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Last Sunday we had a significant snowstorm. I’ve linked to a picasa file back then, but here are three photos optimised from this. The snow went away. A day later, the sun was shining through the window, tinting everything golden. … Continue reading
Today the sermon was on solitude. There part of the lectionary that was used was the very beginning of the Gospel:
Matthew 14:
13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick
In doing this, we are avoiding dealing with miracles, if the feeding of the 5000 was hyperbole, but with something else. In the text before, there is a description of John the Baptist being executed. Jesus craved solitude. He went to the desert to be by himself. For in the desert, and alone, the patriarchs found God.
Genesis 32
22The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”
Being alone means… being without distraction. No other people. No words of comfort. No music. No guidance. No activity. Being alone is, for anyone who is introverted, refreshing. Those who try to be in balance seek times of refreshing — either by taking themselves somewhere remote, or by getting up when everyone else is asleep.
Psalm 108
1 My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make melody. Awake, my soul!2 Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn.3 I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to you among the nations.4 For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Romans 14:7-9
7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
For the psalmist, getting up and praising God was an act of will. It did not matte what his circumstances or emotions were. He was going to glorify God. Paul… who was aware of all this, reflects that in the end we don’t live for ourselves, but for God.
It is not our glory, but God’s. Being able to be alone is practice for standing up against opposition, but, as Schaeffer said:
People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark upon our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid facing their own existence. Many of us can sit in front of the television and, except on rare occasions, not face our own private life. Entertainment so fills every cranny of our culture we can easily escape thinking. So is the one who stands with the transistor radio plugged in his ear much of the day. No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place for quiet–because when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise.
This world is noisy, and much of that noise is anaesthesia for the existential pain post modern man is in. Religion is not the opiate of this people — for true religion requires that one thinks and examines one life, against the standard of scriptures and the wisdom of those men and women of Christ who have gone before us — but entertainment is. We saw this priority this week — when Amy Winehouse’s death made the front page, and the ongoing war and starvation in Somalia, the impending financial crash in Europe, and the struggle that cities in the US have in dealing with poverty became small print. Amy was from the world of distraction — and that was more important that suffering, death and destruction. This lust for gossip drove the tabloid press to hack computers and phones, stalk celebrities — because we would rather read gossip and be entertained than consider our moral state.
In the end, we are not left on this planet for ourselves, but to do good, and glorify God. In silence we find this. In noise we lose this.
I have spent far too much time monitoring the economic situation over the last few days. It makes no difference to my current situation or investment plan. However, I have been distracted by comments about how the debt ceiling crisis could be contagious, a disaster, a second financial crisis.
We have a duty to do what we can. But sometimes we are limited and we cannot fix the problem. The feeding of the 4000 was one of those situations.
Mark 8:1-10
1In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2“I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way — and some of them have come from a great distance.” 4His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” 5He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
Now, there are two times when Jesus is recorded as feeding the crowds. This is one of them. He did not do it every day. We cannot read into the silence that this was usual. The disciples had seven loaves of bread — they were prepared to be out in the desert. The crowd were not.
We can identify the problem, but we can’t solve it. For example, Paige wrote yesterday:
I believe it is up to men to save the world from feminism. I know well enough that this doesn’t go over well. After all, women messed things up so they should be the ones to fix it.
Fair enough, but we can’t. There is no carrot at the end of our stick. Its just a stick, and there aren’t enough of us to beat the feminists into submission.
The feminists catered to womens vice. Traditionalists ask the feminists to turn away from vice and towards virtue. And whats the reward? All we can promise is the slight possibility they will have a warm feeling inside, and that just isn’t enough to rewire social conditioning and biological programming.
So women like Alte, Terri, myself, and others can stand on our soap boxes and preach til we are blue in the face but it ain’t gonna change a dang thing.
“But thats not fair! I don’t want to clean up your mess”. It’s not fair, but keep in mind that the younger generations of women did not make the kool-aid. They were force-fed the kool-aid in their baby bottles. Deep down they are craving some wholesome milk, they just wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it because they have only ever known the kool-aid
The comments on this degenerated into arvuing aainst talking points, including the catholic position on birth control. However, I am aware that the kind of behaviour feminists are showing is a sign of God’s judgement (as is the increasing tendency towards homosexuality — we have ignored God and he has given us up to our most base desires).
In the past, this has not been cured by men arguing but by men praying. For revival “first in me”. The confession that it is far easier to not interact with women but with the images of women, or to play X-box — in part because men are penalised by Marriage 2.0. An awareness that we have slept and let the worst kind of women — those who teach the destruction of the family and celebrate evil — into the leadership of our churches and societies. And this “tolerence” has led to a slackening of church discipline and an inability to discern and remove the predators (particularly homosexual men lusting after teenage boys) who choose to work within the institutions to have access to young people. Alte — who by no means is stupid — has not swallowed this kool-aid and neatly summarises the situation thus:
Things will only change if feminists are denied money and sex, which is not within the power of traditionalist women. In other words: down with the welfare/workfare state, down with child support, down with divorce, down with contraception and abortion, down with marrying feminists
I’m afraid that the economic mess we are in is a direct consequence of our choices to go for pleasure at this time, and neither to save for a rainy day nor to provide for the widows and orphans, not set up a society where the aforementioned widows are matched with the local widowers. The current social structure is not sustainable — it is a bubble.
When it bursts, women who have followed the feminist ideas will be poorly served. We need to pray for revival and repentance. The alternative is destruction of our society, and no promise that a better society will arise from the ashes.
My boys have spent most of the last two weeks in Australia. The issues on the news there were a new carbon tax and the impending US default. The news in NZ has been a 15 year snowstorm, a proposal for capital gains tax, the rugby, and the US deficit. Pelosi has a tweet that is important at this time.
What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget..We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.
Now, what Pelosi is trying to save is the social welfare system of the 20th century, which is now falling over because the over generous provisions for older folks — retiring in late middle age — and single mothers are unsustainable. The provisions that we now have cannot last. Pelosi wants them to — even though these policies — which have been supported by both parties are driving the US and most of the Anglosphere to the brink of default.
We need to change tack. We need to look at the older systems that worked. This one is not working. The poor are suffering. The most socialised systems, such as the NHS, are now strictly rationing surgery/ Now let’s look at the lectionary today.
2 Samuel 5
1Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, “Look, we are your bone and flesh. 2For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The LORD said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.” 3So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel. 4David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for forty years. 5At Hebron he reigned over Judah for seven years and six months; and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
There are a few pointers for our elite in this text.
From where I sit, I see an unravelling of the welfare state, driven by retrenchment because the welfare state is not affordable with over 20% of the adult population dependent on it. We need to look back — the the Victorian friendly societies, to the early unions, to the way the older charitable arms of the church ran — and find a local, accountable and sustainable way to limit the damage bad economic times bring to the poor.
The human condition is flawed. We can speak well, with great fervour. We can make rituals, we can claim we keep the law. We are lying to ourselves. Because we have within us actions that defile us.
Mark 7
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”17When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” Thus he declared all foods clean. 20And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
When I look at this list, there are subtleties there. No one would argue that murder is good. Neither is theft or deceit. All functional societies want to control licentiousness — that is celebrated wickedness and preserve marriage (by shaming and shunning sex outside marriage).
This society, however, celebrates greed and pride. It is envious — of what the last minister of finance called “Rich Pricks”. It celebrates foolishness and folly — from the constructive idiocy in education (children can and do construct models of the world. But they are not correct. They need to taught – the scientific method exists because science is not intuitive).
In our situation, we defile ourselves, and the state encourages it. We cannot be non citizens. But we do not need to comply: indeed we should confront evil. For Christ himself came to save us from our own sin — that defiles us.
Why should we expect good actions to be praised? Or evil to stop, because we do good? Or our way to be smooth… because we exist? Consider this passage
.Acts 16:16-24
16One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” 18She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
19But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 20When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.”22The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Let’s be clear. Paul did the slave virl a faovur. She was no longer possessed. She was freed from that burden. But men were pimping her possession — making money from her predictions. Since their cash cow had gone, they wanted revenge.
Like many scoundrels, they turned to patriotism. The consequence to Paul and Silas was a beating and imprisonment. They got now reward and no one spoke truth to the power they were facing.
Yet… we are commanded to do good. These actions will probably cost us — time, effort, money, energy, cares — and if we are lucky, that is all they will cost us. Doing good could cost us our liberty. We are not promised prosperity in this life — we are promised instead troubles, conflict and opposition.
So we should not be surprised when we are libelled, when evil doers claim to share our faith, and when we are marginalised and oppressed. The master was opposed. The disciples of the Master will also be opposed.
Some people say that crises are danger and a chance to grow. They misinterpret Chinese characters, they discuss the root causes of the crisis, they look to their leaders for solutions.
Classical conservatives know this. They listen to the psalmist.
Psalm 146
3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
Leaders see crises as a chance to reform, to put forward a solution (which may or may not work), to do something. We should mistrust this. Sometimes the correct thing to do is nothing.
Good leaders are judged not by the victories they have, or the laws they have passed, but by the holiness, peacefulness and neighbourliness of the population. Good leaders rule in historically boring times. Bad leaders overstretch their people with multiple, conflicting goals, some of which are not attainable.
In a crisis, do not trust your leaders. Trust your neighbours more. Trust God, and only trust God fully.
In the narrative of Acts, we have seen the Gospel being preached to Greeks. There is a consensus that the Jewish Law does not need to apply to them. That circumcision is not needed. Indeed, Paul argues in his letters against circumcising anybody. So why is be making Timothy lose his foreskin?
Acts
16:1Paul went on also to Derbe and to Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer; but his father was a Greek. 2He was well spoken of by the believers in Lystra and Iconium. 3Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4As they went from town to town, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. 5So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily.
via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.
In modern Jewish terms, Timothy is Jewish. His mother was Jewish so he is Jewish. The father does not matter. Timothy not being circumcised would have been an offence in any synagogue.
Paul always preached to the Jews first. He went to synagogue. Timothy had to fit in. Paul was being pragmatic.
(It is also worth noting that his mother was a believer, and not his father: the separation within families by belief and the pain this causes was not unknown to Paul).
Paul would fit in and not give offence — among Jews and Gentiles. He saw no difference in Christ. I think that we are more in error, with our ongoing ruminations on race, post-colonialism, and our tendency to separate into ethnic congregations. We should work towards unity, not division, even though the zeitgest is to emphasise the divisions between us.
For although the elite like us divided so they can rule over the factions, we should be as one.
The most recent slashdot poll has us trusting a robotic spouse over a robot chef, sub, bus or plane. Is this a comment on our mistrust of technology (unlikely: it is slashdot, the home of all otaku-like geeks) or of womenkind?
I really want to start with a comment I made over at Tradtional Catholicism. To do this, I’ll have to quote Alte, which gives the Catholic position (which, as is usual, has been carefully formulated over some centuries)
The Catholic Church defines its social doctrine according to four main principles. These principles are considered universal (i.e. Natural Law), as they are the way in which a virtuous and prosperous society is always structured. They are:the dignity of the human person, the common good,subsidiarity (the devolving of power), and solidarity (the integration of society).
Now solidarity is seen in the English speaking world as something of the left. You have solidarity with the working class, the oppressed. And the discussion moved onto politics. This is to be expected, as there is a sense of crisis in both Europe and the United States:and people are looking to the leaders for a solution to markets imploding under a burden of debt.
I disagree. I think the presidents and kings can but posture. It is the people who make the nation, and the people who will make the solution. So, editing down the response, I said.
I think that we need to look beyond politics here. We are called to glorify God in this life. It’s very clear, from the gospels, from Paul, and from the prophets, that part of this is doing good.
What we need to look at is the application. The Church cannot assume that the state will be cooperative with them. On the contrary, you can expect the State to attempt to subvert and dilute the work of the church.
We have to be local. We need to cooperate. The food bank may be in the crypt of the Cathedral, but the Presbyterians and Anglicans are in there working.
This is not Catholic doctrine. It is the Doctrine of the Gospels. It is the doctrine of all churches — if one unpacks the vocabulary. And, as in the Catholics, moving too far into social action, social justice or social gospel corrupts and subverts the commands to do good where you are.
Now, there is a need for the church to speak out: to fund analysis of situations in the world and to apply the principles within the Gospel to the new issues that arise. But we should be thinking locally. We should be thinking of what the congregations can do, not what the government can do for us.
It looks like the governmental experiment in wealth distrubution is failing. The countries that borrowed to provide security — or regulated businesses so that they had to make unwise loans for social engineering reasons — are now highly indebted and at risk of default.
It’s worth looking at what the reformers and the church fathers did. None (or not many of them) and an overwhelming socail network. Calvin did not: Geneva was not poor but neither was it rich in his day. Van Popta comments.
Calvin believed that the blessings of God must be applied to the common good of the church. In his writings he often points to the role that the rich had in society. In his commentaries on II Corinthians he writes: “Thus the Lord recommends to us a proportion of this nature, that we may, in so far as every one’s resources admit, afford help to the indigent, that there may not be some in affluence, and others in indigence.”…
In his commentary on II Corinthians 8:15, Calvin writes,
. . . [H]e has enjoined upon us frugality and temperance, and has forbidden, that anyone should go to excess, taking advantage of his abundance. Let those, then, that have riches, whether they have been left by inheritance, or procured by industry and efforts, consider that their abundance was not intended to be laid out in intemperance or excess, but in relieving the necessities of the brethren. Calvin taught, “Let us share the necessity of those whom we see pressed by the difficulty of affairs, assisting them in their need with our abundance” (2.8.46 410). It is in this context that he preached on the eighth commandment. He instructed the people that the rich had to learn how to be rich [Phil 4:12] (Sermons 193).
Some might be suprised that I am quoting Calvin here. He is supposedly the man who allowed the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism — although people who say that seem to collapse the reformation into the enlightenment. Calvin saw limits, and preached against both avarice and asceticism. For the material things of this world are to be enjoyed, but not to rule us.
Where this classical teaching can help us is the sense of locality. The wealthy are to help: true, But they are to help locally. We should have collections for the tragedies in this world and do what we can to help, true. But we should feed our familes, and our church families as well. For our wealth is not our own. We cannot be responsble for the global storm. We must act locally, where we can be effective, and keep such actions… local. For to apply what works in Dunedin to Auckland, let alone another country, is hubris.