FEELING MERRY

I was skimming through Martin Luther’s Letters of Spiritual Counsel the other day and came upon a piece of advice written by the reformer to Prince Joachim of Anhalt. As it is November, I know a lot of people suffer from black dog days – if this is your lot in life it may encourage you to read Luther’s words to his young friend:

I should like to encourage Your Grace, who are a young man, always to be joyful, to engage in riding and hunting, and to seek the company of others who may be able to rejoice with Your Grace in a godly and honorable way. For solitude and melancholy are poisonous and fatal to all people, and especially to a young man. Accordingly God has commanded us to be joyful in his presence; he does not desire a gloomy sacrifice. This is frequently asserted by Moses, and in Eccl. ch. 12, we read, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee.” No one realizes how much harm it does a young person to avoid pleasure and cultivate solitude and sadness… Be merry, then, both inwardly in Christ himself and outwardly in his gifts and the good things of life. He will have it so. It is for this that he is with us. It is for this that he provides his gifts – that we may use them and be glad, and that we may praise, love and thank him forever and ever.

You can read the whole letter here. 

I particularly like Luther’s advice to go hunting as an aid to overcoming depression – how often does a pastor suggest that kind of remedy nowadays I wonder?!

This Sunday we will enter the season of Advent, and the word “merry” gets its annual outing, appended to “Christmas” on a million greetings cards. Apart from at Christmas we don’t tend to speak of merriness any more, the word feels quaint. But perhaps we should revive it, in line with Luther’s advice. Wouldn’t it great for our churches to be known as places of merriment! “To be merry both inwardly in Christ himself and outwardly in his gifts and the good things of life” would be a much better mission statement than the more earnest ones churches tend to employ.

TURNING WORLD

I have been reading The Growth of the Spirit of Christianity by George Matheson, written in 1877. This was given to me as a fortieth birthday present by my friend Jonathan Le Tocq - a good present!

In his discussion of the influence of 'Mohammedanism' Matheson makes the comment that,

His religion still nominally stretches over 130,000,000 of souls - still nominally comprehends a vast geographical extent of the earth's surface. But even from its votaries the fervour of youth has departed, and the earnestness of the ancient belief exists no more. On the other hand, there is an outside world which has renewed its spring-time, and left Mohammedanism in the mists of winter; the Cross has outgrown the Crescent.


A couple of years back I posted a very similar quote from Spurgeon, and both men reflect the muscular and confident Christianity of the Victorian era. Todays rather different global scene might make it seem that it is now the Crescent that is in the ascendency, but that would be to succumb to the insipid, gutless 'Christianity' of the 21st century. It is the Cross that will triumph, for it is by the Cross that "the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19).

OFF WITH HIS HEAD

Did Lord Young deserve to go?

The resignation/sacking of an unpaid government advisor is interesting in the questions it raises about the way that politics works, and the way the media filters the workings of politics. It raises questions of what should or shouldn't be said, and how it should/n't be said.

Objectively, there was truth in what Lord Young said. It is true that for those who have kept their jobs and who have mortgages, the past couple of years have not been bad. Historically low interest rates have made life much easier for many people.

Was there a way then that Lord Young could have said this without bringing the wrath of the media down on his head? Or is this simply too sensitive a subject for it to be breathed aloud? Is it the truth that dare not speak its name? Do we feel the collective need for everyone in the country to be gloomy about their personal finances, and that for anyone to break this compact is in some way heretical? If he had added a slew of caveats about those who have lost their jobs, those who might lose their jobs, those businesses that have suffered in the downturn, those people who have had pay freezes and pay cuts, would he have got away with it?

This is interesting, practically, when so much of the state of the economy hangs on confidence. Wouldn't a robust line from government that actually not everything is quite so gloomy as we thought help boost confidence, and thus boost the economy?

And wouldn't politics be more interesting and less insipid if a wider expression of robust views was tolerated? Maybe more people would bother to vote...

Will I lose my head for saying so?!

MORE BIKE TRICKS

For those readers who appreciated the clip I posted a couple of months back of Danny MacAskill's extraordinary bike tricks, here is his latest offering - its almost enough to make me want to visit Scotland...

BEAUTY

I’ve been thinking some more about that vase. 

Clearly, its purchaser has extraordinary wealth, but as well as telling us something about his material resources, it also says something about his desire for beauty. Man is hardwired to respond to beauty, yet what we regard as beautiful is notoriously subjective. Beauty cannot be defined, it has to be experienced.

The cultural dynamic of beauty is also important. To large degree we get trained to recognize as beautiful what our culture teaches us is beautiful. This is why it is fascinating to wander through an art gallery and see different representations of female beauty through the centuries – that which was the model of beauty for Rubens is not quite what is in vogue (and in Vogue) today. 

This cultural perception of the beautiful changes remarkably quickly. Which of us does not feel a twinge of embarrassment when we look at twenty year old photos of ourselves – the clothes, the hair!

An appreciation of what is lastingly beautiful is a mark of a developed culture. It is not fashionable to say it – and saying it gets derided as merely subjective – but a culture that creates the space for a Mozart, a Michelangelo, a Wren is superior to one that produces ‘Brit Art’, lives on burgers and coke, and constructs brutalist concrete buildings.

True beauty requires skill and craft. Real skill and craft is capable of producing a Qianlong vase, of exquisite artistry, for which someone is prepared to spend more than £50 million.

As a follower of Christ I believe that ultimate beauty is found not in any manmade object, but in the ultimate craftsman – in God himself. And ultimately our desire for beauty is a reflection of our desire for God. So while someone spending millions on a piece of porcelain is in some ways obscene, it is also in a sense reassuring – while there is such desire for beauty in the hearts of men there will be those who discover true beauty in Christ. In the end it is not money that makes the world go round, but our need for the beautiful. In Christ we can be satisfied.

TIPPING POINT

It has long been observed that the balance of global power is tipping away from the Anglosphere and towards the East, but three snippets from this weeks news about the incredible financial muscle of India and China have really brought this home to me:

• The Chinese vase bought at auction yesterday for £43 million, by someone from mainland China
• India has more millionaires per square mile than any other country (and also has more malnourished people than the whole of sub-saharan Africa)
• Macau has a turnover from gambling four times greater than Las Vegas

Time to start teaching Mandarin and Hindi in our schools rather than French and German!

COMMUNITY

One of my favorite biblical images is that found in Zechariah 8:4-8:

Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the LORD of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the LORD of hosts? Thus says the LORD of hosts: behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.

I love the prophetic picture of a society where old and young are together, and where there is safety and fun. A society like this is attractive, so people gather to it from east and west. This is a motivating picture for me in the type of community the local church should create – a place where people of all ages come together and enjoy being together and welcome others to join them in that enjoyment.

Last Friday evening I experienced something of this in my home. We had 50 or so friends and neighbours round for a bonfire night party, which included some old folks sitting “staff in hand” while around them children played. It was lots of fun, and – thankfully – we got through the sparklers and fireworks without any serious injuries!

I was glad we were able to use our house for a partial representation of Zechariah’s prophecy, but it was also somewhat sobering talking to a couple of elderly neighbours who were there. They had moved into the road forty years ago, when they themselves were raising families and most of their neighbours were at a similar age and stage. Now almost all of those neighbours are dead and gone, and the street has been bought up by a new generation of couples who are raising their kids there. I like the sense of continuity in this, but it felt a little odd to be talking to some neighbours my age later on and for us to say, “That will be us in 30 or 40 years time…” 

Which makes me glad that Zechariah’s isn’t the only picture of what a perfected Jerusalem will look like. I’m looking forward to the city described in Revelation 21:2-4…

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

TELLING A STORY

I am currently preaching a series called ‘The Big Story’ in which we are tracing the story line of the Bible, with particular focus on the themes of covenant and kingdom.

Last night at my life group we talked about how gripping stories need to contain five components:

·       A dramatic beginning

·       A catastrophe

·       A rescue mission

·       Character development

·       And a satisfactory ending.

As an exercise in story telling we divided up into five groups, and each wrote one section of a story, using these five components, without knowing what the other groups were writing. The only rules were that each section could have a maximum of five sentences; the star characters were Bill & Brenda; and at some point the story should include a cauliflower, a post box and the word ‘discombobulate’ (which is one of my favourite words).

I thought the results were quite amusing…

In the beginning there was a cauliflower, hurtling down the pavement with Bill & Brenda in hot pursuit, tossing strangers left and right as they chased the wily vegetable.

Rising early the next morning Bill made haste to his greenhouse to check upon his cauliflower seedlings. Alas! The slugs had eaten all of them. How could he now enter the Dorset Show ‘Giant Vegetable Class’? If he started again they would never match Mr Fothergill’s prize brassicas. He staggered, weeping, towards the house in search of Brenda, to convey the dire, tragic, catastrophic news.

Brenda’s shop was well alight when Bill arrived in his fire engine. “My prize cauliflower!” she exclaimed. Don’t worry said Bill, we’ll rescue it from this inferno. Bravely he strode into the shop and snatched the enormous cauliflower from the shelf, just in time.

Bill and Brenda had an allotment and in it they grew carrots, potatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers. One day they arrived at the allotment thinking they were going to harvest their crop only to find an empty vegetable patch. There was great discombobulation… “Who the hell has nicked our vegetables?” shrieked Brenda. Bill (the calmer of the two) reflected, “Perhaps it was those kids down the street who are always hanging around here looking hungry. Perhaps their need is greater than ours.”

So Bill & Brenda spent the evening making cauliflower cheese, which they shared with all their friends. There was nothing like eating cauliflower cheese to ease Bill’s discomboblation and he was no longer worried about what was in the post box.

This was a fun game to play in a life group, but reflected a more serious point about how we read our Bibles. The rules imposed upon the story tellers meant that we came up with something in which there was some traceable continuity, but – at best – it was a disjointed continuity. The story had all the components a gripping story needs to have, but it doesn’t really hang together in a way that makes sense. When we approach our Bibles often things work from the other direction – rather than reading it as a story that hangs together and makes sense as a story, we so often try only to extract principles from it, and what we end up with is a jumble of disconnected thoughts.

We quickly got into a discussion about how we should respond to a contemporary moral issue like homosexuality, which is an excellent case in point. In order to have a truly biblical position on questions of personal morality it is essential that we do not merely pluck a few ‘proof texts’ from Leviticus, but have a story to tell about God’s intention for relationships. This story would include his creation plan; his purpose in joining man and woman together in marriage; his own faithfulness to his people even when they are faithless; and our hope of participation in the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This approach takes longer. Telling a story does. But in the end it is the story that makes sense of the principle, not the other way around.