What makes the Gospel good?

Gospel: good news. But what makes the gospel good? I mean, if the gospel is that we are sinners and God is angry with us, and we have to live our lives a certain way or we are being disobedient, then I have to say that at first glance that doesn’t sound very good at all. What makes it good?

Even if we add that Jesus died for us, is that really good? I’m not sure I want someone else’s blood on my head, that puts me in remarkable debt doesn’t it?

I suppose if what I am seeking is independence, then this gospel is nothing but bad news to me isn’t it? If I want to be entirely my own man, and make all my own choices, and bear the consequences of them all, then this gospel will smell like death to me. If on the other hand, independence is not my ultimate test of good, but instead I value relationship, then the gospel appears to me transformed.

If I’m not afraid of being in relationship, and arranging my life to bring joy to another, then the reality that I am a sinner remains terrible, but the news that someone has died to heal that is wonderful. Further, if my life isn’t all about me, then ordering my life for someone else’s joy is no longer a hateful thing, but a delightful thing.

The question then of whether the gospel is good, really turns upon your initial orientation: if your orientation is self-centred, then the gospel opposes you. If your orientation is other-centred, then the gospel is not only good, it is life itself.

Before we find fault with God's plans, it sometimes helps to see our own hearts. 

The Long wait for God

Sometimes waiting can be long and slow and hard and lonely. Here's a little piece by a writer I know, that I think captured something of the essence of the long wait for God.

Es Stewart: Drought

I hope it's a blessing to you,

dh

Seeking Someone who can Truly See

So many of the problems we have in our world are due to people valuing things wrongly. I mean, if people valued love of others over power for themselves, just think of the difference that would make? Or if people valued relationships over possessions, how different would our world look?

But I’m conscious as I say that, that this problem is too intractable to be solved by simply re-educating people. Because most of these problems are to do with value, and value is not a logical thing. I can’t logically prove that a long marriage is more fun than a one night stand. I can think it, and I can teach it, but I can’t logically prove it.

Similarly I can’t prove that it’s better to give than to receive, or that losing your life for Jesus is actually the necessary step in finding it. I can’t prove any of these things. To grasp these things, a person actually has to have their eyes opened.

When it comes to questions of value, the only way there can be any true measure of it is if there is someone absolute, who sees truly what is valuable. For the average person who can conceive of none above themselves to make that decision, all that is left is opinion. Yet there is someone who is absolute and sees true, and that person is Jesus. If we would know what is truly valuable in this world, we must listen to Jesus.

We refuse to be enemies.

There’s a block of stone on a Palestinian Road, facing an Israeli settlement that has carved upon it these words: “We refuse to be enemies”. I don’t know who wrote it, and ultimately it doesn’t really matter I suppose. What matters is that someone, somewhere is willing to take that stand.

And it really is a stand. When we are attacked, when we are afraid, when we feel abused, or manipulated, or used, our instinctive reaction is to cast the protagonist in the role of enemy. This allows us several emotional luxuries, like feeling ourselves to be in ‘the right‘ and hence somehow superior, or feeling justified in our aggression or anger or hatred towards them. But do any of these emotional luxuries actually achieve anything other than soothing our delicate egos and further estranging an already strained relationship?

When Jesus came into the midst of Israel, and told his listeners, that despite the fact that they were being ruled by the Romans; despite the fact that basically every religious order around them was opposed to them; despite years of oppression and hardship, they were to love their enemies, he called them away from any emotional luxury and towards a very costly and very active love.

I don’t think Jesus‘ call is any less radical or necessary today.

In a world where people burn Korans to make a point, where they dance in the streets for joy that someone has been assasinated, where they scream “death to the infidel” at the skies, where they burn churches and retaliate in kind, Jesus’ call to love our enemies has never been more needed, nor more difficult.

To love ones enemies in an international politico-religious climate such as ours requires far more than just moments of good will, it requires more than cheap political rhetoric about multiculturalism or tolerance. It actually requires something akin to stubborn dogged resistance on the part of individuals in all their relationships and their language. To love those who differ from ourselves, particularly when their self-understanding is that they are our enemies, requires a flat refusal to allow oneself to even accept the possibility that we may be enemies. To love ones enemies, at its heart involves the refusal to be enemies.

We refuse to be enemies.

For the different ethnic groups which make up our society, our neighbourhoods, our streets: we refuse to be enemies.

For the different religious groups who are all learning to either fear each other or pretend we’re all alike, we need to realise that we are different, and yet, still, we refuse to be enemies.

Jesus told us to love our enemies. That doesn’t mean agree with everything they do. It doesn’t mean pretend we are all somehow alike. What it does mean is that however we may differ, we won’t let that difference make us enemies.

If Jesus is in any way your Lord, then today, resolve, to refuse to be enemies.

Living with Motor Neurone Disease under God

I read a strangely moving post today by a bloke named Roderick Mallan. He's a Christian who's suffering from Motor Neurone Disease, and this post showed both something of his struggle, and something of his faith. (Bugger is the name of his wheelchair)

Bugger!
Bugger is bogged, yet again!  

We have been bogged too deep and a little too often.  Mud, wet grass, or just an inch of silt over the footpath, and we are marooned.   B1 was bogged in the red sands of the Gibson Desert. B3 was once so clogged with clay that my Favourite Wife had to help me dismantle her and pry the earth out with a bread knife! 

B3 in a bad, bad bog!

Oddly enough, rescue almost always arrives in a light truck, and most often it will be a builder who drives past moments after I get stuck, sees the dilemma, and responds with warm, can-do Aussie practicality.  I love it!  But this time it’s complicated.  I’m not out in public where help is near at hand.  I am home; alone, in my back yard, hanging out the washing!

Beside the path to our Hills Hoist is a herb garden; a tangle of provender permanently sodden from the attention of a spring further up hill.  A brief lapse of concentration and three of my six wheels are in the mire; down and out!  At an alarming tilt, I’m feeling slightly panicked in the hot afternoon sun.  From where will rescue come this time, and – more urgently – when?   Barely two minutes have passed and the rattle of a diesel engine is coming up our street.  It’s too early from my Favourite Wife, and it sounds bigger than our van.  Then there voices at the front of our house.  The bog-site is right round the back, and I can’t raise my voice.  Perhaps I could whistle? I’m good at that!  Still no effect.  But whistling through my voice amplifier, now that’s a noise!   Enough noise to summon not one but two postmen, each looking for my signature.  One had come in the truck with a parcel, the second in a postie bike with registered mail, both at exactly the same time.  More than enough man power to un-bog Bugger.  What are the chances?  Who could have orchestrated that? 

So ended the painful week I chronicled in last Sunday’s post; but as if that were not enough reassurance, the same week had begun with another signal event.  My Favourite Wife was given a few unexpected days off work precisely when Little One was in respite care – booked months in advance.  Our life is pretty intense these days, and out of the blue we felt the quite alpine slopes beckon!  I rang the Ski Resort we occasionally visit, soon realising that a gift from friends which I had opened earlier in the morning was the exact amount quoted by our friendly manager for a couple of nights off-season luxury.  The exact amount!  What are the chances?  Who could have orchestrated that? 

These two days, Monday and Friday, bracketed last week like hands cupped around treasure.  When such ‘coincidences’ happen I can’t help but feel secure.  And yet … … it often puzzles me that Providence seems available in inverse proportion to the scale of the problem.  Put more simply: the smaller the crisis, the more likely the miracle.  Many people carry the heavy burden of significant, unanswered prayer in their hearts, while in the details of their everyday lives the touches of heaven are abundant.  I doubt that it is simply a lack of faith.   Why, when my deepest prayer is to get out of my wheelchair, does God answer only by pulling me out of the mud?  This is a vexing question; but in Bugger’s dis-bogging I see the hint of an answer. 

While I peer onward down the path of life, the Almighty savours the moments of each and every day.  I hunger for lifetime security, but he simply seeks a seat at my table tonight.  I strain to arrive, but He loiters on the road.  I look for my destiny, He shows me a detour.    It’s enigmatic!  We finite mortals toy incessantly with our long range goals and ten year plans, while the Master of Infinity dabbles in the instant. 

Why?  Because it is the journey itself that He values most.  I want control, he wants companionship.  I want the weather forecast, He just dances in the rain.  The architect who said, “God is in the detail” * may not have seen it as a spiritual principle; but in the detail of our days a calm and careful eye may see the confident hand of Eternity. 

Rejoice!

_________________________________________________

* Attributed to a number of different individuals, most notably to German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) by The New York Times in Mies’ 1969 obituary, however it is generally accepted to not have originated with him (Wikipaedia).

You can read more of Rod's blog at http://roderickmallen.wordpress.com 

thoughts to think,

doug.

Jesus, healing and demons

Perhaps this isn't something you come across in your theological tradition, it isn't much of an issue in mine. Yet I've had enough conversations with people and seen enough damage done to people by careless handling of this sort of issue to feel it warrants a comment.

It may be extreme, but some people in some places sometimes make the dangerous assertion that either: most illness is caused by the supernatural, or that Jesus' mission on earth was primarily a healing one. Neither is true.

I was reflecting on Luke 4.38-44 this morning and couldn't help noticing several actions of Jesus pertinent to this issue.

As to whether the spiritual realm or demons are often or largely responsible for illness, may I draw your attention to verses 39-41 of chapter 4. In verse 39 Jesus rebukes Simon's mother's fever, not a demon, but the fever itself and it is healed. This by itself may be ambiguous, but then in verses 40 and 41 Jesus is healing people, and of those people, demons only came out of many. The implication being that there were lots of sick people, and only a portion of that group had trouble with demons and the supernatural. Illness may be caused by demonic activity, but it would be a mistake to look for demonic causes first.

The second contention I have at times heard is that Jesus came primarily to heal. While there is no doubt that Jesus did a lot of healing in his ministry, that was not the central focus of his ministry, and that can be seen in verse 43. Jesus is healing, he's surrounded by a crowd of people clamoring for healing, he hasn't healed them all, but he turns from them, he refuses their calls for him to stay because "I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose." The good news of the Kingdom includes healing, but Jesus' ministry is not focussed on healing primarily, rather healing is an adjunct, a support to his ministry of preaching.

If we are to reflect Jesus, then perhaps our priorities should reflect his?

Much illness is quite simply that, illness, with no demonic complications. And that illness, while very important, is not the primary issue, the good news of the Kingdom of God is, less popular though it was in Jesus day, and less popular though it is now.

Fascinating how little pull the longings of a large audience had on Jesus, are we also so liberated?

Happy reflecting,

doug.

Gospel: Message or Man?

Why is it so hard sometimes to be clear about exactly what the ‘gospel’ is? On the one hand we talk about it being the good news of our salvation (Rom1.16), on another Paul can talk about it as something that has been proclaimed to ‘every creature under heaven’ (Col1.23), but how can they be the same thing? One is a propositional statement - Good news; the other seems to be understood by such creatures as small fish and spiders, how can they be the same thing? Or is the gospel something really much bigger, that we sometimes pick aspects of to focus on, but that always far transcends them all?

As the ‘Word of God’ is both the man Jesus Christ, and the testimony about him, is it not possible, nay, likely, that the Gospel is both the incredible blessing for the world that the man Jesus is, and also the testimony about what he has done?

If we are people who believe this Gospel, let’s at least be clear about what it is that we believe. Are we people who know something? Or are we people who know someone? And being clear, let’s be people who are filled with an inexpressible delight that shapes and changes everything it touches.

d

Somewhere Firm to Stand

The world as we know it is shaking. Today I received one of those familiar circular emails that talks about all that has changed since we were kids, and much has, like, sadly enough: fireworks - but it’s also fascinating to realise how much hadn’t... until now.

I saw photos last night of Christ Church cathedral, minus much of its spire and bearing gaping wounds, I remember taking the tourist tour as a kid, it seemed so old to me, so permanent. I’ve been watching with fascination the developments in the Middle East and North Africa and watching dictators who have ruled their petty fiefdoms for longer than I have been alive, staggering, if not toppling from their once apparently unassailable positions. Much like the fall of the soviet block in 1989, these givens of the international political landscape are suddenly and unforeseeably passing.

And this instability is only the distant sort. In the last few years Australia herself has seen droughts, floods, fires, cyclones, international economic collapse, and all on a scale not seen for a very long time, if at all… things are changing.

And it just strikes me how fragile so many of the things we take as certainties are. We live each day, and make deals and buy and sell and love and laugh, all dependent upon the assumption that the society in which we live and move, will go on, much as it did yesterday, at least until after our retirement. But where do we get this assumption from? If anything, history should teach us that virtually everything societally, environmentally and economically that we generally depend upon, is actually fragile and subject to change at very short notice. Just take a look at the garage of someone who grew up in the depression. Notice all the ‘this might be useful one day’ odds and ends, and you’ll realise that former generations didn’t see life with the same blind trust in its stability that our younger generations seem to.

And if they are fleeting and passing, why do we put so much store in them?

If a flood can take a house, if an economic collapse can take a retirement nest egg: perhaps it might be time for a reassessment both of what we value, and in what we trust?

When change comes, what will we try to preserve? When necessity forces us to choose only a very limited selection from the things that fill our lives, what will we deem truly valuable? And when the people and institutions we look to and depend upon, reveal themselves to be unworthy of our trust, to whom will we turn?

Biblically, there are only two things significant enough to committ your life to: People and God. By implication, there are only two things really worth treasuring and building your life around: People and God. As the world changes around you, make sure the important stuff is kept at the centre, where it belongs.

May you find a firm place to stand, in a shakey world,

Blessings,

Douglas Haley.

Philosophical Proof, or Existential Proof

Why do Christians have this obsession with Philosophical Logical Proof? Like the most important defence of the Christian faith is to have some tight logical line of reasoning for the truth of the claims of Jesus. Haven't they realised that there's an expert in any field who can produce logical reasons why something is right or wrong, only to be revised in 10 years time.

In this regard, I often think about the poor sop who told the world that butter was bad for us, while those who were raised on butter live on in their 90s, those who changed horse and tried margarine are busily contracting breast cancer and dying young. Now that's not to say that margarine causes breast cancer, but it is to say that butter isn't bad for you.

Experts are often fairly useless despite their protestations.

It seems to me that the best way to test the truth of Jesus' claims is actually to try them on. To take them at face value and see if they really work. Do the things Jesus claimed about the world actually match the world or not? Does his view of events accurately reflect our experience?

What are some examples of the world verses Jesus?

In respect to the goodness or otherwise of humanity and the world. Much of modern science claims that the world is in a constant state of improvement (atheistic evolution - there is a version of evolution that involves God which is infinitely superior, but that's for another day), and that humanity, for all their faults are basically at their heart good. Jesus on the other hand stands in a tradition that holds that the world was created good, but is now in decay, and that humanity are inherently twisted such that they can't do the right thing, much of the time they struggle even to identify what the right thing is.

Now which of those two options better fits our experience of the world? I know which is more popular, everyone likes a happy ending with a good hero, and it's just much easier to be told that you're nice than nasty, but any funeral will tell you that there's something decaying about the world.

Almost any natural system we can find benefits from some level of stewardship or intervention. Does the human body work better when taken care of or when ignored? Does the human body live longer when it is forced to exercise or when its whims are heard and it is allowed to remain in front of the TV? Does a garden increase or decrease its health when left alone? Leave your garden alone for 6 months and see if the weak plants have been overcome by the strong or whether they've all managed to coexist.

Perhaps you view the mastery of the strong as a good, but I would ask to what you are appealing in forming your opinion of its goodness.

Systems tend toward decay, not fullness. Upward movements are the exception, not the trend. Only very rarely does humanity produce a Ghandi or a Walter Benjamin, but thugs and dictators are a dime a dozen.

Or look at the inherent goodness in humanity. What is there in the history of the world to justify that view? Children? How many parents have ever had to teach their kids to lie or be selfish? Kids are born with those instincts. They are inherent. Or the cruelty man perpetrates against man. What part of the ability of developed educated nations to build more and more powerful weapons, and to find opportunities to use them leads us to the view that humanity tend towards goodness rather than evil? People are capable of good, but without the restraints of society to hold them in check then life really does soon become: 'nasty brutish and short.'

Or take success and meaning in life. Our society seems convinced that money, fame and accolades are the true measure of success. Jesus indicates that they are all basically irrelevant. Now Mugabe is rich, Paris Hilton is famous and Tiger Woods has won a pile of awards, but are they really successful? Would you really like your kids to turn out like any of them? And if they're not successful, what does that say about the usual standards by which success is measured? Whose version of truth better fits with our experience of life?

If we try Jesus' claims for truth out, and honestly seek to see the world and live within his precepts, I suspect we will find that he is true. And quite independent of any logical gymnastics, valuable though that may be in its place, we will experience the truth of Jesus' claim that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

Taste and see whether or not the Lord is good.

Blessings,

doug.

A Priceless Resurrection

Last Monday, the family and I went to a funeral. It was the funeral of a young mum. 37 years old, 4 small children, cancer claims another victim. Death truly is the last great enemy. But that night I noticed that I was supposed to preach on Resurrection this sunday, and the bringing of the two things together made a point that I simply must not miss. So I’ll write it down here.

If there is no resurrection death wins. Perhaps in some constructions a soul escapes, in which case Deaths’ victory is only partial, but if there is no resurrection, ultimately death has won. If there is no resurrection, then our beautiful yet fractured world is doomed, either to annihiliation, or abandonment, and then what becomes of the eyes we’ve met, the voices we’ve heard, the hands we’ve held, the life we’ve loved?

When Jesus rose from the dead, he achieved the only victory that could restore hope in such dark days: he achieved victory over death for all its victims. Those who die in the Lord will be restored, and this fragile creation, so bloodied by death and its sidekick decay, will be restored with us, and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

This is the only truly good news for funerals. Or for any other day for that matter.

No Little People

There is a gentle wisdom in the bible that never fails to both confront me and restore me. Every time I open an old passage of Scripture, something comes home to me with a weight and newness I hadn’t felt before. As I was beginning to prepare for this week’s sermon, and was looking at Paul’s assessment of how a church should function, I noticed a line in the passage that stood out with a blessed force: “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” (1Corinthians 12.22) How profoundly true is that statement? What would a church be if it was only made up of those people who like the limelight, who enjoy the powerful public roles in church life, who speak with confidence?

How balancing to a church community are those people who labour quietly, with deep love, in the shadows, away from the glare of the Pulpit or the Committee? How precious are those who make the unsung phone call to the person in grief; who cook biscuits for the discouraged; who provide the smile at the door; who wash the dishes at morning tea? The weaker are indeed indispensable. As you ponder God’s view of how the body of Christ works together, be encouraged: in the body of Christ; the church, everyone has a place. In Christ, all are precious, and not only that, indispensable, we can only do this, if we do it together.

May God bless you this morning,

Your fellow body part,

Rev. Doug.

Still Plenty left to do

I’m not sure how often I come back to that verse in Galatians: “Let us not become weary in doing good.” And every time I do I’m struck by the wisdom of it. He wouldn’t need to remind us to persevere and not grow weary unless that were exactly our danger. And it is a danger and a real one, particularly in the Christian life; that we would strive and struggle against evil for a time, but then begin to get worn down by it. Our struggle against sin seems too hard, our struggle against the injustice and suffering around us in our world seems too long and for many, that means either falling away, or retreating into a sterile Christianity of observation without engagment. Unfortunately, for all honest Christians that is not a legitimate option.

When we die to ourselves, so that we might live to Christ, we die to the option of disengagement, we die to the option of apathy, we die to the option of selfish self-preservation, and instead our whole lives and hearts and wills are dedicated to the cause of God’s glory and the establishment of His Kingdom with all its aspects of mercy, justice and charity.

When Jesus returns he will heal the world of all that so breaks its heart, but in the mean time, until that day, we labour. And we labour though we may be tired, disheartened and sometimes weary.

May you know God’s strengthening today, his gracious filling with hope and strength to continue with our task, that we might resist evil wherever it raises its ugly head. There’s still plenty left to do.