Curate’s Chronicles

A few weeks ago I was preaching on James 5:13-20.  In these verses James seems to be drawing some sort of connection between sin that needs forgiveness, and physical healing.  It is not a direct connection - verse 15 (”if he has sinned…”) makes that clear.  But verse 16 encourages us all to be confessing sins to each other and pray for each other “so that you may be healed.”

There was an illustration I wanted to use - one John Piper used in connection with the value of small groups.  Only problem: I couldn’t remember where on the web I’d found it, and in the end had to give up searching.

But now I’ve found it.  It’s from a John Piper sermon reproduced here on the Resurgence website.  The illustration is as follows:

A visiting pastor in Auckland, New Zealand was asked by the pastor of a church to come to a small group to help it understand its function. He came early for dinner and the husband was not there. The wife was embarrassed and explained that the husband owned a construction company and worked late.

The group arrived after dinner and the visiting pastor taught for a while on how to use spiritual gifts to build each other up. Then he asked them to get alone for a few minutes to seek God for how each one might channel God’s grace to the others for their upbuilding.

When they came back together he assumed they knew each other’s needs because they had been together for several years. The husband came home, showered and joined them in a few minutes. When the opportunity was given to speak or to pray for each other there was an awkward silence. They had never done anything like this before—seeking the Lord for how he might want them to minister to each other in that moment to build each other up.

The visiting pastor felt a fiasco was on his hands and turned the meeting back to the pastor to close. The pastor asked if anyone had a special problem they would like prayer for. The hostess said yes and showed the group the rash all over her arms. She said that the doctors had prescribed medicine but it hadn’t helped. They invited her to put her chair in the middle for prayer. And as they prayed, Christ, the head of the church, did his ministry. The pastor said, “I sense in my heart the Lord is telling me your problem is the result of great anger.”

She was silent for a moment then began to cry softly. Then she confessed, “I am so angry at my husband. He promises to be home for dinner , but night after night we eat without him. . . . He’s broken his promises to me over and over, and I feel I am a widow as I raise our children.”

There was an awareness that something had just been revealed that two years of small group meetings had not revealed. And the husband was blushing with embarrassment.

To make the story shorter, several of the men began to speak about how they had wrestled with the same problem in their homes and had almost ruined their marriages. One in particular spoke of a deep meeting with God in such a crisis and how God had made everything new.

By the grace of God the husband knelt down in front of his wife and wept into her lap, as the group prayed for them more earnestly than they had ever prayed. The visiting pastor commented later, “The Lord had invaded His Body, and the gateway into the supernatural world had been crossed by us all.”

The following Sunday the visiting pastor was to preach and saw the small group gathered on the parking lot outside the church. When they found him inside the woman pulled up her sleeves and said, “Look, no rash anywhere!” The husband approached and said, “I’ve cut back my workday to eight hours. I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. We have a new home.” (Ralph Neighbor, Where Do We Go From Here? p. 161-64)

While at Wycliffe college I became very interested in ideas of the “self” and what the gospel says to our identity.  The tower of Babel was an attempt by man to create a “name” for ourselves (Genesis 11:4); the LORD soon put a stop to that.  But, and this is sheer grace, a few verses later he comes to Abram and makes a promise: “I will make your name great…” (Genesis 12:2).

Whenever we try to create ourselves, forming our own identity, we find ourself enslaved to idols.  Jesus calls us to die to self and receive Himself.  Our true name is found in Jesus Christ.

Melanie Phillips has just written a very good review of Look at Me: Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain by Peter Whittle.  You will find it here.  It is about the excessive narcissism in our contemporary culture.  She writes:

[The] modern cult of fame derives from a culture in which the individual has become the centre of the universe: the sun around which everyone and everything else must revolve. With external authority now considered an affront to the self along with the religious doctrines that imposed it, morality and culture have been systematically privatised and relativised so that no one’s values or lifestyle can trump those of anyone else. Every individual is thus a hero to himself.

This is nothing new.  The description of sin in Psalm 2 applies to every culture and time:

“Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?

2 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.

3 “Let us break their chains,” they say,
“and throw off their fetters.”

God laughs at such foolishness.  In response, he enthrones Jesus christ, his Anointed Son, as King - and calls us to take refuge in him.

(For a good sermon on Psalm 2, head to Christ The Truth here.)

This blog would have three times as many posts if I mentioned everything I came across that points to Britain being a society in free-fall.  (Here’s a good example.)  Romans 1:18-32 is playing itself out before our eyes.  Maybe I’m being misled by newspapers etc that prefer to mention bad news rather than good news; even so, the bad news is bad.

The thing about a society in collapse is that people are both culpable and victims.  Someone such as Karen Matthews (mother of the mercifully-found Shannon) has been through a horrendous time and our first reaction must be relief that Shannon has been found, and a desire to comfort the family.  Nevertheless, she has seven children by five different men, and sees no problem with this.  Mostly because she lives in a society that has no problem with it.  Melanie Phillips has a very good article about this, and be in no doubt that this is not a “oh those terrible poor people with their bad family life” rant.

I am no prophet, but it seems to me that all it will take is a financial crisis to make people realise that Mammon is no Saviour, and as the false comfort of material wealth and possessions is stripped away people are going to realise that this country is morally bankrupt.  My prayer is that, at that moment, the Church will be present in all areas of society saying “Come to Jesus and he will give you rest.  Take his yoke upon you and find life.”  Because if not Jesus then some other (false) saviour will be sought after.

Christianity does not sit well with self-belief. No religion or faith or philosophy is quite so negative about humanity’s propensity to be self-deluded, deceived, or just plain wrong!

“The heart is deceitful beyond all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” says Jeremiah 17:9

Occasionally, this is noticed by others. Here’s an article from www.lifehack.org saying “The Brain is not your friend”. A sample:

A mind is a terrible thing. Whether because of the brain’s internal structure or the way social and cultural pressures cause our minds to develop and function, in the end the result is the same: minds that are not only easily deceived and frequently deceptive in their own right, but when caught out, refuse to accept and address their errors. If you have a mind — or even half a mind — you might be best off losing it entirely. Barring that, though, there are a few things you should know about the enemy in your head. Before it hurts someone.

The article ends up a bit positivistic - thinking we may be able to fix it. The reality is we might be able to tweak ourselves, but only Jesus Christ can really sort us out. A life-time task completed only at the resurrection, I might add!