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).

Our imaginary God?

Here's my June magazine article:

What do you imagine when you hear the word 'God'?  Even if you don't believe in God, you will have an idea of who the God is that you don't believe in (and perhaps as Pastor Timothy Keller wrote “Describe the God you’ve rejected. Describe the God you don’t believe in. Maybe I don’t believe in that God either.” !)  This is not an academic question because our image of God (or our non-belief in God) is a major influence on the way we live our lives and the way we view ourselves, others and the world.

Having realised what our image of God is, the next question is where we get that image from.  For example the Greeks and Romans imagined their gods to be just super versions of humans, thus sharing our characteristics of selfishness, pride and ambition.  And different cultures have come up with different representations of the divine leading to different moral teachings. So if God does exist, is there any way of knowing what he is like?

If we try to imagine what God is like by ourselves we will inevitably create a God that is in our own image: venerating the things we like, and denouncing the things we dislike.  As Christians we believe that we can know what God is like but only because God has chosen to reveal himself to us.  He has done this through his Word, the Bible.  The Creation account in Genesis shows us a God who wants to be known by humanity and wants a personal relationship with humanity, even walking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).  The Old Testament is full of accounts of God revealing his character and his will to people, but it is in the New Testament that God's self-revelation finds its apex.

There we find that Jesus is the image of the invisible God in whom all the fulness of God dwells (Colossians  1:15,19) and that he is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:3).  Jesus himself said that anyone who sees him has seen the Father (John 14:9).  So if we want to know what God is like, we need to look at Jesus.  The disciples' experience of the divinity of Jesus, distinct from both the divinity of the Father and the divinity of the Holy Spirit, lead them to the doctrine that is known as the Trinity: “God is one divine Being eternally existing in three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (“To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism” Qu. 38). This doctrine is particularly recalled on Trinity Sunday, which this year is 4th June.

This complicated doctrine is not one that would be invented, but could only come in response to God revealing himself to us.  And it is no surprise that our finite minds struggle to comprehend an infinite being – as St Augustine said “If you understood him, it would not be God”!  But if we look at Jesus we will get a glimpse of the God who longs for us to know him.

What War Memorials teach us about life

This is the sermon I preached at Broughton for this year's Remembrance Sunday service:





We've just been remembering those from Broughton who died in the two world wars at our unique and special War Memorial, which was unveiled in 1923. However, next month is the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the War Memorial in Port Sunlight.



Port Sunlight is a village on the Wirral, near Liverpool. It is the site of a soap factory founded by William Lever who also created the model village for his workers to live in. Some of you may remember Sunlight Soap. The company is now called Unilever and makes amongst other things, Lynx deodorant, Ben & Jerry's Ice cream and Persil washing powder, though you probably don't want to mix those up!!

Mr Lever, who had become Lord Leverhulme in 1917, was anxious to have a memorial to commemorate those of his workers who had been lost in the First World War. It was was unveiled on 3rd December 1921. But why am I telling you about this memorial rather than our own?

Well, Lord Leverhulme decided that the unveiling of the memorial should be carried out, not by a famous person or even by himself, but by employees who had served in the war. A vote of all the Lever ex-servicemen was held, and those chosen were Private Robert Cruickshank who had been awarded the Victoria Cross and Sergeant George Eames, who had been blinded at the battle of the Somme. George Eames was also my great, great uncle.

I never knew George or his branch of our family, but by a little bit of Googling I found out some facts about him. Not only was he blinded at the Somme, but his left arm was wounded making it 'virtually useless'. In August 1916 George went to St. Dunstan’s Lodge for Blinded Soldiers where he learned typewriting, braille and poultry farming. However, George decided to pursue singing and went on to be incredibly popular and became well-known as ‘the blind baritone’ or 'the soldier baritone', even appearing on postcards.

Amazingly, I also found a Pathé newsreel showing George unveiling the War Memorial.

 

Finding out all of this about George, and also seeing him on film gave me some sense of connection with him, but he is still not much more than a name carved on a piece of stone. And the same might be true of the names we heard read this morning. When the Cubs came in last Thursday to think about Remembrance we looked at the names and thought about the families who lost loved ones. We also found one of them, Charles Hogg, in the baptism register and thought about the fact that he would have been baptised in that font over there, as had some of the Cubs, and I suspect many of you here today. But although we can find out interesting facts about people who died in the wars, and we can make connections with them because we are related to them, or live in the same place, or were baptised or married here in the same church - they can still be little more than names carved on stone.

And that is quite a sobering thought. We often say when someone has died that they live on in our memories, but as we look at the names on the memorial, there are few people left, if any, who would have known those men. They've become figures from history, known only through pictures and writings, just the same as Henry VIII or Cleopatra.

Our first reading from Psalm 103 puts this thought poetically but profoundly: God remembers that we are mere dust, our life is like grass – we flourish like flowers but like them we wither and our place remembers us no more. We like to think that we are so important, but even in an age of social media there will be little trace of us in two hundred years or so. But this doesn't mean that our lives are meaningless nor that we are worthless. Because even though our bodies will decay and the people who remember us will also eventually die, Jesus reminds us in our second reading that we are much more valuable than the flowers and grass that wither and die, we are more valuable than the birds and animals, and despite the very valid concerns about environmental damage, we are more valuable than the earth itself.

We are more valuable because we are loved by God our Heavenly Father, and he formed us, he knows us, he forgives us, he loves us and he remembers us from everlasting to everlasting. As we seek to bring his kingdom here on earth we will find that he gives us the things we need so that we no longer need to argue and fight over things. As we respect his authority over us we will find that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for us. As we turn to him to say sorry for the things we continue to do wrong, we will find that he forgives us and he has taken our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

As we accept him as our Heavenly Father, it doesn't matter that one day we will be names in books; historical figures known only through pictures and words. It won't matter because we will have eternal life, and we will be known and loved by God. Our names will be engraved on his hands (Isaiah 49:16), they will be written on his heart.

Can you truly say the Lord's Prayer?

 Here's my May magazine article:

Ascension Day, forty days after Easter, is on 13th May this year and it again marks the start of the 11-day global prayer movement called 'Thy Kingdom Come'. The title is taken from the Lord's Prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught his followers as a pattern for our praying as well as a prayer that we can make our own. The familiarity of that prayer means that we can lose sight of the radical nature of what we are praying for, and perhaps the most radical part of the prayer is the most over-looked: the opening two words - “Our Father.”

Our Western civilisation is so saturated in Christian thought that it is quite natural to think of God as 'Father'. However, this is unknown in Greco-Roman culture and unthinkable in Islam (hence the famous account of Bilquis Sheikh's conversion from Islam to Christianity entitled “I dared to call him Father”). Even in the Old Testament, God is the Father of the nation of Israel, and only of certain special individuals such as David. Conversely, the Christian-soaked Western world takes the idea of the Fatherhood of God too far the other way: as God is the Creator and originator of everything, the thinking goes, every human is therefore a child of God.

Jesus' radical message saves us both from a distant deity and from a conception of our position as God's children that is so wide that it becomes meaningless. John's gospel opens by telling us that Jesus would be rejected by many “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Paul tells the Christians in Galatia: “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26 New King James Version) and “God sent forth His Son...to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons...Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:4-7 NKJV).

These verses tell us important things. Firstly, only those who believe in (in the sense of putting their faith and trust in) Jesus are truly children of God. Secondly, adoption as a child of God is a result of redemption, i.e. by repenting of our sins in the faith that Jesus' death has paid the penalty for those sins. Thirdly, we are adopted as sons. This last point seems to be sexist, and indeed most modern translations of the Bible in these verses will render the Greek word 'son' as 'child'. However, Paul deliberately uses the word 'son' for a particular reason: in the society of his day only males could inherit, so Paul wants us to understand that those who are adopted as God's sons will share in everything the Father has. This distinction might also help us today for though it could be said that by virtue of being created by God we are all children of God, only those who are redeemed are sons of God and thus inherit the kingdom / salvation / eternal life.

The Lord's Prayer is therefore a family prayer – the prayer of those who have been adopted as God's sons through faith in Jesus. Can you truly say that prayer as part of that family?

Advent Reflections 2020: Isaiah's Titles for Jesus - 3: Everlasting Father

For our Advent reflections this year we're going to look at 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.”

The previous two titles Isaiah gives to Jesus are fairly straightforward, but today's makes us stop and think. I suspect when we hear the verse in the midst of a fuller reading we mentally skip this title and think about the other three, and that is because we've just called Jesus the 'Everlasting Father'. We looked last week about Jesus as 'Mighty God' and how that reminds us that not only is Jesus divine but there is a plurality within the Godhead. We find it hard enough to get our heads around the doctrine of God as Trinity; Three-in-One and one-in-Three, but now we seem to be saying that God the Son is also the 'Everlasting Father'!

This title is used to emphasise two aspects of the Messiah: firstly that he is everlasting – that he has no beginning or end. His everlasting or eternal nature is also brought out in the surrounding verses that speak of there being no end to his reign. This is yet another indication of Jesus' divinity.

Secondly, the title tells us that his character is father-like. His government will not rule by fear and oppression but will be characterised by peace, justice and righteousness (verse 7). Isaiah 40:11 says “He tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” Jesus picks up on this language when he refers to himself as the Good Shepherd (John 10) and refers to his disciples as his 'children' (John 13:33). Jesus will be father-like because he is a compassionate provider and protector.

To call Jesus 'Everlasting Father' is not to confuse him with God the Father, but to remind us that he is one with the Father (John 10:30, 38) and he is the perfect image of God the Father, the exact representation of his being (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3) If we want to know what God is like we look at Jesus (John 14:9-10).

But Jesus is also a Father in a special way in that he is the author and pioneer of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10-13 and 12:2). As Matthew Henry wrote in his commentary on Isaiah 9:6 “[Jesus] was, from eternity, the Father of the great work of Redemption: his heart was upon it; it was the product of his wisdom, as the Counsellor; of his love, as the everlasting Father”.

Have we angered Mother Earth?

Here's my magazine article for October:

October is often a month when we think about Harvest Festivals and the natural world.  The year started (though it seems a lifetime ago!) with rallies and protests about climate change, and the rise of Extinction Rebellion, and the reminder again of humanity's rôle in looking after the world in which we live.

This has deep biblical roots which go back to the first book of the Bible in the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.  There we learn that God is the Creator “of all that is, seen and unseen” (as we say in the Creed), and that it was good.  We also learn that after the creation of humanity, in the image and likeness of God, it became very good.  However humanity's position as the pinnacle of creation comes with responsibilities: to rule over the natural world (Genesis 1:26) and to work the ground (Genesis 2:5).  The responsibility to work the ground helps define what is meant by 'ruling over' the natural world: we're to work in harmony with it; to look after it; for the good of us and it. Thus we sometimes talk of being 'stewards' rather than 'rulers' of the world.  Unfortunately, due to the sinfulness of humanity, described in Genesis 3, we have taken that responsibility to rule over the natural world and turned it into an excuse to exploit the world's resources for our own selfish needs.  

The environmental situation was then displaced in the news by the COVID-19 pandemic, but some made a link between the two.  The need to reduce carbon emissions which was said to be impossible at the beginning of the year, suddenly became a reality as airports were shut and only essential travel in cars was allowed.  Some claimed that the world was fighting back, and that Mother Nature had created the virus in order to heal herself.  Whilst a lot of this talk was metaphorical, it shows that you only need to scratch the surface to find pagan ideas latent in our folk memory.  In many ancient belief systems the natural world was controlled by (often capricious) gods who needed to be placated otherwise they would send punishments of plague or disasters such as droughts or floods.  Supreme amongst these nature gods was the Earth goddess, and 'Mother Earth' often played the key rôle in creating the universe through intercourse with the 'Father Sky' god.

Amidst these ideas the biblical creation narrative stands out as unique.  God alone creates all that is and amongst the things it specifies that he creates are sky, water, earth, sun, moon and stars.  In ancient beliefs these were often said to be the most powerful of the 'nature gods', but the Bible tells us they are not divine at all, indeed humanity is greater than all of them.  Therefore there is no Mother Earth that we have angered and need to placate by our environmentally friendly actions.  However there is a Father God, whose love we have rejected by disobeying his commands, including to be stewards of the world.  The problem of environmental damage is ultimately a problem of human sin, not just because of our exploitation of it but because our rebellion also cursed creation (Genesis 3:17-18).  Therefore the remedy for environmental damage is a Saviour: not in the form of a Mother goddess nor an environmental activist, but in Jesus who invites us to repent of our sins and promises us his Spirit to help us to change; and at whose return all creation will be renewed.

God: despot, genie or Father?

Here's my article for May:

All you have to do is rub the lamp and out will pop a genie who will grant you three wishes (as long as they aren't about falling in love, killing someone or having more wishes!) I wonder how many times you have thought what your three wishes would be?

Of course, most of us would say that we want our loved ones to be safe; or a cure for various diseases; or perhaps world peace. But deep down there is a temptation to ask for power or wealth or beauty, and given the choice I don't know whether I would be able to resist the opportunity for selfish gain – and I suspect I'm not alone!

I also suspect that often we think of God as being like that genie; someone who we go to as a last resort when we can't solve things ourselves and expect him to grant our every wish. The Rogation Days are the traditional days of asking God's blessings on our world and our work. However, if we do think of God as some sort of divine vending machine then we will be disappointed. And that disappointment might be the reason some people don't believe in God. It probably isn't because he hasn't given us a fast car, or the winning lottery numbers, but more likely it will be because he hasn't answered a genuine prayer, perhaps to save a loved one from dying.

When I studied Judaism, the rabbi who was teaching us said that in classic Judaism the answer to the problem “why does God allow suffering?” is “God is God and he can do what he wants”! Although it is not a completely satisfying answer to the the problem it does give a helpful steer, especially if we don't hear it as being “God is a totalitarian despot.” Instead it invites us to see the problem in the light of who God is.

God is neither a despotic God, for whom we are merely playthings, nor is he a genie God, who is entirely at our command. God reveals himself in the Bible as being all-powerful and all-knowing but he is also all-loving. Jesus encourages us to pray saying “Ask and it will be given to you” but qualifies it by going on to say “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7 and 11). The two important parts of that verse are that God is our Father who longs to give us good gifts.

Just as children don't always know what's best for them and can get upset when they don't get what they ask for, so too we don't always know what's best for us and often have imperfect motives. God is perfect and knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:32), so if he doesn't give us what we ask for, we can be confident that it is because he loves us and wants what's best for us, not because he doesn't care for us or we don't have enough faith. This side of death we will never fully understand God's purposes but we should be confident to pray, as Jesus did “thy will be done.” That prayer lead Jesus to the cross, but he went willingly knowing that through his death he “led many of God’s children to be saved and to share in his glory “ (Hebrews 2:10 Contemporary English Version.)