Identity Theft

The other day I received an email from an online friend (whom I have never actually met in the flesh).  At least that's what it seemed at first until I read the email.  It said that he (supposedly) was in the Ukraine and needed some money if I could help.  Of course the alarm bells sounded and more or less at the same time someone else wrote on his facebook page words to the effect that he also had received a similar email.  The poor soul had had his address book hacked and someone was trying to get money under false pretences saying they were him.  We hear a lot about identity theft and are warned to be on our guard against such scams.  The sad thing is that there are many ordinary people who pretend to be someone or something that they aren't - a kind of identity fraud.  They want you to believe things about them that are just not true.  They put on a 'mask' and appear to be a certain type when deep down their thoughts are quite different.  Or they exaggerate their job description to imply something a little different from the real truth.  It's meant to impress others.

We are adamant that you and I would never do this.  What you see is what you get, as they say.  Sadly I have to admit that taking on the name of Jesus and calling myself Christian has so often fallen short of what Jesus was really like.  The general view of a Christian by a non-religious person is someone who is homophobic, church-going, straight-laced, exclusivist who lives by a lot of rules that start with the word 'don't ...'  They live in their own religious bubble and don't have much idea of what goes on in the 'real' world, or so the thinking goes.  Not someone to have much fun with, a bit miserable really, someone you need to watch what you say when they're around in order to avoid a glare of disapproval.  But the real Jesus that we read about in the Bible was nothing like that at all.  He was known to like a drink of wine (or two, or three), was often invited to people's homes, was open to all regardless of their upbringing, reputation or background.  People travelled to see him and hear what he had to say.  For many he was like a breath of fresh air.  He understood them and always wanted to help.  There was no place he would not go or person to whom he would not speak.  

His friends were a mixed bunch from all walks of life.  They included the calculating tax collector, one who was a bit of a dreamer, the rough fisherman who seemed to lurch from one blunder to another, the quiet thinker, the competitive brothers, one who was a bit of a sceptic and the one whose over-zealous nature trying to force his hand caused the death of Jesus.  So different yet they all hung out together, travelled together, talked and discussed things together.  Some may have been quite observant of their Jewish religious traditions but others were most definitely not that religious at all.  I have to consider honestly just how many people I can count as real friends (not just acquaintances) who are not Christian.  Many Christians don't have any close friends who are outside of their particular church group let alone outside of the religion altogether.  It's very much the scenario of 'us and them'.  Those 'outside' are even referred to as 'in the world'.  They are not included.  How different from how Jesus related to people.   

  
Jesus said that he had come to serve, telling his disciples that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Oh dear!  How we exalt the big names in preachers or worship leaders.  The well known ones attract the crowds as they flock to hear them preach, almost to the point of idol worship.  (Reminds be of young fans going to see their favourite pop idol)  They are put on pedestals and regarded almost as 'the untouchables' - until they are caught out doing something wrong, that is and then they are thrown on the scrap heap of religious has-beens.  We still struggle to really accept that in God's kingdom there is no hierarchy.  There are no reserved places at his table.  All really are equal in his sight.  The person who cleans the hall is as important as the best known preacher.  Yet how often we judge people by the size of their congregation or following and those who have more 'followers' are deemed more successful.  I have seen people more impressed with someone who has a degree or title than someone who doesn't as though having been to university somehow qualifies you as a 'better' sort of Christian.  (I'm not against a university education but we must not confuse education and knowledge with spirituality and following Jesus.  They are two different things) Friendship is so often sought more with the well-heeled, well-spoken person with a certain lifestyle than a poor manual worker struggling to make ends meet.  Yet Jesus said that as the prophet Isaiah foretold, he had come to bring good news to the poor.  Everyone is  welcome, not in a patronising way but as friends.

There are many more aspects of Jesus' life that we could think of but this is enough for the moment for us to really consider deeply, personally and honestly.  So in retrospect we need to consider and ask ourselves  Am I really a follower of Jesus?  Am I reflecting through my life just what God is like?  Can people see God's love shining through my day-to-day living?  Am I taking his name in vain?  Do I call myself Christian, take his identity, saying that I'm like him but not taking on board some of the fundamental things that he taught and lived?  Have I committed spiritual identity theft?      

Cherry Picking

Our cherry tree laden with fruit (inedible to humans)

When we moved into our current home I was pleased to find there were two large cherry trees in the back garden.  The first spring we were here, they both blossomed and so we looked forward to the fruit later that year.  Ah!  Oh dear!  One of the trees didn't give any cherries at all - nothing, zilch, zero, nada!  It was unbelievable, after all that lovely blossom. After 6 years we still get loads of lovely blossom but haven't seen any fruit, not even one very small cherry on that tree.  The other tree however was absolutely laden with fruit.  Oh, good.  That sort of made up for the disappointment of the other tree.  I picked a couple to eat - well you have to try things before you give them to others in the family!  Ugh!  They were so bitter.  I was determined to make use of them so I decided to pick some and cook them in a pan with a load of sugar and then make a cherry pie.  Well, that went down a treat - very nice.  Until the next day that is, when both my son and I spent much of the time in the smallest rooms of the house (thankfully we have the bathroom upstairs and a downstairs WC) until the cherries had completed their journey through our digestive system!  Needless to say, we haven't had any cherries from the garden since then,  The birds seem to enjoy them so we leave them for the feathered population that visit our garden.  It seems that cherry-picking doesn't always have the results you hope for or expect.

Life's like that.  You look forward to something.  You make plans in your head of what is going to happen and what you're going to do when such and such happens ... ... but then it doesn't turn out the way you hoped.  You're left with a strange feeling inside, not the experience you'd hoped for.  But you deal with it, learn from it and life goes on.

The problem I find though is that so many people look at circumstances and ask 'What did I do to deserve that?'  'Why has God allowed this to happen to me?'  It's as though God is some sort of super Santa Claus who's checking us out to see who's been naughty and who's been good and gives rewards accordingly.  God is not a Santa Claus for grown-ups!  He's not in the business of rewarding us for 'good works' and punishing us if we fail. That's not how he is or how he works.  He simply loves us no matter what.  C S Lewis said,

 'If God is love, he is, by definition, something more than mere kindness.' 

In Matthew's gospel we read that God sends the rain on the just and the unjust and that the sun shines on the good and the evil in like measure.  Some things are just the stuff of life.  And things happen to us whether we are believers or unbelievers.  Religious faith and belief are not an insurance policy against bad things happening.  What is in the 'insurance policy' of faith though is that God will walk with us through the difficulties.  When Jesus talks about leaving his peace to his followers, he didn't mean peace as in lack of turmoil, difficulties, heartache or problems.  It's a different sort of peace.  It's the sort of deep-down peace.  If you picture the ocean in a storm and the wind and waves are lashing about, tossing about anything on the surface of the water.  But deep down underneath, there is calm - no wind, no waves, no tossing about.  Just deep peace.  I don't need to spiritualise the picture - you get it.

On Twitter I follow a man called David Hayward.  He has a blog called nakedpastor.com  He describes himself as a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.  (Click on the link to check him out)  The other day he wrote on Twitter 'I certainly can't rely on external circumstances to achieve peace.  Peace must begin in my mind.' 

We can't cherry-pick our life's experiences.  We can plan ahead but don't get upset if things don't turn out the way you hoped.  Disaster has a habit of rearing its ugly head.  No matter who you are or what your beliefs are, life happens!  It's how we react and deal with the situation that matters.  But we don't need to struggle on our own - God wants to walk with us.  His love wants to envelop us and give us that deep peace amid the storm.  Accepting his offer of peace doesn't stop the storm but it helps to get through it.

Living It

I have to admit that when I was at school (many, many moons ago!) I was more of a Maths person.  I loved Algebra.  To me it seemed more like a game, solving a puzzle.  What I never really liked was the science subjects. (Sorry to all you scientists out there.)  We had to take at least one science subject so I decided on Biology.  I always found reading the scientific books very hard going, especially when they used Latin terminology.  But I did enjoy the practical lessons.  After carrying out some experiment, the dull, boring books somehow came to life.  On doing the experiments and discovering the results, the written word began to make some sense.  Even now I love watching nature documentaries and seeing things that you can only imagine when you read about them.

The written word, although necessary and good for reference is only part of the whole picture.  So many people refer to sacred texts as though they are the be all and end all of religious thought.  We call the Bible the Word of God.  Many take that to mean that there was no word from God before the Bible or has been since.  For them the written word in the Bible is the sum total of what God is and what his truth means almost to the point of worshipping the written word.  But God's first words were of creation - and God said ... ....  Throughout the Bible we have stories of God's word.  He gave the commandments, written words, rules of dos and don'ts as a guide.  He spoke through prophets in order to bring his words alive.  Often the prophets would actually live out their prophecies so people could see what they meant.  And then of course, Jesus came to show us what God is like - the (written) word made flesh.  We can read something and not really grasp the full meaning until we actually see it lived out.

I like to think of nature as the first Bible - the spoken word of God as opposed to the written word.  Our faith should not be just about the written word, theology, the things that we believe.  It's not about reciting creeds, dogmas and belief systems.  The written word should always point to the living word.  We are each a living example of our faith.  The Celtic British monk Pelagius (c 354 - 418) once said, 

'It is not what you believe that matters, it is how you respond with your heart and your actions.  It is not believing in Christ that matters, it is becoming like him.'  

Red Admiral butterfly

We learn from nature, the living word of God how all of creation is interdependent.  One species does not exist to the exclusion of all others.  Even within a species there is diversity.  A white cabbage butterfly is not 'wrong' because it is not coloured like a red admiral butterfly.  We smile at that ridiculous thought.  Yet we look at others who look, think and act a bit differently from us and presume that they must be wrong.  No!  They're just different.  Jesus (the written word made into the living word) shows that God's love is all-embracing.  As Richard Rohr in one of his meditations this week says,

Unfortunately we moved all-knowing of God largely into the realm of argumentative words, which extremely narrowed the field of knowing and actually experiencing.

I wish we could take on board God's living word and learn from it more and not be so dogmatic about our personal and particular interpretation of the written word so that our experience of him becomes deeper and more meaningful - his living word becoming flesh in and through us.

Growing and Evolving

It's that time of year when many young people are in transition.  They have finished school or college, completed their exams, some already knowing the results and are contemplating the future.  With each year, they have moved on, moved up into the next year at school until now when their formal education is all but finished.  And such is life.  Everything has a season.  Things change and evolve.  We change and evolve.  Our lives are not the same as they were 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago.  Sometimes the change is so gradual we don't even notice it while at other times it is a result of certain decisions we have made.

At the moment in the garden we are enjoying our strawberries.  They started off a few years ago as very small plants.  In the spring we look for the flowers appearing, a sign of what sort of harvest we might enjoy.  The more flowers should produce more fruit.  If the plants did not produce flowers then I would be tempted to dig them up and discard them. They are obviously not going to come to anything, certainly not produce the fruit that we planted them for.   We look for the first signs of those small buds and then for the flowers to open.  But on the other hand it wouldn't be natural for the plants to keep flowering all summer, even if they do look nice and the bees like them.  In creation the buds have to give way to the flower.  Then the flower must die in order to allow the fruit to grow through.


Each stage is necessary and we build on it for the next season.  That doesn't make the original stage wrong, it's just that now we need something more, something different.  A baby begins by drinking milk.  But if an adult consumed only milk, we would know that there was definitely a problem.  Just because the total milk diet was right and proper at the beginning doesn't mean that it must always be so.  An adult needs more than milk to be healthy.  The milk was right for that time but not now.  It reminds me of the words of Paul when he says to the Corinthians, 'I gave you milk not solid food, for you were not ready for it.  Indeed you are still not ready.'


I have on occasions asked why certain things are done in a particular way only to hear the reply, 'Well we've always done it that way'.  Sadly in our church system we find that we can go week after week, do the same things in the same way and nothing changes.  Change seems to be frowned upon.  Many seem stuck in a time warp, not willing to grow and evolve.  I have even heard church leaders saying things like,'We've been here before', and yet they continue to go around in circles coming back to the same thing again and again.  It's as though in our spiritual lives our growth is stunted as we continue to drink the milk and haven't progressed to solid food.  We are happy to just sit passively and be fed.  We just drink what is easily digested instead of taking in real meat to chew on.  On many occasions Jesus said that even though Moses had given them the Law, he was saying something different.  He came to fulfil the Law, in other words to move on from it.  It was right at the time but now they need to have a different way.  It's not natural or right for mature adults to have their parents keep telling them what they can and can't do or organising their lives for them.  They have the maturity to make their own choices. 


We can't go in to the next chapter if we keep on re-reading the last chapter.  The questions I need to ask myself are - am I just going round in circles in my spiritual life? what have I learnt about God that I didn't know or understand before? do I prefer to just sit and be fed or am I willing to seek food for myself? am I still holding on to and reliving past experiences or am I continually moving on? have I grown in the past year?