Still Quarrying 179: Lockdown Yearning.

There was a phone-in on the wireless the other day.  The theme was: ‘Is there anything about the lockdown you miss?’ One wag texted: ‘Social distancing!  People washing their hands!  Suits me.’   At least I think he had his tongue in his cheek.  But there is no doubt that there is a stream of lockdown yearning flowing through the land at present.  People recalling the quietness, the purity of the air, the lack of social pressure.  Of course that has to be set beside lives lost to the virus, personal finances stretched to the limit, anxiety over future employment, carers having to cope with relatives suffering from Alzheimer’s and mental health disorders.  I’m sure you could add more to that list.  It’s good that we can take positives out of challenging circumstances but we shouldn’t get too carried away.  Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on many lives and communities and the way forward will be hard.   

One of the worst legacies of Covid-19 is the lingering effect of social distancing.  At a time when community rebuilding will be of greatest importance we still give people a body-swerve when out walking and are anxious about gathering together under once familiar roofs.   When shielding was eased for me and I was able to step out beyond the garden gate one of the heart-lightening moments was when people would give me a cheerful ‘Good morning!’  Perhaps. it wasn't much but in that there was a sense of being in this together and getting through.  Maybe it’s my imagination but I think that has diminished to some extent.  People walking, jogging, cycling seem more interested in the middle-distance or their iPods than anyone coming towards them.  

That sense of reaching out to one another even in a limited way is one lockdown experience that we can carry forward.  These last eight months have left a mark on our lives as individuals but it is as a people with shared experience that we can face the challenge of rebuilding communities and nations.  From the beginning it was emphasised to Christians that they were not to see themselves as individuals satisfying themselves from some deep spiritual source.  They were part of a community which God was seeking to build as a foretaste of the renewed community which was His ultimate plan for humankind.  When the apostle John was given a vision of this renewed humanity it was contained within ‘the Holy City, the New Jerusalem’ in which there would be no more suffering or death.  All things would be made new.  (Revelation 21: 1-4) It is the image of the city that is striking.  A place where there is community, wisdom, healing, comfort.   The apostles grasped this image and challenged the Church to make known the city of God now.  

Still Quarrying 178: Someone To Blame.

There were some great gigs in the Glasgow City Halls in the seventies.  One stand out memory for me was a support act, a girl from Northern Ireland called Gillian MacPherson.  With just a guitar for accompaniment she sang deeply felt songs from her own life’s experience.  One in particular drew an extended  ovation.  It was about Belfast then in the teeth of the ‘troubles’ called They All Want Somebody To Blame.  I’ve never forgotten the chorus:

‘Who was to blame for the smoke and the flame?

 They all want somebody to blame.

 History and fame

 Every city cries the same,

                                                     They keep looking for someone to blame.’

Gillian was in touch with one of the dark tendencies that we all share and one we have to guard against especially in times of crisis.  In days of old when the crops failed, when the cows gave little milk, when the hens ceased to lay, yes, and when there was sickness in the community - solitary old women who were sometimes heard to talk to their cats were denounced as witches and the cause of all the trouble.

It’s called scapegoating, referring to the Hebrew ritual on the Day of Atonement.  The High Priest would lay his hands on a goat and pray on to it the sins of the people.  It would then be sent out into the wilderness symbolically carrying the sins.  It was a powerful symbol of God providing a distance between the sinner and the sin.   This is probably what the Psalmist has in mind when he writes:

‘As far as the east is from the west,

 So far has he removed our transgressions from us.’  (Psalm 103: 12)

The problem with scapegoating as it has developed in societies is that the element of forgiveness has been excised and certain individuals or groups as stuck with the sin that others perceive in them.  Furthermore their sin can be held responsible for whatever difficulties a particular community or society is having to face.  

When the present pandemic kicked in there was talk of older people being careless and not willing to face up to the seriousness of the challenge we were facing.  Then it was the young people meeting together in parks, holding parties, thinking they were bullet-proof.  Recently, particular fury has been vented against a group of eight footballers from Aberdeen FC who in the present ‘spike’ in Aberdeen visited a city centre pub.  Two of them have subsequently been diagnosed with the virus and the others are in isolation.  Apologies have been issued on the club’s Twitter feed and individual players have done the same.  

I don’t know all the circumstances but the least that can be said is that they acted irresponsibly and quite possibly have put other people at risk.  The fact that they are in the public eye, recognisable and admired, raises the question of their sense of responsibility.  They should also have been aware that footballers have long been an easy target for moral outrage, widely resented as having too much time on their hands, too much money and all this with not too much between their ears.   That stereotype, largely unfair and inaccurate, is very strong in the public mind especially among those who know nothing about football.  

In the end two of the Aberdeen men have the virus, the rest are in isolation and they will carry the memory of their time in the national spotlight  for the rest of their lives.  I can just hear the chants of opposing fans.  So may I make an immodest proposal that in the midst of all of this prayers might be said that the infected might be restored to health, that the isolated will be kept safe, and that they will all emerge as wiser men.  I seem to remember Jesus saying that it is spiritually ruinous to think ourselves morally superior to anyone else.   That came home to me some years ago when I felt particularly strongly about a certain individual and his opinions and being pole-axed by a thought: ‘Have you ever prayed for him?’   That doesn’t mean that we hold back when faced with values and actions that run counter to those of the Kingdom but it does prevent a sourness of spirit that fastens on someone to blame.  

Still Quarrying 177: Open Book?

I can’t say I had ever come across the writer Chris Power but I recently read a piece he wrote in the Guardian.  It was about his reading experience  during the lockdown.  He started off with great intentions.  This was the opportunity to read the monumental works of literature like Middlemarch and Bleak House among others.  Instead he found himself sorting out 1,000 piece puzzles and joining Zoom pub quizzes.  He then discovered that he wasn’t alone in this.  He began to hear more and more about people who just could not sustain any kind of reading schedule.  And the surprising thing was that many were writers like him.  Short stories could be managed but novels?  Forget it.  

I read Chris’ article round about the time when friends, normally avid readers, were telling me that they were suffering from a similar affliction.  The one thing that they thought would see them through lockdown just was not happening.  So what is the problem?  Chris attempts an explanation:

‘ . . . whenever I put a book down, the move from fiction back to reality was so jarring that what I had just read would be overpowered.  The space in my mind where novels persisted when I wasn’t reading them suddenly seemed to be missing, or busy with some other task (comparing national death rates, perhaps).’  

I can understand this.  Personal circumstances and a flood of information can leave little room for recreational reading.  When I was a patient in the Stem Cell Transplant Unit there was very little reading apart from short passages of Scripture and the odd magazine article.  My intention to keep the blog going soon burned out.  Much of this was due to side-effects and fatigue but there is also the possibility that there just was not any room for the alternative reality of a novel or the flow of information you would experience in a non-fiction book.  

I was listening to an online sermon of Rico Tice’s recently.  He stated that that he was finding it difficult to cope with the amount of Covid-19 information that daily flows out from the media.   So it has become important for him first thing in the morning to join an online prayer group with his colleagues in the ministry team at All Souls Langham Place.  He says this reminds him who is really in charge during this time.

I can relate to that.  Of course I like to keep in touch with what is going on but there are limits.  Like Rico I have found it important to build a spiritual foundation for the day right at the beginning.  This means spending time with Scripture and in prayer.  This helps to remind me that reality is more than just my immediate experience.  Faith is essentially an anchorage in the place where God is  and from that we are assured that whatever our circumstances a good and loving purpose is unfolding for humankind.  The life and ministry of Jesus which encapsulated suffering  at every level and His emergence from this as the Risen Lord is our assurance of this.  

As for reading in general I am happy to say I am still up for that.  I’ve done better than Chris.  I got through Bleak House and was in awe at how Charles Dickens could hold in his mind such a vast narrative with its plot and sub-plots and huge cast of characters, some of whom you feel you actually know.   In a sense the novelist is reflecting the great Creator who holds in His mind our reality with its present and past and who is guiding that reality  towards a future climax where His Son will be seen as the Lord of the Universe.   Beginning each day with Him is our strength, our hope and our peace.  

Still Quarrying 176: A Right Mind?

Professor Donald Macleod was interviewed recently on the publication of his new book Compel Them To Come In.   He was asked what had been the main theological influences on him through the years, the thinkers who had helped to form his own theological mind.  I began to wonder how I would answer that question.

In my late teens when I began to read ‘Christian books’ I was greatly taken by Michael Green, an Anglican minister and academic.  He wrote about Christian truths in a way I could understand and with a contemporary touch.  He might quote Shakespeare but also appreciated the wisdom of Bob Dylan!   You could say that he knew the ‘ancient paths’ but trod a few contemporary ones also.  His Jesus Spells Freedom was a big influence on me.  

Then there was Os Guiness who was like Michael Green in the sense that he was in touch with a wide range of contemporary thinking but was also eager to engage in debate and show how vital Christian truth was to the destiny of humankind.  I still have my copy of The Dust Of Death with my faded signature and the date, 1974.   It’s great to think that in his late 70s Os is still contending for the faith at the sharp end of intellectual challenge.

In my first year at university I took a course in General Philosophy and was intrigued to see C.S. Lewis’ The Problem Of Pain on the reading list.   That Lewis was recognised as a force to be reckoned with at that level was encouraging - even if my tutor didn’t find him entirely convincing. That began a life-long companionship with Lewis. He has his detractors these days but his appreciation and defence of the core beliefs of the Christian faith has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement.   

Around this time I was also discovering writers like John Stott who, like Michael Green, was a committed preacher but who also addressed contemporary issues with confidence in Biblical principles and a sound intellectual integrity.   Along with this I was becoming aware of the challenge within the Church.  A book by John A.T. Robinson, a controversial Anglican bishop, came my way entitled But That I Can’t Believe which left me wondering what he actually did believe.   To say that I was immune to stuff like this would be dishonest but in the end I came to the conviction that what Lewis called ‘Christianity and water’ just would not do for me.  Surely there is something called the Gospel and to depart from any aspect of it renders it indistinctive and ultimately irrelevant.   I came to see this, riffing on Lewis, as cappuccino Christianity, plenty of froth and little substance.  

My theological studies brought me into contact with the early Christian thinkers like Athanasius and the Reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther.  The twentieth century giants were in there too, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Hans Kung.  But I am most grateful for the teachers who introduced me to all of this.  John Zizoulas, a Greek Orthodox theologian and now Bishop of Pergamum, who emphasised that rightly ordered theology was not just an academic pursuit but a devotional exercise.  Joe Houston, recently deceased, was once described as ‘a tough minded philosopher with an evangelical heart’.  Joe became a friend.  His conviction that Christian faith was not just emotional but rational made a big impact on me.  And then there was Ian Hazlett, a meticulous historian, who emphasised the importance of ‘sources’ in historical study.  If you want to know about Calvin, read Calvin!  

This is apart from the thinkers I discovered along the way.  Donald Macleod’s writings would feature as a major influence along with Don Carson and Alister McGrath.  Men with expansive minds who are able to address contemporary issues from an orthodox Christian position.   I’ve also had room for more devotional writers like Henri Nouwen before he took off for the theological stratosphere, Eugene Peterson and Max Lucado.  

So why is all of this significant?  Paul once warned his readers not to allow the values of this world to shape their thinking but to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your mind.’  (Romans 12: 2).  He even spoke about having ‘the mind of Christ’.  (1 Corinthians 2: 16).  Being part of our  development in Christ-likeness this is the work of a lifetime and as in all things we are helped by our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been blessed with the gifts of teaching, preaching and writing which bring the great truths of the faith to bear on our minds.  For the purpose of Christian truth is not just to be a player in the arena of academic debate but a dynamic influence leading us to Christ-likeness which is God’s will for us all.  

Still Quarrying 175: A People Apart.

Out for my daily walk/run the other day and a car draws up beside me in Mugdock Road.  It’s a lad I got to know in the gym.   It must be about 18 months since we last met but he knew about my illness, heard about my progress and was pleased to see me out and about. 

Moving on through the village and I meet a St Paul’s Elder just out of Marks and Spencer and offering me a mask if I need to go in.  I don’t but it’s great to see her and to chat.

Making my way through rabbits and rubbish in Lennox Park I come across a friend who works for Stauros, the Christian support group for those who have addiction problems.  I’ve had a long association with Stauros mainly through leading Bible Studies and it’s good to hear how things have been going through the lockdown.  

So a longer walk/run than usual but I come home with a renewed appreciation of community.  I have met three people who are part of various communities - gym, church, Stauros - who remember me and care for me.  I’m reminded that that was an essential part of the witness of the first followers of Jesus in Jerusalem.  And it made an impact on the society of which they were a part.   Despite hesitations people still saw the quality of the followers life together and were drawn to share it.   Those early Christians were ‘highly regarded by the people.’  (Acts 5: 13)

The community would be disrupted and scattered in the aftermath of Stephen’s execution and wherever they went they told the story of Jesus and what it meant and new communities were formed.  That was the priority that lay at the heart of the first missions.  The apostles encouraged new followers of Jesus to regard themselves as the Body of Christ, the Army of Christ, the Temple of Christ.  Each image emphasising solidarity as well as dynamism.

The need for Christian community has been expressed in various ways in these Covid-19 days.  We are all well aware of the efforts that have been made through online ministry to provide worship and other devotional material.   Bible Studies, prayer meetings, fellowship times have all given us opportunities to see and hear our brothers and sisters in Christ.  No one would ever claim that this is entirely satisfying.  We still pray for the day when once again we will be together in one place.  But God knows our circumstances as He has known the circumstances of Christians under pressure through the millennia and He is able to draw us together through His Spirit.  It was when he felt alone and abandoned that Paul experienced the strength of Christ. (2 Timothy 4: 17)  It was while John was isolated on the Island of Patmos that he heard the voice of Jesus. (Revelation 1: 10-11)

We have a need to be together but when forced to be apart God does not deny us His blessings.  

Still Quarrying 174: Read All About it!

A daily newspaper has been something of a luxury.  There was a suggestion early in the lockdown that a newspaper could be a risk.  Apparently the virus could survive on paper and anyway it wasn’t a good idea to go into a shop.  No great loss, you might think.  You have the internet, the telly and the beloved wireless.  But I have appreciated the few newspapers that have come to hand over the past few months.  You know, the smell of the paper, the ink on your hands, the rage when some idiot writes something you don’t agree with.  

So on Friday Gabrielle has things to do in the village and comes back with a Times.  A woman named Ann Treneman has a ‘Notebook’ in which she has a go at Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Describing herself as an ‘irregular churchgoer’ she writes:

‘The Archbishop of Canterbury when asked where God was during the pandemic, said “right in the middle of it”.  Hmm.  I take that to mean that the Almighty will be down the pub this Saturday, because no one can accuse the church itself of being anywhere near the action.‘    

This kind of thing seems to be part of a journalistic theme at the moment.  At the beginning of the lockdown the historian Simon Heffer writing in the Telegraph describes himself as ‘overtly godless’ but nevertheless criticises Justin Welby for his lack of spiritual leadership.   A similar piece appeared in the Spectator recently written by the well-known controversialist Douglas Murray who in the past has described himself as a ‘Christian Atheist’.  As well as indulging in a bit of Welby-bashing he accuses the Church of England leadership generally as being docile in the face of government pressure to close down the church buildings:

‘Perhaps they saw the opportunity for a longish sabbatical or a chance to rest their knees.’  

Murray acknowledges the online services and devotional material (including blogs!) which are being provided and the fact that Justin Welby is doing a stint among Covid-19 victims in a London hospital but he doesn’t allow any of this to affect his main argument that the Church has been spectacularly remiss during the epidemic.  

The interesting thing about all of the above is that at best, like Treneman, they are on the fringes of Church life or at worst, like Heffer and Murray, entirely absent.   So what do we take from this?  Being as charitable as possible, they may be hungering for spiritual reality in their lives and the Church of England’s output is just not satisfying them.  Or maybe they have to write about something and the Church is an easy target.  

If these journalists are looking for serious theological thinking in the face of a pandemic then this is not hard to find.  In the earliest days I found Professor Donald Macleod’s essay on God and the pandemic both challenging and comforting.  This can be accessed on his website.  There have also been contributions from John C. Lennox, John Piper, Tom Wright and Walter Breuggeman.   All honest grapplings with our vision of God and the challenges we face in the pandemic.  

If these journalists wish to engage in some form of worship then they are spoiled for choice.  There is scarcely a parish church in the UK that is not working hard to provide something online.  In response to Murray’s piece a letter was printed in the Spectator signed by 4 bishops in which they point out that over 5, 000 parishes in England are now offering worship online.  The picture is not much different in Scotland and far from ministers enjoying ‘a longish sabbatical or a chance to rest their knees’ we are finding that live-streaming and recording are far from an easy option.  

It crosses my mind that any defense we raise will have little effect on our three journalists.  At the best of times they appear to be dismissive of the Church and they are aware that the worst of times is always a challenge to the Church so let’s just turn the screws.   Reading that back I am aware that might come over as more than a little sour but sometimes experience does that to you.   The antidote, however, is to be grateful for those who have worked through the theological issues in these Covid-19 days and have been courageous enough to go into print.  Also, to be grateful to colleagues in many denominations who have worked hard at sustaining online worship as well as supporting the sick and bereaved when the pastoral care they would normally give has not been possible.  Their Christian witness has been unflagging.  

I do not believe any of this has gone unnoticed by God.  His Word assures us that nothing that is done for the Kingdom is ever in vain and that is despite unfriendly judgements.   In the end His is the only judgement that matters.  

Still Quarrying 173: Journeying Through Baca.

I had made up my mind that when I got back to preaching in the weekly recorded services I would not launch into a long expository series.  Better to ease myself in with passages of Scripture that have struck me as helpful in these Covid-19 days.  Maybe the Lord had other plans.  Quite by ‘accident’ I seem to have stumbled on a series.  Not preaching through a book or a passage but focussing on different Bible people and how they coped with crisis in their lives.  I began with ‘Paul In Lockdown’, then ‘David Hemmed In’ followed by ‘Hezekiah Under Pressure’.   A week on Sunday, if I am spared as my mother used to say, I hope to to preach on ‘John In Exile’.  

The one thing that links all these people, and who knows how many more we will find, is that they were restricted in some way and yet through faith in their God they not only coped but transformed their circumstances to His glory.  They call to mind one of my favourite passages in the Psalms: Psalm 84: 5-7.  

‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.  As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.’

It is a picture of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem passing through a particularly challenging area.   Opinions differ as to the the exact location of the Valley of Baca, barren and unfruitful, but it has become symbolic of difficult circumstances that yield to the influence of God’s people.  As they pass through this place that might break your heart they make it ‘a place of springs’, fresh and filled with promise.

That has been the story of the Church at its best, making a difference in the Bacas of this world with the truth proclaimed and the love embodied.   Christians have made a difference in famine, flood, earthquake, epidemic, prison, and concentration camp.  Arguably we face an equal challenge in transforming the spiritual deserts of the West where there is still confidence in humankind’s ability to overcome every adversity and little acknowledgement of the God revealed in the ministry of Jesus.   

It is possible to become overwhelmed by the conditions as we travel through Baca but would God place before us the vision of transformation if it were not possible?   We travel with His Word in our hands, His Spirit in our hearts and the example of Jesus before us.  Do we need more as we seek to work the desert to ‘a place of springs’.