The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity - Word for the Week

Monday Blues

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:54:51 +0100

by Helen Parry (Word for the Week 23-06-08)

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. 1 Peter 2:9

It’s Monday morning. How do you feel? Like Mark (Thank God it’s Monday) Greene? Or like Bob (I don’t like Mondays) Geldof? Excited, challenged, fulfilled, raring to go? Or burdened, stressed, overworked, unappreciated, ‘wanting out’? Or perhaps a bit of both?

Endurance

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:10:08 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 16-06-2008)

Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh… For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example… when he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten.
1 Peter 2:18,21,23

Bringing good news

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:29:48 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 09-06-2008)

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to release the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Isaiah’s final chapters ring with the certainty that the Lord will come, bringing the vindication of his sovereignty before all nations, and blessing and salvation for his people. However bad the present oppression, whether by Assyria or Rome, Israel longed for the day when they would be acknowledged as ‘a people whom the Lord has blessed’ (61:9). The Lord would sweep in and put all things right.

We can perhaps imagine the shock in the synagogue at Nazareth when Jesus read these verses and then said, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:18-21). Isaiah’s words had rung with the promise of spectacular events – not just liberty for captives, but ruined cities rebuilt, and Israel enjoying the wealth of nations. On this ordinary day in the synagogue, a young man, whom they had known from childhood, read from the scroll, as was the custom. Suddenly the mood changed to a shocking moment of outrage at his effrontery. Jesus did not fit their understanding of the powerful rescuer who would defeat their enemies and bring them blessing.

As we look round the world this morning, we may well long to see good news brought to the oppressed, the broken-hearted bound up, the prisoners freed. And for ourselves, healing for those we love, damage we have done forgiven and put right. But we would like someone else to sweep in and do it - politicians, world leaders, economists, or on a more homely level, the pastor, the counsellor, a friend. Or, better still, as Isaiah prophesied, the Lord to come again in glory and bring all things under his reign.

Did anyone in that synagogue look at him as Jesus claimed this role of carer, rescuer and saviour, and remember Isaiah’s words in chapter 53? Was there, perhaps, another kind of rescue? The Lord would lay on him the iniquity of us all, and through that self-giving anyone was welcome into the glory of the new earth and new heaven. Meanwhile, we are the ones who do his work, proclaiming the good news, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty...

Unfading beauty

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:34:53 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 02-06-2008)

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewellery and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3,4

Most of us live with a certain amount of dissatisfaction about the way we look. We are bombarded with images of clothes, cosmetics, style and fashion, makeovers and surgery that just might give us the look we long for. Peter was talking to women, but today cosmetics and fashion are no longer just a female issue, as sales of make-up, grooming products and cosmetic surgery for men continue to increase.

He was also, I imagine, talking about jewellery and clothes that spoke of wealth and status, and braided hair that suggested a personal maid’s attention. But how should we read these verses? Christians over the centuries have had very different views of outward adornment, from Roundheads and Cavaliers, hermits and cardinals, Quakers and Anglicans. If we enjoy fully participating in the fun of fashion and colour coordination, then we have to face the reproach of the drab slightly out-of-date ‘avoiders of the world’. Philip Larkin described a middle way in his moving poem, Born Yesterday. Don’t wish beauty for the baby, ‘May you be ordinary… not ugly, not good-looking… nothing uncustomary to pull you off your balance.’

So our outward adornment should not display wealth, nor excessive engagement with our appearance, but a workable normality, with occasional bursts of fun and exuberance. Yet it is difficult not to feel our self-confidence being sapped by our perception that we don’t look quite attractive enough, for our audience, our customers, or our colleagues. First impressions matter far too much in our fast moving, over-busy western world.

Working at the gentle and quiet spirit of our inner self may take a lot more time and effort than getting a better hairdresser. A habit of prayer where we bring to the Lord the anxieties, fears and disappointments that disturb our spirit; a conscious ever-present quiet joy in his undeserved love; and a recognition of the unfading beauty of gentle and quiet spirits in those around us, may make us less reliant on how we look.

Paul: when friends fall out

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:04:30 +0100

by Helen Parry (Word for the Week 19-05-2008)

Barnabas wanted to take…Mark with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. Acts 15:37-38

Two men set up a business together. They start small, but they have identified a niche in the market, and make good use of the resources they have. They do well. They like and respect one another, and have complementary gifts.

After some time, one suggests taking on a junior partner: he has a particular young man in mind. The other objects – there’s a question mark hanging over the young man’s character. Either his commitment or his stickabilty is suspect. Both are essential qualities in their rather risky endeavour.

This story is, of course, about Paul and Barnabas. Sadly, ‘they had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company’. Each had a point. Paul wanted to be sure that they could rely on their fellow-workers; Barnabas – ever the encourager – wanted to give Mark a second chance. Always a lateral thinker, he probably thought not only that Mark showed promise but also that if the work was going to grow they would need help.

When a small team is working well together, the comfortable thing to do is not to rock the boat – not to enlarge the team by bringing in people of different personalities, different levels of ability. But that is how enterprises stagnate. The visionary founder becomes the obstacle to creative growth.

It would be unjust to apply this to Paul, but it is all too common in our own enterprises. In the case of Paul and Barnabas, regrettable though the discord was, God overruled it. The result was two evangelistic teams rather than one, Barnabas taking Mark to start a new work in Cyprus, and Paul teaming up with Silas.

This story is about training and apprenticeship. It applies both to the workplace and to the church. In the church, it is the essence of disciple-making. Can we seek to reintroduce the idea of apprenticeship, so that young Christians and potential leaders are not only mentored but allowed to learn on the job alongside those with greater knowledge and experience? And am I prepared to take on this responsibility?

Good deeds, good lives

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:18:21 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 12-05-2008)

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us…. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 1 Peter 2:12,15

A prophet’s diet

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:20:58 +0100

by Antony Billington (Word for the Week 06-05-2008)

‘Then he said to me, “Son of Man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.’ Ezekiel 3:1-2

It was a crucial lesson for a prophet to learn: his words would not be his own, but God’s. He would not have to fabricate his message, or concoct it out of thin air. He’s assured that what he spoke would be nothing less than God’s word.

And yet it has to become his own before he can present it to others. He must absorb it into his own personality. And in that process of digestion, the words of God would also be nothing less than Ezekiel’s own words.

He will sound like he has always sounded; his mannerisms will be recognisably his; his interest in all things to do with holiness and the temple will be readily apparent; and he will still have a curious penchant for going into more detail about those matters than many of us care for... Even so, God will embody his own words in the words of a human being, such that Ezekiel’s message will be fully God’s message.

In Revelation 10:8-10, John undergoes a similar experience. There too we have a dramatic picture of a prophet of God internalising the word of God. It’s a powerful demonstration of what we’re called to in our own engagement with God’s word. Not that we will become merely more technically competent in handling Scripture, nor even that we just learn more about God and his word; but that his word will become so much more a part of us. It’s an encouragement to read the Bible and to be read by the Bible; to read not merely to be informed about God, but to be transformed by God. It’s a challenge to make sure we do not stand over Scripture seeking to make sense of it, without first making sure we stand under it, allowing it to make sense of us, to work on us from the inside out.

It’s a great image to keep before us as a directing principle for the ethos of our whole lives; as we live for Christ in the face of the contemporary world, we seek do so in line with Scripture: eat this scroll.

Songs of love and spring

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:54:42 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 28-04-2008)

My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away’.
The Song of Songs 2:10-13

Today we walked on the hills high about the Swale estuary in north Kent, where a number of woods curve round the northwest of Canterbury. We were walking on farmland now reclaimed by the Woodland Trust and planted with tens of thousands of native trees to link together two areas of ancient semi-natural woodland, forming an area of woodland second only in size to the New Forest. There was sun and rain, kestrels and skylarks, bluebells and primroses. The hedgerows were a vibrant brilliant new green, May was in blossom and the trees in the apple orchards were faintly tipped with pink.

The winter is past and some of the songs of spring I sung at school came back to mind. ‘Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king. Then blooms each thing and maids dance in a ring.’ Or perhaps, more powerfully, Gerard Manley Hopkins –

Nothing is so beautiful as spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens…

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.

Why does spring have such a powerful attraction? This may, of course, be mainly a feature of seasons in the earth’s temperate zones. Yet it does speak of resurrection, new life, regeneration and renewal, of the dormant brought out into exuberant life. And our delight in spring is a delight in a new earth washed clean, a promise of a new heaven and a new earth that will be both glorious and familiar. And also, I hope, a delight in love! Praise him!

Born Again

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:48:48 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 21-04-2008)

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field’. 1 Peter 1:23

There are moments in life when we are told that something has happened that changes our status and our future forever. You are now a citizen of the United Kingdom… I pronounce you man and wife…You have a baby boy… You have been born again.

You have been born again. We can appreciate the emotional impact of getting married or having a baby, but we can too easily lose sight of the depth and power of this picture of what being a Christian means – made new as a child of the living God, transferred from the perishable, where all human glory fades, to the imperishable. John speaks in the same way of being born not of natural descent, but born of God. (John 1:13) Now we are clothed in immortality and the power that takes us and makes us new is the living and enduring word of God – the word that spoke and a universe was born out of nothing, the word that will endure forever.

It’s unfortunate that the phrase ‘born again’ is used popularly as a mainly derogatory term for Christian, as is ‘fundamentalist’, ‘bible-bashing’ or ‘tub-thumping’. I asked a group of Christians what their answer would be to the question, ‘Are you a born-again Christian?’ They would be tempted to reply, ‘What other kind is there?’ But they agreed that they would probably change the terminology and describe themselves as committed Christians to avoid the negative overtones of ‘born again’.

Maybe we need to reclaim the title and status and tell ourselves this morning that we have been born again. We have a fresh start, forgiven and reinstated, with an inheritance that will last forever. That should put a spring in our steps. Especially if we are more than usually aware this morning that ‘our days are like grass, the wind passes over it and it is gone’ (Psalm 103:15,16).

Born again

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:40:01 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 21-04-08)

Paul: a risen life

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:36:59 +0100

by Helen Parry (Word for the Week 14-04-08)

‘Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection’, Acts 17:18

Why is it, I wonder, that some evangelical Christians seem to emphasise the cross, and Christ’s atoning death, to such an extent that the resurrection becomes almost an irrelevance? Witness small booklets on how to become a Christian, and certain types of evangelistic preaching.

Commanded to love

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:26:21 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 07-04-08)

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere mutual affection, love one another deeply, from the heart. 1 Peter 1:22

Peter repeats this command to love several times in this letter: Love the brothers and sisters (2:17), love one another (3:8), love each other deeply (4:8). We are not advised to wait for love to overwhelm us, like a Disney fairy touch with a sparkling wand. We are told to love from the heart, deeply, now – to go beyond ‘sincere mutual affection’ and to love at full stretch.

It is clear that Peter is talking about love within Christian fellowships – not just compatible friends, nor beloved family members, but the arbitrary mixed bag of humans who worship together. That is demanding enough, but Jesus told us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves and explained that he meant anyone. Moreover we may find ourselves the love target of those we dislike, as the man on the road to Jericho did.

How do we obey this command to love? First, we have to make a decision of the will to ‘love’ someone, however we feel about them. We cannot wait for feelings of love to arrive, nor for dislike to evaporate. Secondly, we need to work out what actions love will require. So I see a colleague coming and I ignore my deep desire to avoid him. I recognise that he has a hard lonely time and needs to talk. So I ask him out for lunch, and listen. I look at my overworked line manager and I curb my desire to talk to him about the minor issues I want him to sort out, at least for a day or two.

But sometimes being loved also presents problems. So, once again, the will has to conquer reluctance and I will allow myself to be encouraged, rather too loudly for my delicate sensibilities, by a neighbour on the train to town. And I will be happy to be prayed over by a very loving member of my church.

I believe in the resurrection of the dead

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:24:31 +0100

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 31-03-08)

In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years? For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise. The living, the living – they praise you as I am doing today. Isaiah 38:10,18

Hezekiah voiced one of the great cries of the human heart. Is everything simply going to fade and go to waste? Is death the end? Literature is full of this deep sense of futility. From Euripides,

‘…and so we are sick for life, and cling
On earth to this nameless and shining thing.
For other life is a fountain sealed,
And the deeps below us are unrevealed
And we drift on legends for ever’.

For OUR sake?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:14:55 +0000

by Helen Parry (Word for the Week 17-03-08)

“He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” 1 Peter 1:20

“Because you’re worth it”, say the advertisements, or “Because you deserve it”. So – buy our cosmetics, our jewellery, our watches, our holidays, our cars. The key word, of course, is buy. Nobody is offering to give us these things because we are worth it, because we have deserved it. We are, in a sense, being invited, or lured, to reward ourselves.

Living today in the light of tomorrow

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:25:40 +0000

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 10-03-08)

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you… Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. Isaiah 60:1,18

Every now and again someone says with bushy-tailed brightness, ‘Seize the day!’, or if they are feeling particularly on top of things, ‘Carpe diem!’. If you are feeling a little low, a bit overwhelmed by circumstance, then their answer is to concentrate on the day in hand, make the most of every shining moment, on the train, in the bath, at a meeting. Forget tomorrow; make the most of today. And, indeed, in a busy life there is something to be said for savouring simple joys, consciously taking hold of the little bits of humour, a spot of sunset colour, the soft warmth of pillow and duvet. We all tend to miss the good things in the tyranny of the urgent.