SOUL SURMISE

GOD OF JUDGEMENT OR GOD OF LOVE; A SURMISE ON 40 YEARS OF FOLLOWING JESUS

I preached on Sunday on the 40th Anniversary of the night that I made a leap of faith, deciding not only that God existed but that he was interested in me. As soon as I
that God existed it was a no brainer to commit to connecting. Imagine knowing God exists and not being on God’s side or not having God on yours!

I was 17 at the time and for a few years The Beatles had been my gurus, shaping my world view. I have often said that The Beatles led me to Jesus. They asked the questions that I found the answers to in Jesus.

Indeed, for this sermon I was able to compare John, Paul, George and Ringo with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Indeed the two Johns had a lot in common. Both where convinced that love could change the world!

John Lennon sang, “All you need is love.”

The apostle John suggest that Jesus was convinced about the power of love too. Among his most popular verses:

 

John 3:16 

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.

 

1 John 3: 1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

 

1 John 4:16

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

 

The context for the main verse in todays’ sermon are fascinating. Jesus is sharing last thoughts and prayers with his disciples before he dies. When he gives them a new commandment to love one another we shouldn’t be surprised that it comes after his washing of the disciples feet.

BUT… we maybe should be shocked that it comes after he has declared Judas as his betrayer and Judas has just left to do that dirty deed. In the emotional  intensity of these moments you could understand Jesus talking about vengeance and judgement but instead this is the time he says:

 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13: 34 & 35)

 

It gives us a clue to the kind of love Jesus is commanding. This is not a be nice to people kind of love. This is love in the midst of betrayal. This is loving those who do you harm. It is upside down love, sacrificial love, servanthood love.

It is the kind of love that proclaims the Gospel. It does that better than words. It is a love that will shock, intrigue and draw people into another way to live, not like the world but with the power of God’s Holy Spirit connecting neighbours and enemies. Indeed it has such force that neighbours and enemies will blur together!

What I have never understood in my 40 years following Jesus is how can Christians living by this new commandment of Jesus be so unloving, exclusive and judgemental. So many people are damaged by people claiming to live by this command to love. Ot at least claiming to follow the Jesus who said it.

I have surmised for sometime that the key to the difference between a judgemental Christianity and a Divine loving practice of a Jesus follower is whether your premier belief is that God is Judge or God is love.

When we make God first and foremost a Judge and concentrate on his justice we will be cold, harsh, excluders, hurting already and tender and damaged souls. God is love as our most passionate mantra and we will look at people’s situations and flood them with grace, this God breathed unmerited favour. We will be more compassionate, patient and forgiving. We will be more Jesus than the Pharisees.

40 years ago I got blessed. It was Jesus that I connected with that May evening. It wasn’t the gigantic structural religion of Christianity. Oh that structure has encrusted me down the years but I have always sought to avoid the human made darkness of the world and the human made light of the Church to keep me as focused on the Jesus of the Gospels as my fallen heart, mind and soul can find.

God is love. He’s left a new commandment. The world will decide on Jesus on how his followers live the Commandment! How are we doing?

CITY TIL I DIE (50 YEARS OF SUPPORTING MANCHESTER CITY)

50 years ago

In the school playground

In the blink of an eye

Without much thought

Or was there

Had it been frog-spawning

In the pond of Uncle Jimmy’s constant naming

Of Bell and Lee and Summerbee

Becoming tadpoles in the peer pressure 

Of Derek Cunningham wearing the kit

Sky blue and white, claret trim on the socks

To the jumping frog 

Of changing sides in the lunchtime game

From United to City

To even up the teams

Stephen Martin, I see your sneaky face

 

There was no turning back

I became City 'til I die

And soon we were dying

It wasn’t fun for a while

If a while can be 35 years

Excruciatingly painful actually

For decades I wanted to find Derek Cunnigham

And tell him that I resented him

That he ruined my life!

 

But today Derek Cunningham

I could kiss you

Thank you

Today we won the FA Cup

To clinch The Double

That was a holy grail

But not just The Double

The Domestic Treble

That no one ever thought about

Dreamed about

Or have ever won before

For my 50 year anniversary

We won everything!

 

There will be begrudgers

They will talk about the money

And I wish this could be done without the money

But it’s not 50 years ago

So if you want to play 

Like that

Fast 

Furious 

Freewheeling

Perfect footballing poetry

Then this is the way.

 

So, 50 years

Of low lights

And even darker

(Macclesfield away in the League!)

There have at last been highlights

But the years and years of deepest gloom

Have made these bright days brighter

All the more joyous

Like the Promised Land after wandering in the wilderness.

 

It would all have been worth it 

For just that one moment

“Agueroooooooo…”

As The Sawdoctors songs goes

“To win just once

That would be enough”

The rest is showing off

Constant laps of honour

Still, I will always remind myself

Where I was for that Sergio injury time winner

That snatched the title from Sir Alex’s pesky grasp

I had lost faith, given up and left

To face my hurt 

In the garden

Missing the very greatest moment of the 50 years.

 

That moment about sums up these 50 years

But here I am

In my City shirt and tracksuit bottoms

And there is the Premiership trophy

With The FA Cup

And the League Cup

All in City’s trophy cabinet.

Blue Moon

Wonderwall

Na na na, City!

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 19.5.19

Tomorrow morning (11am) in Fitzroy, I am excited to be preaching on the 40th anniversary of my decision to follow this Jesus of Nazareth. On the day after my wedding anniversary I will be preaching on love! The Lectionary reading is Jesus New Commandment. How is it new and in the light of Jesus love what does authentic love look like. It is a challenging love, a courageous love, a sacrificial love, a world transforming love. All wrapped up in vibrant worship from our youngest Sunday band.

In the evening (7pm) we are excited to be helping Jim Deeds and Brendan McManus launch their new book Deeper In The Mess; Praying Through Tough Times. It's a spiritual gem of a resource to help us indeed face tough times and find God in our deepest mess. As well as reflections, poems and songs, including a guest appearance by Beki Hemingway, I will be interviewing the boys about their faith and writing. Come prepared to buy... 

LOVE IS MORE THAN THIS HAPPY DAY (ON OUR WEDDING DAY)

I wrote this for our wedding day - May 18, 1996. I have used the title lines a lot ever since.  I stand by it is a mission statement for our love. 

 

I've got a circle of gold on my finger

It speaks of promises and trust

Seems love doesn't last too long these days

This ring reminds me that our love must

And if everything burns down around us

And if everyone is falling apart

The vows we made and the prayers we prayed

Should give resilience to our fragile hearts

So would you come and spend some time with me

Would you make that time forever

Would you lift me when they pull me down

And rebuke me when I'm not clever

Would you be my partner in every waltz

My companion down through the mystery

Would you be my hope through headline news

My touch of grace in times of misery

Would you let me come and dry your tears

Let me be there to share your sorrow

Love is more than this happy day

It's the hard work of tomorrow

So come away on our adventure

Be the soul mate by my side

Tapping the fulness of us as one

As these promises are fearfully applied.

 

 

ANDY ROWEN'S STORY

photo: Tim Neufeld

 

May 17. 1974. 45 years ago today.

A few years ago everyone was intrigued at the meeting Janice and I had with Bono. Most of all people wanted to know what we talked about. Well, we did not have a lot of time but we spent the entire time talking about May 17, 1974 and the consequences.

On that afternoon loyalist paramilitaries, the UVF, detonated three car bombs in Dublin and one later in Monaghan town. 33 people were killed and 300 received hospital treatment.

Why Bono and I should be interested in an event from decades ago was that a mutual friend Andy Rowen was caught up in the first bomb that exploded on Parnell Street, while he was helping his father deliver goods to shops, in his dad’s little van. The doors were blown off the van.

In those few moments with Bono, we discussed how Andy’s life was psychologically torn apart in that bomb and how thirty five years later God redeemed through an old U2 lyric.

Andy Rowen is one of that incredible family who lived across the road from Bono when he was growing up. Bono writes about the Rowen family at No. 5 Cedarwood Road in the sleeve notes of the Songs Of Innocence album. He calls them an “Old Testament tribe.” They are Old Testament in size (10 children meant that like the tribes there were 12 in the house!), as well as their deep roots of faith and the drama of their lives. 

Bono is so right. I have had the privilege of getting to know some of this family through a Scripture Union camp that I spoke at in Avoca, Co Wicklow. One of the Rowen sisters organised the camp, with her husband, and three generations of Rowens attended. I quickly connected with Jonny and then Peter who you might know from the cover of Boy and War.

Andy, I met later, though I believe I spent an evening with him and Australian biker preacher John Smith, back around 1994.

Anyway, Andy was 11 that May afternoon in 1974 and found himself following his father onto the street in the immediate aftermath of the first bomb and seeing all kinds of horrific injuries and dead bodies. There was no post trauma counselling in 1974 and eventually Andy filled the pain with drugs. U2’s song Bad from the 1984 Unforgettable Fire album was written about Andy.

Andy’s life got a more detailed lyric in Raised By Wolves on the Songs Of Innocence record that trawled U2’s youth for inspiration. You can see how Andy’s experience would have been a big story among the young teenagers on Cedarwood Road and how it would have jumped out as a major influence on all of their lives. 

 

Raised By Wolves is a graphic account of Andy’s experience:

 

Face down on a broken street

There’s a man in the corner

In a pool of misery

I’m in white van

As a red sea covers the ground

 

Metal crash

I can’t tell what it is

But I take a look

And now I’m sorry I did

5:30 on a Friday night

Thirty three good people cut down

 

In June 2018 at the U2 Conference being held in Belfast I got the privilege to interview Andy about that day and the decades since. Andy brought a piece of the bomb wreckage with him. He has carried it with him all of his life. 

 

“That bomb took a piece of me, so I was going to take a piece of it.”

photo: Andy Rowen

 

Andy went on to tell us that almost forty years after the bombs he finally sought help with his addictions. He found himself in Cleveland ready to spend six months in a rehabilitation centre. Somehow, the day before he went in, he was allowed a tour of Cleveland which ended at the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame.

As he was leaving the Museum he suddenly noticed, how could he have missed it, a U2 exhibition. U2’s 360 Tour was in America that summer. He was enjoying the memorabilia when he noticed a glass case and walked across to take a look.

As he looked down into the case, there was a scrawled lyric on a faded page:

 

If you twist and turn away

If you tear yourself in two again

If I could, yes I would

If I could, I would

Let it go

Surrender

Dislocate

 

Andy was astounded. These words were written about him. They were Bono’s cry of longing to see his addicted friend healed. Here was Andy almost thirty years after the words were written on that page, on the threshold of that healing.

As Andy’s head started asking where they got these lyrics and how they had survived all of these years, something was happening in his soul. As Andy has shared with me, it was as if Jesus was on his shoulder, peering into this glass case with him, whispering, “You see Andy, I have been with you all along. I never left you” 

Andy describes it as a Prodigal Son moment. He did his six months and the day he came out clean for the first time in so long he got an invite to Pittsburgh to see U2. That night Bono sends out Bad to Andy. Bono also calls him Guck Pants in the spoken word later in the song. Guck Pants Delaney was Andy’s Lipton Village name! I particularly love Bono's throwaway, "I've had it with the walk on the wild side!" Lovely touch!

Andy’s life has been redeemed. The Jesus on his shoulder at the Cleveland Rock N Roll Museum has journeyed with him. He is a beautiful human being. A joy to be with. A man thankful for a new beginning. It is an amazing story that has many more layers than I wish to share here because I believe it Andy’s to share and one day you’ll read the book or see the film. 

What I most love about the story is this. When Bono’s mother passed away so suddenly leaving a young 14 year old disorientated, Robert and Winnie Rowen took him in, gave him a place and fed him. As Bono put it on those Songs Of Innocence sleeve notes “In their company I saw some great preachers who opened up these scary black bibles and made the word of God dance for them, and us.” 

Robert and Winnie were the gateway for Bono’s salvation in more ways than one. Yet, forty years later that wee boy that they took in would write the lyric that would somehow find its way into a glass case in Ohio and be the gateway to the salvation of their very own son. 

Bono, by the way, has no idea either where they got that lyric. He told me that, during our short chat about Andy. Mysterious ways. Who sang that! 

Today. May 17. I stop and remember those who were killed in those bombs 45 years ago. Most of all I remember Andy. Rowen. One of the blessed. Who more than survived but, though it took decades, is thriving in the unmerited lavish ridiculous often times mysterious love of God.