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Jul232011

An Oslo Lament

I have just got back from holiday and have quickly prepared something for the morning service about the terrible horrors that have unfolded in Norway.  I will not offer commentary on the events themselves as there are people much better qualified to do that than myself.  However, I will offer the response I am going to use with the congregation tomorrow morning.

When such a shocking event takes place it is easy for the church to bury its head and ignore what has transpired.  In this situation we have a man/men who have taken the lives of the innocent in what has been reported as the name of “Christianity”.  It seems to me that the correct response should be lament and repentance for a broken world.  I asked twitter

What would you like to tell my congregation tomorrow about #oslo in 140 characters? Will project and talk through in morning. Please

I was amazed by the number of responses I received and their thought provoking nature.  I am going to project them in the morning and talk about each one before the confession in the service.  These are the responses I have received.  A big thank you to everyone who replied.

@EdwardBGreen struggling with this. Can’t even bring myself to echo Vaux’s “God is found in the shit”

@SwindonG I didn’t know them,I haven’t visited their country & can’t speak their language – but they r my brothers & sisters, it hrts

@Melanie_Cooper Tragedy is part of life’s tapestry. Our job is to project Christ’s love into each situation as we are able – incl. prayer

@Nevillina_3 I don’t understand how anyone can hate enough to plan and inflict such suffering. I pray I never will.

@SwindonG  … reflecting on Norwegian PM’s response ‘we will fight this with more Democracy’ … I don’t know where he gets his wisdom

Half an hour later @SwindonG went on to say:

@SwindonG … re PM his statement has me close y to tears each time I read it

@S_Cat #oslo it is not about Islam vs Christian. It is faith vs fanaticism.

@sh52mjh Tragic loss of young lives; potential unfulfilled; a lesson not to jump to conclusions – fundamentalism Christian & muslim

@twurchsteward that ‘fundamentalism’ and R Wing hate arise out of our complacency. We must all challenge hate where ever we meet it.

@artsyhonker “By their fruits ye shall know them” Murderer identified himself as Christian but actions show otherwise. What  about us?

@sh52mjh Fundamentalism can affect all creeds & religions to the same tragic end. Welcome the diversity in God’s wonderful creation

@fragranceofgod God is there with everyone involved in the tragedies #oslo and has compassion for his children who mourn.

Once we’ve briefly explored the issue we are going to use the Kyrie form of confession.

For a world so marred by intolerance,
in which race is a reason for hatred
and communities are torn apart,

Lord have mercy,
Lord have mercy.

For a world that is shattered by violence,
in which innocent lives are taken
in the name of the prince of peace,

Christ have mercy,
Christ have mercy.

For a world in which parents are grieving,
for their children who didn’t come home.
For communities who’ll always remember,

Lord have mercy,
Lord have mercy.

May God our Father forgive us our sins,
and bring us to the eternal joy of his kingdom
where dust and ashes have no dominion.
Amen

Sorry it’s so late and I didn’t have time to do a bit more.  Many thanks to everyone who helped.

Jul182011

Going to Church for the First Time

We weren’t sure about what time proceedings were going to start or quite where it was going to happen but Dr Ruth had seen a sign that said 9 o’clock. Neither of us knew quite what to expect as the notice seemed quite vague but Dr Ruth plucked up the courage and said she wanted to go so we tentatively climbed the stairs.

When we arrived it seemed that we were late. Music was already playing and as we opened the door I squirmed a little like we were intruding. Everyone was in their seats and looked really comfortable. A silver haired lady jumped out of her seat and walked to the door with a smile. She appeared to be holding a wooden bowl with some money on it. I glanced to Dr Ruth who looked back. An unspoken sentence passed between us ‘but I thought it was free’. I can feel the words “I’m sorry, i think we’ve come to the wrong place” welling up in the back of my throat but i feel my hand fishing around in my pocket for loose change. The silver haired lady doesn’t push us to one side but her body language indicates that we are to be moved away from the main group…

“Would you like to buy some raffle tickets, they are a pound a strip”

Through the annals of my mind fleeting questions flicker and crackle like the the embers on bonfire night. Only one crystallises fully and bursts forth from my lips in the split second I am given to make a decision. “What is the prize?” I whisper in hushed tones not wanting to disturb the atmosphere or interrupt the lilting voice of the singers…

“A bottle of wine or a CD of….” the name escapes my memory but the artist was not someone I’ve over heard of. I didn’t want them but I felt that I must buy some tickets. All eyes seemed to be upon me, judging me with a beady glare. I took the perforated orange paper and slinked quietly to the back of the room.

The first thing to strike me was that everyone was so much older than us. If it was not for the guy with the acoustic guitar we would have been the youngest people in the room. This was a little unnerving.

As we quickly glanced around the room we realised that we were out of place. To our left was a man in a waistcoat with a bow tie. In fact, everyone seemed to be dressed as though appearing before high society. We on the other hand had arrived in full bike leathers carrying helmets. We sat conspicuously glancing around and occasionally whispering to each other:

“What do you think this means?”

“They all seem to know each other”

The songs that they were singing were unfamiliar. Everyone was joining in with a tune that we’d never heard and words that they seemed to be plucking from the air. A vocabulary that we didn’t even recognise was pouring out in a unity we were unable to join.

The song drew to a close and then the man who seemed to be in charge announced tentatively that ‘Dave is going to play’. Dave is rather predictably a man with an acoustic guitar. He spends a couple of minutes explaining that this was an older song and that we should all be able to join in.

He starts playing. I turn to Dr Ruth and whisper “I know this, I love this one”. She looks quizzically at me.

She whispers “I don’t know this” as her eyebrows bunch up closer together.

“But you must know this one, it’s a classic” as I enthusiastically join in with the chorus only to find that in the second line he’s changed some of the words. And the timing. It’s just not…. Singable.

Except everyone in the room seems to be familiar with it just as it is!!!

Next the man who is in charge asks us all if we would like to share anything. “Does anyone have a story or a song that they would be willing to bring to us? Anyone?…. No one ?…. Well if not, we’re going to play…”

Proceedings continue like this for a while longer. All the way through Dr Ruth spends the whole time whispering these lines to me:

“They want us to join in”

[“shhhhhh, we’ll just sit here”]

“But we could play SONG X or SONG Y”

[“No we couldn’t, they all seem to know each other”]

At the end we quietly put on our coats and tentatively made our way to the doors without trying to draw attention to ourselves. We opened the door with the minimum force required so as to not make a sound and then scurried away into the night….

And thus ended our first and last evening at a Highland Folk Music Group’s music night, open to all.

Jul132011

A Dead Church?

It isn’t often that I stick my head up and make comment on something like the synod of The Church of England but here goes. There was a report that prompted Dr Ruth and I to talk for a couple of hours this afternoon about the nature of God, The Church ™ and our place within it.

“The Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years as the current generation of elderly worshippers dies, Anglican leaders warned yesterday.”

This is a truism. For my beloved Church of England to continue witnessing into the future there needs to be a recognition of the changing world in which we minister. In the rhetoric that has been reported there have been some unfortunate soundbytes such as the need for a “recruitment drive”. There has also been the use of business model type language to describe the impending fall or rise of the good old CofE. This type of discussion has prompted me to a key theological question:

What is the role that The Church of England is called to within the missio dei?

To see our primary motivation to mission as merely “perpetuating The Church of England” as a goal in itself then we have missed the point. God is on a mission and invites us to be involved with it. We need to reexamine the true nature of our call as a church to go into the world as followers of the way. Along the way we need to keep pointing to our destination and call others to join us on the road. If we believe we need a “recruitment drive” then we may as well pack up the shop and go home now. We need to empower people to live out their baptism call corporately as the body of Christ.

How can i try to paint a picture of the problem as i see it? Lets imagine that The Church of England is transported to a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. When Luke landed on Degoba he met with a little muppet called Yoda. Yoda did not turn to Luke and say “welcome to Degoba, you’ll love it here. Pull up a rock by the swamp, please stay”. Why would he stay in a place that is completely alien to him? Where is the desert he knows knows so well from his homeworld? And once he has crash landed here he meets someone who is completely alien to him. Yoda doesn’t speak the same kind of language as him, the lifestyle is completely alien to him. Luke almost walks away and fails to recognise that Yoda’s advancing years have given him an ancient wisdom. Ironically, Yoda tries to dismiss Luke for being too impetuous, youthful and “not the right kind of person to be one of us”.

When Yoda was talked around by Obi Wan he did not point to all of these differences and the settings around him. What he did was point towards something much more significant than himself or the place where he found himself. He pointed to something much more profound and something much deeper than Luke could imagine. He prepared Luke for the journey that he was on and eventually sent him off to fulfil that journey.

How can we as a church get beyond trying to recruit people to man the jumble sale and become more like Yoda?

Or as @emptybelly tweeted a couple of days ago:

If the 21st century church took Jesus as seriously as the 1st century church, this world would again be turned upside down for God’s kingdom