New Start!

‘The question we need to ask with any spiritual discipline is,
What does God want to accomplish through this practice? …
Perhaps we can see, then, that the discipline of fasting has to do with the critical dynamic of accepting those limits which are life-restoring. Our culture would seduce us into believing that we can have it all, do it all, and (even more preposterous!) that we deserve it all. Yet in refusing to accept limits on our consumption or activity, we perpetuate a death-dealing dynamic in the world. That is why the discipline of fasting is so profoundly important today.’
Marjorie J. Thompson
SOUL FEAST

I’ve a lot to learn about disciplines but this one is for me the most difficult!
What do you think?

Well I’ve been away for much of this month- to Aviemore for the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference making contact with members of the Christian Forum; to Valencia to stay with my Spanish friend Charo and now about to go south to the Borders for an Easter Retreat. More of all that when I return!
In the mean time I share with you a quotation from a letter received today from Martin Callender, Director of ReSource.
He agrees with Canon Steve Croft that ‘A mssion shaped church is not enough’ and and adds a quotation from Patriarch Athenagoras-’Without the Holy Spirit, God is far away, Christ remains a figure of the past, the Gospel a dead letter, the Church a mere organisation, authority a means to power, mission a propaganda machine, worship becomes outdated and morality the action of slaves.’

Food for thought?

In todays news digest from Sojourners I read-
Going green. “Around the country and around the world, more companies and investment funds are walking their talk on tackling global climate change. … It’s not just environmental do-gooderism in a power tie. Increasingly, businesses are finding that going green can be profitable.”

How sad that doing the right thing depends upon profitability.

How about NOT selling sterile seed to poor African farmers so that they can no longer save seed from the harvest for next year and have to find money to buy seed.

How about NOT encouraging the destruction of rainforest  to feed our greed?

Or cutting down our own trees to build another road or housing developement?

Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics-why the Right got it Wrong and the Left never got it, made an impact here in Britain as well as in America where it seems to have been well received across the States.

Now his new book The Great Awakening seems set to have as great, if not more influence, than its predecessor. Wallis is calling for a great revival of Christian belief and believes this is the time for Americans to wake up to where they are and be ready to be transformed. See more on the God’s Politics website or go to Amazon here:-

The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America

Much of what he says, is I am sure, as relevant here despite differences in history and culture.

Anybody read it?

When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”- Matthew 28:17-20

It seems to me we are quite good at baptising members of our church but less good at teaching them how to be disciples and preparing to send them out.

What do you think?

My one and only visit to the holy Land was some time age. Our small group was led by what we know call a Messianic Jew, one English Jew who while an expert on Jewish Law was also an inspired Christian Pastor. Looking over Bethlehem and the so-called ‘Shepherds field’ he said he had been told that shepherds sometime broke a leg of a lamb and then nursed it carefully back to health. The lamb forgot the injury but stayed close to the one who had shown love and care, and became a ‘lead-sheep’ for the flock (as sheep follow the leader who follows the shepherd).

Peter in John 21 seems in a similar position in becoming the leader of the sheep. Jesus had said that ‘the one who loves most has been forgiven most’ so this testing time for Peter resulted in him reaffirming his love for Christ the Good Shepherd following his grief over his betrayal of Jesus. Perhaps rather than being called as a shepherd he is more like the lead sheep??

What do you think?

Thinking about Geoffrey’s reflections on Jesus commands to Peter (Jn 15), I thought some more about sheep care and shepherding. Shepherds don’t normally feed the sheep and lambs; they provide nourishment for them to feed themselves in a safe environment.
I have read that Psalm 23 is the Berber shepherds song. In the morning they lead their flock up a steep path at the side of a ravine to the high pasture. At the top each sheep has to jump the narrow divide to get to the food, with the sheperd’s staff below it to encourage and the crook to catch it should it trip.
When they start feeding the shepherd moves ahead to pull up poisonous weeds (the enemies) and place them on a stone or rock where they shrivel up in the sun. He then rests somewhere in the shade and at some point each indivual sheep comes to nuzzle him and commune. Sheep can’t drink from running water so he makes a hollow and directs water from a stream into a pool of water for them.
In the evening they follow him back to the fold (one way traffic essential!) where he checks each one for wounds or pests using wine or oil for antiseptic and salve and fills a cup to overflowing so they can drink (they don’t lap water). When they’re all safely in he bars the gate and sleeps there- just inside probably.
Incidently we sometimes forget that most of the sheep are ewes; the males are likely to be castrated after birth to fatten up for food! (Or not if they are for the sacrifice)
I am glad that it is Jesus himself is our shepherd-he who knows us, rather than the local pastor who doesn’t. The pastor or minister is there to provide good nourishment for the flock and keep them safe and needs the constant communion -the infilling of the Spirit from the Good Shepherd herself!
What do you think?

Jose Comblin wrote ‘the Jesus event and the Holy Spirit event’ in the New Testament are crucial to each other and should be in the outworking of our Trinitarian faith. There is this vital relationship between the Word and the Spirit, between Easter resurrection and Pentecost mission.
Western theology has sought to play down Pentecost in favour of Easter ‘A theology mutilated in this way cannot be effective on the plane of action : without the experience of the Spirit Jesus could never have moved the men and women of his day as he did, not even those who heard him and followed him’. The same is true today.

From Martin Cavender letter Dec 20
Ref The Holy Spirit and Liberation by Jose Comblin
Jose Comblin is a Roman Catholic theologian working in Brazil since 1958, mostly among the poor and deprived in the shanty towns.

What do you think?

John O’Donohue died unexpectedly on Jan 3 in his sleep. I read Anam Cara some time ago and never forgot the impression it made-beauty, love and loving of God; once I heard him speak in a service from Northern Ireland-unexpectedly- a serendipity
Visit

A BLESSING FOR EQUILIBRIUM.BY JOHN O’DONOHUE, from ‘Benedictus – A Book of Blessings’

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the music of laughter break through your soul.
As the wind wants to make everything dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the freedom of the monastery bell,
May clarity of mind make your eyes smile.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May a sense of irony give you perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May fear or worry never put you in chains.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the distance the laughter of God.

We recognise now that we are in a post-modern and post-Christendom culture here in the West, and that there must be change- but how and what is to be changed? Do we retreat, close some church buildings, leave one clergy person in charge of half-a dozen parishes, or struggle along with an aging congregation, or initiate some changes, cells, mid-week services special events for children, get into interactive media; or do we rethink church and start anew?

Frost and Hirsch start by saying that we must get over Christendom, in which Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, social and spiritual movement, to being a religious institution with its attendant structures, priesthood, and sacraments. The meta-narrative has changed. And yet Constantine is still the emperor of our imaginations.

The Gospel and our Culture Network (GOCN) identifies 12 marks of a missional church:

1  Proclaims the gospel

2  is a community when all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus

3  The Bible is normative

4  The Church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death and resurrection

5  It seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and  its members.

6 Its indicated by how Christians behave to one another

7  Its a community that practises reconciliation

8  its members hold themselves accountable to one another in love

9  It practises hospitality

10  Worship is the central act by which it celebrate with joy God’s presence and promised future

11  It has a vital public witness

12  It recognises itself to be an incomplete expression of the reign of God

The Authors propose 3 overarching principles that give energy and direction to the above marks: 

*The missional church is incarnational (not attractional) in its ecclesiology – it goes out, rather than invites in

 *The missional church is messianic (not dualistic) in its spirituality – it sees the world and God’s place in it as holistic, not divided into sacred and secular

*The missional church adopts an apostolic (not hierarchical) mode of leadership – following the 5fold model in Ephesians 4. 

(Frost M & Hirsch A The Shaping of Things to Come- innovation and mission for the 21st-century church).

 I’m still reading this important book- much indebted to Alison Morgan’s detailed synopsis. It is challenging and I’ll try to continue these notes

What do you think?