A Shepherd's Story

Funny thing is that people don't realise how shocking it was to have shepherds involved in the most important event in history.

Shepherds do look lovely in the pictures – the usual ones you have on your Christmas cards. Lovely and clean. The sheep too, but you know the truth's a bit different with sheep. Shepherds much the same.

It wasn't just that you don't get to wash much in the hills. We were social scum so what's the point? Until we met those heavenly messengers we were nobodies and we treated ourselves as such.

Worse than nobodies, often labelled criminals.

True, most of us had done bad things – often it was the reason we were in the hills, to get away from the law, or the booze, or the women after us because of children we “gifted” them on a rare night in town. But there was no chance now of ever being any different. Labelled for life, good people want nothing to do with us. Surely you don't do that to people in your day, now that you've got Jesus.

So we don't belong in the pretty Christmas picture. But we do belong in the Christmas story – if you have got the message right. If you have really heard the good news and you believe it to be true.

Good news, yes. Good news because it puts God and God's approach to things, so to speak, in charge. If you want to know what that means, look at who the baby grew up to be. We realised something was up when we saw his parents, when they told us their story. A likely story, but we know what it's like when people jump to conclusions about us, so we believed them. It had to be God involved in this. Who else chooses dodgy people?

Look at the people Jesus chose, the people he spent time with, and all the good and proper people got more than just their noses out of joint. There are no outsiders in Jesus' view of the world. Even criminals belong in God's care. Even people who make mistakes, big or little.

Changed our lives? Yes, it did. When you realise you matter – that God's messengers pick you out, God picks you out – that changes everything. Attitude, behaviour, what we expected of ourselves, who we could become.

The good news is that God knows who we can become, and it's all good. Believe it and you start becoming it.

We're still shepherds, but it's not an escape anymore. It happens to be where we belong and can be the people God calls us to be.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

Many Threads: One Place of Welcome

Why are we building a building?

The safe, left-brain answer: to house our Kerikeri congregation.

The not-so-safe, right-brain answer: to pursue our mission. Not so safe because it is different from what's been the case. But it is what we feel called to do as a distinctive way to serve, to be Christ-shaped people for the well-being of this place, Kerikeri, and its people.

Our building will in fact house our congregation. Home for us and open home for others. As our home we will be at the heart of the building as kaitiaki, tending the “home fires” keeping it warm and welcoming.

As a church (that's us the people) and as a body with charitable status, we are here for the sake of others. To maintain our identity as such (with God) and our status as such (with the government) we have to keep the focus beyond ourselves. Our new building is to be one way of doing that, and the decision to involve the community in the planning right from the beginning is a reflection of that. We continue that process asking this question:

What would enable our building to be a place of welcome for all kinds of people? A spiritual space. A place where God's Spirit speaks to all who may enter. In particular, what visual possibilities.

We will be church within this space, not shying away from who we are. One user group among the others, we will have the responsibility of provide the distinctive values and the spirit that can make sure that the building is a safe place, a nurturing place even, for all who come. We want it to embody the unconditional love that is our core belief as Christians.

Almost like an alternative realm to the prevailing world that we are all caught up in: a realm of welcome and belonging in the midst of the realm of consumerism and expendability. A place for seeking spiritual sight in a culture of the blind pursuit of more. A place of imagination and of spiritual growth.   

Requirement of Rules or Response of Love

Mark 10:1-16

We're still in the midst of Jesus' teaching about who he is and what he's here for. To understand this it has to be realised that it is suffering and death that point to the reality of God, to real life-creating, life-giving power. That's the context, with children again positioned to challenge misunderstanding.

Mark's Jesus fights constantly the tendency amongst his fellow humans to create systems in order to feel we have a handle on things, to sort everything in terms of rules.

For example, relationships.

The Bible sees everything that is as given – gift of God. It's all God's dream, this proliferation of creatures and things and it's declared good. Good because the Creator delights in it. Creator and creation in relationship. A few chapters later when things are not good – deemed a total mistake and almost wiped out (by the flood) – it all stems from a breakdown of this relationship.

God's dream is the ideal, the vision, a.k.a. the Kingdom. For Jesus carries this same vision. He lives the ideal, he's rooted in Kingdom ways.

Kingdom ways lead to well-being, justice, peace – that is, right relationships (righteousness in traditional translation). When words like marriage (which I define as faithful, intimate relationship) are used by Jesus, this is the perspective he is taking. The ideal of what can be, the horizon to head towards.

When he's asked a question about it, he knows that his questioners are thinking not ideal, but rules and legal proceedings. An issue of justice – notably for women – is being hijacked and Jesus is not amused.

Jesus is being very bold here, more than we might think. Mention of moving into the territory of Herod at the start is significant. This is Herod the divorcer, Herod the murderer (remember John the Baptist?). Jesus is clearly calling Herod out for a life that is a million miles from God's kingdom.

Regarding marriage, God's dream is for nothing to break this holy relationship, when it is such, nothing to get in the way of it. Definitely not politics (as with Herod). Would that this most intimate and vulnerable of all relationships be faithful and true – right relationship; give it every chance to be God-like in that respect; don't let other things cause it grief or pull it apart for reasons that disregard the well-being of the people involved.

Jesus is making it clear that the Kingdom of God doesn't pull back from the ultimate of unconditional loving relationship. The ideal.

In practice – because of hard-heartedness, that is humanity at its hard core – there are ways of regulating or moderating how breaks happen, because they do happen and for well-being that can be the best. The measures for regulating and moderating are for the purpose of making as much good as possible in a bad situation. Saving what can be saved; keeping the eyes on well-being and justice. Jesus has a primary concern for justice for women. Note that he speaks of a woman dismissing (divorcing) her husband. That's not Jewish law but it is Roman law. A not so subtle dig here that the Romans' law got one thing better – if you have divorce, it must be able to work both ways.

But he then makes clear that the end-point, the pinnacle of justice and well-being, relates to children. Children must be in the centre. Relationships must not be about adult power play. Children are a reminder of that.

What to do when relationships crack and break. We know that question from experience. And we know that keeping children in the centre makes for a better future. They are the touchstone.

This is a vignette about marriage but there's a broad relationship message here that it is pointing to for everyone. For good marriage is only one kind of “deep community”, as one person puts it. Deep community that can go a long way to completing us as human beings. This is the community of love, so to speak, that can grow between ourselves and another or others.

The broad message here is a warning on how the love basis to this kind of right relationship gets subverted by our tendency to think about law and limits. In day to day living, in politics, in debates over right and wrong, we keep being pulled back from the ideal to see things codified in rules. Rules for friending and unfriending are not how relationships work. What's expected of friends, what counts as forgivable, or not, keeping a balance in gifts, in invitations, and so on. True, rules are useful, as boundaries and guides we adopt to keep on track with the ideal. Law is useful in describing what good action looks like. But if we want to live the way of the ideal, it is has be driven by love, not law-keeping.

To be a good Christian, to be Christ-shaped, is a response in a particular situation, to a particular context – a love-based response.

And a practical way to remind ourselves what it feels like to make a love-based response is to put children in our midst.

They remind us that it is an act of grace – by grace that we are moved and motivated, and let ourselves be Christ-shaped.  

Thanksgiving

Our friend Ross died on 4 September 2015. It fits the character of the man that he ended his days with us well past best medical estimates. But if ever the comment was made to him that it was his determination that had him still enjoying the sound of the birds each morning, he'd say, not me, but God. (He'd own up to being bit stubborn, or cantankerous as he'd put it.)

There was not to be a funeral. A memorial service made him uneasy too. Focussed on him, that wasn't the point. It's about God. What about us getting together one Sunday, in his memory, honouring God and the wonders of creation? Yes, that would be okay, but keep the focus where it belongs.

I appreciate a reminder like this, and a clear and forthright one at that, like all of Ross' input. It was not something we could ignore, and to respect is our surest way of respecting the person it comes from. Years back there was a minister who'd retired to Clyde in Central Otago who spoke to me of his funeral instructions. He had an envelope with instructions outlined: hymns and readings, and the note “there will be no address”.

No eulogy. No speaking about the person. Just praise and thanks to our God.

I appreciate the reminder because I think we can get out of balance. As a really positive response to the needs of people in grief, funerals have become more personalised. We speak about what has been special for us. We share memories that draw all who are present into the experiences that make up a human life, this one in particular, but often connecting with our own experiences. We gain insight into our shared life as it has been, which in large part has made us who we are.

But it's important that we remember for the purpose of giving thanks. That's the attitude of faith, however it is expressed in detail. What makes us spiritual beings is that we don't focus only on the facts before us. We think about them, we evaluate them. We think about what makes life good, gives strength, makes us positively human. We catch again the vision to be nurtured in the generations.

We look beyond the facts to the source. The wonders of nature, of creation, the joys of family, in thinking of such things what strikes is their sheer givenness and how extraordinary these gifts are. Acknowledge this and we're acknowledging what's totally beyond our own powers and ability to produce.

Praise and thanksgiving to the Creator of life is first and foremost this: it is an act of wonder and gratitude. It is not a scientific statement about the nature of reality – that's another arena of human activity. To speak of the Creator is not locking us into believing there's a man in the sky or any particular thing that goes by the name God. Who or what God is is beyond our kind of knowledge, so I'd say let's not go there. But let's keep going in the direction that looks well beyond ourselves when it comes to celebrating life on this planet earth, and how amazing it is that it actually is.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

Attitudes to the Bible

August/September newsletter

Recently at church we were talking about attitudes to the Bible in today's culture. I'd made the comment that, in the view of the pervasive culture around us, “either you are rational and reject the Bible or you are irrational”. The church's track record of expecting blind, naïve acceptance of the Bible is part of the reason for the level of rejection in the western part of our NZ culture. Over generations past the church has promulgated what is called a grand narrative – a story to explain everything and not open to question. It has done harm – exclusion and violence – which has been motivation enough for recent generations to turn away from it altogether.

I put the case for a third alternative, which in fact is what we all seem to be working with, even if we're not aware of it. We're not naïve about the Bible in the sense of never questioning it, never challenging all too human events and behaviour which these stories of old contain. We don't go with face value, but weigh it up relation to other knowledge and with the character of Jesus. The Jesus we meet in the Bible shows us what I call Christ-shaped living, and in turn we read the stories of the Bible through that lens of Christ. And through that lens we see treasure in the midst of very human – and messy – stories.

A comment was made: the church is not doing very well at presenting this third option – remaining rational and reading the Bible to find insight into God's truth for living.

My thought: the “church” that is going to do this is us, the people who are the church.

It's up to us to introduce this other option, of reading the Bible, brain well engaged, and uncovering real food for living well. One reason for this is there's no theory for how this is done, no instructions to publish and promote. Because it's in the practice that it happens. The Bible's narratives speak to us: it's in the listening that the discoveries happen. As we're listening our brains are ticking over with their questions, what we know already adds its bit, and our hearts are asking too – what we long for, hope for, struggle with. And to our surprise maybe the stories make a connection, and we have a response, an insight, a new direction.

We realise that the Bible contains narratives and not pronouncements, stories carrying truth not dogma pinning it down. When we read it on those terms, something happens in our souls. Like an experience that moves us, a conversation that energises us, something in us is touched and changed.

The hard part is to speak about this to others. It's much easier to fall back on standard religious words – or say nothing. How do we express the real experience that the original basis for religious language? How do we tell another person what it is that the word “God” points to for us?

We can only do it by trying. Starting with trying to put it into words for ourselves.

Ask yourself: what keeps bringing me back to Bible stories? What would I be missing if I didn't, if I didn't ever gather with others who share experiences and chewed them over alongside Bible texts?

What will be missing if we don't find ways to share these stories with children?

Let's keep talking about this together. Sundays at church are definitely a time and place for doing that, being church together.

Church as I know it hasn't thrown out the baby with the bath-water. The bath-water was “the Church” of years past, the institution with its doctrines and its laws that the Scribes and Pharisees would have been impressed with. In that bath-water the Bible got submerged with the real story of freedom in Christ out of reach. The baby is that story of freedom. We access it whenever we read the Bible with open minds and eyes on Christ.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn