Living Wittily

TFTD October 28-November 3: Don't Worry, Look at the Birds and the Flowers

Monday

Proverbs 12.25 “An anxious heart wears you down, but a kind word uplifts the heart.”

We’re all familiar with that background uncertainty about how life is, that easily slips into worry, often about things we can’t do anything about. Faith, confidence, belief and trust, – these are the words we use to describe the ideal Christian disposition as we make our way through the days and years of our lives. But we are human, and all of us vulnerable to the triggers of anxiety. The wisdom of our verse is that it both recognises the downward drag of worry, and encourages us to look out for each other and be the upward pull that makes a difference to someone else’s day.

Tuesday

Philippians 4.6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

We can’t usually talk ourselves out of worrying, but Paul tells us to pray our way out of it, or through it, or even while still engulfed in anxiety. Prayer is to put into words what’s troubling us, and saying it to God. Paul’s advice is brilliant psychology – bring whatever is making us anxious before the God of grace and mercy and peace, name it, be thankful for the truth that God is all of this and more to us, and seek God’s strength to trust the peace that always, but always, stands guard over our heart.

Wednesday

2 Corinthians 11.28 “Apart from everything else, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

This is the same Paul who wrote have no anxiety about anything! For him, and for each of us, the life of faith is never straightforward. Nor can our response to hurts, difficulties, and challenges always be unbroken trust or consistent confidence in God. Faith is a struggle, for Paul and for us. Life is a source of all kinds of anxieties and sometimes they come at us like the groceries going through an Aldi checkout – too fast for us to keep up! But God said, to Paul and us: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12.9)

Thursday

Matthew 6.25 “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?”

Food and clothes, two of the big things the human family still worries about. We have created the phrase ‘food security’. In a globalised world with an ever increasing population, and a dangerously compromised climate system, more than ever we are anxious about the future. We are back to that line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Give us, not just me. Until we learn how to share better; until our tables are places of welcome; until bread is broken and shared in an economy geared more to justice and human welfare. Until then, we pray this prayer for all those in our world anxious about where their children’s next meal will come from.

Friday

Matthew 6.25 “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?”

Having prayed that others might have daily bread, those words of Jesus still rebuke our obsession with stuff. Life is indeed more than bread and clothes. There is a place in the competitive economies of our age for quiet and determined Christian witness, a protest against the machinery of more and bigger. The doctrine of the providence of the Creator is a foundation principle of Christian trust and dependence. God feeds the birds; humans matter even more; how much more will God feed and clothe his children, and call them to live in shalom, under the security of One we call Father?

Saturday

1 Peter 5.7 “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because he cares for you.”

Is Peter remembering Jesus’ words? “Come to me all who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I think so. Worry is an inner burden, an ache of the heart, a weight on the mind. Throw it on to shoulders that were strong enough to bear the weight of the world’s sin, and its fears, and wounds and broken hopes. God is neither unaware, nor unconcerned about what’s happening to us. God’s care is personal, specific, faithful, the present practical expression of love that is eternal.

Sunday Prayers

Father, give to us, and to all your people, in times of anxiety, serenity; in times of hardship, courage; in times of uncertainty, patience; and at all times, a quiet trust in your wisdom and love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast that which is good’ render to no one evil for evil; strengthen the faint-hearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honour all people; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

George Herbert's Antiphon (I) in Colour.

Antiphon (I)

Let all the world in every corner sing,
"My God and King!"
The heav'ns are not too high,
His praise may thither fly;
the earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
"My God and King!"

Let all the world in every corner sing,
"My God and King!"
The church with psalms must shout:
no door can keep them out.
But, more than all, the heart
must bear the longest part.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
"My God and King!"

 

 

 

This one needs a little background.

 

The central panel is an impression of the porch and church door of the church where George Herbert was Rector, St Andrews, Bemerton.

 

The porch was a later addition but the door goes back to Herbert's time, and a bit more.

 

The central panel is an attempt to interpret the second stanza of the above Herbert poem Antiphon (I):

 

Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,

                       My God and King.

The church with psalms must shout,

No doore can keep them out:

But above all, the heart

Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,

                       My God and King.

 

The remainder of the tapestry is all about corners and colours, representing the multi-dimensional praise of the church reaching every corner of the world. The encircling ring touches earth and heaven; the heart both encircles the church and reaches beyond the church walls. It too touches earth and heaven.

TFTD October 21-27: Having the Mind of Christ.

Monday

May the mind of Christ my Saviour live in me from day to day,
By His love and power controlling all I do and say.

Kate Barclay Wilkinson is primarily known through one hymn. It has given many thousands of Christians words to describe their experiences of longing and prayer towards greater holiness of life, centred on ‘having the mind of Christ’. Each verse is a prayer for the days of the week, leading towards Sunday worship. The love of Christ ‘constrains us’, so that what we say and do and think, are quality controlled by a will surrendered to Christ whose enabling grace is as deep and strong as our prayers. 

Tuesday

May the Word of Christ dwell richly in my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph only through His power.

The words are from Colossians 3.16, where Paul encourages us to hold the Word of Christ in our hearts. He means the message of God’s reconciling love, the good news of Christ ‘in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’. It is this same crucified and risen Christ who lives in us, and we in Him. He is the energy-giving source of grace who enables our faith, love and obedience. The mind of Christ living in us day by day; the Word of Christ residing in our heart hour by hour; these words describe the desire of mind and heart to be conformed to the image of Christ.  

Wednesday

May the peace of Christ my Saviour rule my life in everything,
That I may be calm to comfort sick and sorrowing.

Colossians 3.15 this time. Paul sees the peace of Christ not as passive waiting for our own blessing, but as the foundation of our acting with compassion to the blessing of others. The peace of Christ can never be a state of comfortable self-indulgence; it is more the gift of clear thought, sharp vision, creative imagination, and all of these in the service of living and acting out of the mind of Christ. The phrase ‘sick and sorrowing’ is not Victorian sentimentality; the author worked in London amongst young women whose lives were broken by poverty, disease and social rejection.  

Thursday

May the love of Jesus fill me, as the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self abasing, this is victory.

This verse has the same uncompromising desire for Christ to inhabit the whole of the inner life, because only as we are filled with the love of Jesus will it overflow into the lives of others. It is worth remembering Paul’s own uncompromising words: “God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 5.5) The author knew this verse deeply and personally – she was associated with the Keswick Holiness Conventions where Romans was regularly and powerfully expounded as virtually the textbook of sanctification. Keswick also made popular the spirituality of the ‘victorious life’, that is, the life so given over to Jesus that there was little room left for sin in a life filled with the love of Jesus ‘as the waters fill the sea’.

Friday

May I run the race before me, strong and brave to face the foe,
Looking only unto Jesus as I onward go.

Another text, this time Hebrews 12.1-2, embedded in Keswick, and in evangelical spirituality with its focus on Jesus and the experienced reality in personal life of the crucified, risen and ever present Christ – “You ask me how I know he lives, He lives within my heart.” Conflict, temptation, failure, the need for forgiveness and knowing our own weakness, these are realities of the Christian life. The greater reality is the revelation of God’s love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who now ever lives to make intercession for us. We are prayed for in heaven, by this same Jesus, to whom we look for strength and courage to face whatever life throws at us – and who is the same faithful Saviour, yesterday, today and forever. .

Saturday

May His beauty rest upon me as I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel, seeing only Him.

Christian holiness is a beautiful thing, because it is the life of Christ within us, and we are called, equipped and sent by God to live forth the grace of Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There are few more persuasive arguments, few more effective forms of witness, than a life guided by the mind of Christ, his word dwelling richly in our hearts, and his love flowing outwards in our words and actions.

Sunday

 Colossians 3.1-3 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

To have the mind of Christ; to have the Word of Christ dwell richly in our hearts’; to know the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit; to look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. These are Gospel realities, the gifts of God to the people of God. When we pray this hymn, we are opening our hearts to receive and live into what God has already given in Christ. Our life is hidden with Christ in God!

TFTD Oct 14-20 : The Recurring Theme of Joy in the Letters of Paul.

Monday

Romans 15.13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

By trusting in the God of hope, we are filled with joy and peace and the overflow is hope. The word joy is in very good company – peace, trust, hope – and these are God’s gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Joy is not about emotional excitement, but springs out of a life whose bedrock is the God of hope. This verse is about hope, where it comes from and what it does to our ways of being, within ourselves and as we serve God in our own times, during a recession of hope, peace and joy.

Tuesday

2 Corinthians 8.1-2 “Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.

Now it’s the connection between joy and generosity. God’s grace never touches us without changing us. God’s generous grace generates gratitude, and thankfulness is fertile soil out of which grows our own joy in self-giving service. Paul always got those connections – grace and gratitude, gratefulness and generosity, generosity and the mutual joy of giver and given to. Note Paul’s astonishing contrasts – out of very severe trial and extreme poverty overflowing joy results in rich generosity!

Wednesday

Galatians 5.22 “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

If I’m right that a word can often be interpreted by the company it keeps, this verse places joy in the cluster of fruitfulness that is Christian character. This is God’s doing, the fruit of the Spirit is the natural, organic outgrowth of life in Christ and Christ in us. Joy is a feature of Christ-likeness, the music and melody of a life composed and performed in obedience to God, by the grace of Christ, in the power of the Spirit.

Thursday

Philippians 1.3-6 “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul prays with joy because of all those who share fellowship with him in the work and worship of the Church. He is writing this to a church where joy isn’t all that evident in the rivalries, frictions and tensions of a community that needs to learn again the mind of Christ. Joy in fellowship is not automatic. It requires of us levels of humility and love that can’t co-exist with ambition, pride, and ‘thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought.” Paul encourages this fractious and fractured community to have the mind of Christ, and learn the obedience of the cross. Joy is found, not in self-assertion, but in the fellowship of those who have the mind of the Servant King.

Friday

Philippians 2.1-2 “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 

There is joy in the togetherness, shared focus, and common experience of the Spirit; not so much if we think we are God’s gift to the church, and everyone else should give us our place! Joy is linked to “considering others better than ourselves” and a balancing of interests between what we want and what others want in the life of the Church. That takes humility, love and “a sober judgement of ourselves”!

Saturday

1 Thessalonians 1.6 “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.”

The decision to trust in Christ, and welcome and believe in the good news of God’s love revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ, resulted in the gift of joy. The Holy Spirit moves the heart, leads the mind to truth, and draws the person into a new relationship to God. Forgiven, reconciled, a new creation, the New Testament has many ways of describing the work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation. But even when that act of witnessing faith brings severe opposition, the Holy Spirit instils joy in the heart!

Sunday

Romans 14.17-18 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval". 

There was strong disagreement in the Roman house churches about whether to eat meat that had been used in sacrifice in pagan temples. Paul is arguing that what matters is love and care for each other, and being prepared not to insist on our own rightness. The rightness that counts is being right with God, peace-making within the fellowship, and finding joy in each other by seeing the working of the Spirit in each of our lives. The kingdom of God, the rule of God in the community and in each believer’s life, is made real by doing right by each other, working at peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Joy, then, is one of the barcode signs that God is at work among us! 

TFTD Oct 7-13 2024: Jesus and the Unexpected Sources of Joy.

Monday

Luke 2.10 “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

I know. It’s way too early to anticipate Christmas. Or is it? Why would we only read the greatest announcement of joy to the world, in the bleak midwinter? This is a truth for all people, in all places, at all times. The Christian year was never intended to fence off Christmas, Easter and Pentecost as annual reminders of what matters most in our faith. In a world fractured and dangerous, Christians are called to bear witness now to the coming of God in Christ, to live out the reconciling love that has come amongst us in judgement, mercy, forgiveness, God’s plan to end all enmities.

Tuesday

Matthew 2.10-11 “When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.”   

Behind this too often sentimentalised account of three ancient travellers bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, are Isaiah’s words: “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” There is in Christ the power and the capacity to “draw all people to himself.” The joy in this passage is the joy of anticipation, of hope determined to go on trusting God in a world where so much evidence encourages despair. We pray that nations will come to the light of Christ and the brightness of a new dawn. Is that naïve? Or is it the foolishness of God outshining human wisdom?

Wednesday

Matthew 13.44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

What matters most to you? What is worth giving your life to? The kingdom of God isn’t a hobby, and discipleship doesn’t work as a part time commitment. Following Jesus means living in the ways of the Kingdom of God. The motive for self-giving service to Jesus is the joy of knowing that he is the greatest treasure, and that the Father’s welcoming love is the overflow of God’s mercy. Joy is finding our soul’s true north, discovering in Jesus the reality that makes sense of every other thing in life.

Thursday

Luke 15.7 “I tell you. . .there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.”

You know the story. The good shepherd counts the sheep, knows them by name, and knows when one is missing. The others are left safe, but the shepherd risks life and limb to find the lost sheep. When he finds it, with a great sigh of relief, exhausted as he is, he lifts it and carries it back to the safety of the fold. God’s joy is like that!

Friday

John 15.10-12 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

The logic of joy! God loves Jesus; Jesus loves us; we are to stay put in this circle of love by keeping the new commandment to love one another. The love of Jesus, crucified and risen resides in us, and we in Him. It is His joy that is in us, “our life is hid with Christ in God”, and so joy comes full circle. We are filled full, and fulfilled.

Saturday

John 16.22 “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

Of the six times John writes of joy, five of them are in the Farewell Discourse. In the longest and most intimate conversation with the disciples, overshadowed by menace and looming tragedy, Jesus speaks of joy. Yes there will be grief; yes hope will seem to evaporate; and yes, sorrow is real and hearts really break. But. The presence of Jesus risen, his triumph over hatred, lies, violence and death, is the keynote of joy in the New Testament –and in our own lives. “Lo Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb! Lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and gloom.” Joy is the default setting of the community of Christ, deep, durable, defining joy.

Sunday

John 17.13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.”

That circle of encircling love that we call the Triune God of grace, lies at the deep centre of Christian faith, practice and worship. Jesus is in communion with the Father, praying for disciples devastated by a world suddenly hostile. But he has prayed for each of them, and they will find their sorrow turned into dancing, and fear and sorrow must, and will give way, to the joy of Christ let loose on the world and poured into hearts illumined by “the last reality of the universe…Eternal love, bearing sin.”; in the words by my theological hero, James Denney (1856-1917)

The Book of Common Prayer - Reflections and Review.

Just finished reading this - took a bit longer as I've been reading other things. But the slow piece by piece reading has its advantages.

It's an odd but quite effective series, writing the biography of a book. In biblical studies we might call that reception history, or more particularly a history of consequences, that is, the effects and influence of a text over its lifetime.

The lifetime of the Book of Common Prayer is quite long! It was first published in 1549, its architect Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. It has gone through numerous revisions, it has been the rope in some intensely contested liturgical, theological and political tugs of war, along with the King James Bible it has shaped the English language and for centuries English speaking culture. It deserves a biography.

Alan Jacobs writes with narrative verve, and as a scholar and literary critic (who is an Evangelical Anglican), he has considerable sympathy with both the history and the content of the BCP. He has chosen key moments in the life of the book to shine a light on it, and those who have criticised it, defended it, loved it and hated it, argued for its revision, or rejection, or conservation as a classic text.

In a digital age, and so much text now read on screens of one kind or another, there's an elegiac tone near the end of the book. With the decline of the use of the BCP, and the advent of Common Worship and other alternative service books (including ASB), the impetus for quality book production, developments of beautiful type-faces, and commitment to ensuring the availability and accessibility of the Book of Common Prayer (note the word 'Book') - is on the wane. Jacobs' last sentence: "While the Book of Common Prayer lives on in so many ways, its association with the crafts of bookmaking and type design may have effectively come to an end." (Page 200)

I've learned from this book, and remain an admirer of the liturgical masterpiece that is the BCP. The conflicted history of the Book of Common Prayer indicates the religious passion and political ambitions that brought it to birth, and inevitably shaped events over the centuries.

As one who stands in the Nonconformist and Dissenting traditions, I sense what has been missed in not living within the rhythms of a liturgical community. At the same time, my spiritual forebears were persecuted on account of their refusal to have their faith shaped and governed by the State using a book as a religious test of political allegiance, and and as an instrument to impose spiritual authority. All of this, Jacobs weaves through the story of a book to which millions upon millions owe spiritual debts, and which remains a classic, perhaps THE classic of English Christianity. 

Harvest and Hills and Geese and Fields: Provision and Providence.

 

 

 

 

In the far distance is Bennachie, fifteen miles north of Garlogie, and between there and here is Loch Skene, rest point for thousands of migrating geese, some of whom just flew over Garlogie woods, honking to let the world know they had made it safely for another year.

 

These fields are edged with centuries old drystane dykes; the farmers have so far resisted removing them to make bigger fields to bring in bigger machines.

 

And this thirty stone bale of winter Weetabix, glowing in late sunshine, is reason enough for the cows to hold their own harvest thanksgiving, if not now, then maybe January.

 

In Psalm 104 the Lord is praised for His care of creation - including geese and cows!

The birds of the sky nest by the waters;

they sing among the branches.

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;

the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.

He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for people to cultivate—

bringing forth food from the earth.