No ordinary hope

18 October 2019

“While I’m waiting, I’m not waiting…”

I find this song very moving:

Whether now or then
Death is not my end
I know Heaven waits for me
Though the road seems long
I’ll never walk alone
And I got all I need to sing

I know You love me
I know You found me
I know You saved me
And Your grace will never fail me
And while I’m waiting
I’m not waiting
I know Heaven lives in me

Should I suffer long
This is not my home
I know Heaven waits for me
And though the night is dark
Heaven owns my heart
And I got all I need to sing

I know You love me
I know You found me
I know You saved me
And Your grace will never fail me
And while I’m waiting
I’m not waiting
I know Heaven lives in me

The phrase “and while I’m waiting, I’m not waiting…” is a beautiful way of putting the future and present reality in no ordinary hope.

16 October 2019

Bono: “Love interrupts”

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

Bono said this in a recent interview:
“It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma…

You see, at the centre of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics – in physical laws – every action is met by an equal or opposite one. Its clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it.

And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “As you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.

That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep shit. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled….its not our own good works that get through the gates of heaven…”

All text taken from Chapter 11 of Bono on Bono: conversations with Michka Assayas, 2005 (Hodder). Buy the book.

There is a poignant moment in that conversation with Bono. Michka pauses and says: “’The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world’’… I wish I could believe in that.” Bono understands where she is coming from. He simply says to him that it all comes down to how we regard Jesus. He says: “When I look at the Cross of Christ. What I see up there is all my s***, and everybody else’s. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was? And there it is. And that’s the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.”

I think that’s true. No one can talk you into, or out of, believing in Jesus. How can we discover this truth of God who interrupts?

10 October 2019

Joy: the serious business of heaven

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

CS Lewis said “Joy is the serious business of heaven”. Jesus said this about joy…

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matt 13:44-45)

These two parables that Jesus tells are so beautifully simple. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven – the reality of how things really are – is like a joy filled discovery. Like finding treasure in a field. Like a pearl that is so precious that we are prepared to give everything we’ve got for it .

There are two ways of looking at what the treasure or pearl is that fills us with joy when we discover it.

Firstly, the treasure is God’s love for us. It is what Jesus has done for us on the Cross. Who we are because of Jesus.

And that brings such freedom.

Freedom from sin and guilt. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Grace. There is nothing to prove. And the power of sin is broken. We can truly be the person that God made us to be. I don’t have to sin; if I sin I have an advocate (1 John 1:9). In this freedom there is such Joy. The gift of life.he first chapter of John’s first letter (1 John 1) is a beautiful account from Jesus closest friend of everything that ultimately matters. John writes that he has seen it with his own eyes and that it is “joy” that compels him to share what he has seen and knows.

I think there may be people who know that in their heads but wonder why they don’t feel that joyful about it. It’s ‘a’ reality, but the experience of other realities seem more real: disappointments, loneliness, anxieties perhaps. These things can rob us of joy. When things are going well, the joy comes, but when things aren’t the joy gets clouded out.

So let’s get practical. How can that treasure of the kingdom of heaven be to us the great reality of our lives. The joy of our hearts no matter what? And I am blogging to myself as much as anyone here because I’m not good at this.

It is interesting that Jesus speaks of the treasure of the kingdom being “hidden” in the field. We have to go looking for it. Prayer is key to that. Especially reflecting on God’s love which is the story of the Bible from beginning to end. And when we’ve found our joy, we need to remember how we found it so we can find it again and again. God is committed to helping us find joy. It is the fruit of his Spirit in us (Gal 5:22) – a gift that we can find as we trust and believe in God’s word. In other words, joy is not something we have to work for. It is a discovery like treasure in a field.

In tough times we will not feel joyful instantaneously. Personally, I want to feel it straight away. If I don’t, I panic. It’s especially at these times that we need to pray (without words if we have none), contemplate God’s unconditional unfailing love, worship Jesus, petition for the things we are longing for. Sometimes we need someone to prayer with us and help us find that treasure that seems lost, but is only hidden from view. Don Miller: “We learn that we are loveable, or unloveable, from other people… … That is why God tells us so many times to love each other”. God’s love is discovered in a community in which God’s love is shared.

So that is the first way of looking at the parable: the treasure of the kingdom is God’s love for us. The other way of looking at the parable is similar and just as amazing.

Secondly, the treasure is you

The treasure in the field, the pearl of great price (which the man gave everything he had for) is every person who has ever lived. And that man is Jesus.

God gave everything he had for us. He gave Jesus. His beloved Son. He gave of himself. That was his joy. Hebrews 12:2 says of Jesus: “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.” The joy set before him was you. His passion to save you. That your life would be one with him. Nothing was more precious – God gives everything – for you. And there is no reluctance, no obligation, no disappointment towards us. In God there is simply love, faithfulness and joy. Dallas Willard: “God is full of joy. … The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things [of this world] … God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.”

The Holy Spirit brings that joy-filled connection between heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit lives in you – calling forth joy. Life in the Spirit is pure gift. And so the Christian life should be marked by joy not obligation. Lesslie Newbigin, the great missionary said this in what I think was his final sermon: “I find it strange that conferences about mission and evangelism are often pervaded … by a kind of anxiety and guilt – as though this were a program that we have a responsibility to carry out and about which we haven’t been very successful. Isn’t [that] remarkable [when] according to the New Testament the whole thing begins with an enormous explosion of joy? The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God! It seems to me … that the mission of the church is the communication of that joy.”

Newbigin concludes: “The event of the resurrection … breaks every mould that would imprison God in the rationalism of a fallen world. … It is the starting point for a new kind of rationality, for the possibility of living hopefully in a world without hope, for the perpetual praise of God who … breaks through fixed orders to create ever-new situations of surprise and joy.”

‘The possibility of living hopefully in a world without hope’. That is resurrection faith. Ten years ago I had a period when I didn’t believe a back injury I had was ever going to get better. I was between jobs and wondering where life was going. I wanted to feel joy. I felt bad that I didn’t as I thought of all the blessings of God. I felt quite hopeless. And night I couldn’t sleep. I was crying to God asking him why? what now? etc. And I read Psalm 30:5: “weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”That is resurrection faith. Good Friday becomes Easter Sunday.

I realised that part of my faith was knowing that joy would have the last word. Even if it wasn’t the present word. And that reminder was like a discovery – like stumbling upon treasure. And the knowledge of future joy, brought joy into a present. A present which was still the same. But now transformed. I believe that is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in us every time we are struggling to find joy.

I have come to see that the present and future reality of joy are two sides of the same coin. Firstly, Jesus shared our life joyfully. He reoriented the gift of life back to its creator. A creator full of joy. His will for us is to know real joy in the present life. And never to feel guilty about it. Embracing joy of the life god gives us – in a way that is neither world-renouncing nor world-conforming. But secondly Jesus showed a way for future joy to give us the resources for suffering and pain in the present. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. We will never suffer what Jesus suffered. Joy can always be the last word for us, only because of what Jesus gave on the cross. Everything he had for us. But we can know that joy will come in the morning because of him and so walk as he walked in pain.

As you may know, Psalm 126 is one of my favourite psalms. It speaks to me of this two-fold reality of joy. The first three verses speak of the first aspect. The pure gift of salvation. The grace that is ours today in Jesus Christ. The discovery that can fill us with joy. It is a redemption song: “When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” The church is to be a people of joy. Who celebrate life and the gift of grace in the world in every place.

And the psalm speaks of the other aspect of joy. The same reality in a different key. The joy that transforms the times of this life that are marked by tears. A future joy that we can know is the last word even when we do not feel it now. A discovery that can bring a new kind of joy. A true and living hope. “Restore our fortunes O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying the harvest home.”

Joy will have the last word. Tears for a broken world or broken self, when given to God, when planted alongside the Gospel of God’s grace, will one day become songs of joy. Because in raising Jesus from the dead, God has spoken a final word to sin and death. In Christ they are finished.

Joy in the present, joy in the future. The good news of Jesus – and who you are in Him – is the pearl of great price. Worth everything we’ve got. Because it is everything worth having.

9 October 2019

My favourite film

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

My favourite film is Good Will Hunting. I watched it as I flew to Australia over the Himalayas on a cloudless starry night seeing lights from villages surrounded by a vast expanse of snow covered mountains. It was extraordinarily moving and it made the impact of this profoundly moving film all the more poignant to me. Here are my four favourite clips. Will (Matt Damon) is an orphan who keeps getting into fights because it is all he knows, but he is a prodigious self-taught mathematician who Sean (Robin Williams) is trying to help. Who would not want a mentor like him?

On authentic courageous humanity

On perfectionism

On regret

On shame

And my favourite clip from the whole film that moved me so much, as i thought back aged 23 at all the amazing friends that had already touched my life, is this one.

The sacrificial loyalty of a friend who hopes his best friend won’t be there when he goes to pick him up for work because it would mean that Will is becoming all he can be is amazing. It comes to pass at the end of the film.

16 September 2019

Beatitudes – my last ever sermon, aptly at Brighton College

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

Thank you for having me, it is great to be amongst you again.

I’ve been a Christian since I was young, and I’ve known these famous words just read to us (called the Beatitudes) as long as I can remember. But when Father Robert said that it was the reading for today, I nearly declined his very kind invitation to speak. Not because I do not love these words – they are indeed beautiful. But they are also difficult words. Some of the Beatitudes are easy to hear wrongly. Hard to understand. How are the poor in spirit, the grieving, the persecuted ‘blessed’? How can I stand here and talk about that? (Especially when I don’t have first-hand experience of poverty, pain or persecution.) So I nearly said no. But then, as I dwelt on these words, something dawned on me. That I don’t think would have been able to articulate a year ago without your help. So I thought I would share that this morning in case it was helpful.

I will come to that thought I had in a moment. But first of all I want to be clear what the Beatitudes are not saying. They are not saying: “it is good to suffer in this life because when you die and go to heaven you will be blessed.” That interpretation is not only bad theology. But it is dangerous too.

Firstly, because it is open to abuse. It can imply that suffering, as such, is a good thing. And justify passivity in the face of suffering. No suffering, of any kind, is good in itself. Secondly, that interpretation – ‘suffer in this life and you will be blessed when you go to heaven’ – is bad theology. Jesus’ teaching about heaven was not of a distant reality after death, but a present reality, that not even death can contain. Something to experience here and now. Even as we await its fulfilment when he returns. What Jesus is expressing in these words is that people in these situations – poverty of spirit, grief, persecution, those literally hungering and thirsting for justice, peace, mercy. These people in these situations, are blessed here and now. NOT because any of these sufferings are good in themselves, or justifiable, or anything like that. BUT because of this present reality Jesus spoke about and came to make known. He called it called heaven – What God’s presence is like, here and now.

So what does “blessed” look like? How can we make sense of it, when it is said of people who are suffering loss, or persecution, or hungering and thirsting for justice in this world. What struck me as I thought about the Beatitudes and potentially speaking on them. Is this thought: They only make any sense in the context of relationship.

As just words, many of them sound like oxymorons. Contradictions in terms. Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, those who are reviled, persecuted… How are those things blessings? These phrases can sound like contradictions. But, in the context of relationship, a profound truth emerges. It is a truth that doesn’t answer all the questions. But it is no less real for that. (In fact, as a scientist I would say that the test of a true statement about reality is that it calls forth more questions rather than closes them down.)

The truth Jesus is speaking about is that relationship is the only thing that can transform bad stuff into the most precious of situations. (I cannot emphasise enough how much I am not saying that in anyway the bad stuff is therefore OK in itself. I am talking about a transformation – not a justification – that happens in the context of relationship.)

Let me illustrate with a ‘Beatitude’ that I could not have articulated a year ago. And certainly not without your help: “Blessed are those diagnosed with MND, because they will discover a love and a care for them that they did not know was possible.” I have you all to thank for showing me that. The words alone “blessed are those diagnosed with MND” are a contradiction in terms. I would so so love to be free of it. Is it a blessing? No. Never. Am I blessed in the midst of it? Yes. And only because of relationship. The kindness and love you showed me when I stepped down transformed not only my experience of being ill. It changed how I thought about myself. Negativity that I had about myself, which I thought would always be part of me, was taken away.

Jesus called this dynamic, this transforming reality, the Kingdom of Heaven. In John’s gospel he calls it simply Love. He said that he had come to be its foundation – the logic, the means ultimately – for this present reality to be just the beginning of a life that even death cannot destroy.

The second beatitude “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted” means a lot to my sister this year. In January, she gave birth to a baby – James – who sadly died in labour. We knew he was very poorly but we had hope that he would live. My sister mourns his loss. But if you ask her whether James was a blessing in her life she wouldn’t hesitate to answer yes. My niece, Imogen, who is 5 will always have a brother. As a family they will always cherish the nine months that they had him alive with them during the pregnancy. Does she mourn? Yes, every day. Is she blessed? Yes, every day.

The blessing is only because there is a relationship that transcends the grief. James will always be James. Her son, Imogen’s brother. Imogen built a bond with him through talking to him through my sister’s tummy. Imogen said to me the other day that his favourite colour was pink (which co-incidentally is her favourite colour!).

Relationship is the only way for my sister’s family to say “Blessed are those who mourn.” And as a Christian, I believe that a relationship with God is the ultimate context for these Beatitudes. The present and a future reality that Jesus spoke about, founded upon his death and resurrection.

To sum up. The Beatitudes do not answer the all questions of suffering. They certainly are not licence for us to justify suffering as somehow good in itself. Nor are they permission to leave people in suffering. Or to offer easy words about the nobility of enduring pain.

What they are is an invitation for us to make them real, as you did for me, through relationship. It is through relationship that the Beatitudes are no longer a contradiction in terms: Being a comfort to those who mourn, so they can say, “Blessed are those who mourn”; Being justice and peace bringers to those in our world who are enslaved, persecuted, poor, so that they can say “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”

I think that until Jesus returns there will always be a degree to which we cannot fully explain these words. I couldn’t bear it if you thought I was trying to explain away suffering. Or answer too neatly questions about faith, God or the nature of this world. All I know is that in these Beatitudes I find a reality about human, and ultimately God’s, love that makes it possible to hold in tension some of these difficult things. As I say, I have you to thank for helping me to grasp a better sense of their truth.

So as you read the Beatitudes – I would encourage you that if you are mourning, if you are hungering for justice in this world, peace, a vision of God – any of these things mentioned by Jesus. You can know that you are blessed even before that stuff gets fully resolved. Through relationship. Communities like this one. And ultimately through the love of God – the relationship that he brings – through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Gracious God,
Help us to find blessing in every season of our lives, through discovering the transforming beauty of relationship – in communities like this one, and ultimately through your presence with us. In Jesus name, Amen.