I think of three men in the Bible
that I can particularly identify with, because although they all did wonderful
things through the God that called them and shaped for His purposes, they were
all flawed, they were all sinners and they all had to go through a lot of crap
in their lives before God straightened them out! Sounds like my shaky walk with God to be
honest. The inference sometimes in
England, even amongst Christians it seems, is that a person must already be
good, already be respectable, already be rather gentle and well to do and then
you become a Christian to reflect that; in other words you join a nice brigade
to confirm how nice you are! The three
men I identify with at this particular time are King David, Saint Paul and
Moses, all men of God but in their own ways deeply flawed men.
Many people in England seem to
think that Christianity is a religion for nice people, people who have it all
together, the rather respectable sort of person who has no financial worries,
has the right social status, is perfect emotionally and spiritually and has no
real problems, and so going to church is the ‘icing on the cake’ to a wonderful
life, rather like a club for those who have made it. I suspect this view could be held in America
and Australia and other countries where Christianity is, at least nominally
anyway, held as the religion or upholds the morals of that society. At worst in England it’s seen as rather
prissy, rather wussy, something that is part of genteel society and if I am
honest something seen as a bit Middle or even Upper Middle class and in some
cases like the Church of England seems almost to be a part of the
establishment. This is not me being
cruel, but just how I see it. Is the
Bible only for the well to do, the great and the good and those who have wealth
and privilege and power? Perhaps if this
is what Christianity was meant to be about Jesus would have been born in a
palace and not a stable being chased out of Israel by King Herod, the genocidal
maniac. I know that Christians should be
gentle and kind and compassionate and concerned with other people, but
sometimes if I see wealthy people claiming to be Christians whilst at the same
time seeming to find their security in the wealth and high social status and the
material prosperity they have and the things it will buy them and the lifestyle
they can attain through that wealth, I seem to feel a little confused. It is as if by claiming Christianity, some
people can do what they like and use their Christian status as a kind of ‘get
out of jail free’ card. I understand
that this may offend some people but I feel it has to be said because it’s what
a lot of Christians say and I believe that the truth about these and many other
matters far outweighs the pleasant platitudes that some people speak or hold
about Christianity. Christianity is not
a tool of the establishment, or of rich and powerful people, nor is it the
religion of the well to do or the Anglo Saxon cultures around the world or
particularly European either. If anyone
at all in fact tries to ‘use’ God to rubberstamp their own possibly selfish
ambitions or use the respectability of being a Christian or regular churchgoer
or even being a reverend or priest to do things that are completely unchristian
or be nasty and offensive and as worldly as anyone not particularly a Christian
at all, they have misused faith like the Pharisees did.
‘When the scribes of the Pharisee
party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his
disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard this he said to them, 'It is
not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I came to call not the
upright, but sinners.'’
(Mark 2:16-17 NJB)
David was a shepherd boy and just
a nobody from a humble family, who was told by God that he was marked out for
something special, that being that he would be king of Israel. I expect he thought at first ‘oh yeah, okay,
whatever, just let me tend me sheep mate!’ or words to that effect. But he became a king, and was a man after
God’s own heart, after many troubles and being basically a warrior and perhaps
was also an outsider within the most famous group of outsiders, the
Israelites. The term Hebrew is I think a
term similar to Gypsy today in that David and his kin were outcasts or outsiders
or like the Irish travellers, and yet God calls David to lead His people. Of course David had to become a warlord and a
fighter to eventually become a king, and he liked his women too did David,
unlike Christian men today of course…?! Then again… anyway, he also had a man
more or less bumped off so he could get his hands on the man’s wife. Not really a nice bloke to be honest, yet God
said ‘…"I
have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will perform my
entire will."’ (Acts
13:22 NJB) Hmm, curious. A murderer, womaniser and man of violence,
and yet God’s man! Not exactly your
textbook English vicar from the Home Counties was he??!!
Saul was a religious man, a law
abiding man, a man who scrupulously kept the law and a man who upheld the law
vigorously, and a man of God. Or so he
thought anyway. He upheld the law so
vigorously that he persecuted the early Christians thinking he was doing God’s
will. Effectively, he was killing ‘in
the name of God.’ Is that the truest and
most obscene definition of taking God’s name in vain, the vilest form of
blasphemy? Isn’t any form of self-righteous
behaviour hidden behind a religious front, especially when the person is
cynically using their respectability as a religious person to do things they
shouldn’t be doing, blasphemous to some degree?
But Saul, when he was Paul, admitted that while he sinned grievously, he
was in ignorance. His excuse was that he
thought he was truly in the right by ruthlessly persecuting Christians, but he
couldn’t have been more wrong. There is
a lesson for us all there.
Moses thought he was a high born
prince of Egypt, but he found out that he was a son of slaves, a low born
Israelite. A man brought up in the
family of the pharaoh who was bred for perhaps the very highest office and the
most advanced and most powerful and certainly most sophisticated and enduring
civilisation of its day, who was actually something he never dreamed of. Isn’t that a bit like all of us to some
degree? We all get caught up in everyday
affairs, personality clashes, little and not so little worries and we become
sophisticated and worldly and at the same time world weary, stuck right in the
middle of what we think will make us happy and yet at the same time fed up with
it all.
‘Sheer futility, Qoheleth says.
Sheer futility: everything is futile! What
profit can we show for all our toil, toiling under the sun?’ (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 NJB)
Maybe at times we all need a way
of escape, and it was of course Moses’ great calling that became the most
famous escape of all. No, I don’t mean
Steve McQueen as Hilts on his motorbike, as cool as Steve was in ‘The Great
Escape’! I mean the Israelites out of
their 400 years bondage of slavery to Egypt, where they were making bricks for
the pyramids of the pharaohs. Egypt
represents the worldly, the material, the wealthy and the comfortable, although
Israel are enslaved to create these very things, as often people today become
slaves to ambition or to making money or lose themselves to excess or the
pursuit of pleasure and sensuality and finding security in their wealth or
sophistication or high social status of some kind. In the end however what they thought might
make them free actually makes them slaves.
It’s a modern dilemma we all seem to face. Moses gave it all up to lead his people to
the Promised Land. He left the land of
material wealth and worldly power for something that his people were really all
about, spiritual riches in abundance and an intimate relationship with God,
being obedient to God rather than their own fractured egos and individual
selfishness. It didn’t quite work out as
planned though did it?! What’s new,
hey?! They got stuck in the wilderness
for 40 years, running around in circles, complaining, moaning, grumbling, not being
satisfied with the menu on offer, generally being pissed off with old Moses and
wondering just where on earth they were going anyway. If you’ve travelled on British trains you’ll
know the feeling well!!! After escaping
the stifling slavery of Egypt, they meandered and traipsed and moved half-heartedly
to wherever they were going, like kids with their mum in the supermarket,
whining one minute and blaming someone the next. There’s no pleasing some people is there?! Moses was another flawed man of God, who did
actually murder an Egyptian, yet God makes something of him that no one would
have even guessed at.
The three of them then were
deeply flawed men by any standards, definitely by today’s standards and
certainly by God’s high standards, yet each played a major role in God’s
purposes proving that even deeply flawed people whatever they have done can
have a second chance or can do great things for God, if they have faith and
call on Him from the heart. Even flawed
people can have a thirst and hunger for God, in fact I sometimes think it is
those who are notoriously or chronically flawed who thirst and hunger the most
for God and for His righteousness.
A Confession
I was a woman hater, the complete
misogynist, and for a long time have had problems with women and an anger and
bitterness towards women, the root of bitterness the Bible warns about
perhaps. Whatever the case, I have had a
lot of resentment towards women for a long time, and I am beginning to get help
with this issue. My attitudes towards
women then have been skewed for a long time because for some reason I just
seemed to meet angry, unpleasant, indifferent and even hateful women especially
in pubs and nightclubs, but even in colleges and universities too. I suppose I have just been unlucky but it
didn’t help matters and put me off women for a long time. At the same time though, God has sent me a
number of women friends, some Christian and some not, who I have growing
friendships with and who are all a regular feature of my life. Of course, these are all women that I have a
fondness and affection for and who in many case I love like sisters. But, being honest, my anger is as much about
the way I was treated than it is about who treated me so badly, or negatively
it might be better to say. When anyone
puts themselves on the line and makes themselves vulnerable, risking being
rejected, who does in fact not take it completely seriously? The British pub and especially the nightclub
scene is to a certain extent superficial and trying to find love or
meaningful relationships there is
probably not the ideal place to look but as British culture can be a very
limited culture, where else can single people often find love, and that goes
double maybe for Christians? Being drunk
as well or at least half cut is also seeing the situation, and other people,
through beer goggles and is often not a good idea either I think.
So we have a dilemma, or rather I
have a dilemma which I know millions of people throughout the world have; that
of wanting to find genuine romantic love but trying to get over the hurdle of
hurt, anger and pain that I feel over my past rejections and failed romances. A wall builds up that seems insurmountable
and perhaps although other people help build it with their cruelty and indifference
and even nastiness, we sometimes supply the bricks and help build it with them
and then cement it with our own hatred and low self-worth and even by feeding
off the negativity. I have done that
before today too for sure.
The Church Going Christian
Would Jesus accept homeless
people, the lost, the completely hopeless, those with mental health problems,
those who are chronically addicted to drink or drugs or caught up in OCD or
filled with anger and hatred? You know,
the sort of people we don’t really want to be around or can’t really be
bothered with or the people you don’t want sitting next to you on a bus because
they might smell or say something weird or just because they may engage us in
conversation and we feel embarrassed.
‘”For I was hungry and you never
gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink, I was a
stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed
me, sick and in prison and you never visited me." Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord,
when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or
in prison, and did not come to your help?"
Then he will answer, "In
truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of
these, you neglected to do it to me."’ (Matthew 25:42-45 NJB)
Would many Christians even want
some of those people in their churches?
I do wonder sometimes.
Church is for people who have no friends,
right? It’s usually filled with rather
polite old ladies in flowery hats, right?
It’s a place where you have to agree with everyone and there are no
characters or individuality, right? It’s
a clique for religious people who think they are better than everyone else,
right? I could keep going on and on here
because I have thought, said and believed all of the above and much more about
church before today and I think many other people have and do, even some
Christians. I had a fear above all that
it would compromise my individuality and hinder my walk with God too!!! It hasn’t on either count. So, you probably guess that I am now a church
going Christian after 40 years in the wilderness. Yeah ok, that’s a bit dramatic but in essence
there is a lot of truth to it as I didn’t go to church for years and have just
got involved with one. I was more likely
to attack the idea of church than actually see it as a force for good and that
it is essential for growing in the Christian life, having Christian friends who
know where you are coming from, which is important if you don’t come from a
Christian family or Christian background of some kind, and in encouraging you
in your Christian walk which of course your non-Christian friends just won’t do
will they, even if they are good friends.
So, church is finally part of this Christian’s life, and about time too!
