BeachcomberFX

Category: Sunday@thePub

  • Paying Attention

    Paying Attention

    In August Rob and I made a flying visit to Edinburg to do some “work” at the fringe with the Methodist church. Our job was to pay attention! A simple task.

    Well! If you have been to the fringe you will know it is an assault on the senses. Posters, flyers, people, entertainment, jugglers, comedians, musicals, giveaways, noise and so much more. It can be hard to focus. Hard to cut through the rubbish (in more ways than one as there was a strike on and no bins were being emptied).

    Paying attention involved trying to see what was there and what wasn’t. Noticing the small things as well as the big things. It meant hearing different voices and seeing things through different eyes. It also meant asking question and trying to find the answers to them.

    So we walked, talked, watched shows, took flyers from performers, took photos of everything, asked questions, drank coffee and beer, ate food, jumped on buses, trams and trains, prayed, and lots of other things alongside these.

    As I have come back I have continued to reflect on that time. I have also wondered what it looks like for us to pay attention where we live. On familiar streets in familiar places with familiar people it can be easy to stop noticing, stop paying attention to what is happening around us. So some questions…

    Questions

    Have you got a story about a time when you have completely missed something because you weren’t paying attention?

    On your way to the club tonight did you notice anything new or nothing at all?

    Are there times when you find yourself more aware of your surroundings than others?

    How can we get better at paying attention so that we see the needs around us as well as the opportunities to be involved in changing them for the better? 

    We are meeting at the Crescent Club at 7:30pm everyone is welcome. You will find us upstairs in the sea view lounge.

  • Finding God in the Horizontal

    Finding God in the Horizontal

    I find myself taking a lot of photos of the beach, the Sea and the sky. I like the horizontal lines, and I like them to have order. Sea and sky meet in the middle of the photos as a central horizonal divide. If the beach is involved, then I like things in thirds – thank you very much. Which came first my love for equal framing or my love for Wes Anderson?

    Anyway, in Newbiggin we have a statue out in the bay. Two figures stand staring out to sea. There is a smaller “couple” on the prom and up-close you see that they are facing slightly away from each other. It gives the sense of them being together and yet, they are alone in their thoughts. They stare out to sea into the liminal intersection between sea and sky – Is God there?

    In her book ‘Grounded’ Diana Butler Bass argues that our scientific understanding of the way the earth and the universe works has challenged some of our ways of speaking about the mystery of God. Christianity has become caught between a literal certain view of the bible and the challenge of science. Now whether people really thought God lived in the sky or whether it acted as a useful metaphor: God was outside; somewhere else; across the numinous divide. This vertical faith puts us down here and God up there, and she suggests that where steeples and spires come in. Our gaze is lifted upwards as the building point to the sky. But now we know God’s not there – where do we go? She suggests that horizon allows us to reframe our view as a horizontal faith. Heaven is far away and yet so close. 

    ‘The sky begins at our feet. Thus, we actually live in the heavens now, in the space in which earth and sky meet.’1

    Is this why I have an existential draw and reaction to standing on the shore and looking out to sea? I certainly don’t think I’m alone in this. Whether it be on a mountaintop, on the flat plains (as Diana found), or by the sea staring at the intersection between land or sea and sky, in the always-just-out-of-view line communion – I sense God. 

    ‘When I think of the far-off qualities of God, I no longer think “up”; Instead, I consider God beyond the horizon, just beyond the place where sky meets the ground. The spirit calls our gaze outward, to lift our eyes to the edge. The Spiritual revolution is the shift from a vertical God to the God-with-us. Dirt and water are understandable and tangible, icons of earthly sacredness. But we need the sky to remind us that no matter how close God is, God is still the one who hovers at the horizon.’2

    This weeks blog was written by John Cooper. We will be meeting in Gardens again this week so if you would like to meet up at 7:30pm we will be at David and Naomi’s house. If you would like to come please let David know via Discord, Messenger, Carrier Pigeon etc

    Questions:

    Sunset or Sunrise?

    Where is your favourite spot to sit and admire the sky meeting earth or sea? Could you bring a photo?

    Have you had a moment of revelation/ numinosity/ transcendence when you have looked at the horizon?

    What do you think about Diana Butler Bass’s idea of vertical faith? How have you seen it in action?

    Has your view changed, and, of so, how would the horizon help you find God in the horizontal?

    1 Diana Butler Bass. (2017). Grounded : finding God in the world–a spiritual revolution. Harperone, An Imprint Of Harpercollins Publishers. P120

    2 Butler Bass. (2017). Grounded P121

  • How You Doing?

    How You Doing?

    Now if you have watched Friends you will know that Joey’s chat upline is the title of this blog.  And if you do know how Joey says “How you doing?” your brain may have just read the tile using Joey’s voice and if not you may have just it now haha. 

    So where are we going with this weeks blog, let me start by saying this is not a blog about chat up lines but it is about friends, relationships and caring for one another and ourselves. This week I want to ask you with all sincerity “How are you doing?”. When was the last time someone asked you how you doing and it was not a pleasantry at the start of a met and greet but it was a genuine question looking for a honest as possible answer from the one being asked.  

    So here I am asking you, how are you doing…..

    Physically: How is your physical health at present? How are you looking after your physical body? Is there support you need to help you?

    Mentally: How is your mental health? What have you been thinking about lately? How are you caring for your mental health? 

    Spiritually: How is your spiritual self doing? Where is your spiritual journey at this moment?  

    Emotionally: How are you and your emotions getting on? 

    It’s good when someone asks how are you doing and you can see that they are genuine about asking the question and take the time to listen. But let me ask you this – when was the last time you asked yourself “How am I doing?” and made time to think and reflect about each of the above areas. We are good at noticing in the moment that this is wrong or that’s wrong and maybe very little time going deeper asking why? Can it be changed? Do I want it to change? Does it need to be changed? We are also good at not really remembering the good things too and spending time reflecting on them.

    Philippians 4: 4-9 (AMP) has become my wellbeing scripture. 

    “4 Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, take pleasure in Him]; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit [your graciousness, unselfishness, mercy, tolerance, and patience] be known to all people. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. 7 And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].

    8 Finally, [a]believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart]. 9 The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things [in daily life], and the God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you.”

    Our wellbeing (the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional us) is important, it’s important to God, you and others . You are important! Just as you are right now. 

    There is so much going on in the world from our own individual lives, communities, nationally and the world as a whole. Covid is still around and we have fuel and food  prices rising. It can be and is overwhelming at time. If you need to talk please do reach out to those you trust, or ask for help too look for professional support. It’s always good to talk  and sometimes it’s not that you want someone to fix the issues or situation, you just want to be heard, listen too and get it off your chest and out of your head so you can exhale and breathe again.

    Also remember to reach out to your family and friends, try to make some time where you can and ask them How are you doing? Giving space and time for them to share if they want too.  Let’s continue to care and show love for one another, ourselves and God. 

    God bless

    Sue 

    Questions:

    1. Who can do the best Joey impression? 
    2. What is the best chat up line you have heard? Or even used? Keep it clean!
    3. Which of the four areas of wellbeing do you…   a) find easy    b) find hard    …to do? 
    4. Do you set time aside to ask yourself how you are doing? What might this look like for you? 
    5. Do you think the scripture given above works to help thinking about your wellbeing? If so how? 

    We are enjoying Glenn and Angela’s garden this week so if you would like to come please let David know by emailing him at davidwynd(@)hotmail.com or sending a message via our discord or on the Sunday@thePub Facebook page.

    This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

  • Sky and the human condition

    Sky and the human condition

    Hi folks, I hope you are doing ok, this week we will be meeting at Pauline garden at 7.30. If you want to be included then please do let David know, so he can monitor numbers and let you know the address and if you need any further help to get there.

    This week I want to build on a little from last week’s conversation about nature, and the fragility that is human kind. I was pondering on trees again… yeah I know! But I was thinking that trees reach and grow upwards to the vastness of the sky and beyond.

    So much of nature reaches towards the sun. We have some plants on our windowsill that have shifted to face the sun, most plants do. In fact our whole species relies on the sun and our place in the universe, it’s so mesmerising even to think about.

    In the year that I was born 1969 humans first went to the moon, it was baffling then, never mind now, and yet only a few years previous, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin entered space for the first time, imagine seeing the vastness for the first time, and imagine trying to explain it to people!

    We humans as Genesis describes have ‘dominion’ (I use that word on purpose) over the earth, and we rule it, we have battled for it, destroyed and rebuilt it. Humans have I suspect been all over the entirety of our planet save a few bits of land here and there and of course the depths of the ocean which are still as big a mystery as the universe! And so as we entered space in those heady days of the 60’s and 70’s I suspect many thought we would be going far further into space than we actually have, because let’s face it, that’s what we wanted to have dominion and subdue next.

    Maybe as we look at where we are in the world with all the advancements we have made in so many areas of life, that there is this gnawing within each of us in or darkest days that humanity has maimed life on earth, it is not difficult for us to want to screammmmmmmm at just how horrible we are as homo-sapiens! There is a deep sense that we are flawed, even the best of us. You may want to use other words to describe this sense of being flawed. Each of us faces that sense of being flawed every time we wake up! How can I screw up today!

    So where am I going with this, well of course we could talk about faith, and how that fixes it… but well, it clearly is far too simple and nuanced to say that, and so yet again I wonder what nature can teach us. So I’m back to plants and trees again I’m afraid! I want to ponder on why nature is pulled toward the sun… I want to wonder at the vastness of the universe, I want to consider if what The Divine created (however you understand that) was good, maybe it was good for a reason? I want to ponder on symbiosis and how humanity can live together alongside the created order.

    Some questions

    What natural phenomena makes you go wow?

    What human achievement blows your mind?

    Where do you sit on the idea of dominion? Does it mean “care and look after” or is it more like “plunder and make use of”?

    What is wrong with humankind? Is it too simple to call it sin?

    If creation was good, was it good for a reason?

    How can we be better human beings and live symbiotically with nature? 

  • Wisdom and Nature

    Wisdom and Nature

    Hi folks I hope you are doing ok, this week we will be at the Crescent Club in the upstairs bar at 7.30, we hope you can join us!

    I have found our series on the bible interesting and challenging in equal measure, one of the things that has struck me has been this whole area of wisdom.

    It seems to me that most of life is about trying, and sometimes failing, to make wise decisions! In some ways this makes life worth living and very interesting!! Each decision we make has consequences, some bigger than others. And of course once we have made a decision, we can’t go back on it, it is done!

    And we know that the decisions we make are fleeting, it’s not long before we have other decisions to make. And then of course we eventually pass from this mortal coil where our bodies become dust and who really knows what happens to our ‘being’, I hope it’s heaven bound, but I have no idea what that is or how that works (now my brain hurts)!

    So as our body decays we become part of earth. Walt Whitman said, while contemplating what makes life worth living:

    “Nature remains… the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”

    In the midst of the complexities and the decisions of this life, it may mean very little, and yet the bible tells us that we are unique, loved and special… Yet we are here today and gone tomorrow.

    Many of us would love to add years to our lives I’m sure, but we aren’t in control, even though we think we are, and with that backdrop there are things that remain… mountains, hills, grass and one of my favourites – trees!

    Things like trees have no decisions to make, they ‘are’, they just ‘be’ and they grow and interact with the seasons. I like to think that they watch us, roll their eyes, laugh and cry at all that we weird humans do.

    I love that trees show us their nakedness in winter, this is where we see how they have grown, how they have been affected by their environment and then we watch them spring forth with life and dress themselves and they are forever inviting other species to find shelter within them. And of course they have a system of roots we do not see that reach into the ground to feed them.

    And so I wonder what it would look like if we humans looked with wisdom at trees and learnt what they have to say to us… As I think about this it feels like The Divine presence set the scene for us not just in trees but in nature itself and said there you go… watch it flourish, see the ebb and flow, witness death and life and a whole host of other things.

    These are just some meanderings that have been playing on my mind, so some questions.

    What is the most strange decision you have had to make?

    How do you make decisions?

    If you were an ancient tree, what historical event do you wish you had witnessed?

    In what way could nature be wisdom?

    What is your favourite tree and why?

    How does it feel knowing that world will continue without you? 

    What does nature teach us about The Divine?

     

    Peace Rob

    PS – I love Kawase Hasui work, he brings out the starkness and beauty of the trees that he paints.

    [https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/…/works/DO1.1960/)

  • Grace and Peace to You

    Grace and Peace to You

    Hi folks, we are meeting at the Crescent club in the upstairs front bar at 7.30pm, we hope to see you there. This weeks blog is written by Sue.

    Well, here we are sliding into the last chapter of the book ‘How the Bible works’… I say sliding into the last chapter as it has not been an easy read. It has been challenging, anxiety-provoking (Pete’s description) and at times setting off all the fear within me with a whole load of questions, doubts and a lot of caution. And  yet this last chapter brings this roller coaster ride to a gracious and peaceful stop with acknowledgement to all those thoughts and emotions.

    Pete summarises that chapters 1-13 represent a normal part of the Christian journey, both past and present. And like our Jewish ancestors, have been re-imaging God from the sacred past into the here and now.  They have accepted their sacred responsibility and so should we, Pete  continues, being respectful of the past but never to recreate and live in it, tied to the ancient tradition but without expecting it to be an easy load for us. The life of faith has always been about respecting this tension of the then and now, and living by wisdom. 

    Pete writes, by taking seriously this ancient ambiguous and diverse Bible and honouring our humanity – our experience, our reasoning, when and where you were born  – and then you try and get all theses factors to speak to one another. We process God and faith not from an on high place but an advantage point of our inevitable humanity – our reason, experience,, tradition and scripture (Wesleyan Quadrilateral). The mix of this will be exciting, anxiety-provoking (you don’t say Pete)! But never dull. And God is not surprised or put off by our human limitations, He is not shocked when we ‘don’t get it,’ but understands who and what we are and that is all ok. Pete gives us this to think about, if God through Christ not only took part in humanity but also suffered in it too, perhaps we have an understanding and compassionate God, not a God who is out to get us?

    Pete goes on to talk about the challenge of wisdom and as Christians we have no choice but to intentionally follow the Bible and the history of Christianity in accepting the sacred responsibility of how  we speak about God which is connected to tradition and meaningful for today. It is right to ask if at some point we will cross the line from adapting the tradition to obscuring it (finally the question I’ve been asking myself throughout the book)! Pete’s answer, the fact that this concern is valid does not mean we can avoid the wisdom task altogether, the life of faith isn’t easy. 

    Pete presents some examples of how the Bible itself and the portraits of God are deeply rooted in the culture and times: 

    Yahweh – described as Mighty Warrior who slays enemies, sovereign king who makes treaties with his people 

    Lord, Saviour and bringer of Good News of peace and grace – mimics the language of the Roman Empire to speak of glorious Caesar as a means to pointing beyond Caesar

    God – the Greek word god is Theos, it was used to speak of Zeus and other gods; the New Testament writers used it to speak of their God as the true God. 

    Messiah – a Jewish royal term charged with political meaning, but redefined around suffering, death, resurrection and hope for humanity. 

    “No God-talk can be kept from our humanity, our language of God including the past, is inescapably enmeshed with how people of any time think and talk about anything even as they speak of the One who is not bound by time and place.”

    Pete encourages and then challenges us to step back and reflect for a moment that scripture itself portrays the boundless God in culturally bound ways of thinking, and if this is how the Bible actually behaves, then how can we think that the Bible’s purpose is to step around our own scared responsibility to reimagine God rather than warmly embrace it?

    Pete finishes the book on this;

    “Whatever fear there might be grace and peace are also found by taking the Bible seriously enough to accept the challenge of wisdom and truly own our faith here and now. That is our scared responsibility and by accepting that responsibility we will learn to let go the youthful fear of the unfamiliar and move towards wisdom and maturity.  That I believe is what God  wants for us. After all, God is not a helicopter parent.” 

    Questions: 

    1. What has been the most scariest fairground ride you have been on? 
    2. Has there been a moment which has both been scary and exciting at the same time? 
    3. What are your thoughts and/or experiences about this mix of tradition, reasoning, experience and scripture to structure how you talk about God today? 
    4. What are your thoughts regarding “if God through Christ not only took part in humanity but also suffered in it too, perhaps we have an understanding and compassionate God, not a God who is out to get us?”
    5. Do you have any concerns about crossing the line from adapting the tradition to obscuring it?
    6. What do you make of Pete’s closing comments? 
  • Figuring it out.

    Figuring it out.

    Hi folks, I hope you are well! This week we are meeting at the Crescent Club at 7.30pm in the front bar upstairs, we hope you can join us.

    This week we are back thinking about the bible, with just one more chapter of the book left. We hope you have found the blogs based on the book helpful and insightful, I know they have helped me enormously.

    So, on to our penultimate chapter entitled ‘figuring it out’. Pete turns again to the New Testament and ‘the letters’ – yes letters, let that sink in for a moment… Pete compares these chapters to opening a letter that was never meant for you. We would read about people and situations we didn’t know, described by someone we didn’t know. And with these letters we only get one side of the story.

    With that in mind, why would God use this method anyway? We need to use, wait for it… WISDOM to even begin to figure out how or even if these words speak into our current context. But as we’ve discovered wisdom is important for understanding scripture. Maybe the use of  letters is a pretty decent idea as we can’t just drag the words into our own situation and see a natural fit. We have to do some work to find the connections between then and now. This means taking time to understand the context and history of the writer in order to discern how they work for us today.

    Now of course we know that some texts in these letters have been lifted out of the bible and used for all kinds of things. Petes talks about Romans 13:1:

    Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

    What does this actually mean? Does it actually mean what it says, if not what? Now when Paul wrote this (around the time the Jews had recently returned to Rome after being in exile) the king had died. Pete believes, Paul was suggesting that they may want to keep their heads down for time. Or maybe Paul was playing on the pro–Roman political devotion of some of those who would read this letter? Whatever the reason, it is still too simplistic to pull out and use it for all times sake in every political situation.

    We could also talk about slavery – Now its true it would have been more helpful if Paul had been a little clearer about this. Pete says, he didn’t argue for it, but he did assume it’s legitimacy, as does the Old Testament. He never tries to abolish it but in Galatians 3:28 he does argue that slaves are ‘equal’ to free folk, which would have pushed the boundaries and gone against thinking at the time. Slavery is a great example of how thinking had changed, both the abolitionists and those who were in favour all used scripture to justify their views. Abolitionists had to argue differently, not in individual passages but on a trajectory of where the bible was heading – towards justice and equality.

    Pete also talks about Paul in relation to his views on women, texts such as 1 Cor:14:34 about keeping silent and 1 Tim 2:12 about not letting women teach or have authority over men. And yet in Romans 16: 1 Paul is content to allow Phoebe a key role in delivery of a letter to the Roman Church and then in 16:7 praises Junia for being a prominent apostle. We might have wanted Paul to do more with this subject but he didn’t, who knows the reasons why. 

    Pete suggests that Paul’s comments about women seem to straddle the realities of his time and the liberation that comes with Christ. Maybe Paul was kick-starting that conversation but as we know from our present reality women’s rights is still a global issue and there is much work to be done, but the trajectory is moving although ever so slowly in many places! But it does behold unto us that we should do more.

    Pete finishes this chapter by starting to reflect upon same sex relationship, his premise here is that we cant just throw bible verses at it, we need to look at the purpose and context of passages as well as thinking through our current situation, much as we have had to do with slavery. Whatever we do though it needs to be with grace and guess what…. WISDOM!

    Some questions. 

    When was the last time you wrote a letter? And what for?

    What is your favourite letter in the bible?

    We may have ended slavery in formal sense, but modern slavery is still a thing, what else needs to be done and what can we do?

    Equality for women is still a live issue, what needs to change and how can advance the cause of equality?

    How do we deal with issues that aren’t referenced in the bible – What issues are you aware of eg. mental health, addiction?

     

    Peace, Rob  

    Image by Nile from Pixabay

  • Let’s talk about the Maccabees!

    Let’s talk about the Maccabees!

    I read this chapter and thought it was a bit unfair for me to go through all Pete unpacks and then not be there to join in the discussion (I am at a wedding).  If you have read the chapter you will know it is focussed on the resurrection and how this event caused the gospel writers and even more so Paul a lot of hard work tying together Jewish thought from the Old Testament to what we have in the New Testament. Basically, not many people were expecting the messiah to be crucified and to rise again three days later. That changed everything and it hurt their heads trying to wrap them round what God was doing.

    What I am going to do is focus on a collection of books mentioned throughout the chapter that it would be good to look at and which hopefully won’t hurt your head as much.  

    The Apocrypha – another ancient book

    The apocrypha is a collection of books that sit between the Old Testament and the New Testament and is some times given the title of the ‘intertestimental books’.  You will still find them included in some bibles today, in fact it is becoming slightly more popular for them to be left in.  If you dig out the revised common lectionary (that is the three yearly cycle of readings many preachers use each Sunday) you will also find references for some Sundays to the Apocrypha as part of the weekly readings and this is used by the Methodist Church along with others.  The Apocrypha contains a collection of 14 books some of which link into Old Testament stories like Esther and Daniel and others which recount events that took place in the period from the return from Exile and before Jesus was born.  The books are described as being important but not holding the weight that is given to the Old and New Testament.

    The books that Pete mentions in this chapter is that of the Maccabees (1 and 2) which deal with the sorties of a number of revolts that took place under various rulers and the establishment of a separate Jewish state that ended around 40 years before Jesus was born.  These revolts have many references to the Messiah and to the promised salvation of the Jewish people as well as new thinking around what God was doing.  These books would have been known to Paul and others and it is no surprise that we can find within its pages ideas and thinking that sits somewhere between the Old Testament and its ideas and where Paul and others get to in the New Testament. Why is this important?

    Well, it shows that people were wrestling with what God was doing way beyond the end of the exile and before Jesus arrived.  They were asking questions and discerning where God was in the midst of everything that was going on.  That questioning and thinking lays some foundations for what we then see in the New Testament as Paul takes Jesus and all that he taught and did and ties it into this developing understanding. To put it another way – there is a disconnect in thinking between the Old and New Testament. One doesn’t end and the other pick up exactly where it left off. There is a gulf in time and wisdom between them that the Apocrypha and particularly books like the Maccabees helps fill in. 

    We have a gulf of time between the time in which the New Testament was brought together and where we are now. Lots more questions have been asked, experiences have been lived through and God has continued to work in peoples lives. Like the Maccabees and Paul’s and all the other writers we find in the bible and apocrypha our role is to continue to try and tie what we see God doing in the world into the life of Jesus and the continuing revelation that it brings to us and to others.

    See you at the Crescent Club at 7:30pm if you are going us this week.

    Questions

    I said we wouldn’t talk about resurrection but… Which famous person would you bring back to life and why?

    A quick one… Did you know the apocrypha existed? If you did have you read any of it? 

    Have you ever read a book or watched a film/tv show that is part of a series but out of order? Did it make sense?

    Which people Writers/speakers/preachers/teachers etc) have helped you see what God is doing in the world differently?

    What do you think is the best way to bridge the gap between the bible and what is doing in the world today?

    Featured image by Carolyn Whitson on Flickr used in CC licence CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

  • Re-imagining God the Jesus way

    Re-imagining God the Jesus way

    Hi folks, I hope you are doing ok, we are meeting on Sunday night at 7.3o for our gathering in the upstairs front bar, you would be very welcome to join us. We have had a bit of a break from the book we have been looking at so it is time to dive back into it, this week the title of the chapter is Reimagining God the Jesus Way. I liked the title already even before I read it.

    One of the questions that this chapter faces is when is ‘adapting’ crossing the line and turning the ancient faith and making it unrecognisable. Well, if you think about it, The Jesus moment of Christianity is based upon the Jewish and Israelite tradition and history. The New Testament owns that reality and didn’t try to build a wall to separate the two. This step change of the Old and New testaments is an important reality when it comes to adapting. The New Testament writers respected the history that they came from but they also were not bound by it. Explaining what Jesus was getting up to and what was going on needed new language and a new way to think. New wine can’t be kept in old wine skins.

    This chapter goes on to talk about the Torah (first 5 books of the bible) and Paul’s relationship to it and how he challenged it and moved it away from the centre and placed God’s plan for the world in its place, in other words, don’t follow the law… follow Jesus! No wonder Paul had such a tough time of arguing his point. Pete says this is highlighted in two laws, circumcision and eating unclean foods. God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself and his son Isaac and other males in his household, and from then that would be an EVERLASTING covenant! (Genesis 17) Now that is serious!!

    The same goes for unclean foods, these laws were given in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 and once again were non negotiable. In fact these laws were the distinguishing features between Jews and Gentiles. Paul argued that these were ‘works’ and not the thing that identified them as children of God, now it was about faith in Jesus. This is a radical shift! Paul reimagines the Torah – he is using wisdom to interpret it to be about Jesus. Paul was sure that the death of Christ was not just for Jews, but for everyone! This was revolutionary. But Pete also argues that maybe Paul tried too hard to make Jesus fit into old ways of scriptural thinking, and gives several examples as to how that was played out.

    Another huge shift that comes up in this chapter is how God is viewed… Today we talk about God being everywhere… but In the Old Testament we see that although God is heaven and earth is his footstool (Isa 66:1) We also see that the Old testament also has  somewhere to live. and the Old testament makes a big deal over it, first it’s the tabernacle – a tent, and we can read loads of instructions about how it was to be built! After this, when the Israelites had settled in Canaan and the Monarchy was established came the temple and again we read about an elaborate structure… with Gold and everything!! All this represented God’s presence and its where sacrifices were made and where God appeared to the high priest once a year. The Temple was a huge deal!

    Pete reminds us that Jesus cleansed the temple, turning over the tables, in John’s account of this story the Temple has outgrown its usefulness, and so the consequences with money changers, there is no sacrifice, with no sacrifice – Judaism would need to do something else – and you take that in remember that Jesus and his crew were Jews! This is a major shift, you will remember that when Jesus is challenged by the authorities as to what right he had to turn them over – Jesus says – Destroy the temple, and in three days build it back up again (2:19). Now that must have sounded mad, as Herod was still building it 46 years and counting!! Now we know that John explains that Jesus was talking about his body… Jesus becomes the temple! So money and sacrifice isn’t needed, neither is the tabernacle or the temple! No wonder people accused Jesus of Blasphemy!  And then Paul takes this on again to say that the Spirit of God dwells in all believers… So it moves from a structure to a person and to the person followers…

    There are other significant things that we don’t have the space to go into, but it pertains to land and gentiles – but basically it’s that they lost their land and in doing so it had huge consequences for the people of Israel. Exile is a huge deal, it threatened everything and yet paved the way for the way Judaism is today and the birth of Christianity. The other area Pete covers is what place the gentiles would play in this, would they need to follow Jewish custom to become beliers in this new way, well we know the answer to that because we are here to tell that tale.

    So some questions:

    What foods would you put in room 101?

    What modern examples of splits can you think of, that eventually re-united?

    How has your view of the presence of God changed?

    What issues have made you ask new questions of the Bible?

    What does the story of Jesus mean for your understanding of God?

     

    Peace, Rob

     

    Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/mohamed_hassan-5229782/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4909103″>mohamed Hassan</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4909103″>Pixabay</a>

  • Who owns the Pond?

    Who owns the Pond?

    This weeks blog comes a friend of ours called Tracey Hume who is a deacon in the Methodist Church and currently works as the Newcastle Methodist District’s Community Engagement Enabler. She has also been pivotal in setting up a Poverty and Truth Commission in Gateshead.

    We all know that the cost of living is going up. Fuel bills, cost of petrol,  food, and so on. But, as usual, those who have the least are affected disproportionally. Did you know that the median increase in our weekly food shop is around 6.5-8% but the increase for the cheapest brands is actually nearer 16%. Those struggling the most before the increases are now hit even harder. The average utility bills are up by 50% but if you have a pay as you go meter, which many on low incomes do, your increase is 56%. 

    For some time people have been making really difficult choices about heat or eat etc. The issue now is that the cost of living has increased so significantly but the income for those on benefits has not increased, in fact, the £20 uplift introduced in Lockdown was removed in October and wages, in real terms, have not really risen. On a news programme this week I heard of a family who had had to sell all their furniture in order to pay their fuel bill! That’s not a choice, that’s destitution. What happens when their next bill comes in? We are all having to make choices about how we spend our money at the moment but probably not to that extent. 

    This week I was approached by Public Health in Gateshead because they have a pot of money given by the Government which they want to use for “Warm Places”. These are community spaces where people can go to get warm, get a hot drink and maybe a hot meal. They are keen that the faith sector be involved. I am exploring places where this might work (despite the church’s own concerns about how they will pay their fuel bills for large, energy-inefficient buildings) but part of me wanted to cry, “What has our country come to that warm spaces are needed?”

    The oft-quoted Martin Luther King Junior once said this:

    “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.”

    Shane Claiborne and his friend John Perkins say:

    ‘We’ve all heard the saying “Give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they’ll eat for the rest of their life.” The problem is that nobody is asking who owns the pond. As we consider economics, some of us will give people fish, others will teach people to fish. But still others must be looking at who owns the pond and who polluted it…we must storm the fence that has been built around the pond and make sure everyone can get to it, for there is enough fish for all of us.’

    As churches we can often be very good at trying to deal with the emergency provision, we run Foodbanks, Clothes Banks and so on, all good stuff, but when the demand for this provision just keeps on climbing when will we spend as much time trying to challenge the reasons people need to access these things at all? We pray “on earth as it is in heaven” but for the most-part, these folks are in a daily hell. 

    1. How has the cost of living increases affected you and your family? What choices are you having to make?
    2. What are the messages we hear in the media and from Government about those who find themselves on the lowest incomes? 
    3. How can we help change the narrative around this?
    4. What are your reactions to the quotes from Shane/John and Martin Luther King Jr? 
    5. How can we challenge the reasons why people are in poverty? How can we ensure that these voices (often unheard or ignored) are heard? 
    6. Where can we find hope when the predictions about more increases in cost of living are on the horizon leading to more people in poverty?

    We are meeting at the Crescent Club in Cullercoats at 7:30pm for all those who would like to join us.