Dressed for the Battle

Preached at Holy Trinity, Huddersfield
31^st July 2016 (10.45am): Trinity 10
Ephesians 6:10-24

“Pray for me,” Paul says, “so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.” (vv.19-20)

Saints, would you pray this for me this morning? Let us pray:
Gracious and loving God, we thank you for the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of the Good News that you have reconciled and united all people and all things in your Son Jesus Christ. Give me power through your Holy Spirit to proclaim this gospel as boldly as I ought, not because I have confidence in my own words, but because I have confidence in Him whom I proclaim, your living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Good. Now if it’s a bad sermon, it’s your fault for not praying!

We come, today, to the end of our current series of sermons working through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul has explained the greatness of God’s purpose from eternity to unite all things in Christ and to create a new, united community in Him (the Church). He has underlined what a high calling it is to be part of this new community and the importance of living a life “worthy” of it—the whole of their lives and every single relationship, from the home to the workplace, are to be influenced and shaped by their new identity in Christ.

Now, at the end of this great letter, Paul warns the Ephesians that if they are truly going to be a new community in Christ, it won’t be easy. In fact, it will bring them into a spiritual battle of cosmic proportions. It will require them to stand up and fight against foes of unimaginable strength and unspeakable evil. If you thought being a Christian was about going to church, keeping your head down and generally trying to be ‘nice’ to people, think again. Being a Christian is something that requires us to “put on the whole armour of God.”

“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.” (v.10)

Why would Paul say this unless the Christian life was something for which we needed strength? It may come as a surprise to some, but the overriding message that God wants to impress on us here is that there is a war going on and that by virtue of being Christians, by virtue of our baptism and incorporation into Christ, we are part of it. Indeed, we acknowledge this every time somebody is baptised. After the decision for Christ is made and the person is marked with the sign of the cross, the person leading the service addresses them and says: “Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified.”  At which the whole congregation joins together, saying: “Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ, against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life.”

To be a Christian, to be a disciple of Christ, enjoins upon us the need to fight. The Good News, the Gospel, the εὐαγγελίον, is the announcement of victory in battle. It is the announcement of Christ’s victory over the powers of sin and death, the victory of God’s kingdom with judgment for God’s enemies and salvation for God’s people. To be baptised is to be made a member of God’s people by being brought into the company of the crucified Christ. And because it is to be brought into the company of the crucified Christ, it is to be brought into Christ’s conflict with the powers that crucified Him.

A new community in Christ that owes its sole allegiance to God is a threat to the Devil’s dark dominion. He will do everything he can to stop it. He will sow seeds of sin and sedition that sprout and spread until they destroy the new society God has made. And the Devil is wily. It starts subtly—with a bit of grumbling here, or with a bit of coarse joking there, or with the odd power play rearing its head in our relationships. Satan knows how to divide people. He’s been doing it since he turned Adam and Eve on God and on each other. If God is creating a new community in Christ, don’t expect the Devil to take it lying down.

Living a life worthy of God’s high calling upon us is no mean feat. We are in a battle. But it isn’t for us to defeat sin, the world and the devil; that’s what God does in Christ. Our job is to join with Christ in His resurrection-rage against their death-dealing dominion. Therefore, Paul says: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (vv. 10-11) There is a battle. We are part of it. But the strength we need comes from God, and not ourselves.

And it’s just as well because our enemies aren’t blood and flesh. Our battle isn’t against other human beings. No. Our battle is bigger than that. Our Enemy is more powerful than any human enemy. The enemies we see are real enough, but spiritual forces of darkness that we can’t see animate them. We are involved in a cosmic conflict. Evil is organised, it’s strategic, and it’s deeply embedded in every structure, every system and every institution. Therefore, to combat such a powerful, cunning and unscrupulous Enemy, we need all the strength that God, and God alone, can supply.

“Our struggle,” Paul says, “is against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (v.12). The word he uses for ‘struggle’ describes a wrestling match, hand-to-hand combat, a soldier’s close-quarter grappling. Our Enemy might be in the heavenly places, but the war waged against us is very close to home, it’s right here on our doorstep. Hiding in the trenches is not an option. There are no neutral parties in this war. Instead, there are only two options: to stand and fight with Christ, or to collude with the Enemy either actively joining his ranks, or passively let him get about his business.

The Enemy wants us to break ranks and run, preferably without even fronting up. God encourages us to take up His whole armour so that we might stand our ground, remain in the battle and fight (v. 13). We are to go out like heavily armed soldiers, like people who know that their Enemy is going to throw the kitchen sink at them. One preacher told his congregation that he didn’t want any Christian streakers running around his church. It wasn’t enough to wear “the helmet of salvation,” they must wear the whole armour of God. I’m sure I speak for Mike in saying that neither of us want to see any kind of streakers in this church.

Put on. Take up. These imperatives dominate vv. 13-17. Each is plural and each implies that activity is required on our part. The struggle is not an individualistic one. The struggle belongs to all the baptised. We are in it together. God supplies the strength. God supplies the armour. But it’s up to us to stand in His strength. It’s up to us to put on and take up His armour. The armour of God doesn’t just fall on us like rain. It has to be claimed. We have to make it our own. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t spend so much time polishing our armour that we never actually make it to the front line.

“The apparel oft proclaims the man,” says Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In other words, the way we dress says something about who we are. The call to “put on” and “take up the whole armour of God” is the military version of clothing ourselves with the new self that Paul talks about back in Ephesians 4:24. As there, so here Paul says that baptism confers on us a new status, which is marked by the wearing of a new set of clothes—the whole armour of God. To be dressed like a Christian, then, is not to wear a dog collar, or a cross around our neck, or even a t-shirt that says, “I love Jesus.” No. To be dressed like a Christian is to be dressed for the battle.

“Fasten the belt of truth around your waist”—any lack of integrity between your faith and your action will hinder your movement. “Put on the breastplate of righteousness”—let Christ’s righteousness protect your innermost parts until it becomes your very own. “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace”—God’s kingdom advances as the Good News is spread and new converts are won. “Take the shield of faith”—let your unwavering trust in God extinguish all the Devil’s fiery arrows. “Take the helmet of salvation”—hold up your head with confidence, knowing that God’s final victory is assured. “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”—yield God’s word, the word that speaks of Jesus, as your only weapon, and remember that it’s only as the Spirit points people to Jesus that it’s effective.

We must be dressed for the battle. And therefore, we must pray: “Pray in the Spirit at all times, in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints” (v. 18). Prayer is an expression of our dependence on God. And because we are completely dependent on God, our prayer must be comprehensive, which Paul indicates by the use of four uses of the word ‘all’: we are to pray at all times, in all ways, with all perseverance, for all the saints. It’s not enough to pray at some times, in some ways, with some perseverance, for some of the saints. Prayer must be all encompassing if God’s armour is to fully encompass us.

We are in a battle. We must be dressed for the battle. And the means by which we (the Church) take hold of God’s armour is prayer. When we enter the new community of Christ through baptism, we come as those who have been conquered, enslaved and trodden down by sin, the world and the devil. Sunday by Sunday, however, we’re sent out as pardoned, liberated and fully-armed soldiers of God, whose vocation it is to fight valiantly against sin, the world and the devil through an indomitable, unrelenting and indefatigable campaign of love at Christ’s command.

The words, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” are not just nice words intended to send us out with a warm fuzzy feeling as we leave the church building. No. These words are our battle cry! These words remind us who we are, and what we’re here for. The Church’s task, strange as it may sound, is not to change the world. The Church’s task is to be the Church—to be that new community in Christ who, having been released from slavery to sin, have peace with God and are free to do what they were truly created to do: to love and serve the Lord. By doing that, God will show the world what the world is meant to be.

Peace, not violence; love, not hate; service, not power—these are the strategies of God’s holy war. Therefore we fight the spiritual forces of evil every time we forgive someone who’s hurt us, every time we pray for our enemies, every time we open our hands and give to the poor. When we walk out of church, we are to go in God’s strength, as God’s people, free to live in God’s world in God’s way. This is our battle. The question is: are we dressed for it? Let us pray that we might be, and then let us stand and fight like the soldiers of God we are. Amen.

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes

“Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.” (Psalm 8:2)

I don’t mind confessing that I don’t really have a clue what this verse means, but it sounds good. I’ve heard these words many times. I’ve read these words many times. I’ve even spoken and prayed these words many times. Yet still, I don’t really know what they mean. Tonight, I think, I may have found out.

Every evening in our house, after bath-time and bed-time, we ask our two-and-a-half year old son Jed what he wants to say thank you to God for before we pray. Earlier today a package arrived from his Gram in the States with a new Dusty book, which we duly read (three times) tonight. It was no surprise, therefore, when he said he wanted to thank God for it. But he wasn’t done yet. He went on: “And cars. And tables. And doors. And Daddy’s church (the name he gives to my college). And butterflies…” And so it went on. And after a while, conscious that we actually wanted him to go to sleep, we thought we ought to wrap things up and say, “Amen.”

But he wasn’t finished yet. He carried on: “And books. And water. And lampposts. And chocolate. And toes. And trousers. And pineapple. And sidewalk. And sea monsters. And train set. And friends. And whales.” And there was more besides—much more than I can remember barely an hour after the fact. He just kept going for minutes. It was a veritable extravaganza of thanksgiving, a litany of blessings returned to Sender. It was simply incredible to hear. It made us smile. It made us laugh. It also made us think. Jed’s prayer has challenged me enormously.

As I reflected on bed-time, I became aware of how like Jesus’ first disciples I am—constantly missing the point. Jed was giving thanks to God for things that either it had never occurred to me to thank God for, or for things that I had simply taken for granted—like water, like toes, even lampposts. My two-and-a-half year old son had recognised that all is gift, when it had passed me by. “What do you have that you did not receive?” the apostle Paul asks (1 Corinthians 4:7). What indeed. And yet, while my son was giving thanks, I was saying, “Come on, let’s stop praying now. Time for bed.”

Remind you of anything? One time some parents brought their darling little ones to Jesus and they were rolling around in the mud and pulling each other’s hair and making noise, and the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, send them away. We can’t hear what you’re saying because these kids are making such a racket.” And do you remember what Jesus did? He pulled over little Jimmy with the snotty nose, sat him on his lap and said, “Unless you become like little Jimmy here, you’ll never enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:13-16). I feel similarly chastened. Jesus rebuked me and said, “Don’t you dare shut him up. You could learn a thing or two about praying if only you listened to him. You’ve got to be real small to enter my kingdom.”

God uses the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27). The prayers and praises of little children are powerful because God takes them to shut up the godless chatter of contented, self-sufficient, know-it-all ‘grown-ups’ like me. God has silenced my attempts to silence my son’s praises. The Enemy would love to stifle our prayers. But God won’t let him. He’ll raise up an army of infants to pray for toes and pineapples and train sets. Thanks be to God!

One last thing… If you’ve read this post and in any way been encouraged by it, please can I ask you to share any similar moments of insights into God/faith from little ones? Let’s join God in building this bulwark. Whatever that is…

A Call to Prayer

Yesterday evening, photographs emerged of the very real human cost of the migrant crisis gripping Europe. As I saw the chilling image of three-year-old Aylan Al-Kurdi’s lifeless body lying facedown in the sand of a beach near Bodrum in Turkey, I could only weep and cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus,” as I saw my own son of a similar age lying there. No longer just numbers in the news headlines, the desperation that would drive a family to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean became personal. When we put a face to the refugees and the suffering they endure, suddenly it becomes a lot harder to ignore.

As I cycle ten minutes down the road to college every morning, I pass a lot of very ‘nice’ houses. Most of them must be worth upwards of £1.5 million, at least. And no doubt one of the reasons we like them is because the behind the gate, the wall and the door, we feel safe inside our own little castles, temporarily shielded from the harsh reality of life we would see if only we knew the person down the street instead of being locked up in the comforts of our own home. We mustn’t be fooled. Our wealth may wrap us in a warm blanket of self-delusion, but the fact is that our lives are just as vulnerable as those of the Syrian refugees desperate to make it to Europe.  We are a lot more like them than we often care to admit.

I can only imagine what despair would drive a parent to risk taking their young children on a small, overcrowded and flimsy boat across the Mediterranean. My life is so comfortable that if I were taking my children on a boat, I’d be wondering if I packed enough snacks and entertainment to keep them happy on the journey. Turkish news reported that Aylan and his family were refugees fleeing the advance of Islamic State (IS) on their hometown of Kobane. “Lord, have mercy,” I prayed. I prayed that God would end the violence of this brutal menace and I prayed that God might give the Church the courage to preach the gospel to those who would drive a family to take such desperate measures as resulted in Aylan’s death and I prayed for an end to the stream of people living in such fear that they’d rather risk death on the open seas than stay in their homes in the shadow of IS.

I salute the decision of The Independent to publish these most distressing of images.[i] We need to see them. This is the reality facing countless people–people who are just like you and me. No doubt in the next few days, the political discourse will centre on the need for some magnanimous gesture to take more refugees into our country, and the conversation will soon return to being about numbers—it’s safer like that. I’m not denying the value of a political response, but I want to advocate a solution that is far more revolutionary. So what is to be done in the face of such an unholy catastrophe? We must pray. We must throw up our hands, lift up our voices and shout, “Enough!”

We must let this tragedy teach us not to allow ourselves to become blasé about the sin-wrecked sickness of our world. It will be a sad day indeed when an image of a three-year-old boy lying lifeless on a beach far from his home leaves us unmoved. It’s right to be shocked. This isn’t how the world is meant to be.   This isn’t what a world under the Lordship of Christ looks like. Therefore we must trust that these words of Karl Barth are true: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Jesus says, “I am coming soon.” And all the faithful said, “Not soon enough! Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!”

[i] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/if-these-extraordinarily-powerful-images-of-a-dead-syrian-child-washed-up-on-a-beach-dont-change-europes-attitude-to-refugees-what-will-10482757.html

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

“Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day…” (Luke 2:44)

Read the story of the boy Jesus at the Temple and you’ll see where the perennial Christmas film Home Alone gets its inspiration. A chaplain at a women’s prison once told of how she’d read this story with a group of the residents, causing quite a stir. “How could they?” they asked incredulously. “If that was one of us, Social Services would have had us for neglect and taken Jesus into care.” It’s a fair point. Strangely enough, it wasn’t something that had ever really occurred to me about the story before. Interesting, isn’t it, how our experience of life shapes the way we read Scripture?

Last night, I was reading this story again and the line struck me, “Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day…” The Passover Feast is over and everyone’s on their way back home, but Jesus stays behind. As Mary and Joseph and the rest of the relatives and extended family make their way back, the 70 mile trip, to Nazareth, they are completely unaware of Jesus’ absence. They simply assumed He was with them. As I read this story anew, I was profoundly challenged. “How often,” I heard the Spirit asking me, “do you also just walk off without checking to see if Jesus is with you? How often do you start travelling on a certain road and just assume that Jesus is keeping company with you?” The honest answer is: “Probably, quite a lot.”

As 2015 approaches, it’s a time for many New Year’s Resolutions to be made and it strikes me how easy it is to make our plans and set our stall out for the year without first making sure that Jesus is coming with us. It’s so easy to head off in one direction or another without checking that God-With-Us is actually with us. So often we can think that something is what God wants for us, that it is a God-mandated journey we’re embarked upon, but we haven’t actually stopped to see if Jesus is actually in our company, that it’s a road He is walking too. It took Mary and Joseph one day to discover that Jesus wasn’t with them—one day going in the wrong direction. Sometimes, it will take us a lot longer.

Anyone who has ever lost a child (even for a few seconds) will know the feeling of blind panic that must have befallen Mary and Joseph when they realised Jesus wasn’t with them. No public address system announcement in the supermarket. No filing a Missing Person Report with the police. Discovering that he’s not with any of the relatives, they do the only thing they can do—go back to where they last saw Him. After three days, they find Him. Three days. Can you imagine—searching for your lost 12 year old boy for three whole days? It must have been the longest, most guilt-laden, most excruciating three days of their lives. The simple neglect of failing to check that Jesus was with them was a costly mistake. It cost them much worry, much time, much stress, much shoe leather, and probably much money as well. This three day absence of Jesus surely anticipates those dark days after the crucifixion and before the resurrection. This is what it is like to be without Jesus. If only they’d done a roll-call before setting off!

There’s a warning here for us as we look ahead to 2015. We must beware of setting off too quickly without making sure that Jesus is going with us. What this story points us back to is the absolute necessity of prayer to ground our lives. We need to spend time with God, seriously seeking and discerning God’s will for our lives. To quote the title of Bishop Stephen Cottrells’ book, we need to “Hit the Ground Kneeling”. If we need to learn how to walk before we can run, we need to learn how to kneel before we can walk. So how about making that our New Year’s Resolution—learning how to constantly set our paths before the Lord and seek His presence with us. To quote that well-known theologian, Lenny Kravitz, the question we need to be asking of Jesus is: “Are you gonna go my way?”

Lord Jesus, give us grace to seek You in all our journeying through this next twelve months, that You may ever be with us and we with You. Grant that in this New Year ahead, we may travel not one day without You in our company. Amen.

Twenty Questions: #13 Why Do You Look For The Living Among The Dead? (Lk. 24:5)

Today’s question brings us to the very cornerstone of the Christian faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Paul puts it very simply: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). The earliest Christian confession of faith was to say, “Christ is Lord.” But if Christ is not alive, Christ cannot be Lord. And if we have staked all our hopes in this life on a dead Christ, then we are in a truly sorry state indeed. The women, coming to the tomb that Easter morning, were not expecting to find Jesus alive. It was early dawn and already they had prepared spices with which to anoint the body (clearly not something they could have done the day before, since such work would have been forbidden on the Sabbath). Now does this sound like the action of a group of people expecting to encounter their living Lord? Of course not! They fully anticipated finding Jesus where they had left Him—dead in the tomb. Well, surprise! Jesus isn’t there! He’s risen. He doesn’t stay where we try and put Him. How often, I wonder, do we make the same mistake as the women did that Easter morning?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The angels’ question is a question of expectations. It is a rebuke to the smallness of our faith and it challenges us to review our expectations of Jesus, our expectations of God more broadly. Do we really want a living Lord? Is the God we’re looking for one we can put in a six foot long wooden box and bury in the ground, or is the God we’re looking for one who simply cannot be contained, who breaks even the strongest of bonds? Do we expect a Lord who will show up in even the most unexpected of places—in a desert, in the middle of a raging sea, in a graveyard? When we come to worship on a Sunday, do we come expecting to meet the living Lord Jesus in our midst there? When we pray, do we really expect to be heard and to hear God responding to us? How often do our actions, like those of the women bringing spices to the tomb, say that we don’t actually expect to meet a living God where we are? How much are our lives shaped by the reality of the resurrection?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” In the Church of England’s order for Night Prayer (Compline), we are encouraged to say the Nunc Dimittis (the Song of Simeon) from Luke 2:29-32:
Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:
your word has been fulfilled.
My own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people;
A light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.
These words are intended to be a fitting way for us to close the day. We are invited to review the hours that have gone before and, like Simeon, say that we have held Christ in our arms and seen Him in our midst: “My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people.” Saying this at the end of the day raises the question of whether we expect to see Christ going into the day. When we wake up bleary-eyed of a morning, do we expect our eyes to behold God’s salvation before us? Do we expect each day to meet with the living Lord Jesus? Christ is risen; we should do!

What role are we looking for Jesus to play in our lives? Are we looking for a Lord and Saviour who minds His own business and who stays in the tomb when we want Him to, or are we looking for a Lord and Saviour who shows up in our lives at all times and all places, always leading us on, changing us, taking us places we never would have dreamed up for ourselves? When we pray, do we speak to God like we might speak to a dead relative, or does our prayer life demonstrate a faith in a Lord who is alive and who speaks to us, as well? When we worship, do we truly anticipate a life-changing, course-charting encounter with the living Ruler of all? Do we expect to see Jesus alive and active in us by His Spirit—working through us to bring more of His kingdom to earth?

Do we see the presence of Jesus at work in our lives? If we don’t, maybe we’re looking in the wrong places. Today, therefore, the angels are asking us, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Twenty Questions: #8 Can These Bones Live? (Ezek. 37:3)

Sometimes God asks us what seem on the surface like some pretty ridiculous questions. Take, for instance, the question he asked 100 year old Abraham when three travellers came to his house and told him his 90 year old barren wife Sarah was going to bear a son, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Well, duh! Why do you think she laughed, God?! Or perhaps take the question Jesus asked to a man at Bethesda who had been an invalid for 38 years, “Do you want to be healed?” Well, you know what Jesus, I’m sure that that had never crossed his mind! And if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s the rather insensitive question Jesus posed to a heartbroken, grieving Mary at the tomb of her dearly beloved Friend, “Why are you crying?” The question we’re looking at today ranks right up there with those too, doesn’t it? God takes Ezekiel into the midst of a valley of not only dry bones but, as v. 2 is keen to point out, of very dry bones, gives him a tour of the dust heap and then has the audacity to ask, “Can these bones live?” These weren’t warm, fresh bodies on the operating table we’re talking about, these were unburied skeletons laying on the valley floor picked clean by the birds and bleached white by the hot desert sun over many months and years. Can you believe what God is asking?

“Can these bones live?” I admire Ezekiel’s restraint. If God had asked me that question, I probably would have wanted to reply, “Yeah, right! Can pigs fly? Is the Pope Hindu? Do bears have picnics in the woods?” Only, the thing is, God does ask me this question. God asks all of us this question. “Can these bones live?” In other words, can what is dead be made alive? Is there hope with God for the things we call hopeless? The question drives to the very heart of who we think God is. Do we truly believe that all things are possible with God? Do we know God as a God of resurrection, a God of the living not of the dead? Do we trust that God’s power extends beyond the grave, His jurisdiction beyond the tomb? “Can these bones live?” Well, what do you think? Can they? When faced, as Ezekiel was, with a landscape which looks so bleak, a situation which looks so desperate, a feeling which seems so debilitating, or a relationship which feels so deadening, do we look to God and have confidence that even there He may bring life? Faith like that is a gift and I’m quite sure it is something only cultivated by much time spent in close company with the Lord.

“Can these bones live?” Ezekiel’s answer is literally to say, “God knows!” And though we often hear people say those words in a rather flippant, irreverent way, what Ezekiel is saying is exactly right. If those bones are going to live, if life is going to be restored to them, it’s going to have to be down to God to do it. If new life is going to come upon dry bones it’s not going to be because of anything we do, rather it’s going to have to be an act of divine grace. Ezekiel rightly sees that to fix what is wrong on earth, to bring life where things are so lifeless, is going to take heavenly intervention. What a fundamental truth this is. Life, all life, is a gift of grace. That is why my Church, the Church of England, expects its clergy to say Morning Prayer every day; because it knows that we need God’s grace to bring life to anything that that day may hold. If dry bones are going to live, we need to remember that if anyone is going to give them life, it’s God. We can’t fix what is wrong in our lives by ourselves, we need God’s grace. The same goes for our sin, as well. Our sin is simply too great to just roll up our sleeves, try harder, do better and work our way out of it. That is why Jesus came to save us. That is what makes the Cross so offensive to us, because it declares loud and clear, “You need help. And I’m here to help you.” Now for independent, grown-up and self-sufficient people like us, that’s hard to hear.

“Can these bones live?” Yes, but only if God breathes new life into them, only if God’s Spirit quickens them. Bone can come together with bone, sinews can join them, skin can cover them—there can be all the outward vesture and appearance of life, but until the living breath of God enters them, they are not truly alive. So it is with us. We may look pretty healthy on the surface, but unless God’s Spirit is the breath within us, we are not yet alive. It is the Spirit which gives life, just as it brooded with life-giving intent over the primordial waters of creation. But do we really know that we only live because God makes us alive? Surely if we did, we would never stop praying for more of His Holy Spirit. People who believe that all life comes from God will pray at all times. Conversely, people who believe that they generally have it within themselves to do most things and to fix the problems they face will only pray when they feel particularly up against it. Which camp do we fit in, I wonder? We must learn to pray as the needy children of God we are.

“Can these bones live?” For me as I prepare to enter ordination training, ministerial formation for the priesthood, this is a particularly pertinent question in a whole number of different ways. It challenges me on my prayer life. It challenges me on my view of who God is. It challenges me also on my hopes and expectations for the future. If, God-willing, I am ordained there is a good chance that I will not always serve large, vibrant, active and Spirit-filled churches from the start. But the question is whether I would be prepared to go and serve a church or an area whose vital signs seem particularly weak (even, non-existent) in the hope that our God is a God who raises the dead, who brings life where there wasn’t life before? I hope and pray that over the next couple of years, God might give me that kind of faith. And perhaps God is challenging you with this question this today also. Is there something in your life which feels dead, lifeless and beyond hope? If so, perhaps you need to reassess whether you have written off that situation too soon in view of the grace of a God who brings life to even the most brittle of dry bones.

Take a look around. Look at what’s dead—in your life, in the lives of family and friends, in the life of your community, in the life of the world at large. God has a question for you: “Can these bones live?” God knows, but do you? Can what is dead be made alive? The answer, of course, is “Yes”; but only if God’s Spirit lives in and among us, creating in us a new heart with both the will and the wherewithal to live as God wants us to. If that’s the case, then what’s stopping us praying this most simple of all Christian prayers: “Come, Holy Spirit, come”?

In the Name of Christ

In the name of Christ is power,
In the name of Christ is peace;
His name is our strong, high tower,
His name is our sweet release.
Dying, he destroyed Death’s darkness,
Stormed the gates of Sin’s abyss;
Rising, now he leads the captives
Onward into Heaven’s bliss.

In the name of Christ we’ll glory,
In the name of Christ we’ll pray;
For we know his deathless story
One day over all shall sway;
Till that Day comes in its fullness,
We will fall upon our knees;
Asking, Lord, you lift the dullness
Of our world’s God-blind disease.

In the name of Christ we’ll labour,
In the name of Christ we’ll speak;
Loving God and loving neighbour,
And by this his new world seek;
When Christ’s Easter power fills us
We will move with energy,
Implement his rule among us,
Realise his victory.

In the name of Christ is healing,
In the name of Christ is life;
God in Christ himself revealing,
He our Groom and we his Wife;
Christ our joy, our hope, our treasure,
Christ our light, our way, our end,
Christ our Lord and King forever,
Christ to us, your Kingdom send.

Tune: Hymn to Joy

Anger Management

Preached at Holmfirth Methodist Church
13th March 2014: Shoppers’ Service
Psalm 137

“There are some psalms,” John Wesley once said, “that are unfit for Christian ears.” This is surely one of them. “Blessed shall be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks!” You don’t expect to hear such vicious, searing anger in the Bible. Doesn’t Jesus say, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”? Doesn’t he say, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”? Doesn’t he also teach us that we should forgive others when they sin against us as we have been forgiven by God? Indeed he does. So what, therefore, are we to do with a psalm like Psalm 137?

Some people would rather this psalm were not in the Bible, or at least that the last few verses of it were printed in so small a font as to render them unreadable. I believe these verses are a gift and that if we try to gag the psalmist, we’ll be missing out on something God wants us to hear. This is the word of the Lord. And I am convinced there is something in here for which we can say, “Thanks be to God.”

First, however, we need to tell it as it is and acknowledge that these are not nice sentiments at all. I have got a small one-year old son myself and the thought of someone snatching him from me and smashing his head open on the rocks makes my stomach churn.
This is a horrible thing we’re talking about and the idea that someone might be called ‘blessed’ for doing it is even more repulsive and disturbing. This is white-hot rage we’re dealing with here and quite frankly, it’s a pretty horrifying sight.

And yet, before we judge the psalmist too quickly, before we move to denounce this as the barbaric outpouring of an ancient and primitive ancestor in the faith, there are a couple of things we need to bear in mind. First, the prayer is one of someone in the throes of their own intense and deeply-felt sense of loss. “Blessed shall be he who repays you with what you have done to us!” Jerusalem, their beloved city and spiritual home, had been razed to the ground; they had been exiled and forced to live far, far away in a foreign land; what’s more, the suggestion is that they themselves had watched on helplessly as their own children were brutally slaughtered. If that had happened to me, perhaps I would have wanted to pray this prayer too.

The second thing I think we need to bear in mind when reading these words is that they’re words directed to God: “Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites…” This is not a prescription for how to act when someone hurts you. This is not a policy statement advocating what they or anybody else ought to do. This is the cry of a wounded person saying that if there was any justice in the world, then those wicked people who hurt them so badly would get a taste of their own medicine. Don’t get me wrong, that’s nasty enough; but this is not the song of a lynch mob out to get their own back. This is a prayer, said by the victim of vicious violence, crying out to God for justice, for vengeance, for a righting of the wrong done to them.

A couple of weeks ago at this service Keith Kitson spoke about the disabling effect of anger; how it builds up and builds up and puts barriers between us and God and us and one another. The question which I think this psalm raises is: What do we do with our anger? What’s the proper outlet for it, especially when we too are on the wrong end of some injustice?

Just over a week ago, there was a piece in the news saying that angry people are at a high risk of suffering heart attacks or strokes, particularly if they have pre-existing cardiovascular problems. The long and short of it was that too much anger is bad for your health. The fact is that we all get angry, some of us more than others, some of us more easily than others; what matters, though, is what we do with it. Psalm 137, I believe, offers us a really helpful model of what to do with it.

Often anger is played out in one of two ways. The first is in the search for revenge; it is the seething, vindictive sense that justice needs to be got and we’re going to go out and get it. The second way anger is commonly expressed is by turning it in on ourselves; it is that grief which broods over the wrong done to us, becoming a festering bitterness in our soul leading to depression. There is a Native American proverb which says: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Anger fed and nurtured ends up killing you if you let it. The psalmist here chooses a third way: to let it all out by crying to God and handing it over for him to deal with. “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord. The best thing we can do with our anger is to give it to God, to trust that he’s even more upset at injustice than we are; it is to let him be the judge and know that he is big enough to deal with even the most raw of our emotions.

Anger in human hands can be a dangerous thing. I’m sure we’ve all had moments when we’ve said or done something rashly in a burst of anger and later come to regret it. In a fit of rage, we can do things we didn’t know we were capable of; it has a way of possessing us. And yet, anger itself is not always a bad thing. When we get angry about something it can often be because we know instinctively that something isn’t right, that something isn’t as it should be. Sometimes apathy is worse than anger; it would be a worse thing to see some terrible injustice and not to be bothered by it. The fact is we should get even angrier at some of the things that go on in our world than we currently do. What’s important, as ever, is where we direct our anger. Prayer really is the best form of anger management around.

And yet, I think this psalm has something else to say about how we channel our anger. We do so knowing that God is angry with the wrong we do as well as the wrong we suffer. We may be crying out for God’s vengeance, but we do so also knowing that we need God’s mercy. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to “forgive us our trespasses” and it is because we recognise our need for mercy that we also ask God to make us merciful, saying: “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” All of which, as with this Lenten journey that we’re on at the moment, leads us to the cross. For it is at the cross that we see God get angry with the sin of the world; it is at the cross where, as the hymn goes, “heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.”

During the Second World War, in 1940, when Coventry Cathedral was bombed in a Nazi air raid, Provost Howard had the words “Father, forgive” inscribed on the wall behind the altar of the ruined building. In the light of the cross, this is the best prayer we can pray when we’re angry because it’s at the cross we see what it means for God’s perfect justice to be carried out in love.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

* With thanks to the insights of William Willimon.  For further reading, I highly encourage you to read Willimon’s book, Sinning Like a Christian: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins.

BAPtism: Attending a Bishops’ Advisory Panel

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Bishops’ Advisory Panel (BAP)—the Church of England’s national selection conference for candidates exploring the call to ordained ministry. Since then I have heard that I have been recommended by the Panel for training, which I hope to start in September this year. For me, the BAP had come as the culmination of years of thinking, praying and exploring a growing sense of calling to the priesthood, the last leg of a long journey leading up to this point. Now having come out the other side, I wanted to pass on some words of advice and encouragement (many unoriginal) to those who may be going through this process for themselves, either now or in the near future.

I have entitled this post ‘BAPtism’ not just because it’s a convenient churchy pun, but because in many ways I feel the experience of going to a Bishops’ Advisory Panel is analogous to baptism. First, just as baptism is the point of entry into the Church, so is the BAP the font through which potential ordinands must pass. Secondly, in many ways (as I hope to explain) the BAP is an experience of both death and resurrection. Thirdly and finally, just as in the sacrament of baptism, I found in the BAP a tremendous outpouring of God’s grace.

Before the BAP

If you have got to the stage of thinking about a BAP, the chances are you have already been on this road a while, in the process of trying to discern whether God’s call for your life and the call to ordained ministry intersect somewhere. Likely, you will already have had discussions and/or interviews in your Diocese and have been encouraged by your Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) and others to test your burgeoning sense of vocation on the national level at a BAP.

Before you arrive at your BAP, you will already have had to complete a significant amount of paperwork, to be sent to Church House by your DDO six weeks before the start of your BAP. This is to ensure that the people assessing you have a chance to read through everything well in advance and get to know a bit about you before you arrive.

Most comprehensive of these bits of paperwork is the Registration Form. Basically, this is an opportunity for the Bishops’ Advisors to get to know a bit about you and your sense of calling. Think CV + highly abbreviated life history! This was quite difficult for me because I found that there was always so much more that I wanted to say. It was helpful, though, because it helped me to filter things down to what I thought was most important for these people who had never met me before to know. The chances are there will be things you write in your Registration Form that will form the basis of questions you are asked in your three interviews.

The other significant piece of work you will have to submit before going to your BAP is a Written Reflection. This is an opportunity for you to discuss one aspect of the Mission and Evangelism criterion which you feel particularly called to and why, drawing in your own experiences to your answer. You have between 500-750 words to do this, which is not actually that long when you start writing it. My reflection was right at the top end of the limit and in one of my interviews, I was told it felt a bit too long. I would suggest, therefore, making a point of trying to be clear but succinct. If you’re a wordy writer like me that may take a bit more time at the editing stage; but the ability to express yourself well in limited space is something they are looking for.

Preparing for the BAP

Sorry to disappoint, but the paperwork really is the least of the preparation you will have to do for the BAP. For me, the weeks leading up to the BAP quite were an intense time. I found myself swinging between thinking that the time was sailing past far too quickly and that I was nowhere near ready, and on the other, feeling like time was dragging its heels and that there was not really very much I could do to prepare if I had another year.

For me, the last few weeks before the BAP were spent praying, enlisting the prayers of family and friends, and meeting with wise people like my incumbent and my spiritual director to talk things through. In particular, the big question I felt I had to wrestle with was: “What if they say ‘no’?” There is no point going to your BAP and knowing what the ‘right’ answer is; you have to trust that God is in the process. The fact is that if you have arrived at the point of going to a BAP, there must be a significant body of people who believe you may well be called to ordained ministry. Balancing that with the knowledge that the Bishops’ Advisors could turn around and say ‘No’ is difficult (or at least it was for me). One of the most difficult bits of encouragement I received from family and friends was: “I think they would be crazy to turn you down.” I appreciate the sentiment and the affirmation they are trying to give, but when you are earnestly trying to be open to whatever answer God gives through the BAP, it’s actually quite hard to hear.

The chances are that as the time gets nearer to go to your BAP, you will start getting more and more advice. “Be yourself—that’s who they’re interested in,” said one. “Be seen leading the group going to the pub—that will show good leadership skills,” said another. Advice will come flying at you from every side (especially in my experience, the clergy-collared side). By far and away the most succinct and helpful piece of advice came from an eccentric archdeacon I had never met before, but who had heard I was about to go to the BAP. He said, “Remember: you are not there to get past them, they are not there to stop you; together, you are trying to work out what God wants.” This is advice I would whole-heartedly commend to you if you are preparing a BAP yourself. The most important thing in all this is to have both eyes on what God wants and to learn to pray (and mean) the words of Christ, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” Indeed, I do not believe we will ever be effective ministers of the Gospel until we are able to pray those words and mean them. With all the focus that there is inevitably going to be on you and on the Church, it’s important to remember who this process is really all about: a God who calls and who has many services to be done.

Which leads me on to recommending what was the single most powerful prayer I think I prayed in those final few weeks before the BAP: John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer. Traditionally, the prayer has been used at the start of a new year as a way of encouraging Christians to consciously and seriously re-commit themselves to God in the year ahead, no matter what that might mean. It is a searching and difficult prayer, but essentially, a fleshed-out version of Christ’s words in Gethsemane. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to be part of leading an ecumenical covenant service in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, so the prayer was in forefront in my mind as I looked ahead to the BAP at the end of January. I would seriously encourage any Christian to consider making this prayer their own, but it seemed especially appropriate as part of my preparation for the BAP.

“I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.”

The words about being “employed for you” or “laid aside for you” were especially poignant considering what the potential recommendations the BAP might make. However, to pray this prayer is to trust that whatever the outcome, we are held in the love and grace of a God whose purposes are infinitely greater than we can imagine. That is important to remember.

Arriving at the BAP

Now, a word about the BAP itself… There are two places you may be invited to go for your BAP—Bishop Woodford House in Ely or Shallowford House just outside of Stafford. I went to Ely and I enjoyed being able to walk out into the city (just a few minutes away). Shallowford House, I understand, is a bit more remote. The official start time was 5pm on the first day, but I arrived about 1pm and used the extra time to settle in and have a quick wander around Ely. It was a three hour journey for me to get there, so others may not want to arrive quite so early. Personally, I was glad to know I was there in plenty of time rather than having to worry about traffic or a bad connection and getting there late.

At my BAP there were 12 candidates, split into two groups of 6 for the presentations and the interviews. A ‘full’ BAP will have 16 candidates (two groups of 8). Each group has 3 Advisors (a mix of lay and ordained, men and women) and on top of that, there is the Panel Secretary running and overseeing the whole thing. Although you are split into two groups for some things, there is a lot of time to mingle all together such as over mealtimes, when you are encouraged to move around different tables to get to meet and talk with everyone there. I have to say that mealtimes were something I was a bit anxious about before I went to the BAP; especially knowing that we were being watched the whole time; but in reality, you forget that when you’re there and you just enjoy a bit more informal time to sit and chat.

As I said, the official start time was 5pm, but before that as people were arriving, we gathered as a group and started talking. It felt like starting university all over again in some ways with all the familiar questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do? Candidates were arriving right up to 5pm, but personally I can testify to the benefits of getting there a bit earlier and being able to settle in. Obviously, however, I recognise that this may not be possible for all.

The Personal Inventory

After an introductory session with the usual ice-breaking exercise, the first task was to complete your Personal Inventory. We sat in a room in exam-like conditions for 40 minutes (you can get more time if you need it) and did more writing than I imagine most of us have done for a long time. If you are used to writing almost everything on a computer, sitting down and writing intensely for 40 minutes may come as a bit of a shock! The questions you are asked are used to support and inform the three interviews you will have later in the BAP. As such, you should be prepared for the questions to cover all nine of the selection criteria in one way or another.

The Personal Inventory consists of three double-sided pages of questions (one page for each interview covering three of the selection criteria). The maths suggests, therefore, spending 13 minutes on each. Try and stick to this. I tried to write full sentences on the first page, went over the 13 minutes and was playing catch-up for the next two. It’s much better to have short, succinct sentences or bullet points than to try and write wonderful prose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems fairly common for people’s answers to get shorter and shorter through the Personal Inventory. In my final interview with the Educational Advisor, they said that that page is often neglected—either half-finished or very short, rushed answers. To a large extent it doesn’t really matter, but you really want to make sure you have decent answers down for every question.

The Personal Inventory is almost impossible to prepare for and my honest advice would be to write down the first answer that comes into your head. There are no right or wrong answers, and if you feel that you didn’t express yourself well in what you have written, you will have a chance to go back and say that in your interviews. What I would advise, however, is to try and think through examples of different situations you have been involved in, for example: times you’ve experienced conflict, or criticism, or the need to exercise leadership, etc. I am pretty terrible at thinking of those kind of things on the spot, so if you are like that too, I would advise you try and think through some of those possibilities beforehand. Even if you are never asked any of those questions in the Personal Inventory or the interviews, it may just help you feel better to have thought through it.

Pastoral Exercise

After the first supper together, we gathered back together for a briefing about the Pastoral Exercise. Basically, you are given a complex pastoral situation and you are asked to respond to the person involved in the form of a letter (and you are to do this as you are now, a potential ordinand, and not imagining yourself as a priest). In many ways, this is the wildcard of the BAP because whereas you may have some idea of the questions you may be asked in an interview, you really have no idea what kind of scenario you will be presented with. Mine was so complicated, it could only have been adapted from real life. Nevertheless, what is important is to read and pray through the situation very carefully and many times over. I would suggest that if you can get a first draft done Tuesday afternoon/evening, you will have a healthy amount of time to look over it and edit it as necessary. Essentially, what I think the advisors are looking for is for an ability to engage thoughtfully, compassionately and sensitively to a very messy human situation. It is impossible to give much more advice than that. I came away from the Pastoral Exercise feeling like anything I had written would probably have been inadequate; perhaps, though, that is healthy to an extent—it would be unrealistic to think we could solve or fix such a complex set of conditions in one 500-word letter!

Presentations and Discussion

It’s Tuesday morning and the chances are you had a rotten night. I did. I got in bed about 11pm and simply could not sleep. It turns out I was not alone; in fact, I don’t think I remember anyone saying they slept particularly well. The main event of the morning session is the presentations and group discussions. When you come into the room with your group, you will each be asked to draw a card at random to determine which order you will go in. I actually found this time quite enjoyable and I wish that some of the discussions we had were able to go on a bit longer. I think it was during the presentations that I really got the sense that we were all on each other’s side. The BAP is not a competition between candidates; you are all there for the same reason and everyone was very encouraging and affirming to everyone else.

What I would recommend is that you spend plenty of time practicing your presentation before you go to the BAP, by yourself in front of the mirror with a stopwatch going and even better, in a group. Because the situation is quite artificial, even an experienced public speaker is likely to be nervous, so it’s worth making sure you have rehearsed what you are planning to say. Your presentation is to last up to 5 minutes, followed by 13 minutes set aside for discussion. You will be warned when there are 2 minutes remaining of the discussion time and you are meant to bring the conversation to a close and summarise the main points. I found this the most difficult bit. Really try to pay attention to the contributions each person makes and be sure to give a summary which reflects the breadth of the discussion, not just your favourite points. In the report sent to my Bishop, the summary was something they flagged up as an area needing improvement.

Vocational Interview

The vocational interview is intended to cover the first three of the selection criteria: Vocation, Ministry within the Church of England, and Spirituality. For me, this was the most enjoyable of my three interviews. This was also the interview for which I felt best prepared; probably because I had been thinking about the kinds of questions that came up here with my DDO and others for a while. One thing I would say is that if you are going to BAP as a candidate for the priesthood, I would advise that you have a really good idea in your mind what you think a priest actually is. If you have not done so before, I would recommend reading one of a few books to help you formulate your own sense of what it means to be a priest. The books I found most helpful were John Pritchard’s, The Life and Work of a Priest and Michael Ramsey’s classic, The Christian Priest Today.

Pastoral Interview

The pastoral interview is intended to cover the selection criteria for: Personality and Character, Relationships, and Leadership and Collaboration. In my experience, this was the most searching and challenging of the three interviews. My interview really seemed to delve deep into who I am and what makes me tick, uncomfortably so at times. Perhaps what also made this interview harder for me was that it seemed to involve a lot of questions asking me to think of examples of this, that and the other; questions which I am generally not very good at answering. There were quite a few questions starting, “Tell me a time when…” Be prepared for that. This was the interview I found most emotionally draining and afterwards, to be honest, I just wanted to go and have a lie down!

Educational Interview

The education interview looks at the final three selection criteria: Faith, Mission and Evangelism and Quality of Mind. I went into this interview feeling quite relaxed. As much as anything it just seemed like it was an opportunity to speak with someone about your journey of faith and your openness to having it expanded and altered. To help prepare for this interview it may be helpful to ask yourself the question: If recommended, what would I hope to gain from training? Remember, the Bishops’ Advisors aren’t looking for the finished product; they are looking for people with the potential to hold post in ordained ministry.

Worship

The BAP is framed with opportunity for corporate worship. You are told from the outset that attendance at worship is purely optional and that you are not being assessed or monitored during times of worship. In reality, it would be pretty foolish not to go and it must be impossible for an advisor not to observe your demeanour when they are doing so the rest of the time. The worship we experienced took a variety of forms from BCP Evensong to a fairly high Eucharist. I really valued the time of worship as an opportunity to re-focus on God, centre on him and keep offering this whole process back to him.

After the BAP

You are told before you leave the BAP that it may take up to two weeks to hear their recommendation. That seems like an interminably long time when there is such a big decision at stake. The Bishops’ Advisors stay behind on the Thursday to confer and compile their reports on you. Although the report is made by the three assessors assigned to your group, their recommendation has to be unanimous. Once the report is written, you are told to allow five days for the report to go through Church House (like getting a cheque cleared).

Driving home Wednesday evening, I was pretty tired. Be advised to take extra special care on the road leaving the BAP because you probably won’t realise how mentally, physically and emotionally wiped you are. It was hard getting back to work on Thursday morning, and if I had had any holiday time spare, I probably would have tried to take the rest of the week off to recover. That weekend I was exhausted. I had deliberately left that weekend completely open and I am so glad I did. It was a very lazy weekend, but just what the doctor ordered after a very intense few days followed by the nervous wait for news.

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait too long. I received a phone call from my DDO late afternoon on the following Thursday telling me I had been recommended, which was followed by a phone call from the Bishop’s office Friday morning arranging a time to meet. Since it is a Bishops’ Advisory Panel (emphasis on the advisory), no decision is final until you hear so from the Bishop. I met with the Bishop a week later and he told me then that he would accept the Panel’s recommendation and that the way was clear for me to start training.

Now we are looking ahead to a new chapter of our lives with excitement. Wycliffe Hall, here I come. The only question now is: What have I let myself in for?

If you are in the midst of discerning whether God’s call may be leading you to ordained ministry in the Church of England, I hope this post has been helpful to you. As well as what you have read above, here are some links to blogs I found useful in the lead up to the BAP:

To BAP, BAPing, I BAPed – encountering the verb of selection for ordination!

http://alifelessordinandy.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/the-bishops-advisory-panel/

What’s it like to go to a Bishops’ Advisory Panel (BAP)?

Regardless of the BAP’s recommendation, remember that everyone is called. Jesus first calls to each one of us saying, “Come, follow me.” To paraphrase the words of Coach Irving Blitzer from Cool Runnings, “A clerical collar is a fine thing; but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.” Thank God that he is a God that calls, not some but all. God bless you.

A Hymn for Advent

As watchmen for dawn we’re waiting,
Day and night we take no rest;
Nor will we give God rest, praying,
Till we see Zion the blest.

Zion, how we long to see you,
City of our Most High God;
In her streets he makes his dwelling,
Treading where our feet have trod.

God is with us to be for us,
God with us to lead us home;
God our King, reign here for ever
Under all our star-lit dome.

For your kingdom, Lord, we hunger,
For your justice, peace and love;
When the desert into blossom
Springs with blessings from above.

For that day we pray with longing,
Till our prayer is stilled by death;
Even then shall saints unending
Cry out still with single breath:

May your kingdom come among us,
May your will on earth be done;
Glory to our heav’nly Father,
Glory Spirit, glory Son!

Tune: Cross of Jesus