Pentecost

I’m a wife, a mother of three children and the main bread-winner for our family.  All you who are also Mums will know how hectic that can get, and how hard it can be to find time for yourself, let alone any kind of spiritual life. I’m also an average, normal Christian. 

I strive and struggle to make my relationship with God relevant to the way I relate, parent and work.  How does my faith make a difference to the kind of person I am, to the qualities of my character?  When I was 17, I wrote the following:

“I aspire to be a woman of integrity, graciousness, courage, wisdom and holiness.”

17 year olds do tend to be idealistic, but this is still the standard I measure myself against.  When I look back over the years (ahem) decades since I wrote this, I can see that while I’ve made good progress, I also have a long way to grow.

This coming Sunday is the Christian celebration of Pentecost.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs – we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’
(Extract from Acts 2 (NIVUK) – I strongly suggest you go and read the whole passage here)

The story of Pentecost is about the empowering of God’s Spirit. It’s about a group of (mostly) uneducated disciples, that were transformed to speak with courage and wisdom.  Peter, who only a few short weeks ago had denied Jesus in fear, now preached boldly, standing up to the religious leaders of the day.  And three thousand people were added to the believers in one day.  They went on to lead vastly different lives from what any of them had imagined.

I need that kind of empowering in my daily life too.  I need to make the space to breathe in God’s presence, to encounter the Spirit afresh.

How do you make space for God’s Spirit?

(P.S. for a good 2 minute video summary of Pentecost and how it’s relevant, check this out.)

Happy Mothers’ Day

I was a cute baby, even if I do say so myself.

My Mum, my Big Sister and Me.  Sometime in the 1970’s.

The irony is that Mum is very unlikely to read this.  My parents don’t have internet, and aren’t interested (yet) in getting it. 

Not that we ever paid much attention to Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day when we were growing up.  Too commercial for my parents’ liking.  Besides, Dad’s birthday is early May and Mum’s birthday is late August, so it made sense to make more of a deal out of the birthdays.

If I can do nearly as good a job raising my children as my mother did raising us, then I’ll be doing pretty well.

Happy Mothers’ Day, Mum.

What can happen in the Blog-iverse…

Just before Christmas I compiled a list of my favourite 20 Christian books.  I included a newly published book I considered a potential “classic”.

Next minute:

WOO HOO!"Kneeling with Giants" made #7 in @adulcia 's "Top 20 Christian Books List"!@ivpbooks@adriannawright bit.ly/UeSxq0
— Gary Neal Hansen (@garynealhansen) December 5, 2012

@ivpress @adulcia Okay, it was #8, but I was so excited I apparently blinked at the wrong moment.
— Gary Neal Hansen (@garynealhansen) December 5, 2012

"Slow down," I thought, "It's just lil' ol' me!"

I'd never have imagined a book review (unsolicited and un-sponsored) on my blog would lead to an international skype call between my study group and the author. (Thank you so much, Gary, for being willing to sacrifice your sleep at 2:30am to meet with us).  Sometimes the unimaginable happens in the blog-iverse.  God's kingdom knows neither geographic boundaries nor time-zones.

Unlike nearly every other book about prayer I've read, Gary doesn't write about what he thinks  prayer should be, instead he points the reader in the direction of historical "Giants" such as Benedict of Nursia, Augustine of Hippo, John Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila and Andrew Murray, and several others.  Gary provides very practical guidelines for putting each tradition of prayer into practice.  This is what makes Kneeling with Giants such a powerful resource.  It's not the book itself, the book just points the way. It was in the actual praying and entering the very presence of God that I found myself glimpsing depths I'd previously only lightly touched the surface of.

Our study group has now reached the end of the book (Gary, you can tell your son we have now read all the words!) but I feel I want to go back again and again to these prayer traditions.  I will certainly be spending more time with Teresa of Avila, the Puritans and the anonymous medieval author of The Cloud of Unknowing, among others.

My journey into prayer has barely begun.  Who wants to come along with me?

Lumps under the rug

 

I’m NOT a theologian.

Despite my best efforts at self-education, I find a lot of theological debate is simply over my head.  I gave up trying to read some of the more intellectual Christian blogs because I could not understand 9 words out of 10.  (I have no idea whether I’m supposed to agree with Calvinism or Arminianism – or even if I actually understand what the difference is between them.)  I alternate between thinking I just lack the necessary education (C.S. Lewis was not a theologian either, and the nearly 1000 sermons I’ve heard over the last couple of decades are not the equivalent of a Divinity degree), and thinking my brain just isn’t wired in the right way and I should just stick to what I’m good at (like understanding the New Zealand Income Tax Act).

I read with interest this week the friendly lively discussion mutual accusations of heresy respectful debate between the Reverends Bosco Peters and Peter Carrell.  These are two Anglican bloggers that generally strike me as being down-to-earth and relevant.  What I took from this debate was not a deeper understanding of the topic, but an impression of how far behind they were leaving me.

I think Bosco was trying to make a point about how the average person understood a particular phrase, compared with a theologically trained listener.  That point seemed somewhat lost in the ensuing discussion about what the phrase in question actually should or did mean.  It was miles over my head.

My contribution to the discussion was:

I consider myself a mature, experienced Christian, who has benefitted from a great number of sermons from respected and well qualified theologians. However I still sometimes struggle to fully comprehend exactly what went on at the crucifixion. I tend to give up after a while and brush it all into an uncomprehensible divine mystery.

It’s all very well for me to be able to sweep the bits I can’t comprehend under the rug of “inexplicable divine mysteries” but sometimes I think that particular rug is getting embarrassingly lumpy.

I don’t think it’s necessary for my salvation for me to understand Soteriology – or even to know what that means.  I do think its important as a Christian to know what I believe and why I believe it.  This much I do know:  Jesus’ death was both necessary and sufficient to restore our relationship with God.  The details are in one of those embarrassing lumps under the rug.

I have appreciated over the years to be able to listen to speakers like Steve Graham – Dean of the Christchurch Campus of Laidlaw College (who BTW will be speaking at Westside Church tomorrow morning at 10:30am – *waves to Steve*) who are able to explain doctrine in a way that’s not only easily understood, but also relevant to daily Christian life.  The Christian blogsphere needs writers who can do the same, without using Greek, Latin or Jargon.

Broken

In the last month I’ve found myself supporting three different friends in different challenging and painful circumstances.  I seem to be surrounded by broken and hurting people.

Although I’m “okay” at the moment, my own brokenness is not so far below the surface.

If we are all honest, we are all broken people in at least part of ourselves.

I can support my friends because I know what it is to feel pain, even if it was from different situations.  But I don’t know what their pain is exactly like, I’m not living though their circumstances.

I’ve been reflecting on how much we all need the Cross.  Even those of us who have been Christians for a long time still need to come back again and be reminded of this.

The Christian message is more than just about forgiveness of sins, it’s also about restoration of brokenness.  His body was broken for us, his blood was shed for us. 

Isaiah 53:4-5
New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

I’m not a theologian, so I won’t even attempt to try to understand how, but here’s how I see it.  In some supernatural mystical way, at the moment Jesus died, he somehow took onto himself all our burdens, pain, failings, weakness and guilt.  Those things then died with Him.  It doesn’t mean we don’t experience hurt and grief and sorrow, but because Jesus has carried our pain for us, he is then able to carry us through our suffering and out the other side.  Even when I couldn’t “feel” anything of God, even in my darkest times I had hope in the knowledge that He was with me.

The cross doesn’t make sense.  It’s not logical.  The Son of God crucified?  It’s beyond human comprehension.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25
New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

If you’re someone who struggles to get your head around this, then that's okay, sometimes it boggles my brain as well.  But this is the foundation of my faith, and it’s at the core of my soul.  Many churches offer a program called Alpha.  It’s a relaxed, no pressure way to explore spiritual concepts and understand how Christians make their faith real to their everyday life.

He Tangata

I don’t usually have a reason to come into this part of the city.  Every time I do the landscape has changed.

I still don’t like how many empty spaces there are where there used to be a bustling city.  I’m still not immune to the crunch and rattle of demolition machinery.

How do I find the words to explain I feel to visiting bloggers?  I struggle to even find words to describe how I feel to myself.

Yet the spirit of Christchurch is not the buildings, or lack thereof.  As the proverb says:

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!

What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!

This is what the Inaugural National Bloggers Conference highlighted for me.  It wasn’t a corporate style conference held in an expensive hotel.  It was a community gathering, hosted at a local library and in various cafes around the city.

Image: Sophie Slim

I enjoyed learning some new techy stuff thanks to Talia and Meghan. (You can expect a gradual spring-clean down the side bar in the near future).  But the most important part of the gathering was getting to know some wonderful people.

Ka Pai to Miriam, Juliet, Treena and all the team.  You were great.

P.S. – check out what else everyone got up to over the weekend here.

Sunday