Spiritual Disciplines for Extroverts

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

Sunday 16^th June 2024

 

Revelation 8.1-6

This morning, as we come to the third sermon in our short series on prayer,
            I want us to think for a few minutes about spiritual disciplines.
 
The Baptist Minister John Colwell has rightly suggested,
            if a rhythm of prayer doesn’t give shape to our life and service,
            then something else surely will. [1]
 
And whilst a carefully prepared and well-structured hour
            on a Sunday morning each week,
                        reflecting on who we are before God,
            is certainly a good place to start;
the question that haunts me,
            both personally and for us as a congregation,
is that of what is shaping us
            as we go through each week from Sunday to Sunday?
 
And so I’m interested in what the Spiritual Disciplines might be
            that form a person throughout their lives, day by day,
and what these might look like
            at both a personal and congregational level.
 
I want to start today by turning our attention
            to the classic spiritual disciplines of the Christian tradition,
which many people of faith down the centuries
            have found to be places of solace and growth.
 
The ancient practice of Lectio Divina
            is based on silent contemplative reflection upon the text of scripture.
 
It originates in the early Christian monastic tradition
            and was popularised in the 6^th Century
            by St Benedict ‘the Father of Western Monasticism’.
 
In Lectio Divina, a deeper understanding and connection with God’s word
            is achieved through the slow and prayerful reading of the Bible,
leading to spiritual growth and transformation.
 
It’s a beautiful way to engage with the written word of scripture,
            and to deepen our faith,
and we’ve been exploring this with great benefit
            in one of our small groups here at Bloomsbury.
 
A thousand years after St Benedict,
            Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross,
            two prominent mystics and Carmelite reformers from 16th-century Spain,
were similarly focused on the inner journey undertaken in solitude,
            writing extensively about the practice of contemplation.
 
They both emphasised the importance
            of solitude and silence in the spiritual life,
as well as the need for deep prayer and union with God.
 
A third 16th-century Spanish priest, St. Ignatius of Loyola
            promoted the concept of retreat.
 
And one of the key features of so-called ‘Ignatian spirituality’,
            is to go on retreats that are silent, guided experiences
            lasting anywhere from a few days to a full month.
 
Well, fast forward with me to the early 1980s,
            when I was growing up in a Baptist Chapel in Sevenoaks in Kent.
 
In my youth group I was taught the importance
            of prioritising my Quiet Time,
            a daily silent place to reflect on scripture and meet God in solitude;
little realising that this daily discipline
            came from the ancient practices of the church,
                        mediated via Puritanism,
            and popularised by the American evangelical revivalism
                        of the late nineteenth century.
 
In my adult life, I've done a fair bit of reading on Christian spirituality;
            but truth be told, I’ve frequently been left feeling rather inadequate.
 
Let me explain.
 
I've done the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator a few times over the years,
            and I consistently report as a strong 'E' -
            that is, I am an Extrovert, rather than an Introvert.
 
This means I am energised by being with people,
            but I am drained when I spend time alone.
 
And having been on many ‘retreats’ and ‘quiet days’ over the years,
            my experience has been that of finding them either draining or challenging,
            but never really refreshing.
 
A friend of mine, the Baptist Minister Ian Green,
            has suggested that we ‘tailor make our retreats for introverts’,
and he provocatively wondered
            what a ‘retreat for extroverts’ might look like?
 
And I think he might be onto something,
            because the question I have frequently found myself asking
is whether a person with a more ‘Extroverted’ nature
            means that they are inherently somehow less 'spiritual'
            than those who report as strong 'Introverted' types?
 
Another friend commented to me recently
            that in their opinion, spiritual disciplines
            are an introverted conspiracy against extroverts!
 
I think we need to acknowledge something important here,
            which is that church culture is often extroverted,
            and often dominated by a particularly annoying kind of extrovert!
 
But the culture of Christian spirituality is usually, in my experience, the opposite,
            and is dominated by those who are more introverted.
 
In their book 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' (SPCK, 2003),
            Malcolm Goldsmith and Martin Wharton comment that:
 
'Extraverts... often feel that they are unable to pray,
            and they feel uneasy when prayer is being discussed...
and they probably need help in realizing
            that their thinking and action might well be a form of prayer...
Retreats and Quiet Days can leave them feeling 'outsider',
            and somehow 'second class' when it comes to spirituality.' (p.158)
 
This is compounded because those to whom the church typically looks
            as 'spiritual' people, the great 'spiritual' writers of the past and present,
so often seem to advocate pathways to God
            which are predominantly Introverted, rather than Extroverted.
 
And all of this is fine, up to a point.
 
And the point is this:
            For some of us, this is all a lot of hard work.
 
I'm not denying its value:
            I do indeed take quiet days, engage in silent reflection and meditation,
            and spend time alone in prayer.
 
But, and it's a big but,
            this is not my naturally preferred place to be.
 
For me, and I suspect for other extroverts as well,
            it is tiring, draining, hard work.
 
And it's not that I'm afraid of a bit of hard work from time to time:
            we all have to work hard at things.
 
But I'm not sure I want to locate my primary place of divine encounter
            in that place which also drains and exhausts me.
 
Because if I do, when I am tired and stressed from the rest of my life,
            the last thing I'll want to do is go and meet God.
 
The tradition of personal and individual spiritual disciplines
            tends to draw its biblical examples
            by focussing on the stories of Jesus spending time alone.
 
But my question, in the context of extroverted spirituality,
            is what does Jesus look like when he is with others?
 
After all, the Gospels depict Jesus spending time
            with a wide variety of people throughout his ministry,
            both in large crowds and intimate settings.
 
So, we see Jesus spending time with his close friends,
            with the twelve disciples and in family settings.
 
Here we find Jesus teaching, but also sharing meals, and travelling together.
            For instance, in Mark 4:34-41, Jesus is out in a boat with his friends
            when he calms the storm.
 
We also find Jesus spending time with the marginalized,
            interacting with people on the fringes of society,
            and showing compassion and acceptance.
 
So in Luke 19:1-10, Jesus visits the home of Zacchaeus,
            a tax collector ostracized by many.
 
Jesus also spends time with women,
            including them in his teachings and healings,
            in contravention of the customs of the time.
 
For example, in John 4:7-42 he has a profound conversation
            with a Samaritan woman at a well.
 
And Jesus spends time with mourners,
            showing empathy and care for those in grief,
such as Mary and Martha
            mourning their brother’s death in John 11:1-44.
 
In all of these examples, and I could have given many more,
            there is something deeply spiritual
                        about each moment of encounter
            between Jesus and the other person.
 
These are not chance interactions,
            they are intentional moments;
and whilst we must give due credit to the gospel authors
            for the way they frame these stories,
I think there is an authentic Jesus-tradition coming through here,
            of the extroverted spiritual moment
            of divine-human encounter.
 
And so I'm starting to wonder,
            what an Extroverted Spirituality might look like?
 
I’m starting to wonder what spiritual disciplines could look like
            that offer a sustainable and nourishing challenge for extroverts,
in the same way that more introverted disciplines
            function for more naturally introverted people.
 
And I also wonder whether an exploration of extroverted disciplines
            might pose a helpful challenge
            to those among us of a more introverted disposition,
in an analogous manner to how the introverted disciplines
            can helpfully challenge the extroverts?
 
Are extroverts any less 'spiritual'?
            I think not.
 
But the spirituality they embody is different.
 
In today's world, we are bombarded with a cacophony of distractions,
            from the relentless stream of news and social media
            to the confusion of fake news and misinformation.
 
This constant noise can make it difficult for us
            to find clarity, discern truth, and connect with God.
 
Sometimes it takes collective effort
            to hear the beat of God’s heart
            among the competing rhythms of our lives.
 
And while Christians often seek solace in the "still small voice of calm,"
            I think it's important to recognize that God's presence can be found
                        amidst the chaos as well.
 
So instead of always searching for peace and quiet,
            my conviction is that we must also learn to hear God's voice
                        and experience the divine presence
            even in the middle of life's turmoil.

You may not have noticed this, but the book of Revelation 

is one of the noisiest books in the Bible. 

As well as being filled with vivid imagery and symbolic language, 

the descriptions it gives of various forms of noise 

all contribute to the apocalyptic vision presented in the text. 

So if we read through we are greeted by the sound of Trumpets (Revelation 8-9) 

as a series of seven trumpets are sounded by angels, 

each heralding a specific judgement or event, 

bringing loud noises that signify impending doom. 

These are set against the Shouts and acclamations (Revelation 5:12; 7:10) 

of a multitude of angels and people 

who are heard shouting and praising God with loud voices. 

Then from the heavens we get Thunder and lightning (Revelation 4:5; 8:5) 

heralding the throne of God, 

emphasizing the awe-inspiring power of the divine. 

The opening of the seven seals (Revelation 6:1-8) 

is accompanied by the loud roars and rumblings of the four living creatures, 

further amplifying the dramatic events unfolding in the vision, 

and against these we get the heavenly choir singing a new song 

before the throne of God, (Revelation 14:2-3) 

representing the joyful worship of the redeemed; 

while the voices of martyrs cry out to God for justice and vindication (Revelation 6:9-10), 

as their suffering and prayers reach for the divine presence.

These noisy elements in the book of Revelation 

contribute to the overall sense of urgency and intensity 

as the narrative builds towards its climactic end 

and the loud proclamation of God's kingdom on earth.

So it is something of a surprise, and an encouragement, 

to read in Revelation 8:1 

that ‘when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, 

there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.’ 

And I say this only partially tongue-in cheek,

but I think, as an extrovert, that that’s about right. 

Half an hour of silence is fine. 

Not a quiet morning, or a quiet day, or a week, or a month…

I’m not trying to be trivial here, 

rather I want to make the point 

that in the midst of the noise and bustle of our lives, 

so vividly evoked in the text of the apocalypse, 

the call to silence and introversion can legitimately, for some of us at least, 

be the exception rather than the rule. 

 
My challenge here is that the divine presence
            is often to be found as much in the earthquake, wind, and fire,
                        in the thunder and the whirlwind,
            as it is in the sound of sheer silence,
                        or the still small voice of calm. (cf. 1 Kings 19.11-12)
 
The rhythm of energy and stillness,
            of individuality and community,
                        of introversion and extroversion,
is not a rhythm of entering and leaving the presence of God.
 
The question, I think, is how do we discern God’s presence,
            how do we encounter the resurrected Christ,
in the loudness as well as the quietness,
            in the other as well as in the solitude?
 
Many times, holiness is viewed
            as maintaining a separation from the impurities of the world,
            including the often murky realm of politics.
 
But I’d rather we asked the question
            of how Christians can engage spiritually with the world of politics
interacting with holiness and with discipline
            alongside those who navigate its complexities?
 
A crucial point here, I think, is to recognize the connection
            between holiness and the pursuit of justice.
 
When people of faith actively engage in works of justice,
            they cultivate a profound spirituality
            that extends into the public sphere.
 
This active pursuit of justice shapes individuals
            and their relationship with the world,
            fostering spiritual growth and transformation.
 
Engaging in justice work is, in essence,
            spiritual formation on the front line of societal challenge and change.
 
This is why as a church we often find ourselves involved in acts of public politics,
            whether through our involvement
                        in the Community Organising network of Citizens UK,
            or through the partnerships with have with, for example,
                        the Racial Justice Advocacy Forum.
 
At a personal level, the times I am most often moved to tears
            are when I see people of faith taking action
            to bring justice and equity to the lives of those
                        who are excluded and oppressed.
 
These are deeply spiritual acts.
 
A few weeks ago we hosted an event
            entitled ‘Unapologetically Faithful in the Public Sphere’,
and this was co-led by people
            from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions.
 
At this event, we shared how our diverse faith traditions
            led us to the common ground of taking action, as people of faith,
            for the betterment of the common good.
 
This is public spirituality in action, in community,
            and as such it is deeply rooted in the traditions of our faith.
 
So, as we draw towards a close, I have a few parting thoughts
            on what spiritual disciplines for extroverts might look like.
 
At the heart of these is the question of where you get your energy.
            Where can the extroverted person go
                        to encounter the Spirit of Christ
            in ways that nurture and challenge,
                        but are also sustainable?
 
And how can these challenge each of us,
            whether we are ourselves Extroverted or Introverted,
            to meet God in new ways in our daily living?
 
My first suggestion is that we:
 
1.     Intentionally seek to encounter God through interaction with others.
 
When acknowledge that God is not only found in solitude
                        or quiet contemplation
            but also in the rich tapestry of human connections and relationships,
we rediscover that each person we encounter is a unique creation,
            bearing the image of God,
and that through authentic engagement with them, whoever they are,
            we experience the incarnation of God's love and grace
            in new and profound ways.
 
2.     Listen for the voice of Christ when talking with others.
 
What would it do for the quality of our relationships, I wonder,
            if we intentionally went into each conversation, each encounter,
expecting to hear words from Christ,
            spoken through the words of the other?
 
3.     Seek the counsel of others when engaging in discernment.
 
Both at a personal and communal level,
            we need each other in our decision-making.
 
One rather challenging example is issued Stuart Murray Williams,
            in his book ‘Beyond Tithing’,
where he encourages people to create communities of financial accountability,
            where decisions about what we do with our money
            are taken in dialogue with trusted fellow-disciples. 

 
As we seek counsel from friends, mentors, or spiritual leaders,
            we open ourselves to new perspectives and opportunities for growth
that may not have been apparent
            when considering our situation in isolation.
 
4.     Believe that it is as we gather that we discern the mind of Christ.
 
Rooted in the conviction
            that the collective wisdom and experience of the body of Christ
            can serve as a conduit for divine insight,
this practice calls us to prioritize the fellowship we belong to
            as an essential component of our spiritual journey.
 
The Baptist congregationalist conviction
            is that the discernment of the mind of Christ happens in community.
 
Our practice of the Church Meeting as the place of spiritual encounter,
            is one which locates the ultimate authority for decision making for a congregation,
            in the realm of interpersonal interaction.
 
Such a meeting might well include, in fact should certainly include,
            space for prayer and silence;
but as the Quakers have discovered,
            silence held in community is of a different quality to silence held individually.
There is something profoundly and appropriately extroverted
            about the Baptist spiritual practice of the church meeting.
 
5.     Practice accountability with others.
 
I’ve already mentioned the idea of financial accountability groups,
            as part of the discipline of seeking the counsel of others in discernment,
but by inviting trusted companions to hold us accountable more generally,
            in our intentions, commitments, and spiritual practices,
we embrace vulnerability and acknowledge our need
            for support and guidance along our faith journey.
 
For me, regular sessions with my Spiritual Director, and my Pastoral Supervisor,
            are crucial in helping maintain a rhythm of accountability in my spiritual life.
 
6.     Engage in introverted spiritual disciplines, but not daily.
 
For extroverts who thrive on social interaction,
            and may find energy in the company of others,
intentionally setting aside time to engage in introverted spiritual practices
            can build personal growth and spiritual maturity.
 
By embracing solitude and silence,
            extroverts can connect with their inner selves
and discern the voice of God in a more intimate and profound way.
 
However, it is important for extroverts to strike a balance
            between introverted and extroverted spiritual disciplines.
 
Engaging in introverted practices daily
            might prove overwhelming or draining
for those who draw energy from external sources.
 
By incorporating these practices periodically, rather than daily,
            extroverts can benefit from the rich insights gained through introspection
while maintaining a healthy balance in their spiritual journey.
 
7.     When Christ is encountered, tell someone about it.
 
I’m one of those people who often doesn’t realise something
            until I’ve told someone else about it.
 
And so the practice of sharing our testimonies and moments of divine connection
            helps to create a vibrant and supportive faith community
where individuals can learn from one another
            and grow in their relationship with God.
 
8.     Seek the forgiveness of others, because it is often there that our own forgiveness by Christ will be encountered.
 
When we take the courageous step
            of acknowledging our wrongdoings and asking for forgiveness,
we not only repair relationships
            but also open ourselves to experience the healing power of forgiveness
            in a more profound and tangible way.
 
This discipline encourages us to be vulnerable and honest,
            recognizing that our actions have the potential to cause harm
and that genuine reconciliation requires humility
            and a willingness to change.
 
9.     Pay attention to what is encountered in the other,
because it is often there that we find our inner self.
 
By truly listening to and learning from
            the stories, perspectives, and emotions of others,
we gain insights into our own thoughts, emotions, and motivations,
            ultimately enriching our spiritual growth and self-discovery.
 
As we connect with others on a deeper level,
            we begin to understand that our individual journeys
            are part of a larger tapestry of human experience,
and we discover that our inner selves
            are often reflected in the lives of those around us.
 
10.Recognise that works of justice are a form of prayer.
 
By actively working to address systemic injustices
            and to promote equity, inclusion, and compassion,
we are engaging in a powerful form of prayer
            that seeks to align our actions with the values and teachings of our faith.
 
Prayer is not limited
            to quiet contemplation or spoken words
but can also be expressed through a shared commitment
            to creating a more just and loving world.
 
Conclusion
 
My hope is that I’ve stimulated some thought,
            and maybe challenged some preconceptions,
 
but I’m very aware that what I’ve offered today
            is the beginnings of a journey of discovery.
 
It is, in essence, my own spiritual journey writ large,
            and that journey is far from complete.
 
We’ll be discussing all this the Online Group
            at the end of July,
and I’d love to invite you to come and be part of that
            to share your thoughts, your insights,
            your challenges, and your contributions,
as I continue trying to work out what it means
            to be intentionally spiritual
            in an extroverted personality.

---

[1] John Colwell, The Rhythm of Doctrine: A Liturgical Sketch of Christian Faith and Faithfulness.

Eternity in Each Present Moment

A sermon for the funeral of Bob Gardiner

14 June 2024

 

Romans 8.38-39
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
It is a fearful thing to be asked to preach
            at a funeral service where the set reading for the congregation
            includes Paul Tillich’s ‘Sermon on Time’;
but this is the task Bob, in his wisdom, has set for me,
            so let’s see how we get on.
 
I’d like to begin with a short poem,
            which I wrote for Advent a few years ago.
I hope it captures some of the thinking in Tillich’s sermon,
            whilst raising the question of what eternity might mean
            to us mere mortals, contemplating the fleeting frailty of our human existence.
 
A poem for Advent:
 

Divine Time is not a line,

from Earth to Heaven,

from Hell to redemption,

from here to there.

 

Divine Time is a circle;

a spiral of turning.

 

As the seasons turn the year,

the hands of Divine Time

proscribe their journey

from start to start,

and from end to end.

 

Now is the start,

and now is the end.

 

'Eternity in each present moment'.

 
Well, the Christian doctrine of resurrection is not, contrary to popular opinion,
            all about the afterlife;
and neither can 'eternal life' simply be reduced
            to ‘pie in the sky when you die’.
 
Rather, they are about living the eternal value of each day,
            so that all that is good in life is not lost.
 
Eternal life, as my poem puts it,
            is ‘eternity in each present moment’.
 
William Blake captures this same insight
            in his poem Auguries of Innocence, in which he invites us…
 

To see a World in a grain of sand,

And a Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.

 
Scripture tells us that God is love, and that God is eternal,
            and at our life’s conclusion all that we have ever been,
                        from young child, through strong adulthood,
                        to infirmity and helplessness,
            all this is swept up within the love of God
                        and held in God’s eternal loving embrace.
 
This is the Christian perspective on eternal life,
            and it is Christ’s gift in the face of death.
 
It’s not always recognised these days
            that death is at the heart of the Christian faith.
 
Yet in any church, symbols of death are all around:
            From the cross on the wall,
                        to the bread and wine of the Eucharist,
            bodies break, blood is spilled,
                        and mortal life comes to its end.
 
However, Christians tend to devote far more time focussing on life in all its fullness,
            than we do confronting the reality of death.
 
And in this, of course, we mirror the world around us,
            which consigns death to the specialists,
            and dangles the goal of eternal youth before us all.
 
As seventy becomes the new fifty,
            we pursue the dream of health and activity into old age,
            and deny to ourselves the truth of our own mortality.
 
It was once the case, before modern medical advances,
            that death was a regular reality for all people.
 
Death occurred primarily in the home,
            and it was not unusual
            to sit with the body of a family member who had died.
 
But these days, we confine death to the hospitals,
            and many of us have never been with a dead body.
 
Within the medical profession, death has become the great enemy,
            to be avoided at all costs.
 
And we focus our energies on keeping people alive,
            even sometimes beyond the point
            where death would be the more appropriate gift to offer.
 
But Christianity, with death at the heart of its faith,
            brings a different perspective on the end of life,
            which stands as a prophetic witness to the world.
 
And that perspective is this:
            Death is no longer the mortal enemy of humankind.
            Death’s power over people is broken,
                        because in Christ we find the hope of resurrection;
                        in Christ we find the promise and hope of eternal life.
 
It’s important here
            that we don’t confuse ‘eternal life’ with ‘living forever’,
they aren’t the same thing at all.
 
‘Eternal life’ is a quality of life that endures beyond the grave,
            and it comes as the gift of God, given through Christ Jesus.
 
Whereas ‘Living forever’ is simply an attempt to deny the mortality of humanity,
            and is always ultimately going to founder in the face of death.
 
Even Lazarus, called forth from his tomb, would die again. (cf. John 21.21-24)
 
So what is death? And what is life?
            What, if anything, is the purpose of life?
            What, if anything, is the meaning of death?
Shakespeare’s Macbeth
            after hearing the news that his wife has died,
captures the existential question in beautiful poetry:
 

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act 5, scene 5

 
In his despair, Macbeth strikes right at the heart
            of the fundamental question of life:
What does it count for?
            What is it good for?
                        What, if anything, is its value?
Is it all just destined for destruction?
 
Such thoughts were certainly on the mind
            of the criminal who found himself being tortured and executed
                        next to Jesus of Nazareth.
 
We don’t know his crime,
            but Rome had deemed that he should die before his time.
In contrast to those standing around the cross watching on,
            and in contrast to the occupant of the third cross,
this criminal still sought meaning to his life even as it ended:
            ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Luke 23.42).
 
The hope expressed here was that one day,
            at some future point
                        when wrongs are righted and balances balanced,
            there might be a place for this man
                        in Jesus’ messianic kingdom.
 
In his reply, Jesus gave the criminal on the cross
            far more than he was expecting:
‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said, ‘today you will be with me in Paradise.’ (Luke 23.43).
 
The criminal’s hope for participation in a future kingdom
            became the promise of a present paradise.
 
This word paradise derives from the Persian word for a walled garden,
            and Jesus’ use of it here brings to mind the garden of God,
            an image familiar to us from the story of the garden of Eden (Gen. 2.8).
 
But the divine garden is more than a place now lost,
            it is a way of life, and a state of soul.
 
The paradise into which Jesus invites the criminal
            is the eternal garden
which is open to all those who seek it,
            as the curse of Eden (Gen. 3.23-24) is reversed
                        and the unrighteous find life everlasting within God’s garden
                        (Rev. 2.7, 21.25-22.2).
 
This criminal’s life was not, it seems, wasted;
            and neither, therefore, are ours.
 
He received forgiveness
            and his life was found to have eternal value.
 
He entered into eternal life
            through his encounter with the crucified messiah.
 
This idea that life may have some eternal quality to it,
            that it may be more than ‘a walking shadow’ that leaves no trace,
is a key theme within the biblical witness.
 
But the concept of an ‘afterlife’
            only develops fairly late within this tradition.
 
In the Old Testament, divine reward and punishment
            are predominantly depicted as taking place within this world,
                        with faithfulness to God bringing blessing,
                        and disobedience, misfortune.
 
However, there are occasional glimpses
            of an emerging belief that,
                        whilst at death the body returns to dust,
            the spirit of life returns to the God who gave it (Ecc. 12.7).
 
So Enoch and Elijah are said to find a place in the heavenly realms
            after their earthly lives have finished (Gen. 5.24; 2 Kgs 2.1-18).
 
And the Psalms provide an even clearer basis
            for a Jewish hope in an afterlife
                        (Pss. 1.3; 16.10-11; 49.15; 73.24; 139.24),
while Job states clearly his belief
            that in his flesh he shall see God
            even after the destruction of his body (Job 19.25-27).
 
However, it is within the apocalyptic tradition
            that a view starts to emerge of the afterlife
                        as a place of reward and judgment,
            with those who have been faithful in this life,
                        but who have experienced nothing but trials and persecutions,
            starting to look to eternity
                        as the place where justice and vindication might be found
                        (Dan. 12.2-3).
 
In the New Testament,
            eternal life as articulated by Jesus
                        is less about a hope for the future,
            and more about present lived reality for those who are in Christ.
 
Life eternal, for Jesus, is life lived in all its fullness,
            it is life freed from slavish devotion
                        to those powers and principalities
            that distort and demean God’s image in each created being.
 
So Jesus promises ‘eternal life’ to anyone who ‘believes’ (Jn. 6.47),
            and in the Lazarus story he declares himself
                        ‘the resurrection and the life’ (Jn. 11.23-24). 
 
Paul emphasises the immediate implications
            of having been united with Christ
                        in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6.5),
            and believes that once he ‘departs’
                        he will be ‘with Christ’ (Phil. 1.21-24).
 
The dawning eternal kingdom of God
            into which Christian believers are invited,
            and for which they are asked to pray (Matt. 6.10),
becomes manifest in the lives of those who live it.
 
But it is again the apocalyptic tradition
            that gives us the most compelling images
            of the afterlife in the New Testament,
with the book of Revelation portraying the ultimate destiny of creation
            as a return to the garden of God,
            God's paradise in the midst of the eternal city (Rev. 22.1-6).
 
Part of this recovery of that which was lost at Eden
            is the stripping away from creation
                        of all that has no eternal value,
            with God’s ultimate judgment on evil and all its works
                        emerging as a key theme.
 
The concept of ‘hell’ in the New Testament
            is most often expressed in terms of the valley of gehenna,
a burning rubbish dump outside the walls of Jerusalem,
            where the worthless refuse of the city was consigned to the flames
            (Matt. 5.22-30; 10.28; 18.9; 23.15, 33; Mar. 9.43-47; Lk. 12.5; Jam. 3.6).
 
All human activities which displace God from the centre of creation
            are shown to be futile
as God’s eternity comes into being
            in the midst of those communities that name Jesus as Lord.
 
Ultimately even death itself
            is consigned to the flames of destruction (Rev. 20.14).
 
So the witness of the New Testament
            is that for those who are ‘in Christ’,
                        life eternal begins here-and-now.
 
The goodness, mercy and forgiveness offered and received today
            are eternity in the present moment,
as the world is re-created
            through the faithful witness of those
                        who have been united with Christ
            in his death and resurrection.
 
Salvation is not about where the soul goes after death,
            neither is resurrection about what happens to the body
                        after it stops breathing.

Eternal life is not the spiritual equivalent

    of a final salary pension scheme,

paying out on death depending on the amount put in over a lifetime.
 
According to Paul in Romans 8,
            salvation and resurrection in Christ
                        are about the renewal of all creation
                        through the gift of new life by the Spirit:
He says, ‘If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin,
            the Spirit is life because of righteousness’ (Rom. 8:10).
 
By this understanding, the question ‘where do we go when we die?’
            becomes redundant,
because death has no power or meaning
            for those who are ‘in Christ’.
 
As Paul again puts it: ‘There is therefore now no condemnation
            for those who are in Christ Jesus’
because nothing, ‘neither death, nor life,
            nor angels, nor rulers,
                        nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
            nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
            from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8.1, 38-39).
 
Our eternal lives
            are inextricably interwoven with the physicality of creation,
            and eternally interwoven with the reality of God.
 
I do not accept that our souls are trapped in this vale of tears,
            waiting to shuffle off this mortal coil
            as we make our way to somewhere better.
 
Rather, I believe that each moment of our lives carries eternal value,
            that each second that we live is precious to the God who is beyond time.
 
If Christ is raised, then Christ is alive to all people, in all places, at all times,
            and therefore, our whole lives, from birth to death,
            are held forever within God’s eternal love.
 
I believe that God embraces the creativity of our lives,
            gathering into eternity everything we are, everything we do,
            everyone we love, every thought we have.
 
All of us - our bodies, our actions, our prayers, our relationships,
            all these are part of who we are in God’s undying care.
 
So it’s not a question of where we go when we die,
            rather, it’s a deep conviction of God’s eternal love
            which is real for us in the here-and-now.
 
In opposition to Plato,
            this world is not something to escape,
            but a reality to embrace in all its fulness.
 
All that ever is, is contained within God’s love,
            all that exists is redeemed by the cross of Christ,
every act of evil is judged, found wanting, and banished,
            and every act of love is valued and held eternally.
This is resurrection.
 
When we pray, ‘your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.’
            we are expressing our hope, the hope given to us by Christ,
            that heaven comes to us on earth, not that we go to heaven.
 
Heaven is the unseen dimension of Creation where God’s will resides,
            it is the antithesis of Plato’s spiritual realm which is beyond creation.
 
And when we pray for God’s will to be done,
            we are praying for heaven to merge with earth and bring it to fulfilment,
            and we are holding before God the whole of the created order.
 
In a world of environmental catastrophe and climate crisis,
            we cannot afford the luxury of escapist theologies
            which devalue the earth in favour of a heavenly home.
 
This is our home, it was Bob’s home,
            and it is the stage on which our shared eternity is shaped.
And all of this world, all of us, each part of us,
            is loved by God and is part of God eternally.
 
This is resurrection, this is the hope of eternity,
            and it is our hope for the here-and-now.
 
One final poem for you, this time a verse from a hymn
            written by Colin Gibson:
 
Nothing is lost on the breath of God,
nothing is lost forever;
God's breath is love, and that love will remain,
holding the world forever.
No feather too light, no hair too fine,
no flower too brief in its glory,
no drop in the ocean, no dust in the air,
but is counted and told in God's story.
 

Praying the Powers

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

9^th June 2024

  
Luke 11.2-4
  
In my sermon on prayer a couple of weeks ago,
            I spoke about how we need to move away from the idea
            of prayer as something which unlocks certain actions from God,
and how instead we need to see it
            as an exercise in bringing our own lives
            into alignment with the purposes of God’s will.
 
Well, I want to return to this topic of prayer today,
            as I think there is much more still to be explored here. [1]
 
I guess my starting point for us today
            is the question of what it is, that reduces you to prayer?
 
For most of us,
            prayer is something that gets squeezed out of our lives.
 
Unless you’re very disciplined,
            and have a regular practise of daily devotional Bible study and prayer,
                        or daily meditation,
            it is all too easy for prayer to be something
                        that only ever happens when we are driven to it,
            something that emerges in our lives
                        when we are in extremis, burned out, with very little else left
                        as a viable option except turning in desperation to prayer.
 
Sometimes it is the struggle against injustice
            that drives us to prayer,
the experience of being done unto, done down, and done over.
 
And for all of our intellectualising about prayer
            many people who pray, do so
                        not because they have come to rationally reasoned conclusions
                                    about its efficacy,
                        but because they are simply desperate
                                    in the face of powers that are threatening to overwhelm them,
                        and so they have nothing left but to turn to God in prayer.
 
And it is this sense of engaging through prayer
            with powers that so often seem utterly beyond us,
            that I want us to explore to day.
 
As a congregation, Bloomsbury has a long history of activism.
            We go head-to-head with issues of injustice both locally and globally.
And I love this about us,
            it is one of the things that makes us so compelling as a congregation.
 
Our spirituality is worked out
            in acts of compassion and justice in the world.
 
But sometimes, no amount of action is going to shift the dial.
 
Some injustices are so deep seated, so deep rooted in the world,
            that they are beyond any action we can take.
 
This doesn’t mean of course, that we don’t try.
 
But without prayer, our actions run the risk
            of becoming merely good works
            that justify our lack of deeper spiritual engagement.
 
The antidote to this of course is prayer.
 
At the conference I was speaking at a couple of weeks ago,
            I was arguing that prayer does not have to involve
                        regular morning prayer
            and it doesn’t have to involve
                        contemplative or sacramental actions.
 
In fact, there is no set form for prayer at all.
            Because prayer is not fundamentally a religious practise for us to do,
            rather it is our existential struggle
                        against those forces which seem to be beyond us,
            it is the battle of our inner being
                        with the powers that would diminish us.
 
It's worth thinking for a moment
            about the way in which prayer was characterised in the first century.
 
In the ancient world, God lived in Heaven,
            up there somewhere above the clouds.
 
The Divine throne was surrounded by living creatures
            and angels and other divine beings.
 
So when someone on earth prayed a prayer,
            their prayers were gathered into heaven by the angelic beings
                        and laid before God’s throne.
 
It was a kind of heavenly mirror
            of the way in which petitions from people
            were brought before a human king.
 
And, like an earthly king, once God had heard the prayer
            God’s answer would be relayed back out from the throne room
            to the person who had made the petition.
 
And whilst we might want to reject the cosmology here,
            (after all none of us really believes that God sits on a throne
            somewhere up there above the clouds),
we shouldn’t lose the spiritual truth
            that lies behind the contextualised image.
 
And the truth is this, that everything visible
            has an invisible or heavenly dimension.
 
I spoke a little bit about this last week,
            in my sermon on the environment.
 
Do you remember that I quoted my friend Noel Moules,
            who has said that everything is sacred.
 
If it is true, and I think it is, that everything is sacred,
            then there is a flow of spirituality between who we are,
                        and the world we inhabit,
                        and the world beyond us.
 
I think this is what Jesus is getting at in the Lord’s prayer,
            when he instructs his disciples to pray that God’s will
            be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.
 
The difficulty for us, with our scientific rational materialistic world view,
            is that we don’t really believe
either that God is up there,
            or that heaven exists as a real place just beyond our grasp.
 
From a materialistic perspective, the only stuff that exists
            is that which we can perceive with our senses.
And in such a worldview praying gets reduced
            to mere wishing, hoping, and dreaming.
 
In our collective efforts to demystify the world,
            we have quite rightly dispensed with a superstitious approach to prayer.
But the danger however is that we end up dispensing with prayer altogether.
 
Shedding ourselves of pre scientific beliefs
            should not rob us of the deeper spirituality
            that these ancient stories convey.
 
If we reduce prayer to self-hypnosis, self-examination, or self-centering,
            we rob it of its ability to transform the world.
 
We need, I honestly think, a renewal of our spirituality.
            And I think the sense of ourselves as inherently spiritual,
                        along with the sacredness of all things,
            is a profoundly helpful place to start.
 
After all, every single part of us, every molecule, every atom,
            has, over the preceding millennia, been part
                        of streams, rivers, mountains, gases, and indeed stars.
            We are so deeply connected to the created order,
                        that our spirituality surely must arise
                        from that deep connectivity.
 
So every time we turn our attention to the world beyond ourselves,
            every time we look outward rather than inward,
we participate in a world in which the selfishness of humanity is undone,
            and in which the values of God’s kingdom are made that bit more real.
 
Every week here at Bloomsbury,
            we end the service with our prayers of intercession.
We articulate the needs of the world before God,
            collectively asking that God will hear and heed our desire
            that the world be different.
 
When we pray our prayers of intercession,
            we are engaging in an act of spiritual defiance.
 
You see, the world knows how these things go,
            the world knows that people suffer and die,
            that wars are fought, and that the climate crisis is inevitable.
 
And yet when we articulate together before God
            our hope that the world can be different,
we create a world that can be different.
 
This is what is called the politics of hope,
            and it is the outcome of intercessory prayer.
 
It is the collective spiritual act
            of envisaging an alternative future,
and then acting as if that future is now irresistible,
            thus helping to create the reality for which we have been praying.
 
The key thing here, is that the future is not closed.
            The outcome is not certain.
 
And a world in which a different outcome has been prayed for,
            is a world in which a different outcome might actually happen.
 
I worked with someone a few years ago,
            who had a sign on his notice board.
It said, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference,
            you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito”.
 
Sometimes, the prayers of the faithful few
            can make all the difference in the world.
 
This isn’t simply suggesting that our prayers to God bounce back on us,
            for us to become the solution to our prayers.
Although I’m sure that this is often what happens.
 
Rather, I think that our prayers offered in hope
            for a different future to that which seems inevitable,
actually change the world
            and change what is possible in the world.
 
New futures are born in our prayers.
 
When we pray, we open up space in ourselves,
            in our lives, and in our communities,
            within which God is invited to act.
 
As we pray, we become partners with God.
 
We are not manipulating God into action,
            and neither are we asking God to compromise human freedom or free will.
 
Rather, through the very essence of our being,
            our free will is turned outward to the needs of others,
            and becomes the path down which God’s grace can walk into our world.
 
Walter Wink captures something of this urgency in prayer.
 
He says that, “prayer is rattling God’s cage and waking God up
            and setting God free
and giving this famished God water
            and this starved God food
and cutting the ropes off God’s hands
            and the manacles off God’s feet
and washing the caked sweat from God’s eyes
            and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy
and following God wherever God goes.”
 
Which brings us, I think to the question of unanswered prayer.
 
I don’t know what you’ve been told over the years
            about the problem of our prayers seeming to fall on deaf ears.
 
Maybe you have been told that you lacked faith,
            or were too sinful, or were asking for the wrong thing,
or maybe you have been told
            that God sometimes simply just says no
            because God knows better than we do.
 
Well, all of these things may occasionally be true.
 
Sometimes we do lack faith, sometimes we are sinful,
            sometimes we pray for ridiculous things,
and sometimes we ask for things
            that are entirely beyond God’s good intent for humans.
 
But these things are not directly related to prayer.
 
Jesus says that prayers only need faith the size of a grain of mustard,
            or in other words, we only need any faith at all.
 
Our faith may be misguided,
            it may be full of doubt and holes,
            it may come from a place of sin,
            it may be utterly self deceived.
But if we have any faith at all, then that is enough for us to pray.
 
I remember in my first church we had a child in the church
            who developed a cancerous tumour.
She was going into hospital for treatment,
            which thankfully was ultimately successful.
But we didn’t know that that would be the outcome.
 
One service we had a time of open prayer,
            and one of my colleagues raised his voice
                        and just shouted at God,
            that this was utterly unacceptable
                        for a child to be facing such an illness.
 
It was one of the most powerful prayers I have ever heard,
            and it wasn’t actually asking God to do anything.
It was simply holding God to account
            for the terrible thing that was happening in the world.
 
And sometimes that is all we can do in prayer.
            In our anger and frustration, in our hurt and our pain,
            we hold before God the needs of our world.
 
And not necessarily in direct expectation that God will sort or solve.
 
There are institutions, and structures, and systems that dominate our world,
            and affect our lives, and ruin our health and our planet.
 
And our task in prayer
            is to continue kicking the darkness until it bleeds daylight,
            as Bruce Cockburn so memorably put it. [2]
 
Sometimes there is no quick fix, no ready solution.
 
As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long,
            but it bends towards justice.
Human freedom thwarts the coming of God’s kingdom at every turn.
 
Every act of evil, every selfish desire, every thoughtless moment,
            all these create the powers of sin and death in our world.
 
But prayer reverses this process.
            As we align ourselves with the values of God’s kingdom,
                        as we pray for justice and liberation, for forgiveness and love,
            we create a world in which God’s ability to intervene
                        in the affairs of humans is increased rather than decreased.
 
Our calling is to live in the place of tension,
            where our hope in God’s ability to act
is matched by our realism in recognising the capacity
            of human activity to restrict God’s action.
 
The powers of evil in our world continue to thwart God.
 
We live in a world of death camps, invasions, and drone warfare,
            of nuclear bombs, cancer, and starvation.
And yet despite all of these, in fact to spite all of these,
            we are called to nonetheless be people of hope, people of prayer.
 
We cannot stop praying for what is right
            just because our prayers are seemingly unanswered.
 
Our prayers are heard the very first day we pray,
            and we keep praying because even one more day
            is too long to wait for justice.
 
As we pray, and particularly as we pray collectively,
            we create the alternative human community,
where the values of the kingdom of Heaven
            are made real in our midst.
 
When people pray, they withdraw their consent to the powers of darkness,
            and whenever sufficient numbers of people withdraw their consent,
            the powers that dominate the world inevitably fall.
 
To quote Walter Wink again,
            he says that, “recognition of the role of the powers in blocking prayer
                        can revolutionise the way we pray…
            We will recognise that God, too, is hemmed in
                        by forces that cannot simply be overruled.
            We will know that God will prevail,
                        but not necessarily in a way that is comprehensible
                        except through the cross.”
 
It is this insight from the crucifixion of Jesus,
            that I think opens prayer to another level.
 
When Jesus wanted to do battle
            with the principalities and powers of evil in the world,
            he did so not by taking a sword and defeating them.
 
That would have been playing them at their own game,
            and would ultimately have failed.
 
Rather Jesus took into himself all of the suffering
            that the powers cause in the world.
 
In his death, is every victim’s death.
 
And it is only through the defeat of the cross,
            that ultimate victory over the powers of sin and death is secured.
 
It is only when God enters into the depths of human suffering,
            that the path to new life is opened.
 
So when we pray, as we must, as we do, and as we will,
            we pray for the spirituality of our families, our communities,
                        our corporations and businesses, and our nations.
 
These systems can be corrupted,
            but they can also be redeemed.
 
And this is surely something to pray about
            as we approach an election!
 
Just as we are deeply connected with one another,
            and with nature, and with the planet;
so also are we deeply interconnected.
 
Prayer, offered in and through Jesus Christ,
            informed by the cross,
            and infused with the hope of the resurrection,
is the best path to hope that we have,
            it is the gift of God,
            and we lose it at our peril.
 
So friends, let us pray.
            In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] This sermon draws on Walter Wink, ‘The Powers that Be’, chapter 10 ‘Prayer and the Powers’.
[2] https://youtu.be/NKjgJ3oLJqE?si=wIN7Xk_1yHg1mKls