Perilous steps on the journey home

I thought I'd post my piece from our church magazine this month (as I do from time-to-time) because it has a bearing on my continuing reflections on Alan Roxburgh's book.

I was talking to some friends recently about their summer holiday plans. Well, it’s the time of year for it, isn’t it? The days getting longer and warmer, we’ve found our summer clothes at the back of the wardrobe and begun to daydream about sun, sea and sangria.

Our conversation was actually more about travelling to and from our summer break destination because, we agreed, that that was one of the best parts of the holiday. Journeys are often times of discovery, finding new places, seeing things we’ve never seen before, even meeting people in hotels and restaurants who pass on tips about what to go and look at.

Journeys are like this because we are away from the familiar surroundings of home, exposed to new experiences, invited to take a fresh look at our lives. As a church we are on a journey from what we were to what God wants to be. This is a permanent feature of Christian living. We only stop travelling when we reach our destination in God’s completed Kingdom.

Some people like travelling and others would rather stay put. For some the open road is a place of adventure and discovery; for others it’s a place of uncertainty and discomfort. The temptation for the latter group is to book into the nearest inn and say ‘this far and no further.’ The trouble with this is that we are in neither the familiar surroundings of home nor the promised comfort of our final destination.

It was for nervous, even unwilling travellers that Luke wrote the central section of his gospel. Uniquely among the gospel writers, Luke has a long section that is known as the ‘travel narrative’ that tells the story of Jesus’ journey from Galilee in the north down to Jerusalem in the south and his final confrontation with the powers-that-be.

He seems to have had two reasons for compiling his account the way he did. The first is that it gave him a good place to put all the material that no other gospel writer used – the parable of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan, the meetings at Mary and Martha’s home and with Zacchaeus, for example. The second is that he enabled him to spell out what following Jesus is all about. The travel narrative is a handbook on discipleship written for small groups of Christians scattered across the Roman empire in the second half of the first century, wondering how to live as followers of Jesus in a somewhat hostile and fast-changing world.

Luke 9:51-19:27 is about being a disciple of Jesus. The focus of these chapters is on the folk who are on the road with Jesus: how does he expect them to live as his followers, what will their life together be like, what kind of values will they embody in their relationships with neighbours and work colleagues?

Through this spring we will be making this journey with Jesus and his friends hoping to learn what it means to be a disciple in Bromley in 2011. We will be thinking about the nature of our life together and how we can make Jesus known to our friends and neighbours. It is a crucial journey for us to make because we live in a fast-changing and at times confusing world where the old certainties of home have been swept away and not replaced by anything so solid and sure.

Just before Easter, I was sitting outside a café in Victoria, warmed by the sun, watching office workers scurry in and out getting lunch to take back to their desks. He was with one of them, a young man, successful at work, happily married with a growing family. They had recently left their church and we were talking through the steps that had led up to that decision.

Neither he nor his wife loved Jesus any less; both wanted to continue serving him in the way they lived their life; both were keen to explore what being a disciple of Jesus meant with other followers. But neither of them could do church any more. He spoke of the decaying formality of it all, the superficial relationships, the tedious round of singing and sermons. He had been going to a lively, charismatic fellowship, and yet…

They had launched out on a somewhat perilous journey to discover Jesus on the road. They are looking for connection with a like-minded group of travellers who take Jesus seriously and want to live by the values of his Kingdom as they travel to their final destination. They also want to share what they’ve discovered about Jesus with people along the way.

In many ways they are living in Luke’s travel narrative, hearing the call of Jesus to follow and being prepared to leave the security of home to meet him and know him better. Are we prepared to make the same journey together?

Finding God in the groove

I'm listening to David Bowie's seminal Station to Station. I'm doing this because it's fab and a new deluxe version is coming out next week with the much bootlegged Nassau gig all digitally tidied up and packaged along with it. I'm also doing it as a displacement activity from sermon preparation. But what do you know if God's not there in the groove saying 'how about reflecting on this...?'

Got to keep searching and searching

Oh, what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?
Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when

Bowie sings on the title track - having mentioned Hebrew symbols that he's pictured drawing on the CD sleeve, in passing. Then on Word on a Wing, he sings
 
Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing
And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things
It's safer than a strange land, but I still care for myself
And I don't stand in my own light
Lord, lord, my prayer flies like a word on a wing
My prayer flies like a word on a wing
Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?

suggesting that maybe the person who's walked into his life out of his dreams in the verse isn't a lover but a divine presence. Of course, Bowie's praying in the midst of his cocaine addiction and living the fast life, his gaunt frame draped in a white suit and swirl of cigarette smoke.

Bowie knows everything he's achieved - and he's at the height of his fame and creativity in 1976 when this record is almost thrown together in LA - is a puff of smoke, 'an age of grand illusion'; the golden years cannot last and even in the midst of them 'there's my baby, lost that's all/once I'm begging you save her little soul...i believe, O Lord, I believe all the way.' The glare of the neon and celebrity makes him long to 'run for the shadows in these golden years'

In short, this is an album of spiritual longing set to some of the greatest tunes ever committed to vinyl.

And suddenly, my half-formed reflections on Nathanael begin to take shape. As Jesus collects disciples, he invites people to come and see what's going on around him; Philip fetches his mate Nathanael. It's possible that the way Jesus refers to him indicates that he's a bit of a zealot, an Israelite who's looking for a better world which certainly isn't going to be found anywhere in Galilee where he grew up. Bowie sings what Nathanael might have been thinking: 'Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well'.

But Jesus invites him to see if that new world might be found in him.

The great thing about this story in John 1 is that Jesus isn't inviting any of these folk to join an institution or come to a meeting. Andrew and John(?) ask where Jesus is going and he says 'come and see'. He's on a journey and he invites people to walk with him and discover stuff along the way. This is the essence of mission - inviting people to come and see.

Have we found anything worth inviting our mates to look at?