Genesis 39vv.2-5 The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.

Building on my blog a week ago or so, Joseph’s been on my mind recently. It’s not that I have had any “earth-shattering” revelation about what his story tells us – but that it has come home to me once again as a great example of God’s improbable faithfulness, no matter how much the circumstances appear to suggest otherwise.

Before we even reach the passage above, Joseph has:

- had dreams about a great future ahead of him;
- wisely or otherwise, told his family of his dreams;
- nearly been killed, but sold into slavery instead, by his jealous brothers; and
- been mourned by his father as dead.

I don’t pretend to know what was going through Joseph’s mind at this point, but I wouldn’t blame him for thinking that his dreams weren’t going to come to much. No matter that his success was visible to all, and that it was clearly God-inspired; being the servant of a senior official was hardly the same as the auguries of his dream. Was this really something approaching fulfilment of the dream? Apart from anything, his family thought him dead – how could they bow to him?

Even so, he remains faithful to God. Not only does he remember God in refusing the overtures of his master’s wife – my master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? – but he diligently serves his master and his God.

I’m sure you all know the rest of the story. But it’s this midpoint I find fascinating. We all feel we have promises from God, and we all long for their fulfilment. The question is, how do we deal with their deferral? How do we respond to travelling a path where God, seemingly, is taking us away from the very thing He’s called us to?

Well, it’s testimony time. Today, I had an unexpected interview for a job. It’s a terrific job, doing just the kind of thing I love. If I were God, I’m pretty sure I’d make sure that I got this one. It’s the biggie! Surely I was born for such a time as this! This job, in short, was something a large step along the way towards the fulfilment of my equivalent of Joseph’s dreams

But the more I prayed about this job, the more I had a sense of peace. Peace that God is in charge. Peace that God’s kingdom will come, not through my accomplishments or talents, but through His reigning and ruling. Peace that God’s call on my life does not depend on the things that I measure, but on my response to His call.

I’ll let you know whether I get the job or not. (If I do, you’ll probably hear me shouting anyway…) But if I don’t, no matter. God’s in charge, and that is enough to inspire us to a proper response. As the prophet Isaiah said:

But for those who are righteous, the way is not steep and rough. You are a God who does what is right, and you smooth out the path ahead of them. Lord, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws; our heart’s desire is to glorify your name. Isaiah 26vv.7-8

Vision – our challenge

I hope devoted readers (yes, both of us!) will excuse my “e-Sabbath” yesterday. I’m sure there is some spiritual etiquette around blogging, but if there is, I haven’t worked it out yet.

Today’s topic is an unashamed cross-reference to Chris Williams’s blog. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’d recommend it. Anyway, his first entry refers to the vision of London Community Church, which he summarises as follows:

A gathering of believers in North West London, aiming to model the Christian life as taught by Jesus, reaching out with the good news message of forgiveness, love and healing that we have been commissioned to tell to those around us.

So what’s the purpose of a vision? My own definition is probably not very inspiring: a statement of an organisation's priorities and objectives, on whose delivery energy and resources can be focussed. I checked to see if there were any better online definitions of “vision”, with vastly differing results. Take your pick from:

- A compelling and inspiring image of a desired and possible future that a community seeks to achieve
- [Because a vision is idealistic], it may never be realized by the organization. Rather, the vision should serve to inspire the organization to move towards the ideal state.
- The direction of the data warehouse – what it is intended to accomplish.

So which of these do we prefer? For me, it’s definitely the first. I love the use of language like “compelling”, “inspiring”, “desired” and – yes – “possible”. The fact that a vision is achievable does not mean it is not ambitious. Look at God’s plan for the world, for example. Starting with a small, rather mixed bag of men and women, Jesus commanded us to preach the good news and make disciples of all nations.

I assume only geeks will prefer the third option. Any geeks like to shed any light on what “data warehousing” is, and why its “direction” is important?

So that just leaves the second as an alternative. But I think any vision starting off by admitting it’s idealistic deserves to fail. How will people build towards something that they can never hope to see finished?

So, where do we stand – both as a church and as individuals – in relation to the LCC vision? Are we:

- gathering with believers?
- modelling the Christian life as taught by Jesus?
- telling those around us the good news message of forgiveness, love and healing?

If you are, congratulations – and please keep it up! It will not only advance the kingdom, but it will encourage and inspire other co-workers.
If you’re not, is there a reason? Perhaps you disagree with the vision; or perhaps you would welcome encouragement / strength to do these things; or perhaps you’re focussing your energy on other things that seem more important? Whatever the answer, if you find yourself wanting to “press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called [you] heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3v14) then you needn’t worry about what has stopped you in the past. Just focus on how you can change that in the future.

With a few sold-out souls – LCC is about six- or seven-fold the original “mixed bag” to whom Jesus entrusted the Kingdom’s growth – just think what we could do!

The consumer’s revenge

OK, revenge isn’t a pretty word, so I invite gentle readers to look away now…

I have been exercising my rights (after a fashion) pretty intensively of late, and I will give praise where it’s due and name and shame where necessary. Consumerism seems to bring out the very best and the very worst in me. First, the hall of fame:

Green & Blacks: not only is their chocolate delicious – I particularly recommend espresso flavour – but their customer service is second to none. A friend (Jo Khinmaung) bought Hils and me a bar of their cherry chocolate as a present. When we opened it, it was ginger. Nothing wrong with it – it, too, was delicious – but I thought I’d drop them a line. They were horrified! In response, they explained that an error had happened on the production line. They told me exactly what had happened, “sent off their staff for retraining” (can’t pretend I felt too good about that), and sent £15 of vouchers! Cheers for the present, Jo!

Yeo Valley organics: I bought some cheese, and it went off. I threw it away, and dropped them a line. I didn’t expect to hear anything from them, as I had no evidence. To their credit, they sent me a postal order for £5!

Brent council: Brilliant. They pay for my freedom pass, giving me free transport across the whole of London. What’s not to like?

Now, the hall of shame:

Orange: rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. They had debited my account twice over for 12 months, albeit for a relatively paltry sum of £3. When I drew this to their attention, they told me that they would reimburse me for three months’ worth, but no more, as I should have noticed sooner. I asked them if this was policy or an actual thing they could not do. They said it was policy. When I challenged them to reimburse me the full £36, or lose me as a heavy-use customer, they just let me go. Ah well, their loss.

Amazon.com: well, they’re a mixed bag. I quite like them sometimes. But once, when they sent me a wrong order, it went a bit wrong. They claimed – and possibly correctly – that the error was mine, and refused to take the order back. As my way of venting my spleen, I decided to start a set of bogus reviews – see http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3ICTDGDPJUEHB/ref=cm_pdp_about_see_review/102-2356432-6548141 if you’re interested. Particular fun, I find, is to poke fun at occult books – occultists do seem to be an awfully serious bunch.

HSBC: where to begin? Having been a customer of theirs for 20 years, I assumed they’d take me vaguely seriously. Sadly, no. Not only did they not offer me a mortgage (everyone else did!) because I didn’t have a student bank account, but they insist on applying penalty charges to my bank account. I have decided to leave £1 in my account, and not to use it. It felt almost poignant after 20 years…

OK, I admit it, these things probably provoke me excessively. But it is time for consumers to stand up and be counted, even when it runs contrary to our pacifistic demeanour. Give it a (good-natured) go – always maintaining civility to the poor, underpaid and undervalued call-centre staff – and see how you get on.

Towards a mature ethics

I was browsing the Christianity Today website recently, and noticed that they were selling some discussion material based on 24 – the hit series featuring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. Now, I found this almost irresistible. I love 24. More than that, I love trying to work out how it fits onto a grid of Christian principles (or “into the Christian metanarrative” if you want to get poncey about it…)

24, like most films and series originating in Hollywood, is pretty clear about where its morality lies. In any given series, some person (or people) is partway through a plan to destroy life on a large scale. They are BAD GUYS writ large. The CTU (Counter-Terrorism Unit) is alive to this plan, and has Special Agent Jack Bauer on the case. Jack is GOOD. From the moment we join the action, Jack has literally 24 hours to save the planet (and, invariably, his daughter, his mistress, his idiotically naïve President, or whomever).

Let’s be clear. Jack is ludicrously hard, and achieves superhuman feats. As a child, Jack Bauer’s first words were “There’s no time!” Superman wears Jack Bauer pyjamas. When Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys, he spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he revealed where they were. You get the idea.

Aside from the suspension of disbelief that 24 so obviously requires, it’s very good. It doesn’t matter that we know Jack will win through in the end. The interest is both in the how he does it, and (as always happens in this series) which characters will turn out to be duplicitous, unreliable, or … ahem …. dead. The black-and-white approach to morality inherent in the series isn’t specific to 24, of course. Christians always seem to be deconstructing Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code, but the same rules of engagement apply to Snow White. “Bad” is in some eternal conflict with “good”, and “good” almost invariably wins.

Although 24 is not without its own moral ambiguities, it never wavers from its bottom line. If Jack tortures a terrorist to find the location of a bomb, we may find his methods terrible, but it’s all in a good cause. If Jack shoots someone, that person deserved it. No matter that his methods sometimes slip below our moral radar, he remains fundamentally "good".

Here’s where my slight confusion comes in. I think most Christians would say that this is fine as a TV programme. But transpose the facts to real life – litmus test Guantanamo, say, or object to the removal of civil liberties – and we become hugely uneasy. The flow of rhetoric begins. The end does not justify the means. There are some boundaries we ought not to cross.

But where does this ends/means debate fit on the Christian grid? What scriptures are we turning to, to defend our starting point? I wonder if God sees things in such a civil libertarian light as we sometimes appear to. Let’s start from the only place we can: the cross. Did God “go soft” at the point of ultimate decision? No. He could not have.

He could have elected not to save mankind – and this would have been unimpeachably just of Him. He could have done as He chose to do, and allow Himself to be separated from His Son in Jesus' unbearable death. To God’s mind, the end justified the means. But the one thing He could not have done, was to “go soft” – to suspend the requirement for the price of sin to be paid, and hope that everything worked out OK in the end.

Maybe this one needs some more thought.

I’ve paused to reflect a lot recently on hope. Hope gets a bit of a bad press, quite unfairly. It’s often held to be the last preserve of the irrational, the despairing and the naïve.

“I hope I one day I look as beautiful as this woman to the right!”
“I’ll get there, hope against hope…”
“I hope I’ll get that job, I really do.”

I’ve probably been guilty of indulging all these forms of “hope” in the past few months. But the Christian hope to which we are called is vastly different. This, for three reasons:

- first, the hope isn’t a conditional future. It’s not contingent on us doing, being, thinking, acting a certain way. It’s rooted in the here-and-now (or, in a phrase I recently read, “God’s today”);
- second, it’s rooted in God Himself. A covenant God. The Hebrew Bible uses two great words to describe the nature of our covenant God: hesed and emeth. Hesed is God’s steadfast love; God is abounding in love and kindness to His people. Emeth is God’s faithfulness; He will never abandon those He calls to Him;
- third, the hope is in God’s promise. When He says He’ll do something, He does it. Whether this is a “generalised promise” – “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer 29v11) – or a specific one He’s given to us personally, He will come good.

The coming together of these principles means that God’s “big picture” is not what we see in front of us. It’s the sum of the parts, seen and unseen, that is our hope. More than that, our hope is not in the coming true of a specific promise, but in the giver of hope – God Himself. And “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5:5).

So hope is not a future wish. It’s the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, guiding us on life’s journey, through the hills and valleys, the highs and the lows. It is life in its fullness, here and now.

God’s faithfulness and kindness through the journey is our assurance that our hope will not disappoint. Quite the opposite, in fact. It will surprise, it will amaze, it will fill us with awe. Just when we begin to lose hope, the various strands and interplays that we have never seen coming together in the tapestry, suddenly do. Hope is fulfilled in our very grasp.

By the way, I’ve had a couple of comments that this blog is too serious. OK, here goes. The other day I was climbing into my car, and a bloke says “can you give me a lift?” So I say, “sure! You look great, the world’s your oyster. Go for it!”

It’s a day since I wrote my last blog entry.

24 hours.
1440 minutes.
86,400 seconds

Many of you will know that, every three seconds, a child dies of poverty-related illness. So since I last blogged, assuming an average day, 28,400 children will have died around the world.

I just can’t take this in. It’s almost digestible when you treat the figures, despite their enormity, as a single statistic. But we must view it as it really is. It’s 28,400 individual tragedies. And as anyone who has ever suffered bereavement knows, the loss of a single person affects many, many times more people than just the victim. The loss of 28,400 lives affects hundreds of thousands of people.

But the loss runs even deeper than that. It’s an affront to our collective dignity and our shared humanity that we are prepared to sit idly by in our collective indifference while another child dies. And another. And another.

Let’s make no more excuses. We wouldn’t do allow such loss in any other circumstances. 40 years on from Aberfan, we would not allow a coal heap near a school. 10 years on from Dunblane, we wouldn’t consider relaxing our gun laws. And why should we? It would insult the memories and the lives of every single one of those children to do so.

In the same way, I ask all those who are reading this blog to consider if they could do something to beat the scourge of poverty. Sponsor a child. Give a sum you can afford to a charity you trust. (This isn’t just a plug for the charity I chair – Africa Enterprise Trust - but it’d be foolish not to mention it…). Pray. But whatever else happens, let’s do something. It’s within our grasp to put an end to poverty. And it’s certainly within our gift – YOUR gift – to put an end to it for one of tomorrow’s 28,400.

Let’s stop this debate before it gets veily nasty

What to do with religious symbols? Wherever you stand on this debate – iconoclast or iconodule [crazy word, crazy guys…] – it’s obvious that this subject has attracted a volume of debate considerably beyond the subject’s value. In short:

- in the Islamic corner, the debate rages: should women wear the veil? If it’s not an explicit precondition of Islam, doesn’t it have value as modesty-wear? Besides, if women want to wear it, who are we – the so-called liberal west – to complain about the discomfort we feel when they choose to live or dress a certain way?
- in the Christian corner, an employee of a major company wears a crucifix. Naughty, naughty! It’s a visible sign of religious affiliation, and the employee must remove it or be suspended. She chooses suspension. To make matters worse, we howl, it’s supposed to be Britain’s favourite airline!!

The real points of interest have been obscured by the reddest of herrings. These include such enlightening points as:

- we’re supposed to be a Christian country. Who do these people think they are, asking US to integrate with THEM? (The spirit of Alf Garnett lives on.)

- this is all about people positioning themselves for the sous-Assistant-to-the-Deputy-Prime-Minister’s job? (Find me someone who cares.)
- this is failed multi-culturalism – we’re bending over backwards to accommodate minorities, and we’re discriminating against our own;
- in my opinion, worst of all: we must never impose our value-systems on other groups. “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it!” (Not only was this not what Voltaire said, but it’s repeated hilariously often by people who – let’s be honest – would probably watch the EastEnders omnibus rather than take to the streets to protest against the stealthy removal of civil liberties)

So, what is the debate really about – and what are the core issues?

To my mind, we should return this to first principles.

- first, to ask: what is the worth of the icon or symbol? If it’s a requirement of a faith – locks (dreadlocks) for Sadhus, Sadhvis and (arguably) Rastafarians, for example – then we should respect that, and make as much effort as possible to accommodate it;

- second, assuming the symbol is optional/voluntary. Why not just do some relative cost-benefit analysis? Does wearing the veil diminish your ability to be a bilingual teaching assistant – probably. Is wearing a cross over your uniform rather than under it a required part of faith – no.
- third, trying to find some set of values that we agree are important. To date, the debate has focussed on “Britishness” – that indefinable quality of being at one with the universe only when you have a cricket bat in one hand, a warm beer in another, and a stiff upper lip. Not much like the England I call home.

Whatever these values are, they should be ones of conciliation and bridge-building. Better to focus on what unites, rather than make capital from what divides.

I've been mulling over a very important principle recently. It was brought home to me by one of those crocodile scriptures. You know the sort of thing I mean – a little verse that appears to be a harmless little log floating in the water, but which can suddenly jump up and bite you … This particular crocodile was lurking in Galatians 4 vv. 22-23: "The holy writings say that Abraham had two sons. One was the son of the slave woman. The other one was the son of the free woman. The child of the slave woman was born as any child is born. But the child of the free woman was born because God promised he would be born." (Worldwide English New Testament – well ... why not work from a fairly obscure translation...?)

It’s worth remembering the context (Genesis 16-21) in which this happened.

FACT: Abraham and Sarah were both very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing;
FACT: God made a promise – to both Abraham and Sarah, independently – that Sarah would bear Abraham a child;
FACT: Sarah clearly wanted to believe the promise of God. So did Abraham. But it was too big a thing for them to believe. Their God wasn’t big enough.

Now here’s the rub. The Bible says “Let God be true, and every man a liar” (Romans 3v4). If God gives us something to believe – equipping for a job of work He’s called us to do, a promise to receive by faith, or a challenge to respond to – we can respond two ways:

First, we can do what we all flatter ourselves we’d do. We can respond saying “well, Lord, I’ve no idea how You’re gonna do this. But I know you will! Praise You!”
Second, we can do what Abraham and Sarah did. We can allow our (lack of) understanding of God’s sovereignty and supernatural power to dictate our belief in the ways in which He can work. We can argue with God. We can protest that His word won’t come true. And finally, even when we decide to accept that His word is true, we can decide that it isn’t the actual word as spoken that’s true, but our somewhat paler interpretation of it, which we need to give a sneaky helping hand to “bring in by the back door”. To illustrate, I mean we can say to God something like this: ”God, you’ve promised me something big. But this time, you got it wrong. The fact is, you can’t do that thing in my life – you’re too small a God. But God, because I’m nice, I’m going to give you a helping hand. I’m going to make sure that this happens. I’m going to do everything I can do to make sure that you aren’t embarrassed.”

How did Abraham and Sarah jump through these hoops? Well, first they both denied that God’s promise was possible; and then they made up their minds that that God had meant a certain thing. In their case, He hadn’t meant “I will give you a son” in any literal sense …. it was figurative. Sarah was too old. So Sarah began to “half-believe” God. Rather than her bearing a child to her own husband, she would be a quasi-mother to the slave woman’s child.

Now let’s not be too hasty to judge Abraham and Sarah. We have to understand Sarah’s misgivings about giving birth as a ninety-year old! But let’s not be hasty to judge God, either. The fact is, He said He would do something. And He did it. Thankfully, God’s doesn’t rely on us fulfilling our side of the bargain before He fulfils His!

Result: God makes promises to us that are easy enough for Him to do, but which (to us) seem impossible. We can lose faith in God’s commitment to the promise when time passes and hope fades; or when the promise is too big for our limited Christianity to understand. So, we rationalise the promises of God. We make up action plans (“how we would do things, if we were God”!!) and pursue those. We chase the gift, rather than the Giver. We focus on the hope rather than the fulfilment.

Conclusion: When God speaks, we need to listen to Him. That said, we also need to trust Him. It can be hard sometimes – even a God as unfailing, as massive, as constant, as gentle and as kind as ours! But He has shown, time and time again, that He is trustworthy. We can afford to trust Him, not just to do the “easy” stuff - the everyday, the commonplace, the normal; we can also trust Him to do the unthinkable, the amazing, and – yes – even the impossible. What a great God!