December 2006

Is this the subtlest, coolest Christmas single ever? The title gives me my theme for this years Christmas eve sermonette, and the lyric “Can’t you see what love has done, what it’s doing to me?”

And what a video!

I was asked today by Lamplighter why the name Mandylion. It has nothing to do with Millymollymandy, nor Peter Mandleson, but is in fact a more obscure word. It is a term used to describe an image of Christ imprinted on a cloth, as in the legend of the Turin Shroud etc. Because such a miraculous image around which a later legend developed was believed to be not made by humans but by God, it is called acheiropoietos in Greek — “Not Made by Hands.” The Wikipedia article here gives more detail. However, I got to thinking what a good thing to aspire to be, metaphorically, one who sticks so closely to Christ that the likeness rubs off, or imprints itself. The following passages also informed my choice:

“…Our Father. Do you know what those words mean? They mean quite frankly that you are putting yourself in the place of a son of God. To put it bluntly, you are dressing up as Christ. If you like, you are pretending. Because of course, the moment you realise what the words mean, you realise that you are not a son of God. You are not a being like The Son of God, whose will and interests are at one with those of the Father: you are a bundle of self-centred fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceit, all doomed to death. So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ is a piece of outrageous cheek. But the odd thing is that He has ordered us to do it.

Why? What is the good of pretending to be what you are not? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is a bad kind, where the pretence is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretence leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were…

…Now the moment you realise ‘Here I am, dressing up as Christ’, it is extremely likely that you will see at once some way in which at that very moment the pretence could be made less of a pretence and more of a reality…

…The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as himself.”

[extract from Mere Christianity (pp.158-9), copyright C.S.Lewis, Fount Paperbacks, May 1977.]

(We are being formed into the likeness of Christ, but by the power of God; a miraculous process. As Paul says)

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no-one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship [or ‘work of art’], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV/UK)

 

So now you know!

Morchard Bishop has a little Post Office, and such places are under threat of closure. Here is a protest song about it. Warning, it includes singing rabbits and violin playing chimps, although I doubt any animals were harmed in the making of this animation.

Save the Post Office!

Go on, you know you want to!

[To see the origins of this title, see Fional’s blog entry.]

After a moaning about churches and writing blogs about how there are few young people willing to take the life of the church on to the next generation, visiting our new ‘appointment’ was like a huge breath of fresh Dartmoor air. The first picture is of what summed it up for me. Looking at Benny Diction’s woeful but familiar description of what I’d call ’sacred-mentalism’ (The Lord’s Table entry), I came to Morchard Bishop Methodist not knowing what would greet us. My eyes fell first on the bass guitar, then up to the video projection screen, and finally alighted on this… a postmodern worship collision of beautiful proportions. My heart leapt and my soul soared. I saw what I never thought possible….

Now it isn’t the drum kit, or the pulpit I’m talking of, but the wonderful freedom that allows this church to place the drums there because there is no other space and no thought that to do so would be inappropriate. If you don’t belong to a church that has, or values pulpits, you may think I’m nuts, but I think it is a powerful symbol, (and a powerful cymbal, probably!). I’m really not meaning we should lessen the importance of preaching, but I think this picture helps debunk the idea that the pulpit is the highest place, holier than holy, and that it houses the main event, the pinnacle of worship ie the sermon. (Discuss!)

Moving on to our new home, here’s what it looks like, followed by the view from our bedroom, the sun setting over Dartmoor.

Sometimes God scatters wonderful gifts around our feet till they pile high around us. And all we can do is weep in gratitude.

As I write, outside my window a gale is howling, rain is lashing and it’s pitch black (because it is still only 6.53am. When it comes to whether, I don’t like in-betweens. “Rain, rain go away, come back when you can do it properly!” I’m much happier when it we have huge winds, inpenetrable fog, lashing rain, deep snow drifts or bright sunlight (don’t mind hot or just pleasant here, I admit). The thing is, at least you know where you stand with such weather… it isn’t whether. Go out on a rainy day and wear a rain coat. Go out in the snow and wear wellies (thick long rubber boots, for the US contingent), but if it is middling life gets so confusing. And isn’t life just like that?!

By the way, one of my favourite truisms:

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing”

Yesterday I had a couple of MSN conversations with a friend of mine. He works for several churches as a pastor, and yet he is being put through the wringer good and proper. I sensed in the conversation so much pain and the feeling (which I had when I went through a similar wringer a few years ago) that I ‘ought’ to be doing this work but that the very people I was working with were working to make it harder and harder up to breaking point. Thankfully, for me, I can now witness to the growth that is taking place both in the church and in me as a result of hanging in there (and that only by God’s grace and the ’skin of my teeth’), but there was no guarantee of that ever happening when it was so tough. So, for my friend, I worry that he will find it too much.

I know that there are innumerable wonderful and supportive Christian communities out there, it just makes me ask where they are, and why so many of my friends seem to be finding the stinky dysfunctional ones.

The ground here in the UK seems littered with ministry casualties in certain kinds of work. I have a sticker in my study which says ‘To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer’. I reckon another could be written to say, “Pain is universal, but to really crank it up find a church.”