Saturday, 19 May 2007
Friday, 11 May 2007
You are my Son
Have you ever felt so low that you just called out to God? In recent days ministry has been very difficult in my congregation. I have long hoped that we would see people coming to Christ and that we would begin to make advances into the community. Not for a great revival in the traditional sense but just a trickle of people stepping from darkness to light. I long for Christians to become more mature in the faith and to be, personally, available to make those disciples or at least to help to build them. I did not come here in the belief that this was a declining, not to say dying, congregation. I do not believe, even yet, that God will take away the Lamp stand and yet we have seen a very real decline. Some have moved on, leaving city life for the country, others have felt it necessary to attend churches with a more modern and, apparently, vibrant praise and some have fallen foul of the excesses of life and sin. At the same time some of the older members have died and their place has not been taken by fresh blood. I "feel" the pain of a wounded pride. I feel sorrow that this is happening during my watch after another ministry of 26 years. I "feel" responsible. Yet I have other senses too-the sense that this is not all about me and my capabilities, a sense that there are people who have made or are in the process of making shipwreck of their faith and show no need to help themselves and have opted out. I feel a sense that God is doing His work but I do not "like "what he is doing. So, this morning, on my daily walk with the dogs I told the Lord how I felt and how I "needed" some re-assurance that He was still at work and still had a place for me and was not taking away the Lamp Stand. I know that I am called to walk by faith and not sight, I know that a mature believer does not put out fleeces but I did feel this need.
I do not need the sky to be ripped open, I do not request a dramatic event, although that would be good but I do need to "believe " that there really is hope. We do have a core of older people who pray and who feel the pain of what is happening and who appreciate some of the difficulties of the younger people. When I got home I opened my bible to read Ps 1 and 2 [we are starting to learn the Psalms in church each Sunday]. We are working through the Alpha course on Thursday nights and Nicky Gumble was talking about Bible Study yesterday and talked about asking God to speak to him about the destiny of his father who died in 1981-so I decided to do this- i have cried out to God before, telling him that I could not do this any more and that I needed the spirit to guide and empower me and even though I know all the theory it has remained just that. I felt better for unburdening myself but the problem did not go away. The verse that stood out to me and was later reinforced when preparing Mark 1 for Sunday was
" I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: he said to me, "Thou art my son, Today I have begotten thee. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance And the very ends of the earth is thy possession." [NAS]
I don't usually rad the NAS but it is very good for sermon preparation because it follows the Greek more closely but while I know that I a not the king I was installed here by the will of God through the presbytery of north Belfast.
Later in preparation for Sunday I was listening to Dick Lucas speak on the Baptism of Jesus and in particular Mark 1:11 where God says from heaven
Thou art my Son in Thee I am well pleased". He describes the rabbinic way of setting out proof texts by way of three texts: one from the Law, one from the writings and one from the prophets. The verses are Is 42:1; Psalm 1 and Genesis 22:2. The vision here is of something very different from that of the contemporary world view of success. here we have one who is both suffering servant and one who is messianic king at the same time. The Jews were not able to hold these to concepts together and there are some today who cannot either and sometimes I am one of them.
This congregation has know much pain over the years-bombed completely in 1942 by Hitler and it took ten years to gather together enough money to rebuild. Then in the early 1970s it suffered a car bomb blast which blew out the windows and there has been the long evacuation of people either because of government policy resulting in the shrinking of the community from 70,000 to 15,000 or because of the decision of some Christians to go to greener and safer pastures.
Maybe God wants to get us all to a position where we will just rely on him, where we will be so weak that discover the strength of God himself but I am thinking that this all means that God is still working and he still has a job for me to do. Lucas says that the reward promised to Abraham after he passed the test with Isaac is OTT and could only be fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus-I can well believe that I will not see the better days but I want to believe that there will be better days and that my preaching and teaching and my community involvement are not in vain.
I think I need to make this public because I did ask for the affirmation and so I want to affirm my faith in the living God.
I do not need the sky to be ripped open, I do not request a dramatic event, although that would be good but I do need to "believe " that there really is hope. We do have a core of older people who pray and who feel the pain of what is happening and who appreciate some of the difficulties of the younger people. When I got home I opened my bible to read Ps 1 and 2 [we are starting to learn the Psalms in church each Sunday]. We are working through the Alpha course on Thursday nights and Nicky Gumble was talking about Bible Study yesterday and talked about asking God to speak to him about the destiny of his father who died in 1981-so I decided to do this- i have cried out to God before, telling him that I could not do this any more and that I needed the spirit to guide and empower me and even though I know all the theory it has remained just that. I felt better for unburdening myself but the problem did not go away. The verse that stood out to me and was later reinforced when preparing Mark 1 for Sunday was
" I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: he said to me, "Thou art my son, Today I have begotten thee. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance And the very ends of the earth is thy possession." [NAS]
I don't usually rad the NAS but it is very good for sermon preparation because it follows the Greek more closely but while I know that I a not the king I was installed here by the will of God through the presbytery of north Belfast.
Later in preparation for Sunday I was listening to Dick Lucas speak on the Baptism of Jesus and in particular Mark 1:11 where God says from heaven
Thou art my Son in Thee I am well pleased". He describes the rabbinic way of setting out proof texts by way of three texts: one from the Law, one from the writings and one from the prophets. The verses are Is 42:1; Psalm 1 and Genesis 22:2. The vision here is of something very different from that of the contemporary world view of success. here we have one who is both suffering servant and one who is messianic king at the same time. The Jews were not able to hold these to concepts together and there are some today who cannot either and sometimes I am one of them.
This congregation has know much pain over the years-bombed completely in 1942 by Hitler and it took ten years to gather together enough money to rebuild. Then in the early 1970s it suffered a car bomb blast which blew out the windows and there has been the long evacuation of people either because of government policy resulting in the shrinking of the community from 70,000 to 15,000 or because of the decision of some Christians to go to greener and safer pastures.
Maybe God wants to get us all to a position where we will just rely on him, where we will be so weak that discover the strength of God himself but I am thinking that this all means that God is still working and he still has a job for me to do. Lucas says that the reward promised to Abraham after he passed the test with Isaac is OTT and could only be fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus-I can well believe that I will not see the better days but I want to believe that there will be better days and that my preaching and teaching and my community involvement are not in vain.
I think I need to make this public because I did ask for the affirmation and so I want to affirm my faith in the living God.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
A New Dawn
Today was the first full day of the new Northern Ireland Assembly. Yesterday was a day for the show when the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister took the oath of office. we are now enetering a day that many have hoped and prayed for but few actually believed would arrive. While the big man did his best not to shake the hand of Martin McGuinness, in the face of all the others hands he did shake and all the smiles and the jokes there lies a very big challenge but this was a day that the Rev Dr Ian Paisley has longed hoped for. I do not believe that any other person would have been able to deliver and yet it would not have happened , either, if David Trimble and many others had not had the courage to make the first moves- moves that proved suicidal for him!
What do Christians make of it all? If you had asked me thirty years ago I think I would have given a different answer. I am very aware that if this had happened thirty years ago, if the first power-sharing executitive had been allowed to work many , many lives would have been saved. Yes there are questions in mnay hearts and heads about what all this says about and to the many victims but we are all victims of our own responses- responses which failed to go beyond the re-action and the response. Today it seems all so obvious that we all have to share the space that is Northern Ireland. It seems all too obvious that "jaw, jaw is better than war, war". The Christian has to say "blessed are the peace makers" but down the road lies the challenge of working out our identity and our response to those who do do agree with our political aspirations. It is still unfair of those in mainland [what a terrible expression] Britain that we have to share power with the two extremes when the Liberal Democrats in Scotland will not go into governement with the Scottish Nationalists or Fianna Fail wil not share government with Sein Fein[ or so they say now!!]. It still seems wrong to give executitive positions to those who neither accept the state as it is nor have really and trully repented of past violence resulting in people being killed and injured, both civilian and military. Yet it is also wrong to hold on to power when 40-45% are in the other part of the community who have felt, not without cause, discriminated against for centuries. Northern Ireland has been the victim of pride and passion but we hope that is all going to change but not without more pain. As a Christian I have come to believe that the kingdom of god is much more important than any political philosophy be it gren or orange. I have also come to believe that being a presbyterian Christian is better than being a Christian Presbyterian. I am a Christian who happens to be a Presbyterian and I am an Irishman, perhaps actually an Ulsterman who hapens to be living in the United Kingdom but who has also lived in the irish Republic
What do Christians make of it all? If you had asked me thirty years ago I think I would have given a different answer. I am very aware that if this had happened thirty years ago, if the first power-sharing executitive had been allowed to work many , many lives would have been saved. Yes there are questions in mnay hearts and heads about what all this says about and to the many victims but we are all victims of our own responses- responses which failed to go beyond the re-action and the response. Today it seems all so obvious that we all have to share the space that is Northern Ireland. It seems all too obvious that "jaw, jaw is better than war, war". The Christian has to say "blessed are the peace makers" but down the road lies the challenge of working out our identity and our response to those who do do agree with our political aspirations. It is still unfair of those in mainland [what a terrible expression] Britain that we have to share power with the two extremes when the Liberal Democrats in Scotland will not go into governement with the Scottish Nationalists or Fianna Fail wil not share government with Sein Fein[ or so they say now!!]. It still seems wrong to give executitive positions to those who neither accept the state as it is nor have really and trully repented of past violence resulting in people being killed and injured, both civilian and military. Yet it is also wrong to hold on to power when 40-45% are in the other part of the community who have felt, not without cause, discriminated against for centuries. Northern Ireland has been the victim of pride and passion but we hope that is all going to change but not without more pain. As a Christian I have come to believe that the kingdom of god is much more important than any political philosophy be it gren or orange. I have also come to believe that being a presbyterian Christian is better than being a Christian Presbyterian. I am a Christian who happens to be a Presbyterian and I am an Irishman, perhaps actually an Ulsterman who hapens to be living in the United Kingdom but who has also lived in the irish Republic
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