My Heart's Darkness

I get discouraged by other people's success. That's how truly ugly my heart is. I find it hard to listen to other people preaching who are what I consider to be 'better' than me. I go to team meetings in another church and when they share that some people became Christians recently, I celebrate outwardly but die a little inwardly. I feel a surge of emotion and an instinct to fight when someone dares to challenge a decision I've made. I say things to my kids loud enough that my wife overhears and thinks I'm a better man than I am. I care less about whether the students I teach have learnt something and more about whether I've performed well or am loved by them. I wilt unless others pat me on the back or tell me I've done well. I want to sit around and indulge in my own emotions and thoughts and I expect and desire everyone else to bow down and acknowledge my greatness.

I could go on but these announcements are not incidental or trivial, they're soul destroying. My heart is black and rotten. I'd like to think I'm not alone, and I'm sure in fact that I'm not alone and that others too are like this but the trouble is that I expect better of myself. The presence of this reality is not only terrible because it's true, it's terrible because it's true of the one person I want it not to be true of. The truthfulness of these statements reveals the even worse reality that I will never be like the image and reputation of the great men I admire and want to emulate. It means I have to accept my station. What's worse is that a lot of those things are so instinctive and normal for me, some of them so physiological and chemical that I don't have much expectation of them changing even over time.

I am a rod of iron that the gospel has done its work on, had its softening effect on but still it remains bent out of shape.

Who is the authentic me? Is this me? Are these things things that define me? They sure feel as though they do. What is an integrated self, an identity that possesses integrity and what does it look like for me? The presence of high extroversion and nigh negative emotions like mine I'm told makes it harder for me to keep long term commitments and navigate a single path through life. That worries me since I believe that success is earned through faithfulness and stubborn obedience over the long term.

I'm not in a place or position to try and resolve these thoughts and ideas, instead I want for them to settle and land. I don't have easy answers to pick me up and in many ways I want to keep staring at this mirror, this medusa. Will I turn to stone? Maybe that's what's best. Maybe it's better long term for the church for me to step aside and to stop pretending I can hold it together. I always hoped I'd be a better pastor than this. I felt called, I'm clearly competent at preaching but ugh I am ugly of heart, bent and spiritually cold.

Father come and help me. Help me deliver on what you've called me to deliver on. I'm a desert soul, you are able to make me live again.

--

Here's a funny thing about how God works. Immediately after writing this I walked into the kitchen where someone of my students were starting to prepare tonight's dinner. One of the lads said something encouraging to me and I replied with 'You're a nice guy,'
'I try to be' he said
Rather tongue in cheek I replied 'Do you try to be or are you naturally a nice guy?'
'I've tried for long enough that it's now become natural.'  He said
Let him who has ears to hear, hear.

There's a lot of truth in what he said. Truth that I needed to hear at that specific time.

--

Later in the same evening I felt the Lord impress on me Paul's exhortation from 2 Cor. 12:9:

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Thoughts

Peace isn't so much an external property but an internal one. I can have a calm and tranquil surrounding but a busy mind or a busy and frantic environment and a calm mind. Peace of mind then is what people need most of all. This can either come from a vacancy of thought or a positive mood of thought that is focused on the present and is most likely grateful as opposed to needy. Peace as obtained via vacant contentment is hard to hold onto for long and is less preferable to thoughtful peace since it involves the abdication of responsibility and an escape from duty.

2.

Sometimes it seems that one of the worst things that can happen to a man is that he is told in no uncertain terms that he is special. To believe of course that one matters isn't a bad thing but to be led to believe that one is a necessary man is tragic. Believed it can tend a man toward privilege refusing to work hard or join the herd but instead waiting for their own discovery by others. Destiny is not a guarantee but is an invitation and offer of what could be. But even this can tend a person toward self-reliance especially a person raised in the post-modern west. 

3.

Reverence for God doesn't always need to look like fear and awe, careful speech and morals. Reverence for God is also unceasing gratitude and deep humility before God. To receive everything in life as the gift that it is and to enjoy everything in life without any sense of personal entitlement or pride at one's own accomplishments but instead in humility inspired by awe is reverent. It is flippancy that is the opposite of reverence not joyful carelessness. 

4.

A people's ability to control its weather has a direct bearing on that same people's attitude toward God. Those who live in societies where the weather is kept at bay or under control, its people can decide to do without God, believing that he is tame and temperate. On the other hand for those who experience the catastrophic and unctrollable force of the weather there is, forced upon them, a humility and vulnerability that prevents them from disregarding the Almighty. 

5.

Grace both propels and refreshes. It is the wind on our back that moves us onward into service of others, using our gifts for God's glory. But when tiredness prevails we turn into that same propelling wind and it becomes a cool and refreshing breeze. It is the reminder of God's love, of our adoption and acceptance that is all the rest and refreshment we need. Grace both propels and refreshes.

6.

The world feels silent of God because I don't credit the natural world to God but instead see God only in the miraculous, supernatural and providential encounters. But noticing God only in moments where he appears to bend or break the laws of physics is problematic on several levels. First it narrows my vision to the point of being almost blind. Second it is often the case that a miracle is only a miracle until scepticism has tugged at it and reduced it something explainable. Not even Christians find it easy to live in a world of miracles. The joy over hearing of some miracle is counteracted by the presence of godly people who suffer silence in their prayers for healing and I become confused by or offended at God. Or else what happens is that my hopes of experiencing my own miracle are deferred long enough that I become sick and despise the testimonies of a few. I can tolerate only a world where miracles don't happen where nothing 'supernatural' happens at all but since I am not used to seeing God in the natural world I am left only with silence.

7.

The experiences of faith and the Christian are not unique to Christians. The subtle and still small whisper of God I know is called by others the 'deep subconscious', providential moments are experienced by believers and non-believers alike, ecstatic experiences of spiritual experience are found in the cults and mystical religions around the world, the mental health benefits of prayer are enjoyed under the label of mindfulness, the peace of God can be found in a worship service and rock concert all the same, inspirational sermons that move people to action are given by politicians, scientists, lecturers and preachers alike. Remarkable acts of generosity and kindness aren't confined to believers only, decency and good morals aren't the reserve of the saints either. There is very little 'unique' about the life of the Christian. What ought to be seen more and celebrated is the purity of the source all the Christian expressions and experiences come from.

8.

Why do archetypes exist at all? There is a true and better form of everything because there is an ultimate source of everything as well. The wellspring it all springs from is the memory harboured deep in our sub-consciences. Answering 'why' this exists there requires us to call on a worldview. For one person the answer 'because it is part of how our species learnt to survive' seems to settle the score. For others that stops a few stages too short of the source. For all things with a shadow we consider them to have a substance. Why not also with our archetypes.

9.

Communication initiated between people often take the form of praise/wonder, complaint/concern, fact/observation. Some people, being predominantly external processes, express more ideas than others but what interests me is the percentage amount of expressions that are uttered within each category. I would imagine that 80% of verbal communication that happens between two people takes place within the benign world of fact or observation. Exchanges related to the events of the day that are neutral. What I'm thinking about is the final 20%. Of that 20% how much is given to the expression of positive wonders and how much to negative complaints? In part it depends on the amount of positive or negative experiences a person has, although these aren't easy to categories since they're open to interpretation. My observation is that one person may marvel more at the wetness of water and the joy of a sunrise and feel a great need to, in general, fulfil their joy by expressing and sharing it whereas another person may keep much of their joy to themselves, or perhaps wouldn't notice those things as wonderful. What is intriguing however is that those same peoples may behave differently toward negative experiences. The joy fulfiller may not feel the need to share every inconvenience they suffer whereas the more reserved person might. What's going on there? I wonder if it is linked in part to the ego states. Enthusiasm and praise is a primary child ego state expression. Does that mean that neutral observations are adult and that negative expressions 'parent'? Do people with a higher parent ego state than child express more negative experiences and viceversa?

10.

Sin. Simply put sin is missing a mark, a term from archery I'm told, different from transgression which requires a law/rule to be broken, sin exists even when there isn't a rule since it has to do with relationships and principles as well as rules. The apostle Paul makes this distinction when he says that sin existed before the law existed, and he points to the presence of human death in the world which is the consequence or payment for sin. We die because we sin, acknowledging that every person dies therefore every person sins, regardless of what laws they do or don't have. Laws do not prevent sin they merely expose its presence. Sin therefore includes transgression (as one of its 'types'). Missing the mark is both accidental and wilful and there are sins of commission and omission. That is, there is sin we commit by doing what we know we shouldn't and by not doing what we should have done.

A family tree of terms could look like:

                                Sin

Missing the mark                 Violating universal principles

                                                 Transgression

                                    Commission           Omission 

Transgressions can be decided by a society can vary across societies. Cooking dinner for your familiar in a pair of dirty trousers may not be considered a transgression in the west but in many cultures it would be. Sin however remains the same even if doesn't break any societies transgression. Cannibalism is a sin even if a group of people don't have laws against it and in fact practise it.

My suggestion is that religion did not invent sin it but merely named it. What we call 'falling short' or 'breaking a law' the monotheistic religions call 'sin'. Where does this falling short occur?

Relationally: Between persons. across families, tribes/nations.
Principally: Against the laws of nature or a society or against our own principles
Mathematically: Breaking the laws of logic

Given that sin is a junk draw term, a catchall for falling short or missing the mark we must consider in what forms sin appears within our shared morality.

Jonathan Heidt's work on morality makes the case for morality being like taste sensors on our tongue. Universally there are five different categories of morality that people experience:

- Care/harm
- Purity
- Fair/unfair
- Freedom/oppression
- Loyalty
- Authority

Some people recognise the value of all six aspects of morality whereas others stress only a few. For a lot of modern westerners it would appear that the only question to be considered is ‘does it hurt anyone?’ (An example of the care/harm moral sense). His results from various studies showed that left-leaning liberal types are generally 'less moral' than right-leaning conservatives in that they only seem able to recognise categories of: care, fairness and freedom as moral terms whereas conservatives are generally able to appreciate the value of all six.

An example of why morality may be construed within the purity paradigm is that, since it is an extension of our disgust sensors, without it we can put ourselves in danger. In the days of closer community living we can perhaps understand how the decision to not adhere to standards and ceremonies of purity is an immoral decision on the basis that it endangers the whole.

Whether we are discussing our moral sense or the discovery of virtues in the ancient classical sense, sin is what we do when we fail to live up to a or our shared standards.

Timothy Keller defines sin as ‘anything that does not lead to human flourishing’ which moves on in its definition from ‘missing the mark’ which is amoral and could refer to anything, onto utility and value.

The question then follows ‘who decides what amounts to human flourishing?’ And rather than making a case empirically all human societies actually base their decisions on what sin is from shared values. All of these moral codes have always come from within a religious worldview (since the more fact based empirically assessed world is a late arriver on the human scene). 

The Bible writers describe a world and society that has a clearly moral way of viewing the world. There is both an original blueprint (telos if you like), a problem and boundary markers to live within. Sin is not the ravings of a Being infatuated by ceremony and sacrifice but is the working against the Creators instructions.

The OT presents humanities original state in an archetypal story of our conception. In it we see the Creator’s commission to embody his activity in the world through work and creation and the proper functioning of the humans with one another and with God. Following the exile from our genesis instructions then come later (many hundreds of years later) in the form of the Mosaic law, an attempt to codify the life of the Israelites into laws concerning their corporate life and worship life. The laws are summarised into the famous Ten Commandments. 

To work against or miss the mark of either our archetypal state in Genesis 1 or the 10 commandments is to sin.

As the Bible’s story unfolds it is shown time and again through story, history and prophetic injunction that the people of Israel (who are meant to be for us typical and representative of humanity in general) are unable to avoid sinning. This leads to reflections on the nature of sin and our nature. Human beings, it is concluded, are unable to avoid sin. We are sinners, those who are unable to keep the law of God and restore the blueprint of Genesis 1. We are inconsistent, short-sighted, stubborn and unsubmissive creatures who can see that the ideals of Christian virtue and the Ten Commandments are good and even beautiful and yet we are unable to live up to them on a consistent level. 

Further reflections in scripture show that the issue is one of worship. It is taken for granted that we are creatures prone to devotion and worship but it is also acknowledged that the things we worship have a huge influence on us and the lesser the object of our worship is the more destructive it can be for us. To be devoted to addictive substances destroys us (that much is obvious), but to be devoted to the accumulation of wealth or to social standing can also have a destructive influence on us. A person devoted to their own beauty (who worships Aphrodite) is vulnerable to abusing their body and becoming distorted.

11.

Safety but for what. Safe spaces, health and safety, dieting and healthy living. Safety belts, better glasses to keep one safe. Safety safety everywhere, but for what I ask? For fruitful development and full flowering as children. But the world does not know this and indeed is not a safe place, nature will not play by those rules and does not know what is expected of it. In fact one cannot mature until accepting and mastering the world as it is risks and dangers and all. Safety to choose the risks we want, but we won't will we? Why step outside the warm and into the cold?

Our emphasis on safety and health and safety is, ultimately, safety from death. Our drive to create healthy and safe lives is born out of our drive to live forever; but aware as we are that God isn't to us as he once was we cannot count on a welcome reception. And so we stress safety to prolong our lives. But then what our our lives for? Riches and comfort? Are the richer and more affluent more significant than the rest, or are they not just cashing in on the hard work of previous generations? Knowing that our lives are short we can expend effort trying to preserve our lives, but at the risk of never really living; or we can peruse a riskier path of exploration to tame the unknown and discover the reason God made us for.

12.

Standing on the shoulder's of giants. All of us are, but only those faithful to the spirit of the giants before us stand on tiptoes. It is one thing to recognise the enormous debt that we owe to those who came before us, but it is another thing entirely to try and continue their work by pressing further on.

And what is that further on? Is it only procreation and greater taming of nature still? But when at last we tame nature fully we will have tamed ourselves since we are part of nature and so we will once again be trapped. There is a line that the human soul crosses that marks it out from the animals and puts it in a different category, that of salient being, conscious and fully alive - representative of the divine life on the earth.

13.

On a Christian doctrine that doesn't close down and narrow the world but allows an exploration within the worldview Christ opens up. For many people are tuned out to Christianity of their religion and tradition but stray into dangerous fields because they refused to think Christianly about the world.

Beautiful Difference

We finished the series looking at the church as the joy of the whole earth, a place where beautiful differences are held and expressed. We looked at it through gender, gifts and generations. You can download the message here: Beautiful Difference or read on for a transcript. 

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised     in the city of our God! His holy mountain, ² beautiful in elevation,     is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north,     the city of the great King. ³ Within her citadels God     has made himself known as a fortress. ⁴ For behold, the kings assembled;     they came on together. ⁵ As soon as they saw it, they were astounded;     they were in panic; they took to flight.

-- Psalm 48:1-5

The Blueprint of the church in scripture is of a people radically different from the wider world they live. For the past 3 months we've explored some of the sketches the Bible presents for us: city, family, bride, field, movement, buttress of truth and more (available to listen to/download here: Blueprint).

The city of God, the psalmist says, is the joy of the whole earth. This term we’ve been ‘walking around the city’ together and ‘thinking on the steadfast love of God.’ to quote psalm 48.

In the New Testament the marvelling and celebrating over the people of God continues:

Through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made know to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.’

-- Ephesians 3:10

It isn’t only the visitors to the city who marvel but the ‘rulers and authorities in heavenly places’ (angels, & demons).

What is the manifold wisdom of God that Paul’s announcing?

In Ephesians it is the uniting into one people from two peoples. Jew & gentile coming together as one to show how wise and powerful God is. But this uniting of hostile or different parties isn’t seen only in the uniting of different people groups. In Galatians Paul says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. The manifold wisdom of God on display in the church, the joy of the whole earth, is displayed in the beautiful difference on display.

Against that backdrop, let’s get into it and start by looking at the various approaches to difference and what Christianity’s answer to them is: Gender…

Gender

First of, the world is a divided world with many irreconcilable and distinct differences in it.

The creation poem in Genesis shows this:

Light / darkness,

Day / night,

Summer / winter,

Seas / sky,

Land / sea

Those things aren’t one and the same or interchangeable.

The atheist writer and social critic Camille Paglia points out more distinctions from her work on ancient civilisations and the art world:

Earth / sky

Land / Rain

Female / male (female association with mother earth; Job quote ‘naked I came from mother’s womb, naked I shall return there.’)

Body / Head (distinction between body magic and head magic)

Curves / Lines 

Cyclical / Linear

Internal / External

Invisible / Visible

Eastern / Western

Chaos / Order

Nature / Society

The fact that there  are differences/opposites in the world ought to be self-evident. It is often the case that these differences are set against one another, often in conflict. Female vs male, eastern vs western, nature vs society. In the beginning however the difference between the man and woman wasn’t a source of conflict but of joy.

In the creation account when God makes Adam he forms alone. Adam is placed in a garden and commissioned to keep it but early on it becomes clear that he isn’t complete, he cannot complete and carry out what God wants him to do on his own. Next, he declares his aloneness 'not good' and tries to find a partner/helper for him. He parades the animals in front of him to emphasise the difference between him and the animals.

(See: Jen Wilkins ‘not like me, not like me…’ here for more on this.)

But when God creates male and female, the first word spoken (despite obvious differences) is ‘same’.

“This at last is bone of my bones     and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman,     because she was taken out of Man.”

-- Genesis 2:23

There is obvious difference but there is also an appreciation of similarity; there is a celebration of the other without competition.

We’re then told that it is ‘male and female’ together who reflect the image of God, not male alone and not female alone. Gen. 5:1 ‘When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them.’ Author Alastair Roberts puts it like this:

We tend to think of the standard unit of humanity as being the individual. But the unit of humanity in scripture is the man and woman made in the image of God. Male and female are akin to two magnetic poles structuring time always in reference to one another. Humanity is irreducibly two, it cannot be broken down.

-- Alastair Roberts:

Male & female are different but beautifully so, and in order to fully express God's image and complete God's mission they need one another.

Sadly however the story doesn’t end there.

After the man and woman disobey God, their relationship changes as brokenness enters the world. The difference between men and women becomes a source of friction.

Conflict

Gen. 3:16 ‘your desire will be for/against your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ So we end up with books like ‘Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus' men say (as if to emphasise our difference) ‘you can’t understand a woman,’ and women say ‘if you want a job done right, get a woman to do it.’ And the conflict grows. And the conflict still grows.

In every society, owing in part to the man’s greater strength than the women but owing mostly to his sin nature, women have been oppressed and abused by men and it is far from over. As the recent scandals in government and Hollywood have shown and along with #metoo campaign and statistics that tell us that something like 1in4 women in the uk have been victims of sexual abuse. The conflict continues.

As Christians it’s our belief that men and women are each made in the image and likeness of God, that means that women ought to be treated with the honour and dignity that is theirs as co-image bearers with men. The laws of nature won’t lead us that sort of mutual honour. In fact the laws of nature are red in tooth and claw, it is a  dog eat dog, dominance hierarchy where the strong eat or rape the weak. One approach to the difference is to embrace conflict and look to establish who’s better than whom.

This other approach, the opposite problem, is that of denying that there are any differences at all.

Deny difference

In modern times we’ve done away with the ‘heaven and earth’ distinction, the ‘visible and invisible’, and increasingly any ‘spiritual’ things at all; that’s what atheism is.

Along with this (and as a result of this?), there is also a growing move to ‘do away’ with the differences between men and women as well. Gender is a social construct we’re told and our sex ought to have no bearing at all on our identity.

In the 1970s the social activist and radical feminist Shulamith Firestone wrote:

The end goal of the feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself… The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least with the option of) artificial reproduction… The tyranny of the biological family would be broken.

When she wrote it in the 70s much of what she said must have seemed utterly bizarre, but now her ideas are much more mainstream.

More recently, writing in the Guardian newspaper in May, journalist Amy Westervelt points out that the topic of motherhood comes up in just 3% of all the recent papers, journal articles and textbooks on gender theory.

She also comments that for years women’s magazines have written articles on female sexuality promising ‘great sex’ whilst at the same time also being committed to a policy of ‘we don’t do motherhood’. The fact that sex could lead to motherhood for women is seen by many as oppressive. Just as sex differences are being slowly eradicated so is the value and importance of motherhood. Increasingly the state plays the role of the parent and if a young girl tells her careers advisor that she wants to be a mother when she grows up, she is likely given strange stares and offered counselling.

We devalue motherhood at our peril, we seek to do away with the differences between the sexes at our peril as well.

The Christian message, however is different. Rather than putting our differences against one another or denying them altogether, the Bible teaches that we need one another, that although different we complement one another; as gravy complements chips or as cheese complements wine, the two work to enhance and improve the other.

In the gospel God reconciles our differences by making the divided, united, the two, one. Jew, gentile, male, female, slave, free.

In his passage on how men and women ought to pray in church with the discussion on head coverings Paul concludes by saying:

‘Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.’

-- 1 Corinthians 11:9

Men and women are meant to honour one another as men and as women, recognising the value and beauty of both. In churches there ought to be no derogatory joking or sexist remarks, just as there should be no chauvinism, belittling, racism, nor classism. There should be no statements about inferiority of any kind among God’s people. 

C.S. Lewis writing about the eventual destiny of men and women in Christ saw this, saw the value and significance of the people around him and he wrote:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.

In a society where women are not honoured as women, the society suffers and in a society where men are not honoured as men it also suffers. We live in a society where, as we’ve seen, motherhood is not honoured and valued as a high calling, and the same could be said of fatherhood. The image in popular culture of what a father is is Daddy Pig and Phil Dunfey from Modern Family.

I like Daddy Pig & Phil Dunfey(!) but if a grown up, slightly clumsy & goofy playmate for their kids is about all a man can hope for as a father it’s no wonder fatherhood in our society is in a crisis as well.

Fatherhood, needs protecting and honouring in part because of its difference from motherhood. A Father can much more easily avoid being a dad than a mother can avoid being a mum. When a child is born the midwife never says to the woman ‘who’s the mother?’(!) because she saw where the baby came from.

On the other hand, every time a couple take a child to register its birth the registrar always says ‘who’s the father?’ Because it isn’t obvious! And it's at that moment a good man will step up and say ‘I am.’ - and it is a statement he will need to make again and again in that child’s life - I am his father, I am her father.’ But it’s a statement that fewer men are making:

In 1972 1in14 households in the UK were fatherless, now it would be 1in4.

What’s more; there 236 local authorities in England and Wales in which more then 50% of the families don’t have fathers. 

This is awful and catastrophic. That is what happens when a doesn’t honour men and women but instead when a society is bent on denying difference and devaluing distinctions between people.

It ought not to be the case in the church. It mustn’t be the case in the church.

The church

The New Testament teaches that the church, as the household and family of God, needs fathers it needs men who are going to take responsibility for and protect the church and it’s a requirement that God puts on men as early on as Genesis.

When the man and the woman disobey God and eat the fruit of the tree, it is the man that God speaks to and addresses. It is the man who is called to account, to take the responsibility and the blame for the actions of the entire human race; we are described as being ‘in Adam’ rather than Eve because a man was created as the representative head.

When the Bible calls the husband the head of his wife it is with this imagery in mind. To be the head doesn’t simply mean that he’s ‘the boss’ or ‘in charge’ any more than in a physical body the head is the boss of the heart; they work together. It is the man’s responsibility before God to be on the look out for trouble, to honour and protect his wife and family and to embody God’s fatherly authority.

God the Father is the model for fathers, the model for husbands and the model for elders in the church. God the Father glorifies and honours God the Son, and so it is the job of the head to honour the heart and ensure its flourishing and full expression.

The way this translates into the life of a local church (which is called the family of God) is that its male leaders are called elders. Paul lays out the requirements for eldership:

An overseer (in the church) must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household how will he care for God’s.

1 Timothy 3:1-3

The pattern is - to oversee or govern in the church, to be a father in the church, a man must be able to oversee and father effectively in his own home. Elders are men called by God and appointed to guard and lead the church, not exclusively (or independently of women it should be said) but nevertheless they are to do it distinctly and deliberately.

But, as with the other aspects of our difference, so here; the way an elder is to govern is as a servant, seeking to become less in order that the church’s members become more.

My friend and church leader Phil Moore says: eldership isn’t meant to monopolise leadership but to mobilise it. Elders are given in order for a church to release others into leadership and positions of authority; because that’s what fathers do.

Elders, are men who are told to take responsibility for the guarding of the church family. They are meant to take the rap for its shortcomings and failures, and it is men as elders who are meant to step up to the block first and offer their necks to the sword before anyone else. Christ offered his life for the church, and asks men to follow him in doing likewise. 

In the book of Acts Paul and Barnabas address a church to encourage them saying ‘it is through much hardship that we must enter the kingdom of heaven,’ and then immediately afterwards appoint elders. It is part of how a church prepares for and survives hardship, by appointing fathers who get hit first when trouble comes; because, again that’s what fathers do.

It is true also that churches need mothers, it’s just that that isn’t what’s being referred to when Paul speaks of elders and the governing structure in a church. Given that the man bears a name used by God ‘father’ it is God’s call on him that he be discouraged from sitting back passively on the sidelines, and embody God’s action in the world.

Families need men who engage in family life as an act of embodying God. Churches need men who step up, rather than step back and refuse to let others take the blame for the state of the church. Again, that isn’t to say that women shouldn’t or that they can’t; it’s just I’m here talking about eldership.

It should also be stressed again that eldership is distinct from leadership and the gift of leadership, as we’ll see when we come on to talking about gifts. Although not independent of leadership, it is distinct from it.

In this church we have men and women in leadership positions across the church, together using their gifts, together guiding the church and making decisions. Our senior leadership team (to use the language common in the world) is made up of men and women. It doesn’t surprise me when a woman has a stronger leadership gift than her husband nor does it surprise me if she’s a better preacher. Our difference isn’t a difference of ability but a difference of kind. Men, as fathers and potential fathers, are called to take account for the church even though it’s the men and women together who end up steering it.

There are women who are recognised as mothers within the church, and the church needs them.

We’ve not done so publicly but as we move forward together it’s going to become increasingly important that we do honour and recognise the various leadership roles people play in the church. The mothering that women like Jane and Ruth have taken on ought to be commended and honoured, the level of maternal care and concern that women like Polly and Amy feel for the church here needs valuing as well.

In the church there ought to be a recognition and honouring of the beautiful differences between the sexes, and not a toxic competitiveness or a blancmange of non-distinction. The church needs fathers and mothers.

Gifts

And so we come to gifts. The church is a place where both men and women should flourish and is the place where part of that flourishing is a result of us using and honouring our various gifts. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit… faith, healing, miracles, prophecy,

NB: for the common good

V26 ‘if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.’

And the instruction is given in Romans 12:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness

NB: no gender restrictions are applied in any of this.

God has given you gifts that are to be used to help strengthen and build the body of believers you’re a part of. Here again we see the temptation to compete, to set our gifts against each other: that gift is better than my gift, or ‘I’m not valuable because I don’t have his/her gift.’ And also the temptation to deny any distinction at all: that we’re all superstars at everything. My friend went to his child’s parents evening recently where the teacher said something similar to that; and he had to try and insist that his son wasn’t good at everything, he said it was quite an amusing battle.

We need to honour and celebrate difference without being threatened by one another

Part of our brokenness shows itself in the way we often feel devalued when someone else is honoured rather than rejoicing in and sharing in their honour. When I compliment one of my kids and not the other when they're together, the other always protests and so I have to teach them - I'm not devaluing you by honouring them, rejoice when they're honoured and trust that there are times when you'll be honoured and your brother won't.

The chances are that if you don’t know what your weaknesses are or if you feel embarrassed or awkward that you have any weaknesses at all, you’re not through on this.

In the church we ought to work hard to ensure none of us derives our value, worth or identity from our gifts.

Instead we want to celebrate the beautiful differences at work among us and then we will be able to relate to what Paul says: when one is honoured, all rejoice together.

Generations

Lastly, and very briefly, this brings us to another aspect of beautiful difference, that of generational differences.

The church is the joy of the whole earth because it is the place that men and women recognise their beautiful difference, where each member recognises the beautiful difference of the gifts in use and also it is a family where the generations honour and respect one another’s differences.

Again this is counter-cultural. We live in a society and a time obsessed with youth and in a culture that pushes its elderly to the margins and discounts their opinions; demonising their choices, as was seen with the Brexit vote of two years ago.

I’ve heard of some people saying they don’t go to church prayer meetings because too many old people go, or certainly not enough young(!) and I met a visiting couple one Sunday say in a rather disgusted tone ‘there’s so many young people,’ - they’ve never come back.

Instead let’s seek to be a church that honours and celebrates the beautiful differences among us. The church BBQ last week, was a fantastic vision of family, to see older people and younger people together.

The church is a community of brothers and sisters (and not just potential sex partners), of mothers and fathers, grandads and grandmas; a place where people are honoured and nurtured to become all that God has called them to be.

Conclusion

My prayer and hope is that the church in this town and across the world lives up to the her potential and possibility.

My prayer is that one day the world will be caught aghast by the beauty of the church, that like a diamond lying in the muddy banks of a Congolese river and like a flower bursting through a dusty and dry African plain, so the church would be seen in our towns, against the backdrop of an increasingly godless society.

The joy of the whole earth is a community of people where the poor are honoured, and treated with the dignity and value they have, where the rich aren’t deceived into putting their hopes or identity in their wealth.

The joy of the whole earth is a community where our cultural backgrounds play second or third fiddle to our identity in Christ, that people wouldn’t say ‘I’m too English to understand these Africans, or I’m too American to get along with these Asians.’ But instead we’d see ourselves as one in Christ united by him. And we’d work through our misunderstandings. 

The joy of the whole is a community where men and women behave like brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, where greatness is seen in terms of servanthood and the old make way for the young, cheering them on at every step and misstep and the young defer to the old and listen to and seek out for their advice.

That, and nothing less than that, is what God has called us to be. That is the Blueprint of the church, that is the joy of the whole earth, a community of beautiful difference expressed in gender, gifts and generations.

And all of that is possible because of what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus’ death was an act of destruction, He destroyed the dividing walls of hostility between people and genders, but hie death was also an act of creation; on the cross he was uniting all people under him the head over all things.

May Madness

Each May we put down our screens and learn to enjoy the world as it is, digital free. Below are some of the things we've learnt along the way:

2018

Zach: I enjoyed May Madness. I also found it difficult because we had to wait a very long time to go back on screens. Instead of going on screens I played football with Toby and with dinosaurs and cars, and I went to Drusillas and Dinos.

This May Madness I became a Christian. I also did lots of writing instead of going on screens.

Riley: I have enjoyed May Madness. I haven't found it difficult. Instead of going on screens I have done reading, and playing on the piano. I have learnt that screens addict and dig into your imagination but reading and playing help your imagination.

Toby: Has probably found it the hardest!

Mummy & Daddy: Have noticed happy children playing and reading more than usual and have less arguments with them - generally a happier household.

When Faith Isn't the Opposite of Doubt

There is an opposite to doubt that isn't faith but rather is humility. When we experience life's cruelty (as we all will at some stage or another) faith isn't an option within easy reach of most people. It's hard to 'keep faith' and remain optimistic when everything seems so chaotic and meaningless. At those times a response that many believing people are tempted by is doubt. For many the issue of suffering is the conclusive objection to faith in a good God and one that gives people permission to not just disbelieve but to disbelieve very loudly and stridently. This is a response to pain that I'm fairly familiar with myself. It seems only too natural and reasonable to avert my gaze from God in the face of pain, to decide to stop myself from going to a god at all. However that seems to me to be the least reasonable way to behave since it's when life is difficult and confusing and full of pain that I need God the most. When there are crocodiles circling below, sawing off the branch you're sitting on won't help!

It hasn't always been the case that we believed suffering to lead neatly and logically to atheism. One of the oldest works of literature to deal with this issue, is the Bible's book of Job and it doesn't suggest this as even one of it's possible conclusions. Why not? Why do we (do I) seem to process pain so differently to those who've gone before us? Why do we in the modern west seem to draw such a straight line to atheism when those in many of the other parts of the world don't? (I'm reminded of an anecdotal insight a speaker once shared when he explained that even though he'd travelled to and spoken with people from many of the world's poorest areas it was only in the West that his objectors would raise the issue of suffering and God's existence as reason for non-belief in Christianity.)

One reason that so many of us are so tempted by doubt and atheism is because we live in the first human society that has very good reason to believe it knows everything there is to know about the world. Our confidence in our own abilities is at an all time high, and why wouldn't it be - we have google!

But there is an opposite to doubt that isn't faith, but rather is humility and sometimes that's all that's needed. To stare at and engage with the real hurt and heartbreak in the world one can say 'Surely there isn't a God who cares about us!' but one could also choose instead to say 'I don't know why this is happening, or why any of this has happened, but that doesn't mean that there isn't an explanation out there that will satisfy me in the end.' That is an option open to us. 

I'm reminded of Cotton Mather, one of the early leaders and founders of Harvard University. A Christian and a pastor he was a man, like many men of his age (18th C), who was well acquainted with grief. Of his fifteen children only two outlived him. That bears repeating. Of his fifteen children, only two outlived him. Oh the heartbreak he must have experienced. I can't begin to fathom the pain he, and many others like him, had to endure. And yet he was a devout, faithful, passionate and strident believer in the goodness and love of God. He was also one of the early pioneers of modern science and medicine, a prolific reader and a hungry mind. He was hardly naive and ill-informed and yet, despite all he suffered, he chose faith and belief instead of doubt. Why? How? Humility; he understood enough of the world to know that he didn't understand it all, nor would he ever understand it all. He understood enough of God to know that he could be trusted and loved, even though he knew he'd never know the reason 'why?' to all the pain he'd had to endure. 

There are choices we can make in calamity and despair. As well as anger and vehemence at the universe and God, we can also choose humilty and honesty. We can choose to hold onto a belief that our pain is not and will not be wasted. By acknowledging our own finitude we can choose to believe that life isn't meaningless. By allowing the possibility to exist that there are things beyond even google's ability to understand we can endure without losing hope, we can grieve without giving up joy and we can continue to live with a belief in life's purpose. We can hold on to the very things we need most to get through the storm we find ourselves in. For that reason and many others recent thinkers have pointed out that our modern secularism is the poorest worldview there is for equipping people to endure suffering, and as Buddhism teaches 'life is suffering' - making our vulnerability to it a very big problem.

Awe and Friendship

I have noticed that there is a difference between being amazed and in awe of God and actually getting to know him.

It's not that awe and wonder is an emotionless experience because it isn't. I read or I think or I hear, and I exult. And the exulting is good for something. It causes me to want to submit to God more, to distrust sins advances more and it enables me to hold my head up higher in a secular society. There are times when I'm so pumped on wonder and so convinced about God's goodness and intellectual viability that I could look a mouth-frothing neo-atheist in the eye and lovingly remind him 'Jesus loves you.'

There is great joy and confidence in exulting in God, but that doesn't necessarily lead to deeper levels of actual friendship, emanating out in actual conversation in the form of actual prayer.

Take an example from just the other day. I dropped Amy off at the dentists and I could tell she was feeling anxious about the trip, that she was in pain caused by her tooth. I could tell - because she told me. As I sat there and heard her hesitations about the dentist, and as she explained the pain she was feeling I thought to myself 'I should pray for her.' But my very next thought was 'nah, it probably wouldn't do anything. Besides, I'm on an errand and can't be bothered to bother her with prayer.' and so instead of praying I grimaced (my facial recognition that empathy was appropriate) and then waved her goodbye safe in the knowledge that 'the dentist will sort it out.'

That story isn't meant to only illustrate my ineptitude as a pastor-husband (although it does that), but to point out this awareness that awe and wonder doesn't by necessity, deepen friendship. That morning I'd reflected on scripture, I'd had my soul stirred by some book I'd been reading, the electrical storm in my mind had crackled and fizzed at God's glory. I wasn't feeling doubtful or dead to God generally, but then neither was I willing to engage emotionally with him.

Friendship with God, for me, looks like walking in the hills by my house and talking to him. It looks like breathing out (involuntarily) statements of appreciation and gratitude toward him. Friendship with God looks like emotionally investing in our relationship, it looks like bringing him to bear on my moment-to-moment existence. Intimacy with him is life-giving, joy-full and optimistic. It's full of all the feelings of enthusiasm and madness that normal human intimacy involves. I can sit and discuss the stars with him, pour out my incomprehension at his apparent indifference to my sister's plight or my own self-centredness. Friendship with him means being aware of his company and being ready in a moment to respond to his promptings or involve him in a situation. Friendship with him is different from awe at him.

It's one thing for my mind to glory in him, it's another for my life to involve him.

I love exulting in him and learning more about him and his world. I am richer intellectually and emotionally and I am more robust spiritually because I have had my mind filled by him and by thoughts of his world that have done me good. But that is not the same as closeness and inter connectedness with him.

Both are good but there's only one that Jesus prayed for us to experience (see John 17).

So embrace a intellectually full Christian life, take heed of C.S. Lewis' advice that immaturity/weak faith for the Christian is the result of not thinking deeply enough. But see it as a doorway toward deeper levels of friendship and closer moments of acquaintance with the God who made you for himself.

Reading and reflecting and listening and exulting can bring joy for the moment and strength for the duration but only the slow drawn out process of living with God can bring you what your soul needs most of all.

Images for Web