Hyper Grace

My thoughts regarding the warning from some big boys about teaching that has been labelled as ‘hyper-grace’ and is therefore leading people into a lifestyle of sin and license to sin.

Perhaps using the words Hyper-grace/super-grace isn’t so wise. We can’t hype up grace, it has already been hyped to the max by Jesus, we can’t have anything other than Super Grace! The enormity of the Grace of God is the point, the amazing, overwhelming nature of Grace, the unmerited gift of God, the Great Redeemer rescuing a fallen humanity whilst they were still sinners. Grace is Jesus and Grace is our message, we are the carriers of the Good News of the Gospel, that man has been reconciled to God in Jesus.

If we teach about behaviour and how not to sin we are teaching law not grace, it can be prettied up with words such as balance and obedience but it is still teaching to focus on our behaviour rather than to focus on Jesus. If we teach someone how big the Jesus event was, who they are in Christ and how they are holy, pure and fully acceptable to God all the time, then we will teach them freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. Romans 6 is so clear – with so much grace and no law does that mean we can just go on and sin? Paul’s response  is emphatic – By no means! Why would you live there any longer. (The Message) If we teach people that their old man is dead, crucified with Christ, buried and gone means we don’t have to teach people how to control a corpse. Nobody tells us to go and dig up a dead body and make sure it is still dead or to keep killing something that is dead already. We could just remind people how dead that old man is and how alive in Christ they are. Perhaps the church is setting the standard for the culture around us more than we thought and that is why the media, in particular films and popular TV series, are currently so obsessed with zombies! Let’s not keep any zombies in the barn!

By warning people that grace is ‘not that big or you can’t take grace that far’ it is trying to keep a division between those ‘outside’ and those ‘inside’.  I only see an inclusive God, Jesus died for all, he died for the world, the world has been reconciled to God. I only see a Grace that is big enough to fit everyone in.  I just don’t think you can take Grace too far. So does that make me nicer than God? I would let more ‘in’ but God in his holiness and justice has to keep a few out? Nonsense! His justice has been fully satisfied in Christ, there is now no payment left for sin, Jesus has wiped our slate clean, he has declared us innocent. It was not my confession that made me holy, it is Jesus. If my ‘anything’ could make me holy, Jesus’s death on the cross would not have been necessary, Jesus’s sacrifice is what settled my debt and in doing so made me holy and I can therefore boldly approach the throne room. I cannot possibly have more grace for someone than God has! The only difference I see is those who believe what Jesus has done and can enjoy living in that freedom and those that don’t believe it or don’t know it, they are yet to hear the Good News of the fullness of Grace and God’s love and affection for them.

If we know how to love others, such as our children beyond their behaviour, to love them unconditionally, where do we think we get that ability from? We know how to love because we were loved first. We know how to love because we are made in the image of God. Any teaching that says God’s love is less than we can imagine needs to be seriously reconsidered.

We are on a journey of discovery, grace really is bigger and wider and deeper than we all thought and I’m sure there’s more to discover!

Communion - The last holy grail to be demolished?

Church is not a building you go to on Sundays, it is a living organism made up of a community of believers. No more calling people into the centre to build an empire, instead the dispersal into natural community.

There is no clergy laity split. No sacred secular division. Tithing is exchanged for generosity.

There are no rituals that get you closer to God and no sacrifice left for sin. The enemy has been defeated and you don’t need deliverance, you need to be reminded of your true identity.

Leadership is not a ‘more anointed than you’ dictatorship, it is the fellowship of believers in equality with, if needed for a time, some servant led leadership. No more advancing up pyramid structures of church and no more looking at women as inferior.

From ‘come and get what I’ve got’ ministry lines to a ‘come and get nothing’ because I’ve just preached the gospel and you know you’ve been given everything in Jesus.

Fire tunnels to impart the Holy Spirit now changed to identity tunnels reminding people who they are in Christ and they too carry the fullness. No calling out the special people to make the tunnel because they have ‘more’ than those going through it.

No more prophetic words of doom and gloom and instead pointing back to the cross before encouraging the future.

And yet even with all this discovery of what church is and is not, and what Jesus has already done for us, why do we enact communion in a way that speaks of something we’ve declared dead religion?

I understand in places where there has been no journey away from clergy laity distinctions or there is still a belief that some people are more anointed than others, that there will be no change in how communion is undertaken but in places where there is a clear belief that nobody is more anointed than another, that there is no need for a priest, as we have one priest in Jesus, that communion is a place of remembering the truth of Jesus’s sacrifice and the ending of the old covenant, I think those truths should manifest in how communion is experienced. So instead of a religion soaked ritual, we could experience intimacy in sharing the bread and wine with Jesus and with each other, where it brings life to our bones and joy to our spirits.

As it stands in the majority of gatherings of Christians, when it is ‘communion time’ there seems to be a whole mumbo jumbo world that manifests. The ‘special’ ministers prepare the bread and wine, often with the ‘special’ table cloth, the ’special’ plate and the ‘special’ cup/glass/goblet. There might be ‘special’ prayers said over the bread and wine, making the whole moment much more holy than if they hadn’t said the prayer or got the special equipment out. For ‘special’ read ‘holy’. Then the people queue up and are handed a wafer or bit of bread, rarely are people allowed to touch the bread themselves because they are not anointed enough to do so, they might be handed a bit but not be given the whole loaf as that might contaminate it and when it comes to the wine there’s no chance of prising that goblet out of the anointed persons hand. They grip that thing like you’re gonna run off down the aisle and sell it to ‘cash for gold’. A whole world of ‘us’ holy people and ‘them’, the not so holy or anointed ones. Another display of division in the gatherings, a distinction between the clergy and the laity, not so named in less traditional churches but clearly demonstrated nonetheless. As soon as there are only certain people allowed to distribute the bread and wine the clergy laity split is there. As soon as there is a set structure for how to ‘do’ communion it has lost its mysticism and purpose.

People shuffle along the queue not really talking as they are preparing themselves for this holy moment, very solemn, very organised, very weird! Anybody walking in would think they’d entered a zombie apocalypse.

To me it is a massive display of the distance between the individual and Jesus, the need for a priest to assist you with communion, to stand in between you and God, to ‘do’ something to the bread and wine because they are more specially anointed than you. There’s delay to the communion whilst you stand in the queue, waiting for your ‘holy communion’ moment.

Instead it could be a beautiful opportunity for us to have a keen awareness of our inclusion in the death and resurrection of Jesus. To have a moment of intimacy to remember who we are, our true identity, as co-crucified with Christ and to partake in a meal of remembrance and mystery.

We live in relationship with Jesus and in this relationship Jesus is sharing his own communion with his Father and Spirit with us. There is intimacy and no third party standing in the gap between us. Communion reminds us that the veil is torn and we have full access to God.

The Last Supper was the Passover meal, the time of friends and family gathering around a table, sharing their history and their redemption, their rescue from slavery, a celebration of God’s goodness and faithfulness. It was at this meal Jesus declared a new covenant, a new moment to remember and not just for the Jewish people but for all people. He was going to sacrifice his body as the Passover lamb to be the final sacrifice for sin, to take his place as the one High Priest. He told them to remember. He is the bread of life, the sustainer of life, he is the substance of life and by breaking bread together we remember his supremacy, his sacrifice and his love intent towards us. The moment shouldn’t be rushed by the time constraints of a meeting but enjoyed as part of the rhythm of the community.

Paul included instructions regarding communion during meetings, that have been taken to be legal requirements, people become fearful of taking communion when not in full unity with everyone around them as if the bread will become poison to them because they were disrespectful. Paul was trying to guide them into taking communion in a way of belief, bringing life to your body through the belief in all the bread and wine represents. As usual Paul is trying to help the churches understand a mystery of faith in the sacrifice rather than warning them that God would be angry with them and punish them for getting it wrong. Once again Paul’s words are taken without any reference to the rest of the paragraph or the letter, or who he’s writing to or any of the other things he said, or Jesus said or what the rest of the bible said and so a whole doctrine is built up on a few sentences which are then used for creating a controlled clergy led ‘something’. I am sure that people do engage with Jesus during communion regardless of how controlled or religious it has become but I’d really like to see another holy cow shot and allow people the liberty to commune without the third party intervention or special meetings or special utensils.

And finally a repeat from an early blog called ‘shot glasses’. To hold a shot glass with some red wine in it, to ponder its contents, to smell it, to taste it slowly, reveling it’s wonder….

Communion glass. The wine. Representing his precious blood poured out for me, redemption, rescue, love, hope, heaven’s best, he becomes my DNA, the unforced rhythm of walking with him, he is my song and my dance, he is my beloved and I am his. Here I have forgiveness and all sufficient grace. Here is unity with Jesus, full communion, true vine dwelling, and completeness.

To hold this glass is to hold eternity, he is the beginning and end. It represents the covenant, the relationship. No words or writing or testimony can fully explain this mystery it is an experience that can be spoken of but not explained.

Halloween

I had an unexpected revelation the other day in Tesco.  We came upon the Halloween aisle and you know what?  For the first time in my life I didn’t care!!

I’ve been a Christian my whole life pretty much and every year at this time I’ve found the Halloween displays troubling. I was never one of those Christians that sees the demonic everywhere – the Christian equivalent of the ‘reds-under-the-beds’ paranoia of the 50’s and 60’s!  But I did find it upsetting to see it.  It used to bother me that so many American Christians would participate in trick-or-treating; dressing up as ghosts and ghouls, witches and wizards and skeletons and devils.  "Didn't they know how evil it all was?" I thought.  I’ve never allowed my children to participate in Halloween parties or dress up.  (I still vehemently object to trick-or-treating but that’s because it’s simply another invasion of American culture into Britain and while I love the USA I’d quite like to keep our society and culture British! However I’d be just as upset if Americans in small villages started doing Morris dancing just because they saw us Brits doing it).

However the finished work of the cross, the message of the superb and complete victory of Christ, the understanding of the delight the Father takes in his creation and the union we have through Jesus has obviously changed my thinking more radically than I thought.

I guess I now think that dressing up for Halloween and enjoying a party with a ‘scary’ theme is no different to watching a scary movie or Doctor Who!  It makes the participants no more likely to become involved in the occult or have any influence over them than dressing up as a Priest or a Nun for a ‘tarts & vicars’ party would make you suddenly decide the religious life in a convent or monastery was for you!  The activities and trapping of Halloween are silly not demonic!  The American Christians that participate in it have a much healthier attitude to Halloween than most evangelical/charismatic Christians in the UK - they treat it as a silly bit of family fun!

The enemy was soundly defeated Colossians 2:15 tells us this “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

So let’s stop focusing on the enemy, stop focusing on the fear, stop obsessing about the outward appearance and most of all stop judging.  Let’s look to Christ and his glorious triumph and give the enemy exactly the amount of attention he deserves – none at all.

Battleship Church

I remember years ago hearing a preach, at least twice, about how the church isn't supposed to be a cruise liner but a battleship; everyone in their place with a job to do to fight the battle.  At the time I absolutely agreed with it and if you’re the person who preached it, or if you’re someone who absolutely believes this, then please don’t be offended by what follows.  It’s not a dig or a personal attack it’s just a reflection of how far my thinking has changed over recent years.  (And perhaps it’s better news for hurting, lost, damaged, frightened people than conscription into an army would be!)

The implication of the battleship analogy is that we have to fight.  That there is an active, dangerous enemy that has power, power to attack us, hurt us, damage us or even possibly kill us if we’re just loafing about not remaining constantly vigilant and ready to defend ourselves.  We know we have a captain, Jesus, in charge of the ship and he’s plotted out a victorious strategy and the outcome of the war is assured but at the moment our enemy is fighting a vicious rear-guard campaign designed to inflict maximum losses out of spite.  Jesus’ earthly mission was like the D-Day landings that turned the tide, the act that effectively won the war but the troops, us, still need to advance to Berlin to ensure peace.

I'm not sure where unbelievers fitted into the battleship analogy.  Were they held captive on enemy vessels?  Were they, in some cases, manning those vessels willingly; perhaps the Satanists or those practicing the occult would be viewed this way?  Were the unbelievers simply adrift in the sea, clinging onto whatever flotsam and jetsam they could awaiting rescue?  But once rescued instead of being repatriated and given tea and sympathy they are immediately given a uniform, some basic training and then assigned a post on the battleship!

You know what?  I think the church IS a cruise liner.  I think the captain is still Jesus, but he’s a captain who’s no longer at war.  He actually did defeat the enemy as the scripture says in Colossians 2:13 -15 “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”.  He’s now the captain of ‘The Love Boat’!  We are the passengers, enjoyed the rest spoken of in Hebrews 4, the victory over the sinful nature spoken of in Romans 6, 7 & 8.  The enemy is stripped of power, and all that remains is the lies he spread via his propaganda.  We really don’t have to actively engage in warfare.  The only weapon left to the enemy is lies.  Jesus, Mr. Truth, set us free!

Where are the unbelievers in this analogy?  Are they on the enemy vessels?  No – they were all sunk.  Are they adrift in the sea hoping there are no sharks sniffing around?  No.  They’re on the ship with us!  The only difference between the believers on the ship, who spend all day enjoying the fullness and bounty of the banquet at the captain’s table, relaxing in the sunshine, playing, having fun and loving each other and the captain, is that they’re below decks in the dark in the hold!  They either don’t know the captain bought them a ticket for the cruise and that they've got their own stateroom ready and waiting or they don’t believe that they deserve it!  Perhaps they don’t even believe that there is an above-decks to come up to – perhaps they've believed so much of the enemy propaganda they think the hard-life below decks is all there is.

Do we as believers have a job to do?  Yes.  But it’s a pleasant task, an easy burden and a light yolk.  It doesn't involve military drills, harsh discipline or fighting.  All we have to do is open a door into someone’s darkness in the hold and love them into seeing that they really are invited to the captain’s table.  The ticket is real, the full cost already paid for.  The cross paid the price for all, 2 Corinthians 5:14 – “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died”.  So let’s enjoy our cruise, invite as many as we can to join the feast and take Paul’s advice in Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” which in this analogy would be abandoning your luxury stateroom to go back below decks and eke out an existence in the dark!

Snakes and Ladders

The snakes and ladders game

We start at square 1 and try to get to 100 by the roll of a dice, try and avoid the snakes and hope to land on a square that will get us up a ladder. If there are other players, that’s fine we do like someone to compare ourselves against. I think it’s a pretty good analogy of how we can live out the ‘good Christian life’. The analogy falls apart with the dice throwing; after all we’re not Calvinists! It is our own effort, (with the Holy Spirit’s assistance, as long as we’re good), that determines where we are on the board and how we advance or decline, well that is how to be a good Christian, isn’t it? We accept that we are saved by grace, a gift, but that is only square one, we now need to get on with living as a Christian, we need to move on, we can’t stay a baby Christian, there is so much more than this first square…..

So square one, where our ‘testimony’ begins, where our salvation began; when we said ‘the’ prayer, when we confessed with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, when we repented of our sins and gave our heart to Jesus, when we decided being a Christian was for us, where we took our own decision to believe having grown up in a Christian household. This is where most of us believe our salvation began, before this moment or gradual realisation we were not Christians, we were objects of wrath, we were sinners in the hands of an angry God. Then we jumped, we crossed the chasm, we made our commitment and we were on square one. Now we’re a Christian we can move along the board and progress according to our behaviour, if we are good and do all the right things, being a good Christian then we can progress up a ladder.

For different people there are different types of success and ladder advancement, if we are looking at our own Christian walk then we may have a great day; pray all day, fast all day, read our bible, witness to somebody, not sin most of the day, the odd lapse but quick repentance with a bit of penance, pray for somebody’s issues to compensate for the slight slip. So at the end of this kind of day a slap on the back and up the ladder called ‘I’ve been a good Christian today’. For others the ladders are about Christian approval, promotion and advancement; speaking to an ‘anointed’ person, an invite to dinner with the leadership team, an invite to speak at the meeting or even better at another church, then of course there’s platform events and being invited to speak at the conference or just sit on the stage. This is like a big ladder up to near the top, being called into leadership, the prophetic and the holy grail of promotions the ‘Apostle’ square.

But then there are the snakes, the ‘bad’ days; those days when you didn’t give God a second thought, didn’t read your bible for a week/month/year, didn’t go to the prayer meeting or God forbid stayed in bed on a Sunday. Non-attendance at meetings are big snakes to avoid. The biggest snake that will take you from even the top line of the board straight to the bottom line is the deception snake, this one is to be feared and avoided at all costs, you can’t even trust yourself not to fall down this one, it is the nature of this beast that you won’t even recognise it. You could think you’re doing ok but you could be deceived! The thing with this snake and belief in it is, you will always be dependent on others to teach you and guide you as you inherently distrust yourself. Sin is almost as bad and can take people off the board, believing that there is no way back on, no way to return to square one, there is a scripture that says that somewhere so it must be true!

Then there is the 100 spot, this might just be the ‘Apostle’ title for some. They’re not too worried about the snakes and ladders as there is no way they can slide from this space, no chance of deception, no chance of being demoted! For most, the 100 is death, there is no way to get to the final square until you’re dead as you’re never going to be promoted enough, never going to have enough good Christian days, avoid enough snakes, you are not perfect after all, you are never going to be that holy until you are dead. So then, just keep going, doing your best, knowing that as long as you don’t screw up too badly you’ll make it when you’re dead. Death the ultimate saviour! And so ends the game.

I think the flaw begins at the very beginning, if we believe it is our decision that resulted in our salvation, we made the choice for God, we said the prayer, we repented, we believed, then we are also fully responsible for how that salvation is outworked. The Holy Spirit is here to help, as long as you’ve had teaching about him, but we still need to ask him to assist and be filled with him continuously as we may have leaked him out or have been thrown off the board for grieving him, he’s much more sensitive than God about sin!!!

However there is another possibility, another way where there are no snakes and no ladders, there is only square one and square 100 and how they are determined is out of our hands altogether and has been decided long before we were born. What if square one, our salvation, our rescue, our leap of the chasm was done a long time ago? What if we didn’t even leap a chasm, walk over a bridge of repentance or get saved through our prayer? What if Jesus leapt the chasm for us?

Here’s the alternative. At the beginning, before time began, the Trinity, all loved up in their relationship, decided to make something that could enjoy their wonderful existence. They created something more than universes and creatures, something that the Trinity would enjoy forever, something so fascinating, so impressive, so beautiful and so like them. The original thought and will of God was to create and enjoy a humanity that would enjoy him.

And then Jesus, the GodMan, the Word made flesh, arrives into our history 2000 years ago. His incarnation marked a massive shift in creation, this is the Word made flesh, he’s the one who holds all things together, he’s the Jesus from Colossians 1 and John 1, nothing is made without him. He is the creator made flesh. Jesus jumps the chasm; he leaves everything, empties himself and becomes a man. He doesn’t become a bridge over which we can pass once we’ve decided to repent, he climbed over into our flesh. So what happens to him, happens to all of us, he is the vicarious man, he is not just our representative for atonement, he holds all of us, all our existence in his being. When he dies, all die, when he is raised, we are all raised. This is how it says we are seated in heavenly places, why it says one died for all. What if the second Adam had more of an impact on humanity than the first Adam? What if the second Adam is much more powerful to change humanity than the first Adam who was, after all, only human?

What if we believe that we are saved by Jesus, by what he did to us 2,000 years ago? What if we believe that he places us in heavenly places, puts us straight on square one without our choice, without our free will? Isn’t that against the rules? Isn’t that cheating? How can that be right? Surely there has to be some choice, some part for us to play, what happened to our free will if everyone is saved by Jesus? Isn’t that universalism? Well I suppose that depends on your understanding of universalism and also why do we assume we choose to opt in rather than choose to opt out? Why do we assume, on this side of the cross, that we are ‘out’ and choose to go ‘in’, when it could be that what Jesus has done, is put us all ‘in’ and we can choose to opt ‘out’? Do we believe that when Jesus died on a cross he dealt with all the sins of the world at that time, whether he was a complete sacrifice or there was more required by God, that our salvation is by Jesus, whether you believe he came to save the world, that he came because the Father so loves the world that he sent his son, that he came for mercy not judgement, that he came to bring life to the full and to reconcile men to God. But we also know that Jesus also talked about hell, he talked about the place of gnashing of teeth and he told parable after parable about the alternative to accepting the invitation, being unprepared, being poorly dressed at a wedding, or even being a goat! But if you read carefully you’ll see the parables start with inclusion, everybody is invited to the parties, the bridesmaids are invited to the wedding, the prodigal son doesn’t get his repentance out before the Father has reinstated him, the sheep and the goats appear before the same shepherd. Then there are verses about when one died all died, how much more powerful the second Adam’s actions were on humanity and even that we are now seated in heavenly places. I think we have hugely underestimated what Jesus accomplished through his life, death and ascension and far outweighed our accomplishment when we said a prayer of salvation!

Two thousand years ago Jesus dealt with the separation between God and man, reconciled us all to him, there is now no penalty for sin, no eternal damnation for sinners – how can there be when everybody’s sin has been paid for, everybody has already been forgiven? Perhaps the reason why the world is still in turmoil is because they don’t know how rescued they are.

So God cheated and stacked the chips in favour of the sinners, redeemed them all, paid the price himself for everyone. This is how outrageous grace is, why the Gospel is an affront, an offense because it’s not fair. We have no part to play in our salvation, which was why the law was so futile, it was there to show that no matter how hard we tried to keep all the rules, we have all fallen short, even Paul the law keeper was a failure before he encountered Jesus and the Gospel of Grace. We don’t have Levitical law anymore, we just have lots of rules to keep instead!

So if we believe that it isn’t our choice that puts us on the snakes and ladders board, how do we move around the board? If we are all included then how is our behaviour affected, why bother with evangelism, why bother with ‘being good’. I suggest reading Romans for the answer to ‘with so much grace, does sin not abound? By no means!’ We don’t understand grace so we try and work our way into it. We don’t really believe that Jesus could have saved us without our help and he certainly can’t keep us on the straight and narrow path without our free will, without our choice. Our obsession with our behaviour, our standards, our works, is back to front. When we understand/believe that he has saved us singlehandedly, that we are his children, that we are holy, then we live from that place. Our response is one of thankfulness. Our behaviour is moulded by our belief, our true nature is exceptional, we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, made in the likeness of God.  If we believe we are sinners then we will sin because we think we can’t help it, it is who we believe we are but if we believe we are saints, children of God, redeemed ones, then we live out our existence with this reality and our behaviour changes through the truth of who we are.

There is no moving up and down ladders and snakes based on our behaviour. Our true identity, and therefore our reality and behaviour, are based on what Jesus has done, it is based on his response, his behaviour, and our life is hidden in his. He places us on the board, which we call life, and also places us at the 100 mark, we are totally approved, totally qualified, safe, secure and constantly in the presence of God. If you can imagine that Jesus folds the board over so number 1 and number 100 are on the same square and then says ‘it is finished’.  Our response is to stay on this square, it is where everything holds together, it is unfathomable and it is freedom. Moving on from here is straight into religion, grace will always point to what Jesus has done, religion will point to what you have to do. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus has saved you completely.

At one-ness.

Unity is something as Christians we believe in, unity with God, other Christians, maybe others but we do seem to have differences in outworking this belief. We believe there is blessing linked to unity following Psalm 133 and the promise that where unity is there will be blessing and so in order to get the blessing we work on our unity. Perhaps if we believed in a unity that was already in existence, or even a blessing that was non-conditional based on living in the new covenant, we might do things a bit differently.

If we believe unity with God is something that we work at it will affect our relationship with God. If we perceive a distance in our relationship, then we will spend time trying to shorten that distance or feel that it is too difficult and we might just settle for a long distance relationship. If however we believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that we are ‘In Christ’ and he is in us, then our conversation will not start with trying to sort out a distance. In any relationship if we believe we are in someone’s ‘bad books’ because of our behaviour, we will feel a little hesitant in our conversation, may even distance ourselves further if we believe there is no way back. Whereas if we believe we can’t get into someone’s bad books or that they would never hold a grudge against us, or they are always wanting to talk to us, always wanting to hear us, not interested even in our behaviour other than in how it affects us, not the relationship, then perhaps we wouldn’t waste so much time on sorting out the distance and instead enjoy our union and enjoy being blessed.

Unity with other Christians is something we all work at to a point. We are after all too different to be able to get along otherwise we wouldn’t have so many different kinds of churches. Our differences are much more fundamental than style, they are based on our doctrines and theology, there are lines drawn that we aren’t prepared to delete.  We have programs and meetings where we try and get along, if we can do something together maybe we will have the semblance of unity and maybe that’s all we can hope for. We don’t mention the differences and we will tolerate ‘the others’ for an hour per term for the sake of unity and working together for the sake of our community, who to be honest can’t really get over why if we’re all so loved up with each other we have so many different churches in the first place. So how can there be ‘real’ unity when we are all so entrenched in what we believe and can only just about manage to do things together as long as we don’t mention the war. So what do we have in common with the ‘others’? What do we share with other Christians? Jesus is probably the lowest possible common denominator, only belief in him, not really anything else, but then if we read Corinthians and believe what it says - that we are automatically part of his body, then we might conclude that Unity is an actuality and doesn’t need ‘worked on’ or artificially created through activity. We wouldn’t do things for unity, we would do them because of our unity.  If we believe that the Christian over the road, in another church, maybe even in no church is fully united to us, then maybe we would just get along in our relationship, we would again not try and sort out the distance between us, accept there is no distance and enjoy our unity and our blessing. What if the church exists as a reality without our meetings, structures or attendance, what if the church really is the body of Christ, would we then stop using language like; ‘I’ve left the church’, ‘I don’t like the church’, ‘the church is controlling and abusive’, ‘the church ruined my life’ or even ‘I’m off to church’ – only if you’re having some kind of out of body experience! Perhaps if places have treated us badly we could start calling them something other than church; ’institution’,  ‘cult’ and reserve the word church for what it really is? Perhaps words matter.

What about unity with others, those who are not Christians, can there,  or should there, be unity with those that do not believe in Jesus, not as a saviour, not in a relationship with him, wouldn’t step into our buildings, should there be unity with ‘the others’? I’m thinking Yes. I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just thinking/writing out loud.

What if, unity is something so much bigger than we ever thought before? What if the ‘ministry of reconciliation’ is not only about helping people to see that Jesus has reconciled them to God, what if it is also no longer seeing people as sinners, no longer seeing a separation between ‘us’ and ‘them’? Here’s a definition;

Separatism - the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. So perhaps we have something of the separatist in all of us; ‘the saved vs the damned’, ‘Christians vs other faiths or the atheists’, ‘Catholics’ vs the rest’, ‘the Charismatics/Pentecostals vs traditional/established’. We really are like a Monty Python sketch -People’s Front of Judea vs Judean People’s front! We have so many ways to draw lines to separate one group of Christians from each other, never mind where we draw lines between ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’. I’m not saying let’s scrap all the buildings and rent a stadium where we can all be together as we do have different theologies and styles but I am wondering whether we should practise erasing some of these lines. Could we consider seeing past a person’s behaviour or theology to see a unity that transcends everything else? Can we delete some of the lines/fences, not just between Christian to Christian but between any sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’? To be able to see unity between one human being and the next. Not just artificial, worked at unity, but a belief that there is no separation. More than seeing that there is no real separation between one Christian and another but no separation between one human and another, no distance between the people. To begin with, how about we are all made in the image of God? That is something we believe, not an illusion and not something to be worked at, it is a reality, male and female made in the image of God. So if we take that as a starting point in our relationships with others then we would not start with the differences, particularly in value between one person and the next. Could we start to see past someone’s behaviour and see the image of God in them? Could we love people on the basis that there is no separation between us rather than trying to love people because we have to, ‘we have to try really hard to love the person when we don’t like them because we’re a Christian’. To see past behaviour, see a person that is the same as us and allow a love to flow from our union with God and our unity with them through some invisible channel? Perhaps like Jesus saw past our behaviour and loved us anyway??

How much of the world’s difficulties come from separatism, my culture is better than yours, my gender is better than yours, my meetings and theology are better than yours. What if we believed in unity and lived from a belief in reconciliation.

Another definition;

Reconcile - to make two 'apparently' conflicting things compatible or consistent with each other. Harmonious is also linked to reconciliation, living in harmony with one another.  We talk of relationships being reconciled, our relationship with God has been reconciled by Jesus, he did the reconciliation for us. The trinity living in harmony with each other with a desire for unity with us and with each other. John 17 talks of one-ness with each other, unity like Jesus has with his Father. The prayer is for all believers and we could say that if Jesus saw a division between believers and unbelievers so should we and this one-ness is only for believers, but I think we should push this one further and would like to suggest that perhaps separation was never God’s intention. Not between us and Him or indeed between human to human. Being separate from one another surely is a disadvantage, the tower of Babel is a testimony to one language possibility and perhaps speaking in tongues by the power of the Holy Spirit was not meant to be used as some kind of ‘good Christian’ barometer but instead as a language to unite people together. Yes a heavenly language used for worship and prayer but maybe, just maybe Paul used tongues the most because he was travelling the most and knew that speaking the same language as his hearers created a sense of unity. Perhaps being all things to all people meant he found unity where we would now see the differences. Perhaps if we believe that the Kingdom is here already then we wouldn’t worry about changing people’s cultures as the Kingdom is already the uniting force.

We say let’s honour our differences but maybe we actually mean let’s keep them.  Let’s honour our uniqueness and yes we are all created with different fingerprints, live in different cultures and 50% of the population have different body parts but this uniqueness could also be outworked in the bigger reality of unity.

I suppose I’m just a bit tired of the line drawing, the line between good and bad, the line between saved and not, the line between secular and sacred, the line between us and them. All these ways to separate ourselves from others, to see differences, to hole up in our own safe world and hope nobody infiltrates the ranks with some weird teaching about one-ness with God and with all of humanity. Maybe my cave is best or maybe it’s time to think bigger than I have done before. Maybe love never fails.