Forgiveness

About 30 of us have just finished four weeks thinking about grace using Philip Yancey's What's so amazing about grace as a guide. The whole area of forgiveness predictably gave us a few difficulties.

One of the questions I asked last night was: "Can you forgive someone who doesn't have a sense that they need to be forgiven?" Through the Gospel lens the answer to all our problems with forgiveness is always 'Yes' - seventy times seven etc etc. But this is never an easy yes...

A friend reminded me this week that forgiveness is usually costly... the one who makes the move to forgive may have to bear the burden for a long time, I think this is especially so if the one forgiven doesn't have a sense that there is anything they have done that needs forgiveness.

One conclusion we did come up with in the group is that forgiveness is a gift... a grace... our struggles with it are set within a broader context... God's gracious pardon of us... with God's help nothing is impossible... even the possibility that someone who considers themselves the most wronged can take the first step.

Here's a quote I found helpful... "Because it goes against human nature, forgiveness must be taught and practiced, as one would practice any difficult craft. 'Forgiveness is not just an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude,' said Martin Luther King Jr. What greater gift could Christians give to the world than the forming of a culture that upholds grace and forgiveness?"

p137 What's so amazing about grace

A Concert for George

Anne and I have been enjoying watching the Concert for George Harrison DVD, borrowed from our neighbours. What a fantastic concert... a remarkable collection of songs from the often under the radar maestro, brilliant musicianship - Eric Clapton in charge with Jeff Lynne. Dhani Harrison, Billy Preston on keyboards, Ringo and Paul... and Anoushka Shankar (Ravi's daughter & Norah Jones' half-sister) on sitar... and the sense of being part of a community grieving the loss of their friend.

My favourite song was the moving 'While my guitar gently weeps' - Eric Clapton was inspirational and clearly grieving as a camera caught him in a private moment looking away from the audience as the song ended... the version of 'Something' was also delightful.

The concert was in 2002, why does it take me five years to catch up?

Best song of all time

I had a wee yarn with Jim Mora on National Radio this afternoon which was a hoot. He has a 'what's the best song of all time?' slot each day after the 1pm news... I got in with U2's With or Without You from the Joshua Tree album.

So what's your choice of best song of all time??? Hit the comment button below and put in your choice! As long as you don't choose anything by Celine Dion I will make the list of replies into a blog in the next while!

I am working with a group of colleagues on a Sunday evening 'service' on the 7th October where we will use the music of U2 in the context of a communion service. One of our working titles is Sunday Bloody Sunday - "Yeah I'd drink bread and wine if there was a church I could receive in." - the title is from a U2 song - the sub-text is a line from their song 'Acrobat'. Keep on the lookout for the big event!!! I will have more details on this blog once they are firmed up!

- Mart the Rev

Sunday looming... on grace & forgiveness

Here's the first bit of this coming week's sermon (draft)...

At the Wednesday night study group we’ve been wrestling with ways to describe God’s grace. It is not an easy thing for Jesus didn’t seek to describe grace theologically but rather live it and tell stories that illumined it. Thus we get an idea of grace through what a collection of stories points to rather than through a simple proposition. One of the definitions offered to the group last Wednesday was this one: ‘Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.’ [Philip Yancey in What’s so amazing about grace p71]. One of the hardest things to grasp is the order of things – with God it is grace first and our bit later. Grace is unconditional; there is nothing we have to do in order to make God love us for that is simply how it is with God. But we want to reverse the order – we want to have to prove our worthiness. Take the notion of forgiveness for example – our logic is to forgive someone after they have confessed their wrong – if you acknowledge that you have hurt me then I can be in a position to forgive you. Our logic is ‘if-then’ – if you confess your sins, then I will forgive you. And we apply this logic to how the faith thing works – and get to what all the big evangelists seem to say “If you repent, turn from your ways and confess your sins then God will forgive you.”
However, in the logic of grace, this is all reversed. With Jesus, forgiveness comes first and forgiveness is what enables us to begin living lives accordingly to the ways of God. This is not an ‘if-then’ logic but a ‘because-therefore’ logic – ‘because you have already been forgiven, therefore you are freed to respond with a changed life, a heart that turns to God.’ [Paul J. Nuechterlein, Something to sing about].

Reading 'The First Casualty'

I'm immersed in Ben Elton's novel The First Casualty at the moment - what a great read!

Here's a summary I found... [The First Casualty] "...is a gut-wrenching historical drama which explores some fundamental questions. What is murder? What is justice in the face of unimaginable daily slaughter? And where is the honour in saving a man from the gallows if he is only to be returned to die in a suicidal battle? As the gap between legally-sanctioned and illegal murder becomes evermore blurred, Kingsley quickly learns that the first casualty when war comes is truth. "

And, as I have now finished it, some thoughts of my own.

1. This is the second of Elton's books I have read (I'm a slow starter!) the other was High Society. I found both books got me hooked very quickly, kept me enthralled and both seemed well-researched.

2. the themes in The First Casualty are clever. The morality theme especially... as thing become blurred the conscientious objector becomes involved as a participant in the very thing he objected against. Don't we all? Elton leaves his reader with this unwelcome realisation. Some justification is offered that this is what happens in war, thus the title of the book - but Kingsley recognises that in his work as a policeman he has been part of another kind of war that he cannot any longer agree with in relation to the way that suffragettes and communists had been treated by the law and its agents.

3. some may not like the revisionist nature of his work - it is easier to see the folly of the Great War from this side of it and this distance (and I'm currently enjoying Elton's contribution as a co-writer of the Blackadder 4 series). But I believe that there is no possibility of looking at history through any other means than the eyes we have now... we will always revise history, and we should... if we can get as big a picture on what has happened before us then we might be more attentive to the things that might lead us into another folly - might.

I am looking forward to delving into Elton's nine other novels!

A Tony Campolo story on Grace

Tony Campolo tells about being invited to speak in Honolulu one time and having trouble getting his body to adjust to the ten-hour time shift from his home in Philadelphia. He wound up wide-awake at three o’clock in the morning drinking coffee in an all-night diner. Presently the door opened, and in came about eight women laughing and talking loudly. Campolo soon deduced that they were streetwalkers finished with their evening’s work and relaxing before going home to sleep. One, named Agnes, mentioned to her friend that the next day would be her thirty-ninth birthday.
After the group had left, Campolo got a bright idea. He said to the gruff proprietor behind the counter, “Did you hear that one woman say tomorrow was her birthday? Whaddya say we throw her a party? I’ll come back tomorrow night with some decorations, and let’s surprise her with a cake and everything!”
The man’s wife came out of the kitchen. Both of them said, “That’s a wonderful idea. Let’s do it.”
Twenty-four hours later the little diner was decorated with streamers and balloons. A festive sign was taped to the mirror. The couple had put the word out and a large assortment of night people were gathered. When the prostitutes came in for their usual coffee, the shout went up: Happy Birthday Agnes!”
The woman stood speechless as the singing began. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Nobody had shown her genuine kindness in years. The owner brought out a birthday cake with candles. Agnes was in such shock that she had to be reminded to blow them out.
She paused again, “Well, cut the cake, Agnes!” the proprietor said.
She finally found words. In a whisper she said, “Please… I just… I just want to keep the cake. I’ll take it to my apartment down the street… just for a couple of days. Please let me keep the cake.”
No one knew how to respond, but no one could think of a reason to refuse her request. So out the door she fled, holding the cake as if it were the Holy Grail.
An awkward silence filled the room. Campolo finally broke in with a bold suggestion: “I have another idea - why don’t we pray?” Without hesitation he began to voice a prayer for Agnes, that God would bless her on her birthday, that God would bring peace into her life and save her from all that troubled her…
At the amen, the diner owner said, “Hey you didn’t tell me you were a preacher? What kind of church do you preach at?”
Campolo thought a moment, cocked his head sideways, and then answered with a grin, “I preach at the kind of church that throws birthday parties for whores at three-thirty in the morning!”
What happened next was the most poignant moment of all. The man squinted at Campolo and announced,
“No… no, you don’t. There is no church like that. I would join a church like that.”
[from The Kingdom of God is a Party by Tony Campolo p3-9]

Service with reflections on Mackenzie Thorpe sculptures

Have a look...
http://www.ststephens.co.nz/ministry/sermons/collection/20070603.1181003987.php

Mackenzie Thorpe

Falling in Love

a sculpture in bronze by Mackenzie Thorpe

Photo by Mart the Rev

There's a fantastic exhibition of four of Mackenzie Thorpe's bronze sculptures at the Christchurch Arts Centre for a couple of months. I'm aiming to build next Sunday's service around the themes they offer as well as preach on the one pictured at the induction of a colleague this Thursday. The exhibits with their bronze curves look fantastic against the neo-Gothic Arts Centre buildings. The exhibition has coincided with the opening of a stunning permanent display of sculptures representing the experience of people suffering from dyslexia just over the road from the Centre. Falling in Love is part of the permanent display. I will post my reflections on the Thorpe sculptures on the St Stephen's website after Sunday.

Thoughtful words from Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis, the inspirational leader of The Sojourners Community, delivered the following inspiring words at Georgetown University on Sunday, May 20 under the title What's Acceptable? What's Possible?
"... what are you going to no longer accept in our world, what will you refuse to tolerate now that you will be making the decisions that matter?
Will it be acceptable to you that 3 billion people in our world today - half of God's children - live on less that $2 per day, that more than 1 billion live on less than $1 per day, that the gap between the life expectancy in the rich places and the poor places in the world is now 40 years, and that 30,000 children globally will die today ... from needless, senseless, and utterly preventable poverty and disease? It's what Bono calls "stupid poverty."
"...What we see now offends us, offends our understanding of the sanctity and dignity of life, offends our notions of fairness and justice, offends our most basic values; it violates our idea of the common good, and starts to tug at our deepest places. We cross the line of unacceptability. We become intolerant of the injustice.
But just changing our notion of what is unacceptable isn't enough, however. We must also change our perception of what is possible.
In that regard, I would encourage each of you to think about your vocation more than just your career. And there is a difference. From the outside, those two tracks may look very much alike, but asking the vocational question rather than just considering the career options will take you much deeper. The key is to ask why you might take one path instead of another - the real reasons you would do something, more than just because you can. The key is to ask who you really are and what you want to become. It is to ask what you believe you are supposed to do...
"Ask where your gifts intersect with the groaning needs of the world - there is your vocation."

You can track the whole speech by clicking the Sojourners link over on the left of this blogpage.

Birthday!

Anne did well today... I received a good sized print of Michael Smither's stunning Rocks with Mountain to put up on the wall in my study/office. It is mounted on a thick black block - it will be near my Colin McCahon print In truth - but alas, they have to be copies!

I'm also looking forward to reading a new U2 book... U2 Show by Diana Scrimgeour which includes interviews with behind the scenes crew and organisers who have helped the band on tour over many years. Yay!

CD compilation on my birthday

Here's my cd of songs I've enjoyed through the last year... the list is in order of making it a good mix more than actual preferences although #1 and #2 are tops with me.
Explanation for some of the choices included...
city of blinding lights - U2 opening track at the U2 concert we went to in Melbourne... alluding to the new jerusalem???
isn't it amazing - hothouse flowers used it at a memorable church service & went to concert last year and they sung it!
lungs - cowboy junkies part of an extra group of covers on the one soul now album '04
my black heart - the ghost who walks this is neil mccormick, rock critic and author of the brilliant I was Bono's Doppelganger & U2 by U2 - I imported this from the UK and love it. He also released a song after the London bombings - you can see it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DECobDuX_YQ Neil is in the middle of the clip holding his child.
wired - mephymology this Dunedin NZ band are finding their way - a great bunch who stayed on their way north to tour in the summer. Check them out at http://www.mephymology.co.nz/ They have some tracks on their my space site from a great concert last year.
window in the skies - U2 used this at church after Easter... great lines esp in opening verse
accustomed to the light - dave dobbyn Dave is one of NZ's heros he played this one evening in ChCh this summer with band & orchestra - profound! As was his version of Cohen's Hallelujah.
map of the problematique - muse me and my boys love these guys, i love this following dave's song
magic bracelets - hothouse flowers from the latest flowers album - full of optimism.
fade into you - mazzy star a song on my brother's compilation that struck a chord, one of my daughter's favourites as well
not ready to make nice - dixie chicks the most 'pop' of the songs on this list... i like the anger but hope they find a way to move on from their stand re George Bush and the stuff that came at them because of it!
nothing wrong with me - the audreys also on the compilation... they won the best blues & roots album in Australia 2006 check them at http://www.theaudreys.com.au/
thunder road - cowboy junkies springsteen's song in junkies style also from the one soul now extra cd
red right hand - nick cave & the bad seeds a close competition with their song do you love me?
angel - massive attack enjoyed this played on The West Wing end of series 4
forever young - bob dylan i honestly hadn't really heard this song until this year!

On the Move - Bono

I've just ordered a copy of Bono's little book On the Move - his speech to a White House Prayer Breakfast and photos he took when he and Ali first went to Ethiopia in 1986. I have a copy of the speech and it is great - and I probably don't need the book (just as I don't really need every CD by U2, a dozen U2 books, pretty much every CD single since 1993 and a pile of rock magazines with articles on U2) but if having it in any way supports his mountain-moving work in Africa, then I'm in!

Favourite Albums

It is a year or so since I started this blog - I began and then stopped for months... shifted cities etc etc.

Two years ago on my birthday I burned a compilation CD of songs I enjoyed the most through the year. The songs didn't need to be new - just enjoyed. I'm about to do that this year and I'll include the list here when it is done.

In the meantime I got thinking about what were my favourite albums. This is more complicated because for me the criteria of what makes a great album means assessing the collection of songs as a whole rather than saying it is great because of a few songs. Thus for me, U2's Joshua Tree has some of their best songs but the B-side (One Tree Hill aside) just hasn't got under my skin. Anne and I have similar enough tastes in music and the question of what are our favourite albums has been a topic I have raised as we have walked in the mornings (not always appreciated when we have just woken up!).

Here's the list so far in order of my preferences...

#1 Achtung Baby - U2 1991

#2 Songs From The Rain - Hothouse Flowers 1993

#3 The Trinity Sessions - Cowboy Junkies 1988

#4 Abbey Road - The Beatles 1969

#5 Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits 1985

#6 All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2 2000

#7 Into Your Heart - Hothouse Flowers 2004

#8 Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd 1973

#9Coming From Reality - Rodriguez 1971
#10 Together Alone - Crowded House 1993

#11 The Rising - Bruce Springsteen 2002

#12 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd 1975

#13 The Globe Sessions - Sheryl Crow 1998

Anne would want to add Time After Time - Eva Cassidy 2000, I'm not so sure it ranks with the above ones.

Closing in though is the 2006 debut album of the Australian group The Audreys - Between Last Night & Us.

I want to add a compilation my brother put together featuring The Audreys, Nick Cave, Mazzy Star, Cowboy Junkies & Chris Isaak... it is quite fantastic but it doesn't fit the criteria.

What albums would you rate as your favourites?

Edmund Anscombe at Otago University

Photos by Mart the Rev

As mentioned earlier in a blog, my great grandmother's brother was an architect. One of this masterpieces was the archway at the University of Otago where I earned degrees in Arts & Theology in the 1980's.

New Thing in the Presbyterian Church

Sally Carter a colleague, alerted me to the relevance of a quote another colleague used in a presentation to Christchurch Presbytery this last week… it comes from Albert Einstein and seems pertinent to what New Thing (an emerging group in the PCANZ) is trying to be about.

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them’ - Einstein

I think that our church especially how it goes about its life together in these days of diversity needs a new way of thinking – a stepping back. I think that this is what New Thing is attempting to explore… but it isn’t easy. Already some of the ways we address one another’s point of view in our discussion forums reflects the old skins we have grown up in.
How do we enable new ways of being the church in these diverse times that don’t diminish people and their way of seeing things, yet still hold to the integrity of the Christian faith?

I find it stupid that a modest majority from a gathering of 300 or so people can or should be determining what happens in the church where I minister in terms of who they can call into any form of leadership etc (The PCANZ General Assembly made a ruling in 2006). I’m with Albert in that I believe we aren’t going to sort this stupidity out by using the same systems that created the initial stupidity – what a deep hole we will end up with then!

Bono's Birthday

I know that the date above says I posted this yesterday - but in NZ we get the new day first and I write this at 1-45pm on 10 May. My friend Beck txts me every year on this day to wish a happy Bono's birthday.

He's got a year on me - he arrived on 10 May 1960. Anne's reading Michka Assayas' book Bono on Bono - conversations with Bono. It is full of so many good stories. One story we like is about his friend Guggi. Guggi grew up thinking that any presents he got for his birthday should be shared so he would turn up at Bono's house with half the present. Bono doesn't remember his own birthdays but well remember's Guggi's ones because Guggi taught him how to share.

What a good approach to life - anything we are given we share - the world could be changed with that kind of attitude!

Happy birthday Bono!

Most of the time it is person to person

Here's some of what I'm working up for Sunday...
We have been focusing the last few weeks on the changes in the early church where they discovered that the Spirit was calling them across some of the divides in their culture. Peter finds himself meeting a disciple of Jesus who is female, he accepts an invitation to stay at the home of Simon the Tanner (who touches the carcasses of dead animals and is therefore unclean) and then in a dream he is challenged to cross the greater divide – to go to the home of a Gentile – a Roman Officer, and there discover that God has been at work – and it is OK. All through these accounts is the common thread that the followers of Jesus were being called out – called out to go to where God was working. I have been arguing that these stories are important for our time in that it is no longer enough to expect people to have to come to us and fit in with us – we too are being called to be the ones who go to where others are – to cross the lines and cut across the boarders and boundaries that we have so often constructed and hidden behind.
There are all kinds of ways we might then follow these provocative texts up… the temptation is to come up with a list of what we can do now… 10 steps to a more effective church – 5 things that you can do to make a difference tomorrow… I can see the book titles already… I might even get asked to go on a lecture circuit!
But this is not a programme. Church is not a programme. Relating to people is not a formula and it is manipulative of people (and thus diminishing of them) if we just employ a tactic to get them in. Where is God leading us? I think the answer isn’t too difficult… love your neighbours. Be the person in your street who takes an interest in people. Be the one who invites people in for a cuppa. Be the one through whom others see that to be a Christian is ok, that to worship God is a good thing… be hospitable as God is hospitable… One thing I have come to learn is that the Christian faith has almost always been a thing passed on from person to person. Occasionally a big event happens – Pentecost Day, a Billy Graham rally – but most of the time, it is person to person. We don’t need fancy books and super-duper programmes… we just have to cross a few of the lines in our neighbourhoods. A bit of hospitality here and a bit of generosity there… not far behind there will be people’s deep questions and their innate thirst for God awakened… not far behind the loosening up of the defences is the fertile ground for God’s Spirit to speak and be heard.

The Stewarts of Warepa

Here's my great-grandmother on the Stewart side - Eliza who gave up a fairly straight-forward life in Dunedin as a painter to be farmer's wife and mother of seven. I think I can name them all... Gilbert & Eliza, Winifred, Grace, Alice, Nora, (I'll have to come back on this!) & Lloyd my grandfather. Lloyd was born in 1908 - he looks about 8 years old here - thus the picture was taken around 1916.

Alice McIntosh was the one I knew the best. She lived in Balclutha and was the last survivor in the family. Alice also painted (as did Nora) and I have two of them. Alice was a character who drove everywhere picking up hitchhikers and visiting the extended family. I attended her 90th birthday some years back.

Those who have been

This week the church youth group had a as our guests a couple who are into genealogy in a big way. The question 'who am I?' is addressed in part by how we have been shaped by those who have been before us.

It kind of reignited my interest in my forebears. So far I have got the birth, death and marriage dates of the two generations prior to me (not that hard really) and I'm slowly working backwards. I don't know many of the names of my great grandmothers & g-fathers, but have some idea on a few of them. One of them has a little bit of notoriety - Eliza Stewart (nee Anscombe) was a reasonably talented painter. Half a dozen of her works are stored in the Hocken Library in Dunedin and she is listed in a publication and on the web. Her brother Edmund was the famous one - he was a significant New Zealand architect, designing many buildings (including churches) in Dunedin and Wellington as well as being the designer of the 1940 NZ Centennial Exhibition in Wellington and the 1925 NZ & South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin.

One of the delights of looking back was finding out (after she was named) that my daughter Hannah had a great-great grandmother with the same name. Hannah Dawson died in 1946, I'm off to find out where and when she was born and what her maiden name was.

Clare Short quote from Sojourners

I subscribe to the free weekly email from the Sojourners Community in Washington DC - this week's quote is from Clare Short, a British MP who resigned as Secretary of State for International Development over the U.K.'s involvement in the Iraq War... here it is:

"You can’t take the evil of slavery out of the world and abolish it without making the world more just. You will never prevent people living in bonded labor or from getting caught up in sex trafficking while they are so desperate that they have no other choice but to sell themselves. As long as we in the West crave ever more excess, we conspire in their desperation, exploiting it and make ourselves sick in the process."

A past interview with Clare Short can be found at http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&mode=printer_friendly&issue=soj0401&article=040121