chasing the wild goose.1

beginnings
Why do some seeds actually grow and some never produce a thing...even when I’ve done all that gardening wisdom suggests I should? It’s a mystery - that’s what it is - it’s in God’s hands. Life and growth are things that ultimately God makes happen - we can provide the best conditions, apply the best skills we know how, but the end result, the actual growing is Divine labour.
Because all life owes it’s beginning to God, and even the apparent raffle as to why some don’t make it past childhood and others live to an advanced and productive age; it’s somehow all His.
So with the spiritual life; we can do the best we know how in bringing the News to others, and even show them the best of God’s kindness and mercy, surround them with faithful and creative friends and still some never quite get it - some choose to do without God. From our way of looking at it, against all odds, some grasp faith in God like it was going to save their life, and hang on to faith in spite of the most discouraging adversity. The best we can do is to keep breathing the air of heaven; relating to Him, opening ourselves to his life-giving Spirit, trying everything He shows us. So, go on, live!

heroes

Who is the hero? The man or woman who speaks bravely, who dares controversy; or that
one who quietly gets out there and lives out what they say, even when there is huge and determined opposition, even antagonism? Is it more virtuous to seem to know everything about prayer, or to fill one’s life with the discipline and practise of prayer? Like saying, would you have yourself guided by the one who writes about mountaineering or the one who does it often, which would you trust? The theorist or the bold practitioner?
The same is true of spiritual warfare; lots of books and seminars; heaps of opinion about what it is and what it isn’t; no end of sermons preached about it; but who’s doing it?
Is it that wild-eyed fanatic, the self-declared prayer-warrior, who doesn’t engage with ordinary people very well, full of conspiracy theories, critical of most of the church for their ‘lack of passion’, who says he spends all night violently assaulting the heavenlies, whose text book is “This Present Darkness”?
Or is it the ordinary, unremarkable saint, replete with gratitude for their salvation, fired by the ever-present Spirit, assured of the persistent love of the Divine Father, lives out what they learn, who prays faithfully for those in need and looks for ways to serve them, who bugs government, refuses to accept injustice? The real prayer-warrior is the one who gives time to prayer, knowing it will drive them out into the mission-field at their backdoor. Eh?
For more on this check out www.fhpc.church.org.nz. click on "audio sermon" [sorry about the green]

Ephesians 2.11-22 from left-field

This is from my weekly bulletin comment

A friend sent me a postcard from Germany in 1989 of an unbelievable sight...
the hated wall of Berlin being sat upon by a jubilant group of people from all over the world; and another photo showing the wall being vigorously demolished by a young man with a huge sledgehammer. It marked the beginning of the end for a reality that been a part of my, then, 42 years on this planet - a divided Germany, symbolising a divided Europe; further symbolising a divided generation. “The Iron Curtain”, the “bamboo curtain”, the Berlin Wall, the generation gap.
Some walls remain and divide us, even define us because it’s easier to say what we don’t believe or what we’re against than to take the risk of saying what or who we’re for. We gather behind them, or even in front of them shouting “hurray for our side!”
Even in the church we do it - you might be liberal and I KNOW that I’m orthodox, or one might be charismatic and another traditional, or one is for Calvinism and another is for “free will”. In actually making the walls and describing, proscribing the differences we imply right and wrong around choices and preferences. What we joke about or ridicule we are implying to be without the same value that we experience for our own opinion or pressure group. We need to look again at the Cross where all barriers were demolished by the Prince of Peace and all the interesting disparity of humanity is brought together as the image of God in the Temple of God...the body of Christ in the midst of the the dying world.

yay for our side! errr...

Left a little staggered and, I admit it, somewhat grieved, by the bloodthirsty embrace of the news that an old and nasty enemy has been slaughtered. How does this work? It's not okay to be violent towards your kids, or your aged parents, or opposing political parties (no matter how much a good thrashing seems like a good idea) and yet it's okay to torture and destroy like a rabid dog those who have terrorised us (albeit from a sincere held view that this is a noble religious deed). Tonight on the news it looked like a summary execution in the so-called field of battle and seemed to be justified as such. Shame on us for enjoying it! Shame on us for finding a way to justify any kind of killing! Shame on us who enjoy the benefits of the once-for-all violent death of our Saving God for seeking the destruction of another life to satisfy our angry blood-lust!
How far have we really come? Are we all that civilised after all? Are we any better than the regal savages of England's crown who once used the beautiful Tower as a symbol of horrific consequences for any boat rocker? I remember as a teenager being disgusted at the horrendous torture visited upon the victims of Nazi Germany's race-hatred and more recently the unrestrained injustices visited upon the suffering believers of China; we universally deplored such behaviour, and perhaps naively imagined our side would never do such a thing.
Are we now proven to be poor deluded saps for believing that a nation supposedly carrying the banner for Christian faith should find in it's corrupted, vengeful heart reason why they can flout all that is civil and peace-loving and grace-displaying.
Come Lord Jesus - awaken salutary shame and humble repentance in our hearts that would so readily return to war to assert the fitness of our ways and our culture.

coming out from under

I found this little reflection pouring out from my head and onto my screen as I thought about where I was at and trying to find a way to be more positive and encouraging for my elders. The work of the Living Presence is always right on the mark and no less astonishing for all that:


On the banks of the automotive artery
14 September 2010 The long drag of winter affects us all in differing ways but can have a tendency to take us with it into a kind of seasonal depression. We get to the point where we’re sick of being cold, of getting wet almost every time we go out, of the promise of fine weather being elusive and rather fleeting, of business being hard work and in some cases frankly impossible. It seems that especially as we near the rise of spring and summer a concerted cold burst of sodden weather is determined to undermine our hopefulness. And yet we know that summer will come and soon enough find us whinging about the heat and the humidity. How hard we are to please! And yet we have this as a kind of living demonstration of the faithfulness of God and the persistence of hope. We know the sun will shine with welcome heat, and the warmth of the air will send us dashing into the welcome coolness of the foamy surf. As a black preacher once said, “Friday is here now - but Sunday is a-coming soon!!!” We are people who have every reason to live with hope, to demonstrate the resilience of hope because we find it a relationship with the Lord of glory Himself; the Lord who chased away the seeming finality of death and replaced it with the enduring power of light, life and an eternity of joy in the presence of Him who first loved us. So even in a winter that threatens to “drown” us, and in circumstances that seem impenetrably unfavourable, we KNOW that we have a future and a hope because our Lord is for us - and with us - and in us. There is life yet to be lived, mission yet to be discovered and pursued, there are people who need the Lord and His astonishing mercy and love that only we can find; albeit under the guidance and the equipping of His Holy Spirit. Hope is never dead, never irrelevant, never futile. We have every reason to hope, to believe, to open our doors and our hearts to those who have found this and every winter, real or figurative, almost more can they can bear. We have an answer, we have the answer burning in our own hearts, looking for a way to express itself, or should I say Himself, in the ordinary affairs of extraordinary lives. As we face an annual meeting some of our news isn’t too inspiring, but while we live and breathe, and while God retains His presence among us there is light beyond this threatening darkness of low attendance and budget deficit and all the institutional depressive spirit that can accompany such “realities”. David the psalmist responds to a dark moment of desperate hunger in his life with these words:
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 42. 5, 11)

And David didn’t even know the half of what we know about the reason for hope! Try reading the whole of Psalms 42 and 43 in the light of Jesus' promise to be with us through all seasons and times.
Rev Pete, On the path of life.