SOUL SURMISE

STOCKI SURMISES ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COLD ABUSIVE DOGMA AND WARM TRANSFORMATIONAL TRUTH

While on sabbatical at Regent College, Vancouver a few years ago I sat in on a preaching class with Darrell Johnston; a wonderful expositor of the Scriptures. That day, Darrell was speaking about Paul’s prayer in Philippians 1 (v 9-11). Paul prays that our “LOVE would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that we may be able to discern what is best.” The ability to discern he suggested comes from our loving. In Paul’s prayer in Ephesians Paul again is asking for knowledge, that we would know Christ better
and that we would know the hope, the riches and the power of Christ. ForDarrell the KNOW word is two pronged – to know cognitively and to know by experience. The word here is the same for word used for knowing in the intimacy of marriage. This is a flaw breaker. In recent centuries Christian doctrine the cognitive has usurped the experiential so knowledge can stand in independence to experience. Not so says Darrell.

When it comes to the word RIGHTEOUSNESS in the Philippians
prayer Darrell would suggest that that is not limited to a legal term but is far bigger and more effective. It is again not a cognitive knowledge we receive from Christ’s death. It is, but it is also, and much more importantly for a life of discipleship, an experiential righteousness in all relationships. The re-alignment, the re-configuration of the original design is righteous living.
In Eden relationship was lost with God, self, others and creation. In Christ’s death taking away the sin of the world Christ recreates the original design which is a righteous world with righteous people not only in a declaration but in a living experiential reality.

Those who will claim to know their systematic theology but treat others either in their pastoral care or theological discussion in dismissive and unloving might cognitively gifted but they are also in error. This is neither righteousness nor the effects of the cross of Christ. Truth, no matter how clear, succinct and sound, is not Christianity if it is not lived in a loving relationship to brothers and sisters in Christ, neighbours and enemies. The experiential actually is what leads us into the cognitive not vica versa. Indeed the vica versa leads us into loveless dogma, abusive self righteousness
and the taking of God’s name in vain. From the basis of loving relationships comes Christlike thinking and Christlike living all tangled up in each other.

Recently while at Taylor University for a Conference on Reconciliation I was thinking of how we in N. Ireland treat the other side. My colleague Ed Peterson was sharing how a Catholic Priest had knocked the door of my predecessor at Fitzroy Ken Newell’s door while they were both missionaries in Indonesia. Ed told us how they had spent the first few months trying to out theologize each other but when they left their loveless dogma and started to concentrate on their friendship and their love for Jesus they became firm friends and soul companions. What a good illustration of Darrell Johnston’s exposition of Philippians 1. When we realign our love relationships we grasp the cognitive and it leads us into a Godly righteousness that is so much more than creedal and cerebral but an energetic living transforming power; love!

A TITANIC MEDITATION

Over the past ten days I have become mildly obsessed with Titanic. The 1912 sinking of the unsinkable ship, built across the city of Belfast where I am now typing, seems jam packed full of life and love and drama and tragedy. There are social, emotional, cultural, economic, technological and political intrigues all crammed onto one big floating box and then there are those three hours, from hitting an iceberg to being totally sunk, where these stories intensify into an unbelievable drama. Then floating away from the wreck we follow mysterious tales of heroism, survival, self sacrifice and cowardice. It is little wonder it is still so attention grabbing a century on.

Over 1500 people lost their lives on the Titanic. Reflecting on events of such communal loss, I would suggest that the 9/11 Twin Towers is our generations version, strangely throws up from within the huge loss of life a vibrancy of living that seeps into the soul. As I pondered on Titanic I was drawn to a personal experience I had in the Memorial Garden for the Lockerbie Disaster, when on December 21, 1987 a Pan Am jet heading to the same destination as Titanic, New York, was blown up in the air over the southern part of Scotland; 259 people were killed on the plane and 11 more on the ground. In June 1990 I spent an hour in subdued silence in that Memorial Garden to those killed. It was a sad and soul searching moment. Peering into the reality of death, and the understanding that I too would be eventually a name on a memorial stone of some sort, I was forced to ask myself what my life was going to mean.

As I concluded my Titanic evening in Fitzroy I, perhaps a little lazily but I hope poignantly, asked those gathered who they wanted to be as they looked into the story of the Titanic. I drew three options and that is where it gets lazy. Ten days ago I had never heard of these people and though there are some in this epic story who I now feel I almost know, I don’t. I am making quick judgements that might be mythological. J Bruce Ismay was the Chairman of the White Star Line that owned the Titanic. Somehow he found himself in a life boat and survived. The rest of his life was spent as a recluse in Connemara, west Ireland  vilified as a coward who saved his own skin while watching 1500 men, women and children drown on his ship. Benjamin Guggenheim whose surname lets us know the dynasty he was part of, Museums take his family’s name, decided he would not steal a lifeboat place from a woman or child. He would go down with the ship. This decision has been told by some as a story of heroism. However, Guggenheim and his secretary dressed in their finest suits and sat in their posh First Class chairs smoking the finest cigars and sipping the most expensive brandy. It is a way to go but it kind of ignores the pain and confused torment going on in those around you. It is selfish self sacrifice to sound contradictory; passive heroism as opposed to active. Wallace Hartley on the other hand, the band leader who had gone off duty and retired for the night, called his band together and knowing his fate and his fellow musicians’ fates decided to make a contribution to others. So the band played, something that bands on such ships would at times of heightened activity do to calm the situation. It seems from most accounts and myths coming from the sinking ship that this band or at least Wallace Hartley played until it was time to jump. That three of the musicians’ bodies were found together suggests that the story has much truth. As the doom darkened the hymn Nearer My God To Thee well known to Hartley from his Independent Methodist Chapel was what most people heard and maybe even sang along with. This was Hartley’s vocation and thus the contribution he could make; poignant, powerful and prophetic. Which of these three would we like to be with the rest of our lives, I asked my congregation?

DO NOT BE AFRAID

In Fitzroy (Presbyterian Church in Belfast), where I am minister, we are currently as a congregation reading through the entire New Testament during Lent. The first day's reading led me into a new appreciation of these four words, not only some of the most used in the New Testament but also uttered many times in the Old. The words are often spoken in Scripture at times when something very frightening has happened. It could almost always be followed by a faltering, "are you having a laugh... I'm petrified!" Yet, that is the point. At times when the very earth seems to be shaking we are to trust in a God who promises to be with us.

I wrote this for one of our Communal prayer times accompanying the Readings Project. Many of us have a part of our world shaking... let us hear God's words...

DO NOT BE AFRAID

Do not be afraid

Even when you are struck dumb by God

Even when an angel sits down beside you

Even when you are told you will have a child without ever being with a man

Even when the pitch black night is ripped to shreds by blinding light

Do not be afraid

 

Do not be afraid

When you pass through the waters

When you walk through the fire

Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
Though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Do not be afraid

 

Do not be afraid

When the wages don’t meet the bills

When your children cause you concern

When a loved one is taken suddenly ill

When you stand at the grave of your partner, parent or friend

Do not be afraid

 

Do not be afraid

Because you have found favour with God

Because you are precious and honoured in His sight

Because God is our refuge and strength

Because God will always be with you

Do not be afraid.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT - INSPIRING WORDS (original script)

 

This morning I did the Pause For Thought on Vanessa Feltz' programme on BBC Radio 2... instead of just giving you that script I thought I'd show the original, from other ideas on Soul Surmise on this occassion, which reveals the amount of work done before the script is right for a Radio 2 audience... this one is for UNESCO International Mother Tongue Day.

One of my favourite movies is Invictus, based around Nelson Mandela’s use of 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa’s transformation. I am particularly fascinated by the ways Mandela fueled this social transformation. The title of the movie comes from a Victorian poem that Mandela told Rugby captain Pienaar had got him through the darkest days of his twenty seven years in prison. He wrote it out for the Springboks’ captain as the World Cup progressed. This reveals the power of the written word to strengthen, console and inspire. Another thread working its way through the plot is the power of the song. The new National Anthem, despised by the white Africaaner, becomes a song that is used to unite not only the nation but the rugby team; it becomes another source of unifying inspiration.

Recently as I preach through the New Testament book of Colossians I saw how Paul is used both the written word and the song to inspire followers of Jesus to replace Empire with Christ’s Kingdom. Most would agree that the wonderful description of Jesus in chapter 1 v 15-20 of Colossians was an early Church hymn. Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmat in their provocative book Colossians Remixed; Subverting The Empire see it these verses as subversive poetry. The idea is that as we read and seep our souls in the written word of the Christian story we free ourselves from the thinking of the culture around us and find the alternative imagination of God’s narrative. In Colossians chapter 3 Paul goes on to mention psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and worship therefore becomes more than liturgy to fill a family gathering. Christian meet together on Sunday mornings because like Mandela they recognise the importance of the written word and the song to inspire the transformation of individuals and society.

Christmas Reflection; Grace...

 At the centre of the nativity picture is that baby in the manger. That baby Jesus will be many more things as his life, death, resurrection and eternity continues but here in the straw, and central to everything he will do and be, he is a symbol of grace. This is what Christianity boils down to. This is it at its most naked. Shed the tragedies of
Christian history, the boredom of what you’ve experienced in Church (how was that possible!), the legalism that has oppressed your youth or whatever else has damaged your perspective of God and you are left with this amazing concept of grace. Put most simply the “unmerited favour” of God. This idea that swims against the tide of the first are first is this crazy notion that actually the last can be first because with God there are no tests, no trials and no interviews. You are not loved because of what you are or what you have done but
because of who God is and what he has done. Because God loved us this baby was born and without moving out of the nativity story you can get some good clues as to what he will do as a result of that love.

The invited guests give the game away. When God became human who gets in to have an audience? In our first are first world you might expect the rich, the powerful and the religiously orthodox. Yet, here we find the shepherds. The dirty, smelly, not going to synagogue much shepherds. Look where they are. These shepherds walk right into the presence of the most holy God. The God whose name the Jews cannot even speak. With boldness, confidence and by invitation there they are. Later in Jesus life there will come a moment when the Gospel declares the curtain of the temple was torn in two, when humanity could once more enter the holy of holies because of what this baby would grow up to do. There is a wee hint right here. The shepherds walk through that curtain. Not far behind them are Magi from the east; yet again by grace alone. There is little theological
insight of a Judeo Christian variety among these eastern mystic stargazers. Yet, there they are, bringing gifts for the king that they thought would be in the palace and yet found in the upside nature of his entire ministry, literally homeless!

This Christmas as you come to the centre of the season, see the baby at the centre of the scene and see the grace at the centre of his
mission. May that grace be yours this Christmas. May you be aware of this most amazing of all truth that you are loved as you are, just like the shepherds and Magi before you.

Christmas Reflection; According To... The Rolling Stones

Today’s thought has had a plethora of inspirations. The new Some Girls Remastered Deluxe Edition is on my Christmas list so the Rolling Stones were on my radar. Then my congregation’s biggest Stones fan brought me a heap of the classic albums on vinyl. After that one of my Gospel According To... conspirators, Gary Burnett, suggested we could never do a Gospel According To... The Rolling Stones! I reckon we could but it would be a push and I’m still trawling through a huge catalogue for six songs! Finally, my Youth Director, Christopher Hunter did an inventive Children’s Address in Fitzroy and then at a local Primary School comparing Santa Claus and Jesus. When it came to their contrasts Chris suggested that Santa gives us what we want but Jesus gives us what we need! Hey presto... Christmas According To... The Rolling Stones:

“You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need...”

Chris is onto something and the Stones are singing the refrain. It is not difficult to contrast our western Christmas with the picture of that first nativity. In this manger scene there is no wasteful decadence, no spoiled child or parent. The image is actually suggesting the exact opposite; a God who emptied himself of the safety and security of heaven for germs, cold and death squads on the prowl. The gift that is centre stage wasn’t exactly prayed for. Mary didn’t ask for the scandal and the King on the throne had no desire to be usurped, even if it is God’s chosen one! Did humanity want a revolutionary baby who would challenge our selfish self indulgence and model a way of radical selfless and sacrificial service. No, we didn’t get what we wanted but we did get what we needed; a Redeemer, a Saviour, a Way to live.

It reminds me of the words of Kendall Payne too:

“May your blessings be many but not what you hoped they'd be”

Mick and Keef got it; the difference between Santa and Jesus!

Christmas Reflection: Confessing 2000 Years Of Christianity's Sins

At a Community Carol Service in Fitzroy last week I apologised to the non believers, who had gathered because of the sentiments of the season, for 2000 years worth of mistakes by Christians. I was primarily thinking of the Crusades, Cromwell’s murderous campaigns in Ireland and more recently American satellite evangelists but I was also thinking of the individual errors that we do and the hurts we cause that keep us humble and never hypocrites; those who confess they are forever in need of forgiveness can never really be hypocrites! I believe that it is so important for us as Christians to confess what has been done in Christ’s name. As I hear the diatribes of the evangelical atheists, getting so much air time these days, I really believe that they are raging against so much bad stuff that has been done in the name of Christianity.

As we approach Christmas and reflect on the Biblical texts we find the religious getting it violently wrong right there in the middle of it. It is something God dealt with right through the Old Testament and that Jesus would battle with right through his life. Even in the innocent early days of the Church Paul was writing letters to error strewn fledgling Christian communities. I was asked once, when I went to preach somewhere, to go easy on the Church. I find that neither Biblical, helpful for the Church nor useful for our missional relationships outside the Church.

I loved the part in Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz book, soon to be movie, where he set up a Confessional on his University campus and then when drunken students came in to confess their sins the Christians confessed to them! So subversive! So honest, authentic and vulnerable. Grace interrupted how it was perceived. And, we are back to that nativity scene again. The way that God is reaching people in becoming a baby born in straw and quickly dodging death squads is a God making himself vulnerable. Our arrogance and pride have been sins that have pushed the world away. Some of my fellow believers might have been uneasy about my admission to non Church goers at that Carol Service but I believe that Confession is good for the soul, keeps us humble and is intrinsically Biblical. It might also just draw prostitutes, lepers and tax-collectors into our friendship circles!

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION - Mary; On The Faultline Between Earth and Heaven

In the monthly Fitzroy Soul Space meditative service last Sunday evening Janet Morris allowed us time to listen to the words of Luke 1 where an angel appears to tell Mary that she is to be pregnant with God’s Son and where then she visits her cousin Elizabeth also miraculously with child. In the intentionality of my listening, as I allowed the words of angel, teenage mother to be and her cousin to loop round in my head, heart and soul I found myself unsettled on the fault line between earth’s expectations and the strange and mysterious ways of heaven. Mary lived the rest of her life being misunderstood.  The neighbourhood’s most loved girl becomes the biggest scandal and disappointment. Pregnancy outside marriage is not the respectable way but in adding to a million mysteries that is the way God chose. Mary took the rumour and gossip and burdened the defamation of her character; in the name of God and for our salvation. Elizabeth’s words jump out, transcending the human cost to Mary with her heavenly accolade; “Blessed are you among women.”

CURSED (BLESSED AMONG WOMEN)

Cursed for the life that’s befallen you

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed for what neighbours are calling you

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed that no one will believes in you

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed that the holy men grieve for you

Mary, Blessed among women.

 

Blessed for giving back to God

All that God had given you

Blessed that you no matter what

Did all that he asked you to

Blessed by ending up in doing

What you were born to do

Blessed for giving back to God

All that God had given you

 

Cursed by what your future serves

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed for always living on nerves

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed that you would suffer loss

Mary, Blessed among women

Cursed by the shadow of that cross

Mary, Blessed among women.

 

Blessed for giving back to God

All that God had given you

Blessed that you no matter what

Did all that he asked you to

Blessed by ending up doing

What you were born to do

Blessed for giving back to God

All that God had given you.

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: HEAVENLY METEORITE HURTLING

When the God of all the universe landed wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying softly on a bed of animal straw we should not be fooled by the gentleness of his arrival. In that moment the world shuddered. It was as if the God who filled the entire Universe squeezed his vastness into a tiny little piece of semtax explosive and hurtled from the far end of the Universe like a meteorite and crashed into planet earth knocking it from the way things were to a hopefulness of the new way that it could be. Here, in the nativity we see this absurd almost crazy revolution; King of the Universe in some backstreet manger; the humility of God becoming a servant of his creation; a God of justice loving and welcoming in those whom he was at enmity with; the blessedness of the poor. The King of the day felt the tremor and sent his death squads to kill it at birth but on and on down through history this semtax thud has drawn people to turn the way things are on their heads and attempt to interrupt the status quo of the first being first with a strange concept called grace where no matter who we are or what we are done we are like the shepherds and Magi, welcomed, forgiven, redeemed, adopted, loved.

Heavenly meteorite hurtling

Unseen but deeply felt

If never fully realised

By those who’ve never knelt

The tremors they ripple across all time

The poets at last can find their rhyme

Heavenly meteorite hurtling.

 

Heavenly meteorite hurtling

As usual but all amiss

History  stripped of how it was

To how from now on it is

The radical revolution all a shudder

Old way surrendering to this new other

Heavenly meteorite hurtling

 

Heavenly meteorite hurtling

Unnoticed but all askew

Thrones thrown out of kilter

The meek inherit what’s new

The repercussions spin out forever

Imaginers threading peace back together

Heavenly meteorite hurtling.

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION - HEROD; DID HE KNOW TOO MUCH!

Lying below the surface of the Magi visit to Jesus is a story that doesn’t get much exposure but which is a fascinating one none the less. While the earthy marginalised shepherds and the eastern stargazing gentiles dander right into the presence of God incarnate those who have the Scriptures have a downright frightening response. When the Magi arrive at the palace, expecting to find the new King there rather than where they will find him in a manger of animal straw, Herod is spooked and Matthew says, “all of Jerusalem with him.”

Herod gathered all the religious leaders and they opened the Scripture to find the meaning of all these nativity stories. In Scripture they found the verses that explained what the Magi were talking about. So, this king and this group of religious leaders had the opportunity to tell their people that they had discovered the long awaited Messiah. Yet, when the Magi failed to tell Herod where the baby was Herod ordered all the baby boys of two and under to be murdered. Herod, unlike the shepherds or the Magi, had the truth and yet tried to kill God’s son and the Kingdom he was born to bring.

Why? Herod’s problem was not that he didn’t have the truth. Herod had too much truth. He knew that this baby was going to change everything. If this baby really was King of the Jews his time was up. His self-indulgent power and wealth was going to be threatened. A new way to live had been born and it was going to cost him. The best thing to do would be to kill off this revolution now.

And what of us? I am one of that religious group who are asked to open the Scripture and find meaning to this baby’s birth. We are looking forward to celebrating the baby’s birth, 2011 years or so after Herod’s death squads hit Bethlehem. We wouldn’t kill that baby but do we murder the revolutionary Kingdom that he brought? Do we, like Herod, see the cost and find ways to avoid worshipping head on.

Is that why Walter Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel was dismissed for supposedly theological reasons? Was the cost of ministering in Hell’s Kitchen and dealing with social sin rather than middle class individual petty habits too costly? Is that how we ignored the Scriptural mandate for social justice for so long that John Stott called it the greatest evangelical heresy of the Twentieth Century?

Or is that why, while reading more Scripture and going to more prayer meetings than any other time in history, the Church in Northern Ireland did so little to bring reconciliation to a divided society during the Troubles. We dismissed chunks of the Scriptures particularly Luke 6 as ecumenical liberalism instead of the Christ led revolution of a shalom centred Kingdom! The cost in our own communities of fraternising with “enemies” was too much.

And as we come into a time of recession do we know too much. Didn’t that baby Jesus tell us that we couldn’t serve God and money. As our political leaders seem to be more focused on restoring the wealth generating stocks and shares portfolios of the bankers and the rich instead of how to help those who have become the innocent victims of profit making greed should we not scream revolution. It might prove too costly and be dismissed as left wing communism. Maybe we’ll not kill the baby but will we kill the revolution? Or will we become God’s word made flesh the way the baby was!