by John Mason | Sep 19, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
Happiness is something we look for in life. But how can we find it? For happiness is elusive. One moment we can feel happy, blessed by God, but the next moment the feeling has gone. Like moonlight it has slipped through our fingers.
Some consider that having a good marriage and family, being successful and having all they want will make them happy. But the best of families can experience pain or hurt; others will be more successful; and no one is ever fully satisfied.
Psalm 1 helps us. Blessed, or happy is the one… it begins. And as it develops it lays the foundation for The Book of Psalms by setting out in poetic form, first where true happiness is to be found and secondly, what a truly happy person is like.
The opening lines read: Happy is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
We learn where happiness or blessing is not to be found – by following the counsel of the wicked. Consider how the poetry of the psalm expresses this. Three words – walk, stand, and sit – capture three facets of our life. Another three words draw our attention to those whose ways will not help us – the wicked, sinners, and the scoffers.
With these opening lines we feel the emotional impact of the poetry. We will not find true happiness if we march in step with the crowds who behave as though there are no absolutes, no rules and no God. It’s the same story if we join the cynics, or even sit on the sidelines as part of the silent majority – sitting in the seat of scoffers.
What then is the way to real happiness? Verse 2 tells us: Whose delight is in the law of the Lord; and who meditates on his law day and night. The actions of verse 1 move to stillness in verse 2 where the law of the Lord stands as the key to true happiness and humanity.
The law of the Lord is not limited to the Law of Moses but rather includes all God’s teaching and instruction for living. Significantly the heart and mind’s delight rises to a new note of joy through the daily meditation of God’s life-giving Word.
Meditation is not something carried out by people who zone out of life. The words here echo God’s command to Joshua who, though he was a man of action, needed to think hard about his choice in life (Joshua 24:14,15).
Real happiness is found in the deliberate resolution to be instructed by God himself. This doesn’t just happen. It will mean being prepared to look inside ourselves and let the weight of God’s Word press upon our thoughts, our speech, and our life-style.
So, what is a truly happy person like? The poetry of verse 3 tells us in imagery that carries with it the vitality of life: That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields it fruit in its season, and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do they prosper.
Out of the riches of knowing God and trusting in his ways our lives grow and bear fruit – with branches stretching out and leaves that do not wither, even in tough times.
The contrast with those who do not know God but mock him and his ways could not be clearer. In one sentence in verse 4 we read: The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away. In contrast with the vitality of those whose life is like a tree, the wicked are blown away like chaff. Their excitement, their planning and their plotting are only temporary – for the day will come when, like dust, they will vanish.
And the psalm-writer pulls no punches as he sums up their final destination: Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous (1:6).
Two paths. Psalm 1 introduces a theme that permeates the Book of Psalms: namely the way, or the path. We have a choice in life – to walk in the way of the wicked or to tread the path of life with God. Psalm 1 concludes: For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
For life to make any sense at all there must be a final accounting. Psalm 1 tells us there will be such a day and that everyone who has ignored God or mocked him and his ways, will fall. They may be powerful and successful now, but the path they have chosen will end in nothing.
© John G. Mason – www.anglicanconnection.com
by John Mason | Sep 12, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
Seventeen years ago yesterday (September 11, 2001), Judith and I were living in Downtown Manhattan in close proximity to the Twin Towers. The second of the terrorist planes flew above us at a high-pitched scream before a mighty explosion as it crashed into the South Tower.
In spring and early summer that year I had started a mid-week interactive Bible program on Wall Street, Downtown and in Midtown – what we called ‘More to Life: Wall Street Ministry’. On 9/11 I was to speak on the subject, ‘God, why don’t you clean up the mess?’ Needless to say, I did not give that talk that day.
In the course of teaching and pastoral ministry that followed that day, I observed that our culture has made a habit of setting aside the wisdom of the past and especially the wisdom of the Bible. I noted how interesting it is that in the midst of catastrophe, in times when we are confronted with the harsh realities of life, the words and wisdom of the Bible reveal a unique power. The Psalms, for example, provide comfort for the broken-hearted and hope for the bereaved. Indeed, the President on the night of 9/11 quoted from Psalm 23.
Psalm 46. In my ministry I drew attention to Psalm 46: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…
The God of the Bible knows about the devastating events and suffering. Encouragingly, Psalm 46 tells us that God’s presence is neither interrupted by nor dislocated from such events. Rather, the Psalm reveals God as being in the midst of them. He is not the cause of wickedness, but neither is he removed from it.
The good news is, as the Psalm goes on to assure us, God has not left us to our own devices. He has committed himself to be involved. He will hear us and sustain us, despite the awfulness of our experiences. We read: There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God…. God is with her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
Justice. Bubbling through Psalm 46 is the implication that God will comfort by bringing about his justice. Indeed, all of us have within us a sense of right and wrong that cries out for justice, especially when great wickedness has been perpetrated.
It’s important to think about this. If we lived in a world that had come into existence simply by the process of spontaneous change, we would be nothing but particles, bumping around in some sort of meaningful connection. Our conscious state would be nothing more than electrical discharges in the human brain.
If this is how we view life, we can hardly be morally indignant about behavior that results from quarks smashing together. The issues of wickedness and suffering, and our cry for justice, lose their relevance.
Rather, the sense of justice we have within us is in line with the Bible’s teaching that condemns violence and the taking of innocent life.
Psalm 46 is one of a number of Psalms that point us to the New Testament and its teaching that wickedness will not triumph, that God will vindicate the innocent and glorify his own name. His judgment may be slow as we count time, but it is very sure.
We can be sure of this because of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus comes between the good creation of God, ruined by human sin with which the Bible begins, and the promise of a restored creation with which the Bible ends – where God will wipe away every tear … there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Rev 21:4).
It is on the cross where a godless world put to death the sinless Son of God, that Jesus took the consequences of the wickedness of the world into himself. From that day, God has promised to forgive all who truly turn to him – something we all need to do, for none of us is righteous in God’s eyes. It is the cross of Christ that gives us confidence that God has our good in mind no matter what wickedness is perpetrated.
The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:38f – For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is the kind of faith that answers fear and assures us that God truly is our refuge and strength.
© John G. Mason – www.anglicanconnection.com
by John Mason | Sep 5, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
One of the striking features of Thomas Cranmer’s, Book of Common Prayer is the use of the Bible, and in particular the Songs of the Bible. At the heart of the orders of service for Morning and Evening Prayer is not just a pattern for the reading through the whole of the Bible in a year, but the reading aloud of the Psalms – and not just one Psalm.
So important did he consider the reading of the Psalms to be, that he designed a reading plan, a Table as it was called, for the reading of the whole of the Book of Psalms every thirty days. His plan set out the way the extra day in January and March would offset the twenty-eight days of February; he also made provision for the remaining longer months throughout the year. And, yes, he also had provision for the calendar leap year.
But Morning and Evening Prayer not only included the reading of the Psalms each month. Some psalms were used every week – Psalm 95 as a ‘call to worship’ at Morning Prayer, for example. He also brought in other songs of the Bible together with very early Christian hymns, such as the Te Deum Laudamus (We praise you O, God…) at Morning Prayer and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the highest) at Communion. What is more, the Psalms and the songs of the Bible were to be read aloud or sung.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church help us understand something of Cranmer’s thinking: Article VI states : Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.
Writing during the reign of Elizabeth I, Richard Hooker, writes in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V: The end of the Word of God is to save, and therefore we term it the word of life. The way for all men and women to be saved is by the knowledge of that truth which the word hath taught . . . . To this end the word of God no otherwise serveth than only in the nature of a doctrinal instrument. It saveth because it maketh “wise to salvation”.
Given that by the early 16th century most people were ignorant of the Scriptures, and given Cranmer’s desire to bring the Scriptures not just back into the life of the clergy, but into the church as a whole, we can understand his extensive use of Bible – to be read in English – in the daily services. But why read all one hundred and fifty Psalms each month?
Dr. Andrew Shead, who heads up the Old Testament Department at Moore Theological College in Sydney, comments that ‘the Psalms are poetry – and for good reason. Poetry is designed to do many things …: first of all, poetry slows us down. You can’t skim poetry; it’s about reading and rereading… Secondly, poetry brings sounds and images into conversation with the words, and makes the words say more than they can say by themselves’ (The Psalms in the Christian Life).
The Psalms don’t just speak to our minds, but to our very being, including our emotions – our hearts and souls. We see this more clearly when we consider the variety in the Five Books of the Psalms.
In Books 1 and 2 we find psalms expressing suffering and distress, weakness and yet trust in God. Book 3 takes us to the low ebb of the psalms with the cries of a people in distress where in Psalm 89 we are left with the question, ‘How long O Lord?’ Book 4 takes us back to the time of Moses and sounds a note of extended praise. Psalm 96 says: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song…’ Book 5 takes us to God’s answer to the prayers of the nation and the restoration of his people. Significantly five psalms of praise – which each begin and end with the word, ‘Alleluia’ conclude the Book of Psalms.
The Psalms speak to our whole being. Significantly, in recent years, Dr. Ashley Null, one of the world’s leading authorities on Thomas Cranmer, sums up Cranmer’s anthropology this way: ‘What the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies’.
Here we have a clue for Cranmer’s keen interest in the Psalms. He understood that the Psalms, in speaking to our whole being and our life’s experiences, are used by God to play an important part in changing us.
Surely our churches, and we ourselves, need to give greater attention to reading the Psalms each day – aloud.
© John G. Mason – www.anglicanconnection.com
by John Mason | Aug 29, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
Earlier this month I drew attention to Dr. Greg Sheridan’s observation in his new book, God is Good for You (Allen&Unwin:2018), namely that ‘Liberalism (today) remains in furious rebellion against Christianity, its parent and its source. A certain panic at the existential emptiness of liberal atheism impels liberalism to a new authoritarianism. Everyone must genuflect to the same secular pieties’ (p.31).
Furthermore, as his book develops, he writes, ‘It is evidence of how Christianity has been marginalized in the popular culture in the West that there are very few Christian celebrities, or rather celebrities whose primary fame is due to their Christianity, their Christian works or writings,…’ (p.66).
‘The new atheist polemicists are really the bishops of the new atheist religion, fortifying their followers in their beliefs by reference to their own sacred texts and authorized teachings. But they are false prophets of a false religion.’
‘Christians,’ he says, ‘have a right to be worried about what is happening to their beliefs in the West. The primary challenge is not intellectual but cultural…’ (p.66).
How then do we respond? The Bible’s starting point – and ending point – is prayer. How important it is then that we consider, not just the importance and the power of prayer, but rather the One to whom we are praying.
Let’s look again at Ephesians 3:20-21: Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Now to him who… is able to accomplish abundantly far more…
Handley Moule (Ephesian Studies, p.133), quotes Adolphe Monod who wrote of these words: “After the grandest promises which human language can express, the Holy Ghost here closes by declaring that all which can be expressed is infinitely below the reality which is in God. In vain we mount, even in the track of an Apostle; we can only contemplate, after all, ‘parts of the ways of God’ (Job 26:14), and we must always conclude with ‘groanings that cannot be uttered’ (Romans 8:26). Yes, and nothing other can suffice us than this avowal of insufficiency; nothing less could respond to the vague and vast need of heart. All that the mind comes to see distinctly, and the mouth to enunciate with precision is incapable of satisfying us. This conclusion accordingly, astonishing and unexpected, is just what we required…” (Moule, p.133).
Too often, in our minds, God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfills our aspirations. We think rather little of what he is like, what he expects of us, what he seeks in us. We are not captured by his holiness and his love; his thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities.
We need to pause and meditate on Paul’s words: Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish than all we can ask or imagine…
Handley Moule continues to quote Monod: “Nothing can restrain or bound the power of God towards us; nothing in him, nothing even is us; no limits set to his power, for it knows no limits; not even the weakness of our prayers, and the imperfection of our knowledge, for he is able to transcend all our demands and all our conceptions” (Moule, pp.133f).
Think of it: Paul the Apostle tells us we should be confident in praying for the limitless resources of God’s power to be at work within us.
Handley Moule comments, ‘The Doxology… seems to come less to close it (the prayer) than to waft it aloft into eternity. This is one of the great Scriptures, the Holy Spirit’s words of the first order. Let us recall it, let us ponder it, to be ourselves uplifted, and then abased, but only to be the better uplifted again in the power of God’ (HCG Moule, Ephesian Studies, pp.132f).
It may be that we have not reflected sufficiently on the awesome nature of our God. Or maybe God is saying to us, you do not have because you do not ask. You’re playing in the shallows. You’re not swimming in the deep crystal clear waters of God’s love.
Ask. And when we do, we will begin to understand just how much God does love us. Then we can know what it means for us to love the Lord our God, and to know his power at work within us as we live in today’s world.
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GettyMusic ‘Sing’ Conference – September 10-12. Location: Nashville, TN (Music City Center – 201 5th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37203) Theme: ‘Psalms: Ancient & Modern’
Visit the Anglican Connection Booth.
Lunch with the Anglican Connection ‘Focus Group’ – Tuesday, September 11 from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. Theme: ‘Thomas Cranmer & the Psalms – and 9/11’.
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© John G. Mason – www.anglicanconnection.com
by John Mason | Aug 15, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
Love. Back in the sixties Burt Bacharach sang: What the world need now is love sweet love … The Beatles were singing All You Need is Love. The problem was then and still remains today that it’s one thing to sing about love, but quite another to live it.
In his prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul prays that God’s people be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love and so have the power to grasp the love of Christ, how high and deep is the love of Christ and to know the love of Christ… (Ephesians 3:18f).
In speaking of our experience of Christ’s love Paul mixes two metaphors: one from agriculture— rooted, and the other from construction— grounded. On the one hand, our experience of Christ’s love makes us like well-rooted trees, able to withstand droughts. On the other, like well-built houses, we are enabled by Christ’s love to withstand the hurricanes of life.
We can have an intellectual understanding of God’s love, but Paul prays not only that we know but also that we experience Christ’s love deep in our hearts.
In 1 John 4:10 we read: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. When John says ‘God is love’, he is not referring to some quasi-erotic ecstasy, but to Jesus dying on the cross.
In speaking of ‘love’ John chooses a rarely used word in the original language, a word that speaks of a love that is committed to making sacrifices, no matter the cost, for the good of others.
Paul uses the same word here as he prays that God’s people may feel in their hearts the deep love of the Son of God for us. God’s Son was willing, not just ‘to share in our human suffering on the cross’, as Greg Sheridan says (God is Good for You, Allen&Unwin: 2018, p.84), but rather to die in our place the death that we deserve. Drawing from the depth of his love for us, the most godly man who has ever lived chose to die for us in our god-forsakeness.
Sometimes it takes a sickness, a crisis, or a tragedy to awaken us to the reality of Christ’s love. Sometimes it’s not until we see houses, cars and the luxuries of the world for what they are – trinkets whose splendor is uncertain and fading – that we experience the heart of God’s love.
The power of God’s love. Paul knows that it is only when God’s power is at work in our lives that we really see what it meant for him to get into our skin and enter our world; what it cost for him to suffer and die in our place. And it is for this that he prays.
Early in the 19th century, Napoleon’s army opened prisons used in the Spanish Inquisition. They came across the remains of a prisoner in a dungeon deep underground. Bones hung limply from chains around the wrists and ankles. The prisoner had suffered a grim death, but he had left a witness. On the wall he had sketched a cross and written words at each corner. Written in Spanish they read at the top of the cross, ‘height’, at the bottom ‘depth’, on one side ‘length’, on the other side ‘breadth’. Even in his suffering this man had felt the impact of God’s love.
I want you to experience, Paul says, the power of the love of God, to feel in your hearts the reality of that love.
Significantly, he adds a caveat: That with all the saints you may have the power to grasp… God’s love.
Change. A personal experience of Christ’s love doesn’t tend come to lone ranger Christians. Rather, when we consider the kinds of people God saves by his grace, whose lives are transformed by Christ – the egocentric materialists and party-loving hedonists, the powerless and the impoverished, you and me – do we fall to our knees in humility, thankfulness and joy.
Sometimes we wonder how God can love some of these people because we ourselves find it hard to love them. And then it hits us that wonder of all wonders, God loves me.
Can this power change us? Can this power change our relationships with people around us? Can this power help us cope with the disappointments and frustrations of life?
Paul’s answer is very much ‘Yes’. God’s power can change us, direct us, enable us to say sorry, to say, ‘I forgive.’ This power of God, like the dynamite it is, can and does change this fallen, fragile life of ours.
– – –
GettyMusic ‘Sing’ Conference – September 10-12. Location: Nashville, TN (Music City Center – 201 5th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37203) Theme: Psalms: Ancient & Modern
Visit the Anglican Connection Booth.
Lunch with the Anglican Connection ‘Focus Group’ – Tuesday, September 11 from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. Theme: ‘Thomas Cranmer & the Psalms, and 9/11.
by John Mason | Jun 13, 2018 | Word on Wednesday
It’s never fun to stand against current opinion. People laughed when Galileo insisted that gravity attracts all bodies with the same acceleration, regardless of weight. People derided Isaac Newton when he presented science that explained the laws of motion. People laughed at Moses when he said that God would bring the Hebrew people out from under the rule of Egypt.
Some three millennia ago, God’s people were on the edge of ancient Canaan. Twelve of their number reported on the prosperity of the land, but they were divided with respect to taking the land. Ten advised, ‘No!’ But two, Caleb and Joshua said, ‘yes’. ‘God is with us’.
The minority report was dismissed. Numbers 14:1-4 tells the sorry tale of Israel’s failure to trust God. We read: Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt!…
God had promised through Moses several times that they would inherit the land of Canaan. They had already experienced his miraculous interventions – in their release from Egyptian slavery and in his provision of food as they traveled. But now their hearts failed.
Absorbed with self-interest and self-pity, they spurned God’s love and compassion. Despite all he had done for them, they refused to listen and to trust him. They even wanted to stone their leaders – Moses and Aaron. We could understand if Moses had walked out. Instead, he prayed.
The Bible and Christian history is filled with scenes where a lack of true faith amongst professing believers can lead to vindictive acts. Acts 7 tells us that Stephen was stoned to death when he denounced the Jewish leadership for rejecting their Messiah.
Through the ages, faithful believers have encountered a similar vindictiveness from people who call themselves Christians but who lack a true faith in God. Lack of faith is more interested in what it thinks than in the truth. Human reason becomes the arbiter and determiner of truth.
God’s response in Moses’ day is chilling. He told Moses he would disinherit the people and start afresh – with Moses (Numbers 14:11-12). Moses might have found the offer attractive. Instead, he prayed a prayer that remains instructive for us today.
He reminded God that it was through his (God’s) initiative and power that the people had been freed from slavery (14:13). He spoke to God about his commitment to his promises (14:14). Furthermore, he pointed out that the Egyptians and the other nations would think that he (God) was incapable of fulfilling his promise. ‘ Lord, aren’t you a God of your word?’ he asked (Numb. 14:13-16).
At the heart of the prayer is Moses’ appeal to God’s unswerving love for his people. In 14:17 we read: “And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty,..
And in 14:19 we read: “Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Humbly but boldly Moses speaks directly to God. He reminds him of what he has promised, of his nature to forgive, and of his steadfast love. Moses understood that he could beg for God’s mercy because he knew God keeps his promises. Above all, he understood the mercy of God.
When we consider this prayer and God’s compassionate response, we can understand why Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French philosopher wrote: “God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.”
We live under another, very different covenant from the one at the time of Moses. God doesn’t promise to give us land or material wealth, but he does hold out forgiveness and a future to the nations. We live in the age of God’s mercy. So, how should we pray?
Jesus now calls you and me to join him in his plan to reach people everywhere. At the heart of this is our prayer. If we don’t pray there is no reason for God to act in mercy – in our own lives or in the lives of people around us. If we don’t pray we can assume that God will simply leave people to their own devices and desires!
The prayers of each one of us can make a difference. Moses’ prayer made all the difference for his people. Jesus prayed, ‘Father forgive them,’ even as he gave his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And, because Jesus is who he is, he continues to intercede for us.
So, do you trust that God will listen to your prayers? Do you believe your prayers can make a difference? How will you act on this?
© John G. Mason – www.anglicanconnection.com
