Skip to main content

When the teacups are overwhelming

No one becomes a Christian because they love washing up teacups.


Credit: Lisarlena via Wikimedia Commons

Not many people become a Christian because of their passion for meetings about church budgets, either, or their desire to lift 50 padded chairs every Sunday morning, or because they have a strong opinion about the colour of the church carpet.

And even those of us who enjoy a bit of robust intellectual debate once in a while, didn't become Christians in order to pick apart the finer points of doctrine.

If you have become a Christian, and moreover continued to be a Christian, I would hope and suggest that it is for two reasons.  Firstly, because you believed that God had done and is doing something which demanded a response from you.  Secondly, because you found a community that also believed that God had done and is doing something, and invited you to be part of it.

And you found yourself washing up teacups.

But if it becomes all about the teacups, and even the more important things like the social issues and the mission projects and the theological debates, it's easy to forget why we got involved in the first place.  Not because of this stuff that we're doing.  But because of something that God has done.

I guess Paul knew that.  I recently re-read his letter to the Ephesians, and was astounded to realise that the entire first half was all about what God had done.  That's a good couple of pages (double columns, small print) without a single suggestion that his audience should do anything except remember what God had already done for them.  He talks about the blessings God has given, and the way he made us his children, and the "immeasurable greatness of his power", and how he raised Jesus from the dead, and what that achieved, and...  well, go and read Ephesians chapters 1 to 3.  It's well worth it.

It made me realise how quickly we often gloss over what God has done, in order to get to what we have to do.  I listened to a sermon which included the quote: The gospel is good news, not good advice.  Good advice, the preacher explained, tells you what you ought to do.  But good news tells you what has already been done.

In the kind of churches I go to, the good news is often reduced to a single phrase: Jesus died for us.  It covers the basics, but it doesn't provide much to dwell on, when we need to remind ourselves of the foundations of our faith.  Other churches use a creed, a statement of belief, which expands the basics some more.  Even that falls a bit short of Paul's enthusiastic explanation.

When the arguments and the teacups and the budgets overwhelm us, we all need something to come back to.  We need more than a one-liner or a casual cliche.  We need to remember the good news that got us into all this in the first place.

Here's mine.  It's not quite as long as Paul's, and it's not quite as good as Paul's (and I borrowed his first and last sentences), but this is some attempt to remind myself - and hopefully you too - of the good news of what God has done.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.  He sent Jesus to live among us and to suffer with us, so that we might know the God who is close beside us in our pain.  Through Jesus' resurrection he has enabled us to have life in all its fullness now and forever, and given us hope: hope that changes lives, hope that rescues those in darkness, hope that transcends death.  

He has given us his Spirit to work within us, so that we can be changed in ways we never thought possible.  We thought we would always be stuck in the same old patterns of thoughts and behaviours, but he has set us free from those, and given us a new sense of self-worth and purpose.  Not because we did anything to deserve it, but because we now understand that we are completely loved.  God loved and accepted us at our worst, and the more we comprehend that, the more we find ourselves loving and accepting others at their worst, too.

He has brought us together with people who are utterly different to us.  We are part of a worldwide church; anywhere we find others who love Jesus, we have something in common, however unlikely that may seem.  He has given us a rich variety of experiences, so that we can all learn from each other and rely on each other.  At its best, he has given us a loving community where we can grow in trust and faith together.

And he has changed not just us but all of creation.  In some mysterious way, Jesus submitting to the forces of evil in his death provided the power to overcome them, and now we no longer have to fear either evil or death, even though both are still very present in the world.  He has given us the desire to work for justice, peace, and reconciliation, secure in the knowledge that injustice, war and hatred can never have the last word.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Limestone Way - the end! (for now...)

Bonsall is a pretty little village just up the road from Cromford. It was the centre point for my final Limestone Way walk. First I walked one way, back towards Ible, then I walked the other way to Matlock. I started at the fountain and climbed up to a tree in which a mistle thrush was singing loudly (helpfully identified by the Merlin app). A few fields took me across to the hamlet of Slaley. Then there was a pleasant walk through the woods, which dropped steeply to my left down to the Via Gellia. At Dunsley Springs the stream went right over the edge.  I made my way down more gradually, and then was faced with the long climb up again to the point near Leys Farm where I was rejoining the Limestone Way. Tree down! Rejoining the Limestone Way Once I'd reached the top, it was a very pleasant walk across dry grassy fields. There were signs of old mining activity, which suddenly made the ground feel less solid under my feet - how many holes were hiding under the turf? Back at Bonsall, ...

Limestone Way: Grangemill and Ible

It was getting mistier and mistier. As I drove past Carsington Water, the world around grew dimmer, and when I parked near Brassington, the nearby trees were hazy shadows in the murk. I was glad I was wearing a red coat as I started off along Manystones Lane. At least I had some chance of being visible. Fortunately it was a short road section. I navigated my way across a series of small fields, from one dry stone wall to the next, and crossed the old railway line which is now the High Peak Trail. I could just imagine a steam train emerging out of the fog. The next fields were larger. It was as if the landscape was being sketched around me as I walked across it. A tree or an electricity pylon would appear as a few faint lines, increasing in detail when I got closer, and fading away behind. Up ahead, the land dropped into a huge hole - Longcliffe Quarries. I couldn't see much, but the noise from the machinery dominated the next section of the walk.  I skirted the edge of the quarry a...

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu...