Dying for the half-hearted and the corrupt

A priest is trying to escape from his sick captor, who is lying on the ground holding his ankle and decides at that moment to make his confession:

"Shall I tell you what I've done? - it's your business to listen. I've taken money from women to do you know what [...] I've given money to boys - you know what I mean. And I've eaten meat on Fridays." The awful jumble of the gross, the trivial, and the grotesque shot up between the two yellow fangs, and the hand on the priest's ankle shook and shook with the fever. "I've told lies, I haven't fasted in Lent for I don't know how many years. Once I had two women - I'll tell you what I did..." He had an immense self-importance: he was unable to picture a world of which he was only a typical part - a world of treachery, violence and lust in which his shame was altogether insignificant. How often the priest had heard the same confession - Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization - it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.

- Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (Penguin, 1962 [1940]), 97.

Sin is boring, repetitive, old. God says, "Behold, I make all things new!"
Photo by Greg Fox.

What is the church?

Have you ever paused to think how strange a thing church is? Over the weekend, I found myself trying to explain the concept to someone without much experience of a Christian community before. These were some of my attempts in a long rambling conversation that spanned a few hours in a pub.

We’re an open-ended experiment testing the words of Jesus.

We’re an alternative society based not on money or beauty or usefulness, but on grace, on God’s free gift.

We’re a community who recognise the need to continually confess our failures, repent of them and forgive one another if we are to live together in anything more than polite superficiality.

We’re a global peace network suspicious of both bland globalisation and violent tribalism.

We’re a bunch of people who find it impossible to not talk about God. And who find it impossible to talk about God without speaking of Jesus. And who find it impossible to talk about God without ending up talking to God, often with laughter or tears.

Confession is good for the soul...

...but bad for the career. Or maybe not - it doesn't seem to have hurt Kevin Rudd so far.

In any case, I've been tagged by Benjamin for a meme for an interesting site called Christians confess. The directions for the meme are these:

• Apologize for three things that Christians have often got wrong. Your apologies should be directed towards those who don’t view themselves as part of the Christian community. Alternatively, apologize for things you personally have done wrong towards those outside of the church.
• Post a comment at the originating post so others can keep track of the apologies.
• Tag five people to participate in the meme.
• If desired, send an email with the link to your blog post at the Christians Confess site, giving permission for your apologies to be added to the website.

1. I am sorry that I don't laugh more. And cry more. I am sorry that Christians have treated emotions with suspicion. I am sorry that the good news is sometimes restricted to the head and doesn't also include the heart, hands and feet. I am sorry when we don't weep with a groaning world and overflow with Easter laughter.

2. I am sorry for acting as though it were possible to love God without loving my neighbour.

3. I am sorry for speaking when I should have been silent. And for being silent when I should have spoken. I am sorry for thinking I knew all the answers and for forgetting that Jesus is truly good news.

I tag Boxologies, Dead Flies and Perfume, Duck5, Hebel and Frankly, Mr Shankly - all selected for having obscure blog names.
Five points for the first to correctly name this building.

On prayer

Prayer begins in silence. This is because we do not know God unless he speaks first. There can only be a conversation because he has taken the initiative. Left to ourselves, we invent gods of our own wishes and fears, but the good news is that God has spoken to us in his Son. We are not left in the dark, but can respond to his gracious invitation to relationship with him as our heavenly Father. If he had not reached out to us in our need, then we would be ignorant of both the true nature and depth of our need and the identity of the one whom we might call upon to help.

Of course, sometimes our needs are so pressing that all we can do is cry that most basic of prayers: ‘Save me, Lord!’ And the Scriptures promise that ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’ (Joel 2.32; Acts 2.21; Romans 10.13). Yet it is not just any lord to whom we fly in our distress, but to the God and Father of Jesus. As we come to know him, we also grow in our understanding of ourselves and the depth of our dependence upon him.

Our prayers are profoundly shaped by our conception of God. If God is a cosmic Santa Claus, we will bring our shopping list. If he is a harsh and distant judge, then our pleas will be fearful, brief and infrequent. And so to grow in prayer, it is important to remember again the good news about Jesus and allow our prayers to be moulded by God as he truly is.

First, God is the creator to whom we owe our existence and all we have. Every good thing comes from him, and so it is right that our prayers be filled with adoration. And not just when things are good. The Psalms are filled with examples of David and others continuing to praise God in the midst of danger and suffering (Psalms 5, 73, 77, 86 and many others).

When we face our own strife and failure it is usually partially self-caused and partially the result of circumstances outside our control. To the extent that we are at fault for our own pain, it is God whom we have ultimately offended and so it is also right that we confess our errors in our prayers: whether large or small, public or private, in word or deed – or even through not doing what we ought to have done. At this point, knowing the heart of God to whom we confess makes all the difference. This is the one who is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Exodus 34.6), the one whose Son lived, died and rose to secure our forgiveness.

Not only has God given us life and all the good things we enjoy, but in Jesus he has also brought new life to all of us living in the shadow of death. This includes both release from guilt and the gift of the Spirit to set us free from the compulsion to do evil. In Christ, we are adopted as God’s children and let in on God’s plan to set everything right through Christ. We have so much for which to give thanks in our prayers and so it is no surprise that Paul tells the Thessalonians to ‘Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.’ (1 Thessalonians 5.16-18)

Yet we know that everything is not yet right. Jesus has risen from the dead and we follow his path with the help of the Spirit, but death still interrupts, sins still entangle. Paul told the Christians in Rome that the whole world groans for the day when what was begun at Easter for Jesus is finished for all creation (Romans 8.18-23). And we also groan, yearning for the day when Jesus will return to bring life and peace once and for all to his dying and war-torn world. Such prayers might consist of ‘sighs too deep for words’ (Romans 8.26-27) or they might simply cry ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ (Revelation 22.20)

And so that leaves us today, cleansed from our past, eagerly waiting for the future, and living each day relying on God for all our needs. Consequently, we ask for daily bread from the one who fed Israel in the wilderness and who gives good things abundantly even to those who ignore him (Matthew 5.45). We need not be embarrassed about asking from one who loves to give. But neither ought we fear asking: ‘Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.’ (Psalm 37.4) If our delight is in God, the desires of our heart will be shaped to be his desires and so he will satisfy them with more than we can ask or imagine.

There is power in prayer, but it is not ours; it is God’s. Prayer is not a magic formula giving us access to a secret and mysterious force. Prayer is an admission of our impotence and need, and of God’s generosity and strength. The more we know him as we hear and obey the good news about Jesus, the more our prayers will be filled with adoration, confession, thanksgiving, groaning and requests.

And the more we will pray.
Twelve points for the first to correctly name the location of the each photo.

Out of the closet meme

Started (as all good memes are these days) by Ben Myers,* this new meme should probably be called 'into the closet', since the idea is to make confessions about one's theology. Ben has collected many examples of the meme spreading if you want to get some idea of what I'm talking about.

I confess that I find the idea of blog confession more than a little odd (who will pronounce absolution?).

I confess that I think this meme is often just a chance to showcase one's theological credentials in the form of admitting embarrassing influences, or an opportunity to attack one's opponents through disclosing feelings of frustration.

I confess that I find both those activities more attractive than I should.

I confess that Augustine's Confessions is the real start of this meme.

I confess that to criticise a meme intended for a minute's amusement is probably small-minded.
*Though it was originally inspired by this post by Peter Leithart, it was Ben who turned it into a meme. I was then tagged by Rob, who is out of hospital again - excellent news!
I confess that I entered this cathedral with no intention of paying the (recently introduced and quite hefty) entrance fee, but just wanted a brief (free) sticky-beak - and so I walked in, asked the price (which I already knew), declined, snapped the shot, and walked out. I also confess I'll give twelve points to the first correct guess of which cathedral it is.