Happy Easter!

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Just under 2000 years ago today a lady called Mary from a small town called Magdala went early in the morning to a rough rock tomb to tend the battered body of her murdered friend and teacher and to say goodbye one last time.  She was soon followed by an unremarkable rural fisherman called Simon Peter and a young man called John.  What they found there that morning changed the world forever more than any other single event in the whole history of mankind.

That is the remarkable truth of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who we call Christ.  From the good news these three people brought, on that quiet morning so long ago, Empires and Continents and Centuries and Millenia have been transformed.  It has transformed the lives of people from every imaginable time and place, culture and race, nation and language; and today a community of more than two billion people spread across every country in the world exists devoted to those words.  A community transformed by the living God, the man Jesus who reaches out from the pages and experiences of countless books and people to transform lives then and now and tomorrow.

It has transformed my life too.

It has challenged, formed, taught and inspired me.  And always given me the strength to continue when times are darkest.  It has given me a King, a Lord, a teacher and  a friend I could never have imagined.  And if there is any richness in my soul, wisdom in my mind, or nobility in my character, I can only give the credit where it is deserved, to my experience and friendship with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns forever over all the world. He is as close as a prayer, a word, a thought to being right by your side, each and every day since two utterly unremarkable men and one woman brought back the news that the Tomb was empty.  And nothing has ever been quite the same ever since.

Happy Easter Everybody!

God Bless you and keep you.

Good Friday.

We have entered Easter through Palm Sunday, then the journey of Holy Week, until finally we've reached the grief of Good Friday.  This is the most emotionally powerful day in the whole of the Christian calendar, the culmination of the entire story of Jesus’ life and ministry, of the entire story of the Bible: the day they murdered my Lord, the day everything changed.

Good Friday we call it.  And that may indeed seem a strange name when people first see it.  Good Friday. The day my Lord was murdered. Jesus, the perfect man, who loved so greatly, was killed for a crime he did not commit. In the words of St Paul, “We preach Christ Crucified, which is foolishness to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Gentiles”.

But Good Friday it certainly is.  And as I always thought, it's just crazy enough to work.  Good Friday?  The day that our Jesus was murdered.  This day we name good Friday?   Yes, we do, and how could it be any other way, knowing what wonderful thing came from it?  A strange thing it may seem, a true paradox: but so is the true mystery, the wonder, the mixed joy and sadness that defines our human life. Through tears and weeping and brokenness victory comes beyond all the strength of the world.

It is the most perfect name:  Elegant, precise, transcendent.  Good Friday.  The most simple and positive of all descriptions.  A good man, a good day, a good deed, a good life; a Good Friday.

Any more elaborate description would merely make obvious the total inability of description to do any justice.  Far better to leave almost entirely unsaid, to be seen, to be felt, to be experienced.  So the reality can shine through. So nothing is said apart from all that needs to be said.  Good Friday: the very definition of Goodness, the day everything changed.

On the cross of our pain God Almighty was tortured to death, suffering pain we can hardly imagine, for a crime he did not commit. For he so loved the world he gave his life, forgave even those who murdered him, loved even them, to save all men forever from their sins.  Jesus, God Almighty, emptied himself out on the cross, to become less than the least of men: butcher's meat. Another unseen victim of casual brutality and oppression.

Christ died on the cross to take away the sin of the world and so he experienced in his body the pain that sin has caused. He suffered it himself, as all his children have suffered at one time or another.  As he shared our life he shared our pain. Through sharing our humanity our pain could truly flow to him, so also through that sharing his divine power, to overcome all death and fear and hate and pain and weakness forever, could truly flow to us. So we need never fear those things again. God contains all things within him, so when God came into his own creation, he had to suffer our pain on the Cross that he had always carried within him.  It could be no other way.

Just as during his life Jesus healed the sick, gave  hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, even raised from the dead: to heal physical bodies; so in his own suffering on the cross he healed all the souls of the world.  As during his life he preached how even the least of sinners is held in the love of God, so in his death he became the least of people, and won eternal glory for heaven, even as he descended into Hell.

Christ become one of the least of God’s children, lest in our joy we forget their pain, and to remind us that we may not rest in joy until the least of God’s children are rescued from that pain forever. Since his people suffered pain here on earth, in his salvation of mankind Christ suffered pain as well. So we know that even in our most terrible pain, joy and salvation are assured forever by that sacrifice.

And so the cross of our pain became the tree of our life. He suffered so he can take away our suffering. So from the death of the one perfect human, Life was given to all the Imperfect humans who ever live.  His life was lost to slay death, his blood was shed to wash all clean, his love to cure all the hate in the world: to ensure Love would never be overcome. Good Friday indeed. It could take no other name.

We remember now that pain God suffered on the cross at Calvary for our salvation, so that he could be one with his children as he was in Eden, as though time run in reverse on that fateful day.  For as God walked in the garden of Eden in the evening just before Adam and Eve were divided from him by their sin and rejection, so Christ walked in Gethsemane in the evening before he gave himself up to death to bring Life forever.  Just as our primordial Mother and Father, who represent all mankind, hid themselves in shame before the sight of God after their disobedience, so Christ trembled in fear before the coming pain. But still he submitted himself to that same pain, to bring glory to God by bringing salvation to mankind.  At the end, returning to the beginning, so that God may once more walk in the garden beside us in the evening.


Many Thanks to D_m_i_t_r_y's photostream for the incredible picture of the Crucifixion.

Prophetic Witness

"And he has spoken through the Prophets" - The Nicene Creed

Prophetic Witness is something that we are always called to. 

It is not something imperfect man can do at all times but it is something we must always be open to the opportunity for.  Fundamentally it is describing the nature of God to a world that does not know him, and relating this nature precisely and practically to our present world.  It is the meaning of the Kingdom of God and the saving of our troubled world.

As I start it is important to say what it is not.  It is not telling the future.  Rather it is speaking and living the Truth, especially the Truth that is not being spoken by anyone else. 

The meaning of Christianity is God who transcends all reality, in perfection, in value, in power, who is totally beyond all our reality but holds it in the palm of his hand in a manner we can never really describe properly.  But this power and transcendent wonder breaking into our fragile world and our lives of its own choice by becoming a man, God with us, as one of us, and transforming it utterly beyond the ability we, as part of that imperfect reality, have on our own.

This is the purpose and duty of prophets and prophetic witness everywhere, whether big or small, or famous or unknown.  And it is possible for all mankind; both the brave, strong and outspoken, and the quiet, meek and calm; in both extraordinary and entirely ordinary situations and it can come upon a person suddenly, or it can come slowly, through study, prayer or experience, until it becomes so strong it just bursts forth. Because fundamentally it is not the property of one tradition or community, rather it is our common human inheritance. 

I believe that this common inheritance is best described by the example and teaching of the man we know as Jesus Christ, so excuse me explaining it a bit further in those specific terms. 

It is what Jesus Christ taught: that the Kingdom of God is at hand, the breaking into our world of the total power of God and its ability to transform our world beyond all recognition, and our ability to play a part in this transformation, through trusting in God’s power and moulding our lives by the incredible truth he taught.

This was the truth he taught, the possibility of utterly raising our sights beyond the compromises and justifications of a fallen world, like a single shaft of light suddenly illuminating a dark room.  Of acting utterly differently, bringing something of God’s perfection into the world and thus transforming it, at first for one instant and at one single point, but then more and more and spreading out, as the light fills the darkness, until the whole world shines more brightly. No longer resting content with hatred, lies, excuses, half-measures, cop-outs, justifications and fundamentally, imperfection.   

The revelation that no evil, however small, can be accepted forever; and that while we can improve ourselves at all we must do so, for any evil however small, any lack of care, of compassion, poisons the world we share. That we must always act to do more, to give better, to always improve the world and never add to its evil. The rejection of the idea that goodness is a matter of doing just enough to qualify, and then sitting back and being smug, however high that bar is set. And the knowledge that with God’s gift we have the capacity to make that choice to do better each and every day.

This is possible because through the example, teaching and power of Jesus Christ we are given glimpse of a reality that comes from utterly beyond our world and beyond our control, a true revealing of something completely new that thus enriches our possibilities as a miraculous, spontaneous creation.

       

This is the nature of prophetic witness.  Found in Jesus Christ and his teaching, but also in Prophets, Saints, Martyrs, visionaries, heroes and good men and women anywhere, at any time, whether religious or not, that challenges the previously limits with the sight of a higher and better possibility of a more loving and joyful world.

That means constantly attempting to step outside our environment, outside the chains that bind us and our thinking and our compassion. By this I do not mean escapism, seeking to run away from our reality. In fact, precisely the opposite.  I mean to be deeply rooted in your environment, to be acting in direct response to your environment, but to be seeing beyond its horizons and describing what you see that it could be, and how that can enrich the world. 

Christian faith was born in Prophetic Witness, a challenge to the socially accepted standard of that day, and I believe if it is not such a witness, then it is inevitably nothing.  Such a witness is an unavoidable response to being in the world, but not of the world. It can take many forms, and be of great and small sizes, but all share these basic elements, adding that the prophet must always be in a position to speak so the world may hear.  And it is also to step out of the world in such a manner as to drag it with you, all for the purpose of taking it closer to God, the foundation of all that truly is, the unity of all that is valuable, the one who is Love itself.  It is to be utterly concerned with man because one is utterly concerned with God.   

Some of it is, in the modern phrase, to speak counter-culturally, or, in what is apparently a Quaker phrase, to speak truth to power.  But not just the holders of political or financial power, also the cultural, the moral and the social assumptions, whether those working in a single room or across an entire world.  Anyone can do it, just as the prophets of ancient Israel were unremarkable men in every way apart from the fact they were willing to stand up and face rejection, ridicule and violence to speak the full word of God honestly, boldly, and defiantly; of his love and compassion for all and especially the weakest, to a society that just did not want to hear it.

Prophetic Witness, whatever our position, whatever our platform and possibilities, is to be a voice in the wilderness, to speak the words everyone else does not want to hear because it calls always to do better, to try harder and to be more loyal to our duty.  It is not to be puffed up with pride in doing so for there is more joy in heaven at one sinner who repents than at ten righteous men, but rather to humbly exhort and gently persuade, with patience and love, although this may sometimes include anger and frustration as well. 

When true it almost always costs the prophet more than it gains him. It has a place every time an accepted wisdom comes to the fore that accepts as evil and it consists of challenging that wisdom by living or being or just speaking of another way. It is existential for such a person lives and is a different person to the world around him and as such is often challenged physically by that world, even as he challenges it ethically.  Speech is important, because it leads the transmission of ideas, but it is only one part of a person’s expression, and hence only one part of prophetic witness, which occurs with the whole human being.  As such a person’s actions, their tone, their decisions, their attitude, may be prophetic as well.  So often we communicate most powerfully not through words, which are often cheap, but in the actions we take and choices we make that cost us.  It can be speech, action, attitude, thought, choice, song, liturgy, Art or anything else.  

Such a person can say something new and unheard of, maybe by only a little bit, but decisively so, or he can say something old, which is being forgotten, either way as long as he speaks distinctly to the voices around him. I, for one, become more and more convinced that not only is change not always for the good, but that there is nothing more conservative than moral absolutes, although it is something that we speak about today mostly in the mealy-mouthed terms of social justice.  I prefer the 3000 years old language of Amos, "let justice flow like a river, and righteousness like a never failing stream" 

This can be constantly possible for us by acting with our hands in this world but keeping our sight and our inspiration on the New Heaven and New Earth, on the vision of the Kingdom of God revealed by Jesus Christ and by the scriptures and visions and sacraments and Saints and Martyrs, and testified to by prophets of every kind who stand up in their heritage.    

Prophetic Witness then means presenting a better alternative to the conventional language around us whether through speech or action or just the way we live our lives.  It is a constant challenge, that  costs us and we are called to, both to challenge the fallen society we live in with a little bit of God. To stand aside from the prevailing discourse, and place our soul a little bit closer to God, for the purpose of bringing in his Kingdom by being a bridge between it and our society and world. 

It means not taking the evil of the world as an excuse to do evil ourselves, but rather to place one’s feet in the world that must one day be, as truth and goodness are the real Being.  It is of the closest and most real union with God possible in this life, and of the truest meaning of religion, for it is to become a mouthpiece for God's words that would not otherwise be spoken. And it is the possible choice of all people. 

It is something that we can and must do, and, I believe, uniquely through Jesus Christ we are all, always capable of doing this, for he has completely shown the way, and his grace gives us the power to step outside the world's totality and speak, for we have seen the New Heaven and the New Earth and the New Jerusalem and the Lamb is who is above them all “and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth”.

A Modest Proposal For Christian Unity

(The first half of this piece is my article on The Importance of Christian Unity. I would recommend reading that first if you haven't already. It also has the slides I used when giving both halves as a presentation. (It can also be found directly below this article on my blog))

I've now explained why I think this issue is so important for Christians. But I don't want to finish with just a vague appeal.  In the spirit of personal commitment I also want to talk about the practical problems of achieving Unity. Fundamentally the change we need to see is in our hearts rather than in the external world. Not because external change is unimportant, but because only from our hearts can this change be achieved and sustained as a reality. There is no point just fiddling with external structures if we ourselves do not change.

However, with the scale and complexity of the problem we must also consider how to drive and effect this change in the meantime. The task is huge but with God's grace nothing is impossible, and certainly not something so close and dear to his will and heart. In this I believe there are broadly three areas that we must be constantly aware of.

The First thing is to recognize who our friends are. I'll explain what I mean.

One question that I haven't answered yet is who I'm including as Christians who could or should be reunited in One Christian Church. I don't think it's possible to give one binary answer to that question but rather to talk about those who are closer or further away from us in unity and doctrine. Most fundamentally, to be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ. The Bible says clearly that "no-one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit". This makes it clear that the Holy Spirit works within all those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and recognises them as Christian (in some basic sense).

Those who worship God as their Father and Jesus Christ as Lord form a group in humanity clearly recognisable as differentiated from those of other religions and ideologies. Even in the bad old days of sectarianism this was recognised, with those who confessed Christ, but were considered to get serious things wrong, called heretics, in difference to those who weren't Christians, who were labelled infidels. In fact it is possible to go further than this. Almost all denominations recognise the possibility of those who, as the Catholic Catechism states, "through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ" also through the grace of God reaching eternal salvation, whether or not they have ever even heard the name Jesus Christ.

It is definitely possible to be more precise than this vague statement about "Jesus is Lord" though. All the 4 major Christian families I mentioned before: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Non-Trinitarian share in this heritage, that Christ is Lord and God is our Father. Taking out the Non-Trinitarian grouping though, which is the most different, both internally and to the others, we are left with Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic. These three groups constitute Trinitarian Christianity and share a huge common heritage and similarity compared to which their differences are, truthfully, small and often downright invisible to those from outside their communities not versed in the history of the conflict.

Most basically we share the concept of the Trinity, a belief in One God in Three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We share a belief that the man Jesus of Nazareth who walked in Judea 2000 years ago is also God Almighty, the Son of the Trinity. We believe he is both fully God and fully man; that he is the single most important man who ever has or will live, and that he came to bring eternal salvation to all mankind. We share a common, complete Scripture, the Old and New Testaments of 66 books and we believe this Holy Bible is the authoritative and divinely inspired word of God. We trust in Jesus' Apostles to have recorded and transmitted the truth about Jesus and we take their interpretation as authoritative. We share our fundamental standard of prayer: the Lord's Prayer, and the three historic creeds (Nicene, Apostolic and Athanasian), with their detailed description of Christian doctrine; the two fundamental sacraments of Baptism and Communion as necessary to the Faith, and various other ceremonies such as Marriage and Burial. We all share a historical basis in Judaism, as well as at least 400 years of history, a joint heritage of early Christian Saints and Holy Men, the folk memory of the persecution of the early Church under the Roman Empire, and the eventual victory of Christianity. We share core theology of the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing strength and truth, of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, and of the importance of Good works to faith, and the mission of all Christians to "make disciples of all the nations" and to make the Kingdom of God a reality on this earth. And I could go on for some time.

This Trinitarian Christian community numbers about 90% of Christians. There is a further subset of this group though that shares even more than this. All Orthodox, Catholics and some Protestants share a common heritage of how Christians should be organised based on the Apostolic succession. We share a belief in the importance of the threefold ministry of Deacons, Priests and Bishops; the Apostolic Succession of Bishops in a line going back to the Apostles and Jesus himself and the importance of Tradition (with a big T) as a source of doctrine and interpretation. (As well as doctrines such as the real presence, veneration of Saints, Liturgy, etc, etc.) And this further subset makes up about 70% of Christians. It is also possible to go further and identify which group within this diversity are closest to each other, and have the most in common down to a fineness. But we would be here forever and it is multidimensional question, so as I mentioned before there is no one clear measure to rank people by or standard to judge with.

Now, I do not by any of this mean to make little of, minimise or ignore the differences that do exist between Christians and Christian groups. These issues are often serious, important and deeply felt. But rather to put these differences in the context in which they truthfully exist. Genuine dialogue and work towards reconciliation cannot occur on the basis of ignoring differences or abandoning one's own beliefs, but rather in being honest and open about the differences and the similarities that do exist between groups, and neither ignoring or minimising either. We will never move forward without a genuine willingness to change and compromise and no church or person within the body of Christ is perfect. We all have our sins and our mistakes, in the past and today, and without the willingness to admit this there can be no progress. But this does not mean that we can start the journey by abandoning the Truth we currently hold. You never get anywhere by watering down or avoiding the Truth because that is the very thing that we seek to unite around.

The Importance of Christian Unity - A Cry From the Heart!

(This is the first half of a two part talk I gave about Christian Unity.  The 2nd half can be found here on A Modest Proposal of Christian Unity.  The slides I used when giving this as a presentation are at the bottom of this post.)

Some of you are hopefully aware that a few weeks ago was the official Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2011. The idea of this week is what it says on the tin, a period where Christians will devote themselves to praying for God's grace in achieving unity and fellowship among all Christians, as Jesus intended and prayed on the night before he died in the garden of Gethsemane.

Christian Unity is something I feel very strongly about.  It is impossible to seriously doubt that Christians are divided, and that once we were united.  We were together when Jesus was here, and after he left us the Bible tells us that "all the believers were together and had everything in common" and that they "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts".  But over time that unity and love between them was broken.  Over the two thousands years since then the Christian community grew and grew beyond all imagination, across centuries and continents, until today there are Christians in every country in the world and 30% of humanity at least identify as Christian.  But sadly this unity and love and closeness we once had is now gone.

If you wanted to make a list of the different types of Christian you could start with breaking them down into Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Non-Trinitarian.  Each of these groups number in the hundreds of millions, and internally bear various similarities of origin and structure.  But even these are families of organisations bearing certain similarities rather than single christian communities.  The Roman Catholic church is the closest, constituting 95% of the Catholic strand, but even here there are other groups.  The Orthodox can be broken into Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Church of the East, the first two of which are themselves communions of a number of, generally, nationally organised Churches.  The Protestant strand is famously disunited, being constituted of hundreds to thousands of organisations, from a huge number of individual independent churches to world-wide families of Churches such as the Anglican Communion. Non-trinitarianism is a vague term for a range of 'churches' who reject the traditional Christian theology in various ways, including Mormons, Christadelphians and extreme 'Liberal' Theology. They are disparate and generally widely different though united by their rejection of the Trinity, and by all being a relatively modern offshoots from the other Christian groups.

This gives the most basic breakdown of the wide range of groups and organisations that claim descent from the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and are based on the joint declaration that 'Christ is Lord'. It is however the most basic of explanations. To properly list all the organisations that fill up these categories would take an encyclopedia all on its own. It would take another one to explain all the (generally far smaller) groups and individuals who don't easily fall into any of these categories.

With the passing of 2000 years and the journey through civilisations, languages, continents and the troubles of war and politics, it is not surprising that some differences and arguments would have emerged between a body that now numbers 2 billion people.  But there is more to the division than a natural floating apart.  At times and in places it has been marked by a brutality, a disregard for others, arrogance, xenophobia and hatred, and too often sectarianism masquerading as principle.  Some of its greatest divisions have grown almost by accident, for reasons that few can recognise even today, but have then gone on to grow into chasms that has led to so much trouble and pain.

Looking back through history our greatest hurt and damage has so often come about not because of any action by those who hate us and Christianity but by our own disunion and inability to work together and love one another. Arguably our greatest loss, the conquest of the Middle East by the Muslims, 1300 years ago, would not have been possible if it were not for the fact the native Christian populations welcomed the Muslim armies, because it freed them from their Government, which had persecuted them because it belonged to a different Christian faction.  And so the land that is now Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Turkey, Iraq, which were once Christian, were lost, and are now overwhelmingly Muslim countries.

Civil Wars are always the most brutal, and for centuries our divisions have led us to do terrible things to each other, and to entrench hatred between nations and peoples.  And in doing so we have disgraced the Gospel and reduced the power of our witness.  Our message is lost and the world laughs at us.  Once upon a time people said about us, these Christians "look how they love one another", but now they say, these Christians, how can we listen to them when they cannot even agree with each other?  How can they talk about how we need to love when they cannot even love each other?  And they ignore the name of God and Jesus Christ because we fight among each other.

I have a great belief in the importance of Christian Unity.  It has always been something I have thought about a bit ever since I became old enough to understand that we were divided. I couldn't understand why.  But it was not something that bothered me a great deal, I just got on with life, went to Church, sang, prayed, thought, played, studied and grew from a child to an adult.  Then something happened.  Firstly, I had begun reading more about the historical events of our splits and divisions, and how many seemed so ridiculous, and how even at the times of the splits themselves, no one involved had meant such lasting divisions to happen.  I also had begun hearing about the persecution of Christians around the world, who lived in countries less fortunate than ours, where they could not worship God in peace.  And that made me think.

And then it was Christmas of my 1st year at University, and I was at home, and I was washing my hands, of all things, and my mind was wandering, as it does from thing to thing.  I was thinking about my faith in a vague kind of way, but then suddenly my thoughts accelerated tumbling from topic to topic and then in an instant I was hit by a profound religious experience.  A message from God hit me like a punch to the chest and for just a second my mind opened with perfect clarity, the breath caught in my chest and my eyes saw straight through the room around me. In that instant I was utterly convicted of my sin, I felt it in every part of my body. It was the strangest thing, it felt like my body was pulling apart into pieces, like I had lost several limbs all at once and I felt the loss.  And it came into my mind from somewhere precisely what the pain was, and precisely what the sin was I was convicted of.  The pain was the pain of the Body of Christ divided.  It was the pain of Jesus Christ felt from his body being torn apart and his children being separated and distant from each other in their hearts.  And what was that sin I felt fully convicted of in that moment?  It was the sin of Convenience!  The sin of neglect!  I had never broken from my brothers and sisters; I have never encouraged division or sectarianism; I had never operated from an assumption that my kind must know best about everything, or that someone else could have nothing to offer because he was different to me.  I had done nothing.

What Christmas Means To Me

Just as my town is to this house, just as this country is to this town, just as this world is to this land; just as the sun is to this planet, just as this galaxy is to our sun just as the universe is to a galaxy, so is God to all the universe.  He is so much greater than all we see here, though all that we see is undoubtedly within him, carried safely within him.  Still, though so vast he holds the Universe in the palm of his hand and supports and sustains all that is; though he alone is great and holy and eternal, and the world is a small and sinful place; still he came and was born to a young girl, in a stable where only animals saw his birth.

God is greater than everything, yet he made himself almost nothing, entirely weak, entirely dependent on human hands, so the world may be filled with God.  We see so many Christmas scenes, so many little statues of the nativity, that it is easy to forget what it really is.

Throughout  history man has attempted to reach out to God to know him and be as One with him, to understand the most fundamental meaning and value and purpose of all existence.  To this end we have tried everything through the ages. We have built vast churches, temples, cathedrals and shrines; made beautiful Art, sculptures, paintings, murals; wrote songs, chanted, written classical symphonies and oratio, hymns, carols, strummed guitars and rock worship; formulated liturgies, services and prayers; given sacrifices, performed rituals, lived as hermits, prayed, fasted from meat, for a time, until the point of death; wore hair-shirts, sackcloth and ashes, habits of wool, elaborate robes; burnt incense and shared bread, kept vigils, entered trances, whipped ourselves into frenzies, meditated for years on end; danced and sung, begged, kept silence, built great institutions, spanning continents and centuries, held laws and statutes, raised leaders, revered prophets and saints, told stories and legends, crafted myths and philosophies; read books and nature, wrote and studied books after books for lives after lives, preached, taught, spoken and listened and listened, argued and argued; done works of charity and love, taken poverty and hoarded great wealth, travelled vast distances and changed the world, fought wars and conflicts, taken life and given life and given up our own life, loved and hated, hoped and trusted and clung on for lifetime after lifetime over century after century.

But for all our learning, studying, writing, speaking, listening and arguing we know and comprehend all but nothing of the depth of God who is infinite Truth. For all our praying, sacrificing, worshipping and ritual we barely brush the edges of his greatness.  For all our meditation, prayer, fasting and solitude we barely approach his essence.  For all our good deeds and charity and sacrifice to be holy we only come to realise how perfect, how Holy, how infinitely far beyond he truly is.  For all our mysticism, philosophy, frenzies and ceremony we barely glimpse him as through a thick mist.

Our greatest efforts could barely begin to approach God.  But God came down and was born as a tiny baby in a lowly stable.  And the fullness of Almighty, Infinite God was held tight in the arms of a virgin girl, and Invisible and Unseen God was seen clearly by those human eyes, and God who requires nothing from us received everything he needed in milk and warmth; And God who can not be known was known by those there. All of God who encloses the whole Universe was enclosed in her arms; God who no one fully knows was known by her, and raised by her and taught and loved by her.  And he grew and he walked amongst us and we could see him and touch him and speak to him face to face, and we knew him. And he taught us in plain words and ate with us and was there, and he was our friend.

God descended from his distance and came into the world as a man, and the whole world is sacred, because the Lord God experienced it.  This earth of matter is holy, because God descended into it.  Because it is a created thing and still God grew up from within it like a plant from the withered ground.

Without a doubt the two greatest deeds of God are the birth of the Universe and the birth of Christ.  The first creation and the new creation.  And the One Creation is much like the Other.  Through the Creation of the Universe we know of God at all, as St Paul says, "the whole world sings of the glory of God".  In the new creation we know of God perfectly, as his perfection enters a damaged world.  The Universe is vast and great and magnificent, but in new creation God,who is greater and vaster than all the Universe, is born into it, made himself enclosed and surrounded by it, as the tiniest part of it.

One Life grew and lived and loved and died and rose again.  So we are all reflected and sanctified by the life of Christ, who shared our body.  One Life, greater than all life, is born among us.  We who are beings may see Being, asleep in a manger, and we who love, may hold Love in our arms, a babe in a stable by an inn.

Christ the Son was born beautiful and grew and lived in love, and for a long time he was silent, but in later days he spoke out, but he died, but the Father raised him to greater glory, transformed into eternity, and he sits at the right hand of the Father. Like this the Universe was created, beautiful, and grew in beauty, but for a long time it was silent. Now in these later days have awoken the voice of the children of God among it.  But in the end it will come to destruction, but it will not pass away, but be transformed by God in to greater glory, to dwell, sanctified by him and with him and in him forever.  He gave us the sign of Christ, so we may know, and never fear again.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth”

The Universe is a mystery, but God upholds it and secures it and sustains it.  And God is wrapped around everything that is and holds it within him, yet still he came within and so was held within himself.  God the Son who is beyond all Understanding  was sustained within the World, and the World is contained and sustained within and by the Father. And yet still more, for the Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son, so the whole forms an eternal cycle and the Universe is held between and shot through with Godhood within and without and both and again. And so we have a Wonder containing a Mystery containing that same Wonder, again and again.

And that is the most beautiful thing in the world.



Merry Christmas.

The Philosophy of Christian Focus

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First, a quick disclaimer. This is just some of my thoughts about Christian Focus.  You'll have to excuse me if it is a bit idealistic and theoretical.  I'm not saying we actually manage do all these things.  But they are, rather what I feel we try to do, could do, and perhaps should be trying to do.  And, what we have to offer, as a society, as a community and as part of God's Church.  I'm not trying to tell anyone how to do their job (note to the current exec).  This is just some of my thoughts, I hope it will help people think about what we do and why and how we try to do it.

I feel that Christian Focus, as a society, has something unique to offer, to individuals, to campus, and to the Church in our area.  For me the philosophy of Christian Focus can be summed by saying that we aim to be a Welcoming and loving community to everyone who may want one.  We have two main meetings a week, which, conveniently for this schema, match up with these two ideas, of building a community of people and of seeking to learn from and about one another and the wider world. We are fundamentally open to the world.

For me, these are all the same.  I believe God created all things and loves all things and because of this the Gospel, God's witness to us all, speaks to the whole of our lives, the whole way we conduct ourselves, the way we organise ourselves, both personally, socially and worldwide.  The things we have to offer the community of Christians are similar to those we have to offer our entire human community.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said that the worst poverty in the world is not that there are people who have no money, but that there are people who are totally alone, who feel that no-one cares that they are alive.  One of the greatest features of Christian Focus is that it offers a welcome with no conditions attached.  With most societies you have to be able to, or want to, do some activity or be interest in some particular thing, whether rugby, singing, french culture, beer or whatever.  With Focus, though, we have always tried to make it a place where anyone can come, regardless of what they do, or what they are like or who they are, and they will be welcomed and included in the group and accepted for what they are at that moment, without any requirement (you don't even have to eat).  Most basically, to make somewhere where anyone can come and someone will show an interest in the fact that they are alive, regardless of how they're feeling or acting.  And for me one of the ways I have tried to do this, for example, is to just, occasionally, look around at Socials and check that there is no-one sitting on their own with no-one talking to them, especially any new person who may have come in.

More than this though, is to try to build a community of people who know each other and support each other and have fun together and to offer hospitality and rest to whoever comes in.  To make a place that is as nonthreatening as possible so people feel able to come in and take part and get to know people.  The Bible tells us to give to the person who asks of you, lend to a person who asks to borrow from you, and in all things that the person who serves others, God considers master over all, and so we try to attempt to make a space where people can come in to be what they want, not considering it ours, rather than asserting ourselves to get other people to conform to our way of doing things.  Jesus also said "Come to me if you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take the weight I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me.  For I am gentle and humble, and with me you will find rest.  For the weight I give you is easy to bear, and my burden is light."  So we try to make a place which does this so, as much as possible, people may always leave more at peace and happy than when they arrive.      

To be honest, this is just a posh way of saying making friends and having fun together.  'Making friends' is a simple phrase that means a lot.  Getting to know people, getting relaxed around people,  appreciating people for who they are and what they bring into your life, people who know what's going on with your life, who know how you react, who you trust, without having to explain everything each time you meet.  Enjoying people's company and having fun.  It is such a commonplace thing, but it is also, almost, the most important thing of life.  These are the building blocks of any community, and especially God's Church.  We can solve all the big problems of the world: war, poverty, prejudice; but if we do not build a society where every person is remembered and appreciated and has somewhere to turn in times of trouble then we still do not have much, because there will still be people who are afraid and alone in times of trouble.  Also, part of being welcoming and including without conditions comes a commitment to respecting and appreciating diversity, to all the different possible people that we may meet. You can only offer a welcome to anyone who comes in if you are also willing to respect everyone's difference.  To make a community out of people who are very similar is easy, it is a harder and, hence, a better thing to try to bring together equally people who are different in all sorts of ways.  For me, this is building the Kingdom of God, where the lion will lie down in peace with the lamb, and people from every nation will live together without fear or violence, caring for one another as Lord Jesus cared and cares for us all.

Another part of community is the fact that everything we have as a society, everything we do, we try to share between us and do together.  We eat the same food, we try to make sure everyone can do the activities we do.  We don't try to make a profit from anything we do, we do everything at cost and try to keep the price as low as possible.  We are, as much as we can be, a good socialist community, as the first disciples were in the first days of Christianity, and as religious orders around the world are.  This is all part of standing together and being a loving community that supports one another, whose first aim is to do things together and to help one another, without entry requirements, so that a diverse range of people can be part of it, and in which each person has a place.  St Paul spoke about the Church being like a body, with each cell linked with every other, each organ having a role and a place as part of a larger whole along with every other.  John Donne said that "no man is an island, rather each a part of the mainland", and we try to do this by attempting to bring people from all different groups together, and also appreciating and integrating what every different person brings and the perspective they have and what they like to do, whether music, mathematics, frisbee, photography, football, webcomics or whatever.  

Jesus called his disciples to make disciples of all the nations, and at Pentecost the disciples received the gift of languages to speak to people in their own tongue.  Christianity, for me, is not only a religion for all people, in whatever time and place, but also can never be a religion that attempts to force people to speak with one voice, but rather embraces them in their diversity, as it is that diversity which adds up to give the richness that God created and loves. For me, it is important that Christian focus is a community made up of people from different groups and backgrounds.  This gives us a chance to learn from different people, whom we might not naturally spend much time with, and we strengthen, and compliment each other through our difference, more than we could if we were all the same.  All individuals are precious to God, all are his children, whether Christian or not and Christian Focus would be a weaker place if we were dominated by liberal Christians or evangelical Christians, religious or non-religious people, catholics or protestants, Christians or people of other faiths.  Together, though, we have more to offer one another and more ways to learn about and experience the depth and width of all that God has made.

This idea also motivates our talks, the desire to learn and understand more about the width and richness of the world we are part of and the issues it raises.  They give an opportunity to learn as much as possible about the many different sorts of issues we meet in the wider world, inspired by a Christian perspective.  University is a time to learn and to widen horizons and a wide range of talks gives us a chance to be challenged in many different ways, whether faced with a different religion and way of being spiritual, or the realities of complex moral issues, or the possibilities of new spiritual disciplines and perspectives we hadn't thought of before.  For me, this is about just appreciating and showing an interest in all the world contains.  God made us, and the gospels speaks to us, as creatures of body, mind, heart and soul and at my time at Christian focus we have had talks that have spoken to each one of these parts of our being.  It is dangerous to risk neglecting any one of these areas, as too often happens in our wider society and culture.  

To this end we have talks on many issues, whether intellectual or emotional, or theological.  We also make an atmosphere to discuss issues like these informally between people and, on the intellectual side, we create a chance for people to talk to those at University in other years and get help and advice with work, at times.  Or just reassurance that it is possible to get through your course without going nuts before coming out the other side.  On the side of the soul, We also have Time2Focus, prayer times and various reflections and meditative things.  we try to look at new and different ways to consider faith and spirituality.  We also have food on a weekly basis, though, and we come together to hang-out, to share each other's company, to relax and to end the week in calm.  This just about covers body, mind, heart and soul.  Feeding people is just as important as being able to learn through the talks, or experience community with the people, or take part in new forms of meditation and spirituality or prayer.  Showing hospitality, as simple, as it is, is such a gift and a useful thing in the world, and it is our commitment to this world, as well as the next.

The last thing about Christian Focus, for me, and in line with its diversity and its welcome, is that it is complementary, not exclusive.  Being a part of Christian Focus is entirely compatible with pretty much anything else, and, especially in the life of our Christian members.  We do not try to do everything good or useful for a Christian life, so that we can do the things we do do, better.  For example, Evangelism, spreading the Gospel, telling people about the things God did, and God revealed, in Jesus Christ, is such an important part of the Christian faith.  But we don't do it, at least not explicitly or as a group, because it would appear threatening to some people and reduce our ability to be unconditionally open and welcoming, so we deliberately give up this part of our nature so we are more able to be open.  But it is good that people can then be part of groups, as well, that do do those things we don't.  Different groups and activities and approaches can complement each other and we do not regard that as a problem, but an opportunity to, between us, do more and better than just one group on its own, doing things one way, could.  And, for me, personally, I really like doing different things in different groups, giving me a chance to do things different ways and with different people, rather than doing everything related to my faith through a single church, say, or other group.  This is also all part of the diversity of the thing as well.  We can all do and want to do different things, as Christians and in the ordinary sense, that is fine, because we can agree and come together on certain important things, the importance of pasta bake on a Sunday being one of them.

Excuse me, again, if this all sounds very theoretical.  What it all boils down to, though, is people.  Appreciating, showing an interest in and caring about people.  Beings so precious that God, who is so far above all things, and against whom stars and galaxies and space and time are mere trifles, gave himself over to humiliation and abuse and death to try to save them, in all their messiness and fallibility and complications.  It is, after all, the people who make any community, and whether they care, or are willing to help out, that will make somewhere great or just a pain, far more than any principles or ideas they may be trying to carry out.  
And, as this seems as good time as any to say this, at Christian Focus, over the last three years, I have met the most interesting, diverse, talented and friendly group of people that I have ever met anywhere.  I have to say, that my favourite part of each academic year is the start, because of the excitement about what unique, funny, kind, talented people the new academic year will bring.  It is a source of constant amazement to me that there can be so many people in the world but that each one can be so individual, so different to every single other one, though I guess this doesn't necessarily reveal anything more than my poor imagination.

On a personal note: I have immensely enjoyed my time at Christian Focus, even the year and 2/3 that I spent on the exec, and both the chance to work, relax and live alongside such amazing people.  Over the years the chaplaincy has become a home, and you have become like a family: numerous, argumentative and difficult at times, but always around.  And this has been more and more true the longer I have known you, and we've been around for good times, bad times, exams, holidays, relationships, journeys, illnesses, arguments, and God alone knows how many speakers and how much over cooked rice.  With any luck Christian Focus will continue to thrive for many years to come and have something unique to offer the world, the University, the Christian community, and all its members.

Steve.

What Christianity is all about.

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Christianity is all about ‘more than you deserve’. The principle is that we are given more than we deserve by god, because he loves us. God is not just or fair by human standards, he is so much greater than we can ever imagine that he is completely divorced from our ideas of justice. God has given us, through the eternal sacrifice of Christ, more than we deserve. He has paid himself the debt that he is owed. This is why we are ordered to turn the other cheek. “If someone slaps you on your left cheek, turn to him the other cheek and let him slap it as well, if someone steals your coat, give him your shirt as well, if an occupation (roman) soldier forces you to carry his pack a mile, carry it two miles”. To accept the grace of god doing more for us than we deserve we have to give to others more than they deserve.

This isn’t just a good ideal either, it is the only practical way to heal the world. We have seen, bitterly played out, that an eye for an eye does not work. Just ask the Israelis and the Palestinians. Rather the way of the Gospel, of turning the other cheek, is the only way to ever completely gain peace. But still there are so many people who cry out for revenge, for a strike back, and the killing continues.

What God Does.

Last October I took part in a week of guided prayer in Warwick Chaplaincy and I became very aware of something. With prompting from Steve my prayer guide, I thought back to my times sitting in the woods, or on the train or anywhere else where I was just watching the world go by. I spoke of these times as times of great contentment at just being within the world. I also told him about my great sense of the presence of God at these times. He asked me about what I thought that God was doing at these times, or how he was looking at me. The answer was that God was just watching.

When I was sitting there watching the world, it was a very special moment, for I was still and complete, for I am whole in the world when nothing is wrong that I can or must affect. It is a way in which I feel the goodness which underlies reality and that I could abide forever in that moment in perfect contentment, if that moment would just remain. So God was watching the world as well.

Like when I sat and looked down the valley behind my house. I sat on the grass in a warm summer, looking down the valley, past the golden and brown fields and trees and watching the sun go down behind the treetops. I watched this happen and drank in the beauty of it and I has the most incredible sense of watching it with God and of him watching it to, and appreciating it to, for he need do nothing but watch, and sharing this beautiful vision of what he had created.

I realised that I saw a piece of beauty, unique in the history of the world and the Universe, and I realised that no-one but me saw it, no-one but me and God. I realised that he must see this beautiful sunset every day, every day a little different, and that most days he saw it alone, unseen and unappreciated by anyone else. But this day he shared it with me, and I felt that God smiled, and that I was supremely honoured to share this moment where I was experiencing the pleasure of a maker at the success and unveiling of the beauty of the thing he had made. Like the pride of a parent at their daughter’s wedding, or their graduation from University. Love mingled with pride and the one reinforcing the other.

Thinking about this time I think that this is what God always does. He watches and waits for the time to come and sometimes he watches beauty and sometime he does not, but always he watches, and when the times is right he acts and he is working his purposes out from year to year. I had never thought about what God does with the world when he is not dealing with people, with thinking beings. What did he do in the aeons before the founding of the world. The answer, I think, is very simple, he watched.

God in the Bible and in the experience of my heart is not a God of many words. In the Bible God never uses ten words where one would do. I admit that this is not always true. God’s silence is broken by action, and powerful action to, and speech. In Jesus, God spoke at length but still the Gospels leave the feeling of so many words unspoken, so many parables we wish could be more completely explained, so many pages that could be in there.

Furthermore, my own explorations have led me into the search for stillness, in being able to move with rather than against the universe and God’s truth and the nature of what is valuable. It is a feeling of seeking a Taoist-like harmony with the universe, in Christian terms being in perfect obedience with the will and intentions of God. This is in terms of harmony and an important part of that harmony is both inner and bodily stillness and watching and waiting and acting when it is needed. In Taoist terms, doing by not doing. Actions, and powerful actions, puncture silence and watching. It is impossible, however, to underestimate the importance of watching and listening, and experiencing, for to do such a thing is to drink in the world as it moves around you.

Neither does it have to be contrary to God’s ever-activity and care. It is the nature of things that God pervades all. God acts constantly, both in his intercession in the world and through the constant over-flow of his Love into the world, that we call Grace. However, in any particular strand of existence, viewing any particular slice of time, looking at all the places in the cosmos, overwhelmingly in terms of their number God watches and does not directly act, although still his love and compassion overflow, as we know that we can merely watch someone and yet still our love and care can flow onto them.