Category: faith

Activism · faith · Greenbelt Festival, · music · Political · Song for Today · Songwriting · World Affairs

A Song – Work In Progress

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

I don’t think I’ve posted one of my own songs before, but here goes. If you’ve been following me, you’ll know that I am trying to understand the situation in the Middle East, especially as it applies to the relationship between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza.

One of the defining moments in the last 100 years was what Palestinians call Nakba – the time in 1948 when Palestinian families were forced to leave their homes. One of the accounts of that event is told by Sami Awad, and tells how his grandfather, living in Jerusalem with his family, lost his life to a bullet. The truth of what happened that day is disputed, but whatever that truth is, his death was caused by the actions of Israel.

I wrote a song that tries to capture something of those events. It’s just a home version, with me doing all the singing and playing, and it’s very rough round the edges, but it’s a story that I needed to tell. The last 72 years have seen the bitter fruit of those days in 1948, with the loss of access to water, expulsion from the ancestral lands, frequent loss of the olive trees that are a symbol of Palestinian life and the perils of losing the heritage seeds that tell the story of day to day life in the foods that are eaten.

Amos Trust is a small human rights organisation – find out more about the situation here

My song is actually work in progress. I need to do some more work on it, but I wanted to put it out there. I am a songwriter, who like many others, dreams of others seeing the value of their work and making it their own. So if anyone out there wants to take the song and do something with it, let me know.

Here it is: Catastrophe

Grace and peace

Bible · Church · faith · Following Jesus · Worship

The End Of A Year

Jonnyfun.E2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about annual cycles of religious festivals – For Christians, the church year goes like this: Advent – Christmas – Epiphany – Lent – Easter – Pentecost – All Saints – and back to Advent again. Most of the festivals are focussed on Jesus – his life, death and resurrection.

This Sunday, 22nd November is the final Sunday in this church year. Next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent, which marks the beginning of a new church year. This last Sunday is called ‘Christ The King.’ The idea is that the culmination of the year should focus on the completed work of Jesus before the story starts all over again.

In the Jewish faith, there is something very similar that must be the inspiration for the Christian tradition. In Judaism however, the cycle is all about the reading of Torah. Torah is The Law of Moses – the first five books of what Jews call ‘The Bible.’ and what Christians call ‘The Old Testament’ or ‘The Jewish Scriptures.’

This cycle of readings is completed in a year, and as in the Christian tradition, there is a special day that marks the end of the year, and starts the new year. In Judaism this is linked to the feast of Sukkot, which is a kind of harvest festival, and takes place around October.

There is a wonderful description of this festival – Simchat Torah – in the book I wrote about in my last post. The book ‘In the Beginning’ by Chaim Potok. Here’s the quote.

I remember the night in the second week of October when we danced with the Torah scrolls in our little synagogue. It was the night of Simchat Torah, the festival that celebrates the completion of the annual cycle of Torah readings. The last portion of the Five Books of Moses would be read the next morning.

The little synagogue was crowded and tumultuous with joy. I remember the white-bearded Torah reader dancing with one of the heavy scrolls as if he had miraculously shed his years. My father and uncle danced for what seemed to me to be an interminable length of time, circling about one another with their Torah scrolls, advancing upon one another, backing off, singing. Saul and Alex and I danced too. I relinquished my Torah to someone in the crowd, then stood around and watched the dancing. It grew warm inside the small room and I went through the crowd and out the rear door to the back porch. I stood in the darkness and let the air cool my face. I could feel the floor of the porch vibrating to the dancing inside the synagogue. It was a winy fall night, the air clean, the sky vast and filled with stars. [. . .]

The noise inside the synagogue poured out into the night, an undulating, swelling and receding and thinning and growing sound. The joy of dancing with the Torah, holding it close to you, the words of God to Moses at Sinai. I wondered if the gentiles ever danced with their Bible. “Hey, Tony. Do you ever dance with your Bible?”

I had actually spoken the question. I heard the words in the cool dark air. I had not thought to do that. I had not even thought of Tony–yes, I remembered his name: Tony Savanola. I had not thought of him in years. Where was he now? Fighting in the war probably. Or studying for the priesthood and deferred from the draft as I was. Hey, Tony. Do you ever read your Bible? Do you ever hold it to you and know how much you love it?

Wow ! I could almost feel the sense of celebration. Joy and awe all mixed up and expressed in the dance. An exuberant, intense display of fervour and devotion.

And I asked myself the question that in the novel David asks of the Roman Catholic neighbour of his childhood – Do I ever dance with my Bible ? Or to put it another way – does our celebration of Christ The King have this same sense of being alive in our faith. Maybe it’s the fact that we English / Church of England are so reserved and unemotional that stops us ? Or maybe we just don’t have the same passion about our faith ?

There will be no dancing this year, as our chuches are closed for public worship due to Covid, but maybe next year ….

Grace and peace.

Bible · faith · Following Jesus · God · Jesus · Worship

All You Who Are Thirsty

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

Alongside my daily reading of the psalms and the Gospel of John, I have been reading Isaiah. Today I got to chapter 55. More about that shortly.

But first, I must mention the novel that I’ve just finished. ‘In the Beginning’ by Chaim Potok. The story concerns David, who is only a small boy at the start of the novel. His family, orthodox Jews, have arrived in New York in the 1920’s from Poland. Like other novels by Potok, you get an insight into the daily life and religious observance of orthodox Jews, which I found fascinating. It impressed on me how little I know of Judaism, past and present, and prompted me to read some Jewish commentaries on the Bible (Old Testament).

In Synagogue worship, the reading of Torah – The Law of Moses – (The first five books of the Bible) is central, and in the course of a year, the whole of the Torah will be read in the Sabbath morning worship. (In some traditions there is a three year cycle of Torah readings). The reading of Torah is followed by a Havtarah, a reading from another part of the Old Testament that is thematically linked to the Torah reading for the day. The Havtarah reading completes the Bible readings for that day.

So to Isaiah 55. The following verses are part of the Havtarah reading on the Sabbath called Noach, when the story of Noah is read as the Torah reading.

1 “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!
You without money, come, buy, and eat!
Yes, come! Buy wine and milk
without money — it’s free!
2 Why spend money for what isn’t food,
your wages for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well,
you will enjoy the fat of the land.
3 Open your ears, and come to me;
listen well, and you will live —
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
the grace I assured David.

These verses are an invitation to come to God, the source of all that is good, and lifegiving. The significance of water is clearly to do with the necessity of water for life. This is understood also to tell us of the necessity of God’s law for us to live fully. So water is a symbol of Torah, and like water, we need Torah’s influence in our lives continually.

In the account of the Israelites’ journey after the Exodus, it tells us that they travelled for three days in the desert without finding any water. After three days, they found water, but it was bitter. When the people complained and asked, “Moses, what are we going to drink?” Moses asked the Lord for help and the Lord told him to throw a piece of wood into the water. Moses did so, and the water became fit to drink.

So as the people could not go more than three days without water, and water is a symbol of Torah, we must not go more than three days without a public reading of Torah. It became the custom not to let more than three days pass without a public reading of Torah. So readings from the Torah are read on Monday and Thursday, as well as on the Sabbath.

And for me as a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, I see these verses from Isaiah as an invitation to come to Jesus, God’s promised one. In John’s Gospel chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and in the course of the conversation, Jesus says these words “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

For me, the whole of Torah is fulfilled in Jesus, who came to do God’s perfect will, and to lead us to the Father.

Grace and Peace.

faith · Prayer

When Some Serendipity Comes Along

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

I think I’ve written before about times when things seem to fall into place.

On this occasion, it was all about something I felt that I needed to say to a friend. I was struggling with how and when to make contact. It just wouldn’t wait, it needed to be done the next day. A harsh thing that they had said about another of my friends – in front of other people – had really got to me. I thought they were out of order and it kept bugging me.

Now I’m someone who finds it really hard to engage with conflict and to challenge people, so this was a problem. I really needed to speak with them, and it wasn’t something I wanted to do on the phone. I needed to see them face to face. So I sent up a prayer that God would help me speak with them.

As it turned out, our schedule at home the next day was quite a bit later than usual. We slept in a bit longer than normal, and then had a phone call, so all in all I was about an hour behind at least.

Then on my round of day to day jobs around the town, I was just emerging from the supermarket, when I just happened to see the person I needed to talk to. We chatted for a while about things we had in common, and then I said … ‘This is amazing. I don’t usually come this way at this time of day … could we go and have a coffee somewhere ?’ Which we did, and in the course of the conversation, I was able to say what had been building up in me. As we spoke, they admitted that what they had said was unkind. I don’t know if my words had really changed anything in them, but the fact of having spoken was the important thing.

We cannot take responsibility for what others do, think or say – all that we can do is take full responsibility for our own words and actions

On the way home, I just kept thanking God for the ‘chance’ meeting. It had cleared my head, and cleared the air. It was one of those moments where everything came together in a remarkable way.

Often, I’ll admit I don’t have a clue what’s going on, and what God is up to, but I do know that God is in it with me, even down to the small details.

Grace and Peace

faith · Grace · suffering

I Can Do All Things

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

A couple of months ago, we walked past a guy wearing a T-shirt that had the message on the front “I CAN DO ALL THINGS.” There’s a verse in the New Testament that says ” I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” and as we walked past him I wondered if that was the message he was trying to convey. In that moment I wanted to stop him and ask him, but the moment went, and we had walked on. I still wonder what the slogan was all about.

Then, some time just before the American presidential elections, I was watching a T.V. programme about Donald Trump, to do with his friendship with Norman Vincent Peale, church minister and author. In 1952, Peale wrote a book ‘The Power of Positive Thinking,’ that greatly influenced Trump. This relationship seems to have been a decisive factor in Trump’s worldview, shown for example in Trump’s frequent claims that they were going to beat the coronavirus any day soon, despite the evidence that infections were increasing.

So the slogan – I can do all things – can mean different things. For Peale and his followers it might be about the power that we can exert over our circumstances by virtue of our ‘Can do’ attitude. For the Christian, it must mean something completely different. For the Christian, it must be based, not in our own strength, but in humility. And it’s not about denying the obvious facts just because we see things differently.

It often means, for example, dealing with the hard things that come our way – not by denying that the hard things exist, or by making them disappear, but by finding the grace to live with them.

Grace and Peace.

Bible · faith · God · Jesus

Make Our Home With Them

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

I’m still reading part of a psalm and a few verses of John’s Gospel each day.
Today was Psalm 132, with the idea of ‘A resting place, or dwelling for God’

In the psalm, king David makes a vow to ‘find a dwelling for the Lord’
Part of this was to do with the Ark of the Covenant – the chest that contained the Ten Commandments. It signified God’s presence with his people.
The Ark of the Covenant had been stolen by the Philistines in battle, but then returned to Israel. It ended up at a place called Kiriath-Jearim, where it was forgotten for 20 years. Then we read in the First book of Chronicles chapter 13 how David brings the Ark back to Jerusalem. In the psalm this event is recalled in these words:

“Arise, Lord, and come to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.” Psalm 132 verse 8

In the Old Testament, places are really important. The Ark and the Temple are both material signs of God’s presence with his people. Psalm 132 is part of a collection of psalms that would be sung as people made their way to Jerusalem for festivals. They would sing as they made their journey to meet with God in the holy city. We see the same idea through history in the importance of pilgrimage to holy sites in different religions. Mecca, The River Granges, Rome etc.

Set alongside that is my other reading from John Chapter 14 verse 23
‘Jesus said “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”‘

What Jesus brings to Israel is a new and very challenging insight. God does not reside in buildings and shrines, but in people. Jesus may have taught in the temple, but most of what we read in the Gospels seems to show Jesus meeting people where they are, in their everyday lives. And that is the promise to us today. God is with us. Not through special places, (although they may have their ‘place’) and not through priests as intermediaries, but directly as we open ourselves to God’s presence with us and in us – this promise is not restricted, but is for anyone, at anytime, in any place.

In the end, our destination, our home, is to be with God.
And at the same time, God’s destination, God’s home, is to be with us.

Grace and peace.

Church · faith · Following Jesus · God

If Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes

Jonnyfun.E2 Comments

I’m listening to Justin Welby, Archbishop of canterbury. He’s talking about the way that the church has changed over the course of the pandemic, and the way that we will need to continue to discover the new ways that God is calling the church to witness to God.

For some months, the ministry of the church was 100% outside the building. We must learn lessons from that.

What is needed is a new vision of the Good News of Jesus Christ for this time, for all people. This demands that we are renewed people, with above all a new holiness.

And the message for the church is this – If nothing changes, then nothing changes.

As a Christian trying to be attentive to God, I’m hungry for change.

Bible · faith · Following Jesus · God

This Is What I Noticed

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

I was reading a few verses from one of the psalms this morning. (Psalm 119)

9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
    By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
    teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I tell
    all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
    as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
    and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
    I will not neglect your word.

This is what I noticed. The importance of …

Staying on the path
Living according to God’s word.
Seeking God with all my heart;
Hiding God’s word in my heart
Praising God
Telling …
Rejoicing …
Meditating ,,,
Considering …
Delighting …

Then I read a few verses from John’s Gospel chapter 10, where Jesus talks about himself as ‘The Good Shepherd,’ and noticed the importance of

Hearing the voice of Jesus
Recognising the voice of Jesus
Following Jesus

These are things that anyone can do. You don’t have to be a religion expert to hear the voice of God. Just a willingness to be open.

As I do the normal day to day things, I’m just asking where God is at work in the world around me and the people I meet.

Bible · Church · faith · Theology

Waiting, Wishing, Hoping, Thinking, Praying

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

I’m working through the book of the prophet Isaiah at the moment, and reading John Goldingay’s book in the series – ‘The Old Testament for everyone.’

I’m up to chapter 30. These were the words that struck me today.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
    Blessed are all who wait for him!

God’s people in the Old Testament have a history of not following God’s ways of right living and justice. That obstinate refusal to live God’s way has resulted in disaster for Israel. They have in turn been oppressed by Assyria, then Babylon, and soon to come the Persian empire. But God’s hand is always stretched out to help them, if only they would turn to God once more. Part of that turning to God involves waiting. God doesn’t just respond as it were to our beck and call. God wants us to show real repentance. A sign of a genuine turning to God is a willingness to wait until God is ready to take us back.

John Goldingay writes: ‘The church in the west is at a point where it needs to start waiting (and wishing and hoping and thinking and praying) for God to return and restore it, rather than accepting things as they are or thinking they can and should fix things.

Are there parts of the church today that are coasting, not unduly concerned with how things are ?

Are there parts of the church today that are imagining that the next new plan will be the magic bullet to turn the tide on a dying church ? (We human beings do have a tendency to think we can fix things).

Maybe what’s needed is some active waiting. Maybe what is required is for our leaders to call the church to repentance for the ways in which we have failed, and are failing. I don’t know, I’m just asking.

Grace and peace.

Bible · Church · faith · Me · Prayer

Why I Believe In Jesus

Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

There’s a passage in John’s Gospel, (Chapter 5 verses 31 – 47) where Jesus explains reasons for people to people in him. Here they are:

1 John the Baptist. John came with a message of truth, and an important part of that message pointed to Jesus.

2 The works that Jesus was doing. Even more than John’s witness, the works that Jesus was doing were evidence.

3 God the Father. The Father also gives witness to Jesus, but where minds are closed, and there is a refusal to believe, it is impossible to hear his voice.

4 The Scriptures. Openness to hear the truths contained in the written word leads to a revelation of the ‘Living Word’ (Jesus)

So, the question is – why do I believe in Jesus ?

  1. The people who, like John the Baptist, showed me Jesus.
    My Sunday School teacher, Jim Gravett. Jim was also a teacher at my secondary school, so I saw his faith lived out in the work setting as well as at church. I remember outings that we went on a children – sometimes a walk in the Sussex countryside, after which we would all go back to Jim’s house where he and his wife would cook us something like beans on toast. Simple hospitality that I remember from 50+ years ago. Jim kept a range of animals at the bottom of the garden and we were captivated by watching his ferrets run around the garden. Jim kept chickens at school as well, and would take the left over communion bread and feed it to the hens. An earthy, simple faith.
    Bob and Julie Phipps, who attended our church, and experienced several bereavements – losing a son in a road accident and another son as well – I can’t remember the circumstances. Yet they were the most alive and faith filled couple I knew. They talked about their faith with enthusiasm; they believed that God answered prayer, and had a long string of faith stories to prove it.
    My parents, who brought me up in a relaxed way that allowed me to take things at my pace, and never forced things on me.
    My uncle Hugh and Aunty Mary. Hugh would look for opportunities to have a one to one with his nephews and nieces and would be sure to ask us how things were between us and God. They were both so generous with their home, having an open table on a Sunday lunch time for anyone to join the family. I spent so many Sundays with them when I was a student, enjoying the food and the company.
    Gareth Bolton, a primary school teacher who would spend every holiday working with a Christian mission agency. His faith in action was inspiring. His charity, AMEN, is now supporting thousands of small communities around the world.
    David and Dorothy Bond; David was the vicar of St James Church in Selby, North Yorkshire, and set for me an example of Christian leadership. A gentle, humble man, with a passionate faith. Together David and Dorothy modelled hospitality and welcomed us into the church and into their lives.
  2. The works of God/Jesus that I have seen in my own life and in the lives of others. Christians who have lived a life of faith, whilst experiencing great suffering and difficulty. Answers to prayers that have sometimes been ‘yes’, sometimes ‘no,’ and sometimes ‘not now.’
  3. God. Always trying to live with an openness to what God is doing in me and around me. A sense of God’s care – what the Old Testament calls ‘steadfast love and faithfulness.’
  4. The Scriptures. So many times God has spoken to me through something in scripture. I wish I had written them all down, because my memory lets me down. I will read a passage, or a verse, and it will immediately connect with something that I am asking, or something I am about to do. I have heard it called serendipity, but for me it is God at work, and it happens so often that I couldn’t explain it away.

Here’s the passage – John 5:31-47

Witnesses to Jesus

31 If I speak for myself, there is no way to prove I am telling the truth. 32 But there is someone else who speaks for me, and I know what he says is true. 33 You sent messengers to John, and he told them the truth. 34 I don’t depend on what people say about me, but I tell you these things so that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that gave a lot of light, and you were glad to enjoy his light for a while.

36 But something more important than John speaks for me. I mean the things that the Father has given me to do! All of these speak for me and prove that the Father sent me.

37 The Father who sent me also speaks for me, but you have never heard his voice or seen him face to face. 38 You have not believed his message, because you refused to have faith in the one he sent.

39 You search the Scriptures, because you think you will find eternal life in them. The Scriptures tell about me, 40 but you refuse to come to me for eternal life.

41 I don’t care about human praise, 42 but I do know that none of you love God. 43 I have come with my Father’s authority, and you have not welcomed me. But you will welcome people who come on their own. 44 How could you possibly believe? You like to have your friends praise you, and you don’t care about praise that the only God can give!

45 Don’t think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you. 46 Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me. 47 But if you don’t believe what Moses wrote, how can you believe what I say?