SOUL SURMISE

LIVE MUCH IN THE SMILES OF GOD

“Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams.”

 

In the mid 80s as a student at Union Theological College I had a few heroes. Bono had already become a musical companion. Bob Geldof had also grabbed my imagination with Band Aid and Live Aid and his memoir Is That It? 

There was somebody else. A little left field. A Scottish preacher called Robert Murray McCheyne caught my attention. He was a young man on fire for God. He passed away at 29 years of age. He was a writer and orator who was so easily quotable. 

Recently I was researching for Fitzroy’s 150th anniversary of being in our current building. At the time the church moved from Alfred Street to Fitzroy Avenue the minister was Rev George Shaw. 

What a thrill to discover that Shaw had been in correspondence was Robert Murray McCheyne. McCheyne actually wrote to the minister of Fitzroy, one of my predecessors. Not only that but I have since discovered that the quotation at the top of the blog was written to George and has been used by a plethora of blog sites. 

It is quite a quotation: -

For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely.

What great advice. Often times we look at ourselves we can often feel low, unworthy and helpless. McCheyne tells us to look at Jesus. He loves us, reminds us that we are precious, offers us a new start and promised the Holy Spirit is our companion and counsellor. 

McCheyne goes on to tell us about this Jesus:

“He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace and all for sinners, even the chief!”

Here is the God beyond us. Majestic. Holy. Yet, at the same time, he is meek and full of grace. This is an incredible God. This is a God who reigns in glory but comes down to see us and is born a baby and laid in a manger. He grows up to wash his disciples feet and become the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

As almost a benediction McCheyne then adds:

Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams.”

Wow! It’s like a pop song chorus. Imagine living in the smile of God. It’s grace filled again. God’s welcome and warmth. God smiling over us. Like a summers day we should lie back and bask in the beams of a majestic yet humble God who loves us lavishly, beyond words. Lord, shine on me!

ROME AS BOOK ENDS OF THE GOSPEL - MY REVELATION

Rome is a 360 degree bombardment of visual stimuli. In the morning Janice and I came out of our cottage at the Irish College and in front of us were statues on the roof of the St. John Lateran Basilica. If we turned down the hill towards an abundance restaurants there was the Colosseum at its end. The Colosseum for goodness sake.

There are seven big Basilicas. It’s enough for any city. Then you walk down a street, a seeming side street and there is another huge church or four amazing statutes on each corner of a cross roads or the Spanish steps or the Trevi Fountain or… There are buildings that no one is spending any attention too that would grace any other city in the world!

After seeing all that needed to be seen, Janice and I walked back across the city to the Irish College on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We found ourselves on the Via die Fori Imperiali with live music pumping out and crowds mingling. There were fascinating ruins each side of us and as we walked I turned and there was a statue of Caesar Augustus. 

I was taken aback… but of course. Augustus would have called for that census that sent Jospeh and Mary scuttling off to Bethlehem from here in Rome. Up until this moment, for me Rome as a city is only reached at the end of the Acts of the Apostles. Yet, Luke who wrote Acts, has us in Rome right at the outset of his Gospel account. He bookends his two books in Rome. I am reading them from a different perspective.

Immediately Rome became a keeper. This wasn’t just a fascinating city of Basilicas, paintings and sculptures for Catholics. For us to get a handle on Jesus life in Bethlehem, we need to see him in the shadow of Rome. Rome is maybe the ideal place to get a handle on the social and political circumstances that the church was born in. I am home considering how to put a potent trip together between Luke's bookends.

I am thinking of the obvious like The Colosseum that gives clues to the bloody violence. I am then also thinking of the little apartments as they have found on the bottom level of the San Clemente Basilica or the Appian Way the ancient road on which Paul walked into Rome in chains.

As I stood in front of the altar at St Paul’s Outside the Walls Basilica, looking at the kind of chains that Paul would have worn on that Appian way I was challenged. I suddenly realised that most of us wonder what we might have to do to have to face persecution but that Paul chose persecution first. He was prepared become a prisoner of a brutal military regime in order to take the Gsoepl Of Jesus to Rome. Respect!

GRATEFUL AND CHALLENGED OUT ON THE APPIAN WAY (ROME)

Today we took a bus out from the centre of Rome to the Catacombs of San Sebastián and then walked a little further out the Appian Way.

The Catacombs are a fascinating trip. The early Christians, to protect their family’s bodies after death, buried them in quarries outside the city walls. Hundreds of years later they were excavated and the bones of the burying places opened were re-buried elsewhere in Rome. 

Our guide today told us that the stories of the Christians hiding in the catacombs were not true. They were only burial grounds. As someone who brought his daughters up watching Story Keepers this was disappointing but understandable.

I guess today as we walked the narrow corridors well under the ground I was pondering these early Christians. These were the guys in those first few centuries who took the persecution and held courageously to the faith. 

In the claustrophobia as I walked past where bodes still lay and seeing the places others once were I was grateful. Grateful that through their bravery I was able to find Jesus nearly 2000 years after they had met to worship pretty much in secret to escape a violent Empire.

I was just as grateful walking on the Appian Way, just down from the catacombs. This is the road that Paul would have led along in chains, walking into Rome for the first time. Today it has walkers on afternoon strolls and it might remind you a little of the Camino. There were cyclists too.

Paul’s walk along it was a different kind of thing altogether. His was no Saturday dander in the trees. He was on a mission at whatever the cost. Realising he could get to Rome best as a prisoner he withstood a few things including a recent shipwreck off Malta, in order to get to Rome.

Standing on that Appian Way with the green grass and the trees, little glimpses of it could have been the 1st Century. Then these cobble stones. Then an imagining of a man in chains, struggling with tiredness and sore feet, surrounded by Roman soldiers on horses throwing out oppressive power. People by the side of the road abusing him and those other prisoners he was sharing his fate with.

Again I became thankful. Here was an apostle who saw the strategic need to take Jesus to the centre of the Empire where if he could share the Good News Of Jesus he might spread the name of Jesus and The Way out from here across the world… to me, 1900 years later. 

Following Paul’s footsteps, reminded me of the footsteps of the one who carried the cross. This is who Paul followed and we dare to claim that we do too. Really? 

Then Jesus said to his disciples:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Paul wrote to the Philippians, most possibly from Rome:

As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard[b] and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

Grateful and very challenged. That was my day out on the Appian Way. 

PRAY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO BURY THEIR CHILD

In Peter's Basilica in Rome today we started with my favourite pondering - The Pieta. It wasn't actually the real thing. It was a replica as they are working on the real one.

My friend, Rab, had spoken to me about it a few years ago. Rab would describe himself as “relatively agnostic but interested in many aspects across religions” so when he shared with me how taken he was with the Pieta I took note and cannot thank him enough.

His wife was investigating the Basilica and Rab kind of drifted over and caught sight of the Pieta. It is the work of Michelangelo. A beautiful 15th century sculpture in marble, the Pieta depicts Mary holding her dead son, Jesus, in her arms. It moved Rab to tears. 

As I have written before the theologically squeamish might shout, “It is not in the Bible.” No, it is not. That does not mean that between the cross where Mary stood watching her son die and the tomb he was laid in that she didn’t cradle his body.

However, fact is not the point. This is not theological. This is artistic. Whatever the facts, Mary did watch her soon die. She went through her valley of the shadow. She experienced that trauma. Michelangelo expresses that experience of Mary’s; beautifully, poignantly, painfully.

One friend, who lost a young daughter, once said to me that at weddings I should pray that the couple never have to bury their child.  The grief never leaves.  Other  friends  who experienced the loss of a son said that they could have held him forever. Michelangelo captured this heartache. It is so poignant that it drives you to tears and prayer.

For me it also highlights the reality of Jesus death. People, especially his mother had to go through those days. This humble God was fully human and the feeling around his death were not just theological. Indeed at the time they were simply harrowing.  The love and sorrow that mingled around Christ's cross are made vividly alive in The Pieta. There is something of the Gospel story right here that understands our humanity and our brokenness. 

DON'T SELF SAVE...

If Roman Basilicas were soccer teams then San Clemente would be my team. It is not as glamorous as all the others but is much more fascinating.

The reason is that about 150 years ago they discovered other levels under the floor. Excavation has meant that on the bottom floor we are pretty much in the Rome that the apostle Paul walked around. 

It is a balance of its history and art that has grabbed my attention. As I walked around it my mind was racing with thoughts of Paul, theology, church history and more importantly the contextualisation of all of that. There will not doubt be more blogs.

For this blog though I want to bring us to an insight that Fr Eddie O’Donnell shared with Janice the last time we were in Rome. I was distracted by a phone call home about my father’s health so missed the visit to San Clemente.

Janice was beside Fr. Eddie as they stood in front of a painting known as the harrowing of hell from Ephesians 3 where Jesus descends into hell. Jesus is pictured dragging Adam out of hell, with a demon at Adams heal, surely a reflection on Genesis 3.

Fr. Eddie asked Janice to notice where Jesus was holding Adam. He was not holding his hand. He was grabbing his wrist. Fr Eddie pointed out that if you are holding hands you can help pull yourself up. Holding the wrist showed how our salvation is all about Jesus. Christ alone.

When I preached recently on John Mark Comer’s book Practicing The Way I quoted Comer writing “Our job isn’t to self save, it’s to surrender”. 

I love that. Not holding Jesus hand but raising our hands in surrender. 

We cannot save ourselves BUT we need to surrender to God for God to work his wonders in the fruit and gifts of the Spirit in our lives. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, our salvation is God’s work and we are his workmanship.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

“Our job isn’t to self save, it’s to surrender”

JESUS' YES FACE AGAINST THE PHARISEES NO FACES

In his book Grace Awakening, Charles Swindoll has another way of looking at the legalists who as religious leaders grind us down with guilt and long lists of dos and don’ts.

“Their God is too small, their world is too rigid, and therefore their faces shout “NO”!”

No faces. We know who they are. They discourage us. They burden us. They make us feel guilty. 

The Pharisees had NO faces.

Jesus, on the other hand, had a YES face. 

I had never seen it, in all the times I have preached it. John’s Prologue to his account of Jesus life -  “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

I have always used this as a theological text to incarnation. Yet Swindoll opened it afresh to be. “Grace and truth” is also the posture that Jesus carries into his ministry.

Always a YES face. At that wedding in Cana. Welcoming Nicodemus at night. Inviting a Samaritan woman in the heat of day into conversation. Jesus was drawing people to him with his YES face.

I know the story of the Parable Son was fiction but surely we can read into it that the Father had such a YES face that the Prodigal felt that he could go home. When he stepped onto the lane back to the farm that YES face was running down the road to throw his arms around him.  

Be assured that by his grace through faith that it is a YES face that looks at you today…

 

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE SERMON HERE

KILLERS OF GRACE... ON THE LOOSE!

“There are killers on the loose today. The problem is that you can’t tell by looking. 

They don’t wear little buttons that give away their identity, nor do they carry signs warning everybody to stay away. 

On the contrary, a lot of them carry Bibles and appear to be clean-living, nice-looking, law-abiding citizens. 

Most of them spend a lot of time in churches, some in places of religious leadership. 

Many are so respected in the community, their neighbours would never guess they are living next door to killers. 

They kill freedom, spontaneity, and creativity; they kill joy as well as productivity. 

They kill with their words and their pens and their looks. 

They kill with their attitudes far more often than with their behaviour.”

 

The opening words of Charles Swindoll’s classic book, Grace Awakening. I read these words in 1990 and it literally changed my life. North Antrim where I am from is fertile for Grace Killers.

Preachers were focused on the fact that the human soul is saved by grace not be works as Paul set out in Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 - “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It was after the saving by grace that the error or heresy crept in. For too many of us we were taught that it was by God’s gift that we were saved BUT then it seemed that we were thrown a weighty burden of things that humans had to do to keep that salvation. 

Paul’s next sentence in Ephesians 2 suggests that the work to gain salvation is God’s and the work after we are saved - For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Here we see that post salvation it is still God working. Still grace.

Sadly that was not how it was in reality. You couldn’t go to pubs or the cinema. A glass of wine was drinking the devil’s vomit! It was best that you didn't talk to Catholics. If you didn’t reading the Bible in the morning the day could be dangerous. It was all about ticking what we should and should not do.

It was very legalistic like the Pharisees. They were the Killers of Jesus day, oppressing the people with laws upon the laws. Jesus was setting people free, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath”, being a key to his new dispensation.

The Killers give us a wrong view of God. He becomes an Oger to be afraid of rather than a father of love waiting to embrace us as in the story of the Prodigal Son. 

The Killers give us a wrong view of God’s love. They make it conditional. We are at the mercy of a meritocracy. 

The Killers finally give us a wrong view of ourselves. Our relationship with God is always precarious. Dependant on us. That heresy is back. It is as though God sits with a rubber to erase us from the Lamb’s Book Of Life if we step out of line.

Killers…

 

Listen To the Entire Sermon Here

THE GOD OF THE MANGER, THE DONKEY, THE TOWEL AND THE CROSS

READ: Matthew 20:20-28

All world leaders come to power. It might be by a majority vote, or it might be hereditary or it might be by military force but it is called coming to power. The power comes with some might. Most of our 6 o’clock news bulletins are about power struggles. It is how the world rolls.

It is these ways of power that were in James and John’s mother thinking of when she approached Jesus to get her boys promotion. Could they sit with Jesus when he came to power. The other disciples were not pleased at their attempt to get one over on them.

Then Jesus explains, yet again, that that is not the way he rolls. His ways are not at all like the ways of the world that we are used to. This mother and the disciples are thinking about the power of Rome, ruling over them in brutal force or even the religious leaders oppressing the ordinary Jewish people.

Jesus talks revolution. But it has a very different power source. Jesus Kingdom was going to be nothing like the world they were used to. His Empire was going to be upside down. 

Jesus is God and not just a King but the King of Kings. Not just a Lord but the Lord of Lords. However he who has every right to rule in power and might does it differently. To rule in Jesus kingdom is to serve others. Power is servanthood. By humility. By grace, mercy and love.

In Jesus Kingdom the last are first and the first are last. In Jesus Kingdom we do unto others as we would have them do to us.

I have a mantra in Fitzroy that we are the people of the manger, the donkey and the cross. But as I prepared these First Thoughts I have added another -  foot washing.

Here is this new way to live. God was not born in a palace of riches. But in a stable. When Jesus came into Jerusalem to conquer the world, he didn’t come on a stallion but on a humble donkey. When Jesus wanted to show his disciples about how to use power he got on his knees and washed their feet. When Jesus took on the evil powers of the universe he did it dying on a cross of wood. 

This is a strange way. This seems a crazy way to rule a Kingdom. Yet, if we wanted to turn the world around and find peace and equality and justice. This is how it works. This upside down empire is our great hope. 

It is so radical that it takes us decades to come to terms with it. Perhaps even longer to start living it.  

James and John’s mother should have been asking Jesus how can my sons serve the marginalised of the world alongside you. 

Us too. As I attempt to follow Jesus into this weekend I need to remember that I am following a person of the manger, the donkey, the foot washing and the cross. 

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO... SPIKE MILLIGAN

It happens more than you think. You are in the Welcome Area after the service, enjoying a cup of coffee, and someone comes up and tells you a story that you just wished you had known before the service began. Of course, the sermon, most likely, made your friend think of the story and they didn’t know your sermon before the service and so couldn’t have told you… but… 

One morning, George Spoule approached me. He said that my sermon reminded him of a Spike Milligan story. Apparently, Spike was in one of his depressions and headed off to the middle Ireland for some peace. He got off a train, randomly, in the middle of nowhere and as luck would have it the first man he saw recognised him. On asking what he wanted the man said, “Mr Milligan, follow me and I’ll be right behind you!” 

Brilliant!

My sermon was on the recommissioning of Peter. The purity of Peter’s vocational call, way back when he was on the boats in Galilee had been badly tarnished with his denials of Jesus before the crucifixion.

The risen Jesus comes back to the beach in Galilee to restore Peter to that original vocation. Like a football team who find themselves three down in denials, Jesus more or less gives Peter three goals back by asking him three times if he loves him. Jesus equalises Peter’s three own goals. All is put right.

It is then time for Jesus to invite Peter again to this mad roller coaster ride of upside down Kingdom bringing. In John 21 Jesus asks Peter to follow him, In the chapter before Jesus had put it a slightly different way. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 

It is Spike Milligan’s “Follow me and I’ll be right behind you!”

That is following Jesus. From one perspective, it is an invitation and our initiative. From another angle it is Jesus pushing us on. 

Maybe you are where Peter was on that Galiliean beach. Maybe you are a little down spiritually. Maybe your original vocation call has got distracted or tainted. Maybe if you look up the metaphorical beach you’ll see Jesus barbecuing you some fish, ready to recommission. 

Lean in and hear the words:

“Follow me!”

“As the Father sent me, I am sending you.”

“Follow me and I’ll be right behind you.”

 

It happens more than you think. You are in the Welcome Area after the service, enjoying a cup of coffee, and someone comes up and tells you a story that you just wished you had known before the service began. Of course, the sermon, most likely, made your friend think of the story and they didn’t know your sermon before the service and so couldn’t have told you… but… 

One morning, George Spoule approached me. He said that my sermon reminded him of a Spike Milligan story. Apparently, Spike was in one of his depressions and headed off to the middle Ireland for some peace. He got off a train, randomly, in the middle of nowhere and as luck would have it the first man he saw recognised him. On asking what he wanted the man said, “Mr Milligan, follow me and I’ll be right behind you!” 

Brilliant!

My sermon was on the recommissioning of Peter. The purity of Peter’s vocational call, way back when he was on the boats in Galilee had been badly tarnished with his denials of Jesus before the crucifixion.

The risen Jesus comes back to the beach in Galilee to restore Peter to that original vocation. Like a football team who find themselves three down in denials, Jesus more or less gives Peter three goals back by asking him three times if he loves him. Jesus equalises Peter’s three own goals. All is put right.

It is then time for Jesus to invite Peter again to this mad roller coaster ride of upside down Kingdom bringing. In John 21 Jesus asks Peter to follow him, In the chapter before Jesus had put it a slightly different way. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 

It is Spike Milligan’s “Follow me and I’ll be right behind you!”

That is following Jesus. From one perspective, it is an invitation and our initiative. From another angle it is Jesus pushing us on. 

Maybe you are where Peter was on that Galiliean beach. Maybe you are a little down spiritually. Maybe your original vocation call has got distracted or tainted. Maybe if you look up the metaphorical beach you’ll see Jesus barbecuing you some fish, ready to recommission. 

Lean in and hear the words:

“Follow me!”

“As the Father sent me, I am sending you.”

“Follow me and I’ll be right behind you.”

THE BIBLE'S POWER - IN US RATHER THAN ON A PAGE

We reduce the Bibles’ scope and potency when we think it has to be open in front of us to make its mark. Paul told the Colossians to let the word of God “dwell on us richly”. In us not on the page. It needs to come off the page to do its work. Its power is when it becomes a part of us.

I remember someone telling me how bad they felt that they had left their Bible on the washing machine in the utility room coming in from Church on Sunday. They had gone a few days without “it”, they panicked.

I wish! I wish I could leave the Bible down somewhere and walk around without it cutting like a two edged sword into everything I think, do and say for a few days. 

No, the truth is that when I am in conversations with friends, with politicians, with artists, with church leaders, the Bible is turning over its pages in my mind, landing at words that our ripe for the conversation that I am in. It is ever alive in my mind and never dead on the top of a washing machine.

When I make decisions in my day about my time and priorities and actions the Bible is there challenging me as well as inspiring me and guiding me through my day. 

Another line that disturbed me about our relationship with the Bible was a preacher who talked about watching a few hours TV every night and only giving five minutes to read the Bible. Again, I am so confused. When the Word dwells in us richly then every film I watch, every novel I read, every song I listen to becomes a resource for Bible study.

As I watch, read and listen I find many issues being raised that caress and collide with the Bible’s great arc of salvation history and  my understanding of how the Bible wants us to live. 

So in recent days I have been so taken by Claire Keegan’s beautiful novella Small Things Like These and inspired by the dreamy movie Mrs Harris Goes To Paris that they found their way into a recent sermon on Discipleship. 

Oh the Bibles the most powerful of all books but it is so much more powerful when it escapes from the pages and sets up home in the core of all we are. Of course for it to "dwell in us richly" we need to read it, download it into our souls.