2 Corinthians 5

Paul struggling with the intangibility of Christianity in a material world again. And articulating it for the ages.

The flow of thought is still against the background question of Paul’s credibility as a Christian leader.

He is aware that his readers, by and large, will understand and share the eternal perspective, the longing just to be in heaven with Christ, that makes Paul compare badly to preachers who are designing their persona for earthly success. He going on about it so passionately to give them the words and ideas to persuade others.

It’s do or die for Paul. He’s seen their church so quickly threaten to be just another worldly organisation that loses the whole point of the Jesus’ mission of reconciling the world to God, one human heart at a time.

So this is not just about who-the-hell-Paul-thinks-he-is, these are words by which the focus and purpose of churches, and Christians, can be measured down the course of history. As indeed they have proven.

This chapter has so many beautiful encapsulations of what Christianity is all about, that are much easier to grab than the flow of argument:

1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

7 For we live by faith, not by sight.

14-15 Christ’s love compels us … he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

(“The love of Christ compels us” is on the wall of every Salvo church, staring down at the multitude of weird and wonderful events those halls witness…)

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I mean just wow. They work stand-alone as hooks straight to the heart of the good news about Christ. But if you’re coming off reading the old testament… so rich.

That opening verse! “if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God“. Recalling the tabernacle that the Israelites dragged through the desert from Egypt to Canaan. And God’s command to king David that he had to leave Solomon the job of building the brick and mortar temple. And the matching promise that God was building David a spiritual house, now realised. All on the theme of things that appear transient and permanent switching places in eternal significance… a wry reference to Paul ‘merely’ being a tent maker, perhaps?

And so it goes. What am I taking from it? Clarity. These are familiar verses, but not to be dismissed. It measures me, as it is intended to, and it inspires me to love God and tune out to worldly values.

Praying for Afghan women, I read another story yesterday. Thinking about truth, facing truth is the only way forward towards justice. Praying for the nieces getting married this weekend, and the mental health of the community.

1 Corinthians 14

The Corinthian church has way too much personality. Their services must have been quite an experience. In this chapter we get a picture of many people speaking in tongues simultaneously, and also multiple people yelling out prophesies.

No one is checking whether the prophesies are just mad ravings, or interpreting the tongues. It’s like a wild chaotic energy.

From earlier chapters we already know they are having holy communion that involves families bringing whole packed dinners and eating them in front of poorer members without enough to eat.

They are suing each other, and hooking up. Either too angry or too amorous. People are also chatting and catching up, arguing about points of theology, about the right food to eat and being very dismissive of those who don’t follow their own preferred church leader.

So here, after the chapter telling them that ALL the gifts are important …and please, teaching more than tongues! And the chapter telling them that the way most important thing is Christian love for each other… patience, kindness, self deprecation …we get this chapter telling them to have a bit of order in their services.

It’s so different to our church! I suppose we have all these things on occasion, but not in the actual service. We all stay silent while the sermon is peached and the bible is read. One person leads prayer, and we are silent for that too. There is no time at all for tongues, prophesies by members of the church. We have one lone guy with a Pentecostal background who calls out “praise God” or similar every now and then. Other than that, there are very set times for greetings or general chit chat. But mostly, silence. Men and women.

This chapter has the controversial gendered bit saying that women have to be silent and ask their husbands later if there is anything they don’t understand, because they have a submissive role.

I remember years ago going to the big Sydney synagogue to see what it was like, and the chatting and catching up went on all through the service. The men separate from the women, who were all up in a gallery. The service was like a distant and largely irrelevant ritual happening off in the background.

I recall a vivid depiction of Muslim worship, Aussie style, in the film Ali’s Wedding where the women were actually separated out in another room, with a gossipy dynamic running in parallel.

I’m kind of wondering if there wasn’t something like these set ups in the Corinthian church. It was an adapted synagogue service, is possible Paul’s gendered comments might have related to a situation where the women were already separated, and being too noisy.

Certainly as every commentator points out, there are many contrary indications to an absolute ban on the female voice in his writings. He got Phoebe to read out the letter to Romans for heaven’s sake! And also in Romans he greets Junia/Joanna as a fellow apostle, the highest and most valuable of witnesses to Christ. She was likely among those who told the disciples the tomb was empty on Easter morning, according to Luke. If so, was that the last time she shared that particular story?

And I thought, if you take these gendered instruction too far, it really sucks for the women he referred to a couple of chapters ago. The ones he told was ok to stay single if they want to devote themselves to the gospel. But they remain completely silent? And if they have questions, they can only ask their husbands? Except they have no husbands? So they have no avenue for learning the finer points of the gospel they devoted their lives to?

I actually wish our church was a bit more like the Corinthian one. I would like a bit more disorder! Especially in this time of zoom church. I don’t get any group dynamic, no unruly at all in my life!

Had a helpful training meeting at work the other day. They’ve decided the kid we mind really is too dangerous to have in public as much, so he’s going to spend more time at the farm, where his dad is caretaker, not his mum’s house which is a much more suburban environment.

I will appreciate that, as it’s very stressful taking him out on his public scooter rides. He’s lit fires, killed birds, thrown rocks and sticks at cars threatened us with broken glass bottles. All among unsuspecting members of the public. The farm is 250 acres, a big bubble for him to be crazy in.

He’s just settling into a new psychiatrist, he has no treatment or drugs to modify him. He’s demonstrated that he has no impulse control.

Rennie has been making music, which warms my soul. He stiches together samples and adds beats mostly, he’s got a flair for it. And a good day yesterday where he got into his major work for art, so he’ll have something to hand in. He was happy. He sometimes gets himself into a pickle of fear where he makes deadlines worse by procrastinating.

I’ve booked the the car in for a check of the heating system.

Second COVID shot today. Praying for regional Australia, and society in general!

The passage today really just makes me miss church, for all is flaws!

1 Coronthians 9

Paul is justifying himself in this chapter, but he’s actually a weirdo, and in the end he will stay that way. That’s how I read it, and I relate, a bit. Challenged a bit too.

He’s still responding to questions here, I think, and the scenario goes back to the first chapter where he talks about how some follow him, Paul, and some follow Apollos.

I’d say the followers of Apollos are very deeply dismissive of Paul. The don’t get him at all. It’s probably because of Greek culture, it’s strong, it’s famous. Maybe Apollos presented more like Socrates or Aristotle.

In Paul they get a Roman (eww) Jew (double eww) who just doesn’t present like a professional guru.

The Jewish leaders, while foreign to the Greeks, at least probably oozed gravitas. But here’s Paul going off to work as a tent maker by day, then claiming to have seen Jesus, having the same status as Peter and the disciples, even though he never met the man prior to crucifixion, or even prior to the ascension.

They really seem to have had an issue with him having a job. It signalled amateur status. It’s not hard to understand. How much credibility would Anthony Robbins have as a life coach if he kept a day job in a mobile phone shop or something?

Paul probably looked like a worker. He was probably dirty and sweaty at times. No style, no prestige. All the wrong signals.

To his detractors he is an eccentric, a dude. A semi professional full of flakey, uppity claims about special access to Jesus based on an unsubstantiated vision.

So he argues, I really truly am an apostle, especially to you, because I founded this here church, right?

I could definitely ask you to support me, but I chose not to.

And so not a flakey dude! I’m actually very disciplined, like an athlete punishing his body to win gold at the Olympics. Except my medal is to have been a faithful servant of Christ and the gospel.

Ironically this passage has the famous “to the Jews, I became a Jew, to the weak I became weak, to the lawless I became lawless” section. Ironic, because to the Greeks he seems to have become an oddball.

Indeed, that chameleon, culturally fluid quality would, I guess, have been extremely rare in the ancient world and very unsettling. Part of the problem maybe. He would be very hard to read.

Ironically again, I think he would have been quite a force of nature and despite his claims to fit in anywhere, he probably stood out everywhere as unmistakably and uniquely himself.

Just speculating.

Certainly for all his “I’ll be a vegetarian if it helps” attitude, his antics seem to have got some of the Greeks way offside.

I think can relate. I feel sometimes like my attempts to become more normal to people actually make me look weirder to them.

The freedom of the gospel means that Paul has a very clear understanding of how little the world’s conventions mean. But faking being conventional is a tricky game. If deeply conventional people sniff it out, you can be much more untrustworthy to them than if you had just been out there and proud to start with.

But the easy thing, the clear yet challenging thing for me is Paul’s gospel focus. Don’t have an introspective mini identity crisis about everything, modern Paul, ie: me. Just do what you gotta do for Christ.

I really feel it all building to the burst of lovey-love in chapter 13. Love is all you need!

Luke 5

After reading this chapter I prayed for confidence in Jesus.

He calls the disciples. I hadn’t noticed Peter’s first words to Jesus before. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

This after Jesus used his boat to preach, and then they had a huge catch. And moments before he left it all behind and followed Jesus.

The chapter ends with the parable of the new wine.

In between, Jesus is good news for a leper, the paralysed man who is lowered down through the roof and Levi, the tax collector.

He’s bad news for the Pharisees, (always them), who question whether Jesus can forgive sins, and snipe at the joyous party Levi puts on to celebrate Jesus coming into his life.

When Jesus’ responds to Peter telling him to go away, he nails what is going on: “Don’t be afraid”.

That’s all Peter needed to hear.

Jesus makes people aware of their inadequacy, their evil. But he offers freedom from that too, and there is the long or short journey to joy.

He’ll burst apart the old container, your identity, that held close old ideas, including including rationalisations and compensations for your moral failures. And your hypocrisy and shame.

But some people say that they still prefer that old wine.

The confidence the people in these stories had, the disciples and the sick, had that Jesus could fix them, gives me confidence in his name.

My confidence is tested by the rising indifference to religion. I read an article that affirmed the rise of “nones” – people who don’t have any response to God. They don’t identify as agnostic or atheist, they aren’t anti, but simply don’t see the relevance to them. That accords with my experience.

But the people in this chapter couldn’t meet Jesus and not respond. And I do have confidence. So the “nones” can bloody well meet Jesus if they meet me, and see how irrelevant he is after that!

At the message stick service last Sunday pastor Ray, after the week we had, which included suicide, and after a time spent despairing over, and praying for, our leaders, sang this old hymn:

“What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear”

Which is a great place to get to.

COVID test negative, coughs hopefully in retreat for Kelly and I, I feel like the physical illness will transition into psychological malaise if I don’t get some more energy soon. It’s a day to pray for energy and confidence. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed by life.

John 20

The empty tomb, inclusion outward and inward.

John, the writer of the book was a first hand witness of the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene discovers it and tells them. John hesitates at the entrance, peering in. Peter comes behind and plows straight past him.

It clicked as I read it that this gospel is also an affectionate portrait of Peter by someone who knew him well, there are so many small observations of his character.

The chapter ends with a personal note explaining why he wrote the book… It is: “written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”

The first hand witness is very compelling. As he has throughout the book, he links Jesus to God. If you want to know God, know Jesus. Again, there is the to and from. Jesus returned to God. Our way to God is by believing in him. Jesus was sent from God, and we are sent into the world as ambassadors of love from God.

We are included into God’s family, and we look outward to include others in God’s family.

This is like the seed, the end point, I could imagine the whole book has been constructed backwards from this moment focused on arriving here.

I’ve always thought John’s gospel was the most complicated, but in some ways it’s the simplest.

I don’t think it would be possible to honestly read it and not feel obliged to form an opinion on Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah, to be God.

It is told by one who didn’t understand the events as they were unfolding. John clarifies that he believed the tomb was empty when he entered, but admits he didn’t at that point didn’t understand or remotely expect that Jesus had come back to life.

Its very powerful. Its a great first Bible book to read.

I leave today for a four day jaunt north to visit my brother and sister in law. This chapter doesn’t really arm me for a day of car travel to a camp site. But that’s ok. Its like the keystone that holds up the book of John, which is itself a keystone that holds up my belief system. That’s enough!

Matthew 22

Don’t dare ask Jesus questions. Not that he can’t take it, but can you?

When I read these passages in the morning, I sometimes stop after and listen, listen to what my mind, and God’s Spirit is saying to me.

I’m in one of those places at the moment where I hear nothing. There is silence when I do this. It’s a silence I’ve learned not to be afraid of.

Honestly, an old anthem, a piece of church music I sang as a child was the only thing that came into my head for the whole chapter. The music was by John Wesley, I recall, and the text was “thou wilt keep in perfect peace whose mind is set on thee”.

In this silence, I feel preserved. Kept in peace, active peace as in knowing god’s love.

The chapter is full of texts that are familiar old friends which have informed and excited my thinking for as long as I can remember.

The two great commandments are slipped in there, Jesus’clarifying teaching that all the law boils down to love, of God and others. How helpful has that been down the years. I still recall a Christian summer camp where they taught us this, and it was so simple, I grabbed it.

And rendering coins with Caesar’s face to Caesar.

And a slightly meaner version of the wedding banquet story than in other gospels, the one where the king invites the nobles and the rich to his banquet, but they won’t come, so then he invites all the riff raff.

But in Matthew’s telling, the king throws out someone from the second group, the riff raff group for not having the right clothes. (What did the king expect?) But it reminded me of the parable of the sower… Some don’t respond at all to the invitation, some respond but not deeply. It doesn’t take root.

Also in the chapter Jesus talking to the Sadducees, who I think of as the liberal, intellectual teachers, who take or leave the scriptures by the nature of their own skepticism.

They don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, and ask Jesus a super tricksy scenario about how marriage to multiple partners on earth would play out in heaven, which makes eternal life sound ridiculous.

Jesus breezes past their sophistry to say “you know neither the power of the scriptures or the power of God”. I loved that. That did speak to me, because I’m having a dumb day today.

And Jesus’ wonderful answer to the question about the authority of the Messiah, interpreting David saying “the lord said to my lord” in Psalm 110 as meaning there is an extra lord. God the father and himself, Jesus, that David recognises. So Jesus places himself, Messiah, as David’s lord. Lord of the greatest figure in Jewish history.

Scandalous! But the Jewish leaders who raised the question to trap Jesus were dumbfounded. They couldn’t provide a better interpretation of that verse.

Which was where I started… The Jewish leaders gave up asking Jesus questions after that, and simply resolved to kill Jesus. They stopped even pretending to care about God or theology, and revealed themselves as power hungry brutes. I’m thinking Jerry Falwell junior.

Which brings me back to my silence. I gave up asking Jesus questions to trip him up when I was a kid. I love all this teaching, its an old friend. I’m in a vulnerable place. Cognitive overload, I think they call it. So I’m just happy to be reminded it’s all there, without the burden of processing it too much.

Some hopeful signs for the kids this week… And some quiet satisfactions. Won’t go into detail, but seeing possibilities of hope ahead is a good feeling.

Kept in peace.

Hosea 14

Admit it, you’re wrong.

Your glittery idols aren’t true, human societies won’t really rescue you, at least not forever. Turn to your creator.

God wants to love us freely, to forgive us and have us flourish. Like new young shoots, like blossoms in dew, like vines or junipers, heavy with fruit in the shade of a magnificent tree.

In the end it’s about wisdom and careful insight:

Who is wise? Let them realize these things.

    Who is discerning? Let them understand.

Verse 9

In our prosperity, in our distress, God is present, is love abundant. This wealth will pass, this distress will pass, but God’s love is forever.

My sister posted this leunig cartoon to Facebook.

Business as usual? Yes, but praying for vulnerable friends, medical staff dealing with extraordinary risk and misery, the third world, people in violent, abusive families trying not to go out, worries small and large. Many things to pray for.

Ezekiel 37

“Read the dry bones mum.”

She would read the Bible to me every night when I was a child. And when the notes ran out, she gave me the choice, and I always chose this passage.

I took it as an illustration of the same creative power by which God made the world. Metaphor seems too grand for a kid, it was a vibe. A vibe about what God is like, and what he can do.

Take a bunch of bones and knit them into bodies, take the bodies and breathe life into them. I had no trouble believing God who made everything could orchestrate the vivid scenes that this passage fired up in my mind, kids are like that.

Ezekiel does a stick trick in the second half of the passage that sort of repeats the bones vision, on a national scale. He writes “Israel” on one stick, and “Judah” on another stick, and then holds them together, like they are a single stick, a promise that the divided kingdom of the Jews will be one again.

Mum showed a judicious sense of drama and used to stop reading before she got to that bit. As sheer theatre, it’s somewhat anti-climactic after the bones vision.

It’s messianic, the Messiah is simply called king David. But the ruler of the joined sticks has the characteristics of the eternal kingship of God.

And here I am at 57, days into 2020. Zero honeymoon of new-year optimism as our bushfire season is catastrophically exacerbated by climate change, and the middle East seems destabilised, maybe headed for war.

I have a tiny role in that messianic vision of nations bought together under god’s love and grace, Jesus’ work happening now and promising a grace-filled and blessed destination for eternity.

The bones trick, people having new life, getting beating hearts and the breath of God as he washes away their idols… I see that regularly in the salvation army, and at church too. It’s beautiful.

The stick trick, I do believe, I draw great comfort from it. But it seems like a few steps back more than a few steps forward at the moment. It seems like the more amazing one right now.

Give me, and use me for, peace, life and hope in 2020 lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 8

It’s not a biography as much as an extended CV. The information is organised by category not chronology, so far.

The first few chapters were background and credentials.  Then Jesus’ manifesto, 3 chapters of mission statement and vision.  Now a bunch of significant actions are grouped together to make the point of his divinity.

The theme is Jesus’ supernatural power – a healing, a resurrection, controlling weather, driving out demons. They make it clear that these are just examples, he does it constantly.

The passage is interested in peoples responses, and Jesus’ reactions.  Their’s vary – the disciples are chided for fearing their story might end in drowning (as if!). The most faith is found in a roman soldier.  Tellingly, Jesus responds that he has nowhere to lay his head, and it’s recorded that the response of the town where he drove demons into a pig herd is to demand he leave the region.

The drumbeat of rejection by his own, the Jews, has been sounding since chapter one. The book is written for them, the old testament echos are constant.

Despite the familiarity Jesus still provokes and surprises me. He tells the leper to keep his healing on the down low.  So was it done from compassion more than to show he was God? A follower asks time out for his father’s funeral arrangements, and Jesus says no… bad boss!  But he won’t disguise the urgency and importance of his life.

It’s shaping up to be a stressful week – I won’t go into it. The love of Jesus feels like a given that doesn’t erase the hardness of this world.

In the short term. Jesus had to play it by ear, string it along, buy time and make hard choices, that’s clear from this passage. Which is ironic given he has the power to tell the waves to calm.

The devils temptation was to use his power to take short cuts. It illustrates the dilemma of evil, I suppose.

Waiting for the few to pass through the narrow gate. Why?  Love? The shepherd gives most time to the lost sheep.

 

Psalm 3

Slug ’em!

This is an adversity/encouragement psalm of King David.

Lots of enemies, which as I read it I related to problems, because I personally don’t warrant many enemies.

God speaking encouragement from a mountain, powerful over all.

So often David’s worry psalms have a night and morning in them, and this is another one.

When David arises, with the perspective of morning after mulling his fears, he calls on God to arise too.

He asks god to sock his enemies on the jaw and break their teeth.

It’s an effective non jargon poetic device asking the God of love to defend you so viscerally. Takes you right into the physicality of David’s threat.

And by the standards of middle eastern trash talk of the time, it’s almost comically mild. Based on other old testament passages, this sort of curse was more usually along the lines of wanting their eyes gouged out after watching their family slaughtered, and the earth where their palaces stood scorched.

But anyway, David asks for God’s vengence on his enemies.

Mondays I either fear or embrace my problems. Since they aren’t people, I can quite peacefully pray to God: help me slug em!