Dead Words

by i.burgess on January 20, 2012

When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost it’s liberating power for nuclear man, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that man sees himself as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future. But when man’s historical consciousness is broken, the whole Christian message seems like a lecture about the great pioneers to a boy on an acid trip.

- Fr. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

Tonight I listened to a few clips of old sermons (Because apparently that’s how I spend my Friday nights) and was struck by one common feature: The rhetoric of Evangelicalism in the last century was dominated by a concern for the future. The ultimate future. The great end of things.

“If you left here and were hit by a bus, where would you go?”

…

“With every eye closed and every head bowed”

And so as the youth group sniffles and the band plays “turn your eyes upon Jesus” one more time, everyone signs a commitment card and they go home, assured that their hearts belong to Jesus and their future looks bright. Their past has been re-narrated as a downward spiral from which they have just been delivered, and the future they can expect is one of ever increasing sanctification until the day they see God.

And that one moment of ultimate existential terror passes. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s a bit like this

by i.burgess on January 4, 2012

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

-Jesus

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Between reason and faith

by i.burgess on January 3, 2012

I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.

-Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov

There is, I think, a strange and frustrating tendency abounding that supposes people who believe in God have quite abandoned all reason, condemning them to the asylum. It is presumed that those who closely examine the world and observe people and their ways will come to the necessary conclusion that there is no God, nor miracles nor soul nor everlasting life. These things are wish fulfilment for tragic and brief lives of suffering, they snap.

Read the rest of this entry »

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A New Year Prayer

by i.burgess on January 1, 2012

I first encountered the Covenant Prayer when I was studying at Cliff College, a place steeped in Methodist tradition. This was one of the most provoking parts of the year; in January we gathered in the Chapel and affirmed our faith together, not as a set of creeds or list of beliefs-but as a commitment to follow God and be led by him.

Truly wonderful.

It is a prayer which takes courage and faith and strong stomach to utter. It is not a prayer for the good life or for success, but to do all things and be all things to the glory of God. For those who have faith, this is the very best. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s will save it.

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

(Book of Offices of the British Methodist Church, 1936)

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Go Away From Me

by i.burgess on December 29, 2011

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

Go away from me, for I am selfish and self-seeking
Self-admiring and self-satisfied,
Self-concerned and self-obsessed.

Go away from me, for I use others for me own comfort
The cheap labour of those in other countries
The  desperation of the poor which drives them to servitude.

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

Go away from me, for I am so drawn to other things
Shining bau-bauls and loud, sweetly singing toys.
Objects which neither look nor see, neither know nor feel.

Go away from me, for I prefer the creature to the creator
I will praise a man’s work, but I will forget the man.
I will joyfully give thanks for your great gifts,
but I will not remember you in the time of temptation

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

Go away from me, for I am full of doubt
And fear fills my heart each day
And darkness each night.

Go away from me, for I am given over to wickedness
And all my thoughts are of harm to others
And all my actions say that I do not fear God

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

And I have forgotten you
Bending my knee to all the deities of the day
And presumed upon your blessing
Assured myself that it would cost me nothing
And  despised those on whom my life depends.

I am a killer and adulterer
A thief and  liar,
And I want always what is not mine.

So, Lord, please depart from me.
I cannot bear your light
I cannot stand your presence
Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

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Everlasting Gaze

by i.burgess on November 30, 2011

We all want to hold in the everlasting gaze
Enchanted in the rapture of his sentimental sway
But underneath the wheels lie the skulls of every c.o.g.
The fickle fascination of an everlasting god

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Bear The Yoke

by i.burgess on November 29, 2011

It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.

I’ve been reading a commentary by Robin Parry on Lamentations. It’s in a fairly new series called ‘Two Horizons’ which offers both a commentary on the text, and a series of essays exploring the theological implications of the text from a variety of angles. I have especially enjoyed Parry’s treatment of Lamentations as a worshipper’s text and his exploration of how it can inform Christian worship.

He even manages to go beyond relating The Man in Lamentations 3 to Jesus to letting the mourning of the text speak as the mourning of all humanity over their Godforsakenness.

I especially enjoyed his exploration of the Old Testament idea of God forsaking his people. This is uncomfortable language in the light of Jeremiah 29:11, where God promises to ‘never leave nor forsake’ his people. Contrast that with these words of the Lamentation: Read the rest of this entry »

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The Briefest Glimpse

by i.burgess on November 25, 2011

This is what my Friday evening looks like.

At this time of year these views become rare and precious. The sun is all too quick to vanish from the horizon, as if we’ve done something to offend her. She keeps her distance and skirts along the bottom of the sky, never staying for long.

I hope she forgives us soon. It’s getting really cold.

That was my friday evening. What’s yours?

 

 

 

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Fear Not The Toilsome Path

by i.burgess on November 24, 2011

Come hither, all ye that have strayed and lost your way, whatever your error and sin may have been, whether it be one which in human eyes is more more pardonable and yet perhaps more dreadful, or one more dreadful in human eyes and yet perhaps more pardonable, one which was revealed here on earth, or one which is concealed here yet known in heaven–did ye find forgiveness here on earth and yet no rest in your inward mind, or found ye no forgiveness because ye sought it not or sought it in vain–oh, turn about and come hither, here is rest!

Kierkegaard Training in Christianity

Image courtesy of DeviantArt

Picking up a discussion of Kierkegaard’s of the Gospel, I want to follow him into the realm of real experience. He has thus far spoken in terms of feeling helpless and abandoned, alone and forsaken. The words of grace of such as they was to tell of the bountiful mercy offered to all. Here, he moves from the more subjective realm of feelings and yearnings to begin to show the reality of the Christian faith in a more specific way, a way which is more immediately perceivable. Read the rest of this entry »

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He gave the impossible

by i.burgess on November 23, 2011

They need not go away; you give them something to eat.

feeding the 5000

Two weeks ago I posted a short reflection on Matthew 14, where Jesus feeds the five thousand. At that time I was most struck by the huge demand Jesus placed on his disciples, rowing across lakes and ministering to the sick and giving out food. I lamented that these feats seem impossible because of my own lack of faith. Read the rest of this entry »

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