True Fatherhood

Here's my June article:

This month there is what Bert the chimney sweep from Mary Poppins might call a “fortuitious circumstance”: Father's Day falls on Trinity Sunday. Even if you believe that Father's Day is a made-up cynical ploy to get us to spend more money, perhaps it's good to be reminded to be grateful to people who have a positive impact on our lives.

Of course not all fathers do have a positive impact on their children's lives; tragically for far too many people their fathers (whether by their presence or their absence) cause mental, physical and emotional damage.   And so we need to be aware, as we do on Mothering Sunday, that Father's Day is not a day of celebration for everyone – many people do not want to celebrate their fathers, and other men may have had children who died or may have never been able to have children despite wanting them.

Trinity Sunday is the day that Christians remember that throughout the Bible God reveals himself to be 'Trinity', i.e. One God yet Three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each Person is distinct from the others (unlike water/ice/steam that can only be in one state at a time) but there are not three parts of one God (unlike a three-leaf clover). The doctrine of the Trinity is more fully expressed in the Athanasian Creed, which you can read either in its traditional form or in a modern version, you can also watch the teaching on the Trinity here from our current Discipleship Service series looking at the Apostles Creed.  This is a complicated doctrine to get our heads around, though we shouldn't expect the infinite God to be easily understood by our finite minds! The important thing to remember about the doctrine of the Trinity is that it wasn't a result of philosophical thinking about God, but instead was the fruit of experiencing the divinity of the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, alongside the revelation in the Bible of their divinity and also the one-ness of God.

The relevance of this for Father's Day is that some would argue that because some people experience earthly fathers as destructive and abusive, and emblematic of an 'oppressive patriarchy', then we should not refer to God as Father. In other words, for some the Trinity is 'triggering'.  However, it is precisely because our earthly fathers (and we ourselves if we are fathers) are fallible that we need to hold on to the Fatherhood of God.

The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that God the Father is eternally Father - he is the original prototype of fatherhood. He didn't look around for metaphor to describe himself and choose 'father', instead he shaped human society so that earthly fathers might give us a glimpse of him. So our experience of earthly fathers, whether positive or negative, should propel us to seek out our perfect heavenly Father.

So however Father's Day makes you feel, seek out the Father who loves you with a perfect love. To do that, come to the Son, Jesus, who said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

The 'Phoney Peace' and the now-and-not-yet Kingdom

Here's my article for May:

This month we commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, which is viewed by many as the end of the Second World War. But of course it only marked Victory in Europe; the end of hostilities between the European powers, it wouldn't be until VJ Day in August 1945 that the Second World War would end, with Victory over Japan. Just as the start of the war was dubbed 'the Phoney War' because of a lack of fighting, so we could call the period between VE Day and VJ Day, 'the Phoney Peace'. Peace had started and was more-or-less guaranteed but the war was not yet over.

This sense of 'now-and-not-yet' is also characteristic of the Christian faith. Last month we celebrated Jesus' death and resurrection and at the end of this month we'll be celebrating his ascension. Behind these historical events lie spiritual events. The apostle Paul tells us that on the cross Jesus triumphed over the rulers and authorities in the spiritual realm, taking away their power (Colossians 2:15) and that after his ascension Jesus was given the position of ultimate authority, ruling over all forces, authorities, powers, and rulers (Ephesians 1:20-21). However, we still see evil forces active in the world and we still pray to God “your kingdom come: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” so where is the triumph and rule of Jesus?

The answer is in the now-and-not-yet nature of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated by Jesus' death and resurrection but it won't be fully consummated until Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. As John Piper says

The decisive battle against sin and Satan and sickness and death has been fought and won by the King in his death and resurrection, but the war is not over. Sin must be fought, Satan must be resisted, sickness must be prayed over and groaned under (Romans 8:23), and death must be endured until the second coming of the King and the consummation of the kingdom.

So we can see signs of the Kingdom even now: as people come to a personal relationship with God through Jesus; as people are healed or find in God the courage to cope with tragedy; as those whose lives were dominated by sin or addiction are freed through repentance and the work of the Holy Spirit within them. Yet we also see the continuing effects of a world broken by sin.

As we live in this 'in-between' time we can both rejoice as we see the signs of the Kingdom coming as well as long for the certain future when “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). And on a personal level those who have Jesus as their King can be certain that, although they won't be perfected until Jesus comes again, as the Spirit works in their lives they will become more and more like Jesus, battle by battle, because the war has been won.

Becoming a New Creation

Here's my April article:

This year we've been having some work done on the Vicarage including having a new kitchen fitted. Anyone who has had work done on their house will know how disruptive it can be, but hopefully the end results make all the trouble worth it, because after all the chaos there's something new - a new creation.

Easter is all about new life and new creation: chicks hatching out of eggs; spring flowers growing from dormant bulbs; new-born lambs gamboling in the fields; and chocolate… well I'm not quite sure how that fits in! These are symbols and God-given signposts of how Jesus' resurrection ushers in a new creation: that is the new heavens and new earth that will fully come when Jesus returns (Revelation 21) but can be seen in part here and now. But this new creation is not just about the world being redeemed, renewed and put right, it is also about us as individuals being redeemed, renewed and put right. In both cases, this new creation comes through disruption.

This sounds very similar to countless self-help books and motivational talks. Phrases like "No pain, no gain" are applied not just to physical transformation but also to personal, mental, professional and even spiritual transformation. The message from the transformation gurus and influencers is that you need to kill your old self in order that your new self can emerge, and this transformation is hard work, disruptive and painful, but worth it in the end.

But this is not the message of Easter. It might seem like the new creation of Easter only comes after the hard self-discipline of Lent and the self-sacrifice exemplified by Good Friday, but that would be a misunderstanding of the Christian message. Jesus is not a transformation guru who coaches us from the side, encouraging us to work harder. Instead he tells us that we cannot transform ourselves, no matter how hard we try: we don't need a trainer, we need a Saviour.

Just like I would not be able to fully fit a new kitchen but need someone else to do it for me, so I cannot transform myself. That's why God says "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you…[and] I will put my Spirit within you" (Ezekiel 36:26-27). It's God who transforms us; we do not create a new heart within ourselves because we cannot. We need something from outside of ourselves to redeem, renew and put us right. We don't just need a better version of ourselves, we need God's Spirit to transform us and re-create us. The pain and disruption we need to go through is not the pain of self-correction and trying harder to be good, it is the pain of admitting we cannot redeem ourselves no matter how hard we try; it is the pain of swallowing our pride and admitting we need help. This is the message of Easter: God offers us the new creation we long for and that we cannot achieve by ourselves.

Faithful or Traitor?

Here's my article for March:

Photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash

“Are you a Faithful or are you a Traitor?” This question reverberated around the heads of many people who watched the latest series of 'The Traitors' which bills itself as being “the ultimate reality game of trust and treachery.” IMDB summarises the show as “Twenty-two strangers compete in a series of missions for a chance to win £120k. However, amongst the players lie the 'Traitors', who meet in secret and decide who to eliminate from their fellow players known as 'Faithfuls'.” The Faithfuls have to try to guess who amongst them is a Traitor and vote them to be banished. It's basically an elaborate game of wink murder!

I only started watching it halfway through the previous series, but it has an addictive quality akin to morbid curiosity, and I'm not quite sure what to make of my interest in it. There is something about the premise of the show which revolves around lies and deception that makes me uncomfortable, and although “it's only a gameshow” it involves real people trusting other people and often being really betrayed. And I'm not sure whether it makes it worse that these are 'good' people pretending to be bad, but doing actual bad things in order to win a game. In some ways I'd rather it were 'bad' people doing bad things because ironically at least they would be being 'faithful' to their nature.

But perhaps what really makes me uncomfortable about the programme is the mirror it holds up to me. In reality I am like the 'Traitors' – projecting a 'good' persona to hide my inner self-interest. Jesus was the first to use the word 'hypocrite' in the way we use it today (before that it simply meant an actor), and he once said to the religious leaders of his day “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:27-28.)

The temptation is to blame our surroundings for the way we behave; just as the contestants justify their behaviour because 'it's the game', so we say we have to be self-centred because the world and everyone else is fallen. However, the Christian doctrine of Original Sin exposes that as simply an excuse. There are many jobs that we say we will do 'when we get around to it', but the COVID lockdown proved that many of those jobs don't get done not because of lack of time and opportunity (there was plenty of that in lockdown!) but instead because of a lack of will and motivation. According to Douglas Murray, Original Sin teaches us that “we are this very, very contorted being which is capable of incredible greatness and beauty and kindness and forgiveness and also capable of their opposites and that it's not that you are one and other people are the other but all of us all of us are both all the time.” In the perfection of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose disobedience and self-centredness, and demonstrated that the problem is not our environment, but ourselves. As is often said “the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”

Jesus likened himself to a doctor (Luke 5:31) who both diagnoses the problem but also offers the remedy. In Lent we are encouraged to face squarely our hypocrisy, not to crush us with guilt but to direct us to Jesus who took on that guilt, our guilt, on the cross. We are all 'Traitors' but the one we betrayed died taking our punishment – that is a priceless prize!

Unconquerable

Here's my article for February:

This February, the seventh Invictus Games will be held in Vancouver and Whistler. The Invictus Games were founded by Prince Harry as an international multi-sport event for wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women, both serving and veterans. They were first held in London in 2014 and speaking at the launch, Prince Harry said that the Games would "demonstrate the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and demonstrate life beyond disability."

The word 'invictus' is Latin for 'unconquered' and according to the Invictus Games website “The term embodies the fighting spirit of the participating men and women, as well as their motivation to move on with their lives, to gain a new place in life, and to not let themselves be defined by the trauma they have suffered.”

'Invictus' is also the title of a poem by the Victorian poet William Ernest Henley that is closely linked with the Games – the 2016 hosts Orlando said “the 16 short lines of the poem encapsulate the indefatigable human spirit, which is at the heart of the Invictus Games.” The poem is an example of stoicism in the face of the author's medical difficulties, including the amputation of his leg as a teenager due to complications from tuberculosis. He talks of his “unconquerable soul” and that despite his circumstances he has not “winced nor cried aloud,” his head “is bloody, but unbowed.” It ends with the famous defiant cry “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.”

This is not just stoicism but it is a belligerent declaration of individualism and self-determination. The 'fighting spirit' that motivates the competitors to move on and demonstrate life beyond disability is very commendable, but in this poem it takes a dangerous turn into arrogance and hubris. Henley disregards “whatever gods may be,” only thanking them for making his unconquerable soul, and also disregards any consequences of his actions either in this world or the next.

This is partly because he doesn't believe in God and therefore this life is just a “place of wrath and tears” and after death is only “the Horror of the shade.” Contrast that with the view of the Apostle Paul: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself...But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9. Paul lists the things he suffered in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 and 11:23-27.) Suffering and adverse circumstances will make us either rely on ourselves or turn to God for help. Paul says that God is the one who can raise the dead, who can bring something good out of something bad and that because eternal life exists, this life as meaning and purpose. What good is it to be captain of your own soul if you don't believe there is a destination to sail to?

Reindeer names and nicknames

Here's my December article:

You know Dasher and Dancer, and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, and Donner and Blitzen, and you will also know Rudolph. But do you also know about Flossie and Glossie, and Racer and Pacer, Reckless and Speckless, Fearless and Peerless, and Ready and Steady? In 1823, the poem “A Visit from St Nicholas” made famous the first set of reindeer (minus Rudolph who wasn't created until 1939.) Almost eighty years later, L. Frank Baum (who wrote “The Wizard of Oz”) wrote a book called “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” and gave the second set as Santa's reindeer. We don't know why he decided to use different names, but it shows that Christmas traditions are not set in stone!

The reindeer names are probably meant to tell us something of the character of each of them, even if their characters aren't developed in the stories, and this is a common feature of story-telling. It also happens in real life as we name pets and even give each other nicknames based on character or skills.

In church there are many Christmas traditions, and we hear familiar readings from the Bible telling of the preparation for Jesus in the Old Testament and the accounts of the events around his birth. Some of these readings give nicknames for Jesus that tell us important things about who he is and what he came to do.

Perhaps the most famous is the titles Jesus is given in Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

'Wonderful Counsellor' tells us that Jesus is wonderful in the sense that he arouses in us a sense of wonder and awe and marvel. As we approach Christmas, familiarity blind us to the amazing events surrounding Jesus' birth, like the angels, the star and the virgin birth itself, so we need to recover our wonder at the very coming of Jesus, how “...within a manger lies / he who built the starry skies.” As Counsellor he imparts wisdom and truth to us, not as just one more voice among many but as the one who has the words of eternal life (John 6:68), who is Wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24) and Truth (John 14:6).

The name 'Mighty God' has overtones of powerfulness and strength particularly in battle, and this reminds us that Jesus didn't just come to do miraculous deeds, or give amazing teachings, but that he came to fight the spiritual enemies of sin and death. To call Jesus “Everlasting Father” reminds us of his eternal, divine nature and also that his character is father-like. His government will not rule by fear and oppression but will be characterised by peace, justice and righteousness, and he is also the 'Father' of our redemption (Hebrews 2:10-13 and 12:2).

Jesus' title of Prince of Peace is probably one of his best known and reminds us that through his death and resurrection he brings peace and reconciliation between humanity and God (Romans 5:1) and therefore also the possibility of peace between people.

But there are two more names that sum up what Christmas is all about: Gabriel tells Joseph “to give him the name Jesus, [which means the Lord saves] because he will save his people from their sins.” And Matthew tells us “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' (which means 'God with us')” (Matthew 1:21-23). So this Christmas why not find out more about the God who comes to us as a baby to save us from our sins?

Photo by Norman Tsui on Unsplash

Should we still remember?

Here is my sermon from this year's Remembrance Sunday service at Broughton:

It's now over one hundred years since the first Remembrance Sunday took place at the end of the First World War; this year we commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day; next year we'll celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day – and very few of those who remember those events are still alive today. So it might be reasonable to ask the question, do we still need to carry on remembering? After all we don't still remember the battle of Waterloo in the same way, and that too was a war to stop a dictator taking over Europe.

It seems to me that Remembrance Sunday is important especially for those who don't believe in God but still want to hold on to the idea that there are moral absolutes – that some actions are right and others wrong; that some actions are good and others are evil. Without God to define what is right and what is wrong it is necessary to come up with another standard for morality and so the moral and ethical code for many in our society is summed up in the golden rule: “Don't be like Hitler!” And so Remembrance events are annual reminders of that secular basis for morality.

This, however, makes our sense of good and bad a matter of comparison: “I may not be perfect but I'm not as bad as Hitler”! As the old joke says, if you're in a place with bears you don't have to be able to run faster than the bear, you only have to be able to run faster than your companions! As long as you're not the slowest, you'll survive. And that's the way morality is seen too: as long as I'm not the worst I'm OK. We compare ourselves with others, even those around us, and as long as we are better than they are, we satisfy ourselves that we are good. And even if we've got no-one around us who is worse than us, we are still good because we're not Hitler.

In our second Bible reading (Mark 10:17-27), a man comes up to Jesus to ask a question and calls him “Good Teacher.” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” In doing so, Jesus was making a point about himself – in calling him 'good' the man recognises that Jesus is divine; but Jesus is also making a point about us – we are not good. Even if we obey a lot of the Ten Commandments like the man had, we are still not good. The man was relying on his good deeds for his salvation, for his reputation of being good, but Jesus reminds him and us that it is impossible for us to be saved, to be good by our own actions.

The problem is our perspective. When we compare ourselves with others we will always find people worse than ourselves: even Hitler thought he was morally better than others – which is why he put so many into death camps. Unlike the Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch, the Nazis didn't look at themselves and ask “Are we the baddies?” - they thought they were the goodies. We may think that morally we are as far away from the Nazis as we are in distance from Australia, but we are looking at it from ground level. Jesus reminds us that the moral standard is God himself – only he is good. And when we compare ourselves with him, we are as far away from him morally as we are in distance from the edge of the universe. And from the edge of the universe, the distance between us and Australia is ultra-microscopically small. Compared with God we are as bad as Hitler.

A film came out last year called “The Zone of Interest” about Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp. But what makes this film different to other Holocaust movies is that instead of getting us to identify with the victims, it wants to show us our similarities with the perpetrators.

So while Remembrance events are good for reminding ourselves to not be like Hitler, it is Remembrance Sunday that teaches us the most important lesson: peace will never come through human effort. Because all of us share that inner sinfulness that is only a step away from committing the horrors we see in war. We need to be reminded not to be like Hitler because we are like Hitler. The Commandments Jesus doesn't mention in his list are Commandments about putting God first in our lives, and by failing to do that our inhumanity towards humanity will continue. But the good news that introduces the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2) is that that God saves us not on the basis of our good deeds but on his love for us – which is shown supremely in Jesus' death which takes the punishment for our sins and attributes to us a goodness that we could never achieve ourselves.

Our first reading (Isaiah 2:2-5) tells us that one day those who are willing will learn God's ways and walk in his paths, and that is a good thing to start doing now. But it is only through Jesus that peace will come because he is the good one who will judge between the nations and settle the disputes for many peoples. That is why he is called the Prince of Peace; that is why the peace doves we have here today come out from the cross.