Thurs 5th April, 7.30pm: A Tenebrae Service.

Fri 6th April, 10am:  Good Friday

Sun 8th April, 10am: Easter Sunday

This is the title of an article on Stuff.  Noting how well tobacco and some other ethically/environmentally ‘dubious’ stocks are doing, the question is whether ethical investment is worthwhile.  One bank investment strategist is quoted: “given the levels

Luke reports that Jesus told his disciples to be generous to those who were not in a position to return the favour.   God himself would repay the poor’s debt to the generous on the day of resurrection:

“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the  resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14.13-14)

Immigration New Zealand (the old NZ Immigration Service)  reminded me of Jesus’ command with their briefing paper to the incoming minister, the Hon. Nathan Guy, which was leaked to the media this week.   It turns out that the Cabinet had agreed back in May 2011 to change the rules around sponsoring family members to live in NZ.  Under these new proposed regulations if you are relatively wealthy, and you want family members to join you in New Zealand, Immigration NZ is going to make it easier.  But if you’re relatively poor it’s going to get a lot more difficult.  You see the Government wants skilled and productive migrants who don’t go on benefits and they reckon relatives of poorer New Zealanders aren’t a good bet.

Good people, Jesus implied, don’t simply make decisions on the basis of narrow self interest.  It’s in the ultimate interests of a good community for people to practise selflessness and generosity.  This immigration policy reeks of discrimination against the poor and surrender to a narrow vision of nationalistic self-interest.   I’m not advocating the Government recklessly  opens the country up to abuse by opportunistic migrants and their New Zealand relatives. It’s about politicians showing moral leadership, and the values policy makers inculcate into our society through their work.

The best banquets says Jesus are given in a generous spirit.  A truth, by the way, beautifully described in the 1987 Danish movie, Babette’s Feast.  Recommended viewing for the Hon Nathan Guy and his policy advisers at Immigration New Zealand.

Here’s a downloadable copy of the Lenten Calendar I gave out at church last Sunday.  The daily challenges and suggestions push the idea that Lent is not just about giving up things.  It’s also about engaging with God and others in deeper and more compassionate ways.  Hopefully you’ll find it fun as well.  Great to share how you’re going with friends and family.

Lent Calendar 2012

We’ve had the Spirit Level.  The recent election raised more debate about income

inequality.  Today the OECD is reported to have found “NZ rich-poor gap widens faster than rest of world” (NZ Herald online, 7 Dec).  I’m not so sure that slogans like “trickle down” explain much about income inequalities, but it did occur to me that Christians do believe in one sort of trickle down: the coming down of God to be with us at Christmas (a mere ‘trickle’ of a child).  This trickle down, we say, did raise humanity up to God.  But I believe the incarnation is meant to be more than a one-off trickle down.  Doesn’t Christmas and our belief in God’s incarnation direct us towards a trickle down lifestyle?  Where we follow Jesus’ lead and humbly share the riches of God’s renewing presence in our lives with others.  Not by pontificating from the spiritual heights; but by ‘living down’.   Regardless of how much money we have, this is the lifestyle recommended to us by God through Christmas.  Perhaps, though, it’s a bit like taxes.  We believe in it as long as it doesn’t cost us much.

I missed this interview by Chris Nichol with Kim Workman earlier in the year.  Nigel Hanscamp, the Methodist missions resourcing director, has drawn our attention back to it on his blog site.    Kim was one time head of the NZ prison service and is nowadays one of  NZ’s most well known advocates for reform around the prison and justice systems.  My connection with Kim is through Restorative Justice.  But here Chris talks with Kim about his life and in particular his spiritual journey.  It’s a fascinating story which I found inspiring.

A resource I find helpful in dealing with the interface between science and Christianity comes from the Faraday Institute at Cambridge.   On their site you’ll find a multitude of video/audio and written material from Christian scientists, theologians and philosophers.  Topics like the evolution/creation debate, brain research and the philosophy of science and religion are dealt with.  I see they’re coming to Dunedin later in the year dealing with the topic ‘The New Atheism’.

Something I have just spotted is their site for school kids.  Called Faraday Schools it looks like a brilliant way of helping kids work through the issues about science and God.  The little bit I’ve looked at  was about evolution and belief in God.  It  has wee video clips answering questions kids put.  The clips show various options and point out that often science and religion are attempting to answer different questions about the same phenomenon.  The take home lesson is that science and religion can complement one another.  Christians don’t need to grow up thinking that scientists are bound to reject faith or that Christians are bound to reject large sways of science.

John Stott, the famous Anglican leader of worldwide evangelical Christianity, died on July 27.  Along with Billy Graham, Stott was probably the most influential evangelical in the 20th century.  He was rector of the well known All Souls church in Langham Place, London from 1950-1975, and then increasingly bestrode the world promoting a bible-centred Christian faith.  Perhaps he greatest influence was through his writing, as the Telegraph obituary notes: Stott’s influence was greatly extended through his commitment to writing. He was the author of around 50 books, some of them Bible commentaries, others dealing with basic elements in Christianity, and all capable of being read with profit by both clergy and laity. These achieved enormous sales in paperback editions, and in some quarters were accorded an authority scarcely beneath that of the Bible. Virtually all of his considerable royalties went to charitable trusts.

Recently I’ve been writing about his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.  Like all of his books, its effectiveness lies in its intelligent simplicity.  No intellectual snob, his books are aimed at the mass Christian market – because he wanted to change and challenge ordinary Christians.  One of the those challenges arising from his work on the Sermon on the Mount was for evangelicals to re-appropriate  the public sphere and, in particular, issues of social justice.  This was a sphere evangelicals had largely retreated from (called ‘The Great Reversal’) in the wake of the perceived threat of liberal theology, ‘the social gospel’ and Darwinism around the turn of the 20th century.  At the famous Lausanne Congress on Evangelism in 1974, he was instrument in the reassertion of public policy and a concern for the poor as of equal importance to preaching the Gospel.

He remained unmarried for the sake of the Gospel, was a keen bird watcher and photographer, and, according to the Telegraph, died listening to Handel’s Messiah.  Many like me, owe a debt of gratitude to this man’s faithful and thoughtful energy for a biblically faithful and publicly engaged Christianity.

Last week I heard a presentation about ‘contextual biblical interpretation’ from a biblical studies lecturer in one of our denominational seminaries.  He was introducing a group of clergy and lay church leaders to the academic postmodernist concern that the meaning we get from texts actually comes (in large part) from us who are reading the texts.  He was inviting us to bring our own ‘readers’ perspective’ to biblical texts and re-interpret them through our own cultural lenses.  As I understand it, this is what he had done in his doctorate – ‘reading’ a biblical text from the point of view of a Tongan commoner (of which he is one).

At one point, feeling somewhat frustrated, I suggested that surely the bible texts ‘reads’ us, just as we read them.  But no.  He insisted that the text doesn’t speak.  Can’t speak.  Really?  Is the Bible dumb?  Is the meaning we derive from biblical stories entirely a one way process; a cultural lens so thick that in truth we’re only reading what’s already written on our own cultural spectacles?

Half a hour ago I was reading Luke 9.23 where Jesus tells his disciples: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”.  Steve Motyer comments in my devotional notes: “Well, we know the truth.  Following Jesus means stepping out of our culture, living by a different light, associating with the world’s rejects rather than its favourites – in many ways, becoming rejects ourselves” (Encounter with God, July 26).  Of course I read this text with my own cultural overlay and personal concerns.  But, my goodness, this text has surely spoken to many faithful readers over centuries, beginning with his disciples for whom the cross – culturally speaking – was hardly a symbol of religious devotion.  This text has, at various points, enabled me to lay down my ‘cultural’ privileges and walk ‘the road less taken’.  If God hadn’t spoken against my cultural and personal predilections, through texts like this, my life would have looked quite different.  So I am profoundly grateful that texts, especially biblical texts, speak to us.   In my experience, the Bible isn’t dumb at all.

The following is an email from the Rev Martin Stewart. I thought is was something our church could get in behind. So we’re going to do a whip around (retiring offering – in church speak) on Sunday, 3rd July, to help get that total up.

Hi there
I wrote a while back about a trip Anne and I made into a hard-hit area of town to give $1000 to a couple who, with their young children, were struggling (you can track the story on my blog listed below).
I want to update people on some outcomes of that story. Like many things around here in Christchurch, one things seems to lead to another, and one act of kindness seems to generate other acts. It really is the gospel in action in so many ways, among so many people. Our cups are depleted and then they overflow – such has been the kindness of generosity of so many.
A week or so after I wrote that story up the members of a trust indicated to me that they would like to donate $15,000 towards works of that nature! $15,000! They did more than indicate – they sent the cheque! I have been preaching in a few churches here (St Stephen’s, St Giles & St Mark’s this week) about a grand idea – to turn that $15,000 into $200 supermarket vouchers and that people of the three parishes walk door to door in a hard-hit suburb one Sunday afternoon and give any people we find a voucher and some home-made biscuits and fruit. I have also indicated that I will be visiting some of the westside supermarkets to buy the vouchers and encourage them to consider matching us – maybe dollar for dollar!
The response has been very warm – even enthusiastic.
I know that there is consistent prolonged help needed in these hard-hit suburbs where I have heard that a recent survey has indicated that about one quarter of people are quite depressed – but maybe our one-off gesture will help people understand that they are in the thought and prayers and consciences of the people in their city – even 3-4 months after the dust has settled. There might be agencies we could donate the money to but I feel very strongly that we need to walk in their streets and meet people at their doors as well.
Anyway – since then, $2,200 has been pledged from some of my parishioners and from a small women’s group in Timaru. And I learned overnight that approximately NZ$6000 is about to be sent from a group of women in Stonehaven, Scotland (where our colleague Fyfe Blair now ministers) – so it is up to $23,000 already – that is $200 to 115 homes. What a week!!!
I wonder if anyone else wants to help us. Because the cup seems to be overflowing without all that much of a sales-pitch, I want to dangle the idea out there to any individuals who might want to partner with us in the gathering of money. I have a modest target of $50,000 before I talk to the supermarket chains. What if we could get to 250 homes or 500 homes?!!!
I am aware that people have given sacrificially already to the PCANZ national appeal – I am not asking for more from you and yours… but maybe you can spread the word wider…
Any donations can be sent to St Stephen’s Church, PO Box 29-346, Fendalton, Christchurch – we will offer a receipt for tax purposes!!!
Have a good whatever you are having!
Martin