Week 1: Friday Matthew 25:1-13

Lets dance…

How to preach effectively:

1. “Tell them what you’re going to say.
2. Say it.
3. Tell them what you’ve just said.”

 

How to get a point across to pupils:

1. Tell them the Learning Objective (and get them to write it in their books, remembering of course DUMTUM. That’s an in-joke… Date Underline Miss a line Title Underline Miss a line).
2. Explore the Learning Objective.
3. In plenary, ensure they have learned the objective.

 

How to structure an essay:

1. Introduction, wherein you summarise where you are going.
2. The main body of the essay, wherein you flesh out the introduction.
3. Conclusion, wherein you summarise your main points.

 

Either Jesus or the compiler of this Gospel or both fully understood these principles.

Here we once again have reinforcement of the very important point Jesus is trying to get across.
OK – I give in. Here’s the song the first line of which has come to mind practically every day this week as I’ve read each passage – There may be trouble ahead…

Although the lyrics (click on “show more” on the linked video) and the upbeat tempo might not, on the face of it, represent the kind of preparation we might think Jesus had in mind, they do indicate preparation of a sort:
Before it’s too late – let’s surrender to the music, let’s dance, let’s relate to one another, let’s live!!!

On second thoughts – maybe, in a nutshell, that does after all sum up what Jesus is saying:

• Dark times are coming
• You don’t know when
• Meanwhile, live the life you have been given to live
  • If there’s music (or any other kind of beauty), experience it to the full
  • If there are companions, live in supportive, enabling relationship, amending your steps in the dance of life to blend with theirs and create a whole which is greater than the sum of the parts
  • Those steps to the dance are the ones I have taught you
• This will be the best preparation for the dark times ahead

And for those who think a jazz standard might be a bit – well – secular for such a holy place as Advent Book Club 2016, try this one instead – also about dancing (and I make no apologies for re-posting a link I used in a comment on Facebook yesterday).

May your day – nay, your life – be full of dancing

Week 1: Thursday Matthew 24:45-51

Game on…

At the tail end of the lunch break, as I was preparing for the afternoon, she came into my room with a serious expression on her face. Shutting the door carefully behind her, ensuring no-one could overhear, she faced me and said “I’ve had the call – they’re coming tomorrow morning”.

I smiled and said “oh – OK then. Thanks for letting me know. How late will the building be open this evening? Let me know if I can help any of the others in any way.”

Afterwards, she told me she was worried that I’d go to pieces, as I’d expressed concern more than once that I didn’t know what was expected of me when this happened (I’d never worked in this context before). What actually happened was that, as a musician, without even thinking I went into Performance Mode.

Once the day of a concert arrives, once you are standing in the wings waiting to go on stage, there’s nothing more you can do. You will sink or swim, receive applause or boos (or more like, an embarrassed silence as most audiences in my world are reasonably kind), according to the preparation you have done.

At least, with a concert performance, you know well in advance (usually – although I have sometimes been asked to stand in at very short notice for an advanced exam accompaniment) when and what you will be playing.

In this case, I’d had no idea when – just that it was long overdue and would happen, as turned out to be the case, with just overnight notice. I didn’t even know what I’d be required to do – I’d been told there was every chance I wouldn’t be observed at all, but I couldn’t bank on that so as I’m a bit obsessive about such things, I’d ensured that my record-keeping was always up to date and my room always tidy at the end of each day. As for the following day – I’d prepared material which fitted with the current theme and saw no reason to change it at all. Either I’d done enough or I hadn’t – it was time to draw a deep breath and get on with it.

In the event, I was observed twice – once with a Year 5 class and once with the whole-school assembly. I asked for feedback – there were some “constructively critical” comments which I happily took on board – but there were also phrases such as “spine-tingling” used, which did rather gladden the heart. Even more unexpectedly, my department got a positive 7-word mention in the official report even though it’s a non-core-curriculum subject and therefore not usually mentioned at all. I wasn’t perfect, but it was OK.

Have you worked out the context yet? I bet Graham Hartland got it after the first paragraph!

Once again, in this bible reading, we have “Jesus the Ofsted inspector”. The day and time of coming isn’t known in advance – but we do know what the reckoning will be about. It will be about the extent to which we have remained faithful in building the kingdom.

One thing which isn’t in this passage but is in the commentary is the wider context. If this passage were all we had, we’d live in fear of making the wrong choice, doing the wrong thing, or missing the right thing to do. Too many Christians live in fear, looking over their shoulder all the time, thinking of God as the angry, retributive householder. He isn’t. There is no wrath in God.  He is unchangeable and loving. He doesn’t have mood swings, isn’t subject to emotional outbursts. Let us read this passage in the light of Jesus’ fish BBQ on the beach with Peter after the resurrection.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord, I love you” (thinks… although you probably hate me… I seriously blew it back there in Jerusalem…)
“then get on with building the kingdom”
And I’d bet my last penny that throughout that exchange, Jesus looked Peter in the eye with love and tenderness and compassion, smiled gently and used a reassuring tone of voice.

So live free of fear.
Stand tall.
Smile.
Make the best choices you can with the information you have.
And know that at the day of reckoning, you will be judged as Peter was judged – you will find that there is no wrath in God.

Day 4: Matthew 24:29-35

(with apologies for the mixed metaphors…)

Bach.
Now there’s a composer…
He wrote 2-part inventions for the keyboard – a kind of weaving of two equally important lines of music so that together they form harmony – very different from the “melody and chords” style favoured by modern-day popular music.A bit like a two-thread braid
Clever stuff, eh?

But he didn’t stop there – he also wrote 3-part inventions . 
Think “plait” here…
And yes, the player still only has two hands… means each hand in turn sometimes has to play two parts at once.

 

And here’s one of his 4-part fugues  (have you ever attempted a 4-strand plait?) – the usual written version has the lines on just two staves – the scrolling music in the video helps you to see the 4 “voices” as the player plays it with just two hands. Totally do-able if you’ve practised piano for enough years – I’ve done it.

Finally, just to wow you completely – yes, the 5-part fugue exists – still played by just two hands at one keyboard.

 

In my small way, I am also a composer –  largely at the moment orchestral scores for Elson Youth Orchestra, a local community orchestra whose members are largely pre-Grade 1 to Grade 4 standard. There isn’t a lot of music out there with parts for “3^rd violin – nice long notes, mostly open strings with very occasional 1^st fingers” which also accommodates “2^nd violin – 1^st and 2^nd fingers but only step-wise ascending” alongside “beginner trumpet – range of 5 notes, not the same range as beginner violin”… OK, my original compositions aren’t on a part with a Bach 5-part fugue – but amazingly, when all the parts (individually so simple they verge on the meaningless in terms of melody) are played together, somehow it works.

God – now there’s a composer.
The stuff he gets up to makes Bach’s 5-part fugues look like a tangled mess.

Speaking of which, have you ever been handed a ball of tangled string to untangle? Takes time, doesn’t it. And patience.
Come to that, have you ever had to untangle a panicking kitten from a ball of string or wool? Now that can be painful – possibly more for the untangler than for the kitten, but sometimes for both.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

We – all of us, not just “them”, get things almost impossibly tangled. Small things as much as, if not more than, big things. And it restricts and hurts both us and those around us, especially when we invite – nay, encourage – others to join us in our own particular tangle.

God works ceaselessly, tirelessly in and through the whole of all that is, both the physical world and the psychological and social constructs that define us, to untangle the mess.
Hey, God cares so, so much that at one point he even allowed us to draw him into our tangled mess. He made himself helpless, allowed himself to be tied up, seemingly destroyed once and for all.
But then, somehow he was no longer tangled up – he was standing free, with the ball of string neatly rolled up.

And he invites us, as he invited Lazarus, to do likewise.
To be free.
To live in freedom.

He offers to untangle us, and the more we co-operate the less it hurts.
The more we co-operate, the less tangled the world is.

One life at a time – that’s how the kingdom grows.

So whether you are currently only able to manage “3^rd violin – nice long notes, mostly open strings” or whether you’re already at the “5-part fugue? Bring it on!”  stage, hang on in there. The Great Composer is blending it all together to create a harmony beyond our imagining.

Day 3:Matthew 24: 1-14

There may be trouble ahead…

I’m not sure about birth-pangs.
Birth-pangs imply that there will be an end, and that the end will bring (usually) new life (see my short story in yesterday’s blog post).

As far as I can see, there have been wars and rumours of wars throughout history. Indeed, the Old Testament is full of such stories – descriptions of anger, hatred, betrayal, adultery. The disciples of Jesus will have been steeped in the history of the Children of Israel. This most recent invasion and occupation, by the Romans (not noted for their mercy to dissidents), must have had them crying out to God in the words of the prophet Habbakuk:

How long, O Lord, must I call for help?
But you do not listen!
“Violence is everywhere!” I cry,
but you do not come to save.
Must I forever see these evil deeds?
Why must I watch all this misery?
Wherever I look,
I see destruction and violence.
I am surrounded by people
who love to argue and fight.
The law has become paralysed,
and there is no justice in the courts.
The wicked far outnumber the righteous,
so that justice has become perverted.

With all that’s going on in the world today, I reckon we could echo those words…

And then Jesus turns up. As they got to know him better and to see his power they began to be more and more certain that this man was the promised Messiah.

They had very clear ideas about what that meant – in their minds it meant a great leader who would bring them release from oppression – and by that they meant specifically a military leader who would throw out the Romans and establish God’s kingdom – the earthly kingdom of Israel – once and for all in a Golden Age.

Nowadays we pity their naivety. We can oh, so easily feel superior – of course that was never what God intended. We, with the benefit of that most amazing thing, hindsight, know that for sure.

So what conclusion do we draw then?

Maybe Jesus wasn’t after all the Messiah.
Maybe God actually doesn’t care about our every-day agony and the way the world is heading – history would suggest that.
Maybe God is so completely Other that we can never know or understand what it’s all about.
Maybe we are simply an experiment – like bacteria in some giant petri dish, with far-superior aliens looking on, and anyone who comes close to realising the truth and escaping the illusion is like a bacterium which wanders too far into the encircling protective penicillin and dies (gentle reader, you just might recognise the plot from an Asimov short story – Breeds there a man? – in that one…)
Or maybe there is no God after all…………..

The traditional interpretation is that Jesus was stating the literal truth in this passage – that one day God will wrap it all up and usher in His Kingdom Rule here on the physical earth, that it is merely the timescale that the disciples got wrong. At least, that’s what I was taught in my early years, what is still taught in my current Parish church and what is implied, I suspect, in Tom Wright’s commentary.

This I can’t believe. On so many levels, it simply doesn’t make sense.
Assuming for the moment that God exists, and that God is a benign Presence of Light, Love, Being, I see no way that the Kingdom of God can be reduced to earthly structures.
Given that God (if such a being exists) appears to have given us untrammelled free will, there can never be an earthly, physical “God’s Kingdom Rule” without changing us from autonomous beings to mere puppets.

That leaves me two options.
Walk away entirely from the Christian narrative.
Or understand the stories differently.

Mostly I do the latter.

And this particular story I understand as an indication that life is tough, unpredictable, full of death and disaster and pain. That is simply how it is – and how it ever was, and how it ever will be.

Even now dark clouds are gathering once again over the world. The extreme Right is rising up, prejudice and hatred are gaining momentum. Russia is flexing its muscles and eyeing eastern European ex-Russian-Satellite-States speculatively. The situation in Syria is beyond words awful. However, we’ve been here before and will be here again. In my youth (50s and 60s) we lived in fear of imminent nuclear holocaust. It hasn’t happened (at least, not yet… and certainly not in the way it was predicted then). This too will pass. Or not. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

One thing is certain, and one question matters.
How will I face this latest round of death and doom and disaster?
I choose.
Daily, hourly, moment by moment, I choose my personal response to each person I encounter.
I choose to continue to follow the call of Christ to live by Kingdom values – love, faith, mercy, integrity (and that last includes not pretending in this blog that I subscribe to the standard interpretation of scripture, not pretending that I believe it to be literally true – although I do believe that it contains and reveals Truth).
And in such choices, Christ comes again and God’s Kingdom is established on earth.

So please, please don’t try to convince me that what we hear and read in the news are signs that the End Times will soon be upon us.

I believe that, since the resurrection, we have all been living in the End Times and that with each choice made to live by Kingdom Rules Christ comes again and God’s Kingdom is further established.

In other words, Christ comes again and is revealed to the world in us.
Choice by choice.
In our willingness to live sacrificially by His standards, not the prevailing cultural norm.

What does that look like?
Feeding the hungry
Housing the homeless
Visiting those in prison
Giving water to those who thirst
Clothing the naked
Fighting (and voting) for social justice even if that is not in my personal best financial interest

The list could go on…

Not some future magic-wand solution, but us – here, now – we are the way God’s Kingdom is being established, one choice at a time.

Day 2: Matthew 13:24-35

The Waiting Game

“Are you still here?”
The voice rang out cheerfully as Sally, who’d been on an early morning stroll, turned up the path towards her front door. Inwardly groaning, she slapped the regulation bright smile on her face as she turned to the speaker – a new neighbour.
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“That baby of yours is taking its time, isn’t it? By the look of you, you’re more than ready to drop! I’ll bet you’re fed up with the whole business by now!”

Little did the speaker know.
Sally’s baby wasn’t even due for another four days, and every day the pregnancy extended was one of joy for her, despite the squeezed bladder, the aching legs, the great hump which seemed to have a life of its own, rising up under her ribs and shifting at the most awkward moments from side to side as the child within her womb shifted position. She was not for one moment fed up with the whole business. She’d waited so very long for this.

This was not Sally’s first pregnancy.
There’d been five others, not one of which had run to term.

The doctors were nonplussed – there seemed no obvious medical reason for the miscarriages, and even less for the most recent one – stillbirth at 8 months. She’d never forget the sight of that tiny, perfectly-formed but utterly dead baby, never forget the psychological and physical pain of induced labour, knowing all the time that there would be no live child at the end of it.

The doctors had advised them to give up trying, to consider adoption – but Sally and Tom, her husband, would have none of it. Painful though their losses had been, nevertheless they continued to hope.

This time… this time, against all the odds, the pregnancy was running to term. Doctors and midwives were keeping a very close eye indeed on the situation, but so far so good. And every day, every hour, every minute, every second of indigestion, bladder-urgency, leg-ache, heaving belly, seemed to both of them to be filled with glory.

This long time of waiting, even though full of anxious moments, spoke to them of life – life, hope, joy, faith fulfilled.

Sally escaped her neighbour, turned her key in the front door and entered.

“Hi, love!” she called out to Tom, who was on a late shift that day so was only now settling down to enjoy his jug of coffee.

As she spoke, she felt a stabbing pain and all of a sudden fluid was gushing down her legs onto the doormat.
Eyes sparkling with joy, she called out again.
“Tom! Quick, come here! It’s coming! I think our baby is coming!”

Tom, normally bleary-eyed for at least an hour after waking up but now wider awake than he’d ever been, was by her side in a moment.
All the hope and desire of the past long years of disappointment, pain and grief were contained in this moment.
His mobile was out of his pocket and he was dialling the hospital.
“Come right away” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
“All babies are precious, but this one – we’re taking no chances!”

Eight hours later, Sally lay back on the pillows in the maternity unit bed, hair lank around her tired sweaty face. Tom, at her side, was seriously wishing he’d taken his wedding ring off – that was the hand Sally’d been squeezing to help her through every contraction and the ring had cut into his finger – but reminded himself that his pain was as nothing compared to the hard work she’d just done!

And in any case – that tiny bundle in her arms made it all worth while. Their child. Their daughter. Perfectly formed, she’d entered the world screaming lustily at the top of her lungs. Tears flowed from every pair of eyes in the room, including the medical staff who were only too well aware of the history. This baby was not only alive, but perfectly healthy. For a moment, the room seemed to shine with a brighter light even than the neons overhead.

Tom and Sally looked at each other, then at their daughter, and smiled as the church bells rang out. This day was Christmas Day – and at last to them also a child was born, a child was given.

It had been worth the wait.

First Sunday of Advent: The Unexpected Visit Matthew 24:36-44

 

Life is full of choices. The choice which lies before me today is whether, having in a moment of lunacy signed up for Advent Book Club 2016, I read the passage and commentary for each day and then

1. Look at the comments of other club members and keep my thoughts to myself
2. Look at the comments of other people and maybe hit “like” or respond with a short “interesting” or “challenging”
3. Write blog posts of my own, being honest about how I respond to the passage

1. Is safest
2. Is self-protective
3. Requires the willingness to be utterly vulnerable with a bunch of people I’ve never met physically (with the exception of one) and only “know” from various online interactions – scary stuff!

Today I choose options c) above.

This passage scared me witless as a child. Gospel? I don’t think so. More Badspel – the worst news ever. Bear with me as I put into context for you just why this was the case.

What is possibly the worst thing that can happen to a child? To be separated for ever from mummy and daddy. I know that blind terror because for a couple of days at the age of 22 months I was separated from them (through no fault of theirs) and thought I’d lost them forever. I remember that… I remember physical details of my homecoming (confirmed since by my mother) which changed forever just a week later. I remember the agony, the blind terror, the utter relief.

So why did this particular passage strike such blind terror into my heart as a child, adolescent and then young adult? Because of the interpretation taught to me at (Free Evangelical for those who like denominational labels) Sunday School from the age of 5. We were taught to take a superficial and very literal approach to the words of the Bible – which was presented to us as the infallible word of God, dictated to men and to be taken very seriously indeed. In the case of this particular passage, we were taught explicitly that the day would come when the clouds would literally part and Jesus would come down from heaven riding on a cloud and judge the people of the world – not on how good or bad they had been but on whether they’d properly believed that Jesus is the Messiah and made the ABC of commitment. Do you all know that one? It works like this:

• Admit you’re a dirty rotten sinner and have never ever done anything good in your entire life and that you deserve to be punished severely by God who has no choice but to send you to burn forever in hell (hell being a literal place of physical torment)
• Believe that God loves you (interesting in the context of A) and wants to save you and therefore has tortured his son to death on the cross so that you don’t have to burn in hell after all
• Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and ask him into your heart

Unless you do all of that, using the proper words of course, you will never get to heaven. You will instead burn forever in hell.

In that context, let me tell you that my parents were not Christians and had never been baptised even as babies. So they, according to this so-called Gospel, were condemned to hell. When Jesus comes back riding down on a cloud I would be taken and they wouldn’t be. When I asked my Sunday School teacher about this, I was told that regretfully yes, this was the case, and that therefore the responsibility was on me to ensure that my parents didn’t go to hell to burn forever by making sure that they too made the ABC of commitment.

At the time (aged 5 upwards) I didn’t realise the abusive cruelty in such teaching, and of course had no alternative cultural or intellectual framework within which to reframe the teaching and indeed the passage and its interpretation.

So why did I ever stay in the Christian church? Because of something completely other. Because from the earliest age I had a profound sense of Presence. Of Being. Of “alone but not alone”. And somehow, as I read the bible (because of course a daily Quiet Time was essential to salvation and I was terrified of hell), I began to think that that Presence, that Being, was Jesus.

Even now, I’d give almost anything to simply walk away from church of any kind – I’ve tried Baptist, Elim, Methodist, URC, Anglican (evangelical, liberal and catholic but not all at once) over the years).  Oh, there have been many good moments and the vast majority of folk I’ve met at church have been decent, loving souls – but there have also been too many experiences of different but equally bad abuse of all kinds. Certainly, for me, church is never my go-to place when under pressure. When the going gets tough in life, I withdraw from church until I’ve regained my equilibrium.

Back to the passage. I should have realised we’d start here (it is, after all, Advent Sunday when traditionally I’m reminded in sermons that I’ll be separated from most of my family for all eternity), but it took me by surprise. I was going to walk away from the Club at that point (sorry, Graham and others) but instead, to my utter amazement, as I sat in silence and allowed Presence and Being to enfold me with my pain I gained a different perspective, helped along by Tom Wright’s commentary where he encourages us to realise that Jesus isn’t speaking of some future spiritual day of judgement in the literal cloud-descending way I was taught, but is actually referring to the near future in a very physical and political way.

Israel at the time was an occupied country. Jesus was a very astute guy. He could see the writing on the wall – the Romans were getting twitchy and sooner or later (probably sooner) they’d come marching in and just as oppressive regimes everywhere do they would grab people to be an example to others. Those taken would be crucified along the roadside in a very public way to act as a deterrent to any others thinking of rebelling. Those left would be the lucky ones – for now. The utter reverse of what I was taught as a child.

Now at last that makes sense. Suddenly a passage that, for me, has always been Badspel has become Gospel.

The global situation at the moment is dire – fascism is on the rise, intolerance and fear of the stranger in our midst is rife, social inequality is increasing, oppressive regimes are flexing their muscles more and more, climate-change is accelerating and we are heading for a cataclysmic change in the way we live. It’s depressing at best and terrifying at worst.

What this passage now says to me is that when this happens it will be no surprise to God. And it is in that moment that we are judged – every time. We need to prepare now – daily – hourly – because we don’t know what the future holds. We never did. Now, though, it is more obvious to us that our future is utterly uncertain. The promise to us – the Gospel, Good News – is that when the shit hits the fan, then Christ is most fully revealed. The more deeply rooted and grounded we are in Him – or if you prefer, rooted and grounded in Light, Love, Presence, Being – the more we will be unshakeable when we are maybe the ones taken.

Fast forward to the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles – the stoning of Stephen. He was one of the ones taken – snatched untimely form a good and wholesome life of service and stoned to be an example and discouragement to other potential Followers of the Way. And in the moment of greatest agony, despair and failure what happens? He sees – full of the Holy Spirit, he looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. In that moment, he experienced the Second Coming for himself, the culmination of his own personal journey into Christ – if you prefer, into Light, Love, Presence, Being.

So let us, at the start of this Advent season and beyond, be encouraged as we face dark times ahead. Let us dare to take time to root ourselves ever more deeply into the solid rock which will not fail us when the storm hits. Let us live and love and walk in faith that behind the glowering storm-clouds still the Son shines in glory and will break through those clouds in our moment of darkest need.

 

 

 

Countdown to Advent

Yes, that’s right – countdown to Advent.

Usually we think in terms of the countdown starting on 1st December – 24 doors on the Advent Calendar, often yielding a little dark brown foretaste of Christmas excess.

Today, however, I’m counting down to the start of Advent which this year begins on Sunday 27th November.

I’m joining Graham Hartland and others in an online bookclub – using Tom Wright’s  Advent for Everyone .

I’ll be posting my thoughts on this blog. Graham is posting on his (link at the side of this page). I’ll add other links as others join in. If you’re on Twitter, follow the discussion using  #adventbook2016 .

For those of my friends who want to join in but only use Facebook, I’ll link to my blog there as well as reposting any others connected with the book.

See you all next Sunday. 🙂