I have a Sunday off this week then two weeks of relatively normal services, then an outreach event, and then a clear enough run for a couple of short series interrupted by a couple of joint services and such like before my summer hols (three weeks far away from church....).

I have been 'haunted,' in a good way, by the song 'Pretty Amazing Grace' and was very struck by watching the Radio concert with Neil Diamond via some 'press the red button now' thing on my freeview box.  During the course of said concert, he clearly attribute his singing ability to God's gifting (that's used correctly as verb by the way, in case anyone is checking).  I have also been been contemplating quite a lot how whenever the word 'justice' or 'judgement' pops up in the Bible the word 'mercy' is never far away.  Somewhere out of this has emerged the idea to explore these themes a little more in the next couple of services, one on grace, the other on mercy.

My big challenge is picking passages to preach on, and the lectionary is not proving too helpful (though grace does get a brief mention the first week in the Epistle).  Anyone out there got any thoughts?

Flipping through BPWs 'God's grace' section I came across a rather dated children's hymn which seems to have something useful to say about these two themes...

You can't stop God from loving you

Though you may disobey him;

You can't stop God from loving you

However you betray him;

From love like this no power on earth

The human heart can sever;

You can't stop God from loving you,

Not God, not now, nor ever.

final verse of You can't stop rain from falling down, John Gowans (c) Salvationist Publishing Supplies Ltd

 

Coupled with the likes of 'There's a wideness in God's mercy' and 'By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered' I am anticipating a couple of weeks of singing some good theology, however simply expressed.

Today I met with a family to plan the funeral of their much loved mother.  They had already been sorting through her possessions and had found a box full of handwritten poems and verses, among them one which will be used at her funeral.  I have tried Google it to find online to no avail - maybe she even wrote it herself, I don't know.  What I like is that, although it is a bit Patience Strong like, it isn't too mawkish or too maudlin, but instead combines honesty about life with unquenchable hope. This woman knew life in the raw, believe me, yet right to the end her faith was strong... 

We Can't Have a 'Crown' Without a 'Cross'

We all have those days that are dismal and dreary

And we feel sorta blue and lonely and weary,

But we have to admit that life is worth living

And God gives us the reason for daily thanksgiving.

For life's experience God's children go through

That's made up of gladness and much sadness too...

But we have to know both the bitter and sweet

If we want a good life that is full and complete;

For each trial we suffer and every shed tear

Just give us the strength to persevere.

As we 'climb' the 'steep hills' along life's way

That lead us at last to that wonderful day

Where the 'cross' we have carried becomes a 'crown'

And at last we can lay our burden down! 

Author unknown.

 

On Sunday I took as the Bible readings Micah 6:8 (do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God) and John 13:31 - 14:4, focusing on 13:34-35 (love one another).  Having watched the Home Mission 'video' (at 25 minutes rather long) I wasn't about to preach, but wanted to allow these texts to speak into the idea of 'transforming communities' (with all its delicious ambiguity - are we communities in which personal transformation occurs (yes) communities which are transformed (yes) or communities which bring transformation to the communities of which they are part (yes)).

As part of 'love one another' I mentioned that my friends and I from time to time lend each other our cars - we do, it is no big deal, if someone else needs a car and theirs is off the road, well they can use mine if I don't absolutely need it (and provided they are insured of course...).  The looks on people's faces were a picture - I might have been suggesting, oh, I don't know, wife swapping.  But surely this (lending cars, not swapping partners) is consistent with the 'love one another' mandate, isn't it something of the Acts 4 model - before Ananias and Sapphira messed it up?

I don't think we are called to be some kind of holy commune, nor yet to be mugs or doormats, but if we can't actually get the 'love one another' at least to the point that it is more meaningful than being politely tolerant, then how can we ever be 'a light for the world'?  Only when our communities are transformed by this love can we hope to bring transformation...

A wet Bank Holiday - a great excuse to curl up with some of the books that have sat on my 'light reading' heap, having been picked up in supermarkets and on charity book tables in recent weeks.  I enjoyed having the time to read these books - three over the course of the weekend - though none of them would really pass as literature: two were pretty much pulp fiction and the other - well I'm not sure really, ostensibly autobiography/social history it also had hints of theology, or at least spirituality.  The last one woke up the research corner of my brain making we wonder yet again just what constitutes history and how it may or may not be useful.

There was one thing that really annoyed me with the last of the books, and is increasingly annoying me, which was the use of American English not only in the idiom (which just sounds daft when put into a middle England context with middle English characters) but the spellings - which are creeping more and more into the writing of people who, in my view, should know better.  Accounts of people 'waiting in line' for a bus in London (whatever happened to queueing?) or having 'gotten wet' irritate but don't infuriate.  It is 'smelt' for 'smelled' and 'spelt' for 'spelled' that really offend my sensibilities.  Smelt, as any purist knows is either (a) a small fish or (b) a product of melting metal ore - in the UK it has nothing to do with aromas or odours (however pongy the fish!).  Likewise 'spelt' is a cereal crop - having as much to do with the arrangement of letters in words as a alphabetti spaghetti.  So, my inner Lynn Truss has been awakened once more.

Rant over!

I was just reading Richard's report for YBA on his church's Hope 08 initiatives - FANTASTIC!  One of the central themes is doing things for free and turning away offers to pay for car washing etc.  This is a culture I have been advocating - and largely managing to achieve - in the initiatives of our little church too.  We give away stuff at our events which usually astounds people who then ask us why - though having said that at our last event someone objected to the fact that the Fairtrade Gift Stall was, as advertised, selling products.  We have hosted meals, given goody bags to children, painted faces, hired bouncy castles, given away butties in the pub and so on for one simple reason - God gives freely to us.

Back in the 1980's (I think) the song 'freely, freely' was very popular.  Thinking back, it is probably one of those from which the message lodged somewhere deep in my psyche or soul or wherever things lodge.  When we used to sing it in GB in Warrington, local accents rendered it free-er-lee, free-er-lee and I guess that's how I still hear it - but the message is still valid: free-er-lee you have received, free-er-lee give to others.  The song is very dated, and it is not without its limitations, but I like its missional thrust.

John 3:16 says 'God so loved the cosmos that he gave...' I think sometimes we get so hung upon the super holy aspects of this, so accustomed to the traditional interpretation as 'world' which we then hear as 'humanity,' that we miss the word 'gave.'  God didn't leave out a saucer for donations, rather the choice was do something that embarasses us in its open handed generosity - God gave.  Maybe if we can truly grasp the idea of giving away our love - in flowers, car washes, litter picks, lunches with lonely people, smiles on the faces of children, carols in the pub or whatever - it is we who will blessed as we begin to grasp a little more of the mystery who the God who gives free-er-lee to all...