Solid People

Two Paths of Life

2012-02-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

Pres. John F. Kennedy once said something to our country that was one of the best things any president ever said to our country. He is famous for these words and I'm sure you all have heard them before: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." In that one sentence, Pres. Kennedy hit upon a hugely important principle of how to live well in this world. There are two ways to live: one is the selfish way, in which we only regard our own wishes in life. We look to others to do for us what we want them to do, and if they don't do it, then we become bitter and resentful. We become unhappy and even angry. Borrowing from modern political lingo, we can call this the entitlement mentality. I remember riding on a bus one day in SC and a young man said, with resentment in his expression, "What has this country ever done for me!" Ha! That's the entitlement mentality in all its self-centered misery.

The other way to live is the way of love. If you love people, you aren't thinking about whether or not they are doing the things for you that you want them to do; you seek to give them room in your regard; you want to know what they want and need, and then, instead of being all miserable because people aren't doing what you want, you can experience the happiness of generosity, giving to them what they need or want, and their happiness becomes your happiness. It's a cycle of happiness that starts with love, a self-less love, a love that wants to give instead of get.

The reason that the way of love brings more happiness and health into our lives than the entitlement mentality is because that is the way the God of this universe has made us to work. We are created in his image and he is a God of love. God is not sitting in heaven, bitter because you are not doing for him what he wants you to do for him. He's not thinking that way at all. He's thinking about what He can do for you; He loves you. He is the God that, instead of resenting us and thinking, "Well, if they are going to act that way and not notice me and not appreciate me, and not please me, then I'm just not going to have anything to do with them," and go run to his room in heaven and slam his door at us. No! When we did not love Him, He loved us anyway, and He loved us so much that He gave His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross and rise from the dead that we might be rescued from the death of self-centeredness, of entitlement thinking, and have a new live of love and happiness with Him.

Do you see how important your thoughts about God are? If you don't think about God rightly, you cannot see life rightly. Sadly, we often think God is like us. He's just as disappointed in us as we are disappointed with everybody in our lives and he doesn't love us anymore than we love everybody else. It's no wonder we can be so miserable, if that's the kind of God we have.

(To be continued)

Sunrises and Sunsets

2012-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

Sunrises and sunsets are there for a reason. The reason is to be beautiful. Their beauty - for those who are able to receive it - touches our souls in a way that leads to awe. They are each different, crafted by the hand of the Creator. If we recognize the source of their beauty, and thank Him for it, then the sunrise or sunset has fufilled its purpose: to lead us to thankfulness. Yes, they actually teach us about God; they have a didactic purpose, as does all true beauty. But it seems from what St. Paul says in Romans 1, that God does not say to us in the sunset, "Are you getting the information correctly?" He is waiting for us to simply thank Him; He is waiting for the upraised smile of His child who simply acknowledges Him. "I know you are there, I know you did this, and I thank you for it, because it is so beautiful." The "random" shining of the suns rays through our earth's atmosphere becomes a sacrament, a moment of an exchange of love between members of a family. It is, to borrow from Lewis, a sketch of what lies ahead, for those who long for it.

Gnats and Sons of God

2012-01-27T03:06:00.000-08:00

In this time of political turmoil in our country, let us remember Lewis' words from the last paragraph of The Weight of Glory: "Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat." Let us get on with building the kingdom that will never be moved by doing simple, kind things to the immortal beings around us.

Follow up: Of course, it is possible for political involvement to be a means of loving one's neighbour; if you see an injustice and do nothing at all about it, that is not love. Yet such involvement is difficult for those walking the narrow way of grace and humility; for those who, like us, are to be "in the world but not of it." We should pray for all such who serve the Lord in this manner and we all should care as much for such things as far as our love will take us and our circumstances will allow.

Fixed times of prayer

2012-01-18T13:11:00.001-08:00

Some of us may be concerned about the idea of set times of prayer being a form of legalism. There is no command in Scripture regarding any particular set time of the day to pray; one does not necessarily sin if he fails to pray at a fixed time in a day. This is something we commit to do freely. However, all of us who habitually neglect prayer in our lives, be it private or corporate, do disobey our Lord's teaching regarding such things. Being the creatures that we are, we need some kind of structure to discipline ourselves, or to obey the Church, in the things our love for the Lord would lead us to do. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 6:6; Mark 14:38; I Cor. 9:27).

The Death of the Old Age - The Birth of the New: Chesterton

2012-01-11T13:34:00.000-08:00

They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body. There was once more a natural symbolism in these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture and guarded by the authority of the Caesars. For in that second cavern [the first being that of ancient man - see earlier in the book] the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human. The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phrase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead.

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of the new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.

G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Reasons Why it is Important that Christ is God

2012-01-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

I'm preaching on Mark 1 this Sunday, as we celebrate Epiphany, and I plan to help us to remember why we Anglicans are in the fix we are in these days. We decided to leave a branch of the Church that, among other things, no longer held to the deity of Christ. Actually, they left the Faith, and we have tried to remain true to it. I'll post more here in the next few days while I'm working on this, but it occurs to me that the path of faithfulness often leads to trial and trouble in this world. Some congregations have suffered and some continue to do so in various ways. The main thing is to not forget that the stand for faithfulness was worthwhile and we continue to have the same mission we have had since the day of the Ascension.

Follow up:

Well, the sermon turned out to be about how we are sent into the world as Christ was sent into the world, based on the Father's words to Christ at His baptism: "Thou art my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." God assured him of his identity (which was about to be tried in the temptation to follow), of his love, and of his approval of how he had so faithfully lived since his birth. I quoted this hymn at one point - it's so encouraging.

Through the love of God, our Savior,

all will be well;

free and changeless is his favor,

all will be well;

precious is the blood that healed us,

perfect is the grace that sealed us,

strong the hand stretched out to shield us,

all will be well.

Though we pass through tribulation,

all will be well;

ours is such a full salvation,

all will be well.

happy when in God confiding,

fruitful if in Christ abiding,

holy through the Spirit's guiding,

all will be well.

We expect a bright tomorrow;

all will be well;

faith can sing through days of sorrow,

all will be well;

on our Father's love relying,

Jesus every need supplying

in our living, in our dying,

all will be well.

Mary Peters

Christian Striving

2011-12-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts on the matter of the effort which the individual is to put forth in his walk with God and service for God. We believe in salvation - including sanctification - by grace. Yet what have we here?

1 Cor. 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
Phil. 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

From MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind:
"But I wasn't brave of myself," said Diamond.... "It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave. Wasn't it, North Wind?"
"Yes, I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it: therefore it was given you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?"
"Yes, I do. But trying is not much."
"Yes, it is - a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try."

Now, it is interesting to contemplate all these things together. We trust and obey to walk with God, but is there not an element of effort involved? And, would we not assume that the effort would only exist because there had previously been a work of grace in the heart. If we are His, we assume we have the grace, especially if we have asked. Our part then is to use it.

Addendum: 1 Corinthians 15:10 - But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Pastoral Prayer Today

2011-12-24T03:37:00.001-08:00

I have to pray a pastoral prayer after the singing of the Coventry Carol at this evening's service. This is my best effort thus far:

Almighty God, our merciful Heavenly Father, we are reminded in the singing of the Coventry Carol, that the birth of your Son was an act of war against the reign of the darkness of this world. Your ancient enemy, the devil, was threatened by the birth of Mary's son. And so he, who from the beginning has been a murderer, set out to slay the child Jesus by inspiring Herod to kill the children of Bethlehem. The contrast between the songs of the angels and the wails of the bereft mothers is most striking. We confess that we do not understand the mystery either of the incarnation of Your Son, nor of the presence of evil in this world. We do not understand why such terrible things as the slaughter of the innocent children should happen.

But we thank you for what we do know from this gift of your son to us. We know that you care about the evil of this world and that your Son has, ever since his birth, been on a mission to rid this world of all evil forever. We thank you that, because Jesus has come, there is coming a day when there will never again be any Herods, nor any murder, nor any tears, or loss, or sorrows of any kind. We thank you that the blessings that Jesus came to bring to this world will flow as far as the curse is found. Heavenly Father, this is a message of joy indeed and we thank you that you have revealed it to us and called us to join your Son's army to proclaim this joyous news to the whole world.

We therefore pray, our Lord, for faithfulness. Faithfulness in the various places where you have placed us. Faithfulness in our hearts; faithfulness to each other, faithfulness to you who have loved us more than we will ever know. We pray for faithfulness in our own personal war against the sin in our lives and our families. We pray for faithfulness in our war against the evil of this world as we seek to overcome it, not with a sword, but with deeds of kindness and love.

And we pray especially for our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ who, this night, are in want, need, sorrow, pain or any other evil because they are being persecuted for their faith in You. O Lord, you alone are the all together faithful one. Be faithful to them, stand beside them, as you stood beside your servant St. Paul, and deliver them from the mouth of the lion, while granting them strength to make known the good news of Jesus Christ to all those around them, that the enemies of your church may fall on their knees before you and your son, the King, Jesus, and join with us in the joyous hope of the new world to come. For this fellowship of faithfulness and love, we ask, in the name of your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and King, now and forever. Amen.

In the fight?

2011-12-21T08:41:00.001-08:00

"If you are not fighting where the fight is, you are not really in the war." Doug Wilson
True, but let us be careful how we apply the principle. The soldier is to obey his commander; first and foremost. If the commander says to "stay by the stuff," then you are doing your part for the war effort (I Samuel 30:23-25). The Church is responsible for evangelizing the world, but an individual believer may have more of a support role than a front-line role in that endeavour.
At the same time, we are all to be on the front line when it comes to the battle against our sins, in our selves and in our families. There should always be something we are, by faith, seeking to conquer and order for the Lord's glory in our lives.

Chesterton and Christmas Symbolism

2011-12-19T11:01:00.000-08:00

Chesterton, in that chapter of his Everlasting Man entitled "The God in the Cave," sees a "trinity of truths" expressed in the primary symbols of the Christmas story: the shepherds, the kings, and Herod.

The shepherds symbolize that element of the Christian faith which fulfills a "human instinct for a heaven that shall be as literal and almost as local as a home. It is the idea pursued by all poets and pagans making myths; that a particular place must be the shrine of the god or the abode of the blest; that fairyland is a land...."

The three kings symbolize the Christian faith as "a philosophy larger than other philosophies; larger than that of Lucretius and infinitely larger than that of Herbert Spencer. It looks at the world through a hundred windows where the ancient stoic or the modern agnostic only looks through one. ...In a word, there is more in it; it finds more in existence to think about; it gets more out of life."

And finally, Herod reminds us of the warlike element in the Christian faith. While the Faith is "local enough for poetry and larger than any other philosophy, it is also a challenge and a fight. ...It proclaims peace on earth and never forgets why there was war in heaven."

He proceeds to deny the claim that any other religion has any such universal aspects in its spirit. He then ends the chapter with another unique symbol of Christianity: Bethlehem. "...no other story, no pagan legend or philosophical anecdote or historic event, does in fact affect any of us with that peculiar and even poignant impression produced on us by the word Bethlehem. No other birth of a god or childhood of a sage seems to us to be Christmas or anything like Christmas."

Our carols make us long for Home, fill our hearts with joy, and proclaim our battle cry to the world: "Long live the true King!" And the whole world must admit, there's nothing like Christmas. And so says the Spirit of God.

Remember the Gospel

2011-12-13T08:19:00.001-08:00

We need to preach the gospel to ourselves everyday, as well as to anyone else. We cannot walk with God on the basis of any other narrative. Neither can we be comforted and healed - enabling us to comfort and heal - if we lose sight of Jesus and what He does for us.

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of all and in all.

Start each day, each hour, with the good news of Jesus.

Entertaining books for the young

2011-12-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

"I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal, when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards." Samuel Johnson

The Original Aragorn

2011-12-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

The Aragorn of the Jackson LOTR trilogy is a man who needs to come to terms with his destiny, accept it, and then seek it with determination. It's as if Jackson's script-writing friends felt like Aragorn needed to be a developing character to make the story more interesting; he needed to get in touch with his real self, like a good modern. One also cannot help but wonder what kind of "love" he has for Arwen, if he can't be man enough to earn the right to marry her. She has to exhort him to his duty to her.

In the books, Tolkien depicts a man who has long known what he is about and is always about the business of fulfilling his destiny. He sees the good that will come to Middle Earth with the fulfillment of his calling and he longs for it; he also loves his bride and is willing to undergo what ever he must to have her.

This contrast reminds me of the contrast between two views of Jesus. One is the self-discovering view. Jesus gradually faces who he is and what he has to do and, almost accidentally, winds up founding his new religion. The other view portrays a man who knew he was to be about his Father's business from the start. His life was one long pursuit to win his kingdom and his bride. He did not come into the world to sulk but to fight through to victory.

And he's still at it. The marriage is yet to come! The King has yet to return. Whatever we may be thinking about today, he's thinking about the victory and the love that he is determined to make his own at all costs. He calls us to the Kingdom. He call us to the wedding he longs for. Will we fight with him? Will we love him?

Business!

2011-12-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge....

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

The Root of the Human Soul

2011-12-03T03:31:00.000-08:00

As Lewis tries to help us understand over and over again, there is abiding theological truth in the pre-Copernican understanding of the universe. Among other aspects of that view, our sphere of life, here on Earth, was understood as the topmost twigs and branches of the Tree of Reality, which had its roots in the uppermost heaven, the dwelling of God Himself. So true! To use the image, God is indeed the root of all being, even its substance. Especially is he the Root of our souls, as they are made in His very image.
What, may we ask - if we want to extend the imagery here - is the nourishment, as it were, conveyed to us from God via our roots which are found in Him? St. Paul tells us: love.
Ephesians 3:14-19:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
The love of God is the root of the human soul. Whatever else we may think is important to improve our lives, or the lives of those we love, this is the first and primary element. Our souls need to drink from the life-giving sap of the love of God. Here is the balm for our hearts and the rock upon which to build our sanity and our relationships.
"Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

What Could Have Been - What Is and Can Be

2011-12-01T03:11:00.000-08:00

"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right - somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"
"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."
"Oh dear," said Lucy.
"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan.

(Prince Caspian)

We all have our what-could-have-happened stories. But we shall never know them, thankfully. What we do have, as believers, is Christ, and all things are in Him. Our times are still in His hands, and all His purposes for those who love Him are still ours. His mercies are new today! Who knows what wonderful "threads" of love and good may begin, even today, if we simply take up our daily cross, one more day, and trust Him and obey Him.
Come! Let us keep moving to glory! And let us keep praying for those who need the comfort that Christ has for His own.

Kern on the Importance of the Classical Languages

2011-11-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

Listen to a podcast by Andrew Kern, of the CIRCE Institute, on the importance of learning Latin and Greek. http://circeinstitute.com/2011/11/podcast-1122-ask-andrew/
That is, at least somebody needs to know them!

Inspired by ... Joab?

2011-11-26T03:59:00.000-08:00

I never did like Joab. Too self-seeking and violent; killed Abner and all of that. But the guy knew how to fight. Today I was surprised that I was inspired by some of his words, spoken in the heat of a battle:

Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the LORD do that which seemeth him good. II Samuel, 10:12.

That's the kind of spirit we need.

I suppose I also need to be sure that I am ready to hear God speak to me, even through people that I don't have that high of an opinion of. I can also be sure I am not just noting others' faults, but their graces as well.

Where Discussion Needs to Start

2011-11-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished listening to N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus. I like it. At the end, he talks about how we need to recognize that love is the primary mode of knowledge and that love for God is the greatest knowledge and all other discussion should work its way down from there. I've often thought that, in discussion with people over political issues - and what is not political in America today - the first matter to be settled is what the parties involved think about God. Does he exist, what kind of a God is he, and how are they relating to him. Everything else they believe will flow from that. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. To love God is to have begun to have the atmosphere of mind that is able to recognize what is real in the universe. It also fosters the quality of character necessary to face things in the universe that are hard to face; truth that may be uncomfortable. Love for God also provides the goal, the raison d'être for wanting to know anything in the first place, and that which is worth knowing. Love for God makes us truly human and puts us in a frame of attitude that opens up the door for conversation about what is true, because we recognize ourselves in the person we are talking to; a finite being, made for glory, basically ignorant and in need of learning a lot of stuff. It helps us to respect another person, though we may not respect their ideas. Again, as I've said elsewhere, love, to exist, must flow. If we love God, we will love our neighbour and listen to them and try to find common ground with them. We will seek to be mutual truth-seekers, instead of playing "gotcha."

Theological Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a confession that our God is the God of Creation and Providence. He is not the God of the deist. In thanksgiving, we acknowledge that God is actively guiding the circumstances of our lives.

We need to be thankful for His goodness when the bad comes too, because that goodness has not changed. There are seasons when it is especially important to remember that.

We are certainly thankful for the good He has given, but his gifts are nothing without Him.

MacDonald: Deadlock

2011-11-21T12:51:00.001-08:00

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

George MacDonald, An Anthology of 365 Readings, by C. S. Lewis

A sign of Christian maturity

2011-11-19T09:56:00.001-08:00

If human maturity is evidenced by delayed gratification, one sign of Christian maturity may be a readiness to hear the argument through to the end, not short-circuiting it in the interest of a quick-fix spirituality or missiology. Patience is as much a virtue in history and theology as it is anywhere else.

N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, end of chapter 1 (I'm listening to the thing)

Why are givers cheerful?

2011-11-19T02:54:00.000-08:00

II Corinthians 2:7: "God loves a cheerful giver." Generosity is fun, a cheerful thing. There is joy to be had in forgetting about yourself and being active in giving to others. It's a way to get into the flow of God's love.
God's love does not sit still. It's a torrent out of infinity. It is eternal giving. If we would have a sense of God's love, we are going to have to get busy giving, being generous with ourselves and our stuff. Then the love starts to flow through our hearts and we get to enjoy it. We get to jump into and playfully splash around in the raging river of God's love.
The joy of generosity is perhaps the glow of God's love as it gets moving through our hearts to others, because we have quit stopping it up with self-consideration.

Absolute Nothing

2011-11-18T03:19:00.001-08:00

When MacDonald describes the regenerating work that takes place in the soul of Lilith, at one point her conscious soul is exposed to the absolute emptiness of hell. She faces the total, absolute vacuum of the presence of God.

"Gradually my soul [Mr. Vane] grew aware of an invisible darkness, a something more terrible than aught that had yet made itself felt. A horrible Nothingness, a Negation positive infolded her; the border of its being that was yet no being, touched me, and for one ghastly instant I seemed alone with Death Absolute! It was not the absence of everything I felt, but the presence of Nothing. The princess dashed herself from the settle to the floor with an exceeding great and bitter cry. It was the recoil of Being from Annihilation."

Every time I sin, I'm acting like I'm willing for God to send me to the place of Nothing. If we continue in sin, He may give us our wish.

God have mercy.

The True Human

2011-11-17T14:47:00.000-08:00

As we soon enter Advent, the awe-inspiring fact of the Incarnation will be much on our minds. Jesus said, "If you see me, you have seen the Father." But He was not mere Spirit, so that cannot mean that the Father looked like Jesus of Nazareth, beard and all.
When people looked at Jesus, they saw a man. Indeed, they saw a carpenter turned itinerant preacher. And when they looked at him, they saw a man who lived in the light; he never sinned, like everyone else around him. In fact, it was like having Adam around before he fell. Here was a perfectly righteous man, even innocent, who was incredibly in touch with God, compared to our experience. If you think about it, he was like what God had intended every man to be; a man in whom the image of God - His Father - was plain, original.
We confess that, when people looked at Jesus - well, of course, we don't just mean they looked; they talked to him, ate with him, washed his feet and all that - but when they were with him, they saw the Father - He was very God - and they saw a Man - He was truly man. In fact, he was more truly what God thinks a human being is than they were.
So why do we think that Christian sanctification - becoming like Jesus - is simply a moral thing, or - sadly - a legal thing: we now keep God's commandments? To become like Jesus is to improve morally and to keep God's commands out of our love for Him, but surely it is more. It is to become truly human, as God intended. If so, we must ask ourselves what that means, because that is a whole lot more than just the stuff that evangelicals have written about in devotional literature. God wants everything about us restored, ordered, and glorified. He is even going to do this with our bodies; how much more our minds, emotions, talents, etc.
Just think about it. I am trying to.

We are sheep

2011-11-16T02:03:00.001-08:00

Do the obvious thing. Do the next thing. We are sheep. God does not complicate our way before us. Life itself may be complicated, but He makes a plain path and leads us home.

The Day of the Lord; I Thess 5:1-11

2011-11-14T13:44:00.001-08:00

I had to re-record this sermon, preached this past Sunday, so the sound is a little strange. The sermon lasts just over 19 minutes.

The Patience of the Saints

2011-11-12T10:44:00.001-08:00

Part of the "patience of the saints" is the ability to plod. Sometimes, you have to take a deep breath, calm down, and remember that we live one day at a time, the whole kingdom thing is huge and a lot is going on that we don't know about. We need only do the little things today, or endure the current big thing one more day, forgetting about self and thinking more about others. The reward is to the faithful; "faithful in little things." "By your patience possess your souls; not a hair of your head will be lost" (Luke 21).

I Thess. 5, Why we are to be saved

2011-11-11T02:40:00.000-08:00

Verse 9; there is yet a salvation for us to obtain. It will come to us on the Day of salvation. Whatever we are to be saved from, why are we to be so saved? That we may live together with our God. Hm. Sounds like the best is yet to come!

McCracken - In Feast or Fallow

2011-11-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

A follow up to my last post:

http://www.newoldhymns.com/

Working on a sermon on I Thess. 5 and the Day of the LORD

2011-11-10T02:55:00.001-08:00

Christ comes to judge Jer. as a thief; Matt. 24
Christ comes to judge a church as a thief; Rev. 3
Chirst comes to judge Rome as a thief; Rev. 16
Christ comes to us individually, and perhaps as a thief, for we are surprised by His love. - but, no, that imagery is for those who are being judged, having been found wanting and refusing His warnings. He comes for our salvation, to begin it, and to prepare us for its consummation.

Christ’s comings for judgment are typical of the main judgment to come; foretastes, as it were. They are also indicative of the fact that He does judge the nations and he does so in history, not just on the last day. We should face our own here in the U.S., we already do - a judgment of darkness, foolishness, ignorance, debauchery, the fruit of our heresy and rebellion. Christ’s breastplate and helmet will be our sufficiency; he is always all we need. And we shall have a task to do, whatever may be before us. Our hope is not the restoration of the prosperity and happiness of what America has had in the past. It is the salvation to be revealed when we are with Jesus. This world is passing away, including our own nation. But those who do the will of the Lord abide with him forever. Let us not sleep, drunken with the various indulgences of our fellow Americans; let us live as subjects of the great King and long for his return, proclaiming that return and the warning of it to all that we can.

Lilith

2011-11-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

I have just read George MacDonald's Lilith. MacDonald's books are perilous. If you read one, and you allow the story to take hold, you invariably end up with a thorough world-view washing that reaches the very depths of your heart. Life can never be the same, unless you allow yourself to forget. Lilith has left me where I have a new experience with nature. I finished the book just wanting to be out in the damp, windy, wild autumn. Of course, the theme of good death is in the book, perhaps more pointedly than the others I've read. But the divine presence in nature -as it appears to us; not as it is analyzed- is haunting me. I love it. But i can't read another MacDonald right away. It would be spiritual and emotional overload.

Wed. update:
Another major theme of Lilith, that strikes the reader immediately and then very strongly at the end, is the theme of the allusion of certainty regarding who we are and what life is like. MacDonald uses two devices to cast this spell upon us: the idea of different dimensions and the real life quality of dreams, as they are dreamed. Are we sure there is not more to where we are living and what we are doing and who we are than what our five senses tell us? We can, of course, affirm that this is so. The freaky one is: are we sure that we are not living dreams within dreams? Hm. I do not believe that is the case. But things really, really get interesting when we consider that he brings up this latter question of the reality of our existence in the part of the story where the main character has finally, thankfully, died. As I was reading the story, I was thinking, "What is MacDonald going to do with all these pages that are going to be left over after Mr. Vane dies?" Ah! But MacDonald is a master of creative speculation of the experience of life after physical death. What he does is brilliant and I cannot help but reflect on how C. S. Lewis' own imagination was fired by MacDonald's ability to imagine life-after-death, and how that flame lead Lewis to his own wonderful thoughts and speculations, which birthed such wonderful words as we find in "The Weight of Glory."

I also think Lilith and Phantastes are especially for guys. There are aspects of the experience of the main character that have to do with a man's reaction to the feminine, which are profoundly moving, and I can hardly see how a woman reading the stories can have this same imaginative experience, which is a significant part of the influence the story can have on a person. Something to think about.

The Princess and Curdie stories are wonderful and beneficial to spirit and imagination. Lilith and such are a different calibre; quite serious. You've been warned ... and invited.

Dr. Johnson on the life of a clergyman

2011-08-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

In answer to a man who wished that he had been a clergyman instead of a lawyer, so that his life would have been easier:

"Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life."

(Life, Doubleday & Co., 1946, p. 462).

Young men need male clergy

2011-07-19T10:33:00.001-07:00

Dennis Praeger on Hugh Hewitt's "Ask a Jew" video:

"When men don't have a specific role they opt out.... Men have simply opted out. I believe that boys more need a male clerical model than girls need a female clerical model to keep them religious."

So true. It is better to rely on wisdom and recognize the nature of the sexes as God has created them than to give way to what are essentially political and worldly pressures in what we do in the Church, that is, if we cannot agree on what the Scripture says, which would be a whole lot easier. At least this way we recognize the Biblical doctrine of creation.

Romans 7 - Wright's Interpretation and the Christian Life

2011-07-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

While preparing a sermon on Romans 7 recently, I considered how N.T. Wright's understanding of the chapter may not, after all, cancel out the interpretation that Paul's words do have direct application to the Christian life. Here's what I've thrown together.

...the fact of the matter is that there's a lot of debate over who Paul is talking about in chapter 7 and there are a lot of people who think that Paul is not talking about the experience of the Christian at all! People wonder: Is Paul really talking about himself when he uses the word "I" all over the place, or is he speaking figuratively about someone else? If he is talking about himself, is he talking about his life before he came to faith in Christ, and not afterwards? Or does he start out pre-Christian and move into the Christian life?

The reason people wonder about this is that Paul says things in the chapter that don't sound like something a Christian could say. He says in verse 14: "I am carnal, sold under sin". That doesn't sound like a Christian. Then, in v. 23, he says he is in captivity to the law of sin in his members, but in chapter 6 he had said the Christian is free from sin. So, some folks think that he is talking about the relationship of a non-Christian with God's law and with his sinful flesh; not a Christian's relationship to those things.

But then, there are things Paul says which only a Christian could say! He talks about how he is frustrated, because he wants to do what is right. That sounds like a Christian. He says that he delights in the law of God according to the inward man. Well, that's true of a Christian. He also divides himself up between that part of him that wants to do good and keep God's law and the part that doesn't. That reminds us of the conflict with sin that is so common to Christian experience. So, he must be talking about the Christian life.

But guess what! Bishop Wright says that ch. 7 isn't about either one of those things! He says Paul isn't talking about the Christian life at all, but about Israel's historic experience with the Law of God given to them by Moses, and how, since they were descendants from Adam, their sinful nature lead them to rebel against that law. So that when Paul talks about himself, he isn't talking about himself alone. He is speaking of himself as a representative of his people, Israel!

So where does that leave us? Thoroughly confused? I think not. Firstly, my reading of Romans 7 cancels out the idea that it is about Paul's pre-Christian experience. There's just too much in there weighing against that interpretation. As for N.T. Wright, there is much good in what he has to say, and even if we accept his basic position, that does not cancel out the traditional understanding that has lead people to see Paul talking about some of the frustration that can meet Christians as they seek to keep the good law of God. Here's why I say that.

One of Paul's main points in his epistle is that we are all guilty before God; we are all, Jews and Gentiles, fallen sinners and have come short of God's glory. We thus are in solidarity with the historic nation of Israel when it comes to sin and the Law of God. Just as we who are believers in Christ are the children of Abraham, in saving covenant with God, so we are also the descendants of Adam, as were the Jews, and thus we can have the same kind of sin problems that the Jews had in the Old Testament.

Paul is very plain about this in First Corinthians, chapter 10. Notice first how he, speaking to Christians, establishes our solidarity with the Old Testament Church:

1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.

Paul sees us in solidarity with Israel as God's covenant people, sharing in God's sacraments; we, like them, are God's people in this age. For crying out loud, he even calls the fathers of Israel our fathers, for they were God's Church at that time But then, Paul talks about how Israel sinned against God and that we should learn lessons from them:

5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, 9 nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now all[b] these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

You see that? Because they were human, just like us, we can fail just like they did. We not only have a covenantal solidarity with Israel, but we have a solidarity with them in their sin, for we too are fallen in Adam. That's why they can be examples for us. But then Paul concludes:

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

So we see how Paul relates the history of Israel's struggle with the law of God with our own struggles to walk with the Lord. This is why I say that we can accept Wright's idea about chapter 7, that it is about historic Israel, and still think that it can apply to the Christian life, because everybody, Israelites of old and Christians in the new, face the same "common" temptations.

Surviving Hell Week

2011-05-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

From the recent Wall Street Journal article on the training of the U. S. Seals:

Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more than the "fist" of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose.

Ring a bell?

The full article.

Doubting Thomas - St. John 20

2011-05-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

My sermon from this past Sunday at Redeemer Anglican. It's on "Doubting" Thomas. The sermon lasts about 15 minutes and - sorry - the recording volume was up too high, so it's a bit distorted. Watch out! The last note of the organ will hit you pretty hard if you don't turn your sound down first! :-)

Solitude

2011-03-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Just had someone ask me these questions and here's what I answered off the cuff. What do you think?

Do you think isolating oneself (for one's whole life or even just for short periods) from wordly society and demands can result in spiritual growth? Why?
It would not automatically result in spiritual growth. If the person used the means of grace and stayed focused it could be an occasion of spiritual growth. Simply removing one's self from society can easily result in an indulgence of self-pity or some other self-preoccupation.
We have testimonies of saints, but it is safer to refer to experiences in Scripture. We know the Lord took Saul of Tarsus aside for a while to develop him. Jesus would take his disciples apart occasionally to help them to focus. Daniel purposefully takes time to pray apart from his busy schedule every day. Can't think of any more right now, but they are there.
I don't think there's any question that, we being put together like we are and living in this sinful flesh and this barbaric world, we need regular time alone - in the closet, as Jesus put it - to focus our hearts and to obtain the grace we and others need.

Do you think such sojourns are necessary for spiritual growth?
I cannot say they are necessary. They can certainly be helpful, if God is leading you into it.
If you are Jesus, and you are in your public ministry, you only have the couple of hours you can pick up here and there, if you are willing to lose some sleep. If you are a Christian in an internment camp, you only have what you can snatch here and there. If you are a mother of a new-born, same thing. There are situations in which the saints find themselves, because of their calling, which do not allow the privilege of extensive solitude. Yet one may grow very much in grace in such times.
But then you can have times when someone is bed-ridden and hardly sees anybody. It's a matter of God's call and providence as to what you need and when you need it.

Do you think it could be at all detrimental to spiritual growth?
Certainly. The second command is to love our neighbour. How can we grow in that necessary grace if we are not in contact with our neighbours? To isolate one's self from society can be outright disobedience. We are to go into the world to build the kingdom, not isolate ourselves from it.
Now, there can be a limited isolation such as in a monastery. In this case, certain worldly affairs are avoided, which one could consider as distracting from devotion. At the same time - assuming it's not an ascetic monastery - there is plenty of opportunity for people to put up with you and for you to put up with them. Some society is necessary for a well-rounded spirituality because Christian morality is a social thing: love. And as St. John emphasizes, we cannot say we have love for God unless we are also engaged in love for the brethren.
Christian holiness is found more in personal interaction than in states of the soul or mind when one is alone. What we need is God, not solitude. He reveals himself to us in different ways: in a time alone in worship, yes, but also in a time with the saints in worship or at the Lord's Table (which is something you cannot do in solitude), or in a time of service and witness when we are so busy we are not even aware of whether we are serving or witnessing with all the right thoughts and feelings and motives and whatever - we just know this is what God has given us to do and we do it. And every once in a while, if we need it for encouragement, it's like we get some kind of little glimpse of God being right there with us, right in the middle of our activity. A light shines on our path that can be just as refreshing as a light shining on our quiet time - it's the light, not how it comes that matters.
BTW, an aid to this is to memorize Scripture. We are to lay up the Word in our hearts, and meditate upon it day and night, not just in some place of solitude, but whereever we are, and God uses it to nourish our souls, to guide us, to give us ammunition, if you please.

As to just how much we are really being helped by this devotional activity or that, only God knows. I Cor. 4:4,5. It is ours to simply obey. Pray always, and in your closet as often as you can. Draw nigh to God, seeking him in prayer and at church and, at the same time, get involved with people's lives. Use the means of grace as much as you are able, with faith and obedience. Simply keep looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Sacred Space

2011-01-31T17:09:00.000-08:00

There is a sense in which the space where we worship does not matter (St. John 4:21-24). This truth has been of great encouragement for those Episcopalians who have recently had to leave familiar places of worship in order to worship God in spirit and in truth. But we should not say that the space where we worship matters not at all.

We have a mission to proclaim the Gospel to the world and the place of our worship and its appearance – if we are free to be creative with it – will have a certain form to it that represents the truth we proclaim, either well or ill. The form of our space for worship will also affect our worship and our thoughts about it. Form embodies truth. Architecture, interior planning, decoration, they all say something abut what we think Christian worship is about and they encourage others to think the same kinds of things.

At our Anglican church, the area beyond the communion rail, the “sanctuary”, is supposed to be space reserved for the celebration of our liturgy by the clergy and those who assist. Other activities during a service should be held elsewhere, but since we do not have much room up front, sometimes this is not rigidly observed. While the whole of the church building is for the worship of God, the sanctuary is considered especially sacred, as the interior of the Temple was more sacred than the courts where the worshippers gathered in times of old.

Why do Anglicans do this? There are several things at play here. First of all, the sanctuary is the space set apart for the Lord’s Table. We consider this a holy place, for here we consecrate the elements and recognize the Lord’s special, spiritual presence with us on that occasion. And, of course, if Anglican worship is anything, it is reverent. We want the form of our worship to communicate the truth of the holiness and transcendence of our God and the honour that is His due. While we know our God is omnipresent, that His Son is in heaven, and that the Spirit is in our hearts, we nevertheless, for the sake of enacting in our liturgy our belief, have a place that we hold sacred because of the bread and wine there and our desire to revere the One represented in those elements.

But we should also consider the idea of sacred space per se. While the whole building speaks to us of how God is to be worshipped on earth and that His people are to gather for His worship, the setting apart of space as especially sacred in our place of worship reminds us that, indeed, our gathering is for worship, and not just fellowship and preaching. We expect to meet God there. We ourselves occupy a space with our bodies as we gather before Him. If He is going to meet us where we are, then it is fitting to set apart a space for Him.

Consider Moses before the burning bush. God was in the bush, sanctifying the space in the vicinity of the bush. God was in a particular place on Sinai to meet with Moses. Think also of the presence of God with Israel in the tabernacle or in the Temple.

Consider the vision of St. John in Revelation 4 and 5 and the worship of Jesus in heaven. The man, Jesus of Nazareth, is a finite being like us, and he is somewhere in the unseen part of our universe. He occupies space there. He appears on a throne and the multitudes of the other finite beings currently dwelling with Him focus on Him there and worship Him. When we set aside a space for the Table and our other symbols of Christ’s presence – the crosses and the candles, e.g. – we mirror the heavenly worship. When we bow before the Table or the cross, at the rail or in our pews, we are expressing on earth what is true in heaven. As we enact our liturgy, we join with all that happy host in the worship of the Lamb of God. And it even looks like that is what we are doing, because of how we are handling the space where we gather to meet with our God.

Our Lives are in His Hands

2011-01-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south. And why? God is the Judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
Psalm 75:7-8

How important are the decisions we make every day? Oh, they are important morally and are "works" for which we will give an account. They are important as acts of love toward God and neighbour. But when it comes to how our circumstances work out, that's another thing. There are so many variables in our lives, all the way from microbes to international relations; our decisions are not the only thing that matters when it comes to our future.

It is probably the case that our more important decisions are made when we do not realize how important they are, for we do not foresee the results and we may never see them. And things we think are so very important are not, because we are not the masters of our fate. God has something in mind we have not. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

Perhaps it is right to say our prayers matter more than our daily decisions. Our daily decisions are our own stumbling along in life. Our prayers bring the infinite wisdom and power of God into our circumstances. Tennyson gave Arthur true words when he penned: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. (Tennyson's Idylls) That being the case, if we combine prayer with our decisions - how much more would they be the working out of God's will on earth rather than just our stumbling along?

One thing is for sure. When we pray, "Thy will be done," we can certainly trust in God's providence when we take steps and everything falls apart. We can also certainly humble ourselves before him when everything comes together. We will always be his creatures; He will always be Himself!

Prayer and Our Idea of God

2011-01-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

From my sermon this morning on St. John 2:

Friends, when we pray like Mary prayed, we find that we can rest in our Lord’s care and faithfulness and we find that the answers to our prayers are better things than we would have ever imagined. As the apostle Paul says, “God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” When we pray, recognizing our helplessness and remembering His goodness, our prayers, instead of being occasions of frustration and worry, will be like springs of peace and rest for our souls.

But the bedrock of it all is the character of God Himself. It’s all in the answer to the question, “What is God like?” What is your answer? I’m always touched by the story of C. S. Lewis as a 9 year old boy, praying for his mother’s recovery from cancer. But she died. And as the years went by, the boy quit praying, quit believing in God all together, because he had come to the conclusion that, if God did exist, he was a cruel tyrant, and he wanted nothing to do with a god like that. Lewis quit praying because, when he asked himself, “What is God like?” he had the wrong answer.

What is your God like? Is he like the Jesus here at this wedding in Cana? Jesus didn’t come and die and rise from the dead to make us the sons of God so that he could have someone to ignore. He came so that He might bring us into the very throne room of his father, that he might be our father too, and that we might be able to pray to him the way he prayed. He came loving and caring for his mother and his family and everybody around him. And He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Jesus that Mary talked to on that day is the Jesus we talk to, and he knows, he cares, and he has an hour in which to take care of everything that concerns us. What a wonderful Saviour! Let us pray.

Liturgy FAQ's - The Procession

2010-12-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Why do we have a procession at the beginning of our services?

This question needs to be answered on several levels:
1) What does it represent?
The people in the procession are representatives of the congregation approaching God in worship. Indeed, they represent not only the congregation present, but the whole Church, on earth and in heaven, coming before the throne of God, where sits the Lamb of God. We are therefore all in the procession, singing with all the saints and the angels the praises of God, bringing our souls and bodies before Him to give Him the worship which is due Him. It is especially symbolic for us gentile Christians, for we are the nations streaming to Zion to worship the LORD in fulfillment of the words of the prophets.
2) Why does the procession move from the back to the front of the congregation?
It is at the front of the church where we have consecrated a particular space we call “the sanctuary.” It is the place which represents the presence of God in our midst, mirroring the picture of heaven we find in the Bible: God’s people gather around God’s throne to worship Him. In the procession, we imitate the ceremony, the dramatic movement, of formal entrance into the presence of God, such as we find in the Psalms.
3) Where did the custom come from?
The custom of religious processions is very ancient. We find it, not only in the worship of the temple in the Bible, but it also appears in the worship of other religions, such as in the Greek religious festivals. It is a custom, common to human cultures, which provides a symbolic enactment of approach to the deity which assumes that formal ceremony is only proper, considering the greatness of the Person before whom we gather.
4) Is it a Biblical practice for New Testament believers?
There is no specific instruction for having a procession in the New Testament. However, we Anglicans believe that God gives us freedom, in light of what the Bible teaches us about creation and the Incarnation, to include creative ceremony in our worship of Him. Moreover, we are enacting what is Biblically true about Christian worship. Christians throughout the world have always used processions in formal, public worship.
5) Should we have a procession if we are not instructed in the Prayer Book to have one?
It is understood that the service proper does not begin until we start to follow the order of the Prayer Book. The procession is thus one of the preliminaries to the service traditionally used by Anglicans which prepares us to worship after the order of the Prayer Book.

Next time: Sacred space: the Bible, and imagination.

Img source: http://www.allsaintshanworth.com/AllSaintsJulbileearchive.htm

Christianity gives purpose because it is not Rationalism

2010-12-16T09:57:00.001-08:00

Christianity is not Rationalism. It is not the belief that something true can be known, either in metaphysics or ethics or even science, solely by the use of our reasoning powers applied to the data received by our five senses. Rather, it is the belief that some things and a Someone exist which transcend the material world in which we live. Christianity believes that God has revealed to man knowledge about the mystery of the fact of nature, which is more than information simply on how it works. It is because there really exists something outside our 5 senses which gives shape to this world and its events (Christianity is also not Nominalism) that man may have a purpose for his being.

The people in our pews are soaked in Rationalism and its fruits. As Richard Weaver explains, modern man is alienated from all fixed truth in that "abomination of desolation" which is the modern mind; the modern feeling. It is for this reason that they need an experience of the real existence of God. They have to have contact with something undeniable yet outside of physical sense.

Our church services should be so conducted that the Lord may have the raw material to lead people into this experience. There is no sense telling people God has a purpose for their life if God is still just an optional belief among all those other beliefs with no real connect with everyday living. They need a Mt. Carmel experience: "The LORD, he is God! The LORD, he is God!" God have mercy on us, our pulpits, our services, our relationships, ourselves.

Cowan: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

2010-12-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

An article by Dr. Louise Cowan that is definitely worth reading - from the latest issue of The Classical Teacher by Memoria Press: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" You will need to scroll down to page 34.

You are invited!

2010-12-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

Come celebrate Christmas with us and watch the hour-long documentary The Narnia Code at the next meeting of the C. S. Lewis Society of Chattanooga. Go here for info.

On Psalm 8

2010-12-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

The LORD ordains the display of His strength through the weakest of us. Why? Because of His enemies. His enemies are the proud; those who indulge in the sin of the devil. When the building of His new creation goes forward, unremittingly, through the humble, the weak, He demonstrates His strength because the proud believe that nothing of lasting significance is done unless they are doing it, using their own resources. They think too much of themselves, and as a result they have not the wisdom to recognize that earthly accomplishments are not necessarily eternal accomplishments. In fact, they often are not. The labour of the proud is vanity. The trusting child may accomplish more in this world for the kingdom of Christ than the most powerful man.
Let's remember this at the next vestry or church board meeting. Let us also remember it when we feel the most helpless; when we are weak, He is strong.

P.S.: Yes, my arm is getting better!

Some other blogging stuff

2010-11-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

I'm administrating the new blog for the Episcopal Missionary Church, which will link back to the EMC homepage soon. It's called EMC Musings. It's totally new - practically nothing on it - but you may want to keep an eye out on it as EMC folks start posting to it.

Out of my cast

2010-11-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

But still having to peck, due to tendon damage.
Listening to a pod cast, I was reminded of how college education used to be rare. At the rate tuition costs are going, it may be rare again, unless some creative people can deal with the situation. The quality of the education in a typical college is such today that decreased enrollment at them may not be such a bad thing.

The Blessing

2010-10-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

"I am thy Shield and exceeding great Reward," God said to Abram. God Himself is our blessedness. He desires to give us Himself; the greatest of all blessings. Any other things we may consider "blessing", He wishes that we come to Himself and receive it as from His own hand. No blessing should be considered in isolation from our fellowship with Him, from His own personal kind generosity towards us. Any "blessing" withheld is nothing next to owning and being owned by The Blessing, by Him Who is the Fount of all blessedness - our very life.

Onehandedness

2010-10-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

A broken arm, which reduces one to typing with only one hand, can also slow down one's blogging.

Lord, deliver us and strengthen us in both body and soul for Your service. Amen.

Mere Christianity, Chapters 2 & 3

2010-10-02T17:45:00.001-07:00

Notes for my Sunday School class tomorrow:

Chapter 2 of Mere Christianity (MC) is an attempt to answer objections to chapter 1, which avered that mankind recognizes the existence of a moral law and yet does not keep it. The objections of chapter 2 have to do with Lewis’ claim of the existence of the moral law. The objections are mainly two: 1) it is only an evidence of natural instinct, and 2) we have the idea simply because we have been taught to believe such things. In response to the first, Lewis says our sense of the moral law cannot be mere instinct because we use it to judge between instincts. Since it judges instincts, it cannot itself be an instinct. He answers the second my reminding us that it is possible to teach something that is not a human convention, such as mathematics. He then proves that the moral law is transcendant, like mathematics, because a) it is so common in the various human cultures, and b) we use it to judge between those cultures. He rams this home by challenging his British hearers in 1941 to consider whether the Nazis were worse than themselves or not.

Chapter 3 of MC answers objections to Lewis’ idea that it is odd than men do not keep this moral law, of which they approve. The first objection is that Lewis is merely observing human behavior, as we might observe the behavior of any other species, and that man is just being his imperfect self. This “moral law” is the same kind of thing as that which we call “natural law” in any other species.

Lewis answers first by explaining that other creatures do not obey some kind of real law that exists somewhere, but that our term “natural law” is simply a description of what we observe in nature; how things behave. Should any other creature grow or behave in some way that we might think inconvenient – such as a shade tree being crooked instead of straight – we would not attribute anything immoral to the creature. There is no actual Law somewhere in the universe that it is breaking. It is still simply being itself; it is genetically possible for a tree to be either crooked or straight. However, when a man does something inconvenient for us, such as sitting in a seat we hoped to use, if it was just an accident, we think it unfortunate. But if he purposefully took our seat, we say it is unfair. Now, if the man is just acting according to his genetic propensity, why blame him? He’s just being a man and men do that kind of thing. No, we cannot accept that. Thus, when it comes to people, something inconvenient may have a moral aspect to it. Why? Is this not odd, compared with the rest of Nature?

At the same time, men may at times think that something inconvenient is good and the convenient alternative bad. For example, it may be more convenient to cheat on a test, but the inconvenient path of not cheating is morally preferred. Thus we are making moral judgments between convenient and inconvenient behaviours, which is something we would never do with any other creature. We are therefore “odd.”

The second objection to the idea that our not following our moral instincts is odd, is to move the conversation away from the behavior of individuals and to look at human society as a whole. Mankind has decided that it is better for society to act in a moral or decent fashion. It is because of this corporate consensus that we as individuals have this sense of right and wrong.

Lewis’ response is that 1) this argument is based on circular reasoning and 2) it misses the point of what he is trying to say. It is circular in reasoning, because ultimately it is only saying “it is decent to be decent,” which says nothing. It misses the point, because there is still something above the whole consideration that is judging what is decent and what is not. Why is it any better to have a civilized society than a barbaric society? Why is one better than another? Is it because one is more pragmatically successful? Well, then what measure do we use to determine what is successful? Do we not eventually come back to making moral judgements, and if so, why are we doing that? Do any other creatures do that about their flocks or herds? No. We are still “odd.”

Once we understand these two objections and how Lewis answers them, we should be able to read the last paragraph of the chapter with ease of understanding. A reading of the first paragraph of the next chapter also helps, for it is a summary of what he has tried to do in chapter 3.

Lewis’ argument and the argument of G. K. Chesterton in his The Everlasting Man (TEM).

Lewis’ argument in ch. 3 is very similar to Chesterton’s in TEM. Chesterton, in the first part of his book, tries to show how Man is distinct from all other creatures, contrary to the idea of Man found in the theory of progressive evolution. Chesterton observes that, wherever we find remains of early man, we find the very same kinds of things we find in modern man. We find such things as art and writing. This makes Man very odd in the universe for no other creature demonstrates such capacities. It’s as if Man had stepped onto this planet from another world.

Tallis - Spem in Alium

2010-10-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

This past week, the Composer of the Week programme has been about Thomas Tallis. A very interesting blog entry by Fenwick deals with the back ground of Tallis' famous Spem in Alium. He adds a video of Byrd's eulogy to Tallis, which I love because Byrd used classical references; the Muses, for example. It is so fascinating how imaginary, classical references add depth to the imaginative reflection upon the gifts of God to man.

Blog Gaps

2010-10-02T07:24:00.001-07:00

Being sick for 3 weeks will "do a number" on your blogging.

Lewis & Sehnsucht

2010-09-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

Just posted some details from the last C. S. Lewis Society meeting, along with a couple of minutes of audio on my closing remarks.

Ministering the Word with Experience

2010-09-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Home from work today with a bug.

I started teaching a Sunday School class in the local ACNA church on Mere Christianity. In the "Preface" - a very important part of the book, btw - Lewis explains why he has passed over certain moral issues in the Book III. He writes: "Ever since I served as an infantryman in the First World War I have had a great dislike of people who, in themselves in ease and safety, issue exhortations to men in the front line. As a result I have a reluctance to say much about temptations to which I myself am not exposed." At the end of the paragraph, he says, "I did not think it my place to take a firm line about pains, dangers and expenses from which I am protected; having no pastoral office which obliged me to do so."

Now then, pastors are indeed obligated to proclaim the "whole counsel" of the Word of God (not just what's annually in the Propers, btw!). They must therefore occasionally preach on subjects with which they may have little experience. It would certainly be fitting, in such cases, to watch over one's presentation, that it not come across as unsympathetic to those who struggle in that area. For problems which the pastor himself does struggle, the sympathy should be sort of automatic.

At the same time, we know that a message is always more powerful from a person who has "been there." That is why the Lord takes pastors through stuff like he does. They need a broader Christian experience in order to be more useful to a broader group of people. That is not to say the Word of God is not sufficient in itself, but the Lord's messenger can be a critical part of the Lord's message. As Paul says in 2 Cor. 1, "God puts us through stuff and then comforts us so that we will know how to comfort folks who go through that same sort of thing" (verses 3-6).

Bottom line? Wow!
Pray for your pastor.
Lay hands suddenly on no one.
Enter not the ministry lightly.
God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

The Sermon

2010-08-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

If the sermon is supposed to be part of the worship of God's people, then it should bring us into the presence of God. It should never be an academic exercise or a social commentary. Instead we should know :"God is here. Hear Him!" And what have we to say except what He has said? The sermon should always be an exposition of Holy Scripture. Following in the path of the biblical preachers, the Word is to be applied to the hearts of the hearers. And no one can rightly and justly apply God's word to the hearers unless he seeks that it be applied first to his own heart. If the preacher knows how to live in the presence of God, then he can help others into the presence of God. If he does not know how to live and the people are still blessed in his preaching, it is because God is having mercy on His people; it is no credit to the man in the pulpit. I'd rather be Jeremiah than Balaam's ass.

Helping the Family Grow in Love

2010-08-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

The main proof that God’s power is at work in our lives in this world is the way we are able to get along with people in situations which the world reacts to by saying, “Boy, I could never do that!” If we believe the gospel, if we have received Christ, we’ve GOT to grow in our love in the Body of Christ.

Let me ask you a question: How is a cantankerous relative ever going to be nicer to anybody else at the next family reunion unless a Christian relative becomes a peacemaker and is kind to them even though they are as cantankerous and unkind as the day is long? How are they going to learn how to be kind themselves unless they see kindness?

If there’s someone in the body of Christ that you do not think understands how they are supposed to be loving to other Christians, who is going to teach them? How are they going to know how to love people as they should unless someone in the body loves them and shows them how? Somebody has to die to their sentiments. Somebody has to die to their desire to only associate with relatives in God’s family who they like.

By the way, there’s also a great lesson here about encouraging your pastor. Your pastor has to put up with everybody! He’s their pastor! However cantankerous a church member may be, they still need a pastor, and he’s it! If we hang in there with our pastor and love the unlovely in the Church, we can be a great encouragement to him, because it’s hard for him too!

But, how can we do that? Where do we find the motivation to gladly take on uncomfortable situations for the sake of the Body of Christ, that it might be built up in love? Paul tells us: we love each other as Christ loved us.

Ephesians Structure

2010-08-09T02:46:00.001-07:00

For decades I have thought about St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians as being comprised of a doctrinal section (chapters 1-3) and a practical section (4-6) because that is what I've been taught and it made sense to me. I've decided that this dividing of the book in this fashion is a result of a cerebral approach to Christianity. We ought to be more heart oriented. Chapters 1-3 is not a composition of systematic theology. Nor should it at first reading be treated as a source text for systematic theology. The chapters tell a story. It is the story of God's amazing love for undeserving sinners, even gentiles. It begins with God setting his love upon us and ends with His Spirit rooting us existentially in that love. It is the story of what God has done for us in his Son, laying out for us the context and purpose of our lives, both corporately and individually. It is by no means a mere set of doctrinal beliefs to then be applied to the daily living of the individual. God save us from distilled Christianity.

We are not Orphans

2010-08-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

In John 14:18, Jesus said, "I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you." He said this in the context of His giving to us the Spirit and His assuring us that the Father Himself loves us. An orphan is someone who goes through life without that assuring comfort that he has a father who loves him and who has his interest at heart, who will help him to be the person he is meant to be. Jesus does not want us to feel that way in our relationship with the Father. He came to reconcile us to Him and to reveal Him to us that we might know we belong to Him as his children and He belongs to us as our Father.

Here we gain insight into the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As Paul tells us elsewhere, the Spirit is given to us crying "Abba, Father." He comes making real to our consciousness the family relationship we have with the Heavenly Father. There is thus to be, in the psyche of a child of God, an assurance, not only of identity but of interest in the Father's love. We are not meant to go through life with that lack of subjective assurance which orphans have to suffer. We are meant to know subjectively that we are loved by God, and the Holy Spirit gives us that subjective knowledge. We are to be rooted in the love of our Father in a way that makes an impact on our lives and our ministry (see Eph. 3).

Therefore, we should pray for this work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. We are not meant to feel like we are orphans, but rather beloved children who have the best Father in all the universe. He loves us. He cares for us. He disciplines us. He teaches us. He is with us, even to the end. He will be our guide, even unto death. He will guide us with His counsel, and afterward receive us into glory.

Thank God for His wonderful Gifts of His Son and His Spirit.

Love Forever

2010-07-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

According to the apostle Paul in Ephesians iii, the Holy Spirit is given to us that we might be strengthened to know the love of God for us. Since His Spirit has been given to us as an eternal Possession, God purposes to manifest His love to us more and more, forever and forever. Believe it. Receive it.

BTW, don't watch the Fireflight video unless you think God can edify you through heavy metal! :-)

So Send I You

2010-07-13T02:49:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (St. John 20:21,22).

"As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world" (St. John 17:18).

Here we have a way of viewing the Gospels. In the Gospels, we see Jesus on mission, sent by the Father in a particular way: "as the Father has sent me...." Looking at Jesus, we see Him building the Kingdom as we are to build the kingdom. Jesus, the King, inaugurates the kingdom and then we are to continue the work. Jesus is our role model for kingdom building. How well do we emulate him?

What means did he use? Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me...." The means is by the Holy Spirit and, without doubt, much in answer to His own prayers.

In Luke 11, Jesus tells his disciples how to pray by giving them what we call the Lord's Prayer. It is the Lord's prayer, not only because he originated it. It's the kind of prayer He, as a man serving God, prayed every day. Even the forgiveness part, for he prayed for our forgiveness as one of us, though he himself without sin. While bringing the kingdom to earth in his own body and blood, he prayed, "Father, thy kingdom come."

Having the Spirit, having prayed, he then used every day for face-to-face time with people, meeting them where they were at spiritually, showing that God cared for them, confronting them with the Scriptures and His own inspired words, for the sole purpose of doing the things the Spirit was upon him to do: to heal and to set broken and bruised people free.

We are sent as he was sent. The work of God has never been by the might and power of the deeds of men. It is by His Spirit. It is by prayer. We pray for the Spirit and in the power of the Spirit we do the impossible. We love our neighbour and we proclaim the good news of Jesus. Apart from the Spirit of Christ we can do nothing (John 15). So the question is:

1) How does the time we spend in prayer for the coming of the Kingdom compare with the time we spend trying to figure out other means to use?
2) Are we mainly looking to the Holy Spirit to do what needs to be done, or are we stessed out about all we have to do?
3) Are we structuring our days, as best we can in our own, Providence-given circumstances, to spend face-to-face time with people who need Jesus?
4) Are we simply seeking to set people free from the bondage and death of sin through the teaching and preaching of the Word, by the Spirit, or are we turning people into a means to building our own religious kingdom for our own name? Do we, as Jesus, build the kingdom in the path of the cross? Paul did: "we die that you may live." Whitefield did, "May the name of George Whitefield be forgotten." Do we? There is no other way to heaven (cf. Mark 8:34f and Matthew 7:21f).

In other words, read about the life of Jesus as if he was one of us, showing us how to build his kingdom, for that is just what he was. He is our Captain, even brother, in arms. His church-planting and church-growing methods do not fail.

Free Pursuit of God Audiobook

2010-07-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

Get it here! Thanks to Christian Audio.

A priest and a soldier

2010-07-09T18:08:00.000-07:00

And, moreover, when it happens that both are sincere and good, nothing will mix and amalgamate more easily than an old priest and an old soldier. In reality, they are the same kind of man. One has devoted himself to his country upon earth, the other to his country in heaven: there is no other difference.

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, "The Grandfather and the Grandson"

D. G. Hart Articles

2010-06-22T19:37:00.001-07:00

I just found out tonight that D. G. Hart's book, Recovering Mother Kirk, is out of print. This is a book I often recommend to people to read to understand the tradition of high liturgy in Reformed churches. The book was practically a collection of articles, which Hart lists in his Preface. Here's all I could find of them on the net. Enjoy!

Chapter 1, from Touchstone: Rediscovering Mother Kirk: Is High-Church Presbyterianism an Oxymoron?

Chapter 2, from Modern Reformation: Industrial or Pastoral?: The Techniques of Church Growth

Chapter 4, from Touchstone: Reforming Worship: Reverence, the Reformed Tradition, & the Crisis of Protestant Worship

Chapter 5, from CTJ 30 (1995)

Chapter 7, from Touchstone: Whatever Happened to Office? Ordination and the Crisis of Leadership in American Protestantism

Chapter 8, from Modern Reformation 6, no. 2: Recovering the Keys of the Kingdom in an Age of Equipped Saints

Chapter 9, from Regeneration Quarterly, The Revolt of the Evangelical Elites: Gender, Equality, and Headship

Chapter 10, a chapter on Machen from "Reforming the Center, by Jacobsen and Trollinger

Chapter 11, from Regeneration Quarterly, An Old Protestant on Americanist Christianity

Chapter 12, from Logia, 8, no. 4, 1999, pp. 3-8, "What Can Presbyterians Learn from Lutherans?" Available on CD or hardcopy from Logia, after you register with them. Go here.

Chapter 14, from Modern Reformation 7, no. 4, "Reformed" or "Revived"? Why Words Matter

Chapter 15, Modern Reformation 5, no. 1, Why Evangelicals Think They Hate Liturgy

Providence and means

2010-06-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

I keep using this quote with people and so I thought I'd put it here:
"Providence is not counteracted by any means which Providence puts into our power."
Samuel Johnson

Ramblings on my "property" as a man

2010-05-23T04:21:00.000-07:00

In the Prayer Book, we confess to God, "Your property is always to have mercy."

What is my property, as a man, renewed in God's image?

My property is to long to see the will of my Maker done on this earth.
My property is to bring His wisdom and creativity to the world around me.
My property is to speak words that bring meaning and purpose to the world, and the others around me.
My property is to stand and labour in my place, before the throne of God, and to drink of the living water that flows therefrom.
My property is to scatter freely, as the sower scatters his seed, whatever blessings come to me from that throne.
My property is to be a creature subject to time and sense, while living in this age that is fallen.
As a result, I long for the time of renewal, when time and sense will not be felt by our hearts as limiting quantities. (By the way, do they seem limitations more than they should, because of the conditions of our hearts? Is there not a kind of glory, even now, to be a saint, subject to time, subject to sense - means of experiencing God's grace and love which the angels have not? May it be that we should rather redeem the time than curse it? Should we not wonder at the earnests of the pleasures to come, as our senses taste the goodness of God still present, still flourishing in this world, and give Him thanks?)

My property as a fallen creature is non-property. My fallenness is a loss of my real property.
Indeed, there is within me some kind of perverse energy that seeks self-destruction at every turn, the erasure of my true properties, the image of my Maker.
My property as a fallen creature is to die.

Whatever of my true properties are manifest in this life, it is the fruit of the virtue of my union with the Lamb of God, the Word of God, The King, who pours out the gift of His Spirit upon the sick and lame that He came to save.

Dear Lord, may I, in my own way, ever better display Your likeness, renewed in me by the regenerating power of the Resurrection life of Christ. May I look like a true brother of the Second Adam; like the First Adam, and yet not, reflecting an even greater glory, yet the same.

On Our Saviour's Passion

2010-05-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

The earth did tremble; and heaven's closed eye
Was loath to see the Lord of Glory die;
The skies were clad in mourning, and the Spheres
Forgot their harmony; the clouds dropped tears;
Th' ambitious dead arose to give him room;
And every grave did gape to be His tomb;
Th' affrighted heavens sent down elegious thunder;
The world's foundation loosed, to lose their founder;
Th' impatient temple rent her veil in two,
To teach our hearts what our sad hearts should do:
Shall senseless things do this, and shall not I
Melt one poor drop to see my Saviour die?
Drill forth my tears; and trickle one by one,
Till you have pierced this heart of mind, this stone.

Francis Quarles (1592-1644)

Kreeft on Priestesses

2010-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Again, I must share a Kreeft message. This one is a take off of C. S. Lewis' "Priestesses in the Church?" found in God in the Dock. Everybody should hear this. If you are not Roman Catholic, you may not be able to identify with parts of it, but I think you will find it very illuminating.

We Anglicans have historically agreed with the idea that the priest represents Christ to the parish. This is only a part of the pastor's work, but it is an important one which must not be lost.

Listen to his address by going here.

Sermon on Abraham's Hope

2010-04-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

I preached this a couple of times this past Easter. I'll post the pertinent Bible passages below so you can follow along a little better in places. The sermon demonstrates how the resurrection shape of our faith is critical for our salvation, our discipleship. It's a little over 20 minutes.

Romans 4: 16f (NKJV)
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations” in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,
24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.

Hebrews 11:
11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,”
19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

God's Delays

2010-04-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

A meditation on delayed answers to prayer.

My Lenten Prayers end today

2010-04-03T05:47:00.000-07:00

And tomorrow is the Feast of the Glorious Resurrection of our Lord!
I'll leave the Lenten Prayer through the 39 Articles up for a week thereafter.

Kreeft on Ecumenism

2010-03-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is the most thoughtful and sensible thing I've ever heard on Ecumenism. It's about 35 minutes long and I wish it was longer. Note how he uses the medieval cosmology at the end - brilliant.
Click on the title above.
What do you think about it?

Thursday this Week: The Annunciation

2010-03-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.

WE beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an Angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Litany Service at St. Thomas for Passion Sunday

2010-03-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

St. Thomas NY is doing a great job sharing their services with the greater public. You may find yesterday's Litany service, for example, a blessing. The details of the service and audio may be found here.

Back to Bethel

2010-03-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

Genesis 12:10-13:4

O God of Bethel, Shield of Might
Well may Thy servant sense
The fire of heart in need of calm
And turn to thy presence.

Oh, morn of first and deep desire!
The path before so new.
Much must be learned and must be wrought
'Fore pilgrim's course is through.

The heart leaps forth, pursues its goal,
And yet, its goal does miss.
What ways! What thoughts! What paths are these!
Perplexed: "A wrong was this?"

Yea, true! this Glory which called forth
From known to unknown land
Seeks more than mere obedience,
But love, from worm, a friend.

A "friend of God" - Oh word! No word
Speaks as this to a soul!
A condescension so sublime!
A balm! A love! A woe!

He seeks a heart, an ear, a will -
Companion! Can it be?
'Tis not for us to understand
But cower and receive.

Perplexity to finite man,
Who thus begins to walk:
A path appears away from need
But soon becomes so dark.

Oh, Friend! Have I sinned against Thee?
Restless cries; search of mind.
With scorn of the ungodly brow
Tears then the answer finds.

Oh, Back to Bethel. Back to learn
The Unknown, and to see
At feet of Patience, tender Love
Thy Friend: quite unlike thee.

Hauntings

2010-03-14T06:18:00.000-07:00

“I’ve got to talk to your priest.”

“Are you all right?” Joe asked.

Joe was a little shocked. He had brought his friend, Tom, to the service at the cathedral in hope that somehow its beauty, along with the preaching and the friendliness of the people, might be used by God to open his heart to the Lord. But Tom looked really shaken up. His earnestness about talking to the priest was a greater reaction than he had hoped for.

He thought he knew Tom pretty well. They had joined a local paranormal investigation club at the college and had started spending a lot of fun, and sometimes bizarre, times together. Tom was forthright about his cynicism regarding all things paranormal, and that included religion, in his book. But he wasn’t sour about it. He simply held his cynicism in the same way that Joe held his dislike of Brussels sprouts. It wasn’t something that kept him from sharing a meal with someone who might eat one of the accursed things right across the table from him.

“Yea, I’m OK, but just a little “spooked”. Ha! Spooked in church! Hilarious!”

Joe smiled a nervous smile, too. After most of the people had left the cathedral, they managed to corner the priest who obviously enjoyed meeting Tom and showed real interest in him.

Eventually, Tom said to the priest, “I guess you heard that Joe and I are in this paranormal investigation club.” The priest nodded. “Well, usually it’s a pretty boring thing to do, if you are really into ghosts and stuff. I go along for the fun, mostly. But we have had some strange experiences, I must admit, and I’ve had to acknowledge that there are times when I feel like there’s something in the room with me, something watching me, knowing that I’m there. It's not that I believe it really is a ghost - I don't know what it is - but it gives me a really creepy feeling; well, it would to anybody wouldn’t it. We’ve been doing this for, what, three years now, Joe?”

I nodded my assent, wondering where Tom was going with this. He continued, “Well, we’ve experienced a lot of things, but today – well, I don’t know. It started when I first walked in, really. It was like I was having one of those experiences where I felt like there was a spirit of some kind in the room, but this was really different. I mean, it was still uncanny, but - I don’t know – kind of attracting in a way, too.”

Tom stopped talking and the priest smiled and said to Tom, “Did you think, Tom, that it was only ghosts that haunt this world? That the only paranormal experience you would have was in some darkened house where a great tragedy had occurred? There is much more going on in the paranormal than that – if you have the eyes to see it. And today, I think you did.”

Luke 11: Use Your Head When You Pray

2010-03-02T14:16:00.001-08:00

This is a 7 minute audio excerpt from my sermon last Sunday on Luke 11:1-13.

Day 5 of Lent

2010-02-22T03:26:00.001-08:00

V. Of the Holy Ghost

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.
________________________________________

Almighty God,
Heavenly Father,
You have given us Your Spirit.

Almighty King,
Heavenly Son,
You have given us Your Spirit.

Almighty Holy Spirit,
Heavenly Comforter,
You proceed from the Father and the Son
And you have been given to us.

We worship You, the true, eternal God;
One in substance, majesty and glory
With the Father and the Son.

The whole world of eternal life
And communion within the Godhead
Is ours through You.

We cannot live without You.
Thank You for Your longsuffering toward us.
O LORD, take not Your Holy Spirit from us.

Amen.

Lenten Prayers

2010-02-19T03:17:00.001-08:00

I'm focused right now on blogging my prayers through the 39 Articles of Religion for Lent. The link to the blog is in the upper left corner of this blog. Do let me know what you think.

A Christian Ethic

2010-02-12T09:25:00.001-08:00

I can remember a time when I tried to sum up the life of Christ in terms of His being a keeper of the Law of God. I didn't get there on my own. Others have presented Christ in this fashion. Scripture does speak of this matter. Christ came, made under the Law, that He might fulfill the Law's demands on our behalf. It was only as a righteous man - one who had never broken God's Law - that He could be our substitute. "I delight to do thy will, O God. Yeah, thy Law is written on my heart," is often quoted as an expression of the Messiah. Christ's Spirit is given unto us, as Paul explains in Romans 8, in order that we, too, might fulfill the Law of God. I could go on.

I now have a problem with this, however. The problem is the nomocentricity of this view of Christ's morality. "Nomo" referring to Law - it's Greek. It is true, but it is not all that is true. Why did Christ keep the Law, beside the fact that we Law-breakers needed redemption and it was the right thing for a Jewish man to do to fullfill all righteousness? Can His own moral identity be summed up in legal, nomocentric, statements? Is our calling to imitate Christ simply a calling to keep God's Law in the Spirit?

Sticking to the short side of things, let us consider the two categorical terms quantity and quality. A nomocentric view of Christ's life is more quantitative: how did His life measure up to the Law? I want to argue for a more virtue-centric view [haven't got a good Greek term for it! Aresteiacentric? :-(] In other words, instead of thinking how Christ quantitatively measured up to the Law, how did He qualitatively express holiness, the divine nature, the image of God in man? What kind of a person was He, in other terms than righteous before the Law? There was certainly a very wonderful quality to His life. He was not only righteous, but He was, and is, altogether lovely! If I am to imitate Him, surely there is more to it than keeping His Law. True, His Law is wonderful and if we keep His Law, that is fantastic. We should also recognize that the Law is summed up in love. But the problem here is that people want to quantify love as well. "Love is an action." "Love is a decision." Is that all that it is?

Q. What does this matter?
A. What are we going to teach our kids? Is the Christian life Law-keeping, or is the Christian life a pursuit of a quality of life, that includes Law-keeping? Is our focus on our behaviour or our hearts and motivations, the kind of person we are becoming? Is Christian ethic simply about making good decisions in life or is it also about developing virtue - becoming the sons of God? I think it is and I ask you to consider this with me. More later.

Bishop Ussher on Preaching

2010-01-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, is famous for his chronology of the history of the world. He was also a very fine preacher. In the biography included with his Works, the following is written. It's a lot longer than most of what I'm posting here, but being an advocate of improvement in preaching in the Anglican Communion, I had to publish this. So, for all you preachers - and search committees - have a go:

The Archbishop was a constant and impressive preacher, " his very voice and gesture were moving and persuasive, yet without any affectation, so that his preaching was with authority, ' and not with enticing words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and with power.'" He acquired such fluency and command of words, that for many years he never committed more to writing than the heads of his sermons ; when he had well considered the subject, he trusted the rest to his memory, and was not careful of the polish or exactness of his style. Hence he was most unwilling that any of his sermons should be published"1, except the two which he prepared carefully and printed himself. Dr. Parr thus describes the plan of his popular sermons: " As he was an excellent textuary so it was his custom to run through all the parallel places that concerned the subject on which he treated, and paraphrase and illustrate them as they referred to each other, and their particular contexts; he himself, as he past on, turning his Biblee from place to place, and giving his auditory time to do the like : whereby as he rendered his preaching extreme easie to himself, so it became no less beneficial to his auditors, acquainting them with the holy Scriptures, and enabling them to recur to the proofs he cited, by which the memory was very much helped to recover the series of what was discoursed upon from them: He never cared to tire his auditory with the length' of his. sermon, knowing well, that as the satisfaction in hearing decreases, so does the attention also, and people instead of minding what is said, only listen when there is like to be an end."

The directions as to preaching which the Archbishop gave to ministers on their ordination are still extant, and deserve to be made known ; as, if they were followed, they would counteract many of the evils of extempore preaching:

" I. Read and study the Scriptures carefully, wherein is the best learning, and only infallible truth: they can furnish you with the best materials for your sermons, the only rules of faith and practice, the most powerful motives to persuade and convince the conscience, and the strongest arguments to confute all errors, heresies, and schisms: therefore, be sure let all your sermons be congrous to them, and to this end it is expedient that you understand them, as well in the originals as in the translations.

" II. Take not hastily up other men's opinions without due trial, nor vent your own conceits, but compare them first with the analogy of faith, and rules of holiness recorded in the Scriptures, which are the proper tests of all opinions and doctrines.

"III. Meddle with controversies and doubtful points as little as may be in your popular preaching, lest you puzzle your hearers, or engage them in wrangling disputations, and so hinder their conversion, which is the mean design of preaching.

" IV. Insist most on those points that tend to affect sound belief, sincere love to God, repentance for sin, and that may persuade to holiness of life : press these things home to the conscience of your hearers, as of absolute necessity, leaving no gap for evasions, but bind them as close as may be to their duty ; and as you ought to preach sound and orthodox doctrine, so ought you to deliver God's message as near as may be in God's words, that is, in such as are plain and intelligible, that the meanest of your auditors may understand ; to which end it is necessary to back all practical precepts and doctrines with apt proofs from the holy Scriptures ; avoiding all exotic phrases, scholastic terms, unnecessary quotations of authors, and forced rhetorical figures, since it is not difficult to make easy things appear hard, but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of a good orator as well as preacher.

" V. Get your hearts sincerely affected with the things you persuade others to embrace, that so you may preach experimentally, and your hearers perceive that you are in good earnest, and press nothing upon them but what may tend to their advantage and which yourself would venture your own salvation on.

" VI. Study and consider well the subjects you intend to preach on, before you come into the pulpit, and then words will readily offer themselves, yet think what you are about to say before you speak, avoiding all uncouth, phantastical words or phrases, or nauseous, indecent, or ridiculous expressions, which will quickly bring preaching into contempt, and make your sermons and persons the subject of sport and merriment.

" VII. Dissemble not the truth of God in any case, nor comply with the lusts of men, or give any countenance to sin by word or deed.

" VIII. But above all you must never forget to order your own conversation as becomes the Gospel, that so you may teach by example as well as precept, and that you may appear a good divine everywhere, as well as in the pulpit, for a minister's life and conversation is more heeded than his doctrine.

" IX. Yet after all this take heed you be not puffed up with spiritual pride of your own virtues ; nor with a vain conceit of your parts or abilities, nor yet be transported with the applause of men, nor dejected or discouraged with the scoffs or frowns of the wicked and profane."

In diligence as a preacher he set a very remarkable example, and declared that none of his labors administered to him so much comfort in his old age as that, since he had been called to the ministry, he had endeavoured to discharge the great duty of preaching the Gospel; while, as I have already mentioned, he made the motto of his episcopal seal," Vae mihi si non evangelizavero." [Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel]

Living Sacrifices

2010-01-27T11:51:00.001-08:00

What do C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces and St. Paul's epistle to the Romans have in common? This Epiphany sermon, just over 17 minutes in length, will provide the answer.

For your convenience, my text:
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2: And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
3: For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
4: For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
5: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

The Venus de Milo - An Inspiration of Divinity

2010-01-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

Today I came home from school and heard some lovely music in my office. I found that the music came from a webpage my wife had left up this morning which is produced by the Minolta company called Museum of Beauty. If you go to this page, you will find that it takes you to a "movie" of the digitalized version of the Venus de Milo statue in the Louvre, captured by their photographers. What they have achieved in analysis of the statue is awe inspiring. The awe is of the beauty of her form, of the artist's craftsmanship, of the digital photography, and simply of the mind of God. I was especially impressed by their speculation of the complete statue, viewable in the presentation.

As Christians, we must keep in focus the trinity of transcendental values: truth, goodness, and beauty. Without keeping these divine values in balance and perspective, our religion is not true, nor good. Neither is it beautiful. Many of us need to work on our appreciation of beauty. We need more beauty in our lives. We need it, not simply in our art, but in every part of our living. We should so live that, when people see us, they should have an intuitive sense of appreciation of beauty comparable to the awe that sweeps over us as we behold such an object of beauty as the Venus.

You will find the Museum of Beauty site here. Go there and be inspired to be a better child of God. Be sure you have your speakers on.

C. S. Lewis and Science Fiction

2010-01-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I had to leave so much out. Yes, Damocles has visited my office.

Wordsworth on King's College Chapel

2010-01-08T08:41:00.001-08:00

Christianity gets blamed for a lot of bad things by people who do not understand Christianity and have a biased view of the facts of history. They also think ill of our religion right in the face of the beautiful things that would not be there without it.

In 2004, we had the privilege of worshiping in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. We experienced Wordsworth's words:
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die.
In the evening shadows, with lamps lighting our places, the choir would sing a line of a Psalm and stop. We would all then listen to the lovely music drifting off into the vaults of the chapel until it faded away. Then they would sing the next line and do the same. Truth, goodness, and beauty were met together.

Oh, that more Christians could appreciate the place of these transcendant truths in our lives - we would be a light that could not be dismissed as easily as some today dismiss it.

Within King's College Chapel, Cambridge
W. Wordsworth

TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd
(Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed scholars only) this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!—
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more:—
So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

(The image of the chapel above is mine own.)

Happiness as a Christian Pursuit

2010-01-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

The C. S. Lewis Foundation has an on-line journal called "In Pursuit of Truth." In April, they published an article by David Horner entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness: C. S. Lewis' Eudaimonistic Understanding of Ethics." Horner argues that Lewis is in the same tradition of the classic philosophers, Augustine and Aquinas who held that the highest good for man is happiness. The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia. Some people object to the use of the word happiness for its meaning, preferring something that is not as superficial as the modern idea of happiness. Anscombe, for example, uses "flourishing," as do other moral philosophers. However, happiness will do, as long as we recognize that it includes qualities that relate to the purpose for which God made us (to speak Christianly about it).

I'm going through this same kind of material with my Ethics students at the present and I have shown them that this is a biblical goal for our lives. I assume that the Biblical quality of "joy" (charas) is included in eudaimonia. Briefly, Jesus says in John 15 that He has spoken to us that His joy might be in us and be full. St. John speaks in similar terms in chapter 1 of his first epistle. What must be realized is that these Scriptural statements about joy are obviously intended, in certain contexts, to be motivating factors for our lives. Indeed, we have the passage in Hebrews where we read that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. That joy would include both His own joy in the fruits of His redeeming work, and our joy, as those who receive the benefits of this work.

I thus agree with Horner that it is not un-Christian to want to be happy. It is true that we want to love and serve God for Himself and His glory, but our own joy is included in all His will for our lives. He tells us this so that we will know that He lovingly has our interest at heart. But for that to matter to us, we should desire that happy goal. When we are too Stoic in our understanding of Christianity, we constrict the very desires which God intends to fulfill.

Lewis says, our desires are too weak. It may be that our desires are too weak through unbelief, but it may also be because we are too Stoic. We need a more robust understanding of God's intention to fulfill our desires and be more comfortable in having them.

Assurance of Salvation

2010-01-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love the way these Youtube videos pause at just the right place to make you look a little daft.

Solidifying Faith

2009-12-30T06:17:00.000-08:00

Four minutes of encouragement.
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)

Moule on Christ's Standing with Us

2009-12-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but include this with my last. On the verse, "Let your moderation be known unto all men; the Lord is near." (Phil. iv.5), Bishop H. C. G. Moule expounds the first part of the verse, explaining the graces involved in obeying the principle therein. He ends thus:

... Nothing does the world's microscope discover more keenly than "self-fullness" in a Christian man or woman. Nothing at once baffles its experience and explanation, and attracts its notice and respect, like the genuine selflessness, the yieldingness, of the grace of God. Let ours, then, "be known unto all men" - not paraded and thrown into an attitude, but kept in practice and use in real life, where it can be put to real tests. And would we read something, in this same verse, of its heavenly secret? It lies before us: "the Lord is near." He is near, not here in the sense of coming soon, but in that of standing by; in the sense of His presence, and "the secret" of it, around His servant. The thought is of the calm and overshadowing of His recollected and realized Presence; that divine atmosphere in which bitter things, and things narrow with the contractions and distortions of self, must die, and in which all that is sweet and loving lives.

The Fourth Sunday in Advent: Moderation or "Yieldingness", p.342, Thoughts for Sundays, AMG, 1997.

Jesus, Stand Among Us

2009-12-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

I've posted an audio summary of my Advent sermon from last Sunday. Here's a poem that goes along with it:

Jesus, stand among us in Thy risen power;
Let this time of worship be a hallowed hour.
Breathe the Holy Spirit into every heart;
Bid the fears and sorrows from each soul depart.
Thus with quickened footsteps we pursue our way,
Watching for the dawning of eternal day.

W. Pennefather, c. 1855

New Book - Well, First Book

2009-12-10T12:51:00.000-08:00

Heads up: after messing around with a book idea for ages, I asked a friend to hold me accountable to a chapter a week and, with his faithful help, the thing is working and I'm off to a good start on a book. There have been books on pastoral theology. This is more on laity theology. The title I'm working with right now is Loving Your Pastor - Church Renewal Through Open Hearts. To make it interesting, it's being written as a series of letters instead of treatise-like chapters. I plan to get a blog going on the book before long and will, of course, link it here. Please pray for me! I want it to be something that will be worthwhile for folks.

Cromwell's Prayer?

2009-12-10T03:13:00.001-08:00

Image: The First Baron Astley of Reading

I'm behind posting something I hoped to have up by now. I'm reminded in this season of the prayer sometimes attributed to Cromwell: "O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not forget me." Interestingly, the entry in Wikipedia says the prayer belonged to a Royalist. Oh well; it's a good one!

Re: Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading

At the outbreak of the First English Civil War in 1643 he at once joined Charles, and was made Major-General of the Foot (infantry) - the cavalry was under the command of his former student Prince Rupert. His characteristic battle-prayer at the Battle of Edgehill has become famous:

"O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not forget me." which he followed promptly with the order "March on, boys!"

Source.

Seeing the Unseen

2009-11-29T09:18:00.001-08:00

As I explain in the audio, I was asked to help a student with a school project. He wanted me to write a brief essay on something I believed in. I find the theme of the seen and the unseen fascinating. The 4 minute recording I've made relates to the following verses - among others:

Acts 7 - 55: But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56: And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

Romans 8 - 24: For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 25: But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

II Corinthians 4 - 18: While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Hebrews 11 - 3: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I Peter 1 - 8: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

Our Year Has Come to an End

2009-11-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

The last day of the Christian Year is today. Tomorrow begins the new year as we celebrate the first Sunday in Advent. Let us remember that Christmas is a twelve day feast that begins on the 25th of Dec. Advent is a time of preparation for that feast as we prepare our hearts to receive our King, anew and afresh, in devoted love and self-surrender.

As a year begins and ends, we are reminded of our limitations in this life. Our lives are filled with limitations. We will not, we cannot, do all our hearts would wish in this life. But the more we feel our limitations, so much more brightly does our hope in Jesus shine. There is coming a day when we will never be limited like this again. And the light of that hope reminds us of our need to be patient, along with our Saviour, as we await the next great hour which the Father has in store for Him and His beloved Bride.

Have a wonderful new Christian year!

Screwtape Lies

2009-11-23T11:58:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, Max McClean and other members of the Fellowship for the Performing Arts were in town at the Tivoli theatre for the performance of their play The Screwtape Letters. Earlier this year, I arranged to have a post-performance discussion with Max for the sake of our C. S. Lewis Society folks. I was so glad that, in the end, Max invited the whole audience to stay. It was a lot of fun emceeing the discussion. The picture is of Max and me afterwards.

During this discussion, Max explained that FPA received permission from the C. S. Lewis Foundation several years ago to also produce plays on the books Perelandra and The Great Divorce. I was not surprised to hear Max say that they thought Perelandra was more fit for film. But, they have definite plans to do The Great Divorce and I really hope I get to see it someday.

I had an interesting discussion with a couple from Alabama at the end of the evening. The gentleman asked about how Lewis has Screwtape say that, even though the Patient had been converted, all hope was not lost and that perhaps they would still get him in the end. He asked if Lewis believed a person could move in and out of salvation. My reply was on the theological side. I told him that Lewis took seriously the words in Scripture about human responsibility, such as Jesus' statement: "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." But, at the same time, Lewis also knew that Christ alone saves us by His grace and that God perseveres with us to the end. After all, that is what happens in the play. God interferes with all the devils' schemes and eventually safely brings the Patient home to heaven.

On reflection, I could have given a more literary answer. As Lewis reminds us, the devil lies. Lewis is happy to put lying words in the mouth of Screwtape. In the end, it was a lie that Screwtape should think that he could really win out against Christ's powerful preservation of His beloved saints.

Thank you so much, Max & Co., for coming to Chattanooga.

The Four Soils

2009-11-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

This sermon is on Luke 8 and what is usually called "The Parable of the Sower." After explaining why Jesus used parables, I examine the four soils that Jesus describes and speak of how it is that even those who would be grouped with the good soil folks can nevertheless, at times, act like they are one of the other soils. We must watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation.

We Draw Near

2009-11-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

I wrote a good number of songs back when I was pastoring in the Caribbean. Here's one that goes along with some of what I've been preaching of late, viz., our access to the throne of God by the blood of the Lamb. It is intended to be a congregational song, with someone singing the verses and everyone joining in on the refrain.

We Draw Near

O Lord, our God! Mercy and grace
Abound toward your own;
In covenant sealed by the blood of your Son
Your Spirit leads to your throne.

Refrain

We draw near. We draw near.
To the holy God we draw near.
Our sins put away by the work of the Son
To the Holy God we draw near.

A living way now lives for us
Into the holy place;
Our conscience clean, our hearts now true,
And all a gift of Your grace.

Lord, haste the day when Christ shall come
And faith be turned to sight;
And near we will be forever more
In all your joy and light!

The Unchurched Care About Aesthetics - after all

2009-11-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

"LifeWay Research finds unchurched prefer cathedrals to contemporary church designs - People who don’t go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building." Read this very interesting article here.

St. John's Depiction of the Saints in Revelation 7

2009-11-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

This is the sermon I preached at Christ Church, Monteagle, a couple of weeks ago. It was great to be able to preach on that day because the Feast of All Saints is the anniversary of my Christening at the age of 2 months. I was baptized by Rev. R. B. Lavender at Central Park United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1953. Though we lived in Chattanooga, I was taken to Birmingham so I could be baptized along with my cousin, Greg. I'm not sure how my family became associated with the Methodist church, for my mother was baptized at St. Paul's Episcopal in Chattanooga, where my grandfather attended. I believe it was because he became involved in a local Methodist mission. But Methodist I was until I started attending Brainerd Presbyterian on my own as a teenager.

Sermon on the Scribes and the Poor Widow in Mark 12

2009-11-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

I preached my first sermon at Hamilton Anglican Fellowship this past Sunday. They are using one of the lectionaries in the 1979 Prayer Book, so I preached on Mark 12:38-44. Here is a recording I've made of the sermon - without some of the rattling on I did on Sunday! :-)