Seven Easter Eggs (1) A vision

Our new minister's wife is bursting with ideas!  Among them is an ambitious proposal to show an art installation (yes, that's what it's being called) on our church front lawn.  Seven large Easter eggs (over 4 feet high) have been cut and primed ready for different members and organizations to paint Easter scenes.  Supporting frameworks have been attached so that they can be firmly grounded together. The children and young people each have an egg to paint and a few of us have been volunteered into taking part.  As you guess (because I am posting this!) I am among them and have been committed to one of the scenes below.

We began with this list:

Jesus enters Jerusalem 

Last supper 

Jesus praying 

Arrest and trial 

The Cross 

The tomb 

Resurrected Jesus 

It was a challenge looking at this list and picturing how I might respond.  Each has dramatically different possibilities. It is decades since I last attempted anything like this.   Soon some were chosen and I found myself wrestling with my eventual choice among those left.   Next post!

Back in 1812

 

I subscribe to Today in Christian History and was struck by an occurrence today back in 1812. William Carey is one of the great Baptist missionary pioneers.  I had not heard of this particular incident in his life.  What a challenge to persistence when the going gets tough! March 11, 1812: Fire engulfs missionary William Carey's print shop in Serampore, India, destroying his massive polyglot dictionary, two grammar books, sets of type for 14 eastern languages, and whole versions of the Bible. Undaunted, Carey said, "The loss is heavy, but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value . . . We are cast down but not in despair." News of the fire also catapulted Carey to fame, bringing in abundant funds and volunteer labor (see issue 36: William Carey).

O-C S 10) The separating Power of Things Present

Just to dip into Morrison again - in that list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God like neither death nor life, angels nor demons....he chose three words: neither things present (Rom 8:18).

He warns that things present, everyday tasks, can blind us to the great realities of God's love in Christ. 

- because of their exceeding nearness.  You can blot out the sun with a coin if you only hold it near enough the eye.  The round of present duties....absorb us, commanding every energy. Near things are so swift to tyrannize...we all need moments of withdrawal. To halt a moment just to say 'God loves me', 'God is here'...to take away the coin to see the wonder of the sun.

- because of the difficulty of understanding present things.  It's always easier to understand our yesterdays...but it is difficult reading love in the dark characters of present things. 

- because of the distraction of things present.  Life isn't a little bundle of big things; it's a big bundle of little things.  What things escape us in our unending busyness.

Jesus gives us the perfect example of untiring labour and unruffled calm. He gains the conquest over things to come. When Calvary was coming He was joyous. He set His face steadily towards Jerusalem. Yet....never doubting the love of God to him, certain of it in his darkest hour, through broken days , through never-ending calls.... not only did he master things to come, but he did what is often far more difficult - he mastered the separating power of things present. Do not forget He did all that for us. In a deep sense we do not win our victories; we appropriate the victories of Christ. That's why the apostle says: 'All things are yours - things present, things to come - for you are Christ's and Christ is God's. 

How big is my family? 4)

As we embrace this other family we remember that families can be great to belong to.  Jesus died to bring people together in the deepest way possible. We are related through his blood.  The church should be unlike any other group in the world because when you obey God and know his love in Jesus, you belong to a family of brothers and sisters without barriers. Age, gender, able-bodied, disabled, ethnicity, social standing, education, wealth.....all and more, broken down in the family of Jesus. WOW.   In the service I asked Carol to say something about her experience of finding her heavenly Father and belonging to a church family when she was left on her own because of her mother's death.  And what a difference belonging to God's family has made in her life.  (Carol wasn't sure she was going to share. We had left it open. But as I went to speak she whispered that she felt she should.  And it proved a pivotal testimony!)

But it is also true that families can be complicated to belong to.  We didn't choose each other. What an assortment of different people we are.  We should prefer to draw a circle around people like us. To be able to ignore others. To make our family small.  Thinking about the Baptist family earlier in that service is demanding enough. Really to work on relationships, to hold in prayer, to give support to people in other churches. But that is only the simplest stage of expanding our horizon.  How many others, belonging to God, are our brothers and sisters?   I chose another Scripture with our family responsibilities in mind.  Therefore, as we have opportunity let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers (Gal. 6:7).

So, that question: How big is my family? crystallizes a profound challenge for each of us.  Doesn't it? I think it takes a lifetime to work through the implications for my two families - beginning at home and in my local church.

How big is my family 3)

It will be no surprise that Mark 3:31-35 was the text I chose.  It's easy to visualize the story.  This house is packed out. Jesus is teaching, as only he could, with those closest (probably disciples) seated like him.  Most people are standing, packed together, spilling out through the doorway into a dense crowd outside.  All leaning forward intently. They don't want to miss a word.  I am sure Jesus had a voice that could carry far to everyone.

A small group arrives outside.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, with his brothers. Earlier in the chapter we are told they have set out to do an intervention.  Maybe they thought he neared burn-out, or they could help prevent trouble with the authorities.  Elsewhere (Mark 6) we learn of his brothers: James, Joseph, Judas, Simon as well as some sisters.  The crowd is too dense so they tell someone to pass the message on Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.  It's carried through the crowd until it reaches Jesus.

What happens next is extraordinary.  Interrupted, he questions: Who are my mother and my brothers?  How long does uncomfortable silence hang in that room?  Then, looking at those seated in a circle around him (what an intense look that would have been) he says: Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.'

A few years ago I told this story and when the service was over, the first person out the door looked furious. 'I don't like what he said.  It was really cruel, a terribly unkind put-down of his mother. How could he?  While I replied that he was teaching us something important about family she turned on her heels and said loudly: ' Well, I wish he hadn't'. 

She supposed that Jesus was diminishing his own family. Putting them down. But the truth is bewilderingly inclusive. He's not excluding his Nazareth family.  Read on as you see his love for Mary and her part in the story, with James who probably wrote the NT letter and Jude who also has a NT letter....who belong with him in an entirely new family. Where God comes first, bonding them in his love, forgiveness and new purpose together.  New creation said Paul. Chosen people, royal priesthood, royal nation, said Peter.  Born again into belonging together as brothers and sisters.  

When you trust Jesus and place God first you belong to two families!

How big is my family 2)

After all the congregational interaction I mentioned a visit to a primary school where a board was covered with many little figures clustered according to family size underneath the question HOW BIG IS MY FAMILY?   The children counted their immediate family groups at home - an obvious place to start.  But easily this number grows as grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. are added in.  And if you plot a family tree you have a bigger dimension still.

I made a couple of general points. 

1.  Families can be great to belong to.  After all we belong naturally, sharing the last name with relationships and memories grown through belonging together. Old photographs show past Christmases under the tree, holidays with ice cream on our faces and milestone birthdays. With smiles all round.  At its best, families mean that we can relax and be real, for no one knows us better and is so closely related. We are blood relations.

2. Families can be complicated to belong to.  Because we didn't choose the others in our family. Your parents, brothers, sisters are givens - whether you like it or not.  And relationships can be difficult and fragile. A woman said to me: 'I have a sister but I fell out with her years ago. We don't speak.'  Parents can divorce and siblings fall out with each other.  Badly. Sometimes family life can be wonderful.  But at other times it can be horrendous.

We needed to hold these two things in mind as we turned to Scripture.

How big is my family? (1)

Yesterday, I was preaching at Oundle Baptist Church on the theme Belonging Together.  Meeting in a school hall, the congregation was seated around tables (cafe style) for an all-age service. But, alas, there was no heating and no food or drinks!  We sat in buttoned up coats, hats, scarves.  Some had brought blankets and even hot water bottles.  Not quite God's frozen people...but nearly.

My friend had planned the service imaginatively with songs and exercises.  He talked about family trees and showed us his work with his grandson tracing his own. (Apparently, he's researched back to the seventeenth century but we were spared too much detail).  Unusually, he then asked everyone to write down on large pieces of paper all the churches and Christian organizations we had ever belonged to.  Sitting opposite us was a young American mother whose husband is serving in the forces over here.  We discovered that she came from the very same small (and I mean really small!) town of Hillsborough in Kansas as our daughter-in-law, Lori.  Of all the places in the USA!  We are cross-referencing her family details with Lori. Her list obviously included many US churches, as did ours.  We were asked to reflect on the church families we had belonged to  and give thanks for their influences.  Hearing lists of the many different churches was stunning.  And, as our leader put it, all these past influences had now been blended in the DNA of Oundle Baptist Church. 

Yet another exercise involved us reading out to each other three stories from parts of the national Baptist family. The work of the Baptist Union was vividly described by a series of slides and then each table had a different set of three prayer topics: a Baptist college, a Baptist association of churches, and one particular local church.  For me, that was a first.  To focus on belonging together (which is the Baptist logo) with a focus on Baptists took some chutzpah.  Rarely, do we focus on the Baptist family - partly because often, many in our congregations come from other denominations and frankly it is hard enough praying for the local family needs.  So, it was a really different engaging time!   And, I'll mention something else too.......