A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

This week's Baptist Times has published a couple of letters in repsonse to the Apology for Slavery issued by BUGB.  Whilst they raise valid issues, I find myself irritated by them, because they feel as if somehow there is a holier-than-thou mood about them.  I'm sure this isn't what was intended, I'm sure it's just me.  I'm trying to grow in grace!

One comment was on Baptist ways of doing things - essentially that Council didn't have the right to issue this without it going to Assembly first.  The letter points to the way we (theoretically) conduct church business and reads across.  It makes sense but... surely this was a moment when delay was unhelpful.  Also, if we take seriously our history, the old Assemblies which did make bold statements on issue have in real terms been superceded by Council.  I fear we are putting protocol in where it suits us, and happliy ingnoring it where it doesn't.

Another comment seemed to pick up something about tokenism - but which way I wasn't sure.  If we are giong to apologise over slavery, it asserted, what else?  There could be an endless list - indeed there could.  If the point was, as I'm sure it was, that we must beware tokenism, it was a valid one.  However, isn't it good if we've finally recognised the need for confession and apology and taken a step to be different from now on?  I think it is.

I recognise that we cna't be forever issuing apologies on this, that or the next thing, and lots of the 'sins of the parents' we do not know about.  But the wonderful General Confession prayer which is printed inside the cover of such delights as BPW or BHB offers us a good model for approaching this... 

Father eternal, giver of light and grace,
we have sinned against you and against our neighbour,
in what we have thought,
in what we have said and done,
through ignorance, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.
We have wounded your love
and marred your image in us.
We are sorry and ashamed,
and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
who died for us,
forgive us all that is past;
and lead us out from darkness
to walk as children of light.
Amen.

(This version, B33 Common Worship)

If we, as Baptist Christians could truly pray this prayer, truly live its outworking, wow, what a difference that would make to this battered world of ours.

In so far as it is in my gift, I am sorry for the evil perpetrated by those from whom I am descended genetically, nationally or spirtually, and pray that the God who forgives, will give me grace to live in penitence and faith.

Another buzz phrase from today's events in Didcot.

When I had a real job, several people I know had a little A4 poster on their notice boards that said "every day I have to add to the list of people who p*** me off" then a space to add 'today's names' and 'permanently p***ed off by...'

Such people were referred to today as grace growers - those people who come into our lives in order to help us grow in grace.  It's certainly a more constructive way of looking at it...

Every day certain people help me to grow in grace...

Today's grace growers are...

The long term grace growers are...

 

What d'you reckon?  How have I helped you grow in grace?! ;-)

No, I haven't lost my rag and decided to swear at my PC, or the world, it is one of the titles used by one of the speakers at today's Small Churches day at Didcot.  The logic was, as I recall it, the Greek word for 'witness' (noun) is, in anglicised form, 'martyr', and martyrs as we think of them are people who shed their blood for their cause, so mission is about witnessing, about shedding blood, about bleeding (at least metaphorically) in the cause of the Kingdom.

In one sense, today didn't tell me anything new: I am now an experienced small church minister, I know the centrality of mission, of knowing and understanding your community, have preached til I'm blue in the face about mission as the reason the church exists...  I know about the limits and opportunities of being a small church, I know about the tensions, I know where the BUC guidelines are and even have most of the books they showed us (though for some reason were not selling the Toolbox for Small Churches).  The best part for me was the presentation of the ideas for moving Home Mission forward in ways that will make the whole thing more effective - though it will be some time before that is able to find expression because of the necessary wheels grinding their way forward.

This is the passage that I wish had been used in the opening worship session...

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brither Andrew.  They were casting a net into the lake, for the were fishermen.  "Come, follow me, " Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men and women,"  At once they left their nets and followed him.  (Matt: 4: 18-20, NIVi)

What was used was, granted, a more pedantically correct translation of the Greek, but not the intent... and when we are supposedly a fully inclusive communiity (discuss!) and when we want to attract people who have not grown up with gendered langauge as 'normative' it is time we - and especially those in corridors of power - got our heads around this issue.   Ten years ago I'd never have believed I'd be a strong advocate of inclusive language... but then this time ten years ago I was still a few days from hearing God call me to ordained ministry - a lot's happened since then.

Yesterday I was involved in some Association work where we picked out as key issues topics of small and tiny churches, women ministers and the multi-racial, mutli-cultural, multi-faith dimension of working in our part of our Association.  Bleeding mission - being sacrificial witnesses to the Good News of Jesus is a massive task.  In some ways I feel that EMBA is small church writ large - compare our geographical area, membership and staffing levels with other Associations and you see what I mean.

It has been a good, if tiring, couple of days, and it doesn't get any easier from here to Christmas.  We were reminded today that at Christmas we recall how God does small, weak and vulnerable - a baby born to a couple far from home; how God speaks through people outside the 'church' and outside our faith - shepherds and magi; how mission is risky - Herod's massacre, Jesus, Mary & Joseph exile to Egypt; etc etc. 

I think, on balance, it was a worthwhile day, a good two days, in which I have begun to see more clearly some of what God might be saying to me about my role in the Missio Dei - the mission of God - in Dibley, Leciestershire, EMBA and the ends of BUGB! 

I was chatting with my lunchtime pray-ers today about the endeavours of some to re-establish a church prayer meeting, which is looking like it might happen, if at all, either in an evening or on a Saturday morning.  None of them would go to either meeting - some are very old and don't go out after dark, for others Saturday is either shopping or family time.  I asked about lunch times - and they were enthusiastic - they like the half hour of stillness followed by food that we share 10 times a year.  So, foolishly, I have just emailed my deacons to suggest we add another 12 lunchtime prayer meetings a year, one a month, and offering to host alternate months.  Maybe the butternut squash and pumpkin soup has gone to my head, but in an older congregation where loneliness is a real issue and where people living alone may opt for a slice of toast rather than a proper meal, it seems that twin needs of pastoral care and spiritual nurture can be successfully blended without the poor old minister needing yet another evening out.

We will see what happens.  Unless other people are willing to host six out of the twelve meetings, I won't pursue it.  But it has promise, I feel.

Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I think that English Baptists understand this as 'rehearse this by having a Sunday roast at home.'   Whilst I have a few friends who do indeed practice hospitality, who do welcome strangers, who do feed people who are hungry and who do embrace people who are lonely, they are the exception rather than the rule.

For four years I have tried to model something of practising hospitality - having open house, feeding those happened to be around at meal times, and most specifically by providing space to pray and eat in Lent and Advent.  Because of the nature of my congregation, this has meant making endless pots of homemade soup - early on it was made very clear to me that this was no great ask (even though at church events we got watered down packet soup).  Whilst at times it has felt a chore, my trusty slow cookers have ensured there was always piping hot broth on offer - usally some weird concoction I invented from what was in the cupboard.  We've had some lovely times together and with the money raised supported among others Christian Aid, TLM, HMF, BMS and one time we bought a water pump for an African village.

Something has finally clicked somewhere... on Sunday someone gave me a cake for today's lunchtime Advent group (yes I know we're early, it's all to do with how the Tuesdays land this year) and yesterday someone rang to offer to make some soup or a stew for another week.

Practice hospitality... cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will return as buttered toast - as a woman at a bus stop once said to my mother.

Last week the lights in the manse living room went 'phutt' fairly spectacularly, blowing all the bulbs at once.  On Thursday a nice man installed a new switch in the livining room - the lights that had been dim and flickery for four years (to my knowledge) suddenly beamed brightly.  This morning he returned to replace the defunct striplight in the kitchen - the state of the wiring was scary but we made a good team and now, after two hours I have a shiny new light that works - so well I can now see to wash up, rats.

The minister who lived in darkness has seen great light, on she who dwelled in the land of darkness light has dawned... with apologies to Isaiah of course.  I think what struck me was that you don't recognise dinginess or darkness until it's displaced by light; that and you don't appreciate even flawed light until it fails.  Wonder what that might say about faith or mission...?

Yesterday we had a visiting preacher, someone exploring a call to ordained ministry who needs some preaching experience, who has never, as yet, taken a full service and who baulked at the idea of doing so for us (this time... when she comes back she will).  Listening to her speak, watching her anxiety and earnest endeavours took me back a long way!  It would be easy to find fault with her sermon, it had all the classic beginners' features - too many ideas, too many out of context quotations from other parts of the Bible, too many metaphors (dogs, vines, rosebushes, tomatoes...) but what she offered was carefully and prayerfully delivered.  I almost envied her the simple, assured message she brought, but only almost, I don't regret the challenges and questions I've faced since studying theology which have given me a deeper, more reflective faith.  I also recalled the naivety of that exploration phase - just as well I didn't know I'd end up doing what I'm doing, which is a world away from the occasional Sunday preach...  This lady has a long journey ahead of her, and is probably in for some surprises along the way, but I wish her well as she seeks to offer her life in the service of Christ's church.

In the evening I was preaching for the Penties.  Having been involved in the civic switching on of lights events the day before, they were all very tired, but as ever very gracious and accepted what I had to say (although there was some dispute over whether Jesus was more likely to have been born in Spring or Autumn - check the web you can argue either or both!)  What struck me was how little they understand scriptures they think they know.  In my overview of Advent, one of my readings was Malachi 3: 1 - 4.  I asked them who they thought it referred to.... 'Jesus' came the answer (thinks... jokes about penguins etc) when to me it was self evident that the Christian answer (and the Matthean one too) would by John the Baptist.  The idea that it also had a meaning, and referrent, in its own time seemed to pass people by.  I'm certainly not knocking them, they are good, hardworking, sincere people; I just wonder if all the note taking they do in sermons actually helps or hinders.

I quite like the 'hit and run' nature of visiting preaching, and find it a very different experience from the regular Sunday by Sunday, but I have to admit that, for all its frustrations, the regular week by week speaking into the lives of a congregation and individuals what I believe God wants them to hear is more rewarding - even if you get fewer compliments and more brickbats!

Slowly, Mr Amazon is sending me a whole heap of books I ordered in the last month or two.  Yesterday I received The Implied Reader by Wolfgang Iser, Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1974.  Whether it will prove worth the expense remains to be seen, but a couple of the essays look promising.  Anyway, the introduction says this...

The history of the novel as a 'genre' began in the eighteenth centruy, at a time when people had become preoccupied with their own everyday lives.  Like no other art form before it, the novel was concerned directly with social and hisotrical norms that applied to a particular environment, and so established an immediate link with the empirical reality familiar with its readers.  While other ltierary forms induced the reader to contemplate the exemplariness they embodied, the novel confronted him with problems arising from his own surroundings, at the same itme holding our vairious potential solutions which the reader himself had, at least partially, to formulate.  What was presented in the novel led to a specific effect: namely, to involve the reader in the world of the novel and so to help him to understand it - and ultimately his own world - more clearly.

Page xi, emphasis mine.

Whether this might be said of some of the pulp fiction that fills our bookshops these days is an interesting postulate, but I am more immediately intrigued by the last sentence and its obvious parallel which reading both history and scripture.  To what extent does reading them involve us in the world they describe, and how does this help us to understand our world more clearly?  To what extent does reading, say the gospel according to Matthew or the letter to the church in Corinth involve me infirst centruy Christian culture?  I may come to read it expecting it to speak to me but is it as Iser suggests?  Or what of history?  Do I enter into, in some way, seventeenth centruy Baptist life, or is it more the world of the implied author somewhere in the twentieth century?  Yes, I want to make the case that this reading will 'help me to understand my own world more clearly,' to paraphrase Iser, but is this the intention of the writer?  I'm not so sure that it necessarily is.

Today's Baptist Times carries a death notification for this 95 year-old Baptist minister.  Back in the days when I was studying engineering, he was minister of Westbourne Park Baptist Church in London (John Clifford's place) where I helped out with the Girls' Brigade.  Westbourne Park didn't attract many students, being small, elderly and probably marginally left of centre but "Mr Robertson" and his wife, Ida, made us welcome and served us tea in their tiny manse flat.  My first experience of Baptist life was of warmth (in a cold, damp building!) and openness.

Edwin Robertson began life as a nuclear physicist and became a very respected Bonhoeffer scholar.  I couldn't say he was best the preacher I ever heard, he wasn't, but he was a kind and gracious man who served his Lord and the Baptist family faithfully unitl his death.  I will remember his gentle humour, his smile and his acceptance of his diverse congregation during the early 1980's.  Rest in peace, good and faithful servant.  

Back to doing my research reading today... all good fun, getting to read in order to critique a text book produced for the old Baptist Union Christian Training Programme called English Baptist History and Heritage, Roger Hayden, Baptist Union 1990.  When I've done, I'll do the same with last year's new book of the same title by the same writer.

I like this statement in the Author's Preface:

'... writing... on this theme puts the author under great stress.  It requires a general knowledge covering a long period of history.  Inevitably it is highly selective and has to leave out so much that could properly have appeared within it.  In the end there will be some emphases which are not quite true in reality.  For this I apologize, and especially if I have misrepresented some of my friends.  There is only one proper remedy.  get hold of th eprimary documentation and read it for yourself...'

I like the honesty of the statement, but it is suitably vague, and I wonder just how many readers will have read it before embarking on Unit 1 of an educational process they may be doing under duress (history = boring, irrelevent; training = hoop to jump through).

So to his selectivity, having now read the first three units (believe me i'm geeting to the point where I know this story, and its emphases quite well!).  Like Underwood, and indeed just about anyone else I've read, there is a fairly lengthy discourse on the Dutch Anabaptists with whom Smyth and Helwys clearly spent time, and by whom they seem to have been significantly inmfluenced, before the familiar 'but of course we're not connected to the Anabaptists' statement.

I know that this view is now being revisited by some, and revised by others, but I find myself, yet again, wondering why we go to such great lengths to describe somehting in order to dismiss it.  Methinks we doth protest too much.

Likewise, perhaps because Particular Baptist origins are more vague, after long descriptions of our General Baptist beginnings - slightly earlier historically, we think, we leap to point out their heresies, strange customs and decline.  Again, if these roots are so precious, why are we keen to sever the conection as another group grows up?  And epsecially when nowadays there aren't many people who know, let alone care, about Arminian or calvinist views on atonement.

Roger Hayden is honest about the existence of selectivity in the story we tell, but, for whatever reason, does not give away anything about the party line he follows - does he agree with it or is this one of the 'stresses' he faced?  I wonder what might happen if we worried less about what we are/were not and instead concentrated on the positive insights we might gain from reading the stories of Dutch Anabaptists and English General Baptists?  Rather than perpetuating the "rise and fall" approach to story telling, what if we accepted (as some historians do) a more life cycle view whereby the validity of these forebears is celebrated without getting hung up on their limitations?  What other ways might there be of reading/writing the story that allows it to speak into our hear and now about this diverse family of God's people?  I'd rather we were good Protestants than that we protested quite so much about what we're not!