This morning I was at the crematorium we sometimes use that's just about in either Derbyshire or Staffordshire to conduct a service for someone who lived in Skegness but died in Dibley.  Such is the logic of life!

The weather was inclement - foggy and near freezing, and the timing meant that the school run would be still active when I set off from home, hence an early start.  For whatever reason the traffic was uncharacteristically light and I arrived with a good forty minutes before service time.  I got chatting to the chapel manager (or whatever they're called) about some of the weird and wonderful things that happen in services these days.  He's a lovely chap who happens to be a member of a highly conservative Baptist church that is not in Union or Association, so sometimes being in his role is a definite challenge.  He told me of a service where someone had requested something by Eminem (is that spelled right, I haven't a clue!) the minister officiating had said he'd allow an instrumental but not the vocal version, however the family insisted and their word carried sway.  He had struggled with this and felt the song (littered with expletives) was totally inappropriate for the setting.  He then told me about a pagan ceremony earlier this week - priest in clerical looking robes, mourners in long robes adorned with various symbols, and a service conducted with dignity and respect; he'd had a good and respectful conversation with the pagan priest, in the course of which he'd been able to express his own views.  After this he told me how his views had changed in the time he'd worked at the crematorium - he had arrived intending to be 'straight down the line' and nothing to do with anything that wasn't, but had learned that actually his task was to show God's love by treating everyone with respect and dignity, no matter who or what.  This guy is a conservative evangelical who has learned a wonderful lesson of grace, and I'm sure his gentle presence and quiet witness to what he believes is more Godly than he can ever imagine.

My funeral party arrived and the service went off conventionally with cheesy music in and out and boring hymns sung almost solo; I spoke of a God of grace and mercy and of the defeat of evil and death by Christ as well as sharing  few reminiscences from his friends.  This, too, was a witness to God's love, as a stranger was shown dignity and commended to God's eternal mercy and grace.

It is easy to take for granted, and even to moan about, crematorium staff - but I am glad to know that in this place, as in many others, followers of Jesus embody something of his grace.

I am currently reading Mission Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today's Church ed. Steven Croft, London, Church House Publishing, 2008, which is proving interesting and helpful as well as annoying in thought provoking ways (which I think means it's worth reading).  Part of my annoyance is the assumption of paedo-baptising fairly hierarchical traditions, and the fact that credo-baptising congregationally organised traditions aren't mentioned much and seemingly aren't writing or thinking so much in this area.  I am finding little links with my interest in denominational history and church health (woo hoo, or words to that effect) and enjoying their making - but then based on one of the quotes below, that makes me the right kind of person for this kind of emergent/fresh expression/practical theology type of thinking, so maybe it's inevitable.

Anyway, here are my fave four so far...

John Drane, p 96

Frustrated clergy find themselves running a spiritual hospice while all the time God is moving the waters in the birthing pool

John Drane, citing Daniel Pink, p 99

what we need today are 'creators and empathisers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers... artists, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers'

[I'd like to think I'm a 'pattern recognizer' and one who endeavours to be a 'meaning maker']

John Drane (again!) on history, p 95

As part of his discussion on maturity (now there's a good sign of a 'healthy church'):

From a purist historical perspective, I can sympathize with those scholars who argue that what we know about such ancient times [Celtic] is too insubstantial to bear the weighty reconstructions of Christian spirituality that are now being placed upon it.  But from a missiological point of view, these arguments entirely miss the point.  For when a culture finds that the meta-narrative that it one took for granted is either untrue, or merely unserviceable in changed circumstances, it is natural that we look back into our own story in the effort to find new paradigms that might inspire us for the future.  Faced with the diminishing prospects of the people of God, the Hebrew prophets repeatedly looked back to more ancient times and reinterpreted an old story (usually the exodus narrative) for new circumstances. The historical knowledge of the exodus available to Isaiah or Jeremiah must have been just as flimsy as our certain knowledge of the Celtic era, but that never stopped them reshaping the story.  In a different way, and on the basis of more certain historical knowledge, the New Testament evangelists did something similar with the stories of Jesus.  When the emerging Church looks to ancient times for patterns of organic spirituality and then remodels them in the light of new circumstances, this is just the latest phase in a very old story.

(Emphasis mine)

Angela Tilby, p 79

Also on history and adding a note of caution

I want to argue against the idea that history exists for us as a kind of simultaneous present from which we can construct whatever patterns we like or find meaningful.  My key point is that the identity of the Church is constituted by the fact that it lives in time.  In a very real sense the Church is its history.

(Emphasis original)

I think that maybe there's a kind of both/and here - the Church is its history (a bit like that mobile phone advertisement that says 'I am...' all the people I've encountered) but it can and, I'd argue, should also reinterpret its history for new circumstances and new, Godly, purposes.  Simply knowing our past does not give us maturity any more than knowing Bible stories; only by making connections, engaging creatively and seeing patterns with the bigger picture can we grow and mature.  Or so ends my sermon to myself for today!

Here's a nice little theological joke.  HT Geoff Colmer

This coming Sunday I am preaching on God's call - lectionary (I think!) gives the call of Samuel and in the C of E strand the calls of Philip and Nathanael.  I'm not overly fussed if I've got that wrong, it's a good theme for the start of the year anyway.

As part of the warm-up bit I am using a few of the 20th century martyrs as per Westminster Abbey to see what we know about them and their sense of call (probably not a lot really!) and am then adding on Mother Theresa as someone well known who died of natural causes!  A quick internet search on Mother Theresa was quite enlightening, revealing a faith that struggled and questioned as well as a profound sense of call.  It was from her story that I came across the idea of the 'call within the call' - not simply to be a nun, but to be the nun she was, working with the poorest of the poor in India.  Her own 'dark night' experiences never led her to deny or abandon the call which was worked out over a long life.

So, now I'm thinking about calls within calls, and various ideas are wafting through my mind.  One (rather cringe-laden) phrase is that of 'reason, season and lifetime' often applied to friendship in those gloopy emails that circulate from time to time.  Is there, within the life-long call to discipleship the potential for timebound calls - for reasons or seasons?  I am sure the answer is 'yes' - otherwise why do people move on from time to time, sensing God leading them to new things?

Another idea owes its origins more to computer programming  in the days when you had to be able to speak FORTRAN or COBOL, and the idea of 'nested do loops' (Remember them?  No?  Never mind). The outer 'do loop' would be the call to Christian disicpleship inside which other loops would be, for example 'to this role' 'in this place' 'at this time' 'for this purpose.'  How many levels of nesting, and how many nests within the outer loop may vary.  If this is as clear as mud, well either (a) you're too young to have learned to programme properly (b) you are too old to have learned to programme at all (c) you avoided computers before the advent of Windows (d) I'm talking gibberish [(e) a combination of the above!!].  Visually a series of concentric circles almost expresses this idea - at least in its simplest form.

At various times I, like many others, have had people say my (current) 'calling within a calling' is 'for such a time as this' and maybe that's true.  But I am left wondering now, as I look around the world (or at least my bit of it) what might be the voice of God 'for such a time as this' and that, I think is where I want our sermon exploration to go on Sunday.  Not the naff and predictable 'how do we hear God's voice?' or 'How many times constitutes God's call?' (where does that ridiculous notion of three come from?  Samuel was called four times!) or 'the call is to follow Jesus.'  Rather, what is the 'call within the call to follow Jesus for such a time as this, with credit crunches, rising unemployment and wars and violence across the globe?'  I can't neatly 'exposit' that from Samuel, Philip or Nathanael, but I do feel that is what the "divine niggle" is prompting me to say.

Yeserday's sermon at D+1 got me thinking - and that's a good thing!  The preacher was focussing on the theme of reconciliation as the heart of the gospel, and using 2 Corinthians 5:17 as a central text which is, in Greek, ὥστε εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις· τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά·

This is important, because the dear old NIV, like any Bible, uses interpretation alongside translation, in its rendering of these words.  The NIV version says 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'  The NIVi says 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'  This is a more precise translation of the Greek and has a very different meaning - which I was pondering long before the preacher got there!  This morning I was reminded that καινὴ κτίσις is actually feminine language but I won't pursue that one!!

So, a very literal translation would probably be 'if anyone (or anything) is in Christ, there is a new creation...' which is pretty mind blowing stuff.  It is as if each time someone comes to faith (by event or process) creation (all of it) is renewed and not just that person's immortal soul.  Wow!  That will keep me thinking for a very long time.

The sermon spoke of reconciliation in three directions - personal with God, corporate within the faith community, global/universal with the whole of creation.  That's worth a lot of pondering too.