10/12/2010 by paul.

Malachi 3:1

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

So to the last of the Old Testament book and the last of the Old Testament prophets: Malachi, who writes in the 500’s BC and looks forward across a gap of half a millennium to another messenger (which is what Malachi means in Hebrew). Did he know that during those 500 years there was no voice, nor any that answered, until John the Baptist broke the silence?

There is a common, if gruesome, theory that a frog may be boiled in a pan of water and will not jump out – as long as the temperature is raised slowly enough. Worryingly, the theory is also applied to our own complacency in the face of issues facing Christians today.

The application I have in mind now, though, is different but equally worrying. Sometimes the church services I attend – no, be honest, lead – are very willing to settle for an echo of the Voice, and it requires an alarm call indeed to make the frogs jump out of the water and desire something more.

It’s a risky strategy, and one for God to prompt not for us to plot; but when it happens the sense of Presence is potent. We started a regular Healing Service at our Cathedral recently, and standing at the altar while a beautiful Taize chant was being sung, I found myself carried away into ad hoc counterpoint and vocalization – and a little bit of heaven.

The point of the story for now is that is whetted my appetite again for God’s presence, and I hope it might whet yours. If the Lord is to come into his Temple, our desire is part of the plan. While the voice of the Lord was silent, also silent were the ‘Quiet in the Land’, like Simeon righteous and devout and ‘waiting for the consolation of Israel’ (Luke 2). Their day will come.

So the end of the week and the onslaught of the prophets brings us the great Advent theme of expectation: not taking the waiting out of wanting or the wanting out of waiting, but waiting with sometimes painful wanting, for the Birth, for the Advent, for the Lord who is to come.

In expectation of answered prayer, in un-quiet response, spend today’s prayer time repeating the prayer walk you did last week. Give thanks to God for any change you see, for answered prayer, and where prayers have seemingly gone unanswered, continue to pray in fervent un-quietness.

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10/12/2010 by paul.

Isaiah 61:1-3

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

I’m not sure, after all, that yesterday left us feeling any less challenged. The prophetic blast is insistent and does not let us rest; but it does not easily translate into a course of action that we can do and docket, and the rest again. That, of course, is by intention. And the answer we are driven to is equally by intention. Only the Spirit of God can do these things.

Today’s passage catapults us forward again another 50 years to a time soon after the fall of the Babylonian Empire as the people of Israel glimpse the possibility of a return from exile. Powerless themselves, they had learnt the surprising lesson that even a Persian prince, Cyrus, could be the agent of God. Now, in terms reminiscent of the Cyrus oracles and Servant Songs earlier in the book, Isaiah casts a vision of the Spirit-anointed Servant Messiah, which Christ himself will both claim (Luke 4:14-21) and fulfil.

One of the great themes and truths of the scriptures is that the same Spirit which hovered over the waters in creation and fills a man like Joshua, and which hovered over Christ at his baptism and filled him, is also poured out on us and fills us too. The alarm call is sounding a note that will be vital for the story to come. Without the Spirit’s breath the ashes will never glow.

Talk of the Spirit can lead us quickly to matters of inspiration and spiritual gifts; but we often over-separate the persons of the Trinity, and today’s passage from Isaiah reminds us, as does of course the life of Christ, that at heart the work of the Spirit is all one with Christ’s work of Redemption. The Spirit comes on us and in us not as an overlay on our humanity but to transform it. This, and only this, is why the command that nothing be lost can be fulfilled: because nothing is beyond God’s redemption. Even death gives way to life.

In some of my own darkest days it has been this truth that has kept me going – and I have often turned to the powerfully moving words of George Matheson’s hymn to express it:

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee:
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine oceans depths its flow
May richer, fuller, be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee:
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee:
I lay in dust in life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

For your prayer today, why not meditate on these words above, and make them your own. If needs be listen to it below, read them aloud, or write them out.

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10/12/2010 by paul.

Jeremiah 23:1-8

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’
“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

A turn of the page, and time has moved on 150 years or so from our last reading into the world of Judah’s last kings, just before their exile in Babylon. (Assyria itself has now been overrun)

The promise of a second Davidic shepherd-king, a Branch of Jesse’s tree, is still fresh, though, on the lips of the prophets. Such a long-term hope could easily lead to a sort of passive pietism; but Jeremiah is too much of a politician himself to leave it at that. The Lord gathers the people; but he appoints others to be shepherds under him who have very real responsibilities and will be held to account for them.

The challenging target for these under-shepherds is that none of the flock will go missing. Put together the inseparability of faith and society, and God’s way of using not just great leaders but small players like you and me, and suddenly we ourselves are in the world of targets and accountability. Then the alarm call. It’s not one that always sits easily with us – There is important work to be done for God, and many of the opportunities lie in our hands. Resistance feels like excuse-making.

There are caveats though, and we see three in today’s reading. First, the work is God’s before it is ours, he is active in it, and we need to look to him and trust him for it together. We may be significant, but we are still small. Second, since God’s whole purpose is the safety of his sheep, we have no business conducting his in ways which scatter the flock. His reign is wise and just, and our actions must be the same. Third, this is a long-term project and we should not demand short-term fixes. ‘The days’ that are coming are the end-times, not the year end.

Today, commit to God your hopes and wishes for your community, society and the church. Be as bold as you like, hope long-term and big scale. Bring together the list you made yesterday and these hopes and ask God to show you how to be part of your hope ‘in your generation’.

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10/12/2010 by paul.

Micah 5:2-5

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
And he shall be their peace.
When the Assyrian comes into our land
and treads in our palaces,
then we will raise against him seven shepherds
and eight princes of men;

So how small is yesterday’s heavy work making you feel? Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah and the same background and themes are there in this prophecy – the abandonment of the land, a birth marking the time, a new age to come.

The tone, though, is quite different. Isaiah can be overwhelming, baroque, a major prophet in every sense of word. He was, according to tradition, of royal blood, and the city is his stage. Enter Micah of Moresheth: a younger man, from the countryside, direct enough in his prophecy but lyrical where Isaiah is epic. It seems appropriate that he should be the one not just to grasp, as Isaiah did, that a great messianic Son would be born, but that with God it is human weakness that is most easily the channel of divine strength.

It is or course, a Davidic them, but one easily forgotten as memories of the shepherd boy were overlain by the animals of his kingship. Micah brings back the shepherd theme, and old metaphor for kingship evocatively recalled: the Son of David will watch over Israel as once David did his flock. As alarms go, this one is quieter, but just as insistent.

Micah’s insight is that God’s concern with the great sweep of history is mediated through small things. With the tincture ‘for thy sake’, as George Herbert puts it, ‘nothing can be too mean’; and however complex and tragic the world around us our tiny part of the story is still of ultimate significance and can be used by God to effect.

I was struggling with this recently, and wondering where on earth my own vocation lay. Then Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life turned my attention to Acts 13:36: ‘David served God’s purpose in his generation.’ If you’re called David, it has to grab you. The simple message is that our calling is to be faithful where we are: and see what happens. And since not just David but the Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God is holding the shepherd’s staff, a great deal indeed can happen if we let it.

In your prayer time today, why not list all of the activities, groups, and social networks to which you belong. Pray for each group, and ask God to show you how to serve his purpose in those groups, in your generation.

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07/12/2010 by paul.

Isaiah 7:10-15

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

As Isaiah speaks, Jerusalem is under siege from the kings of Israel and Aram. ‘Don’t lose heart because of these two smouldering stubs,’ he says (v.4) – but Ahaz does not find trusting God easy. His response to the threat will be to offer vassalage to Tiglath Pileser, and change the Temple cult to appease him (2 Kings 16). His reluctance to put God to the test is not a doctrinal nicety but a diplomat’s nerves.

Faced with this dithering, God offers a dramatic alarm call indeed. By the time a child soon to be born is of age, he and the nation will be living off milk and honey. But don’t be misled by echoes of the promised land. They will be living off milk and honey, the land’s natural produce, because all the cultivated goods will have been wasted; not by Israel and Aram (they too will be devastated), but by Assyria.

This does not sound like the comforting promise of a Christmas Carol service! The heart of the prophetic word, as so often, is a call to a radical trust in the Lord God, which is set in a dangerous tension with both the political process and a pluralist approach to religion.

This is both uncomfortable and contemporary. What does it mean to be a loyal believer today, and also a loyal citizen of a civil state and in particular of a pluralist one? Where do we stand? What about the suicide bomber, the province that separates itself, the creationist who opposes evolution taught in schools… Are they over the top? Or if we say that, are we being like Ahaz and deserting a simple trust in God? ‘The government will be on his shoulders,’ we read yesterday, but the media pundit asks whether ‘ancient belief systems and modern government can find common ground.’ (David Aaronovitch)

So is the thrill that runs down our spine at the Carol Service when we hear the prophecy of Immanuel just a childish thing that we must put away as we struggle with hard reality?

No – but we have to receive the sign the right way. It is a sign that God is completely committed to our history and fully engaged with it. Yes, there is the comforting promise of a birth. But it is the birth of a child that will grow up – to some purpose. Will we let him?

In response to this question, why not spend time in quiet prayer, not bringing a load of requests to God, but let him tell you the purpose of him sending Jesus to be YOUR friend, YOUR guide, YOUR Saviour.

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