statistics

I realised the following yesterday:-

• I became a Christian when I was 17, so next year when I am 34 I will have been a Christian for half of my life
• The following year I will have been in this church for half of my life
• I have lived in Kettering for 8 years, which is half of the time I have spent in the church and a quarter of my life.
• I have been living in community for just over a third of my life
  
• I have been celibate for about a third of my life.

So whats so amazing about that?
Well, I thought it was worth recording 'cos God is into Numbers- there is a whole book of the Bible devoted to them (!).

Also, I guess it says that God is faithful to keep us, and it testifies to the long term power of commitment. I made some of my commitments at a relatively young age (baptised age 18, community age 21, celibacy age 23). I can now say that it was not all "something you grow out of" but more "something you grow into".

I believe the choices I have made have been foundations in my life and will bear fruit long into the future. It provokes me to look hard at the choices I make now and make sure I am still keeping true to the path I have started on, to make sure that having come this far I do not knock myself down by making bad or weak choices.

I have always said that I do not want to get to 40 or 50 and lose the plot 'cos I have not sorted out my issues along the way. Making the right choices is one way to make sure that does not happen.

Difficult Scriptures 4

Revelations

Dunno if it is allowed to put a whole book of the Bible under the heading “difficult scriptures”, but this is my blog, so my rules, so I shall =)

I find Revelations really hard and a big part of my issues with it probably is coming from a Christadelphian background when people spent loads of time trying to predict the second coming and interpret “the signs of the times”. During Communism the signal for the end of the world was going to come out of Russia, now it is going to come out of Iran. I have to be very careful not to get cynical about it all.

The thing with Revelations is that there is loads of picture language in there, half of which we do not understand 'cos we are not readig it with the mindset of first centuary Jews. Stuff that would have been so obvious to them misses the point on us.

There is also stuff in there that is history, that is current, that is for the future, and that is eternal. How do you know which bit of history you are on? Or even if you are outside of history altogether?

Some things I do get.
I understand that heaven will be awesome, and perfect, and full of worship. I also understand that it is a glorious mystery to us.
I also understand that there is a real spiritual battle to be fought, but Jesus has “read the end of the book” for us, so we know we win in the end.

I was talking to someone on the way home earlier this week about being creative and how humans can never be truly original because we can only use the materials God has given us- we have never yet made anything from nothing. Likewise even in stories like CS Lewis Perelandra, authors can never describe anything without using terms we already understand like colours or references from what God has created e.g. “a strange new plant taller than a man but not as tall as a tree”

What's this got to do with Revelations? Well, I think part of why it is so incomprehensible is that the writer was trying to describe stuff that has never been seen on earth, so he ran out of words to describe it and we run out of references to understand it by.

Anyway, last night someone was talking to a visitor who had decided to get a taste of the Bible by reading the last and the first books, and were then quite confused by Revelations. The advise given was to read the gospels first and get to know Jesus then, “rather than worrying about what is going to happen, you will be ready when it does happen”. That's sound advice.

One day I will probably be ready to read Revelations (and understand it!) but for now I think I will concentrate on knowing Jesus better. After all John who wrote Revelations was not a theologian or an expert on religious imagery, he was the one who loved Jesus dearly and lay on His breast. Maybe the understanding of the mysteries comes from intimacy with Jesus and being truly in the presence of the Holy Spirit?

Aliens

Living on a different planet.

This though occurred to me in a staff meeting about how to manage stress:
We are spiritual people living in a natural world, so there is always going to be some stress/tension 'cos this is not our natural environment. It's a bit like when astronauts go to the moon- they have to take all sorts of precautions because the environment they encounter is alien, it is fighting against their bodies and would eventually destroy them if they were not protected against it.

Have I lost the plot here? I don't think so 'cos Peter compared us to aliens or exiles living on this earth.

Though alien makes us think of little green men with antennae and boggly eyes, this is the dictionary meaning
alien noun 1 a foreign-born resident of a country who has not adopted that country's nationality. 2 especially science fiction an inhabitant of another planet. 3 bot a plant introduced to an area by human agency rather than by nature. adj 1 foreign. 2 (usually alien to someone or something) not in keeping with them or it; unfamiliar.

So... the point I am making is, we are meant to be different, to feel a bit odd. We are spiritual people in a largely non-spiritual world. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven living here on earth. The world is full of natural people, but we have been born again supernaturally, they are part of the old creation, but we are new creations.

Jesus talked quite a bit about how different we are:
We are a city on a hill, a light in the darkness.
We are known as His and will be rejected as He was.

So, we are odd. A peculiar (or distinct) people!

Difficult Scriptures 3

The Sheep and the Goats
I have always found this parable really hard:

When I used to read it as Sunday School it was hard because in my middle class childhood I was really unlikely to come across anyone who needed food or clothes, or even anyone who needed visiting in prison.
Nowadays the dilema is that I do meet people in need, and I don't know what the balance is between loving people as Jesus would and plainly getting ripped off.
I know very well that someone with a drug habit will do anything to feed that habit.
I know that we can easily fill up our mealtimes with people who just want a free dinner, and our community houses with people who just need a bed, but I am sure we are not meant to be social services to people.

James said faith without works is dead, and quite rightly we cannot ignore our social responsibilities, but works without faith is maybe even more dead. I am sure Jesus does not want a pious or patronising “doing good” that does not actually care about people as people.
In the Jesus Centres we are able to help people in a way we cannot in our homes, and the vision is to make sure the whole thing is firmly based on Jesus. But I don't think it is good enough for me to say “I belong to a church that does these things” 'cos I don't do any shifts at the Jesus Centre anyway!

Going back to not being able to help everyone who comes to the door...There is this scripture I could quote to try to salve my conscience “pearls before swine”
BUT I don't find Jesus putting in a clause “only help those who deserve it” or “only give practical help to those who also want to enter the kingdom of God”

So..... where does my conscience settle on this one?

It is hard to apply “whatever you did to the least of these you did unto me” to someone who is behaving in a way that Jesus never would. I mean, however hungry or dirty he was, I am sure Jesus did not threaten to smash your windows in if you crossed his will or nick people's bags while they were eating.

Maybe some of the answer is seeing people as individuals and not as a collective group of “alkies” “junkies”, “needy people” or just “them” that we can't trust. Maybe I need to be ready to love the next person who comes along and not hold the sins of “the others” against them. To be “wise as serpents but innocent as doves”

In Acts Peter was struggling with the issue of what to do with Non-Jews who were finding faith in Jesus.
I think what he is saying here is that the gospel is available without limit to all who want it. So our love should be available without limit.
Whatever compassion we are able to show, it is the love of Jesus working through us. But if people reject Jesus in us, I suppose there is nothing more we can do.
The bottom line is that, although anyone is welcome, Jesus is really the only thing we have to offer.

But.... so long as my conscience is still struggling to find love for the person stood infront of me I am still scared of going to hell with the goats.