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Tag: pastoral theology

Published on Leave a comment on Warning communicants

Eating with Jesus.  What a privilege!  And what danger!  There need to be warnings.

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I preached this sermon at a service of Holy Communion in another church. 

It was essentially an extended warning to all would-be communicants: If you eat with Jesus you are confessing to Him and the world that you are a sinner.  Jesus eats with sinners.  Only with sinners - He has not come for the righteous.  The righteous must go hungry. Only the needy, the sick, the outsiders, the unclean, the powerless, the guilty will find Bread.  You are qualified by your unworthiness.  Entirely unfit and therefore welcome. 

So come.  And let your coming be your contrition, let it be your confession, let it be your repentance and your faith.  Come and eat with Jesus.

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It's the kind of sermon I want to be preaching until I die.  Listen here - the text is Mark 1:40-2:17.

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Published on 6 Comments on Fake Plastic Trees (Country Hoedown)

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Meditating on Mark 4 has made me think about genuine Christian growth.  Gospel transformation is not like manufacture.  It's agriculture.  It's the word planted deep - fragile but potent, internal but outgoing, gradual but multiplying beyond all expectation.   

Anyway I wrote this kids song on the theme.  Fake Plastic Trees (Country Hoedown) (again, recorded on handheld voice recorder with Yamaha keyboard late at night trying to keep it down!  Anyway, you get the idea.) 

(The underlined word is the first beat of the bar):

Years ago my daddy said
"You my son was born and bred
To grow the greatest fruit seen in the state."
He left me seeds and plenty land
Fertiliser, by the bag
But that just takes too long, and I can't wait (no sir)

Well - a short cut must be found
I aint diggin' in the ground
Maybe fruit trees I can make
Don't really matter if they're fake

I'm stapling fruit upon the tree
Apple, mango and kiwi
Folks are laughing but I don't know why
I'm glueing grapes onto the vine
Nailing up a clementine
While people laugh and holler, point and sigh.

Well - my fruit trees look okay
If you're standing half a mile away
But - it makes it hard to chew
When your fruit is dipped in superglue

Once I thought to "grow" a plum
Stuck it on a pole with some chewing gum
My daddy saw me and he shook his head
"Son you've gone and lost your mind
You're an apple short of a crumble pie
Your tryin to create life from what is dead."

Well - he looked me in the eye
He said "Son, I'll give it one more try
Here's my best advice to you
This is what you need to do"

Fruit takes time, leave it on the vine
Plant it deep, it grows up high
The life within will sprout, you can be sure
The seed has power, let it flower
Through the sun and through the shower
What you sow you'll reap and so much more

Well my Pa is kinda wise
So I heeded his advice
I took my time and planted all his seed
Six months on it grew up slow
A hundred fold of what I sowed
More than all the fruit I'd ever need

Well - success I'd never had
When I listened to my dad
These the words that made a hit
Learn them well and don't forgit

Fruit takes time, leave it on the vine
Plant it deep, it grows up high
The life within will sprout, you can be sure
The seed has power, let it flower
Through the sun and through the shower
What you sow you'll reap and so much more

Well Jesus spoke about His word
It's like a seed and when it's heard
It goes down deep, get's planted in our heart
Later on it sprouts up new
In joy and peace and goodness too
So listen to His word to play your part

Fruit so tender and so choice
When you listen to His voice
Learn the lesson from the seed
These the words that you should heed:

Fruit takes time, stay in the Vine
Plant it deep, it grows up high
The Life within will sprout, you can be sure
The Word has power, let it flower
Through the sun and through the shower
What you sow you'll reap and so much more

Fruit takes time, stay in the Vine
Plant it deep, it grows up high
The Life within will sprout, you can be sure
The Word has power, let it flower
Through the sun and through the shower
What you sow you'll reap and so much more

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Published on 1 Comment on Thirty, Sixty or a Hundred times

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Do you believe these words from Jesus:

Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, welcome it, and produce a crop--thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.  (Mark 4:20)

Christ's promise for Christian fruitfulness is out of this world.  3000%, 6000% or 10 000% is an incredible yield.

Do I dare believe in this kind of growth?  To put it another way, Will I hear and welcome this word?

We would believe Jesus if He said "five times what was sown!"  We marvel at 300% yield.  We settle for two-fold growth.  But Jesus promises something so supernaturally grand we must ask, If I believed Jesus' words about Jesus' words how would I treat Jesus' words? 

Well Mark 4:20 means I'd hear them and welcome them. 

Mark 4:10-12 means I'd hear them with Jesus at the centre - allowing them to draw me to Him.

Mark 4:15 means I'll hear them prayerfully, recognizing the spiritual battle undertaken every time they're heard.

Mark 4:16-17 means I'll cling to them when trouble comes - allowing the trouble to drive me deeper into Christ in His word.

and

Mark 4:18 means I'll be vigilant against wealth, worry and wanting as powers competing in my heart for attention.

But Jesus promises -- PROMISES -- that hearing and welcoming His word in this way will produce a transformation in our lives beyond belief.

How will the word produce transformation?  The way a seed produces growth.

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It will be:

Weak Looking but Powerful

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Internal but Outgoing

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Gradual but Multiplying

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First, Weak Looking but Powerful

Tim Keller tells the story of a man from the middle ages who was so terrified of meeting Jesus at the judgement that he commanded a giant marble slab to be put over his grave.  Apparently he did this so that, when everyone else was resurrected, he would stay down.  Well before the burial was complete and the slab was laid, an acorn fell into the grave. Over the years, a great tree grew, split the slab in two and moved it off the grave.

You might have thought, What chance does a little acorn have against a giant marble slab?  No contest, the acorn wins.  It looks so weak but it is more powerful than a team of horses.  Weak but powerful. 

Just like the Word.  You say a few words about Jesus, you speak truth into another person's life and it looks pathetic.  And yet eternities are changed and lives are transformed. 

Second, Internal but Outgoing

Last week a friend of mine told me of the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life.  In the midst of it the words came to him: "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:9)  It enabled him to handle that pain with an astonishing peace.  Where did that word come from?  It had been planted there.  And it grew up later with an amazing power to comfort.  The word goes in and it comes out organically.  

This is not the parable of the Brick Supplier who drops off masonry to four different builders.  That would be a story about externals and effort and easily measurable growth.  But no, the word goes in like a seed and later, organically, it comes out.

Third, Gradual but Muliplying

Think of this: within a single acorn lies all the genetic information required to produce not only an oak, but from that oak will come scores of new acorns.  And from them more trees with hundreds of acorns and so on.  Given enough time a single acorn could cover the whole earth in wood.

Luther knew this gradual but multiplying power.  When explaining how he opposed the whole Roman church he said this:

I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.

 That's the power of the word. 

So do we believe Jesus when He says, Thirty, Sixty, a Hundred-fold?

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This is from a sermon I preached on Mark 4:1-34:

Listen here

Read here

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Published on Leave a comment on Freedom – where to begin?

Seriously, Happy Creation Day everybody.  Hope you've been enjoying the festivities.

The other day I started talking about freedom: Beginning with ourselves will never get us to a sustainable or satisfying account of freedom.

When we say: "I am who I am / I will be who I will be", it is both blasphemous (Exodus 3:6) and the very expression of our bondage.  We become trapped by an identity that can allow no foreign claims.  We simply become identified as one with a capacity to choose.  And yet in maintaining that capacity as an absolute sovereignty we are defined in abstraction from the relationships that form and direct us as choosers.  I'm a slave to my desires.  Ephesians 2:1-3.  In the very act of gratifying the cravings of my flesh, right then I am enslaved.

We can't begin our thinking about freedom with ourselves.

So where should we begin it?

Well it's very popular to begin with man choosing in the garden.

Yet if we begin in Eden, what account of freedom results?  We effectively define freedom as the ability to choose or not to choose certain paths.  The ability to act otherwise is seen as the very 'freedom' which the LORD grants humanity.  And so of course the decision to eat the forbidden fruit becomes an expression of free will (defined as a power of self-direction).  On this account Adam exercised freedom in disobeying the LORD even though it was a freedom with a cosmically heavy price tag.  And so in this very popular telling of the freedom story, "Freedom" (which is now almost by definition the ability to disobey!) is some unquestioned Good that is traded off against the consequences of its exercise - "Heck, the fall was bad, but that's the price of freedom!"

Hmmm.

What kind of "freedom" is this?

Well let's ask - how does it compare to divine freedom?  Is the freedom of the Father, Son or Holy Spirit a freedom that would be expressed in choosing evil?  Well the Scriptures continually tell us that the Almighty, who can do whatever He pleases (e.g. Psalm 115:3), cannot sin, lie, deny Himself.  He who is free does not define His freedom as the ability to do evil.  For the divine Persons to choose any course of action contrary to their Personhood would be an expression of slavery not freedom.  For the Trinity, freedom is not the ability to do wrong, nor is it enhanced by such opportunities.

This holds also for humanity in the new creation.

In the New Jerusalem the forbidden fruit is gone, the tree of life alone takes centre stage. (Rev 22:1-3).  Not only will humanity never fall, there won't even be the option for us to do so.  That's a wonderful thought (unless you're eye-ball deep in the humanist version of freedom!).  But more than this, the bible calls this new creation state of affairs freedom.  Galatians 4:26 says the Jerusalem above is free.  The saints in glory now and the redeemed earth then will be characterized by mind-blowing freedom (cf Romans 8:19-21).  So for glorified humanity, freedom is not the ability to do wrong, nor is freedom enhanced by such opportunities.  Freedom flourishes even (and especially!) when there is no option but to continually serve the Father in the Son and by the Spirit.

So then, we're going to have to get a different definition of freedom.  Where from?  Well perhaps our initial instinct wasn't so bad after all.  Maybe we do need to begin with man choosing in the garden.

Gethsemane is the garden.  And Jesus is the Man.  He will show us what true freedom looks like.

Think first of who He is - the Son.

This speaks of many things - let's highlight three:

  1. Christ's Sonship means He is loved.  He is the eternal Son of His Father's love (Colossians 1:13).  He is the Object of the overflowing love of the Father - the Original recipient and goal of all the Father's omnipotent grace.
  2. Christ's Sonship means He is obedient.  As Son, Jesus always does His Father's will (John 5:17ff).
  3. Christ's Sonship means He is free.  Sonship is consistently contrasted with slavery by Jesus and Paul (e.g. John 8:31-36; Galatians 4).  He is the Liberator who is Himself the True Free Man.

These three aspects of His Person are perfectly coordinated in Jesus.  We can never play off grace, obedience and freedom.  In our thinking we may consider them to be opposed but when we trace these things back to their centre in Jesus we see that they perfectly inform and explain one another.

And so how does this Man in this garden show us true freedom?

Let's consider Mark 14:36:

"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

First He acknowledges His filial relationship with God - 'Abba, Father'.  All the shades of sonship we've just discussed should be in the forefront of our minds.

Next He acknowledges 'everything is possible for You.'  The Son doesn't go to the cross because the Father is 'all out of options.'  No-one is holding a gun to the Father's head - not the Son, not some necessary logic of redemption, nothing.  What happens happens in the Father's will - a will unbound by any forces beyond Him.  The Father is indeed free from compulsion (though this is not our final definition of freedom).

But finally, when Jesus says 'Take this cup from me, yet not what I will but what you will' He confesses a different will to that of the Father.  In all of history, in all of theology this is unparalleled.  It is stunning, shocking, scandalizing... I could go on.  The Son, even if only for a moment, is considering an option other than obedience to His Father's will.  Even though He is the obedient Son, even though He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8) and the Son of Man who must die (Mark 8:31), He contemplates another way.  It seems like no-one is holding a gun to the Son's head either.  He must die, because He will die.  And He will die voluntarily.  In a reversal of Eden, the last Adam submits His will to the Father's and in this submission expresses true freedom.

It is not rebellion that demonstrates freedom but obedience.  This is the great difference between popular notions of freedom and Christ's.  Choosing does not make us free - choosing submission (paradoxically!) does.  When we view things in the Son we see that obedience and freedom, rebellion and slavery are inextricably linked.  The only free choice is the one for obedience.

Ans so where Adam chose self-rule and brought slavery, Christ chose submission and brought redemption.  It's at Gethsemane that we see true freedom for there we see the true Son, truly loved by His Abba, Father and truly obedient to His will.  "Everything is possible" is not the definition of freedom.  It's the use of these possibilities that demonstrates true freedom.  And this use is only a liberated use when it is obedient.

From this we get a different defintion of freedom.  It's not about options, it's about responsible use of the will in expression of your grace-given, relational identity.  The capacity for disobedience is not a criterion for freedom and choosing to disobey can only be slavery.  Instead true freedom is found in Christ and by the power of the Spirit, living out your blood-bought sonship (daughtership) in obedience to the Father's will.  To choose anything else is the bondage of the will.

In future posts I'll look at the implications of this for the non-Christian and the Christian.

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Published on Leave a comment on The problem of freedom

Freedom

An evocative word.

What does it mean to us?

Usually it means a freedom from some kind of power so that we can realize our true potential.  'I'm free to do what I want any old time.'  That kind of thing.

The question of 'Who is this "I" who can do these things?' is usually considered to be a restatement of the freedom mantra: I am the one who can do what I want.  "I am who I am / I will be who I will be", as Someone famously once said.

The link between such an account of freedom and the divinisation of the self becomes obvious in a thinker like John Stuart Mill.  He said this in On Liberty:

In the part [of the conduct of an individual] which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of course, of right, absolute.  Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

Now notice that Mill is concerned here with conduct that 'merely concerns ourselves'.  He's well aware that the independent exercise of our wills can harm others and diminish their freedom.  He's no dummy.  He has a whole apparatus of 'rights' with which to negotiate the competing claims of our own absolute freedoms. 

When Christians argue against Mill, the argument should not be: "Hey, if everyone thinks they're sovereign they'll ride rough-shod over everyone else."  That would be a very pragmatic objection and one to which Mill has a whole raft of pragmatic solutions.

No, the problem is not what humanity does with their self-rule (they could be thoroughly virtuous with it).  The problem is self-rule.  Mill effectively poses the question, Who has the absolute claim over my life?  He answers: I do.  Mill's philosophy here (which is the air we breathe in the West) is nothing less than the enthronement of man upon Christ's throne.  

But in critiquing such 'freedom' we can do more than simply denounce it as blasphemous.  We would do well also to expose it as the worst kind of bondage.  Why bondage? 

Well let's ask the question,  Who is this self who is exalted to the throne?  Who is the "I" that can do whatever "I" want?

Tellingly, this 'freedom' cannot positively give you an identity.  In fact, to be true to itself, this kind of 'freedom' must refuse to tell you who you are.  All that such 'freedom' can offer is the protection of a sphere in which you can pursue your desires.  It gives you a kingdom (of one!) and a throne and it operates a strict immigration policy.  Yet this border-patrol must not only exclude impediments to your desires, it must also exclude forces that would seek to direct those desires.  It must repel all foreign claims upon you and leave you with an absolute and unquestioned independence.  You have your kingdom and your throne, but who are you?  Well, You will be who you will be.  And so, left to rule your own kingdom, you are a prisoner of your independence.

Consider this piece of advice being given to millions of men and women around the world right now:

"Don't let anyone tell you what to do.  You're your own man / your own woman." 

Now aside from the inherent contradiction on show here, notice how you are to be directed in your sovereign rule.  You must direct yourself.  And the reason?  You belong to yourself.   This is the infuriating circularity

I direct myself.

Who is the I who directs?

The one with power to direct.

or

I belong to me.

Who is the one who belongs to me?

The one belonging to me.

What's missing in all this is an environment in which to exercise our freedom.  We have been treated as though the choices we make in expression of our self-hood are grounded only in ourselves as individuals.  Yet we are who we are in a network of dependent relationships.  The expression of our identity through responsible living and choosing necessarily occurs within an environment.  Divorced from this environment, any experience of 'freedom' will actually take us away from our true selves.

This is the experience of the ant-farm in this famous Simpson's clip...

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPGDWD_oLE]

The ants may have longed to be free from their glass case, but 'freedom' from the ant-farm proves to be "horrible" indeed.  It destroys their very selves to be 'free' from the environment supportive of their own life and being.

We are the same. We don't exist as free floating individuals to whom the greatest gift would be independence.  We are truly free when properly related to the environment in which our personhood flourishes. 

And this is why Mill's definition of freedom does not help the exercise of responsible choice, it radically undermines it.  Because I have been stripped of all claims upon me, all direction from outside, all sense of a context wider than me, I am left with a self that can only be defined in reference to itself and its own decision-making capacity.  I have a naked self exercising a naked power, cut free from all that's actually constitutive of my identity.

Therefore, necessarily, I'm going to have to go outside myself in order to live out my irreducibly relational existence.  I need to, so to speak, make an alliance with a foreign kingdom. 

Now our experience of this will feel like it falls into one of two categories:

Either A) I embark on an alliance as a dispensible means towards my self-determined end.  In this case I'll drop it as soon as it's inconvenient -- I'm in charge using you. 

Or B) I genuinely give myself over to the foreign power and am determined by it -- You're in charge using me. 

But the bible says, in practice A) is our sinful intention but it always collapses into B). 

Let's think about Ephesians 2:1-3:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

In our natural state we 'carry out the desires of the body and mind'.  You might think that sitting on the throne of your little kingdom is the definition of freedom.  But no, precisely as we 'gratify the cravings' (NIV) of the body and mind we are following the devil.  Just as we think we are exercising our self-rule, in that act we are being ruled by Satan.  We imagine we're strong enough to pull off A), in reality we have no bargaining power with the world, the flesh and the devil - they're in charge using us.

The similarity between Mill's quotation on freedom and Ephesians 2:3 is chilling.  To exercise 'sovereignty' over our 'body and mind' is not freedom at all.  According to the bible that is slavery. 

If we're going to find a true freedom it will have to be on an entirely different footing.

More on that later...

 

 Rest of series:

Where to begin?

Freed will

Living free

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Published on Leave a comment on Meditating on Romans 3

I preached on Romans 3:21-26 recently.  It's a dense, theologically loaded paragraph on the vindication of God's justice in justifying the unjust through the cross.  Leon Morris has called it perhaps the most important paragraph ever written.

So how to preach it? Well it's Paul, so then clearly a strong didactic form is called for.  Verse by verse, commentary in one hand, a greek lexicon in the other.  Unpack the massive theological freight piece by piece and if you're lucky some doxology tacked on the end (if you're unlucky, an exhortation to evangelism).

Well, perhaps you'll think that's more the model I ended up with.  But close to my heart throughout the preparation was this desire simply to meditate on the three scenes Paul gives us. The law court (v19-24a); the slave market (v24b) and the temple (v25). 

To be honest, if I'd had my time over I think I would have ditched everything else and just gone with a simple meditation.  I'd have gotten the congregation to close their eyes and come with me on a journey...

You are in court. Standing in the dock. You and all humanity. The arms dealer is to your left and the amnesty international human rights lawyer is to your right. In front of you is a paedophile, behind you is Mother Teresa. But there you are in the dock.  The court room intimidates you, everything in it is against you.  You know that your very life hangs in the balance. You dread the verdict that is about to be announced.

The judge reads out these words. As he reads, you know that every charge is unquestionably true:

You are not righteous.

You have no understanding.

You do not seek for God.

You have turned away.

You are worthless.

You do no good.

Your throat is an open grave.

You use your tongue only to deceive.

The venom of vipers is under your lips.

Your mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Your feet are swift to shed blood

Ruin and misery mark your way.

You have not known the way of peace.

There is no fear of God before your eyes.

The whole court-room is silent but the words ‘not righteous', ‘no understanding' and ‘worthless' still ring in your ears. Your mouth is stopped. You cannot answer a single charge. It's all true and the weight of condemnation is crushing.

The judge raises his gavel. There can be only one verdict. The hammer crashes down. The judge declares it:

I find you not guilty.

The court-room changes in an instant. Smiles everywhere. The judge steps down off the bench to congratulate you.  You are lost for words.

"How?  Why?  What...? 

Large doors are opened and great light comes in. The guards usher you through the doors and out into the light.

The scene has changed.

You find yourself in a first-century market-place. You are hungry. You have no shoes. Instead you stand in iron shackles - owned by a cruel master.  You have never known any different.  You stand in front of the mob and the bidding starts for you.  The price goes up and up and you dread the reasons why anyone would pay so much. 

"Sold!" you hear.  And you peer into the crowd to find out who.  Suddenly a man emerges.  He smiles, bends down and unlocks your shackles.  He stands up, looks you in the eye and says "You're mine now."  You reach for words but they don't really come...  "Why?  How?  What did you pay?"

"Let me show you" He says and takes you by the hand out of the market.

Immediately the scene changes again. You are at the temple, standing - like all the other sinners - in the queue for the altar.  You are carrying a young lamb in your arms just like the law tells you.  At the front of the queue someone lays their hand on the head of their lamb, confessing their sin.  Then, holding its wriggling form down on the altar, they slit its throat - the blood gushes out.  You see the blood and you know that's what you deserve as a sinner.  You shuffle forwards towards the altar.

Suddenly, from deep within the temple a voice booms out ‘Stop the sacrifices.' You drop your lamb in fright, as does everyone else.  They all scurry away. Then you see the most shocking sight of your life.  The LORD God Almghty emerges from within the innnermost sanctuary.  You are stunned.  But not half as stunned as you are about to be.  In His strength the LORD strides towards the altar. He lays down on it, and carrying the sins of all the people the LORD is slain and His blood is spilt.

And now you know - the verdict you didn't deserve, the freedom you didn't earn - it was purchased by the blood of the LORD Jesus Himself.  You look to the altar to see your God now become your Lamb and His blood now become your atonement.  Shaking your head in wonder you leave the temple, the weight of your sin gone - the weight of His glory upon you. 

Go back to the dock.  Remember your guilt.  Now feel the wonder of the verdict.

Go back to the slave-market.  Remember your bondage.  Now feel the joy of your freedom.

Go back to the temple.  Remember the queue for the altar and whose blood was really required.  Now feel the awe as you behold the Lamb of God bleeding for your sins.

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I should have just preached that don't you think?

Anyway - I went for a bit of a compromise.  Didactic with a touch of meditation thrown in.

Read it here

Listen here.

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Published on Leave a comment on New Wineskins

Some thoughts generated from a sermon on Mark 2:18-3:6

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In Mark 1:40-2:17 we saw three stories about the people of Jesus' kingdom.  And this was the shock: The people of Jesus' kingdom are the lepers, the paralytics, the tax collectors and their spiritual equivalents.  Jesus calls sinners.  Sinners.  Not the righteous.  Jesus' people are not the people religion expects. 

In Mark 2:18-3:6 we continue with this revolution.  In these three stories the focus is on practices - in particular fasting and Sabbath observance.  And again, Jesus' practices are not the practices religion expects.

Jesus does not fit our religious moulds.  And so over the top of the three stories stands Mark 2:21-22 where Jesus gives us this mental image:

"No-one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no-one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."

People are looking at Jesus and struggling to fit Him into their way of thinking.  But Jesus is saying:  It's not that I don't fit into your religious expectations.  Jesus says I won't fit into your religious expectations.  It's impossible to contain Jesus within moulds that aren't already designed with Him at the centre.

Jesus and His practices are like new cloth and if you try to patch them onto any old cloth it will tear apart the garment.  Jesus and His practices are like new wine and if you try to contain them within any old wineskin it'll burst the thing apart.  Whatever spiritual forms that exist in Jesus' kingdom they must consciously and explicitly be oriented to Jesus Himself.  Christ refuses to be just one more ingredient in a human religion.  You can't just take a bit of this spirituality and a bit of that philosophy and add a twist of Jesus.  You can't take your own common sense, your own culture's moral code and then expect Jesus to fit in.  Jesus demands a complete revolution.  If we haven't already, we have to begin afresh with Jesus.

In Jesus' kingdom, if you fast, you fast because of Him (you experience the absence of your Bridegroom - the true meaning of the Yom Kippur fast).  If you feast, you feast because of Him (you anticipate the presence of your Bridegroom).  If you observe Sabbath you do so 'to the Lord'.  If you don't, that's also 'to the Lord' (Rom 14:5-9).  Whatever forms of spiritual practice that exist in Jesus' kingdom are to explicitly relate to the Person of Christ.

Now apply this to any spiritual practice.  The question is not whether nor is it which practices you perform, not in the first instance.  The most pressing question is why.  More specifically the question is how is Jesus Himself the centre of this practice?  Think, for instance of bible reading.  Is reading the bible a spiritual practice of yours?  Why?  Because that's what Christians do?  Because advancing the bookmark makes you more holy?  Well you've just stripped Jesus out of this spiritual practice and turned it into human religion. 

Jesus spoke to the religious of his day who clung onto the scriptures as an old wineskin, yet they had no place for Jesus:

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.  (John 5:39-40)

This is simply an extension of the wineskin principle to the Scriptures.  Without Jesus consciously at the centre of this practice it becomes an old wineskin - unable to cope with the reality of Jesus Himself.

Now of course the Scriptures, viewed truly, already have Jesus at the centre.  In the same way fasting and Sabbath, viewed truly, always ought to have had Jesus at the centre (hence Jesus' consistent appeals to the Old Testament in Mark).  But it's entirely possible that proper looking religious practices - even biblically mandated ones - can miss the whole Point.  The danger is always that we hold onto spiritual forms and neglect our spiritual Centre.

What spiritual practices do we need to re-examine in this light?

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Read the sermon here

Listen here

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Published on 20 Comments on Who the man?

So what are these parables about?

Matthew 13:44-46: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

I remember John Piper taking quite a long time (in Desiring God??) to argue that the man is us, the treasure is Christ and so we should joyfully give up all for Him.  In fact I often read or hear Piper returning to these parables and this interpretation of them.  I think it's at least emblematic of three Piper distinctives:

1) treasuring Christ

2) joy as the atmosphere and motivation of our wholehearted service.

3) the gospel is not about Christ making much of us but freeing us to make much of Him

 

Now I have learnt as much from John Piper as I have from any contemporary Christian leader and I thank God for him.  Funnily enough though, it was his own arguments concerning the parables that convinced me of the other interpretation.  That is, the seeking man is Christ (just as Christ is the man throughout Matt 13), the found treasure is the church (eg Ex 19:6) and the world is the field (just as the world is the field throughout Matt 13).  Perhaps what tipped the balance most for me was the thought: if these were two parables about us finding Christ (rather than the other way around) they would be the only parables of their kind.  Elsewhere it is always we who are lost and Christ who seeks and saves. 

If this second interpretation is correct then it's about Christ giving all to buy the world so as to possess His church.  He is the great Seeker and He is the great Treasurer.  He is the great Rejoicer and He is the great Sacrificer of all. 

What happens when we go with the Piper interpretation?  We become the great seekers, we are the ones who treasure, we are the great rejoicers and the ones who sacrifice all.  The weight is thrown back onto our shoulders.  Now to encourage us in this gargantuan work, this sustaining power is held out to us: We are told to prize and value and esteem and treasure and glory in the inestimable value of Christ.  In that joy will we find the strength to give all for the possession of Christ.  But we are assured that this is the way it has to be because the gospel is definitely not about Christ making much of us.  It's about us being freed to make much of Him.  In fact I think it's this conviction (grounded in Piper's views of the self-centred divine glory) that underlies his interpretation of the parables.

What do we say to this? 

Well, first, just read the parables in context.  Shouldn't we assume that the main Actor of the chapter remains the same? 

Second, ask questions about the gospel.  Isn't Christ meant to be the active one?  Aren't we the ones acted upon?  The lost who are found?  And don't we love because He first loved us?

Third, ask questions about the nature of God's glory.  In the radical othercentredness of the triune life, isn't God's eternal glory precisely in making much of the Other?  Isn't it entirely fitting that this immanent love spills over in the economy of grace such that God is indeed glorified in His self-emptying exaltation of His people?  When we understand the trinitarian glory of God, don't we then realize just how glorifying it is for Christ to make much of us?  (And even to do so when people don't respond!)

Fourth, ask questions about the nature of the Christian life.  Sustaining joy is a wonderful thing, but doesn't it flow from receiving Christ's electing, sacrificial love first?  Doesn't it overburden the Christian to put them in the role of the electing, sacrificing seeker?

Just some questions.  Let me state again, I'm a Piper fan.  I've listened to hundreds of talks, read loads of his books.  Once I even described myself as 'a big fan' to his face (bowel shudderingly embarrassing!). 

It wasn't even my intention to write about Piper.  This post was meant to be the introduction to a mini-series on Christ in the parables.  Well, it is that too.  This is part one.  Christ is the man.  He is the merchant. 

There.  Point made.

Up next, the Good Samaritan, then the Two Sons.

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Published on 3 Comments on Seeing the Doctor 1

Do you ever wonder, like this blogger, if Jesus would actually like you?  Not whether some abstract principle of grace covers you.  But the question, How would the radical Jesus of the bible deal with you?

I mean the Guy's fierce.  Totally uncompromising, pure.  No double-standards, no tolerance for double-standards.  He sees you to the bottom.  He knows your heart.  One sentence from His lips will expose you to the world.

More than this He's walking the road to Golgotha and there's only one way to follow - take up your cross and join Him.  On the way, confess His name to the world, stand behind His words, own Him to His deadliest enemies. Love your would-be killers, pray for your persecutors.  Got money?  Give it away.  Got possessions?  Sell them.  Let nothing hinder you.  Don't settle your affairs first, don't even bury your father.  Follow. 

Yikes.

Now think.  Who is surrounding Jesus, following along the Golgotha way?  The religious keen-beans right?  The professionally moral?  No chance.  Those guys are walking away conspiring to kill Him. 

Who is flocking to Jesus?  Sinners and tax collectors.  They run to the Holy One of Israel - the One who could throw them body and soul into hell. 

Try this as a test:  Read the last ten verses of Luke 14.  In it Jesus turns to the crowds and says:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters- yes, even his own life- he cannot be my disciple.  And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple... any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Now read the first verse of Luke 15 (and remember that chapter divisions are not part of the original Scriptures):

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him.

Huh??  Shouldn't the 'sinners' be running for the hills?  How can Jesus turn up the discipleship temperature to nuclear and at the same time have the most notoriously immoral people draw near??

Well perhaps these words from Jesus will help.  They might just be my favourite:

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)

Jesus is not the Health Police - enforcing wellness, punishing the sick!  He's the Doctor.  The sick do not run from Him but to Him.  It's the 'healthy' who run away.  The 'righteous' cannot bear His presence.  Ostensibly they worry about Jesus' reputation - eating with sinners.  In reality it is their reputation at stake - eating with the Doctor.  For to share His company is to admit to a deep spiritual sickness and to abandon the 'healthy' facade.

Yet for the sick, they have abandoned the healthy facade.  And they've come to realise that their sickness does not prevent them from coming to Christ.  Their sickness is why they come to Christ.  And so they come and find in Jesus a Doctor for Whom no disease is beyond His healing power. 

Jesus is the Doctor for sick sinners.  And this understanding is at the heart of the question 'How does the radical Jesus of the bible deal with me?'  Not as the Health Police but as the Doctor.  He calls me to Himself in all my sin - in all my inability to follow.  

So Christ's radical call to discipleship goes out.  If I'm seeing things clearly I know three things:

1) Jesus is right, that is the way. 

2) I have no chance of treading that path.  None. Zero. Squat.

3) Jesus is the Doctor - He and He only can take what is natural to me (desertion!) and turn it into discipleship.

In this way I answer Christ's call.  I draw nearer to the One who commands, not because I recognize in myself the strength to answer His call.  But I recognize in Him the power to redeem my weakness.  It's not about seeing health in us.  It's all about seeing healing in the Doctor.

In the future (when I've got some time) I'll look at Christ's actual healings as demonstrations of just this dynamic. 

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Published on 1 Comment on Jesus is the same

The other night I was talking to someone about my latest hobby horse (personality types).  To my shame I found myself using the past tense about Jesus. 

Now there are many appropriate ways of doing that: e.g. "Christ died for sins, once for all."  But when we're talking about Christ's character, how horrible to find yourself describing Him merely in the past tense.  Certainly His encounters with people in the Scriptures (whether with Adam or Jacob, Elijah or Nicodemus) show us brilliantly what He was like.  But, but, but...  It's all to the end of showing us who He IS.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. (Heb 13:8)

Who He is in His word is who He is right now as He encounters you by His Spirit in the pages of Scripture and the words of your brothers and sisters.  The same Jesus addresses you today with the same character and in the same power.

It's been a real joy preparing a sermon on Mark 1:40-2:17 for this Sunday.  Jesus cleanses the leper, forgives the paralytic and dines with the tax collector.  That's what He was like.  That's what He is like.

We the unclean, the weak, the sinful, the outcasts, the shamed - we are the same as them.  And He is the same as then.

Do you recognize yourself in the leper, the paralytic and the tax collector?  Then Jesus is saying to you right now:

I am willing, be clean.

Son, Daughter, your sins are forgiven.

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.

Jesus Christ is now to you what He was to them.  You can stake your life on it.

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