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....

-------------

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-

Romans 6:1-14

This sermon I dislike as I couldn't think of any practical modern day analogy. Still it recieved good feedback at the time.

----------------

Before we get into the text it is probably worthwhile setting it its context with the book of Romans as a whole. 

It is believed the letter was written around 57 AD, and authored by Paul whilst he was still at Corinth ministering there. Besides preparing the way for his own visit to Rome, it was designed to present the basic system of salvation to a church that had not received the teaching of an apostle before. This is good for us, as it means it covers such a wide variety of theology compared to some of the other letters that addressed specific needs. 

The main subject of the letter is faith: faith in Jesus Christ. Paul contends that salvation comes to us not through what we do, but from whom we put our faith in. It is God’s forgiveness and love that rescues us, not our own efforts. Paul argues that salvation it is not a matter of obeying the Jewish Law – nor even a case of obeying natural laws or morality. It is a gift of God. That is not to say it doesn’t matter what we do. As Christians, we are obliged to live lives of love, hope and sacrifice. But Paul argues, we do this as a response to salvation, not in order to obtain it.

In the section immediately preceding tonight’s passage (3:21-5:21), Paul has been discussing the place of faith in bringing us into a right relationship with God. In chapter 6 verses 1-14 he goes on to explore how God’s grace frees us from a life of sin and gives us new life - now broadly speaking, sin can be thought of choosing to live apart from God. This is easiest to think of in terms of actions – in doing something that God has commanded you don’t, but it also applies to our attitudes. 

Anyway, the structure of this passage could be roughly seen as an initial piece of teaching about the work of the Cross and Resurrection 1-10, and then 11-14 how this should impact our daily lives. 

Paul begins this passage in a rhetorical way, he is using 2 voices to present the arguments against his teaching, and then counters it gracefully.

In verse 20 of the previous chapter, Paul had said “The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” – very true, but it can easily lead to a misinterpretation that it doesn’t matter anymore how much you sin; that somehow grace encourages sin.

This is the question Paul asks in verse 1 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?”, and just in case anybody gets confused and thinks this is what Paul is preaching, he instantly answers his own question with “certainly not”.

But really the rest of this passage is trying to answer that question more fully & explain why it is a ‘no’ in the light of verse 20. 

I think I want to spend a moment looking at the baptismal imagery in verses 3-5.

Most commentators seem to agree that Paul is referring to baptism in water as the point in time at which people become joined with Christ. The point in time when we were baptised “into” Christ, and hence “into his death”.

Baptism essentially means death to the person I once was, self centred,

unforgiven, and alienated from the life of God. 

And just as Christ rose from the chill waters of death on the first Easter Day,

so you and I rose from the waters of baptism to enter into the new life he gives us,

a life that is shared with him, governed by him, a life that will never end. 

And to me it it’s really the impact of being united to Christ that Paul uses as a backbone to the rest of his arguments. 

Now from verses 3-5 Paul has established the fact that believers participate in Jesus’ death and resurrection thanks to our baptism. So now he elaborates on what that means; the “death” side is dealt with in verses 6-7, and the “new life” side in verses 8-10. 

The other thing to note is that in the previous verses he was using words like ‘we’ to empathise the community aspect of being united with Christ, now in verse 6 he has replaced ‘we’ with ‘old self’. 

Precisely what the old-self is referring to is not certain, however, much of the weight of opinion seems to be in favour of one suggestion that – and I quote from one commentator - “what was crucified with Christ was not a part of me called my old nature, but the whole of me as I was before I was converted”. Which I think makes a lot of sense, Paul is making reference again to how our whole self was united with Christ in baptism, to Christ’s resurrection, - and this was done so verse 6 “.. the body of sin might be done away with”.

This is God’s purpose – that “we should no longer be slaves to sin.”

But how is it that our former self being crucified with Christ might mean that sin no longer has a hold over us?

Verse 7 supplies the answer, “because anyone who has died has been set free from sin”

.. so what does this mean??

I think I need to pull back to look at a wider context for a moment, and that is to do with sin & death.

Basically whenever the bible talks about sin, you are sure to find the wages of sin being referenced close behind – namely death. 

Right from the beginning of the bible in genesis, God tells Adam that if he sins and eats the apple he will die.

What most scholars seem to agree on, is that this death, by which we have died, is symbolic in some sense, and that thanks to us dying with Christ – our wages for our sin were paid in that act of crucifixion of Christ. 

But the story doesn’t stop there, because verse 8 “if we died to Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

He has been raised to an altogether new plane of living. Verse 9 “death no longer has mastery over him.” .

Now we can live in a state where sin no longer carries this condemnation with it of death, verse 10 “the death he died, he died to sin once for all; BUT the life he lives, he lives to God”. 

Now onto the final section of the passage, verses 11-14;

These fit into the passage in a way that reflects a common pattern in Paul: What God has done for us – should be the basis and the motivation for what we do for God. 

Verse 11 perhaps suggests an intermediate step working on our self-motivation – only by constantly looking at ourselves as people who really have died to sin and been made alive in Christ will we be able to live out the new status God has given us.

In verses 12-13 Paul moves into the realm of action. He begins with a negative: we must not let sin “reign” in our lives. 

Here we are faced with the tension between our ‘being set free from sin’ and our command to ‘not to let sin reign’. And yet Paul claims again in verse 14 that sin is no longer our master. 

The relationship between these two ideas is not easy; but what we can say is that putting away our sins is not an automatic process, something that will happen without our cooperation. 

Instead a determination of our own will is called for to turn what has happened in principle into actuality.

Verse 13 makes the same point in a different way – Paul, by using words such as “instruments” and “parts of your body”, is bringing to mind all of our capacity and capabilities, and instructing us to bring them no longer to the service of wickedness, but instead to be used for the service of God. So that in everything we do, we are doing it as an act of service or worship to God. 

Finally Paul offers a further reason for offering ourselves to God rather than to sin

Because we are “not under law, but under grace”; this is the final key to our freedom from sin. 

To be under law is to accept the obligation to keep it and so to come under its curse or condemnation. To be under grace is to acknowledge our dependence on the work of Christ for salvation – Moreover to recognise the power and significance of the Cross and resurrection in lives day to day rather than to be under law and reduce things to simple rule keeping.

Remember I said the opening question in verse 1 was a response to 5v20, that where the law reigned more and more sin also increased. And so ‘does grace encourage sin?’ 

The answer Paul offers us, is that on the contrary, Grace discourages, and overthrows sin, it was the law that provoked and increased sin; but grace opposes it and lays upon us the responsibility of holiness. 

So what then should we take away from this passage tonight?

Perhaps you find this message still a bit new to you, and you want to let your full energy be a work for God, but feel daunted. 

Maybe you’ve tried before and found you end up falling into sin again and feeling discouraged.

I think if that’s you, the key thing to take away, is that you do not have to feel any guilt or condemnation from sin – this is the good news of Easter. Focus instead on verse 11, counting yourself dead to sin and alive to Christ. 

Perhaps instead you have heard all the recent Celebrate at 7 sermons on ‘newness’, and feel you’ve already made a start - or maybe even more than a start – I want you to consider asking yourself the question “what would it look like if every part of me in every part of my life was lived as an “instrument of righteousness” for God’s work?” 

Let’s end with a prayer –

[nb the line spaces are almost entirely unrelated to grammer, and are there to help me follow the printed version]

Good Friday Reflections

yes I know this is woefully out of date now...

but if anyone is interested in a reflection on the centurion it might be interesting...

[also please forgive the formatting - it has very little to do with grammer, and more to do with making it easier to read out.]

-----------

In this reflection, our focus is the Roman centurion and his confession of who Jesus was. 

Mark commences the gospel with his own confession of Christ – in chapter 1, verse 1, he writes ‘The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. Halfway through the gospel account, Jesus asks Peter who he thinks he is, and Peter gives his confession that Jesus is the Christ.

Now, at the end of the gospel, in the midst of Good Friday, the centurion makes his own statement on who Jesus was.

To help you picture the event, a centurion was perhaps the equivalent of a captain or lieutenant in today’s army. He commanded directly a centuria of men – which was in those days around 80 men. 

This centurion had no doubt seen many deaths, on the battlefield and no doubt in many executions as well. Most likely he was in charge of the guard who performed this act of crucifixion, and so would have been present at the gruesome events recorded earlier in the chapter vs 16-20 – when the soldiers mocked Jesus, gave him the crown of thorns, and beat him, before then leading him out to die on the hill outside the city.

As he marched his men out, the centurion would have quite likely felt as though it was any ordinary crucifixion. 

But suddenly and unexpectedly he appears to have been deeply affected by Jesus’ death, When he saw how Jesus died he said “Surely this man was the son of God!”. 

Now we don’t know whether the centurion meant this as a question or a statement. Was it a carefully thought out judgement after observing all these things for himself, or was it something he casually blurted out not expecting anyone to take notice? Certainly it wasn’t the sort of thing you'd expect a battle hardened soldier to utter at a typical crucifixion.

Perhaps he had noticed Jesus before when he taught in the temple, 

perhaps he had felt humbled by Jesus’ prayer earlier in the day of ‘Father forgive, for they know not what they do’, 

perhaps he was moved by the way Jesus had not responded to the way his soldiers had mocked him. Whether or not these things were significant, I think there is something very important in what Jesus cried out - 

“Eloi Eloi, lama Sabacthani?”, 'my God my God, why have you forsaken me?'

This is the cry of a love that suddenly feels no longer reciprocated. 

The love that granted it its identity and upon which it depended for its being and its world is no longer there. 

For Jesus now, the experience of feeling forsaken by his Father was the most awful thing that could happen to him, and far surpassed the pain of the nails.

Maybe it was the evident sincerity and pain poured out in those words from the cross that broke through the callus built up by years of being exposed to death 

and pierced the heart of the centurion with these words. 

On the cross was someone who loved God much, and had been loved by God, 

for only one who genuinely loves much can be hurt this much by separation.

The centurion was moved by the tortured Jesus and saw something in Him that enabled him to recognise Jesus as being more than simply a human being, a good teacher or miracle-worker. 

So he cried out publicly, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” His testimony was short. But sometimes only a few words are needed.

The centurion’s judgement on Jesus challenges us to re-assess our own view of God a

nd the place of suffering within the divine economy. 

Perhaps it is not the case that God is 'big enough' to be present at the cross,

But instead the cross, with all its terrible darkness, shows us more of what is characteristic of God and his love, than anything else can or ever could. 

The death of Jesus impacted the centurion for it jolted him out of self-interested indifference and enabled him to see with striking clarity just who Jesus was. 

May our reflection on the events of Good Friday enable us to see with similar clarity just who Jesus is and so come to know and experience the gift of eternal life that he offers to all who come to him. 

a first post

well I'm sure many people agonise over the first post...

not me, as I don't expect anyone will read it - as I shall now post about 3 pre-prepared posts on top.

and it will then not be for a while longer that anyone starts to read...

however just incase someone does read this:

I have decided to blog various musings of my life-

I am a Christian who is trying to live a priestly life but without the trappings of being a vicar: both in the sense of the royal priesthood of all believers, and in the sense of a call to be a Christian leader building and nurturing Christian communities (whilst also trying to re-energise those who where brought up in the church but have not found a way to let christian life affect their normal lives).

Yes saying I have a call like that is reasonably arrogant, sorry but that is what I feel God is very clearly saying to me. For a long time I felt this would be primarily in the shape of being an ordained vicar in the CofE, however it now seems that I should try to begin living out this call in the non-church world of work first.

oh and finally - the title

very catholic - because unlike most evangelicals I meet, I actualy take an interest in church history pre the reformation, and moreover think we can learn much from our catholic brothers and sisters today.

Also I think some of my theology has been shaped by great catholic thinkers (such as Thomas Aquinas and Justin Martyr).

Evangelical - because I am...

I don't consider the bible to be the incarnate Word of God (that's Jesus)- instead I think of it as a sign towards the Word. 

I take its teaching very seriously, though I admit some would call me conservative evangelical on certain issues, and others would call me liberal on others.

anyway enough of this post...

time for lunch.