my room

About 8 weeks ago I started sorting out my room so it would look tidy, I then stopped because I went to new-wine, and then was planning to move out again so didn't worry too much.
well I haven't moved out, and my room has now got to a whole new level of messyness, (for the physicists out there, entropy is at maximum).

Well I thought I would start trying to tidy it, but I soon get to the conundrum of 'far too much stuff, for the amount of storage in the room'.
And then, do I buy some more storage to make it easier, or wait untill I move into somewhere more permanent? hmmm

I'm going to buy special boxes that file paper away, but can be easily carried.
As you can tell, I'm very excited by this, hence the procrastination :p

A new job

So I finally got a job,

This was quite annoying as it meant I wouldn't be able to hang around the church office or swoon over certain people mid-day (not that I would ever do that). However money is money and in this capitalist society it gets handy now and again (for example if you want to eat).

So I started yesterday - in the exciting world of Data inputting in X.
However to be fair there have been a lot of ups; firstly I didn't have to pay for parking and was given a parking permit - as its in the middle of a big city this is very useful,
secondly I was only working till 12 - as then the computer broke and I spent the rest of the day effectively wasting time whilst the IT dept failed - so I got to go home early as well but will still be paid for the full day.
Finally I now get to practise being a light and a priestly presence in 'normal life'. Yes it sounds deadly boring but actually it can be quite amusing (to me at least).

I've been outed as a christian (well I was asked what I wanted to do when I was older and I said Vicar, so it was fairly easy to get into conversation). I've got no idea what I'm going to do - try to evangelise people, to get people to think about faith, to befriend them etc etc... but I've found myself already thinking "arr this is a 'gospel oppurtinity' coming up in conversation, I wonder how I should handel it" - and if you have my twisted sense of humour it does help to make life more interesting :P

-hmm so it sounds like I just said people should try to be christian at work in order to make life more interesting. That's not quite what I mean, infact its not what I mean at all.
I think what I mean is given it's something I feel I should do, I choose to try and find it enjoyable - and actually find it can be very enjoyable.
I imagine that will change at some point though, but as it says in Ecclesaistes you should enjoy the good when it happens,because you don't know how long it will last.


On other news, I think I need to brush up on the semi-circle (http://www.lifeshapes.com/shapes.cfm) not just for me, but also so I can help out the rest of the Walsall Community.
[aside - that is just a name I've made up for the sake of a name, there is no name yet.
basically it's made up of a group of people, many of whom live in on Walsall street, who meet up for breakfast and prayer in the morning, and try to do things to bless the locals here (so far this has meant inviting people over for dinner, and doing some gardening in the vicarage).
Anyway we haven't worked out a regular pattern of rest-which it begining to cause problems - and I'm hoping that I can re-learn something which will help us... then again I may just learn how to diagnose the problem but still be no closer to a solution.



Finally on a completely unrelated piece of news: I think I've worked out why my feet have been hurting me more than normal recently. All I need is another sheet on the bed to stop my feet falling out (seriously it does make a difference for my feet, I won't go into the details on why).

and so ends a very long post......

time...

todays musings.....

Life is too short, and time moves too quickly. But we act as though only the next 5 seconds exist.

As a race, we humans are incapable of grasping the passage of time, we strive for short moments of pleasure without regard for the consequences.

The same reasons that keeps the lazy person in bed 5 minutes longer only to get in trouble with his boss, is the same human instinct that causes global warming and plunder of natural resources. (I mean all of us who believe it is real, but continue to use Computers, cars etc etc even if we think it is causing harm).

If we could really appreciate the simple fact that time relentlessly moves forward
that what we do has genuine implications to our future
then just then, perhaps the world would be very different indeed.




I recall the quote, that Christians "if they really believe in such a God, and an afterlife; then surely they should be acting dramatically differently from the rest of us" [can't recall the author].

...

If you're wondering what is causing these particular ramblings, then it is because I am have just left London as I have finished my years placement. There is much more I would have liked to have done, and much I wish I hadn't.
I would like to say I now know how to be sensible and focus on long-term things and not waste time on distractions... but I'm blogging so probably not

the end of 1 John, and the end of London...

well not of London, just my job in London.

This was the last sermon I preached during my time in London just before I left.

As normal, ignore the horrible grammer etc. I use things like ';' and '-' to denote pauses to me and help me find my place whilst preaching, regardless of whether that fits the rules of english or not.

...

1 John 5:13-21

support reading: John 20:24-31

Hello and Good morning, I say Hello –

in a way goodbye as I shall soon be leaving.

I have been given the privilege to preach for you,

just before I depart – and so I have this challenge of trying to unpack the end of Johns letter.

This is not particularly easy, as this final section is packed with many points from John –

to miss one out would be to do him, and you

a dis-service, but then to try and fit them all

into 20 minutes is also a challenge

as you could probably do a whole sermon

with some of the points.

For example:

In verse 13 he starts what looks like

a reasonable conclusion

Then he goes of on a tangent talking about us having confidence in prayer,

next he moves on to mention the sin

that leads to death along with the whole

concept of praying for those who sin.

Then out of the blue he makes a statement that looks like impossibility,

that Christians don’t sin –

before going onto what looks again like the beginnings of a conclusion as he talks about the

knowledge of the assurance of our salvation –

and then abruptly ends with

“Dear Children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Still what I hope to do, is to give you an brief-ish outline, so you’ll have a good feel, of what John is saying to us at the end of the letter, and then in the last few minutes to go over in more detail the point that I feel is particularly important for us here at St Paul’s now.

Still let us begin straight away with verse 13.

(13)

John wrote his gospel –

as we learnt from our gospel reading John 20:31 -

so that people would know about Jesus,

that he was the Christ and so by this belief

have eternal life.

His letter was written for a different but related reason.

If you cast your minds back several months you’ll remember when I introduced this series

we learnt from 1:1-4

‘we write this to –make our joy complete…

so that you will also have fellowship

with us and with God’.

He wrote this letter for those who believe

in the Son of God, in Jesus Christ,

to encourage them that they have eternal life,

he wanted them to have that assurance,

so that they would live it out.

There is nothing here about being good enough.

Getting into heaven is not about what you have done, but who you know, and the one person

you have to know is Jesus.

14-15

There are many places that John could go from this statement but he chooses in 14-15 to speak about prayer. He did something similar in chapter 3.

Having reminded them of God’s love for them

he reminds them that they should have

confidence to approach God in prayer.

If we think of it that way we can perhaps see

why John speaks about prayer-

Imagine asking the Queen a question, you might be afraid to do so, or overcome by the moment. But if you knew that she accepted you,

if you were her daughter or son,

then maybe you’d feel more confident.

That is the kind of confidence we are to have, we are accepted children of God, we will be heard.

-+

(16-17)

Now onto 16-17,

these are some of the awkward verses in the bible,

but we can’t ignore it,

and we have to assume that

the original readers understood.

So let us try to make our way through this passage…

First I’m taking ‘brother’ here,

to mean a fellow child of God,

fellow Christian,

as this seems to make most sense out of the context.

Next we need to consider the two categories of sin.

That which doesn’t lead to death and that which does; what is the sin that leads to death?

Now there are a number of views,

but the one that seems most common

looks at death being the opposite of eternal life –

that is, in the context of this passage John is talking about eternal life.

And eternal life to be found in Jesus.

So a sin that leads to death

–being the opposite of this eternal life,

would be a rejection of Jesus as the Son of God – - like the Gnostics – remember we’ve been saying throughout this series that John was combating a heresy that we know would call Gnosticism, and rejected Jesus’ divinity.

So John isn’t saying that there is a sin for which the cross was insufficient

to give you forgiveness. But that it is possible to reject the son, and to reject forgiveness.

So what does this mean in practise? If we see a fellow Christian who is caught up in sin,

some behaviour that is not a rejection of Christ but inappropriate for a Child of God,

selfishness or lust, or speeding, then we should pray for them.

And we know, as it says in verse 13, that they will have eternal life – its not leading to death

And for those who are rejecting Jesus?

I feel perhaps we could compare this to Jerimaih 7:16 – Jerimaih is told not to pray for those who have turned away, and yet this command appears to be temporary

for later in life in chapter 42 he intercedes for them again and receives answer to his prayers.

I feel the thing to take away from this, is NOT have I committed an unforgivable sin that will lead to death,

not that.

but IS to pray for those who are sinning, pray and just watch yourself that you don’t get too emotionally burdened by those who reject Jesus.

(18-20)

We now move onto the home straight,

18-20 John gives us 3 statements of things that we know.

Firstly in 18 John says we know that those born of God do not sin, or continue to sin.

We have in previously looked at 3:1-10 with Paul and noted the difficulty with this idea.

We know we do sin – or maybe its just me,

and of course John also knows this,

as he has just encouraged Christians

to pray for fellow Christians who are caught in sin.

Sadly I don’t have time to re-hash what Paul said then, and I definitely wouldn’t do as good a job,

but what I will say;

is firstly I feel John is trying to underline that if we are born of God,

the idea of sinning should be so alien to us –

we just don’t want to do it.

And second, that we are no longer characterised

by our sin or obedience to God,

this is not relevant to us – on a salvation stand-point,

but the one born of God; Jesus; keeps us safe, and makes us clean so that the Devil has no hold over us.

19 - We not only know that we are born of God but we are the children of God.

Rather worryingly John then says that the whole world is under control of the evil one.

Now for John the ‘world’ is a term to mean humanity opposed to God.

I suspect that John is bringing this up again

to remind them what they have been saved from,

that Jesus was sent to rescue us

from this devil dominated ‘world’.

We will not really understand the love of God

Unless we understand just how much

it has saved us and rescued us. – this is why John is reminding us

But more than that John is encouraging his readers to stay with on God’s side.

Why would you even think about returning to the world? You can either be a privileged

child of God or a slave of the devil.

The choice should be pretty simple.

We need to remember who we are.

This should give us confidence.

(20)

And then 20, we get to this final statement of “we know”.

It is about knowledge of God.

The book started with

this message which Jesus came to bring

And which the apostles witnessed in what

they heard, saw and touched.

It was a message about the nature of God.

John says that this is why Jesus came

to bring us understanding, so that we

would know the true God,

and what is true about him.

John goes on to say that Jesus can do this,

Jesus is able to teach us this,

because he himself is the true God.

Now we can see why it is so important to get Jesus right, because in getting him

wrong we get God wrong.

As John says earlier in the book if you deny the Son, you deny the Father (2:23).

This is the God that Jesus has shown us. This is true information about God.

This is not simply some ones ideas about God. This is not a set of theories, this is why

the Son of God, why Jesus came, so that we could truly know the true God.

21

And so, nearly there, we come onto verse 21, the last word John had to say

“Dear Children, keep yourselves from idols”.

Its perhaps not as out of place as it first looks,

if the whole book of John is in essence about

the true understanding of God then it makes sense

for him to end by asking us to keep away

from false views of gods,

which ultimately are idols.

I could spend years just talking about idols,

because at the end of the day

idol-worship is idle-worhsip (if you’ll excuse the pun).

Worshiping idols, is what we as humans tend to do when we find God to confusing,

or when it doesn’t seem to work.

Let me give you an example -

I think – so how do I do a spelling check, I know how to do that – I may not be very good at it - but I know how.

How do I help us get to the stage were we are overflowing with the light and love of jesus Christ– emmm.

And I’m just reading from the the vision statement this church has if you’re wondering.

I don’t know how to do that, but checking punctuation on the powerpoint, I know how to do that – that’s what I’ll spend my time on, checking the spelling on these documents yes that’s what I’ll do, Jesus came into this world to set us free of bad spelling and grammer right?

Please don’t mis-understand me, some of you may have been put here by God specifically to do one task similar to the spelling – so its right to do that.

- and I’m not trying to get at anyone – I just picked that example because its easy to describe,

and I say this as an idol-worshipper myself who has to keep reminding myself, is this really God? Is this really glorifying God?

The point is, we can very easily slip into doing what we can do, simply because we can – and then rationalising that it is very important without ever asking is this really what God is asking us as a church to focus on?

and another problem – I said how do ‘I’ bring the Holy Spirit to do whatever… I can’t do that, I’m only human – it should be about what God can do, not me.

So John ends his letter here, with a simple plea, a plea I echo to yourselves and to me

Dear Children, Keep youselves from idols.

Love god, Know you are his children,

Don’t get distracted by what looks good, but isn’t God.

Now I just want to go back onto verses 14-15, because something very important happens here, something that I want to leave you with.

John after telling us we have confidence to pray, tells us that whatever we ask we will receive.

I recall a not long ago I was in HTB listening to Bishop Sandy Millar say “When I was young I had a very simplistic view, and when the bible told me to ask and I would receive, I believed it”.

Let me tell you, briefly, about my legs, I was born with a condition known as bilateral talipes, the muscles around my ankles are severally under-developed, there are times when it is really painful to walk, sometimes when I sleep pain just starts. This is something I have prayed for and seeked prayer for many times, and yet the evidence appears to tell me I have not recieved.

But,

I had a friend who had a disorder from birth that meant one of her legs was shorter than the other which caused her sever back pain. She also asked for prayer, I was standing next to her as a group of us prayed, and I saw her leg grow – no really [hold up hands for distance].

And believe me I checked very carefully.

And so I am living in this world where I see that when you ask you do receive,

and when you ask – you don’t always recieve.

Believe me I would like to explain the theological understanding for why this is. I don’t think there is a theological issue I have studied more than healing – why healing happens sometimes and not others,

And after all of this intensive study I can conclusively say:

I don’t know.

What I get from this, and from other passages like this, is a call to persevere in prayer – not to dismiss reality and pretend it’s not there,

but to pray to God in all circumstances.

Bishop Sandy Millar said that when he was young he used to believe ask and you will receive. He then turned round and said “I still do…. Have the faith to believe you have received what you have asked for.”

Last time we had the spirit in action slot I gave a story of praying for a friend who’d been in hospital with a bad back, and she was healed.

How many stories do you think I have over the years of that not happening? – I’m not going to pretend

But I do know that over the years I am seeing more and more prayers answered.

If you take anything away from today, anything from my time here, let it be this:

I don’t know what you’ve gone through, what you’ve asked God for and not received,

I do know it hurts, not just here [foot] but here [heart].

I know its not easy,

But my friends pray, Pray with confidence, pray as if you expect God to answer, never allow yourself to be discouraged. Pray about anything and everything.

That more you pray the more you will see God move.

Now I’m finding more and more of my prayers answered – I’m not going to try and explain why God does that, why some not others, I still don’t know.

But my friends , if we really want to see Jesus come in this place and move with power, we need to ask.

---

nb: the end actually went different,

I was interuppted around "And so I am living in this world where I see that when you ask you do receive,

and when you ask – you don’t always recieve."

by a lady saying "but God does answer you, just not how you expect".

I responded, "yes, yes he does".

There is a lot I could have said regarding, praying in the will of God, or how God answers in ways that we didn't expect.

But the point I was trying to get across, is the difficulty we face when God does seem to answer in one way (i.e. a healing) sometimes, and not others. Why does God answer us in one way sometimes but not other times?

This is really the crux of the pain I was trying to get across.

I then ommitted the paragraph "That more you pray the more you will see God move.

Now I’m finding more and more of my prayers answered – I’m not going to try and explain why God does that, why some not others, I still don’t know." and did the 'if you take anything away from this sermon' right at the very end... saying "...remember. [pause] pray [pause] always".

as the last words.

Then after putting the stand/lectern away etc, I prayed for the congregation.

back

Well,
I have just been of to Holy Island for a weeks holiday camping.
I think I learnt a number of useful life lessons.
Mainly if you want people to leave the house at 9am be prepared to drag them kicking and screaming otherwise they won't leave for another 5 hours (ish).

The amount of faffing was quite extreme, and I think if I did it all again, I would literally just drag people.
but hey we enjoyed it.

It has helped put many things into context, not least why on earth do I have such a small car and so much stuff - but also more spiritual things.
I'm looking forward to the end of this job, although what next is still a mystery to me

My plans for blogging

I saw this .. and had to post it.



Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

election madness

Parties in the streets...
crowds cheering as the results are read out..
these are just some of the things that don't happen at a british election.


I remember however the fuss that was caused when Obama was being elected. Don't get me wrong, I do think that was important, but why don't we care about our own elections?
Even x-factor gets more votes....

Perhaps the most annoying thing to me, is that it doesn't make sense...
When you have a general election, or a council election, or a european election - we seem to produce vastly different results.
Do some people think "I don't trust them with governing my country, but I'll let them try to organise the buses"..
or "I'll let them mess up Europe but not westminster"

I know it looks like a massive swing to conservatives, but if anyone really believes at the next general election lib-dem will be second with labour coming up in third place, they are sadly mistaken.


So yeah I think my main gripes with the british public are
a- why do vote so differently at different elections?
b- why do so many of you not vote?


I heard one friend say he 'spoils' his ballot paper, as a protest against the system. I wonder if anyone who doesn't vote actually believes that will change something?


*sigh


When we have our next general election, I'm sure that it will produce a little bit more excitement than the european election, but still not as many votes as x-factor - because ofcourse in a recession it's much more important to make sure a hopeless singer gets another try rather than to make sure a good government is elected to oversea the economy. [/sarcasm]



ok rant over

With confidence

One morning I was praying the morning prayer as set out in Common Worship
[link here].
I don't do this often, I prefer to either use no liturgy or Franciscan.
Anyway, that aside; something struck me - (at the very end of the page linked to)

The Lord’s Prayer is said

Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
as our Saviour taught us, so we pray [modern version]

OR

Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us
[traditional Lord's prayer].


I couldn't help but notice the lack of confidence in the modern edition.
Seriously, the traditionalists get to feel confident in what they say, but anyone else is a bit unsure....

I feel a sermon analogy is just waiting to be had.


Perhaps it tells us something about the way the CofE views itself now...


It is at moments like this I sigh gently, and wonder why I am still anglican.
The Christian message is fine - and still true, but the CofE... well... *sigh

money money money money....

Whilst researching for another post, I came across a comment here saying
"Given all the money that the Church of England controls, they could save children in poverty just as easily" -James Cambridge

This seems to imply that the church is either wasting money on bureaucracy, bishop lining their pockets with it, or basically some form of shady dealings.

Well I don't work in the CofE finance offices, but I can give a fairly comprehensive account on what money they do have based on the fact that all of the financial records are publicly available.

Firstly I think we need to consider a key question
1-how much should clergy,bishops etc get paid?

1-well, I think the fairest system, is to use the one the world adopts of 'what is an equivalent job in another organisation and how much do they get paid?'
Also looking at qualifications, and all of the clergy have degrees, many have phds or higher.
At the top, Rowan is a Chairman of a company- equivalent
so £100k?
Bishops are a cross between regional managers, and directors
so? 80k?
A Parish Priest? erm.. well lets assume the church is around 50people.
Perhaps one could liken it to a manager of a shop that has 50 workers, or maybe a school teacher who has a class to deal with.
But clearly it is more than a school teacher as you have a larger 'class' and you need to teach them to teach others.
40k?
[For reference a starting teacher is on about 20k, this then goes up to circa 35-40k and a head master is anything from 50k upwards (of course private schools pay more, etc etc)]
Well as it happens the stipend (take home) is around 20k.
the get rent free housing on top as well as pension so most people say it averages to 35k for a vicar - maybe 40k, and then bishops go up.. slightly.
Rowan gets 45k for his stipend, given he lives in lambeth palace though we can consider this to be closer to 80-100k so maybe they are payed ok?

But how many clergy need to be payed?
This is harder to find than I expected
Eventually I found this.
The important figures are:
number of Bishops - 103 (including archbishops of york, not Canterbury)
number of Archdeacons - 114
number of Cathedral Deans - 41
number of 'other dignitaries (basically cathedral canons, clergy selectors etc) -99
number of priests (vicars, asst vicars, chaplains etc) -8066
(I got that as being total parochial clergy + total non parochial clergy i.e. chaplains.)

I have arranged those number in descending order of 'seniority'.
Given the bill is around £449 million every year, this means each priest/bishop costs the church on average £53k per year.
(this takes housing, training, council tax, etc into account).


So how much money does 'the church' have?
Well the problem is, the CofE is not a single entity, it parishes have seperate bank accounts to the dioceses which are seperate from the national church etc.
However to help, the church commissioners produced a report summarising finances assuming the church was one big entity (for the period 2000-2006).

Roughly the church has £1 billion to play with, and it is spent:
39.2% salaries, pensions etc
27.3% Costs of services, education (church schools support), community support, outreach etc
1.6% central admin
9.3% cost of generating funds (i.e. setting up costs for a fundraiser such as hall hire for a quiz night, advertising etc)
17.4% - building repair and upgrades etc
5.2% - grants to third parties (i.e. helping save the children etc)


Now James claimed the church could end child poverty-
lets say that all services are cancelled.
all clergy work for nothing.
admin, fund generation and building work would have to continue
thats 28.3%.
So with all this belt tightening (that is frankly not going to happen) you get £820.97 million based on 2006
Well based on this - thats actually just a drop in the ocean.
Selling all assets still wouldn't help.

Now if anyone thinks they can find the Billions needed to help child poverty in this country alone by tightening the church belt, be my guest.
However realistically I think the church is already doing quite a lot with all those clergy 'on the ground'.

Who would Jesus vote for?

The world has been shocked-
people will remember this day

Yes the day Rowan Williams took a stand about something.


For those of you who don't know...
The Archbishops of York and Canterbury (John Sentamu and Rowan Williams Respectively) have issued a joint statement, asking people to not vote BNP, but to get out and vote- for someone.

As statements go, this isn't that controversial. When they attacked the finance sector in the begining of the recession you would have been forgiven for thinking 'they've picked a winner hear, everyone will agree'- however somehow people still managed to complain.

This time allying yourself against xenophobic racists is a little harder to see as wrong.
Unsurprisingly the BNP have complained. I did a quick google for "archbishops oppose bnp" and found this well argued piece.
I did find a better article here.

There does seem to be some criticism that they told people how to vote, and that they don't represent the public.
In short I think-
1-they just seem to argue that the BNP is not a good choice, (which given the way elections have gone in the past, appears to be the view of the public)- rather than say it is moral to vote labour/tory/lib-dem etc.
2-No they are not representing the public. They are representing the church of England, and it is for them to preach to the church (and public if they will listen).
The argument 'you need to be represenative of the public' doesn't hold water, particularly as the BNP are clearly not the representative of the majority of the public (not being in the top 3 parties that people remember), and so by there own argument should just keep silent.


Anyway they have tried to make a stand, and actually I think they're onto a winner.
However I think they should have said a little more, so here is my addition - mostly influenced from a lecture the Bishop of London Richard Chartres gave a while ago...
[not word for word, but ver close]
"..in this country the three main strands of christianity can be seen -broadly- as being Anglican, Roman Catholic, and free-church - largely represented by Methodists and Baptists.
Each one of them has FAILED to do what they intended to do,
that is they have failed to to achive monopoly of religious adherence in this country. For the reason we are truly blessed.
*mild confusion goes round the room*
Let me contrast for you the situation in Russia-before the revolution the church was the Russian Orthodox church, and the state was the church. To be Russian was to be Orthodox Christian.
But then with the excesses of the Tsars, revolution came into the air - at which point the general populace apposed the state, and by correlation the church.
And so for many years under the communist rule, no christianity was seen as publically acceptable, indeed it was banned - but with also the support of the populace (in the whole at least).

In this country we have not had that situation, our trade unions leaders have been methodist lay-preachers. You have been able to oppose the state without opposing Christ.
And that is a very good thing indeed, for the church is meant to speak prophetically to the state...."

For that reason we do not have a party in this country that can be seen as 'the christian party'. Because actually what government would Jesus vote for?
We can probably work out many of his values, but how would he implement them? He was never into government/politics himself, and so we can only conjecture.
And so one christian conjectures that the Conservatives actually are able to deliver the good moral leadership, whilst another feels that Labour is the fairest government and the conservative party proved its folly in the 90s, and yet another goes for the green party.

And from that- it seems completely right for the CofE leaders to condemn the BNP as fraudulantly claiming to be the 'christian' party, (not to mention that the first few chapters of ACTS show many instances of the Jews (Peter in particular) being shown that they need to be more inclusive of these 'outsiders' i.e. stop being racist and only supporting Jews).
It is also perfectly fine for the ArchBishops to NOT say who we should vote for, but instead encourage us to make up our own minds based on the wisdom we have recieved and the morals we have.


If the BNP thought they could get away with a poster of 'who would Jesus vote for' and not have a large christian organisation complain at them, they really need a reality check...
and a good sermon.

expenses expenses

Well the media seem to have given up talking about real issues and we are left with discussing MP pay packets, as such I thought I would join in the fun.

Mainly because I don't actually have a strong opinion to one side or the other, and hope to point out it's not as clear cut as it could be.

My own bias is that I claim expenses, roughly £30-100 a month (sometimes a lot more sometimes a lot less).

I always see that as ok because me expenses are such things as:

-second class rail fair to a meeting I need to attend

-tube travel in London

-items of stationary that I bought for the general use of the office

oh and then the big ones

-gas, electricity and phone bills.

I see this as ok because:

firstly I live and work in london, and have a pay of £100 per week full time. (which is technically illegal, unless you do rather special accounting)

So I need any extra help I can get.

The deal with the job was they provide a room for me to live in (effectively as a lodger) and from my share of the gas and electricity bills they would pay 1/4 (any more and tax problems occur).

oh and the phone bill is only used for work use anyway - any personal calls on it I have to pay for and can't claim.

So as someone who is laughably underpaid (it's a long story lets not get into it now), I really need the added bonus of expenses.

With MPs, they earn a lot more than me, in fact I believe someone said they earn around £60k (I'll assume that is the base average for the rest of this article).

Well ok, how much should they get paid? This is actually a tough question but so far in the world the fairest system seems to look at what they could earn in other companies doing roughly equivalent jobs. In which case the cabinet would be like a board of directors and PM like a CEO, and thus you'd expect anything from £150-200k upwards.

'normal' MPs could perhaps be seen as top level management and only would be worth £80k? definitely more than £60k at least.

(Also remember that the directors pay is normally proportional to the size of the company, and the UK is a fairly large country in terms of money, diplomatic standing etc - not the largest obviously but a leading player).

Now the scandel seems to be that MPs are topping up their pay by anything up to £20k annually with expenses that actually should be seen as personal and not benefiting the country.

Well that still means their total income isn't that unreasonable? surely.

From a christian perspective I can't really see the point of expenses, just pay everyone an average £20k (or whatever the average expenses per year claim is) more, and expect that MPs will donate things like staplers to theirs offices if they decided they need to buy one rather than going through the hassle of calling it an expense.

However from the basis that not everyone is going to donate things like that, and people could 'lose out' then make it a £15k pay rise, and the rest of expenses for things which obviously benefit the country/offices of parliment like new printer ink because it was needed suddenly late one night and had to be bought.

So basically that is the view of 'hey guys MPs deserve a lot of money, let them have it, and get rid of all the pen pushing that makes it happen.

----

however there is ofcourse the counter view:

What about working for the good of the country? Sacrifising one self for the common good?

Ok so businesses pay more, but they are trying to make money. The Goverment should be trying to improve everyones lives.

Why can't MPs stay in travel-lodge rather than a second home in london?

Or Just buy a block of flats somewhere and kit it out like student halls (so they have a single or if married double bedded room, and a canteen to buy simple food from... and a kitchen to share between 8 rooms or whatever).

They don't have to live in these places all year long, so surely just a place that they can sleep in and eat is enough?

The house of commons, is meant to be full of 'common' people. Unlike the Lords (which traditionally had the people who owned the land and the businesses) these people should represent the common people, so surely they should get paid a common wage?

Isn't the UK average around £20k? government statistics say that you only need £10k to be happy, so if anything thats generious.

Someone said they work 60 hours a week... why? to make money or to sacrifise themselves for the country?

in business if you do that, it's so that you can be a high-flyer, and become rich (generalisling a lot here)

If they are in it for money, then their motives are not right for governing the country,

if they are sacrifising themselves, then they wouldn't look for legal loop-holes to get more money.

Maybe the work-load of MPs should be reduced. How that would work I don't know, but really if they are to relate with the common folk then their own balance of work and rest, work in the office and activities unrelated should reflect the average person more. perhaps 35-40 hrs a week, (i.e. 9-5 + 5 hours extra) and be encouraged to take up an activity like sport, bird watching, local civic societies, going to the pub, or even church. Bascially anything which makes them more 'common'.

So yeah, either you think they deserve to be paid well, and this is all a lot of noise about nothing.

Or you think they are being paid enough as it is, and should be content with that.

(or even more, they should cut down on pay and work to represent us more).

On balance, I think pragmaticaly if you want to encourage people who might be good, you have to pay a resonable wage - and competative.

So I would go for a pay rise, by however much is the average expenses, and let them have two mortgages if they choose, or let them use travel lodge and pocket the extra.

But as someone who is making sacrifises for my work, as I know the financial situation of this church, I am ok to do it 'if' other people do as well, rather than taking advantage.

When there was talk of hiring another worker for 22k per year I thought "was this person really going to be worth 4 times me?" and was about to have an argument about a pay rise (except they never did hire in the end).

But anyway I make sacrifises because I judge the church to need it in order to survive.

Really 500MPs claiming an extra 20k = 10,000k per year. This saving is eqivalent to 5 people not going to university in the year so the LEA not having to help fund them.

really in terms of the total budget it makes little difference.

So er yeah, that's my thoughts. (most of them contradictory, but hey)

I would assist individual customers with their requirements...

.. or to anybody else - I was a checkout boy.

I'm currently in the process of re-writing my CV, and I get unbelievably worked up about the amount of jargon I have to put in.

I saw this:

http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/displayPage.do?issue=4926&page=6&term=its+a+spade+not+a+earth+relocation&size=3

and I think I agree entirely.

Why is it that companies think we need to show our skill by re-wording mundane tasks into really exciting things.

I suppose the thing which really annoys me is that I know I'm not that good at it, and people who are really good at spin will produce better CVs but not neccesserily be any better at understanding the stress analysis on a submarine at high pressures.

I guess it should be no surprise that those in the top jobs (i.e. running the country) are good at spin rather than economics, because if they had spent time practising financial skills they would have never got into a place to use them.

Why is this insanity allowed to continue?

In some companies it gets even worse, as with IT (for example) those who make the decisions are increasingly a long way away from those who understand what can and can't be done. And so we get into situations where a certain large aerospace company does its finite element modelling on a system that crashes every few minutes because no one in the 'decision room' has thought to spend a few minutes recompiling the code for the new computers.

hmmm

still its all about playing a game;

GCSEs and A-levels are not about intelligence, they are about jumping hoops, and writing CVs is just the same.

However I don't like these sorts of games, which is possibly going to count against me.

oh well, I guess you just have to grin and bear it.. I'll get of my soap box now.

1 John 1:1-4 sermon

This is my least favourite... mainly because I had to introduce a book and preach a message but only had 4 verses to work with.

Still....

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Good Morning,

As many of you will know, the [place] festival is happening soon [dates] – for those who don’t know- it’s the [place] carnival that they always hold on the Park opposite the church, only this year they are re-naming it.

Anyway the organisers asked us if we would like to be involved as a church, and it was decided that we would open the church up on the Saturday to let people in for a chat, or a coffee, or a prayer.

Mavis and I then thought we would like to put up a display of the Christian story around the church for people to see.

So of course we need to include all the important parts in the story of Christianity..

Where do you think the story starts?

-what is the start of the Christian story?

-easter? Baptism of Jesus? Christmas? (gradually help them with answers if they don’t respond etc)

Well our passage today provides us the answer, “That which was from the beginning”.

In many ways it echoes the start of Johns’ gospel “In the beginning was the Word”.

Christianity is not a 2000 years old religion, that begun in the desert somewhere. It is the result of a progressive revelation of God to his people;

Through creation we learn something about God- that he is a creative God, he then reveals more to Adam & Eve in the garden, and then more is revealed to Abraham as God makes a covenant with him;

Yet more is revealed to Moses as he has the law given to him, 

And so on and so on, until in Matthew 5:17 Jesus says “I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come to fulfil them”.

I often feel this – the antiquity of the Word – is something we miss.

--

And so over this term we are going to be looking at 1 John, so I thought as this is the first sermon of the series, it would be good to spend some time giving an extended outline of 1 John, to build up a framework to help understand how the next few weeks will fit together.

First John was quoted from very early on in the life of the church, by Papias of Hierapolis who lived between 60-135AD. And also it is quoted in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians (a different letter to the bible) in the early second century.

Now although we’re not sure when it was written; most scholars seem to put the date as being between 85 and 95AD -after John’s gospel had been written.

Although 1 John lacks explicit reference to a city or region, it is most likely that John is speaking to problems that have arisen in the churches over which he has some jurisdiction. This area was roughly western Asia-Minor, or south west turkey. 

The letter was most likely written to counter the threat of Gnosticism – an early form of Christianity which had changed the message of the Bible in several key ways.

John’s purpose, therefore, was to expose false teachers and their utter lack of morality. 

He wanted to assure his readers that they had been saved. And because he had seen Christ, known Christ, he wanted to refute the idea that this human saviour was some kind of unreal Spirit being.

As we read 1 John together over the coming weeks, you can experience some real joy and some real ambivalence. 

On the one hand, John’s writing style is very simple, with a very limited and basic vocabulary (so much so that I’m told this is usually the first book that students learning Greek are given to read). 

On the other hand, you may experience real difficulty trying to follow John’s train of thought. It seems to me that unlike Paul who writes in a very systematic and logical well structured way, John is .. random. 

It’s been suggested it may help to think of it more as a musical composition than a Pauline argument.

I have to confess this is actually quite a kin to how my mind works when I try to organise things so I found it very enjoyable.

John gives a prelude to anticipate the first theme, then the next two main themes 

Are struck or more accurately hinted at, followed by an interlude and then another prelude this time to the major theme of the false prophets and their denial of the incarnation. 

With all the three major themes in place, John works them over two more times each, adding and clarifying as he builds up with powerful crescendo to the finale.

--

And so moving into today’s passage particularly, a prelude to the first theme.

These first 4 verses can be seen as split into two sections, that on foundation facts (v 1-2) and that for the benefit of our everyday experiences.

Now in the first section – In order to catch his readers’ attention, John begins abruptly. He writes not only from knowledge, but also from his profoundly personal experiences of the "Word of Life." 

John recounts that he had heard, seen, looked at, and touched his Subject. 

The subject being the ‘word of life’

But what is he talking about? To me it seems there are three possibilities as to the identity of this "Word of Life":

• The gospel message, which conveys new life 

• The person of Christ 

• Both 1. and 2. 

Option 3 is best. It seems likely that John’s readers would have identified the "Word of life" with the "Word made flesh" of Jn. 1:14. 

Indeed, eternal life and Jesus were practically synonymous for John ( in 1 Jn. 5:20 he claims Jesus is “the true God, and the eternal life”).

Moreover, Jesus said of himself that he is life eternal (Jn. 11:25; 14:6) and Paul said that Christ is the gospel message (1 Cor. 1:23). Therefore, it seems reasonable to me, and most scholars, to view the "Word of Life" as the message of the gospel incarnated in Jesus the Son of God.

As I said previously, the early stages of a heresy called Gnosticism had begun to surface when John wrote this. So John wanted his readers to know that this teaching was false and that his audible, visible, and tangible witness to the "Word of Life" is conclusive proof that "the Word of Life" was a material, divine reality.

These facts are really crucial, and are why I outlined to you at the beginning that a man named Polycarp had quoted from 1 John. And indeed sat at Johns’ feet learning from him.

Because if this is true then what we have hear is eye-witness testimony. 

John is trying to give his readers every reason to sit up and listen to what he has to tell them.

Moving to verse 2,

John states that Christianity is not a human fabrication, nor an elaboration of some other world religion. Rather, Christianity is a revealed religion ("the life appeared"). 

Were it not for God graciously choosing to reveal himself finally and completely in Christ, we would all be blinded by the darkness of the ruler of this world, we wouldn’t know anything about God.

John’s experience reminds us that Christianity is not a religion for just scholars; it is an intensely "personal" one. Consequently, our faith is based not only to what God has done in history, but to what God has done in us.

Our experience of Christ should be similar to that of John’s:

• we "see" the truth of the gospel

• we "testify" to it (- affirm it to be true)

• and we "proclaim" it to others.

John assures his readers and us that the truth about salvation is both objective and subjective. It is grounded in the personal and historical; the perceiver and the perceived; the experience and the experienced.

However, lest we forget that experiencing and proclaiming Christ is merely a means to an end, John reminds us that God is bringing about his objectives in our salvation.

And so now moving onto the second section – 

[Verses 3-4]

John states two intended purposes for proclaiming the Word of life:

The first being "Fellowship", and the second being Joy.

John says that fellowship with him and his apostolic colleagues necessarily depends upon a relationship with God through Christ. 

It is impossible to have genuine, biblical fellowship with other believers and not have fellowship with God through his Son Jesus (and vice versa). 

Christians are related to one another as a branch is related to a vine. – the true vine – Jesus.

We are a spiritual family. 

So what happens when the fellowship become one-sided to either the human or divine elements? 

Human fellowship minus divine fellowship is like a tree without roots. 

Likewise, divine fellowship minus human fellowship equals false piety. 

Remember the what Jesus told us was the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God.. and love your neighbour as yourself” 

these two must be inextricably linked for our growth as Christians to be complete.

For example Evangelism that does not involve fellowship will leave new disciples with a serious case of biblical malnutrition. 

Similarly, fellowship amongst ourselves, in which we constantly pray for one another, but that does not issue forth in evangelism will leave a static and lifeless "holy huddle."

Again for example,

Praying on your own, and reading the bible with no reference to any other Christian author, or to any lesson that history has taught us, will invariably lead to some rather odd beliefs indeed – something that can be seen in many cults.

And fellowship with one another that has no reference to God, is no different really from any other group of friends – it does not set us apart from the world, and if we’re honest, it doesn’t equip us to deal with and grow through the challenges of life in the same way the true vine does.

We need to hold fellowship within our community as very important, but also in creative tension with fellowship with God, and fellowship with those outside.

Finally the second reason John gives for writing is "Joy" (and not a cheap glow that depends upon circumstances).

Rather, biblical "joy" is a quiet, inner confidence that our salvation is secure.

Biblical "joy" is delighting in all the blessings of a relationship with God and his people.

But still, what does John mean in this context about Joy?

I think I think the most likelt answer, is is similar to that of John the Baptist, 

who said in Jn 3:29 “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.”

Think of it if you will, as a parent – or perhaps a grandparent feels joy when they see a child begin to reach it’s potential.

John is expressing his quiet inner confidence that their salvation and growth is actually secure; as is ours. This should give us a confidence and a joy!

In Summary

What was experienced, seen, heard, felt, and written down is the historical and deeply personal reality John calls the "Word of life." 

This "Word of life" is none other than the gospel message incarnated in Jesus. 

This "Word of life" is: Revealed to us, so it can be experienced by us and, proclaimed, 

the effect of which is this: fellowship with God, and fellowship with God’s people, resulting in the joy and assurance of our salvation.

Let us Pray-