A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

For some reason formatting is currently doolally and Blogspirit site working very slowy -apologies for near illegible posts

UPDATE

Don't know what happened by after I re-installed Java it is now OK.

Technology.  pah!

I can't say I'm sorry to get to the end of January - it has been a singularly crazy month, demanding physically, emotionally, spiritually. I am due a good telling off from all my minister friends for working 31 days straight, but here you go, it's like that sometimes. Hopefully February will be a tad less loopy, though my diary is already pretty crammed. Anyway, Saturday is our vision day, with the title Pilgrim People, to be led by the minister of a churchin Derby whose situation is not a million miles different from ours - they too have been in schools and other centres for three years after their building was closed by a fire, This morning one of my task is to plan the closing worship for the day, and I have to be honest in my state of exhaustion, it is proving fairly self indulgent - creativity, "secular" resources and letting the Bible speak for itself. So here's what it will be.

Matt 7: 13 -14

Poem : The Road Not Taken

Luke 9: 57 – 10:9

Video Clip – Sister Act “I will follow him”

Response – Footprints (cut from paper) to be pasted onto a poster 'I will follow Him'

Prayer

Close

The preacher at my ordination service used the interelationship of mountain and plain to pull togther my chosen readings from Matt 25 and Matt 28.  As I have pondered the readings from Exodus 24 and Matt 17 for 'Transfiguration Sunday' this relationship has come back to me.

Why go up the mountain?  Precisely because you are going to come down again!

Moses must have been fit (as in healthy and able bodied) as he seems to have been up and down moutains quite a lot, despite his advancing years!  He didn't go up them to see the sights or in search of some kind of personal spiritual 'high', he went to listen to God.  And what God said was all about life on the plain.

Jesus and his cronies went up a high mountain, code for going to seek God's self revelation, and it happened.  Never mind trying to demyhtologise or remytholgise or rationalise it all, Peter, James and John were left terrifed and needed a hug from Jesus (or a touch at any rate) to get them on their feet again.  And the revelation?  Listen to Jesus.  That was it!  Do what he says.  And they came back down the mountain and nothing had changed - there was a crowd and someone seeking healing.

To me, this is an important reminder that Sunday worship is not an escape, nor yet seeking a spiritual high, rather, at least in part, it is coming apart to listen to what God is saying about the everyday.

My sermon will end with some sayings of Jesus as recorded in Matthew that I feel speak into the needs of the three congregations who will hear me speak, along with an invitation to 'listen to Jesus' before going back down the metaphorical mountain and into the world.

The service will end with BPW 201 It's good, Lord, to be here (J Armitage Robinson) the final verse of which says: -

It’s good Lord, to be here!

Yet we may not remain;

But since you bid us leave the mount

Come with us to the plain.

Next week we're in the wilderness and facing temptation and learning to see opportunities for growth and maturity...

Awful Anglicans?  Measley Methodists?  The list could be endless.

I was doing some brain dumping following some reading on theology of history, attempting to sketch out an essay plan as a skeleton, not a piece of prose (since the prose version failed miserably) and found myself pondering the ecclasiastical equivalent of the Horrible Histories series of books published by Scholastic.  Indeed, I think I might treat myself to one or two under the guise of research!

As far as I can gather, these books work on the premise that (a) history is worth studying (b) most people think it's boring (c) we need to do something about that.  Not, I think, a million miles from what I'm attempting to argue.

So this, in brain dump form, is what I think I'm trying to say...

Understanding Baptist history is really useful, our past is relevant and interesting.  BUT most people don't think so, they think it is boring and irrelevant.  So, something must be done about this!

Let's start with those who HAVE to read it and what they HAVE to read and move on from there... they tend to be people seeking some kind of formal Baptist acceditation and they tend to read 'official' Baptist histories.

A question that arises then, is how these 'real readers' match up with the 'target audience' or the 'implied reader' of the text, and what effect this has.  With two examples examined, I conclude a mismatch that is unhelpful.

What kind of 'target audience' or 'constructed implied reader' might be more helpful?  A model from Biblical studies may be helpful here.  (Iser, Bockmeuhl, others)

Arising out of this model is a question about theological awareness and use of theological and/or 'God' language in writing Baptist history.  Theologies of history, generally predicated on eschatology, give a helpful way of approaching this. (Rae, Gilkey, others)

If theological and teleological implications matter, what does this mean for trajectory and 'plot' considerations (fall-rise-fall models cf Hopewell and others).  How might the story be more helpfully or imaginatively told?

What might make the story more interesting, bring it to life, add colour? (Ahlback, Spargo and others)

And then, lastly, what might be a way forward... Beastly Baptists maybe?!

Answers on a postcard.

Said to me today after the service "I like coming here, it's not like going to church, it's more like a party."

As five people had slept through part of the sermon and a few others had shed a few tears (which was good - a release of pent up emotion by people facing tough situations) it wasn't the description I'd have come up with, but encouraging all the same.

Suddenly it seems that everyone is preaching or thinking about eschatology - I've even been guilty myself, talking about history and eschatology.  So why is that and what are we trying to get from it?

Telos - 'end' - can mean 'finish,' as in termination, but it can also mean 'aim' as in goal or target.  This filters through into how we understand teleology and eschatology - is it "now", "not yet" or "now and not yet" or what?

Today I was preaching for World Leprosy Day.  We had reached our goal of raising enough money to pay for a TLM sponsored house for a leprosy affected family (£360), so there was cause for rejoicing.  We used the slides supplied by TLM which focussed on past, present and future, and I then used the three supplied readings - Leviticus 13: 45 - 46, Matthew 8:1 - 4, Revelation 21:1 - 4.  These readings have a past-present-future feel to them too.  From a primitive past when isolation and exclusion were the only effective means of controlling infection, through Jesus' day when practical wisdom had become a means of social exclsuion, stigma and taboo, and on to a day yet to come when infectious diseases and their consequences will be no more.  I drew parallels with our own times, asking what illnesses or conditions function as leprosy (from the isolation of MRSA affected hospital patients, to taboos about mentioning cancer, to rejection and stigma associated with mental health issues, addiction and so on).  I encouraged people to be like Jesus, to be like TLM, and ignore or break the taboos that isolate, enslave or stigmatise people, even in our own fellowship.  I pointed to the vision of a day when all this would be no more, but fought shy of expressing a view on whether that was this world or the next!

I did speak of TLM as an incarnational mission - a lived expression of faith and of eschatological hope (though not in those words!).  I did say that we are called to be incarnational - the 'body of Christ in this place.'  This makes me wonder if I am advocating some sort of 'inaugurated realised eschatology' (thank Kez for the phrase) or 'futurist realised eschatology' (which I got from reading about theology of history).  In other words, that the Kingdom of God (or Christ) is come on earth but is still inbreaking and will only find its fulfillment at the eschaton - the 'end.'  In such a model, the work of TLM is 'hastening the day' by its work to eradicate leprosy and its effects.

This is not about salvation by works (that none may boast, as Paul would say) but about faith working a holism of salvation that extends to practical as well as spiritual matters.

If this is so - and I'm making this up as I type - then the end, as in goal, and the end, as in finish, become one and the same.  Whether God will wind up time in a flash or whether we will simply slide into eternity only God knows.  What I do know is that I think that TLMs work to eradicate leprosy and make itself redundant at some future date is a fantastic example to the rest of us.

 (Picture from BBC sport here)

I don't follow football, don't understand it, don't desire to, and fail to understand why such vast sums of money are expended to employ gorwn men to let off steam, but there you go, that's just me.  If pressed to select a team to ally with it'll either be Spurs because that's where I was born, and at least they're Premiership so it's not three embarrassing, or Northampton Town because that's where I grew up and they still hold the record for being the only team to go 'up in three seasons, down in three seasons' in the relatively old days of four divisions numbered thus.  But yesterday I have to confess to having been a smidgeon interested in Havant & Waterlooville taking on Liverpool at Anfield, to having been very pleased the minnows took the lead twice, and to being fascinated by the impact this match had on players and hard nosed sports commentators alike.

Before the match the commentators had, it felt, written off the visitors, slightly patronised the manager by asking him how excited he was to be at Anfield, and were showing it only because it appeals to our British love of the underdog.  Afterwards they were fullsome in their praise of what had been an exciting match, of the very best of British footballing culture - inclduing swapping shirts and a standing ovation for Havant & Waterlooville.

So they went out of the cup, but they made a difference along the way.  Few enough full time professionals get to score at Anfield, never mind take the lead twice in one game.

I still have almost zero interest in the beautiful game but as a parable of what happens when minnows refuse to be cowed by the mighty, how losing is really winning, and how you make a difference by being yourself, I am well impressed by it.

I also have to preach at the Women's World Day of Prayer in March.  This year the principal reading is the Lukan story of Mary and Martha.  Flicking through my Bible the other day, I noticed that this story lies sandwiched between the Good Samaritan and the Lord's Prayer.  So why locate it there?  The Sunday School answer is based on chronology, and that may be true, but I was fascinated to discover this (I'm well slow on the uptake, me!).

Last year, in my Mary & Martha trilogy sermon, I'd noted that this encounter occurs after the Good Samaritan story, and that the original readers having just been told about neighbourliness might have been a tad shocked when Martha emerged as making a lesser choice by being busy offering practical service.  Now I am trying to work out how they might have reacted to this next bit about prayer... really fascinating.

Maybe if I take it as a slightly bigger whole, I get a sense of spritual and practical in balance?  Not quite sure what I'll preach yet, but another new insight on a Saturday night!

Tonight my local vicar rang and asked me to preach on Ash Wednesday.  He said I could change the gospel if it didn't fit what I wanted to preach about as a 'way in' to the Lent Course or I cuold use the set reading.  This year we are going to be using Life Calling from Church House publishing, an exploration of vocation.

I was reluctant to change the gospel reading if everything else is bog stnadard lectionary - it wouldn't make a whole heap of sense.  Having checked the two offerings, I opted for John 8 (the woman 'caught in the very act of adultery') and am contemplating possibly doing a sermon in two parts - part narrative/enactment from her perspective, and part traditional and in relationship to calling.  After all this woman was called to account by the powers that be and then called on to a new way of living by Jesus.  Whether I'll quite have the timerity to do an 'enacted' first half, I'm not sure, though if it worked it could be very powerful.

I just went back and read what the Bible actually says - always a good idea - and realised how I've spent a lifetime locating this incident in the wrong setting.  So, I suspect, have many people I know.

In my mind's eye, this event takes place in open countryside where the audience is essentially the men dragging this woman before Jesus.  (Sound effect meaning you got that wrong).  What the gospel says is Jesus went to the Mount of Olive then to the Temple where he sat down to teach people.  Enter angry mob with terrified woman.  A very different scenario.

I then found myself imagining the Ash Wednesday service or the upcoming Lent studies... there we all are in church, just getting to a really holy bit when a few highly respected church officials barge in dragging with them some poor unfortunate caught in the act of some contemporary moral crime (adultery or otherwise).  How would we react?  How would I react if I was leading the service or leading the study?

Of course, the Temple environs were nothing like a twenty-first century church, and the general impact of a few more folk, albeit angry ones, arriving would have been very different.  But it did make me think.  Some folk had gathered to listen to Jesus, maybe had come specially and were really eager to hear what he had to say.  How did they feel about what happened?  What impact did the events have on their lives?

Having realised this, I can't unrealise it, can't go back to my rural image, so I have to begin again to think through this story.  I'd still like to try the sermon in two parts, because actually I now think that it is quite important to note that this event occurred on officially holy territory - and ask myself, and others, what that has to say about our conduct when we are in our holy huddles.

Thanks God for stirring me out of complacency - yet again!

**** RESEARCH WARNING **** 

BUT NOT TOO HEAVY

**** RESEARCH WARNING ****

I have just been responding to some comments on something I wrote about implied readers - fair critIcisms of what I'd done but not stuff which made me back off totally, because now I've done a bit more reading I know there is a whole range of these unreal readers - implied, ideal, constructed, imagined, single, plural, targetted and so on.  As I typed my reply, I was conscious that I was constructing a reader for my answer, inferring certain characterstics of him/them (two real, male readers) and of myself as the writer/narrator.

This is the trouble isn't it - you start thinking about something and it takes off on its own.

Who is the implied/imagined/constructed reader of this blog?  Who is the implied/constructed/imagined writer?  How close is either to reality, and what is that anyway?  Aaargh, I think I need to go and lie down in a darkened room!!