It's been a good week, with two particular highlights. On Thursday, our 'Hub Team' (i.e. leadership team for our 4 churches) had a day away together, just catching up on where each church is at and taking time out for prayer. Then today, we had another of our 'Worship4Today' seminars, which I normally lead with a colleague but today was led by one of the authors, Helen Bent - an excellent musician and teacher. The session took us on a journey through the history of church music, and ended with us singing together a variety of music from Anglican chant to one of the latest worship songs. There was a golden thread throughout which joined us with those godly men and women who have gone before us, now offering their worship in music on a farther shore.
I think that tomorrow is especially significant in our preaching series. Having traced the story of God's salvation through the Old Testament to the birth and baptism of Jesus, we arrive at the crucial word 'Today'. Jesus has gone home to Nazareth (Luke 4.16-30), takes the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and reads the first few verses of chapter 61. Then he begins, 'Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.' Not only are the hearers indignant that this carpenter's son is apparently claiming to be Messiah, but his mandate (the Nazareth Manifesto) makes clear he is a compassionate healer and merciful redeemer, not a political activist. He brings good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, release for the oppressed. In other words, people not like those likely to be found in synagogues! Not surprisingly, Jesus is driven out but escapes (this time) with his life. As John would put it, his time has not yet come.
It makes you wonder what is the mandate of the followers of Jesus today. Are we also wanting to recruit Jesus to our cause, or are we with him? As Abraham Lincoln put it, My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side. I am currently reading a book called Dirty Glory, by Pete Greig, who founded the 24/7 prayer movement some years ago. Some of it makes your hair stand on end as, in response to prayer, present-day disciples of Jesus have found themselves carrying out precisely the same manifesto as Jesus in the most unlikely places from clubbers in Ibiza to pimps and prostitutes in Mexico.
Commenting on this passage from Luke, Pete Greig says The call to justice and mercy is the inevitable consequence of a call to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. And he quotes the Emperor Julian who complained bitterly in 362 about Christians' care for the neediest in society: Those impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also...Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity.
To join the Adventure of Jesus is not just about personal salvation; it is also about the salvation of the world. God's ultimate purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment