Friday, February 28, 2014

CP 239 Ensnared in the History Wars



CP 239 My place in the History Wars

After the recent ‘Mission and Ministry Conference at Collaroy I was asked to write a report. Tough to do when I didn’t take lots of notes. The speaker was Pastor / Dr Noel Due from LCA Qld. He was good! (Fortunately I checked the draft because it read, ‘He was goo!’) What I wrote went under the heading, “The History wars.” Here it is:
Why “The History Wars”, when Pastor Due didn’t even use the phrase? We are familiar with it, of course, as a loaded term from the politically driven desire to review the Social Studies and History curriculums in our Education Systems. There is robust debate in Australia about how ‘white’ history should be presented in our classrooms. In regard to recent history there are people who debate the truth of the WW2 atrocities and the phrase ‘Holocaust denial’ pops up from time to time. And after the Vietnam War many South Vietnamese people were sent to prison camps for ‘re-education’.
However, “History Wars” is a wonderful way to sum up Dr Due’s message. It matters for all eternity whether we are in the presence of the Lord God Almighty under Satan’s version of our personal history, or in the holy presence under Jesus the Christ’s version of us.
Satan’s version is accusatory. “This man / this woman, just like Adam and Eve, has broken your Law innumerable times! The wages of sin is death! Let your holy justice take its course.” The Jesus Messiah version says, “Father, for this one I humbled myself to earth, lived in joyful obedience to you in all things, suffered, shed my blood, died, was laid in the tomb, was raised to life and restored to your right hand. My blood was shed for his / her sin. I have removed his / her history to myself, and given to this one my own story. There is no accusation in this one’s history! Let your justice takes its course!”
Pastor Due spoke passionately about all of us being “In Christ”… baptised into Christ… you were buried with Christ into his death… raised to life in Christ… in Christ, new creation… the old has passed away… no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus… seated at the right hand of the Father in Christ Jesus… nothing (in all creation) will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus… And on and on and on! 
I hope you get it.

Now something else… a couple of quotes from writers with Holy Spirit wisdom and insight…

"Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time.  Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for their words, advice, and guidance.  Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them.  Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject.  But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative." Henri Nouwen "In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership pp31-32

“Our Lord's descent from the holy heights of the Mount of Transfiguration was more than a physical return from greater to lesser altitudes; it was a passing from sunshine into shadow, from the effulgent glory of heaven to the mists of worldly passions and human unbelief; it was the beginning of His rapid descent into the valley of humiliation.” - James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ

Have a blessed week
Fred

Friday, February 21, 2014

CP 238 Nah... this couldn't possibly work



CP 238 Nah... this couldn’t possibly work.
Thinking about Marriage 10
G’day good people. Late this week but not too late. Last in the series on Marriage… Today I want to put before you a model for marriage which apparently used to work quite well but is now regarded as antiquated, unworkable, fanciful and irrelevant. It came off the pen of a bloke who never married… so what would he know anyway. Nevertheless I feel obliged to put it out there as a way to go. Here it is:

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.* ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.” From the NRSV Ephesians 5:21-33

Familiar of course. Same old, same old! Workable? So some say. Easily dismissed? Usually. But let me put it out the again with just two sentences highlighted…

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.* ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.”
‘Nough said... Does it work? Can it work? Responses welcome.
Regards,
Fred

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

CP 237 A promise to be kept.



CP 237 A Promise to be Kept…
Thinking about marriage 9.
Hi friends… This week’s marriage snippet is a continuation of last week’s post. Remember Dr/Pastor Wangerin’s insistence? Marriage begins with the vow! Here is what he writes next…
“A promise made, a promise witnessed, a promise heard, remembered, and trusted – this is the groundwork of marriage. Not emotions. No, not even love. Not physical desires or personal needs or sexuality. Not the practical fact of living together. Not even the piercing foresight or some peculiar miracle of All-seeing God. Rather, a promise, a vow, makes the marriage.
“I promise you my faithfulness, until death parts us.”
Here is a marvellous work, performed by those who are made in the image of God – for we create, in this promise, a new thing, a changeless stability in an ever-changing world. We do the thing that God does, establishing a covenant with another human being: we ask faith in our faithfulness to that covenant. We transfigure the relationship thereafter, transfiguring ourselves, for we shape our behaviours by the covenant. A new ethic has begun for each of us. We have called forth a spiritual house in which each of us may dwell securely. Whether we know it or not, it is a divine thing we do, and it is holy!” (Love it, love it, love it. Exclamation mark and italics mine).
Fred’s comment… I can’t tell you how much Mr Wangerin’s truth inspires me. And it puts me in mind of another bit of inspired marriage thought from the pen of Lewis Smedes. Read it! Enjoy! Be encouraged! Be challenged! Above all, be faithful!
Read on…
“Keeping Promises” (Lewis Smedes The power of promises)
“Yes, somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make.
I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God.
What a marvellous thing a promise is!  When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable; she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay.
When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be.  With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty. (Amen, Amen, Amen. Fred)
When a person makes a promise, she stakes a claim on her personal freedom and power. When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future.”
Right on the money is Mr Smedes!
Have a blessed week.
Fred
                                                               

Thursday, February 06, 2014

CP 236 Let the marriage begin...



CP 236 Let the marriage begin…
Thinking about marriage 8.
Walter Wangerin, Jr. is a much loved and read writer of practical, liberating ‘Jesus the Christ’ truth. Among his writings is a book entitled, “As for Me and My House”. (Nelson 1990). (The title is taken from Joshua’s declaration to Israel, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15 (This text always resonates with me because these words were inscribed over the doorway of the Lutheran farmer with whom my father worked as a POW during WW2.) The subtitle of the book is Crafting your marriage to last. Wangerin begins by asking a straightforward question: When does a marriage begin? Let’s consider his answer…
When does marriage begin?
  1. Not when two people fall in love with one another…
  2. Neither does marriage begin when two people first “make love” to one another…
  3. Surely, not at the engagement…
  4. Nor… does marriage begin when two people set up housekeeping together – “move in” together…
  5. Not… “made in heaven” even before the couple met and smiled on one another…
When then? When after all, does a marriage begin?
Can we be precise about a thing so spiritual? Can we be specific about a relationship so complicated that much of it happens unconsciously?
Can we fix that moment and say, “There! There is the clear beginning of this marriage”? Yes we can – because that moment is meant to be historical (as well as spiritual) and is to be remembered for the rest of the couple’s lives; because it must be accomplished consciously, in full knowledge of the implications that follow upon it; and because its very purpose is to change the relationship from one of accidental growth to one of careful conviction and responsible stability and trustworthy promises.
Listen: marriage begins when two people make the clear, unqualified promise to be faithful, each to the other, until the end of their days. That spoken promise makes the difference. (Italics mine) A new relationship is initiated. Marriage begins when each vows to commit herself, himself unto the other and to no other human in this world. I promise you my faithfulness until death parts us. That vow, once spoken, once heard, permits a new, enduring trust: each may trust the vow of the other one. And that vow forms the foundation of the relationship to be built upon it hereafter.
Fred’s extra comment: That is such good, insightful and wise stuff. Next week I’ll add the next two paragraphs which follow. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
Have a blessed week.
Fred
Before I go, savour this gem from Corrie ten Boom. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.”