John Watson - Priest in Residence

Doctrine - Resource or Obstacle?

For those who wish to have a good read before bed (!) you might be intersted in this article I have had published on the Fulcrum website. Comments welcome! The image below will make sense when you read it!!

Christian Aid

If you can support the relief efforts click on this link.

Pentecost

And so we begin this Christian Aid week on Pentecost a week already full with headlines about world disaster and war.

Pentecost is the day in which a new creation begins. Often churches have been criticized on being too concerned with the spiritual aspects of faith and irrelevant to the world – especially when faced in innocent suffering or disaster. On the other hand Churches and many individual Christians have also been criticised when the faith has been reduced to a collection of academic treatises and intellectual ascents. This Day of Pentecost serves as a correction to both tendencies and speaks into a world where disaster and injustice, oppression and greed in many places still hold sway. There has never been a truer truism when someone once the division between world and the kingdom of God not only is found in the sometimes extreme cases in our world, but also runs straight through the heart.

The home of the Spirit is not in the intellect, the realm of concepts and ideas, not in the exciting or inner sanctum of Spirituality, but it is the guts, the deep core where our passions have their spring – the place of conflict, confusion, vulnerability and desire.

Pentecost is not an appendix to our faith – it is very much at the centre – alongside that of incarnation of Christ – heaven coming to earth; death and resurrection of Christ – the joining up of past, present and future – the ascension – earth going up to heaven – Pentecost – the beginning of the new creation. For in that story – in that drama – Pentecost refuses to let us remain bystanders – too observe the event or story from some critical and safe distance, we are caught up in the very real moving, live and dangerous drama of God in the world.

To be filled with the Spirit is not just to speak in tongues and prophecy and have wonderful worship – great those things are. To be filled with the Spirit is to have your heart broken by the same things that broke Christ’s heart. It is too have you heart beating to the same pulse and rhythm as God’s heart beats and pulsates.

With the coming of the Spirit upon the gathered few, who met in safety and collected holiness – they are shed out into the Streets. They begin to live a life hinted at by Christ – they begin to put flesh on the bones of his words. They live out a life that they have had limited preparation for. They commit themselves to a wildness and vulnerability that will cost them dearly: the contour of their lives will change; their reputation will be endangered; their possessions will transfer ownership and take on new meaning; their lives will become open to the pain and suffering of others as well as the hope of something so profound; they will suffer themselves and many will lose their life; they are on the cusp of something new.

This is their story and it is ours too. We are called to enter into the continuing drama of God’s new creation in the world. To enter into the realities of this world with all its hopes and greatness and all it suffering and disaster.

An Englishman’s house is his…..?

Sorry for the missing month – but doctoral studies and a building development has sapped an extra time I thought I had!

A report (Home truths for London) is in the news today about the housing crisis – not so much about private costs but about the lack of social housing. Lewisham is 3rd in London with a growing shortage (17,500 households on the waiting list).

"Poor housing has been shown to cause health problems, lower educational attainment and family stress and breakdown.
"We must tackle the housing crisis head on to halt this growing social divide."

Lewisham is where I live – I see the effects of poor housing yet all I tend to see is private developments happening. This is immoral. It is short sighted. It is treating people only as having value to what they can give to the economy – or the developers purse.

This is of course not a new problem. Check these quotes out:

“While we try to amass wealth, make piles of money, get hold of the land as our real property, rise above one another in riches, we have palpably cast off justice and lost the common good. I should like to know how any man can be just, who is deliberately aiming to get out of someone else what he wants for himself.”

St Basil (4th Century)

"How far will your mad lusts take you, ye rich people, till you dwell alone on the earth? Why do you at once turn nature out of doors, and claim the possession of her for your own selves? The land was made for all; why do you rich men claim it as your private property?" "Nature produced common property.
 Robbery made private property."

St Ambrose (4th Century)

When will we learn?

Remembering wars – or preparing for them?

Last week the UK unveiled a new national armed forces memorial –commemorating the armed forces dead since the second world war – 16,000 names.

What surprised me more was that there was space for another 15,000.

The thought that we have to prepare this amount of space for this amount of names scares me. What are we really remembering? What have we learnt?

I pray that the Churches in the UK may speak out for peace and against wrong wars – where the futile loss of life over rumours may end. That the Churches may speak of another list of names recorded – the names of those on the book of life (see the book of Revelation) – not death – of people who follow the Prince of Peace – working and living to see God’s Kingdom of peace on this earth.

Of Monks and Machine Guns

It has taken me a whole to put thoughts down on this whole event – which by now will be out of our media attention, as the next news item is eagerly sought for our ravishing appetite.

Yet something quite profound was happening in Burma – the non-violent resistance of the monks – who see reality quite differently to the reality as seen and lived by the military.

Some will say that their efforts were in vain – some will argue that the only way the regime will change is through violent uprising.

Some said that 2000 years ago – in a small relatively unknown, dust bowl part of the Roman Empire after the radical message of love and justice was lived and taught by the holy man Jesus.

Those with power and guns feel invulnerable – until the root of their power is dealt with. Jesus dealt with the root of violence and war through his own life, teaching and own death – where he met death head on and showed that it was not the end. For death is the only weapon the power hungry and the violent can ultimately wield – but once death is taken out of the equation – what is there to be afraid of?

Free Burma

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Classes begin again…

A report out this week reveals that the class system (segregation) - apparently abolished in the 80s - is alive and functioning even more – I suspect it is to do with transfer of wealth and how this opens or shuts down opportunity. As we have always had a minority holding onto the majority of assets and money – this is not really surprising.

The crippling aspect is the despondency that comes with this – the vast amount of people who feel they will never be able to ‘make it’ – more so in the lives of those in our inner cities and outer estates.

The biblical concept of Jubilee is aimed to deter any generational poverty or excessive accumulation of wealth. It allows each generation to start again from an equal playing field – it encourages that idea that land is not ‘owned’ but ‘leased’ – for the earth is the Lord’s. Some call it a dream, others sentimentality – but it offers a hope that things can and should be different.

On holiday

Not back until 8th September! May God bless you if you're staying put or going away.

You did not choose me but I chose you…

These words of Jesus strike a blow against any sense of consumer spirituality. Jesus uses the words of choosing in a profound sense, not speaking in any Calvinistic or predetermined sense, or as if at some later stage of faith we can say “You owe me God – ‘cos I chose you above other things, remember?”

But what is shown is that God is at the foundation stages of faith in revealing his desire, love and choosing to be with us.

For our faith, as well as us believing in God, is also about God believing in us. Our faith is not just us trusting in God – but God trusting in us. These words reveal a high level of humanity, one which is made in the image of God; one is to be the glory of God; one which is to be the Body of Christ.

These words are about identity – in an age of consumer choice, where choice is the new ethic – Jesus words speak about our need to belong, and that we ‘belong’ because we simply are – not because we strive seek to be.