Is the work that we do for God special?

I wonder what people make of St. Paul or how would they describe him? A tireless and energetic missionary and worker for God, perhaps. In our minds, we might put him at the top of a league table of Christian Saints. Perhaps there is a special place in heaven for him and others like him, near to God’s seat. We certainly admire his work. He seemed to have limitless energy, always on the move, preaching both to the Christians and non-Christians. He was always looking for new countries and places where God’s word had not been preached, and he himself boasts (albeit in an ironic sense) of his achievements. Even when imprisoned, he preached to his guards.

As if that were not enough, he wrote many of the letters of the New Testament (some of which were written while in prison), which expressed and crystallised the doctrine of being righteous before God by having faith in Jesus Christ. 

There will be other Christians, whose work we may admire. Some of these may be historical figures, who took Christianity to a new land or founded an order.

They may still be alive, perhaps people from our own church or simply well-known Christian figures. We admire these people. They might be given as example of lives to be copied and we may have been encouraged to emulate them.

Most of our lives are much more humdrum. Families, spouses and partners, children, mortgages, jobs, money, children’s education, trips to doctors and so on. We feel disheartened when we simply do not have the time, energy or motivation to do what is necessary to emulate these examples that have been given to us. Perhaps we even feel a sense of guilt that we should be doing something else. Or perhaps we feel that we should be sacrificing more time and money to God’s work and we stand accused by our consciences and by the Bible, the very book that is meant to encourage us.

I am not sure exactly how we arrive at this point. The Old Testament lay very few obligations on the People of Israel, except to love and obey Him, although, having said that, they were largely incapable of doing even these two things.

The New Testament seems to lay more specific obligations on Christ’s followers. Go and spread the Good News is a command of Christ to his followers, and the Letters of the Apostles lay down a number of regulations for Church and Christian life.

We take these to heart and feel the constant inadequacy of our own efforts, through the distractions of daily life, despite the knowledge of forgiveness.

I am not sure why feelings of guilt and inadequacy form such a large part of the thinking and emotions of the Church or at least the protestant church. I suppose as sin, judgement and repentance forms such a large part of the protestant church’s message and teaching, it is hardly surprising that we regard ourselves in this way.

So how is all this measured “at the end of the day” (as footballers say as a standard phrase) and anyway, does God regard work done in His name more highly than that done by, well, a Banker?

As a different but related question, is the relationship closer between God and one of his people where that person is doing God’s work?

I need to declare a personal interest here. I am from the banking profession, which is now regarded, with some justification, by the general public and press, as something not far removed from the mafia or prostitution. Being concerned solely with money, the very substance of the “world”, it is about distant from God’s work as can be done, even when it is being done legally.

So after all the weighing up and “refining” has been done, how does God assess the value of work? Certainly the work done processing banking customers’ orders and improving the operational flows of my area doesn’t seem to score highly on this score.

Perhaps the purpose of our secular lives is to provide context in which we find God. We find Him in the humdrum or at least, Gods reveals himself to us in the humdrum. If this is the case, then this humdrum stuff is pretty important. We can look for God in the day-to-day. God is to be found in the “world” (perhaps even in banking).

Finding God in the world has one major difference over finding Him in religious activity. It is just you and Him. There is no “spiritual” noise or second hand religious views.

But exactly what He says to us is for us to find out, but only if we listen.

 

Peace on Earth

Barak Obama has been in office for nearly four years now and I recollect being struck by part of one of his early speeches as President. The part that I remembered went something like “…and peace on earth, which is God’s will for all men”.

I had been meaning to write something about this for some time now, but had not got around to it, until earlier this year, when The Church of England held its annual conference (“Synod”).

I do not remember the specific nature of the Synod debate, which I only followed for a few minutes. However, in that time, I was reminded how divided the Protestant Church is, or at least appears to be, on so many questions. The particular thought that struck me at the time was Church Unity. The members will, no doubt, have prayed for Church unity, which they will have regarded as self-evidently God’s will. This brings me back to Barak Obama.

Christians would probably consider both matters to be “God’s Will” (“Peace on Earth” and “Church Unity”) and as self-evident. Obama has biblical back-up for his statement (although there is a large amount of empirical evidence against it), with, for example, the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to the Shepherds, on the birth of Jesus. In this case, Gabriel added “peace to all men,….with whom He is well pleased”.

If these two matters are God’s will, then He is not having much success at the moment. Actually it is questionable whether He has ever had much success in these areas. There are plenty of other examples.

Of course, it is right to pray about these matters, but looking at the history books, one wonders why there is so little external success. The 20^th century set a historical record when it came to deaths and suffering in wars, under dictators of various kinds. The 21^st Century so far has some way to catch up, but there is plenty of time yet.

My purpose here is not to discuss the effectiveness or otherwise of prayer, rather to make the observation that God does not seem to be involved in these areas. I baulk at suggesting that He might be indifferent as to the outcome (Jesus made almost no comments about the secular set-up of the world). And we hesitate to think that they are not God’s will, but if they are not, then what is His Will?

I tread on very difficult and dangerous territory here. Christians spend a lot of energy praying about these and other matters, and then apologising for God and making excuses for Him (and blaming themselves), whether these are in relation to personal matters and matters that touch us directly or whether these are general matters in the world at large.

As citizens of this world, we attach a great deal of importance on what goes on generally. But what if we have misunderstood the nature of this world? What if this world is only context for our own lives?

He created us for his own pleasure and not the other way around. He has chosen us, and not the other way around. My thought is that in praying for matters that matter to us, but never happen, we fail to understand the nature of God’s purpose. I am not sure that I know what His purpose is, but it does not appear to be Peace on Earth or Church Unity.

So I’m looking somewhere else. While I am trying to find out what my job here on earth is, I remind God (very humbly, you understand) that some things are His job and that if He doesn’t do them, then I am not trying either.

There’s a cop-out for you.

 

Changing the Conversation

I am told that women can hold more than one conversation at a time when talking with each other. They can effortlessly slip between topics, without any signal as to the change in the topic. Men on the other hand, have to signal the subject in rather heavy handed and obvious ways, such as “To change the subject….” Or “Going back to what we were talking about earlier,…..”

I am told that a woman would regard such statements as totally unnecessary and you have to admit that the elimination of all these unnecessary signposts has a certain efficiency.

So it is no wonder that Jesus’ disciples, being all male, and other onlookers (mostly male) had such trouble on occasions in following his train of thought.

For example, Jesus and His disciples were at the temple at Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders asked Jesus what sign He would give them. Jesus said “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it” (John 2.19 – (click for link)  Now Jesus was referring to His own body and everyone else thought that He was talking about the temple building.

On another occasion, the disciples were hungry and had no bread. This was just after the feeding of the four thousand, and the Jewish leaders (Pharisees) were demanding a sign from Jesus. Jesus told his disciples to “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Matthew 16.6 (click for link)

Once again there was confusion as to the subject of this statement, with the disciples thinking that this had something to do with food and Jesus, actually referring to the teaching of the Pharisees.

In John 4, Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman and the disciples reminded Him to eat. Jesus tells them that He has food that they do not know about. They assume that he is talking about food (and why wouldn’t they?), when Jesus is talking about His relationship to God (“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me”). (verses 31 - 38)

Generally, Jesus became a bit annoyed with them, asking why they were discussing the fact that they had no bread.

On the other hand, you would have thought that the disciples would have become somewhat irritated at having Jesus change the subject. I would have been. After all, if they were talking about one thing, why did He have to change the subject or be so obtuse in his answer? I certainly would not have followed these conversations, and would have gone back to reading my newspaper.

It is one thing to tell parables and stories, so that some people “hearing, will not understand”, but it is another thing to confuse His own disciples.

Of course, I am assuming that it was deliberate and that He knew the effect it would have, but I don’t have any single good thought as to why He did this.

He was certainly single-minded. His passion was the Kingdom of God, to the exclusion of all else, and perhaps that is all He thought and spoke about. Not a lot of small talk here. He wouldn’t have been great dinner table company, if you had wanted to talk about the 2012 Olympics or if you did, He would no doubt turn the subject around.

He was not greatly concerned about the day to day things that concern and pre-occupy us (and me), nor was He greatly impressed by grand buildings and the earthly order of things.

Perhaps He was also trying to keep the thoughts of His disciples focussed. It could have been a type of rebuke. What was implied is “Why are you talking about these things? Why are you concerned about them?”

You would have thought that, with such a one track mind, and religion at that, he would have been the party bore, with people trying to avoid him. But the opposite seems to have the case. People were drawn and attached to him, whether for a good argument to defend the status quo or for people looking for alternative ideas to the poverty of the current religion practices, or just plain curious.

Would He have the same effect now if He were here or are people just indifferent to religion? With His one track mind, would He find a way to capture people’s interest?

But I have strayed into another subject, as usual. It’s time for me to close this blog and get something to eat.

 

A Christian Land

I think that it was the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, back in December 2011, reminded his listeners of the influence of this Book in the culture and laws of the land (“…. shaped our country….” and “… we are a Christian country…”)

More recently in one of my blogs, as an aside, I asked if my readers if they could remember the Ten Commandments and in particular, if you could remember their order. (Exodus 20 – link)

Without wishing to enter into the debate as to the accuracy of David Cameron’s words or have a debate on the nature of a Christian country, I thought that I would have a crack at looking at these commandments and seeing how they are practiced in the life of the country.

To get the positive side, you need to start in the second half of the Ten Commandments.

Commandments numbers 6, 8 and 9 are directly applicable. You shall not kill (No. 6); you shall not steal (No. 8) and you shall not bear false witness (No. 9). Perjury is still a criminal offence, even if it seems a somewhat strange commandment to have in your top ten.

So that is three out of ten. What about the rest. Let’s finish the lower part of this group of ten (Numbers 5 to 10).

There are two “family commandments”. Honour your mother and father (No. 5) and you shall not commit adultery (down at No. 7). I have no statistics on the first one. It is not enshrined in law or the culture in any way. Most people make efforts to maintain a close relationship with their parents, although I am not sure whether this has anything to do with “our being a Christian Country”. At least there are no laws saying that we should despise our parents, so 1/2 point for this one. 

No comment is necessary from me regarding Number 7, except to note that most people would regard a law criminalising or attaching any sort of blame to adultery, as being at the very least uncharitable and uncaring and quite possibly unchristian. The “I can do whatever I want to” culture that describes a large part of the English culture sits very comfortably with this.

I should try to deal with Number 10, which is about coveting, or rather “not coveting”. This is a slightly tough one, if only because it is not a word used very much these days. We are not supposed to covet or “wish longingly for” (per the American Heritage Dictionary) anything that belongs to our neighbour.

I am not sure that I have ever wanted to have the specific object that was currently owned by (say) my neighbour or a friend. I have been encouraged to think about acquiring something that I had not considered before. Actually taking it, covered by Number 8 (stealing) and taking your neighbours wife is already dealt with under Number 7 (Adultery).

But Commandment Number 10 here looks at the emotions of “wanting” something that we have seen elsewhere, and tells us that this is wrong.  It tells us to be satisfied with what we have. If that is the case (and I not sure that it is), then there is not much public data as to how much “coveting” goes on in England. It is said that we are “a consumerist society”, so I would assume that quite a lot of “coveting” goes on, so I am going to give us a zero for this one.

So we are left with this first four. This is unfortunate as they are all to do with God / Religion and England is not a very religious country. I will continue as I started and work backwards.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Number 4). I exaggerate the point when I say that this has been transformed to “The Sabbath shall a day of shopping”. For most people, Sunday is still a day when we do not have to go to work, and the buses do not all run on a Sunday, so maybe 1/2 a point for this one.

Number 3 reminds us not to take God’s name in vain. Definitely no points here. At least 80% of the population, who regularly use a variety of expletives, religious and secular to cover eventualities, such as hitting thumbs with hammers or missing a train or just as additional words to be used in normal everyday sentences. Furthermore, any laws to forbid and punish the use of such words would be regarded as laughable and probably an infringement of our civil liberties.

Number 2, “You shall not make a graven image (of God)…….” perhaps just does not apply. As most people in England have no particular belief in God, it is hard to see how they might make a graven image. I will assume that this applies mainly to those who recognise Commandment Number 1, “You shall have no other God besides me”).

The statistics on church-going show that England as a nation in slow but steady religious decline. What it does not tell us, is what people believe privately. The 2001 census in the U.K. indicated that just less that 50% of people believed in God. Presumably this means that nearly 50% of the population does believe in God. I think that this is good enough for half marks on numbers 1 and 2.

So all in all, that makes 4 ½  marks out of ten. Teacher says “England could do better, if he (or she) tried.”

More Moaning

I like having a moan. You have probably worked that out for yourself, if you read the earlier blog on the subject of moaning. [Click for Link]

Not real complaining, you understand. Not real constructive complaining that is designed to lead to some kind of useful outcome, such as getting your money back, a better table at a restaurant or just an apology. No, just background moaning and muttering about usual things that cannot be changed, such as the English weather, the English football team and the neighbour’s dog that doesn’t stop barking.

In that blog, I stated that I was, at least partly, on the side of the moaners. A further point occurred to me as I was writing this earlier blog, that all the moaning and grumbling of the People of Israel in wilderness was directed at the wrong target. I had wanted to include this random thought which was charging around inside my head, but a limit of 800 words for a blog imposes some restrictions.

For the most part during the journey out of Egypt and their wanderings in the wilderness, the People of Israel, when the going got a bit tough, complained to Moses. Why Moses? What had he done? He was just the messenger and of course, like so many messengers, he was the one who was shot at.

So why didn’t they take their complaint direct to God?

For a kick-off, Moses was the natural “complaints department”. Of course, he was the guy giving out the instructions and was the man on the spot. They obviously thought Moses was the right intermediary. They presumable believed that he had it within his power to sort these problems out.

Perhaps they believed that Moses himself was the “fixer”. If the problem wasn’t resolved, then it must have been his fault. It might explain why they became restless when Moses disappeared up Mount Sinai for longer than expected. “Moses has done a runner. Let’s have a tribal symbol” and promptly made the Golden Calf.

Moses was at a disadvantage, being the nearest target to hand. The People of Israel’s understanding of God seemed to be so minimal or even non-existent, that their complaint would be directed at the most obvious and visible cause. Moses brought us here. He must be part of the problem and he must solve this.

In one sense, they might have been correct, if you can imagine that they had never caught on to the fact that God was behind this whole adventure in the first place. The more you think about it, the more natural, if incorrect, this becomes. They just never saw beyond Moses, just as we, by the way, often do see beyond the church.

I know that most of the readers of this blog would turn to God, in difficult circumstances or in a serious situation, for example in the situation of a threatened lost job (which is fairly topical and painful at the moment). However, most people would not think of this. They would rant and rave, at the most obvious target e.g. the employer, government etc. If God does not really feature in their thinking, then He will not be asked. People end up trusting in things that they can see or have made themselves.

But I am straying as usual, so back to the main story. As you may have worked out by now, one of my thoughts is that the People of Israel never really believed in this God person at all and believed that this was all Moses’ doing. The Old Testament prophets later explain this in terms that they “hardened their hearts against God”. I find this interesting as it is described as a deliberate act by the People of Israel. The Old Testament prophets assert that the People of Israel made a choice not to believe and look to God. There is no cop out here, “Oh, we didn’t understand” was not a defence that stood up in God’s eyes.

Finally, it is worth looking at the great complainer, Job. The book of Job, in the Old Testament is just before the Psalms [link to Job]. Job’s complains of God’s dealings with him (which were pretty harsh) and his so-called “friends”, tell him of some wrong-doing that he must have committed, and that he should repent of these unspecified sins. Job rebukes them and says that his complaint is to God (Job: Chapters 26 – 31)

My point here, if there is a point, is that Job did at least get the target of his complaint correct. It was to God himself, who reveals himself to Job, puts Job in his place and then restores him to his previous health and cirmcumstances. (Job 38 – 42) Click for Link 

If you are going to complain, then at least get the target right. Complain to God himself.

Something Moral

In my general wanderings of religious and spiritual thoughts, I ought to say to say something about Morals / behaviour. You can tell that I am not convinced. I think that this is a topic that someone else suggested. It certainly was not on my original list, which must say something about me and my views.

It has often been suggested that one reason why “Religion is a good thing” is that it makes people behave better. Apart from religion-based civil wars, this is probably true, although I am not sure how I like the idea of a “deception-based” code of behaviour. “If you don’t clean your teeth tonight, they will fall out in the morning”, may be effective as a way of enforcing bedtime discipline in the short term, but has long-term effects on credibility.

But we like rules. This might be a particularly English thing. We sometimes pretend we don’t, but faced with a social problem (e.g. litter or dogs chasing swans), there are calls for rules. We don’t necessarily like keeping to them, and there is a great deal of special pleading: “Those don’t apply to me in these circumstances” and motoring seems to bring out the “special pleading” in the English.

Leaving all that aside, when it comes to morals, I am not on very good ground. Although, I am not a serial criminal, fraudster or otherwise serially dishonest, I cannot point to a string of good deeds, or even individual ones for that matter, and say that I did these. Having made that personal disclaimer (i.e. do as I say, not as I do), we can get on with the subject.

The whole things starts, I suppose, with the Ten Commandments. Hands up, those of you who can recite all ten. All Ten. (Add an additional 10 points, if you get the order correct). Hands down – not many of you then.

Apart from the Ten Commandments, and a lot of instructions on how to build temples and arks and which food could be eaten or not eaten, we do not get a lot of specific help from the Old Testament on these points.

This is not entirely true. Leviticus, the third book in the Bible (click here) has a large amount of ritual and ceremonial law, which does not seem very relevant today. However, some moral laws are embedded in here (although how you determine which is ceremonial and which is moral is not always as clear as you might think).

However, a general theme emerges in the Old Testament of what it means to obey God and follow Him in a practical way. As this only appears from time to time, you have to pay attention.  A blog from March earlier this year, [click here] describes some of behaviour that God requires from us, and these are very general “Love Mercy, not Sacrifice”. (A bit like “Drive Safely”, as opposed to “Do not drive faster than 30 mph”)

The Book of Proverbs (somewhere is the middle of the Bible, just after the Psalms) [click here] gives a huge amount of specific moral advice in the form of what is wise and sensible, rather than as a set of rules. It sets out these pieces of advice in the form of “Actions” and “Consequences”, with consequences being of both the earthly and eternal varieties (but mainly earthly).

But the New Testament is more specific. The New Testament gives us plenty of instructions on these points, for example on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 [click here]. For example, we are to give to him who begs; we must not think bad things about someone else; we must love our enemies.

On the other hand, later there is the statement that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, followed immediately by the famous parable of “the Good Samaritan”. This is fairly general and it is left to us how to interpret this, but it seems a pretty high target to me.

Then of course, there is Jesus’ encounter with the young rich man, who wished to obtain eternal life and was told to sell all he had, to give the money to the poor and follow Jesus. (Mark 10.17)  [clickhere]

These are daunting statements and if not daunting, then at least puzzling– well, at least I find them puzzling. What are we to make of them? We do our best to wriggle out of taking this literally. (We are in trouble if we do take them literally, but we wrestle with the English tendency to take rules literally, before finding a reason why they do not apply to us – see above)

Then, the letters of the Apostles contain large numbers of moral rules. For example, the Book of James [click for link] reads in parts is fairly angry tirade against breaches of moral rules and he warns of the punishment to come, especially against Bankers (well, sort of against Bankers).

As a final and completely disconnected point, there are some community “rules”, which are made for our own individual and joint benefit. Preserving Sunday as a “Day of Rest” is for our individual and Man’s overall benefit. We have made it into a “Day of Shopping”, although this does not appear to have brought down fire from heaven, at least not yet (or has it?)

A blog with no conclusion, I’m afraid.

Something about Eternal Life – Core Belief Number 11

I suppose that no set of religious beliefs would be complete without some thoughts on what happens in the hereafter. What happens when we die? In that respect, this becomes Core Belief number 11.

Earlier this year, Martin Mosse challenged me to describe my views on “What’s it all about?” So far I have made two attempts to start it. At the second attempt, I made more headway, but it is still definitely “Work-in-Progress”, but let me have a third attempt.

I guess that the starting point has to be that I believe that something happens when we die. It is not all over. To expand this statement, we continue in some form, although what that form is, is a matter of considerable debate, even in the inner workings of Grumpy’s brother’s mind.

If there were no after-life, then almost every prophet and writer in both the Old and New Testaments would be wrong on this point, in which case we can throw the Bible away and start looking for inspiration on the back of Cornflakes packets. The prophets and writers all indicate some form of after-life.

Secondly, this after-life involves seeing God in some way. I do not know what this means exactly, and I cannot imagine what form or shape God takes. But I’ll leave this statement as it is, with all its ambiguities and unknowns.

Thirdly, this after-life involves some form of comprehension of “What it has all been about” (to misquote Martin Mosse), a moment when it all seems so obvious and when we recognise that that much or most of what we believed beforehand will seem to be ridiculous.  

Fourthly, I believe that the Earth as we know it will not play any part in our after-life. Whether the earth and universe etc. will carry on or not or the whole universe closed down as having served its purpose, I don’t know. But it was only context in the first place. (It does seem such a profligate waste, doesn’t it.)

On this point though, the evidence from the Bible leaves me reeling in terms of possibilities. I will not try to justify this particular belief from the Bible, as there are other views, probably all equally supportable from the Bible. So I will stick with my personal preconceptions and prejudices.

Of course, the question that preoccupies us is what happens to us. We only rarely ask the question of what does God get out of all this? Why did He do all this, because the answer to what happens in the here-after is bound up in God’s objectives in all this. This is really a puzzle.

Does God’s work really finish what this world is over? 13 billion years (or whatever the latest figure is) to get to this point, 50,000 years of man and that’s it? ….and then eternity, which seems to me like a very long time, even compared with 13 billion years.

Perhaps, we are not really meant to know just yet what it is all about.