian faith declares

God still to be good and loving.

 

Look at the cross.

Look at the cross,

for the Apostle Peter

says ‘Christ suffered.’

God knows suffering all to well.

God, in the person of the Son,

knows what it is to suffer abandonment, agony, and death.

God is not a stranger to suffering.

But we must say more than ‘God suffers too’.

God is not just a fellow-suffer,

if this all, then suffering overcomes God.

So the early church said

that Jesus suffers, but the Father doesn’t.

Suffering and pain are not eternal,

they are temporary.

Suffering is not an attribute of God,

not part of his being,

this would be to make suffering eternal.

In the end, there will be no more suffering

say the scriptures.

So in the face of suffering,

Christian faith says we are not alone

and it is only temporary.

This makes it bearable.

 

Suffering is real and strong,

but God is stronger:

the crucified one is the risen one.

The empty cross announces

that suffering will one day come to an end

that death has been and is a defeated enemy.

 

If suffering is not the end,

and in its midst

there is comfort 

(literally the giving of strength) 

suffering is also part and parcel

of following Jesus,

it is to be people of the cross.

The history of the church

has been one marked by suffering

from early Christian martyrs

to around 100,000 Christians every year

between 1990 and 2000.

And whilst suffering in terms of persecution

is generally not what we face,

it does not leave us free from suffering:

once you try to love people it will hurt.

 

Look at the cross

Look at the cross

and see how much God loves us.

To see Jesus suffer for us

softens our hearts towards those

who have wronged us, hurt us,

wounded us.

The way to life says Jesus

is not around the cross

but through it

the way of the cross is

the way of love

and it is a way of suffering

and sacrifice.

 

The Christian answer to suffering

is not to avoid it

either intellectually or experientially

It is to point to the cross

suffering at its most intense

it is to accept the invitation to ‘take up your cross’

with Jesus

in the sure and certain knowledge of the resurrection

that God ultimately is beyond suffering

and so will we be,

as we continue our journey with him.

What Baptism Does: A sermon

What has happened here today?

What have we witnessed and experienced?

Some might say that what has happened here this morning

is an ancient initiation rite,

it’s the means that the church requires for people to join the club, to become an insider.

And this is not untrue,

Aimee through her baptism has become part of the body of Christ, a member of God’s people.

Some might say that what has happened here this morning

is the declaration of what somebody believes,

they have announced in public their faith in God.

And this is also not untrue,

Aimee has made a confession of faith,

she was asked four questions

and shared her story of why she believes and felt it was right

to come to baptism.

 

But I want to suggest something else has happened here this morning

          which does not begin with the church

or with Aimee,

but with God.

 

I want to talk about what baptism does to you

and more specifically what God in baptism does to you.

 

So this is a sermon for Aimee,

to say something of what has happened to her in the water.

This is a sermon for all those here, who are baptised,

to say something of what happened to you, when you went into the water. And this is a sermon for those who are here as the curious,

to say something of what, as a church,

we pray,

will be your baptism.

 

I’ve got six things baptism does to us.

Number one, baptism makes you odd.

Now some of you may be thinking Aimee’s always been odd,

which I find hard to believe,

but if true, baptism makes her odder.

Baptism is not a normal part of life,

especially believers’ baptism.

To be baptised is to be made different,

the Bible says we a ‘strangers and aliens’ (1 Pet 2.11)

we are different because the baptised person now lives

by a different story,

with a different purpose

and a different Lord …

in baptism we identify with the story of Jesus and that story

becomes the story of our life

                  it is a story that tells of invitation and challenge

                           friendship and betrayal

                           suffering and death

                           resurrection and hope

                  the purpose of our life, odd as it may well appear

                  is to tell that story as faithfully as we can

                  because we have declared that Jesus is Lord

                  that as odd as it may sound,

                  Jesus is the key, the point, the centre, the reason,

                               the beginning, the end of everything

Baptism makes you odd.

 

Number two, baptism means you’ve died.

We’ve just witnessed a funeral.

We’ve just heard it read.

It’s in the Bible: to be baptised is to die –

but it is a certain kind of death:

it is to die with Christ.

     And it is a certain kind of funeral:

it is to be buried with Christ. (Rom 6.4)

If that is so, death is no longer

something to be feared

         or something to be denied

         or something that hangs over over us

baptism says we have died

         death is behind us

         life is ahead of us

                  life in Christ*

Aimee has died, but she has also been raised;

         she was lifted out of the water,

         and so she has been lifted out of death

         to a new life.

                  a life in Christ.

Baptism means you’re a “dead person walking.”

 

Number three, baptism makes you royalty.

Now as far as I know

Aimee is not a member of the royal family

         and isn’t married into the royal family

But baptism takes us

from being nobodies to being somebodies (1 Pet. 2.10)

from being plebs –

              those in the ancient world who had

                       no status or standing

                       no name or fame

     to royalty –

              those who are children of God,

              those who are member’s of God’s household,

              those who are given the royal name of Jesus.

Baptism is a coronation

                  we are crowned,

                  we are set apart,

                  we are anointed.

Where the world can conspire

to make us believe we are worthless,

         that we are no good,

baptism reminds us we are made in God’s image.

                  No ifs or buts,

                  just this is who you are.

 

Number four, baptism means you’re found.

         it’s not that we find God,

                  but that he has found us (Luke 19.10)

         it’s not that we choose God

                  but that he has chosen us (John 15.16)        

     it’s not that we love God

              but that he has first loved us (1 John 4.19)

         it’s not that Aimee said ‘I want to be baptised’

                  but that God said ‘Be baptised!’

Baptism gives us a new name ‘I am not’

         I am not the answer to every problem

                      the author of my life

                      the centre of everything

                      God

The gospel says we’re sick

         and baptism says I am not the doctor

                  Jesus is

The gospel says we’re lost

         and baptism says I am not the detective

                  Jesus is

The gospel says we’re stuck

         and baptism says I am not the one who can set free

                  Jesus is

The gospel says we’re broken

         and baptism says I am not the one who can mend

                  Jesus is

Baptism give us a new name ‘I am not, but I know I am’**            

 I am not God, but God knows me:

     God the creator, the saviour, the finisher

     God the author, the rescuer, the healer.

Baptism means we’re found.

 

Number five, baptism marks the beginning of an adventure

you’re not in control of.

         God said to Abraham and Sarah ‘Go.’

Jesus says ‘Follow me.’

After baptism, the question we ask

is not what am I going to do with life?

but, what is God going to do with my life?

One pastor said this to one person he had baptised:

         “By this act of baptism,

we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life.

This isn’t the end.

It’s the beginning of God’s experiment with your life.        

What God will make of you, we know not.

Where God will take you, surprise you, we cannot say.

This we do know and this we say – God is with you.”***

By being baptised, you’ve made yourself open to God’s call,

         you’ve become an actor in a drama,

         that’s been performing for a quite a while

         and unless Christ returns, will continue after you,

         but in which, for the rest of your life,

         you are called to perform the script God is writing for you.

This gospel adventure is not one we live alone

All of us who have baptised are in it together,

         we’re one body

         being led to offer our lives

         as a letter of Christ to the world.

                 

Number six, baptism means you’ve got a new wardrobe.

Now this isn’t to suggest that Aimee is without fashion sense

I’m neither that brave, or, probably more importantly,

in any place to be giving out fashion advice

But baptism, says the Bible,

is where we get clothed with Christ (Gal 3.27).

In the early church, you would have been baptised naked

         and then as you came out of the waters

         you would have been give a new robe

         as a sign and symbol of new life in Christ.

The wardrobe in baptism is not a set of clothes –  

         sorry Aimee we’ve got no T-shirt with Jesus on it for you –

 the wardrobe in baptism is not a set of clothes,

but the practice of compassion, kindness,

                  humility, gentleness and patience

         and most importantly, the practice of love (Col 3.12).

In baptism we take off and leave behind

                  anger, rage, malice, slander,

abusive language, lying

and put on the new wardrobe modelled by Christ.

 

So baptism makes you odd,

means you’ve died,

makes you royalty,

means you’re found,

marks the beginning of a life-long adventure you’re not in control

and gives you a new wardrobe to wear

That is what’s happened today

and at every baptism.

That is what God is about:

calling, naming, saving, creating a people

who know what being human is really about

and who exist to tell the world.

Today, Jesus says, ‘Aimee, welcome to my world’

Indeed God’s invitation is always open to everyone to enter

this to strange new world of being Christian.

May be one of you have heard the summons today.

Amen.

 

* I owe this way of putting things to Kim Fabricus’ sermon ‘Welcome to my world’ http://www.faith-theology.com/2010/07/welcome-to-my-world-baptismal-sermon.html

** I owe this phrase to Louie Giglio, I Am Not, but I Know I Am (2006)

*** Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon, Resident Aliens (1989), pp.52-53.

Looking Through the Cross 2

Week 2 reading Graham Tomlin's Looking Through the Cross and chapter 4 'The Cross and Identity'. Again a large amount of the phrasing below belongs to Tomlin.

Who are you?
sometimes an easy question to answer,
sometimes an unsettling question to answer.
Who are you?
     when moving to a new town or city
     when getting married or becoming a parent
     when changing a job or losing a job or entering retirement
     when a parent, a spouse or a child dies
Who are you?
and where do you fit in the world?
We might look to
            nationality
            race
            religion
            gender
            career
but many of these identity markers
are not as straightforward as they once may have been.
Who are you?
has become more fluid, more open to change
and so we are encouraged to look within,
to discover our true selves,
and so who are you?
becomes associated
            with your viewing habits,
            with your style of fashion,
            with your likes and dislikes.
Who are you? becomes something we are told we can choose.

Look at the cross.
Look at the cross,
for the apostle Paul says,
    ‘I have been crucified with Christ
    and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 
    The life I know live in the body
    I live through the faithfulness of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself up for me.’ (Gal 2.19-20)

For Paul the cross is no longer just a historical event,
distant from him in time and space.
The cross is where he finds himself
in a very profound way partnered with Christ.
The cross of Christ
is not just where Jesus dies, but we die.
    ‘We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ’
says Paul,
    ‘if indeed we share in his sufferings’ (Rom 8.17)
and elsewhere he says
    ‘I want to know Christ …
    to know the power of his resurrection and
    the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in death’ (Phil 3.10-11)
and so he says
    we are ‘to offer our bodies as living sacrifices,
    holy and pleasing to God’ (Rom 12.1).

As we look through the cross
and ask who are we,
we are those who have been baptized,
    baptized into the death of Christ
    and raised with him to new life (Rom 6.4).
We die that we might live.
We are give a new identity:
Paul leaves behind the name Saul (Acts 13.9).

Who are we?
We are those who are in Christ.
We are Christian.
This is our primary identity,
more than a badge we wear,
or a choice we might make,
    it is our name
          our citizenship,
          our family,
          our vocation.
Who are we is not a matter of looking inside,
but a matter of looking to Christ.

We live as those who have left behind one identity
and have been given a new identity
that is baptism.
But whilst baptism is a one time event,
it is also a daily cleaving and embracing,
a continual turning to Christ.
Who are we is in Christ
but who we were is difficult to shake off.
We are caught between two identities –
     between Adam and Christ (Rom 5.12-21)
     old and new (Eph. 4.22-24, Col. 3.9-10)
     sin and grace (Rom 5.1-6.14)
     flesh and Spirit (Gal 5.16-17, 24-25).

We are those who look at the cross
and see we have been clothed with Christ (Gal 3.27),
we have put on a new self (Col 3.10),
one in which we are
     redeemed, forgiven, loved, blessed and called
     to give ourselves for the sake of those God
     placed around us in often small and mundane,
     but occasionally large and painful ways.

6 Books I'm Looking Forward To

Looking Through the Cross

This year's Archbishop of Canterbury of Lent book is Looking Through the Cross by Graham Tomlin.

Using the introduction and chapters one and three, I put together this short summary/reflection on its argument (much of the phrasing is Tomlin's):

We see all the time,
but rarely do we take time to look,
to give someone, or something, our attention;
to gaze more intently,
to take in fully what is before us.
Today, and throughout Lent,
I want to encourage us to look,
to look at the cross;
and to look through the cross.
To look through the cross
is to see it as a window,
a means of framing the world in a new way,
a means of viewing God in a clearer way,
a means of observing ourselves in a different light.
How does life look when seen through the lens of the cross?
What would it mean to see the cross as the interpretative key for looking at the world?

Look at the cross.
Look at the cross
and see it as Rome’s means of public humiliation.
The cross was designed to make an example of those Rome feared
in the most painful way possible.
To wear a cross, to hold a cross
is to wear or hold a means of execution,
a piece of technology designed to kill a human being
slowly and painfully.
The cross of Jesus was not perched on a ‘green hill far away’
but in a desolate place,
visible from the city as a deterrent to others;
a place that reeked of death,
a place of wretchedness, despair and defeat.
Crucifixion was the death reserved for failures,
the beaten,
those who had sought to challenge the power of Rome
and lost.

Look at the cross.
For the apostle Paul says
His message is about the cross.
He preaches Christ crucified.
The foolishness of the cross
he says
is the place where God’s wisdom is decisively revealed.
The Christian gospel,
it’s ‘good news’,
is centred on the crucifixion and humiliation
of Jesus.
Whatever our ideas of what God should be like,
the cross invites us to throw them all away,
and begin again.
If you want to know the wisdom of God:
don’t look at a sunset,
or a mother holding a new-born child;
don’t pay attention to the philosophers,
or the movie-makers,
instead look at Jesus on the cross,
there God and his wisdom is revealed.

If the cross challenges our notions of wisdom
and our ideas of God,
the cross also says something about power.
We are surrounded by images of power:
power in the form
          of those who control economies and armies,
          or those who can demand high salaries
          or those who make laws
          or those who run media organisations,            
                 deciding the messages we hear
We know what power looks like.

Look at the cross.
For the apostle Paul says
His message is about the cross.
He preaches Christ crucified.
The foolishness of the cross
he says
is the place where God’s power is decisively revealed.
It’s hard to imagine a less powerful figure than someone nailed to a cross.
Not only does he have no economic, social or political power,
he cannot even move.
He is utterly powerless to do anything – literally nailed down.
God’s power is revealed at the very point where it seems weakest.
For the cross shows God’s commitment to love where it is not deserved.
Whilst before Pilate, Jesus appears powerless,
but the voluntary submission of God in Christ to a gruesome, violent death
on behalf of a human race that had turned away from him in arrogance,
is an astonishing act of self-giving, of love.
Whilst the world is in love with power,
the cross shows the power in love.
This is how we know what love is,
says the First Letter of John,
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us (3.16).

#food & faith: A Theology of Eating

We spent the last three evenings at church talking food and faith over food. We did a three-course meal over three weeks. Our companion was Norman Wirzba's excellent Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. The different evenings explored eating as a spiritual practice, godly gardening and saying grace.

Our conversations covered a range of topics - eating, cooking, growing, buying - and what it might mean for us as Christians.

Below is some sentences from the book  (which were tweeted @bvbc_southend) that we chewed over.

"eating reminds us that we are finite and mortal creatures dependent on God's many good gifts" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"food is about the relationships that join us to earth, fellow creatures, loved one and guests, and ultimately God" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"people should feast so they do no forget the grace and blessing of the world ... 1/2 #foodandfaith

"people should fast so they do not degrade or hoard the good gifts of God" (Wirzba) 2/2 #foodandfaith

"thoughtful eating reminds us no human fellowship without table, kitchen, garden, ecosystem & source in God" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"because we eat, we are always firmly WITHIN creation and so must learn to live responsibly there" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

to talk about spiritual cultivation of people means that we need gardening exercises like weeding & fertilizing to be applied to us #foodandfaith

"The timing of a gardener's life is set by the garden, not the gardener" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"humility is the realisation that for our living we depend on many others, even the sacrifices of others" (Wirzba) 1/3 #foodandfaith

"As we begin to take stock of the great number and variety of gifts that feed into our being, we also see ... 2/3 #foodandfaith

... how inappropriate and dishonest it is to think we could live alone on terms set by and for us" (Wirzba) 3/3 #foodandfaith

"to say grace over a meal is among the highest & most honest expressions of our humanity" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"too much of the food we eat, when we fully see and understand, lodges in our throats as a cry of offense to its dignity" 1/2 #foodandfaith

"oftentimes we cannot fix damage we have done & so we must weep. We must learn songs of confession & repentance" 2/2 (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

"to eat is to see, smell, touch, and taste God's provisioning care" (Wirzba) #foodandfaith

'He ascended into heaven': A sermon

I believe in Jesus Christ
                     conceived
                     born
                     suffered
                     crucified
                     died
                     buried
                     rose again
                     and now
                     ascended and is seated.
We are near the end of this summary narrative
of Jesus.
It is a story of his descent and ascent.
God in Christ
comes to us in order to bring us to God.
To name the crucified and risen Jesus
as ascended and seated
is to answer the question “where is Jesus now?”
If he’s not dead,
if he’s alive,
where is he?
He is ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father, says the creed.
This line takes us from the past tense into the present:
Jesus is seated,
not was, not will be,
but is
He dwells at God’s right hand.

The words ‘seated at the right hand of the Father’ point to the enthronement of Jesus
He is crowned, he now reigns.
         And so
Paul speaks of Christ being exalted to the highest place (Phil. 2.9)
and “all things being are under his feet” … (Eph. 3.22) 
and Jesus says “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28.19).        
         To say Jesus is seated
                           might speak to us as meaning he is resting,
                                             a sign of inactivity,
                           but in biblical, and judicial, terms
                                    it speaks of authority
                                             a sign of activity.
         To say Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father
                           is to speak of God’s power
Moses sings of God’s right hand delivering Israel from Egypt (Exod. 15.8)
The Psalmist declares the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things (Ps. 118.15-16)
This line, then, is saying in biblical language
         that Jesus – born of Mary
                                    who was crucified
                                    but is risen
                           is the Lord of History,
                           the King of kings, the Lord of Lords,
                           the Ruler of the universe.

That Jesus is ascended
means the resurrection didn’t mean more of the same.
It didn’t mean Jesus’ earthly ministry was going to be an ongoing one.
                  On the cross Jesus says ‘It is finished’ (Jn. 19.30)
                  and in the context of the ascension we see that his mission,
                  his earthly work is complete.*
But that Jesus is ascended
means that humanity has now been united with God.
Jesus returns to the Father, but he doesn’t leave his body behind;
Jesus returns to the Father as the crucified one, in who the scars remain.
And Jesus returns to the Father, not to retire
but to continue his ministry
Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand
as our high priest - to use the description of Hebrews.
         He is one who represents us before God,
he is one who intercedes on our behalf (Heb. 7.24-25, cf. Rom. 8.34)
as the one who is truly human:
and so ‘there is a human ear and a human voice ever present in God’
(John Colwell).

The ascension of Jesus
says Jesus is absent.
We cannot see him,
but at the same time, his absence
is his presence amongst us:
         ‘I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (Matt. 28.20).
Jesus is present to us through the Spirit
He is everywhere accessible through the Spirit.
Jesus is not stuck in the past,
slipping further and further away from us.
Jesus is not stuck in heaven,
unable to reach us.
Jesus is our contemporary:
he is before us, ahead of us and among us.
Jesus ‘was’ and Jesus ‘will be’ and Jesus also ‘is’:
yesterday, today, forever (Hebrews 13.8).

A few weeks ago
as we thought about Jesus crucified
I said that the church is now his body,
                            his hands and feet,
                            his eyes and ears,
                            his heart and voice.
Today I need to clarify that.
Some of you may have thought then, and still think today,
“But the church is so poor, so inadequate, so unlike
the body of Christ”
I need to clarify it, precisely because Jesus
whilst absent is still present.
Jesus doesn’t leave the church to its own devices.
Jesus doesn’t say “its your job now, I’m off.”
The ministry of the church,
its calling to witness to the gospel,
its calling to witness to the kingdom of God,
is still the ministry of Jesus.
Jesus still speaks:
         the reading and preaching of scripture is not a history lesson,
it is not a talk,
it is not someone on their soap-box,
         it is the speaking of the living Jesus through the Spirit into the present.
         It is Jesus speaking.
                  The question for the church is are we listening?
                                                                         
Jesus still acts.
         The gathering around the communion table is not a memorial meal
                                                               to a dead Jesus.
         It is a meeting with the living Jesus through the Spirit in the present.
         It is Jesus feeding us ‘living bread’,
giving us a taste of new creation.
        
         The coming of someone to baptism is not an act of free decision,
                                                      it is not how we join the club.
         It is a response to the call of Christ,
         it is a submission to the command of Christ,
it is a receiving of the grace of Christ,
         today. 
Christ calls, commands and gives through the Spirit.

And Jesus still sends.
            The church is commissioned by Christ:
                 ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you’ says Jesus (John 20.21)
                 ‘Go into all the world’ he says
                 ‘We are Christ’s ambassadors’ says Paul (2 Cor 5.20)
           Just as he sent the first disciples
                             so he still sends us today.
                            And just as those first disciples
                                    received the power of the Spirit
                                and proclaimed the gospel,
                                      with boldness and courage,
                               shared their possessions,
                                     with generosity and grace,
                               healed the sick,
                                    with faith and compassion,
         so Jesus sends us,
                           in the power of the same Spirit,
                           to be his body on earth,
                           with him as the ‘head’ (Col 1.18).              

Jesus is the ascended one.
           He is Lord.
       The end of the story has been announced,
       we’ve been given a glimpse at the last page,        
       the final act has been previewed in Jesus.
            And our role is to witness
                                   to point
                                   to live and die
             in such a way that Christ is worshipped.