SOUL SURMISE

THE DREAM SEQUENCE SERMON - Mallie, Foster, Paisley, MLK, U2... & JESUS

Last week I started my sermon with the drama sequence in journalist Eamonn Mallie’s wonderful article Grace. It had Arlene Foster pulling an ailing Martin McGuinness to her bosom and telling him it would be alright, that they would sort it out and she would step side to give them the time and space.

This week I started with another dream sequence. I imagined, that after Martin McGuinness stepped back from politics, Ian Paisley Jr would come on The View and not only wish McGuinness well in his health and retirement but go on to thank him for his contribution to our journey towards peace before saying that relationships might help in our reconciliation! 

Of course the second one was not a dream sequence but a reality! What a moment! Before we start getting cynical and investigating Paisley’s motives, let us sit in the positive contribution it has made to our current divisive political conversation. I will bask in its grace , its humanity and its hope even if it gets snuffed out far too quickly. Grace, humanity and hope are all words that Eamonn Mallie was seeking in his aforementioned article. Thank you Ian for giving an alternative voice.

My sermon was based in Matthew 4 and Isaiah 9. Those passages were declaring that a light was shining on those in darkness. I was also recognising it had been Martin Luther King Day and added a footnote to the sermon on the dreams of MLK. The sermon closed with U2’s meditative song MLK sung by Laura Campbell, Claire Nicholl and Ali McKeown. 

Before they sang, I asked the congregation to take a moment and ask that God would show us all what dream sequence we could walk into this week. What could we do to change the conversation, to change the direction of our lives and our country’s life as Jesus asked of us in Matthew 4, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” 

As in the same passage Jesus asks us to “follow me,” what dreams could we follow him into. What imaginative, creative, Kingdom like act can God lead us into this week… 

Sleep tonight

And may your dreams be realised…

… So let it be

 

you can get all my sermons here Fitzroy Sermons 

THE GUSHING WATER OF MURCHISON FALLS OR THE STAGNANT POOL OF OUR CULTURE

I had the privilege of speaking at the wedding of Ross and Jane McQueen at the end of 2016. These two are adventurers, full of energy, mischief and passion for faith. I needed an image and was immediately drawn to the place they had romantically got engaged - Murchison Falls, Uganda.

Murchison Falls is where the Nile River forces its way through a gap in the rocks, only 23 ft wide, and tumbles 141 ft, before flowing westward into Lake Albert.  11,000 ft³/s of water gushes through in the most beautiful and explosive way.

Around the Falls there is a National Park stretching out for miles and teeming with the most amazing wildlife you could ever dream. It was a very image to talk about Jane and Ross’s faith.

Stretching my image I spoke about the opposite of the Falls. I imagined a damned up lake of motionless water, stuck, stagnant and smelly. For me it was an image of meaninglessness life of nominal faith or no faith at all.

As I was preparing to use the imagine in a sermon in Fitzroy I caught this piece of an interview with the actor Andrew Garfield who features in Martin Scorsese's new film, Silence, about Catholic priests being persecuted in Japan in the 17th century. 

In an interviews Garfield says that he had never prayed until he was preparing and acting in Silence. His year praying led him to say the following: -  

"I realize that we’re praying all the time, it’s just we’re not conscious of what we’re praying to. We’re worshipping all the time, there’s that human impulse to worship and to exalt and to long for connection to the divine. 

We are unfortunately, in our culture, being driven and guided more often than not to worship things that are false and empty, like celebrity culture, like consumer goods, a new pair of shoes, popularity, being a success by what modern standards mean: a nice car, a beautiful spouse, two children and a picket fence. These are all lies that we’ve been sold.

"Given very easy access to worship, I found myself understanding that on a deeper way and it really scared the shit out of me and devastated me to be more awake to the mass brainwashing that our culture has been dragged into. We have to really seek out how to cut ties to it, we have to really do our own work to do that and help each other through that...

"...Anyway, I had a year of exploring, I suppose, this idea of worship, this idea of what it is that we are truly longing for and how do we actually go to the places that can feed us with that longing. It’s certainly not McDonald’s, it’s certainly not the consumer culture we’re in, it’s something invisible and mysterious. And we get glimpses of eternity every day, whether we’re looking up from our iPhones to notice.”

That is what I meant by stagnant. I needn’t have preached any longer but, of course, I did. Not long though and then I led us in and out of Communion with this one of my liturgical prayers: -

 

COME - The Welcome to Communion

 

Come in a world that is divided - for communion

Come  in a world that is broken - and break bread

Come in a world that is hungry - and nourish your souls

Come in a world that is lonely - and share together

Come in a world that is hurting - to the healing place 

Come in a world that is overachieving - to the loser

Come in a world that is alienated - to where a veil is torn in two

Come in a world that is at war - meet the Prince of Peace

Come in a world full of bad news - for a sacrament of Gospel 

Come in a world full of crosses - to the cross itself.

 

GO - The Sending From Communion

 

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you 

 

Go in to a world that is divided - with forgiveness

Go in to a world that is broken - with healing

Go in to a world that is hungry - with food

Go in to a world that is lonely - with presence

Go in to a world that is hurting - with empathy 

Go in to a world that is overachieving - with grace

Go in to a world that is alienated - with love

Go in to a world that is at war - with peace

Go in to a world full of bad news - with the Good News of the Gospel

Go in to a world full of crosses - with the hope and healing of resurrection

 

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you

Go… in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

MY SPEECH AT BALLYMENA ACADEMY PRIZE DAY 2016

So, this is what happens at a Prize Day. I’ve never been invited before! 43 years. At last!

And I do need to say… it is not an exaggeration to say... that this is one of the honours of my life.  My dad worked here for 27 years as Bursar. The school is important to our family. This is an absolute thrill. Thank you.

For most of my 8 years here, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I did want to be invited to Prize Day to speak. I thought that would suggest I had done something with my life.

I wanted to be invited as a member of N. Ireland’s World Cup squad… or Europe’s Ryder Cup team… or a songwriter, like my mate Iain who wrote Hold Back The Rover with James Bay (which the Junior choir sang today). But… here I am… a Presbyterian minister! Come on! This was not my dream gig!

Let me tell you about a seagull who wanted to live a life of thrills. In Richard Bach’s book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Jonathan watched all the other gulls just eating and sleeping but he wants more. So he took off into the blue and soared and swooped aiming at speeds and thrills that no other gull had ever experienced. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull wanted to fly. When I was your age at Ballymena Academy, I wanted to fly.

Our logo in Fitzroy, where I am minister, is 10:10. It’s my birthday. I love seeing the youth walking round with my birthday on their sweatshirts! It’s also the mark you got to be here today! It’s also a verse in the ancient text of the Scriptures where Jesus said that he came to bring life and life in all its fulness. I wanted that. 10:10! 

Coming back here today has had me reminiscing at what happened to me here. And I realised the incredible number of things that are still impacting my life, nearly 40 years later. 

And I don’t mean here in the school. I mean here in this very Assembly Hall. 

I fell over… behind that curtain… with a huge pile of chairs in my hand when I was stage crew for the School Concert; avant garde percussion! 

On my last day at school… the second time… you can see why I didn’t get any prizes… I ran with buckets towards the edge of the stage. The First XV… not just any First XV but a Schools’ Cup winning First XV were all sat in the front two rows. As I ran towards them with this bucket they tried to scarper, their faces full of more terror than Bangor Grammar forwards gave them at Ravenhill. I laughed as, instead of the water soaking them as expected, paper like confetti floating harmlessly in the Assembly Hall air!

Those were fun memories. Other memories really did impact my life. I fell in love with The Beatles right over there. My very first School Christmas Party. I’d love to know who the UVI were who played Can’t Buy Me Love and Paperback Writer. BUT I have loved and been influenced greatly by The Beatles ever since. The last two t-shirts I got were Beatles t-shirts. It started over there, under those steps!

I then ended up being the UVI DJ myself. I had the best record collection in the school…sadly no prizes were given for that… but it did make me DJ for all the parties in my UVI and LVII years. 

This would lead to one of the most awful public moments of my life. It was the Prefects’ Party. We set up for the party and suddenly realised the that dancing down there was causing the needle jump off the records up here! 

No music… no dancing… not a happy upper end of the school… Back over here there was panic. We had to move the record player back up to the sound room up there. In the meantime, I was sent out to a baying crowd to explain. It was fierce. I felt isolated, humiliated and tried to make some joke and calm the hopeful dancers. 

The next morning I was a little embarrassed coming into class. Someone looked round and said, “Great work last night. If you could stand in front of that crowd, you’ll be able to stand in front of any crowd.” That was a huge moment in my vocational life. I have stood in front of all kinds of crowds since then. That moment was gain in the pain!

A much better moment was December 9th 1980. I know the date. It was the morning after John Lennon of The Beatles was shot dead. CU were allowed to Assembly and I spoke on the music of Bob Dylan and faith. A massive part of my vocation ever since has been travelling the world speaking about rock music and faith. I even wrote a best selling book on U2. It all began right here, where I am standing now!

Best of all that morning, the then headmaster Denis Jagoe walked off the stage with me. I had been nervous speaking to my peers and teachers. He encouraged me with kind words and then added, “and you didn’t insult their intelligence.” He believed many preachers speak down to their audience. Those words have rung in my ear for 35 years. In all the teaching I got in College about preaching. None surpassed that throw away phrase.

I am sharing how my years in this building might never have won me any school prizes but shaped me and honed me into finding out the vocation I would follow, the reason I was on the planet. My 10:10. 

I ended up a DJ on radio Ulster. I wrote books on rock music and faith. I became a preacher standing in front of many a difficult audiences. And I try to never insult the intelligence of my listeners. 

One of my favourite writers is Frederick Buechner, a novelist who doubles as a Presbyterian minister. He writes that vocation is where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest need. That is where you want to get to… University Yes… a degree, Masters and PhD yes… BUT more important than pieces of paper and even size of pay packets or the right post code Is living life and life in all its fulness. 10:10!

And can I add that I know many people who have the pieces of paper, the big job titles, the house in the right location and all that money can buy BUT are not living life in all its fulness; living where their deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest need. 

First to find your deepest gladness. What is it you are good at? What is it that you are made for? Usually this is something that you excel at and when you do it well you get a deep sense of satisfaction. This is your gift… your genius… your reason to live… finding this and going after it… that’s life in all its fulness! Maybe the prize you are getting today gives a clue to that. Maybe. 

When we find this we are not done. Practicing your deepest gladness is not life in all its fulness. Buechner suggests that it needs to meet the world’s deep needs.

So you could be the best graphic designer in the world… doing great work… but working for a company that oppresses its workers with unjust wages and working conditions might not be helping meet the world’s deepest need.

Let me take you to a school in Uganda that I have visited the last two summers. Our family sponsors two girls in this school; Jacqueline and Rachel. They have amazing smiles and are lovely kids. School was not as certain for them as for you. Their parents didn’t go and put their names down when the time came. They had to start their own school. Pay for their own teachers. Build their own classrooms. We in Fitzroy have helped them out by funding an amazing school building.

When we hope for Jacqueline and Rachel that they might be teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, traffic designers, business women etc etc it is not so much about Jacqueline and Rachel having jobs and wages. That is  important for them and their families but it is about more than their deep gladness. 

Uganda needs teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, traffic designers, business women. We want them to meet that deep need in their world.

Ballymena needs teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, traffic designers, business women. N. Ireland needs… the world needs…

When you find your deepest gladness and then give it to the community, the nation or the world, then you will receive something that will make you feel that this life is worth living. 

So congratulations on your achievements. You have shown application, hard work and intelligence in what you have won prizes in today. 

These prizes will give you a clue to what your made to do but make sure you make the most of your entire school life. I was a footballing playing rock fan and somehow found my way to The Debating Society one Friday afternoon. What was I thinking. Yet, over the next eight years, that debating society became the place that I put a public speech together. It was where I learned to debate. I use those skills every week, in the pulpit and as committee meetings.

So can I say thank you Ballymena Academy for helping me find my deepest gladness. Very few of my teachers are here. Very few of my fellow pupils. I was wondering as prize winners were announced are they children of my friends, doing the maths wondering could they be grandchildren!!! Or worried that I might have kissed one of their mothers! But I thank every member of my school community who made me who I am today.

And can I pray that you all find yours and that this world benefits from all that you contribute to it. Be like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Fly. Live the life in all its fulness  Jesus came talked about - 10:10. May your deep gladness meet the world’s deepest need. If it does you will be blessed and we will all benefit from your contribution. 

Thank you! 

THE ART OF STOCKMAN'S SERMON PREPARATION

The way I prepare sermons is of an artistic nature. It can be frustrating and in the end fearful when you get further and further into Saturday and no form is coming to the art piece!

I often wish I was more scientific and structured. I imagine the preacher who takes three long sessions in his study and just brick by brick builds a sermon of deep exegesis and logic.

For a long time I used to think that I had to fit that model. It made my sermons dull and did my own head in!

Eventually I realised that I had an artistic bent that needed patience and the ability to get as close to edge of the cliff as I could. Like those fifties dares as depicted in James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause where they raced cars to the cliff to see who would get closest before jumping out. Some Saturday evenings I am close to the edge! Indeed a few Sunday mornings!

My artistic practice is a reading of the text early in the week. My job from that point is to journey with that text. It is seeking prayerfully where that text meets the content of Fitzroy on Sunday morning. Where in these texts is there a explosion of insight that will pastor, encourage, inspire or maybe even correct us as individuals and as a community.

So, the week is spent in the text. The commentaries are read and surmised.  As I drive around or watch television, I am constantly turning it over, digging for something.

By Saturday I am hammering the dyke wall, bashing against it, seeking a little give. I have a lot of commentary down, a few quotes, maybe even a clue to where it is going but there is still no sermon worth preaching.

Eventually, but sometimes very late on a Saturday night or in the waking up moments of a Sunday morning, the wall gives and a gush of sermon insights, stories and structures pile through. I then try to capture them all in a little pool, type it up, print and preach.

Most Saturdays are spent in the zone. The reading is all done but the sermon might have no point or kick or structure. There might be a soccer match on TV and I am watching but hammering the wall. There have been times when a film my wife is watching on Saturday evening, while I am gazing at a laptop, gives the opening I need and suddenly the sermon is flowing through.

It is the artistic way. It is always scary. Most weeks I am not sure it will happen. It always does…. but what if this is the first week that it doesn’t! A while back I did a little thing for the Belfast Telegraph. It was 5 quick questions to the clergy. One of the questions was what would I ask God if I had just one question. My answer was, “why don’t you tell me what to preach earlier in the week!”

STOCKMAN'S SERMON ON THE IMPACT OF BREXIT

I remember the day Lady Diana died, having to put together my radio show to respond. The same the day after the Omagh Bomb. Those were hard emotional shows. I felt that same strain on Sunday morning as I had to preach a few days after the Uk voted to leave the EU. I would love to have ignored it BUT Fitzroy never ignores it. The preacher's role is to bring the Biblical text to the context of the times and I had to somehow make sense of the events still unfolding as I preached.

My own emotions could not be kept unchecked but I had to try as hard as I could to rein them in. I was speaking to a divided UK, a divided Northern Ireland, a divided Fitzroy, divided families and even people divided within themselves. In the state of shock and with so much sadness it was time to be pastoral as well as attempting to be prophetic.

I had in the 24 hours beforehand spoke to members of the congregation whose jobs were now not the line, teens whose study dreams were not in tatters, twenty somethings talking about moving to Canada, many concerned that the EU funding that had built our peace might be lost before that peace is finished. 

The context was somber. I asked that we were sensitive with one another. 

The Lectionary text was Luke 9: 51-62. The first part if perfect. Damning those who do things against you was not Jesus way! The second part is about the challenge, commission and warnings to three people keen to follow Jesus. Jesus was at a pivotal moment in his ministry. We are in a pivotal moment in our history. How to bring this text and our context together was a tricky one...

If you follow this link Fitzroy Sermons and then press on "2016 06 26 am: Discipleship… Hand to the Plough… No Distractions."

BEING TEMPTED TO LOSE YOURSELF - Stocki 7" Single Sermon

The sermon was based on Jesus Temptations in Luke 4... you can hear it in full HERE

 

What do we do

With the space in between

Between the temptation

And the yield or resist.

 

In the space in between

Do we reach to be more than we are

And become less

Like Eve...

 

Or do we become more than we were

By the grace

Jesus became less

That we might be

 

Temptation is

An attack on who we are

With ambition that we might lose

Our identity

To self indulge

To self rely

To self serve

 

In the space in between

We remember who we are

And where we stand

In loving the Lord our God

With all our heart, soul, mind and strength

And our neighbours as ourselves.

 

As the devil teases 

To steal and kill and destroy

We hold firm

To life and life in all its fulness.

 

DO WE WANT WHAT WE WANT - Stocki Sermon Short Form

This morning's sermon in Fitzroy was based on LUKE 13: 31-35...

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." 32 He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, "Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

There are three wants in this passage...

 

Herod wanted to kill him

Jesus wanted to gather Jerusalem like a mother hen

And Jerusalem didn’t want.

 

What do we want

Do we want 

What we should want?

 

Do we want to relinquish power

Do we want someone else on our throne

Or do we want to kill him?

 

Do we want to mother the broken

Do we want to open our eyes to the need

Do we want to wrap arms of grace around the neighbourhood?

 

Do we want the default positions of our faith smashed

Do we want a paradigm shift in how we do worship

Or do we want to reject the love of a mother hen?

 

What do we want

Do we want

What we should want?

Full sermon will appear here later in the week...

 

LAUGHING WITH GOD IN FITZROY, WHILE PARIS WEEPS - Fitzroy Halls Opening Sermon

So, today has had the title Laughing With God for some time. It comes from that Psalm of Ascent 126 :

When the Lord restored the fortunes of[a] Zion,

    we were like those who dreamed.[b]

2 

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

    our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

    “The Lord has done great things for them.”

3 

The Lord has done great things for us,

    and we are filled with joy.

I think we have been feeling that in recent weeks. Renovated, extended halls feels like a restoration. Our mouths are filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Life here on a daily basis has been transformed, energised. Every day is vibrant with people and Fitzroy as a Church is alive. Laughing with God, indeed.

And then Friday night. What terror! What horror! What pain, hurt, heartache. Paris in panic and mourning. How can we laugh in our new buildings in Belfast while others weep in such devastation in Paris. It didn’t seem right.

And yet, the acts of evil in Paris shouldn’t prevent us from giving thanks to God for all the blessings we have been hearing about today. The Psalms are the hymns and prayers and laments of a people who dealt with all of the crisis and dilemmas of life in the context of worship and a worshipping community.

When I shifted my focus from a light morning of thanksgiving and laughter to ask how to bring in the Paris tragedy to this short sermon I came to see that actually those events are an urgent reminder of what this opening is all about.  

These buildings are a sanctuary in the midst of a dark world. This is a place where within the community of living stones we can find solace, healing, forgiveness, restoration and redemption.

These buildings are a sanctuary where we can come together and in find our place in the universe as people created in the image of God and redeemed by Jesus life, death and resurrection. In finding our vertical connection with God redeemed in Jesus we can then make some sense of the horizontal relationships with each other, with neighbours and even with enemies. We gather together after nights like Friday and in worship we somehow find in Psalm 46:

4There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

 

5God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

 

6Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

 

7The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

These buildings are a sanctuary but not a passive one. These are not halls to come into as some escape from the horrors of our world. Yes we can see them as a place for retreat, a soul space in the tragedy to breathe deep the breath of God but ultimately these buildings are a grace driven sanctuary that propel us out from them into the neighbourhood. It’s what the power of their new windows does, opening our connections with community. These halls are not an alternative to the world out there. They are a mission station to transform the world out there. 

May these buildings never be a place for our self indulgence or our self righteousness. May these buildings always be about God’s Spirit infusing us to feed the world’s needs… for food, water, shelter, well being, peace, justice and salvation.

May these buildings be the Word moving into the neighbourhood, as John described Jesus in the prologue of his Gospel.

May these buildings be the salt of the earth like Jesus called his followers to be in the sermon on the mount. Into a world that throws us Paris may we be what David Gray sang… “into lies, ruin, disease… into wounds like these… let the truth sting…” may we be salt in the city of Belfast to bring the salt of healing.

May these buildings be the light of the world that jesus called his followers to be in the Sermon On The Mount. May we shine light into this city. May we be particles of light in our vocations and neighbourhoods right across Belfast. May we be a cluster of light in a university area, a commercial thoroughfare, a residential area. 

John’s prologue also declare that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it…”

John reminds us about this overcoming a world of Parises later in his Gospel. he records how Jesus told the disciples, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Brent van Der Linde Facebooked yesterday those great words of Martin Luther King - Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that” 

May these halls be beacons of light and love driving out darkness and hate. 

In and from these halls may we hold this belief but carry it gently and without arrogance. May we shine and scatter grace with servant like humility.

As we thank God for his goodness to us I am reminded of Psalm 116

 

12 

What shall I return to the Lord

    for all his goodness to me?

13 

I will lift up the cup of salvation

    and call on the name of the Lord.

14 

I will fulfill my vows to the Lord

    in the presence of all his people.

So today we thank God for these new halls…

their artistic beauty…

their ambience of grace…

their near luxurious comfort…

their ability to boil two kettles at once…

the morale lift that it has given us as a community of Jesus followers.

For me the thanksgiving is not that we have new halls that gives me a lovely new office or a lovely new Welcome Area where we can chat and sip coffee and eat Blythman Bread or Trinder Traybakes.

These halls is our gift to offer back to God. So we ask…

What does this area need?

What artistic beauty?

What ambience of grace?

What deep comfort?

What is equivalent in the community around us to us needing to be able to boil two kettles?

What can we do in this community to lift morale of a city?

Another social media message yesterday said, “We need to have a life giving presence in our cities.”

May these halls… and Onialeku Primary School in my beloved West Nile… and us the living stones within them… and our pouring back out from them be that life giving presence… and we are back to John’s prologue… 

Through these new halls Lord… may we, Fitzroy, be… The Word becoming flesh and moving into this city and across the world…

Lord, Let It Be!

WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN TO LIVE IN GOD - Sermon From Van Morrison Sunday in Fitzroy

(The day before Van Morrison celebrated his 70th Birthday (August 30, 2015) with a concert at the end of Cyprus Avenue we built our entire Sunday service around Van Morrison songs... Here is a written version of my sermon!)

 

When will I ever learn to live in God?

When will I ever learn?

He gives me everything I need and more

When will I ever learn?

In his book Hymns Of Silence Peter Mills writes of Van Morrison’s When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God:

“This song is one of Morrison’s most directly Christian tunes, which would sit unproblematically in the repertoire of any of the acts that use the pop-rock-soul- model to construct modern songs of praise.” 

When it came to a Church service built around Van Morrison hymns and songs this song was the obvious choice to launch the sermon from.

And up on the hillside its quiet

Where the shepherd is tending his sheep

And over the mountains and the valleys

The countryside is so green

Standing on the highest hill with a sense of wonder

You can see everything is made in God

Head back down the roadside and give thanks for it all

There is indeed, as Mills points out, a praise feel to those last lines. Giving thanks for God’s creation is a recurring theme with the Old Testament Psalmist. For me the line, “He gives me everything I need and more,” echoes Psalm 23: - “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing”. When the Lord is our shepherd we will have “all that we need and more”. 

When that verse clicked then I caught more similarities. Compare Morrison’s 

“And up on the hillside its quiet

Where the shepherd is tending his sheep

And over the mountains and the valleys

The countryside is so green”

 

with King David’s 

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

    for his name’s sake.

It is not too contrived to see When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God as a Van Morrison Psalm. What I like about the song is that unlike a lot of the modern praise, that Peter Mills likens it to, When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God is not worship cul-de-sac. I often fear that modern worship goes up to God in some warm and almost feely weely vertical way but doesn’t come back down to make an impact on our horizontal lives. Worship should not be a cul-de-sac for Sunday but an energy that becomes a highway out into Monday and the week ahead. There is no point in singing to God if we are not going to learn to live in God. 

One of the Lectionary readings this week is from the New Testament letter of James (3:19-27). It seems to be all about learning to live in God. James tells us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”The entire reading is potent but what an ending, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

For those of you who are visitors with us this morning, this is why we meet every Sunday morning to worship. We want to learn to live in God. That it would transfer us and also that we would be transformers of our society.If you are a visitor forgive me if I look for a moment at the Fitzroy flock and ask them a few questions.

Fitzroy we say that Jesus cried out on the cross that “it is finished”. We believe that that redeems us and somehow deals with sin. Yet, have we learned to live in that truth or do we still feel guilty and captive of our past?

We remember that Jesus told us to lay up treasure in heaven and not on earth where it lists away. Yet, have we learned to live in God and not be distracted by the momentary and material in order to invest our gifts and life in more lasting returns?

We remember that Jesus told us to love our enemies. Yet, have we learned to live in that and be those who are striving for peace and reconciliation in the Northern Ireland where we are called to live this out?

In the above passage James tells us that real religion is to “Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.” Have we learned to live that out in how we respond to the refugee crisis on our news right now? We believe that Jesus himself was a refugee!

So, Fitzroy, in my preaching let us see where we need to learn to live in God. As Van sings:

“Whatever it takes to fulfill his mission

That is the way we must go

But you've got to do it your own way

Tear down the old, bring up the new”

 

Amen!

 

LAND OF THE THOU SHALT NOTS - OR FREEDOM IN THE SPIRIT

This is the script of a talk given by Stocki at Queens University Christian Union on November 6th 2003. Those who know him will know it probably turned out very different and more energetic live but here it is anyway...They wanted him to speak about the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5...

Thou shalt not wear 
Thou shalt not drink 
Thou shalt not joke 
Thou shalt not think 
Thou shalt not hear 
Thou shalt not see 
Thou shalt not say 
Thou shalt not be 
Thou shalt settle down in the trenches 
In the land of the thou shalt nots 
What on earth then can we do 
My goodness I've forgot. 

Thou shalt go to church on Sunday 
Thou shalt wear a plastic smile 
Thou shalt be content to be discontent 
Thou shalt be happy in a little while 
Thou shalt talk about the needy 
Thou shalt pray they make it through 
Thou shalt thank the Lord you're not like them
Though shalt be orange and blue 
Though shalt settle down in quarantine 
In the land of the thou shalt nots 
And everyone you ever meet 
Will long for what you've got. 

Thou shalt not even enter a public house 
Thou shalt not turn water into wine 
Thou shalt not question authority 
Thou shalt not put religion on the line 
Thou shalt not mix with sinners 
Thou shalt not talk to prostitutes 
Thou shalt not be in the world at all 
Thou shalt not be their substitute 
Thou shalt settle down in the trenches 
In the land of the thou shalt nots 
And all this talk of a radical Jesus 
Is just some Muslim, Buddhist, communist, humanist, socialist, ecumenical, new age, popish PLOT!

Many of us live in THE LAND OF THE THOU SHALT NOTS and it is not where God wants us to be. There is a bizarre little behavioural and theological quirk at play in evangelical Christianity. In evangelism there is an emphasis on how salvation is not about what we do but about what God does for us. Rooted in Paul’s words to the Ephesians, - “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2 v 8 & 9) – we find one of Christianity’s main differences with other religions. You do not find God by human or ritual endeavours. It is not what we do to get to God, it is what God does for us in Jesus death and resurrection. He has entered time and space history to be part of the act that redeemed or bought us back from our state of lostness. We do not find God. He finds us. Grace. It is Christianity in one unique concept and one amazing word.

Grace flies in the face of our intuition. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot get something that easy never mind something of such enormous consequences. Our intuition finds it impossible to believe. That will always be a reminder to us of how incredible Christianity is but it has to also warn us that our natural inclination will be to not believe it. I believe that we who live with an evangelical mindset and hopefully lifestyle wrestle and struggle with this belief. We use the words and stand by it uncompromisingly theologically but I think that pragmatically there is no such belief at the engine room of our lives. Our human intuition needs to bring back systems of works. So we end up believing that you cannot be saved by works, only by grace but when you find your salvation you have to work like the clappers to maintain it. This reveals a misunderstanding of grace, a misunderstanding of our relationship with God and leads to a new evangelical legalism that is an antithesis of evangelical. 

This is not at all new and the book of Galatians is Paul correcting these three errors of thought and practice. It would seem that the people in Galatia heard the astounding truth of the Gospel of Christ’s grace and took off enthusiastically before the human intuition stalled them and through religious leaders who would seem to have had a genuine soundness they were led back into legalism and works. Paul lashes out in an anger that let us know in no uncertain terms how serious this regression is to the well being of the faith in proclamation and in outworking. The pages of Galatians are peppered with an agitation, worry and incredulous disbelief that what was going so well could take such a twist. He wants the perpetrators condemned even if it is an angel! It is the very core of Christianity that is at stake for Paul. It is what Christ died for. We were set free to live outside of the law which can only condemn us. We are cursed if we trust in legalistic religion and it is that very thing that Christ redeemed us from. 

For some of us we see grace as a ticket to heaven. Of course it is indeed that but it would be very wrong to confine it to that. Grace is the only key to unlock the gates of heaven but it has much more power and impact than that. Grace is also the engine room of Christian living. Paul said to the Church in Philippi that he was “confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Isaac Newton put it well in Amazing Grace, “Grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.” There seems to be a lot of teaching about how grace works in saving us from the penalty of sin and indeed the in the future from the very presence of sin but very little teaching about how grace continually saves us from the power of sin in the present. Grace is the means of our justification and also the only means of our sanctification. Justification is the theological word that describes our positional holiness. In other words Christ’s blood washes our sins clean and therefore we can stand before a holy God righteous. A righteousness as Paul called it that is not “of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” Sanctification is the practical holiness that comes to grow and ripen in our lives as we walk in that new relationship. As Christ’s sacrifice was the means of grace that brings us justification so the Holy Spirit is the one who is the means of grace that brings the fruit of the Spirit into our lives. It is the fruit of the Spirit not our efforts to keep the law!

This is of course a radical departure from Old Testament discipleship. Similarly radical were Jesus words to his disciples – if you love me you will keep my commands. Our new relationship with God does not mean we do things because we have to. We do them because we want to. The drive within us comes from a very different source. Is this therefore a contradiction of the Old Testament? Not at all. Paul deals with this too in this letter to the Galatians. In chapter 4 he speaks of heirs who are children needing guardians and trustees but when their time comes they have full rights as adult sons and daughters.

As a father of small heirs myself I often see the difference between those who are children and have to be under the guardian and those who are mature and are set free. When I cross the road with Caitlin and Jasmine I will stand at the edge of the kerb and force them to go through the ritual. Look and listen…Look right, look left, look right again and if there is nothing walk straight across, looking both ways while you cross! There may then be a time when we are all walking down the Lisburn Road when I will say to Janice I am nipping over the road here to get a paper. I will then just head straight across. You do not see the Lisburn Road full of adults doing some sort of green cross code. Why? Are they reckless? Are they contradicting what they learned as children and tell their children? No they are a fulfilment of it.

As I walk across freely and outside of rituals and codes I am doing everything that I was taught to do but I do them with a freedom and here is the key an almost subconscious care that is driven from within my conditioning rather than from some outside system. Paul and the writers of the New Testament are always wanting us to grow up, to move on to deeper and maturer things. Rules are for the children who are just born. We need to grow up. I was struck particularly on Sunday morning in Church as we read, “Therefore let us leave behind the elementary teachings about Christ behind and go on to maturity.” The elementary things were repentance and baptism, resurrection and judgement. These things are not forgotten or dismissed but they become a part of the childish development so that we can move on to so much more.

What we need more than anything else is the fruit of the Spirit. This is what God wants to bring in our lives. Whose fruit? Not ours! These fruit are what allows us to become mature and not have to stop at the side of the road. People wills ay to me so does that mean you can do anything at all. Well if you are saying that the rule book is torn up yes but if you are saying that it is replaced by maturity and the fruit of the Spirit – no! I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it tells us not to drink so does that mean we can go out and get hammered. Of course not. The fruit of the Spirit is self control! And yes for some of us tonight we are childish in those things and we need to set down rules about our relationship with bars and alcohol BUT we must never ever stay in that same place. We need to go grow up in faith so that the fruit of the Spirit makes it absolutely impossible for us to come into any dangers from alcohol abuse. This is the aim. 

Let me take an aside here and look at Bible reading. We have rules and regulations about that too. If we don’t read our Bibles then we feel we have somehow annoyed God and broke down relationships. We are burdened by guilt and shame. This is a return to the law and we know already what Paul says about that. But let me spell something out to you. A friend of mine said to me once that they felt so bad because they had left the Bible on the washing machine in the Utility room when they came home from Church and had not looked at until about Thursday. Now I need to say that I find it impossible to leave the Bible on the washing machine. Sometimes I wish I could. My relationship with Scriptures is not when I open it in the morning and evening. I have a moment by moment relationship with it. It is so much a part of who I am that its pages flick and turn to words that caress and collide with every person and situation and song and film and magazine article that meet me in my day. How can this have happened? Well as a spiritual baby I was legalistic and read my Bible religiously so that when I grew up it would read me.

Back to the fruit of the Spirit. There are nine that none of us can ever remember. I would like to break them into three groups. There are LOVE, JOY & PEACE which are about our relationship with God, then there are PATIENCE, KINDNESS & GOODNESS which are about our relationship with each other. Finally there are FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS & SELF CONTROL which have to do with our relationship with ourselves. 

LOVE, JOY & PEACE come from God and are dispositions. Do we know that we are loved? Have we a deep seated joy even when our friends leave us for heaven? Is there a peace that dwells at the heart of us that empowers us to love and bring joy and peace into our world? If that grace we spoke about is what drives us then we will have these things. If we are still hanging out in the land of the Thou Shalt Nots then we will never find them. Knowing in the depths of your soul that you are loved as you are changes everything. If we find them in God we will have a security in them. If we are dependent on people and circumstances for these things we will never find them. Insecurity and inferiority will mar our existence and leave us without the ability to ripen the other fruit.

PATIENCE, KINDNESS & GOODNESS are about how we treat our fellow human beings. When we know love, joy and peace from God and know that they only come from his attitude towards us and what he has done for us we will begin to be compelled to treat others in the same way. We will be slow to anger at our friends behaviour or even that of our enemies. As God gives us time so we will give time. We will learn to be as kind as Jesus was and begin to do good things to those in the world around us. Again these are not acts we do because we have to but are things that will start to sprout through in our lives as we begin to become more and more consumed by the Spirit and more and more aware of the truth of the Gospel.

FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS & SELF CONTROL are things that grow within us that come out in some ways through our patience, kindness and goodness. How are we in holding friendships. Do we run from tricky scenarios? Are we gentle in standing for truth? Are we in control of our bodies etc?

Jesus said that loving God and our fellow humans would keep all of the law. If we see these fruit in our lives it a similar thing. God does not set us down things he wants us to do. He tells us how he wants us to be. In being this we will do all we need be doing but the drive will be inward and organic and alive instead of outward and religious and cold.

So do we just lie back and wait. Not a bit of it. We can plough and water and tend. As God’s word falls in your life Jesus warned us that some might fall on the road. Have no roads. Plough it up. Some might fall in the thorns. Weed it out. Some might fall in shallow ground. Dig deeper. Make it all fall into a life that is desiring to grow up.

U2 put it well. “You know I believe it…but I still haven’t found what I am looking for.” Seek to keep moving. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians “press on towards the prize.” “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.”