A Mug from Iona

 

Iona is a special place, one of those locations sometimes described as 'thin'. Of course, we can fully encounter God anyway, but that does not mean that there are not places which seem particularly holy or which have special significance.

A place can become so because of a moment of encounter with God. It might be a great cathedral. It might be the top of a hill. It might be somewhere, like Iona, that has become a place of pilgrimage.

Strangely, despite spending my youth and early adulthood in Scotland, I have only been to Iona once, and that just for the day with my then two small children. It was more than worth it all the same, and I hope to return some day.

The mug I bought on that visit to Iona is a reminder of that day, but also of the important role that pilgrimnage can play in the Christian journey. Whether God calls us to go across the world or just across the street, it's good to respond to that call and discover those special places and experiences that God has lined up for us.

Costa Rican Mug

It was back in the summer of 1991 that my wife and I landed in Costa Rica with a very large suitcase, as we didn't know when, again, we would see anything else that belonged to us. We were about to spend six weeks learning Spanish prior to flying on to Panama where we were going to live for the next (almost) three years.

And then, we ended up back in Costa Rica for a few days, attending the annual Synod of the Methodist Church, which had congregations in both countries, and received this commemorative mug, marking a significant anniverary. It is good to mark significant occasions. 

I wonder which events in your life most deserve a commemorative mug?

Zimbabwean Mug

The psalmist writes in the last phrase of Psalm 23, verse 5 - my cup overflows. As we start Advent, and as a 'sort of' calendar, I thought I'd look around my study and see what some of the things in it might say to me as they remind of things I have done or that mean something to me.

I have a number of mugs and that seemed a good place to start. This particular one, with hand-painted elephants, comes from Zimbabwe, a country I have visited a number of times. It is a reminder of my many friends there and of the places of I have visited and things I have done. It speaks of lively worship, of economic hardship, of deep spirituality, and of a country that has so much potential.

That is a reminder that we all have potential and, with God's help, we can realise it. 

But the mug from Zimbabwe is also a reminder of the struggle to obtain reliable and clean supplies of water, and that there is so much that we take for granted in the UK. 

Let's thank God for all the ways in which our cup overflows.

Be Grateful For What You Have

Snoopy says some great things. There is a lot to learn from such little bits of ‘philosophy’. One I really like is – BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE. So often it seems that the grass is greener on the other side. We want all sorts of stuff that we don’t have. There’s a lot to learn from this little saying, which can do a great deal to keep us on track. The apostle Paul has a slightly different version of this – And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus – Philippians 4:19. It doesn’t mean God gives us what we demands. But it does mean that God is with us, sustaining and strengthening us.

Exile

 One more comment from Stefan Paas’s article “Pilgrims and Priests” and that is to note the relationship that he suggests with the experience of exile that plays such a strong role in what we call the Old Testament. It is a challenging place to be, and yet, in the end, it is also a rewarding place. Our life in a highly secular society has many parallels with that of the exiled Israelites. We are out of our comfort zone. We struggle to make sense of things. It can produce a crisis of faith. How can this be? How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

As Paas says – “much of the Bible is written in situations of displacement and uprooting. The narratives of exile and diaspora may help late–modern Christians in the West to reconnect their cultural experience with the experience of the ancient prophets who witnessed about God in situations where everything seemed lost. Let us not forget that the crisis of exile was for Israel a crisis of faith.”

We can and should be positive about exile, but never entirely so, and that does not mean that it is easy. But it does, and should, remind us of our reliance on the immense love of God, a reliance that is needed not just in the difficult moments, but always. God has the bigger picture.

Paas again – “Israel was to learn what the church may have to learn today: that being uprooted and becoming weak may be the key to understanding more about God and God’s world. God has not abandoned us, not at all. He has led us into a new environment, where we are far more vulnerable and thus far more dependent on him. Christian institutions have crumbled, Christian power has disappeared. Yet it might very well be that only by losing the “God of our ancestors” and the “God of our land” will we see how great and merciful God truly is.”

Quotes are from an article "Pilgrims and Priests: Missional Ecclesiology in a Secular Society" in ANVIL – Journal of Theology and Mission – Church Missionary Society  Vol. 35 Issue 3 - (2019)

Mission As Art

We live in a world where we want things to count. We want that with which we engage to matter, to be a means of achieving something, to do stuff. That tends to include our understanding of mission. What is the mission? What is it doing? What are we achieving through it?

 

Sometimes I think it would be so much better if we just saw mission as a matter of being faithful God. After all, that’s the call – not to be successful, but to be faithful. Mission is not ours, it’s God’s – and we do well to remember that. We need to accept that there is a big picture of which we are tiny part.

 

I like Stefan Paas’s suggestion that we should see mission as art.

 

“Rather than using traditional militaristic or business metaphors, we might think of mission as creating art. Art radiates beauty and meaning that does not depend on its possible usefulness. On the contrary; precisely because of its lack of usefulness, art helps us understand that goodness and beauty are not necessarily useful in terms of impact or money. Mission might be a work of art. It is a cause of joy and gratitude; it is a work of free and undemanding love; it is serving a God who is sheer love and beauty.”

 

Quote is from an article "Pilgrims and Priests: Missional Ecclesiology in a Secular Society" in ANVIL – Journal of Theology and Mission – Church Missionary Society  Vol. 35 Issue 3 - (2019).

Do Numbers Matter?

There is a great deal of talk about the decline of the church in our day, and the reducing numbers. In the UK context within the traditional denominations, that is certainly a big part of the picture and needs to be taken seriously. Numbers are declining, and we wish that was not so. We love the stories that buck the trend. I was delighted to read a report today that mentioned how one church in the Synod has recently tripled its membership. Would that every church had done the same. Of course, it is also relative. This church - and, yes, it can happen - had reduced to one member, so my rejoicing was caused by the fact that a couple had joined. That does not mean that it is not a genuine good news story - because it is. Everyone matters. That fact lies at the heart of the Gospel. We should not ignore the reality, nor the challenge, of the declining numbers. But we so need to remember that they are only a small part of God's much bigger story.

As Stefan Paas says, "To accept numerical growth of the church as the purpose of mission is to instrumentalise evangelism in the service of statistics. Conversions are important signs of the coming kingdom of God; they are the first fruits of the eschatological harvest. But, as Jesus says, “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). If church growth is the justification of evangelism, one sinner who repents is not enough. He or she will not turn our statistics. If church growth is seen as the purpose, and thus the ultimate justification of mission, the work of evangelism becomes driven by numbers rather than persons."

Quote is from an article "Pilgrims and Priests: Missional Ecclesiology in a Secular Society" in ANVIL – Journal of Theology and Mission – Church Missionary Society  Vol. 35 Issue 3 - (2019).