“Walking the Way: living the life of Jesus today” – is the latest strapline that the United Reformed
Church is using, and it’s a great strapline, a great concept. It’s a call to discipleship, a call to
missional discipleship. Of course, it is
nothing new. The church has been doing
discipleship for something around two thousand years. It is in our DNA. It is what we do. The first disciples encountered Jesus on a
Galilean beach and responded positively to his invitation to go with him and be
part of his team. Follow me and I
will make you fish for people.
However, though it is nothing new, many of us
are valuing the renewed emphasis on discipleship. We recognise that our discipleship has often been
less than it should have been – and we can see the value of being encouraged to
proactively re-engage as disciples.
In so many ways we are like Isaiah. We look around and we see so much that is
amiss – and we fear that is all too much.
We can hardly do anything, let alone enough. We are deeply concerned. Then, just like Isaiah, we feel God’s touch
and so, when we hear the call, we are able to say, as Isaiah did: here am I;
send me!
In the end, discipleship is not a big deal,
though it is easy for us to evade it. It
is easy for us to think it is too much.
It is easy for us to think that we are not good enough. Strictly, we are not good enough – only,
somehow, wonderfully, that does not matter to God. God wants what we can offer, and God never
asks more of us than we can do. Both
Isaiah and Simon Peter, as well as many others in the Bible, had to learn that
lesson but, learning it, what a difference they made!
But what does it mean to be a disciple? What can we do to be intentional
disciples? How can we be more effective? One of the suggestions around at the moment
is to consider engaging in “holy habits”, and to encourage others to
take up holy habits. I really like that
idea. I think you can do all sorts of
things with it to make it work for you.
A habit is something that you do on a regular basis. You make it part of your life. A holy habit is a habit that is connected to
God. God is holy.
One of the great Biblical statements about us
is that we are made in the image of God.
It is there in Genesis 1:27 – So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them.
That is quite something and it lends a lot of credibility to the idea
that we should develop holy habits. As
God is holy, so we should do what we can to be holy.
There are innumerable in which we could
approach this idea of holy habits. I
don’t think that it would be possible, or legitimate, to produce a single
definitive list. The list that we are mainly
working to within the URC at the moment is a list of ten, all of which can be
found in Acts chapter 2. It is a good
list.
They are actually all there in verses 42 to
47 of Acts chapter 2. They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread
and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone,
because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all
things in common: they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute
the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke
bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God
and having the goodwill of all the people.
And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Ten holy habits are there in that passage –
Biblical teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, giving, service,
eating together, gladness & generosity, worship, and making more
disciples. There is material available
to help you explore these holy habits – the book by Andrew Roberts with the
title ‘Holy Habits’ and
eleven booklets, an introduction, and one on each particular holy habit.
Of course, this is not the only possible
approach. There are all sorts of ways in
which we can think of, and describe, holy habits. I like, for example, the list that Sam Wells
comes up with in his book “Incarnational
Ministry”. He writes – “Discipleship is first of all
one’s relationship with God – a daily walk of grace, wonder, intimacy, sadness
at failure, repentance, renewal, forgiveness, longing, gratitude, and
companionship.” There are ten there
too – a different approach, but covering a lot of the same ground though, in
some instances, in a different way.
I am sure that most of us are already doing, in some measure, most, if not
all, of these things. We are not
introducing new ways of discipleship.
But what we are doing is encouraging people to be more intentional and
to deliberately develop holy habits. I
would also say that you will probably get overwhelmed if you try and focus on
them all at once. Take one or two, and
then move on. For example, if you use
the ten from Acts 2, the introduction booklet actually suggests concentrating
on each one for a period of a couple of months, so that it will take you a couple
of years or so to take a good look at each one.
But that is up to you.
Fairly recently, I read a book by Judy Hirst, entitled “Struggling
to be Holy”. That’s me.
That sums it up. Struggling to be
holy. And that is, very much, the first
thing that I want to note – don’t worry if it is a bit of a struggle. To be honest, being holy does not come
naturally to most of us. I know I
certainly struggle to be holy. But, as
Judy Hirst reminds us, - “God can live
with the reality that we are still sinners even if we find it hard to do so!” And she adds - “If I could jettison the parts of me I found troublesome I would also
lose parts of myself which I valued. We
are complex realities and we need to learn to love what we are, both delightful
and damaged, and put it all into the hands of the master potter to form into
something unique and beautiful.”
Holy habits are about transformation.
They are about changing us. But,
at one and the same time, I am still ‘me’ and I should not worry that I am
somewhat messed up. Judy Hirst also says:
“Our failure to believe enough in his
love, to trust the mess of our real selves to him is a serious barrier to the
joy of knowing him better.” She
stresses the importance of recognising the contribution of failure. We live in a success-orientated society,
which makes that rather difficult, but it is an important point to grasp. If we try and make ourselves perfect, we will
fail catastrophically. But if we look to
God, and if we reach out for God’s help, then things can be very different. Judy Hirst puts it like this: God’s “provision of forgiveness always potentially
makes failure into a gracious and enabling new way forward. To grow in holiness we need to escape from
any notion that we can make ourselves perfect.
If we fail and are confronted with our limitations, we can begin to see
who we are and what we need and this makes it easier to come to God just as it
was easier for Bartimaeus than for the successful young man. The place of failure is potentially the place
of learning and it is there where we will discover some unexpected things about
ourselves. Failure is God’s chance to
open us and to stretch us beyond our tiny hopes and expectations but often we
simply get so bogged down that we can’t see a way forward.”
When we start talking about being holy, it can seem impossible. How can we be holy? Why aspire for something we can’t
manage? Isn’t it better to ditch the
idea of holy habits and reach for something more achievable? By conventional standards, those would all be
appropriate questions – but that is not how we live. We look to God who transforms things, who
sees things differently, and who wants us to be involved. Thus, the idea of holy habits is not only
possible. It gives us a helpful way of
responding to God as we can, and as we should.
I commend the idea of holy habits.
There is no wish to be prescriptive as to how you approach them. Many have heard me suggest an alternative
shorter list of five* – and you and I could all come up with other suggestions,
all valid. In John chapter 1 a couple of
John’s disciples went to see what Jesus was up to. What we are told about that encounter is that
they remained with him that day. That is what we need – to spend time with
Jesus, with God, and then we’ll develop the holy habits that are going to work
for us.
Paul Whittle
Address to Synod Meeting, March 2018
The shorter list of five – bless,
eat, listen, learn, sent – is drawn from Michael Frost’s book, “Surprise The World”.
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