How Hard Can It Be?

As a fairly frequent viewer of the BBC programme Top Gear  I quite often hear one of the three presenters, usually Jeremy Clarkson, when presented with a preposterous challenge (like making an amphibious car that actually works) declare “How hard can it be?”  The answer usually turns out to be “very”.

When people ask me what I do for a living I always tell them that I’m training to be a Methodist Minister.  When they get confused as ask what a Methodist Minister is I usually tell them that it’s like being a vicar only in the Methodist Church rather than in the Church of England.  They then invariably say something along the lines of, “That’s an easy job. You only work one day a week” or “That’s an easy job, you spend all week talking and drinking tea.”  These statements are, of course, untrue on a number of levels.

There is a grain of truth in the above paragraph, of course.  Methodist Ministers do drink a lot of tea/coffee/other beverage of choice. 

The biggest untruth is that being a Minister is an easy job.  Well, first of all it isn’t a job at all; it is something you become full time.  You don’t get home at 6pm and stop being a minister for the rest of the day.  It isn’t like that.  You don’t get paid for doing it either.  The Methodist Church will give me a stipend, not for the work I do for the church, but in order to enable me to be free from the need to earn an income some that I can give my time to the church.

It isn’t easy, either.  It’s very hard.  In fact I’d go so far as to say it is virtually impossible to be an effective minister; virtually impossible if we rely purely on our own strength and resources anyway.

One thing I have learnt over the course of my Christian journey is that whenever I try to do things for God using purely my own strength and resources I will find it very, very hard and will eventually end up coming to God on my knees anyway and asking for His help and guidance.  I’m not saying that when I rely on God things suddenly become easy because they often don’t, but having God right in there with me, helping me, guiding me and empowering me does make a huge difference.

If I try to do ministry on my own it will be very, very hard but if I rely on God, on His guidance and strength, then I know that I can achieve anything he wants me to as I seek to serve him as a Probationer Presbyter in the Methodist Church.

Overlooking The Obvious

This morning I was struggling to consciousness when I the voice of my mother-in-law (who lives with us) calling upstairs brought me to a state of at least being semi-awake.  It seemed that there was a funny buzzing noise in her bathroom.

All four residents of our house entered said bathroom and there was indeed a funny buzzing noise, rather like several hundred angry bees trapped in a jam jar (a very big jam jar obviously).  It was a puzzle.  We could not local the source of the noise, though it seemed to be coming from the wall.

The previous day we’d had a minor repair done on our boiler and thought it might be something to do with a boiler component vibrating down the heating or water pipes and so we called British Gas, with whom we have maintenance and repair cover, to come back and sort it out.

An hour later we discovered the source of the mysterious noise; my daughter’s old electric toothbrush which had somehow started working on its own and was vibrating against the bathroom mirror, causing the incredibly irritating buzzing sound.  With red faces we called British Gas and admitted our mistake!

Following on from a previous blog (http://reflectionsofathinkingevangelical.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/centrality-of-resurrection.html ), when it comes to the resurrection people often overlook the obvious explanation for the empty tomb, the changing of the day of worship by the Early Church from the Sabbath to Sunday and the profound change in the disciples: that Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead in a body that had solidity and continuity with the body that hung on the cross but which was also radically renewed and transformed.  

We Must Engage with the World!

Occasionally during my training as a Student Minister in the Methodist Church of Great Britain I have wondered if my lack of knowledge of what might be termed ‘the Christian scene’ is a bad thing or, potentially, a good thing.

My thinking on this came to a head a couple of weeks ago when a Christian I met was incredibly impressed because I attend the same college as, and live on the same floor at college as, Vicky Beeching.  I had never heard of Vicky Beeching before she arrived at college, but she is apparently a very well-known worship leader and song writer who has led worship at Spring Harvest in the past and is doing so again this year.  To me Vicky is just a nice Christian lady who I’ve shared one or two conversations with; to many out there she is a Christian celebrity.

That’s another thing; I have never been to Spring Harvest, or ECG or any of the other big Christian gatherings that take place around this country every year; partly because I can’t financially afford to.  I did go to Greenbelt once, which I enjoyed enormously, but that was twenty years ago.

So, is it a bad thing that when, in a few months’ time, I start work on Circuit I am in some ways ignorant of who the famous worship leaders are?  Is it a bad thing that I probably couldn’t name the latest Christian singers and bands?  Is it a bad thing that I have never experienced Spring Harvest?  Is it a bad thing that when I’m in the car I don’t usually listen to Christian music?  I’m not so sure that it is.

I am a Christian through and through, called by God to train for ordained ministry in the Methodist Church.  I pray and I read my Bible.  I try my best to live as Jesus lived and to love as Jesus loves.  I read Christian literature and theology…. but I also immerse myself in contemporary culture.

When I watch TV I almost never watch one of the many Christian channels: I watch Doctor Who and other science fiction and fantasy programmes and exciting American drams like NCIS.  I like science fiction films too, especially the Star Wars films and I like Clint Eastwood’s films and the James Bond films.  I will even confess to loving Hammer horror films, a slightly guilty pleasure I admit.  My reading covers a wide range of fiction and non-fiction.  Is it a bad thing that as a Christian I immerse myself in modern secular culture?  I don’t think it is.  Yes, as a Christian I have to be aware of what I’m reading and viewing; but as a preacher
I have to be aware of contemporary culture if I am to be at all relevant to the people I am trying to bring God’s word to.  To coin a well-used phrase, I have to be ‘in the world but not of the world.’

There is danger in becoming too immersed in the cultural output of contemporary society, of being spiritually corrupted and led astray and this is not a danger I or any other Christian should take lightly.  On the other hand I believe it in equally dangerous to completely isolate ourselves from contemporary society; listening only to Christian music, reading only Christian books and having only Christian friends.  How can we witness our faith to a world we do not understand or engage with?  If we are to be true to our calling to ‘make disciples of all nations’ we must engage with contemporary society.

The Centrality of the Resurrection

I have taken part today in an on-going discussion about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As always I was distressed and confused by some Christians who deny the physical resurrection of our Lord.

One contributor asked two questions:

1. Why do Followers of the Jesus Way need a body in the tomb or even a literal resurrection?

2. Why not free Jesus, the Man and his message for contemporary minds, from something that was of little interest to the authentic Paul and to pre-70 C.E?

Why do ‘Followers of the Jesus Way’ (curious phrase in itself, why not just say Christians) need a literal resurrection?  Why do we need what is at the heart of Christian faith? How do you even begin to respond to that question?

For me, if Christ was not resurrected, if he was not raised from the dead, then the whole Christian faith is open to question. The resurrection is what vindicates Jesus sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, it is what shows us that he was and is God incarnate. As Paul wrote 'if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.' (1 Corinthians 15:17-19) It is not that I need a literal resurrection in the sense that I am desperate for it: it is that I believe it is utterly central to the Christian faith as without the resurrection there is no Christianity. 

John Polkinghorne, a respected scientist (theoretical physicist) and Christian, has written the following concerning the physical resurrection of Jesus, ‘One of the strong lines of argument for the truth of the resurrection is the astonishing transformation of the disciples from the demoralised, defeated men of Good Friday to the confident proclaimers of the Lordship of Christ at Pentecost and beyond, even to the point of martyrdom.  Something happened to bring that about.  I believe it was the resurrection and that if Jesus had not been raised it is probable that we would never have heard of him.’  Can anybody take seriously the suggestion that this courage came from a growing feeling that Jesus was still with them in spirit in the weeks and months following the resurrection? 

Would Sunday have become the special day of worship for the Early Church, distinct from the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) if Jesus had not physically risen on that day?

The resurrection stories point to a physical resurrection.  The resurrected Jesus eats fish, breaks bread and invites Thomas to touch his wounds.  These details are included to demonstrate the physicality of the risen Lord.  Yes, he also seems to appear and disappear and we don’t know exactly how, if he was solid; but then Paul speaks of the resurrection body as having different properties from our physical body.  One explanation I’ve been given is that as Jesus was moving between earth and heaven physical barriers like doors and walls became irrelevant.  Ultimately it is a mystery we won’t know the answer to this side of heaven, and I’m content with that.

I believe, along with those who wrote the gospels, along with Paul the Apostle and along with millions of Christians over countless centuries that the resurrection of Jesus, whilst it was indeed an intensely spiritual event and experience, involved the resurrection (not resuscitation) of his physical body, transformed into the spiritual body Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians 15.

Why not 'free Jesus, the man and his message for contemporary minds'?

First, because you can't do that; part of Jesus message was that he would die and rise again.  Mark 8 tells us that Jesus ‘began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.’  The crucifixion and resurrection were an integral part of the message of Jesus.  You cannot separate the man from the message!

Second, Jesus was not just another human prophet with a good message, he was and is so much more than that; he was and is God incarnate, fully divine and fully human.  To say that he was just a good teacher is to reject both the man and his message.

Jesus was an is God incarnate, fully man and fully God, he died on the cross to save us and he indeed rose physically from the dead, resurrected to new life.  For me this is the core of Christian faith; so, yes, I do need a literal resurrection because Christianity isn’t Christianity without it.

Where Two Or Three Are Gathered....

This afternoon I had the privilege of leading the service in the chapel at the local Hospice.

I have led services in different churches and in a hospital chapel but never in a Hospice.  I was, understandably, a little nervous about it all.  I really wasn’t sure what to do as I was told that my congregation could be anything from zero to fifteen people.  In the end, after much prayer and thought, I put together a service that was fairly flexible including hymns to sing, readings and prayers and I would add in or leave out elements according to the number of people who turned up.  The readings were those set in the Lectionary for Passion Sunday.

In the end less than five people turned up to worship and so we had a simple time of shared prayer and scripture readings.  We were few in number, yet the presence of Jesus felt so real as we prayed that I was convinced that if I looked up I would see him standing there.  The presence of Jesus was more powerful and real to me in those moments than at any mass praise and worship celebration I have been to.

Jesus said, ‘Where two or three gather in my name then I will be with them.’  He certainly kept that promise for the small group of Christian brothers and sisters gathered at the Hospice this afternoon; but that should not surprise me because Jesus is always faithful to his word.