We had a great time on Wednesday. All our girls - daughters and grand-daughters - were with us and we went off into London to visit two sites - the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp at St Paul's and the Christmas market on the South Bank.
I was hugely impressed with the Occupy LSX site. It's well organised, clean and very friendly. We spent some time at the tent university, chatting about the revised general assembly's economics working statement with a couple of the people who hold things together there.
I was invited to come and do a session on New Testament economics, something I hope to do in the New Year. There was an openness to fresh thinking and debate about ideas that was really refreshing. Here is a group of people looking for a new world. I was reminded of the context into which Jesus came - a world of injustice, dominated by a powerful one per cent, a world at war, a world where the poor are disenfranchised and struggle to make ends meet (sound familiar?).
It seems to me that during Advent we should be asking questions about where our world is going and how it is going to be renewed. Some have pitted the Occupy LSX group with the church on whose doorstep it is camped. But this is a huge mistake.
As I chatted with occupiers, I was reminded of the encounter Jesus had with a teacher of the Law about what really mattered (which is the greatest commandment). The encounter ends with Jesus saying to the man that he's not far from the Kingdom of God (Mark 12:28-34).
What strikes me about this conversation is the sense of the Kingdom's porous borders, of the fact that the Kingdom is looking to sweep into its embrace all who are looking for a new world. I am also struck by the fact that Jesus is open to insights from those who are apparently his enemies or at least those who are challenging his right to interpret the way things are. The teacher of the Law says that love of neighbour is more important than religious rectitude and Jesus says 'you're not far from the Kingdom.' I suspect he would say the same thing to the mixed and energetic group camped around the steps of St Paul's.
At advent we listen for the voice of the Kingdom - wherever it comes from.
Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Christmas is about changing the world
'What has always frightened the rich and powerful has been the appearance from among the oppressed of self-confident leaders who prove their strength by organising in a way that could alter the balance of power.' (p39)
With that Tony Benn gets to the heart of Herod's panic. As we saw so well and wittily portrayed on this evening's first episode of the BBC's promising new Christmas drama, The Nativity, Jesus was born into a oppressed majority, ruled over by a greedy and paranoid client king.
'You must always ask yourselves whether it is possible to change the world in which you live,' Benn says. 'by accepting the world as it is you legitimise it and thereby become responsible in part for its iniquities.' (p38). What is noticeable about Benn is the way he stresses personal responsibility. He is not the kind of socialist who lazily attributes everything bad that happens to the mechanised forces of global capitalism. We each play our part, he says, in accepting injustice or battling to overcome it.
Jesus similarly calls each one of us to own our part in making the world what it is and to commit ourselves to his movement in changing it according to his agenda. Advent is the season when we get ready for this; when we examine ourselves, repent, receive forgiveness and immerse ourselves in the prophets whose vision of the coming Kingdom of Justice, joy, peace and equality is fulfilled in Jesus and passed on to us.
Tomorrow I'm blogging over at Hopeful Imagination and will be reflecting on Isaiah and the manger
With that Tony Benn gets to the heart of Herod's panic. As we saw so well and wittily portrayed on this evening's first episode of the BBC's promising new Christmas drama, The Nativity, Jesus was born into a oppressed majority, ruled over by a greedy and paranoid client king.
'You must always ask yourselves whether it is possible to change the world in which you live,' Benn says. 'by accepting the world as it is you legitimise it and thereby become responsible in part for its iniquities.' (p38). What is noticeable about Benn is the way he stresses personal responsibility. He is not the kind of socialist who lazily attributes everything bad that happens to the mechanised forces of global capitalism. We each play our part, he says, in accepting injustice or battling to overcome it.
Jesus similarly calls each one of us to own our part in making the world what it is and to commit ourselves to his movement in changing it according to his agenda. Advent is the season when we get ready for this; when we examine ourselves, repent, receive forgiveness and immerse ourselves in the prophets whose vision of the coming Kingdom of Justice, joy, peace and equality is fulfilled in Jesus and passed on to us.
Tomorrow I'm blogging over at Hopeful Imagination and will be reflecting on Isaiah and the manger
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Advent fireworks
I am loving Tony Benn's Letters to My Grandchildren. He writes about things that matter with a disarming simplicity. And in advent it's good to be reminded of the things that really matter.
Benn says: 'Christianity provided me with a set of moral values and a series of comforting rituals.' (p34). While he has in mind hatching, matching and dispatching, it's clear from other places that those rituals include the seasons of the church, times when we reflect on aspects of our lives in relation to God.
He goes on, 'Christianity helped me answer some of the mysteries of life and death and provided me with the reassurance that there was someone who loved me despite my faults.' (p34).
As we await the birth of Jesus, it's good to reflect on the fact that God loves us despite our many faults; indeed that he sent his Son into the world to redeem us from those faults and to give us the power to overcome them and rise above them through his teaching and Spirit.
'If someone I love is in danger, I will naturally pray for them,' he says, 'in the hope and belief that it will be of some help in their trials.' (p35)
Benn has never slotted comfortably into institutional religion - he doesn't really do institutions of any kind, as the some in the Labour Party would no doubt happily tell you! But he does offer this wonderful insight into Jesus, the teacher, the one to follow, while being sceptical about those in authority in the church!
'Religious and political leaders shine a torch on the path they wish us to follow but teachers explode fireworks into the sky so that for a moment we can see the whole landscape, learn where we have come from, where we are and the paths ahead.' (p36-37)
That's a great description of what we are waiting for. As Jesus arrives, there is an explosion of fireworks, a lighting up of the landscape of our lives. We see ourselves as we are and as we could be. And we see Jesus as the one who has come to make the difference, come to lead us into God's future by showing us its landscape and the paths that we must travel together to get there.
Benn says: 'Christianity provided me with a set of moral values and a series of comforting rituals.' (p34). While he has in mind hatching, matching and dispatching, it's clear from other places that those rituals include the seasons of the church, times when we reflect on aspects of our lives in relation to God.
He goes on, 'Christianity helped me answer some of the mysteries of life and death and provided me with the reassurance that there was someone who loved me despite my faults.' (p34).
As we await the birth of Jesus, it's good to reflect on the fact that God loves us despite our many faults; indeed that he sent his Son into the world to redeem us from those faults and to give us the power to overcome them and rise above them through his teaching and Spirit.
'If someone I love is in danger, I will naturally pray for them,' he says, 'in the hope and belief that it will be of some help in their trials.' (p35)
Benn has never slotted comfortably into institutional religion - he doesn't really do institutions of any kind, as the some in the Labour Party would no doubt happily tell you! But he does offer this wonderful insight into Jesus, the teacher, the one to follow, while being sceptical about those in authority in the church!
'Religious and political leaders shine a torch on the path they wish us to follow but teachers explode fireworks into the sky so that for a moment we can see the whole landscape, learn where we have come from, where we are and the paths ahead.' (p36-37)
That's a great description of what we are waiting for. As Jesus arrives, there is an explosion of fireworks, a lighting up of the landscape of our lives. We see ourselves as we are and as we could be. And we see Jesus as the one who has come to make the difference, come to lead us into God's future by showing us its landscape and the paths that we must travel together to get there.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Hope, humility and holding on to Jesus - grandfatherly advice from Tony Benn
I've been on the look out for something to read during Advent. I know, I should have been doing this two months ago and been already to go when the season started. But nothing seemed to strike the right chord with me until yesterday when I came across Tony Benn's Letters to My Grandchildren: Thoughts on the Future.It's an unlikely choice, I know; yet it's a book full of advent themes - hope, justice, peace, a new world order where people are free and there's equality. I was also drawn to it because I wondered what kind of letters would I write to my grandchildren - one already here and another arriving in the New Year.
Benn gets off to a belting start: 'people have always dreamed of a world of peace and plenty but it was beyond man's capacity to secure it,' he says (p2), adding 'I have made many mistakes, and I have also become aware as I have got older how little I know. I am much less sure than I was in my youth that I am right about anything and for these reasons I am reluctant to give advice to you.' (p3).
Hope and humility - those are two great advent themes; recognising our need for a world better than the one we have, but realising that we don't have the resources in and of ourselves to make it happen.
He continues by suggesting that advances in technology raise fundamental moral issues that we have to face, adding that 'the teachings of Jesus are more relevant now because the stakes are higher, and the violent anti-Christian atheists who denounce those who follow Jesus completely fail to appreciate that science and technology offer no moral guidance as to what should be done with them.'
Hope, humility and holding on to the values we find in Jesus - now those are great advent themes worth hearing again.
I'm beginning to wish Tony Benn was my granddad.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Conspiring to make Advent meaningful
We're two weeks into the Advent Conspiracy and it's beginning to raise some profound issues for people - which was the intention. As ever when issues are raised, there's a danger that we get side-tracked into questions that have no simple answers, leading to the temptation is to say that there's nothing to be done.
So, for example, when I raised the question last week that how we spend our money shows where our hearts are, that the truth of our worship is seen in our till receipts, I got a number of questions asking about what I felt this meant for the nature of advanced industrial capitalism. Fascinating though such conversations would inevitably be, they can be a way of avoiding the more direct question of what we'll actually spend in the run up to Christmas.
Last night we pursued this topic looking at what Paul says to the Corinthians about the use of any surplus they have. 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 is the beginning of Paul's appeal to the church to join in his collection for the saints in Jerusalem, suffering acutely from the effects of famine and recession.
The principle that Paul works up to is equality, used twice in v14. It seems that Paul here states a key principle of how economic relationships should be organised among God's people. Justin Meggitt argues that this verse is one a key one in understanding the mutualism that was a hallmark of early Christian thinking about the use of money.
So what does it have to do with Christmas? simply this. Paul doesn't come out with the principle immediately. Instead he talks about the grace of God. We will never grasp how God expects us to use money until we are seized and overwhelmed by God's grace. This is why he talks about the experience of the Macedonians - those believers in Thessalonica and Philippi - being gripped by God's grace in such a way that they wanted to ensure that their surplus was used to bring grace to others.
It's not only the Macedonians who are an example here. The Messiah, Jesus himself, is too. He operated out of a grace that meant that though he was rich, he chose to become poor in order that we might be enriched (v9). However we understand this key Christmas text in terms of salvation and forgiveness, new life and rescue, it's context demands that we see it in economic terms as well. Jesus is another example of mutualism in operation. Perhaps the Macedonians had grasped this through what Paul wrote to them in Philippians 2:5-11, 3:7-16.
And so grace should be directing our planning in two areas. The first is purchasing. What do we buy? How do we spend to show our love for friends and family and our commitment to justice and equality across the world? And what's grace got to do with it? And the second is partying. Who do we celebrate with at Christmas? The temptation is to spend money celebrating with friends and family. But the first Christmas was full of celebration with strangers, people invited to share the joy of the birth of Jesus who were unknown to his immediate family.
When I'd preached this at our earlier service yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation with a woman who hates Christmas because she doesn't have anyone to celebrate with and often spends it on her own. Indeed sometimes she prefers that because it's not enough to just invite people to share with us, we also have to think about how we plan our celebration. This woman said that she'd been invited to join a family at Christmas and she felt like a gooseberry, not knowing the in-jokes or family history that dominated the conversation.
There's no easy answer to any of this. I guess a starting point is that we need to pray for an overwhelming experience of grace that will help us to think practically about we use our disposable income to show the reality of Christmas.
So, for example, when I raised the question last week that how we spend our money shows where our hearts are, that the truth of our worship is seen in our till receipts, I got a number of questions asking about what I felt this meant for the nature of advanced industrial capitalism. Fascinating though such conversations would inevitably be, they can be a way of avoiding the more direct question of what we'll actually spend in the run up to Christmas.
Last night we pursued this topic looking at what Paul says to the Corinthians about the use of any surplus they have. 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 is the beginning of Paul's appeal to the church to join in his collection for the saints in Jerusalem, suffering acutely from the effects of famine and recession.
The principle that Paul works up to is equality, used twice in v14. It seems that Paul here states a key principle of how economic relationships should be organised among God's people. Justin Meggitt argues that this verse is one a key one in understanding the mutualism that was a hallmark of early Christian thinking about the use of money.
So what does it have to do with Christmas? simply this. Paul doesn't come out with the principle immediately. Instead he talks about the grace of God. We will never grasp how God expects us to use money until we are seized and overwhelmed by God's grace. This is why he talks about the experience of the Macedonians - those believers in Thessalonica and Philippi - being gripped by God's grace in such a way that they wanted to ensure that their surplus was used to bring grace to others.
It's not only the Macedonians who are an example here. The Messiah, Jesus himself, is too. He operated out of a grace that meant that though he was rich, he chose to become poor in order that we might be enriched (v9). However we understand this key Christmas text in terms of salvation and forgiveness, new life and rescue, it's context demands that we see it in economic terms as well. Jesus is another example of mutualism in operation. Perhaps the Macedonians had grasped this through what Paul wrote to them in Philippians 2:5-11, 3:7-16.
And so grace should be directing our planning in two areas. The first is purchasing. What do we buy? How do we spend to show our love for friends and family and our commitment to justice and equality across the world? And what's grace got to do with it? And the second is partying. Who do we celebrate with at Christmas? The temptation is to spend money celebrating with friends and family. But the first Christmas was full of celebration with strangers, people invited to share the joy of the birth of Jesus who were unknown to his immediate family.
When I'd preached this at our earlier service yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation with a woman who hates Christmas because she doesn't have anyone to celebrate with and often spends it on her own. Indeed sometimes she prefers that because it's not enough to just invite people to share with us, we also have to think about how we plan our celebration. This woman said that she'd been invited to join a family at Christmas and she felt like a gooseberry, not knowing the in-jokes or family history that dominated the conversation.
There's no easy answer to any of this. I guess a starting point is that we need to pray for an overwhelming experience of grace that will help us to think practically about we use our disposable income to show the reality of Christmas.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Starting the Advent adventure of discovery
As it's Advent, the start of the Church's year, I've decided to modify the look of my blog. I haven't done it for ages. I thought this template was the prettiest.
Advent is a lovely season, a time of reflection as we await the coming of Jesus. Of course, it's a season that's been cheapened by the clamour to spend and over-consume. But it's possible to be aware of the presence of God even in the thick of the high street mob chasing pre-Christmas bargains.
He's there in the echo of the carol drifting from a shop, the wide-eyed wonder of a child pointing at the lights in the windows, the care taken to buy a loved one that one perfect gift.
This year we've joined the Advent Conspiracy, a movement that originates in the US that invites us to think about the meaning of Christmas and make how we spend, give and celebrate a function of our worship.
We kicked it off in church yesterday and I think it went down pretty well. Lots of people agreed but were left asking practical questions about how this might alter how we celebrate Christmas to bring it more into line with the values of Jesus. hopefully, we'll tease out some answers to those question in the coming couple of weeks.
I shall be using Maggi Dawn's Beginnings and Endings as my advent readings this year.
And over the next week, i shall be compiling my festive top ten of essential listening from this year's output of CDs. It's shaping up nicely.
Advent is a lovely season, a time of reflection as we await the coming of Jesus. Of course, it's a season that's been cheapened by the clamour to spend and over-consume. But it's possible to be aware of the presence of God even in the thick of the high street mob chasing pre-Christmas bargains.
He's there in the echo of the carol drifting from a shop, the wide-eyed wonder of a child pointing at the lights in the windows, the care taken to buy a loved one that one perfect gift.
This year we've joined the Advent Conspiracy, a movement that originates in the US that invites us to think about the meaning of Christmas and make how we spend, give and celebrate a function of our worship.
We kicked it off in church yesterday and I think it went down pretty well. Lots of people agreed but were left asking practical questions about how this might alter how we celebrate Christmas to bring it more into line with the values of Jesus. hopefully, we'll tease out some answers to those question in the coming couple of weeks.
I shall be using Maggi Dawn's Beginnings and Endings as my advent readings this year.
And over the next week, i shall be compiling my festive top ten of essential listening from this year's output of CDs. It's shaping up nicely.
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