One Small Giant Splosh: A Young Man's Baptism

It’s a quiet sunny Sunday afternoon in June – idyllic actually. The white waters, swollen with late rains, race under the old mill bridge; speckled sunlight breaks through upon the swirling waters. 

The grassy slope leads downwards to the mill stream; we line the bank; a brave young man, with earnest face, clambers down the slope and wades into the water, waist deep, and others join him.
 

Passers-by lean idly over the old bridge to take a better view of this unusual Sunday afternoon spectacle in this quiet and scenic spot.

“I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ...”

I hear the sudden splosh as he is plunged downward, under; somehow that single, brief sound resonates in my ears; it feels alive, electric, purely natural but of great eternal significance – and now he’ s up again, dripping wet, worshipping, trembling with the cold - and clambers out.

A watery death ... down and up ... alive with resurrection life ... to follow Jesus. One small splosh, one giant act, of enormous significance. Here heaven and earth have met, a wonderful supernatural-natural fusion.

 Young man, my friend of many years – you have a single-eye for all that is of God – many a battle fierce awaits – remain surrounded by the strong and stand solidly upon this act, this fact, ‘I’ve died

and risen; everyday - my resurrection day!’

Christian Community: Reflections: The Extra Mile

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
    I will praise your name, LORD, for it is good.
Psalm 54:6 (NIV)

If you have been living in community for a while you find yourself slotting into the structure: meals, house-family meals (when we share and discuss community matters), celebration of birthdays (when we value the person whose birthday it is and bring them directional words) and gatherings (for worship and mutual inspiration). We need structure in the same way as our bodies need a skeleton!  Indeed, to be part of the community, we have to follow this structure. We sign up for it as a voluntary act but, once in, some, at least, of the structure is mandatory. 

Fair dues, no moans, this is what we signed up for.

This structure is important but it does not make community. 

Within the mandatory there must be the voluntary giving of ourselves and that’s about the choices we make; structure is an aid but it does not ensure community – far from it. The most valuable things that build community (as opposed to a hostel or paid-for living quarters) come from within, our free choices. If structure is the skeleton, our free choices are the blood, the heart, the pulse, the throbbing, pulsating life of the community. 

It’s those extra three minutes we spend listening to someone when bed is calling, it’s the text we send during the working day when we know they need encouragement, it’s the time spent with someone when there is no seeming time - and very often it is the small things that weigh; it’s what we choose to do with our (treasured!) unstructured time that often counts the most. 

The Jews of Old Testament times had plenty of structure in their lives: feast days and festivals, sacrificial offerings, Sabbath keeping, the paying of tithes and so on. The Feast of Booths when they all dwelt in home-made tents (reminiscent of their 40 years sojourn in the wilderness) for a week to celebrate the harvest sounds like pure holiday time to me - family times, no work and a lot of eating! The nation would not have survived without this structure.

Ah ... but I read with interest in the book of Exodus of free will offerings given during the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. ‘And the people continued to bring free will offering morning after morning’ (Exodus 35:29-36:5).  Above and beyond all that was required, the people spontaneously gave. It was the free will offering which brought splendour and beauty to that extraordinary tent in the wilderness.

 During the Feast of Weeks, free will offerings were accompanied by a mandatory instruction: “rejoice before the Lord your God!” (Deuteronomy 16:11) – hardly an irksome one!

 It is ‘free will offerings’ that define a community; it is the deeds that are not required that bring ‘spendour and beauty’ to it - as in the days of the tent in the wilderness; structured requirements only take us so far; performing the ‘ought’ does not bring about flourishing community but generosity does – and not just of material sharing - generosity of heart and time. 

The early church knew about the free-will offering. They shared meals and time and conversation together with ‘glad and generous hearts' (Acts 2:46).  

Our defining moments as communities are when we give what is not required, love when it is not our duty, give when it is not owed. I think this is what Jesus called, ‘the extra mile’ (Matthew 5:41).

Deep Divides and God's Solution: Woolwich, Rwanda

Scenes near Woolwich Barracks last week shocked us all; the sight of that cleaver-bearing young man with blood-covered hands, the astounded onlookers – all on an otherwise ordinary day on an otherwise ordinary British high street. Signs of an alarming disparity of viewpoints have surfaced yet again within our society.

My friend, Rukundo, has seen bloodshed on the streets of his native Rwanda immeasurably worse. In the 1994 genocide he lost 78 members of his family and over half a million of his own countrymen.

Rukundo spoke to us all in our golden marquee on Saturday (the Jesus Fellowship bank holiday weekend) and his message was clear: God’s solution to the deep divides of any society is in the church. All of us in some way are a part of the problem but gladly we can all be part of the solution too.  One verse in John's first letter, says, Rukundo, sums up the whole New Testament:   'And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.’(1 John 3:23)

 We are in a school of love. The first stage is when we call God my father (an important step) but this must lead to the second stage, the stage of brotherhood when God is ‘our father’ and we live as one God-family. The third stage is – ‘hallowed by Your name, Your kingdom come; not my will but Yours be done!’ This is when everything we are and own is given over to God.

For Rukundo, there is a fourth tribe in Rwanda. This is the Jesus tribe. In 2007 he founded a group called, ‘One Heart One Mind’, with the aim of bringing people together from different churches with a united message: forgiveness and reconciliation must begin in the church where both Tutsis and Hutus and the smaller tribe, the Twas  (considered primitive and inferior by many Rwandans) are called to live in harmony as members of one ‘body of Christ’, as a fourth ‘Jesus tribe’.

Our UK society is a far cry from Rwanda. But the seams are apparent and it appears that fanatical elements on different sides would try and divide us further. We need the Jesus-tribe, every much as Rwanda.

Ah, I see him now in the marquee crowd - a warm, humble, sincere, smiling, African face and the next minute he spots me and gives me a massive bear hug. One of my good friends, indeed.

Rukundo, come again, your message reaches our hearts. We carry the solution, God’s solution, in our land of a multiplicity of creeds and viewpoints and factions and in our small way can make a difference. I so want to belong to a church which together cries, ‘Our father, not our will but Yours be done' and whose heart is fashioned by Jesus, big enough, strong enough, to embrace every kind of person and overcome all that naturally divides. 

And yes, Rukundo, please bring your wife next time and little boy too and anyone else because, our dear African brethren, we have so much to learn from your experience of suffering.

Time for Kid's Spot

At Coventry Jesus Centre we do what we call ‘a Kid’s Spot’ each Sunday morning and rumour has it that this is one of most popular items in the meeting. I mean, it’s a kid’s spot – but is it really? Not when all the adults are present, ear-holing in.

Well, duty fell to me again this week (it does about every 8 weeks or so) and what better idea than to tell the kids the story of Aidan of Lindisfarne.  The reason for this?  a.) He’s one of my top favourite saints b.) It’s a great story – easy for the story teller and c.) It really has got something to teach us today.

OK, it’s a story about monks so why not get the Gallant gentleman himself to dress up as a monk (in case you don’t know, we use ‘virtue’ names in our church and there is a notable – and bald – brother in Coventry with that name). Now, what a shame, I took no photo of this. Gallant looked the part with his make-over brown habit, cross and quill pen and, for sure now, all the kids know what a monk is.

Then I told the story ... I believe if you want an interactive spot, telling can be preferable to reading and in-between my telling I was asking the kids questions: ‘Have you any questions to ask this here monk?’ ‘Do you think Aidan succeeded in his mission?’ and so on. It was OK until the end when I asked what the kids thought may have happened to Corman (see below). Well, one thought he was crucified on a cross and the other three that he surely went and topped himself, feeling such a failure. Now, what are those mums and dads going to say to me if the kids all go home and have nightmares?

Never mind, at the end I gave all the kids my scripted version of the story and, if you’re a big kid like me, you may enjoy it too ...  so here it is! 

The Story of Corman and Aidan

Around 1400 years ago a large community of monks lived on an island off the west coast of Scotland, called Iona. It was rocky, wet and cold but the monks busied themselves praying and farming and copying the Bible out by hand. This took a long time. Printing hadn’t been invented in those days and there were few copies of the Bible. 

The monks on Iona were invited to go on a mission to the north of England by Oswald who was the king there.  He wanted them to tell his people about Jesus. The monks prayed and sent a team led by one of their leaders. His name was Corman.

Corman was a little bossy at times. He liked giving orders and he thought people should do as he said. When he crossed the sea to England he expected people to listen to his message about Jesus. The trouble was they didn’t and Corman got very discouraged. 

When Corman returned to Iona all the monks gathered round him. They wanted to hear how he had got on!

“The English are very ignorant and stubborn,“ he told them. “They won’t listen.”

The monks continued to listen to his sad tale. Then one of them spoke. His name was Aidan.

Statue of Aidan on Lindisfarne

Aidan didn’t want to put Corman down. He said quietly and in a gentle voice, “Maybe Corman, you were a little harsh. Maybe if you had been more understanding and patient the English may have listened to you!”

Everyone looked at Aidan. “Well,” they said, “if you think you know how to win the English, you’d better go and try it!”

Aidan set off with twelve monks. He went to England and told them about Jesus. And do you know what? Everywhere people listened to him. They turned away from their bad ways and followed Jesus.

Aidan was gentle and patient. He shared his money and possessions with poor people and cared for them when they were sick. He didn’t just expect people to listen to him. He listened to them!

And what about Corman?  He stayed in Iona. What do you think he felt like? I don’t know but perhaps he prayed for Aidan. Maybe he learned from his mistakes and became a more gentle and kind person and learned to listen more. I hope so!

And by the way folks, does anyone know of a book ‘Bede for Children’ or something similar? The stories are so wonderful and beautifully didactic that if the book doesn’t exist, surely it should!

Higgedly Piggedly - Perfectly Orderly!

It’s a dream: a shady wood, lit by the speckled sunlight breaking through the stooping, crooked, branches above our heads; bluebells, queens of the wood, dressed in royal purple, bow their gracious heads, whilst golden-yellow celandines and pearls of pure-white sorrel and wood anemones provide a rich carpet between  the windy paths that follow uneven contours of hump and hollow; and here’s a broken bough and there an aging tree lies fallen, angled, rested, refuge to a myriad of tiny creeping creatures; a trickling stream wends restfully upon its well-scoured furrowed bed while birches show off their silvery bark; each tree has a character of its own; horse chestnuts’ crumpled fresh-green emerald leaves stretch forth and aspiring larches reach towards the sky.  A delightful world: God’s world.

The park, the formal garden, planted in rows, straight as a dye – not God’s way! Our streets are straight or follow the uniform curve of a surveyors’ plan. Not God!

This wood, a wonderfully disordered, chaotic, full of surprises, masterpiece but underneath I perceive a perfect order, a cycle of life and decay with nothing wasted, coordinated – pure genius.

I soak all this in on this bright sunlit May afternoon. Meanwhile, a wealth of birdsong, un-orchestrated, fills the air whilst silently and stealthily, a tree creeper busily creeps up, around, the trunk of a nearby tree.

 We humans want to organised, to control; it can be good. But let’s not forget God’s ‘way’, the disorderly, orderly. Let life break out, break out from underneath, from all around; let’s leave room for inspiration, for God’s new things; let’s take direction from the unlikely and be a grass-roots church and live  - expecting God’s surprises!

'Reliability' Receives the Gold Rating

 In the last few weeks I’ve been part of a team organising a day’s event for women in our church called Accelerate (we hold it two or three times a year). Walking down the road towards the event venue on the morning of the great day I began thinking of the word  ‘reliable’ and decided it should be reserved a special place of honour in the Oxford English dictionary and written in gold ink. An underrated virtue, I think. Perhaps the Biblical equivalent is ‘faithfulness.’ If you’re required to do something, you do it. No excuses at the last minute. No forgetting and turning onto other things. Reliability is a prime virtue, I would say. Praise God for the reliable .. their names are written in ... my book for being asked to do more things in future … is that the way God thinks? It would appear so from the Bible!

This got me thinking. What other words should receive the gold rating?

 Mercy, definitely. Watching ‘Les Miserables’ touched a deep chord

inside; it sort of set my spirit spinning. I mean, seeing the Bishop of Digne give the beggar, Jean Valjean, his fine silver candlesticks after the violation of his former goodness by Valjean spoke volumes. He showed mercy, a costly act of self-giving with the purpose of redeeming another. 'Blessed are the merciful...'

The next gold-rating word is surely gratitude. Gratitude makes a relationship and mends a frayed one; it turns a tension between two people on its head and transforms ‘reserved’ service into whole-hearted service. It also puts a smile on our faces, puts cheer into a dull day and helps us aspire to even greater things in the future…
Gratitude, I've noticed, also takes our relationship with God a long way and restores the distance we sometimes feel with Him.
 
I like cheerful people so the word cheerfulness will also receive the gold rating today. Cheerfulness is doing what we have to do, even the boring or hard parts, with a generosity of spirit that doesn’t keep adding up the personal cost to ourselves. It can bear the arduous things with a lightness, even  humour, and counts it a joy to do these things for Jesus’ sake.  Its twin is surely wholeheartedness.

Adventure must be another gold-rating word for life without adventure is so dull. In fact, after several hours of furniture removing and sometimes too tired to sleep this week, I woke up on this Accelerate morning with a sense of adventure, a looking forward to the day. It was definitely going to be experimental. Life would be, yes, just awful without adventure.

Humility and willingness are two of a pair if ever there was one:  I love people who are willing, willing to do anything. ‘Would you mind … emptying the bins?’ … ‘Of course’ … ‘Would you be OK with clearing up the mess afterwards?’ ‘Of course … is there anything else you want me to do? ‘Blessed are the humble-willing … they are prepared to put aside their self-interest for the good of us all.

Then there is encouragement – I mean, not everything went brilliantly on this day but those who encourage us do not overplay  the mistakes we all make; they focus on the good bits and build on that.  Many a word of encouragement has halted me at the top, or halfway down, a muddy slippery slope ... helping me avoid the big splash at the bottom! 

I could go on, there’s so many more words worthy of the gold-rating: patience, discipline, grace, justice and more. Patience: I know as a teacher that one word of impatience can undermine many patient words. 

 I believe that in embracing all these we find the freedom that Jesus promised.

Hey, but above all, there is the Word of Words, the twenty-four karat one, love, that encompasses all these things, the sum, the total of our Christian calling, the word that is synonymous with Love Himself, love’s epitome, Jesus Christ. 

Editors of the Oxford Dictionary ... here is my non-definitive list of golden words! Take note!

Three funerals, three women, all from different walks of life.

Yes, there’s been a spate of funerals …

First there was Tina. Yes, life was a struggle for Tina; she’d suffered serious mental health issues for much of her adult life and had been in and out of hospital many times. The weaknesses, however, seemed to have given room for God (now, that is scriptural) and I felt humbled for I had no idea that she had made such an impact on so many people. I mean that room, full of people, saying their goodbyes, was packed. She had loved many ... the tears spoke for themselves.

A few weeks before she died, Tina had made a vow of celibacy. I was there, in the room, while she made it; she was earnest, just wanting to live her life fully for Jesus because she loved Him and wanted to live it singly for Him.  We didn’t know …

Well, I didn’t receive a personal invitation to Margaret’s but watching on iplayer and leaving politics aside, I can’t help being a not-so-secret admirer of someone who had the humungous courage of their convictions -  and however did she climb through the ranks, battling with the enormous male prejudice that must have waged so heavily against her? She deserved a good send off, I reckon – and, as I said, leaving politics aside.

Gladys, 87, an old lady, struggling with bodily weaknesses and who, it appears, tried many things in life and sometimes seemed to fail: missionary work, book selling, church planting - but actually greatly succeeded in the things that really matter: ‘loving the brethren,’ loving the poor, prayerful, humble and glad service. Gladys, your funeral encouraged me; some things I’ve worked at for years have failed. For instance, I’ve spent 26 years of my life church planting/growing in Nottingham only for the scene to eventually fold. Looking at your life encourages me: I’d never say you failed at all because you won, hands down, on the eternal things that really matter.

Funerals can be awful but, in remembering, in learning from, in honouring and being grateful for the deceased, they can be brilliant occasions and one of God’s prime ways of getting through to us. Stopping still in the midst of our busy lives, time seems to stands on hold for a little while and carries a unique poignancy.  We need such times; speak to us, God.