Faith that drinks mud – Part 1

I was musing about the experience of Elijah.

« Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land » 1 Kings 17 :7

Elijah is in hiding. He prophesies before the king that God’s judgement of drought is about to fall upon the land and then God tells him to hide himself in a ravine.

Not a great assignment, but at least God tells him beforehand that he will be provided for. A brook will provide him with water and ravens will bring him meat.

So far, so good.

God giving us that kind of promise helps us take the step of faith.

But notice what happens then.

The brook dries up.

No advance statement from God this time.

No promise that it is all taken care of.

Elijah just watches, day by day, as the brook gets smaller and smaller,

muddier and muddier,

until finally it stops.

Takes a while for that to happen.

Days.

Weeks.

Elijah’s no fool. He knows there is a drought happening – he knew before anyone.

He knows that droughts cause brooks to dry up.

But he stays put.

Presumably he asked God about this. No doubt his prayers got more and more earnest, frantic even, as the situation worsens. But he stays. And stays. And stays. He has been brought here by God, he will not leave except God command him.

Real faith.

Real commitment.

It is only at the point of disaster that God replies. Gives him a green light, a new directive, a place of provision. Relief !

« Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food. » I Kings 17 :9

Phew !

Except it doesn’t work out so well.

Elijah arrives,

following God’s precise instructions and stumbles into …

a disaster about to happen.

His divinely ordained provider is all out of provision.

What !

In the valley he was about to die of thirst. Here there is water but no food.

Ironic or what ?

Tough assignment. God seems to go hard on those who you might think deserve the easiest ride – those who are already fully committed to Him, those who already engaged in God’s work.

Why ?

The answer’s always faith. That thing we only do when there’s no other option. When all else fails. When we’re blocked in a corner we can’t get out of.

God loves faith.

He can’t get enough of it.

He wants to grow it everywhere He can.

Unfortunately (for us) circumstances of need are His only tool.

They are the soil in which faith grows.

The only soil.

Do I, do we, have the courage to pray for the faith to drink mud?

Faith that prays.

Faith that stays.

(Part 2 tomorrow – faith grows, stuff happens)

Review of “Jesus wants to save Christians” by Rob Bell

Just finished reading this book.

Some great insights.

Some compelling diagnostics.

Some real stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks phrases. The guy can write.

Some real gasp-in-wonder moments when Bell reveals biblical parallels, deliberate evokings of earlier moments in salvation history. The guy can research.

What’s the book about ?

Well, empire really. It is a retelling of the Christian story from the perspective of empire.

God’s people oppressed by empire

God’s people delivered from empire

God’s people tempted to become empire

God’s punishment delivers them to their enemies

God’s people oppressed by empire (and the cycle recommences…)

The big story is that Jesus changes the game – we move from empire to Kingdom – and a very unusual kingdom. It is not about power but weakness. It is not about oppression but service.

Eucharist – thankfulness, is the word Bell chooses to sum up what the Christian faith should be. A thankfulness that expresses itself in self-giving.

For someone to get, someone else has to give.

Christians choose to be the givers.

Bell critiques America and American Christianity – he sees it more on the side of empire, than the Kingdom.

And it is exactly here that Bell’s courage fails.

Bell sub-titles his book ‘A manifesto for the Church in exile’ – but that is exactly what is missing – a manifesto.

His diagnosis is brilliant, but his prescription is vague ; he calls for no specific change, no concrete action. Merely that we should adopt a eucharistic outlook – live differently.

Which is great.

But what about disengaging from empire ?

What about challenging the oppression that we are part of ?

Can we really just let is all continue to go on and do nothing ?

We are hurting people.

A fantastic book – I can’t emphasise enough how well worth reading it is – but with a fatal flaw of h-h-hesitation.

Bell should have gone on and written that manifesto.

The Foundation of the Church of Christ – Forgiven Failure.

In preparing for the Bible study we are beginning in our parish I have been reading up on Mark’s gospel.

We all know that John-Mark was the young man who accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:5).

We also know that, early on in the journey, he abandoned them and went back home (Acts 15:38).

 When Paul and Barnabas were about to leave on a second missionary voyage (Acts 15:36-41), Barnabas wanted to again take John-Mark (his relative) with them. Paul would not hear of this; it seems that Paul had decided John-Mark was an unstable character and more trouble than he was worth.

Such was their disagreement over John-Mark that Paul and Barnabas separated, Barnabas taking John-Mark with him in one direction and Paul taking Silas with him in another.

 Our Bibles happily inform us that this time around, John-Mark proved his value, and that ultimately Paul was reconciled with him.

This reconciliation is confirmed by Paul subsequently asking for his assistance in his ministry (2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 24). This alone is fuel for many an inspirational sermon!

 What I didn’t realise until studying recently was that John-Mark became the first bishop of Alexandria (the second city in the World after Rome at this time), and it was his ministry there which founded the whole Eastern branch of the Christian church.

 Thus we have the Western church founded in Rome through the ministry of Peter, and the Eastern church founded in Alexandria by the ministry of John-Mark – and both of them were forgiven failures!

Peter had denied Christ during his passion, but he was forgiven and reinstated as leader of the apostles. John-Mark had abandoned his missionary calling, but was forgiven and given a second chance, firstly by Barnabas, and later by Paul.

 I don’t think it is a coincidence that God has so worked that the founders of both the Eastern and Western Christian traditions were men who failed but who were forgiven, reinstated, and given a second chance.

I think somewhere in this we see expressed the very heart of the message of the Church of Jesus – failures can be forgiven, your past does not determine your future, God can make all things new.

May God give us all the grace to forgive others and to receive forgiveness ourselves.

May He grant us the courage to get up and to try again when we trip and fall. Failure should not lead us to frustration and despair, but to humility and to absolute dependence upon God.

Forgiven failure is the very foundation of the Christian Church.

Peter Meiderlin, the pacificator

Perhaps the most famous maxim for relationships between Christians from different traditions is;

 In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.

This maxim appears in almost every call for Christians to live at peace and in unity with each other. However, it is only recently that I discovered the origin of this famous quote.

Although it has been attributed to various Christian authors, it has recently been traced with certainty to one ‘Peter Meiderlin’. He was an otherwise unknown 17^th century German divine.

In 1627, at the height of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, Peter Meiderlin published a tract calling for peaceful toleration between the warring Christian factions. It was in this tract, writing under the pseudonym of Rupertus Meldinius, that first appeared this now famous sentence,

“In a word, I’ll say it: if we preserve unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and charity in both, our affairs will be in the best position.”

Prof. Philip Schaff states,

“It was during the fiercest dogmatic controversies and the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War that a prophetic voice whispered to future generations the watchword of Christian peacemakers, which was unheeded in a century of intolerance, and forgotten in a century of indifference, but resounds with increased force in a century of revival and re-union.”

                                                                                            (from ‘History of the Christian Church’ Vol. 7, pp650-653)

The English divine Richard Baxter quoted Meldenius’ sentence in a publication dated 1679 and referred to him as ‘the pacificator’ or peacemaker.

I find it very moving to think that this lone voice, speaking out for peace and unity amongst Christians, originally ignored in the maelstrom of religious hatred and intolerance, comes to be used some 300 years later as the watchword and rallying cry for a world-wide movement of Christians working for unity.

Sometimes God just does beautiful stuff.

God bless you Peter Meiderlin, the pacificator, you are an example to us all.

Prophets to no profit, priests of no god

« Their evil deeds have no limit ; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor … A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land : The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. » (Jeremiah 5:28-31)

Reading through Jeremiah in my morning devotions,

The people of God were in a bad way. They have reneged on the terms of the covenant and are refusing to live in the way that God has mandated.

Their turning their back on God is expressed in a turning towards the idolatrous religions of the surrounding nations.

Interestingly this religious ‘adultery’ leads to

involvement in acts of religious prostitution (acts with cultic prostitutes undertaken as worship to the god),

and also to sexual adultery within the society (Jeremiah 5:7-9).

Which is the first expression of how religion affects social behaviour.

A commitment to Yahweh mandates and maintains a strong sexual ethic, an involvement with paganism leads to a weakening of that ethic, firstly in religious contexts but then in society as a whole.

Following this other social values start to implode.

The aspect which is presented as most serious (in Yahweh’s view) is the oppression of the poor and the poor’s lack of access to judicial redress. We see that selfishness becomes the norm,

“From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practise deceit. They dress the wound of my people as if it were not serious. “Peace, peace”, they say, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:13-14)

And it is here that we see the most vital flaw –

those whose function it was to call God’s people to repentance and back to holiness were themselves complicit.

Instead of standing against the tide of religious corruption, sexual immorality, and the oppression of the weakest members of society, they support it.

They find ways either to say that sin is not sin, or to say that sin is not serious.

For this reason the people of God stand in mortal danger.

Without prophets and priests of integrity there is no hope.

I can’t help but see the similarities between this context 2600 years ago and contemporary Western culture. Interesting?