How to get to heaven

The message of Christianity can be misconstrued as, "Be good and you will go to heaven, do wrong and you will be punished". It's actually more like, "We all get things wrong but God loves us anyway. He accepts us with all our faults so we should love God and be kinder and gentler with other people." This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to be good but behaving well is a response to God's love for us. If getting into heaven (however we define that place) were dependent on our own efforts none of us would make it.

The 'be good and you will go to heaven' assumption about Christianity's message can have two consequences; non- believers can see the label Christian as a signal that the bearers think themselves better than and look down on other people. They can see Christians as self righteous, judgmental and unforgiving. And Christians, if they are not careful, can unwittingly become all of those things.

The parable of the prodigal son Luke 15: 11-32 is great if you are the prodigal who has wasted all the good things his father gave him but is welcomed back with open arms and a big party; but if you are the elder brother in the story who has stayed at home, done everything his father wanted, laboured in the fields and done all the hard work it's a harder message to take.

Time and again Jesus' parables contrast the 'good' person who keeps all the rules but is lacking in compassion with the sinner who accepts his fallen nature and is compassionate to others. It's the outsider, the Samaritan who comes to the aid of the man attacked on the road. The religious people pass by on the other side - more interested in maintaining their observances and their state of ritual holiness. It's the prayer of the sinner 'Lord have mercy on me a sinner that Jesus holds up as the example rather than the Pharisees prayer,"Thank God that I am not like other men." Luke 18:11

Jesus saves the woman condemned for adultery saying 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'  Our sins are forgiven 'as we forgive other peoples'. 'We are counselled to, Judge not that you be not judged.'

The trouble is that if you keep all the rules and live a good life it can be very difficult not to resent people who break the rules and seem to get away with it. There is a difficult line between upholding what is right and becoming judgmental and condemnatory of others. The better behaved we are the harder it can become to show compassion for others and forgive them their faults. "Whoever is forgiven little loves little" - Luke 7:47

Worse still we can become preoccupied with other people's minor misdemeanors and overlook huge errors on our own part failing to deal with the huge plank (beam) in our own eye before dealing with the speck in someone elses. Matthew 7.3

Heaven isn't a reward to be earned by being 'holier than thou' it's a free gift to be received with gratitude and shared freely with others. It can be easier to understand and accept this message if you have got things badly wrong than if you have lived a largely blameless life. That's not an encouragement to mess up just a sad fact. It is right that as individuals and institutions Christians should uphold the highest standards of conduct and be a bulwark against moral erosion but the church can seem to be less compassionate than the world around it lagging behind others in understanding and tolerance. The Christian message isn't about condemnation its about love, compassion and forgiveness.

The way you get to heaven is to accept that God loves and cares for you despite your faults and to try and love and forgive other people as he loves and forgives you.

Some seed fell among the thorns

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred,sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Parable of the Sower- Matthew 13)

The last two weeks have been hectic thanks to the day job, a hectic social round, a gorgeous new grand daughter and two allotment plots. My seed just now is in strong danger of being choked by weeds or to put that in the plain language I try to use here there has been a strong danger of God getting crowded out. 

On the other hand I believe in a down to earth God and that our lives have meaning so I try to find inspiration in every day life and working on the allotment there is plenty of time for reflection if not for sitting in quiet contemplation. The agricultural stories run through my mind of course; the parable of the sower and the farmer who lets the crop and the weeds together for fear of destroying the crop as he tries to eliminate the weeds. We are taming a second plot that is beset with bind weed so I have had a lot of time to reflect on weeds.

I hope you understand by now that I am not a special person bestowing wisdom on you but a very ordinary and flawed person whose message is that God can work with us as ordinary as we are and that somewhere in each of us there is the seed of something very special indeed that God wants to flourish and come to fruition. 

Unfortunately we live in a fallen world. It's not a terrific growing environment - more like our new and over-grown allotment. A lot of seed falls on stony unwelcoming ground among people who don't want to know; or whose interest is fleeting, so that the seeds that are planted look like they are going to grow and then just wither but even the seed that should be on good ground can be beset with weeds; whether they be our own wayward nature or the curse of busyness that afflicts modern life.

God has planted the seed but we need to work on the ground. Christ through his death and resurrection has opened up a new possibility of relationship with God. The Spirit is at work in us even when we ignore him. My take on the Holy Spirit is a Quaker inspired one, " Take heed dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in our hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows our darkness and brings us to new life."

God seeks us out, gives us glimpses of the better people we can be. His Spirit is at work in the world helping us to encourage and inspire each other to keep the weeds at bay and build God's Kingdom; the territory under his cultivation where the soil is good and crops can flourish.

I have to hit the road now. This has been a short post but hopefully one that will get me back on track. There is more to share. I look forward to seeing you on the road.

Why I am a Christian

So I believe in God but why am I a Christian?

I am a Christian because, through Christ I see a down to earth God who is relevant to our everyday lives; who accepts us in spite of our faults and limitations but points us towards the people we could and should be.

That is a short answer. A longer answer has to begin by acknowledging that I am a product of my culture and upbringing. It is a point non believers are quick to make and that most Christians would freely and quickly acknowledge. For me it reinforces the fact that I am a Christian not through any merit of my own but  through the grace of God. It isn't something I have earned it is something I was given and am called to respond to.

Whilst acknowledging  a debt to my upbringing there were choices involved. If religious faith is a product of brain washing, as atheists are apt to claim, you'd have to conclude that the church is particularly bad at it. Suffice it to say that many, of my contemporaries who had a similar upbringing to me are not believers.

I did not come from a particularly Christian family. My father was a lapsed Catholic who I only recall going to church for weddings and funerals and my mother a nominal C of E who seldom went to church either. As children we were sent rather than taken to Sunday school. We lived on a succession of military bases and I was exposed to a variety of denominations and styles of worship. I think what it gave me was a curiosity about religion and a desire to seek God out for myself. I have had an in and out relationship with the church, that I'll return to in a later post, but I have always been drawn to the person and character of Jesus as he leaped out at me from the scriptures. I've struggled at times to reconcile the Christ of the gospels with the organised church but it was this for me that made him all the more real.

The Christ of the gospels seemed to say, 'Look, there is organised religion and it can give a satisfaction of sorts but it is all about outward appearances. I'm telling you it is really about what is on the inside. It's easy to feel holy and self righteous but what are you really like? Are you in truth a loving person or are you judgemental and unforgiving condemning others for faults you dare not acknowledge in yourselves."

And yet this same Christ who judged by that high standard had another message which was, "You have your faults and will never be perfect but I love you anyway. It is not right for all your wrong doing to go unpunished but I will take the punishment on myself. I'll take the punishment so you can go free. You have failed and you will doubtless fail again but I am offering you another chance."

The very fact that, in Jesus, the Christian God came down to earth gives meaning and importance to our lives. Our faith is not about a once given set of rules it's about living the lives we have been given engaging  with God and one another and learning more about ourselves, the people we can potentially be and God's Kingdom, the world as it will be and has begun to be where God's influence prevails.

Jesus is God for our everyday lives but we can also glimpse, through him, the connectedness with God's wider purpose; withdrawing as he does for time of quiet reflection; seeking God in contemplative prayer and through him we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promptings of love and truth in our hearts that if heeded can take us to a better future.

I am a Christian because I am drawn to the person of Christ. I respect people of other faiths and religions and am confident that they are in some way part of God's purpose but it is through Christ I get a glimpse of God's Kingdom and, though I wriggle, go astray, lose the route and go up all kind of blind alleys I will continue to seek his way.

What is faith?

Faith is Trust

What is faith? I set out on my journey intending to talk about my Down to Earth God in down to earth language. 'Faith' is central to the Christian message but it is the easiest of ideas to get wrong, misrepresent or even lampoon.

Infobarrel, a site I like to write for, recently featured an article, 'A New Religion : The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster' reviewing the book the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The book, and by extension the review, are essentially an attack on 'intelligent design' and make the argument that if you can take something to be true by faith alone, without any scientific evidence, we can believe in what we like.

Pastafarianism, as the new religion is called, is entirely absurd but intended to be. The premise is that, if we can believe in one set of 'truths' without scientific proof we can believe in anything. I've never been a 'flat-earther' or believed in the literal interpretation of biblical creation accounts. I often find non believers are attacking a version of religion I don't believe in either; so their arguments go right past me but an attack on 'intelligent design' is something else. Isn't that more or less what I believe in I asked myself?

Well, it is what I believe and again it isn't. I don't see God in a white coat with a test tube or wrestling furiously with scientific formulae any more than I see him as an old man with a beard sitting above the clouds. So what do I believe about how the world was created?

The truth is I don't think a great deal about creation at all. In so far as I do it's not about how the universe was created. I'm happy to leave that to scientists and learn from what they tell me. I don't wake up wondering how everything began. I'm more interested in how I am going to get through the day and how I relate to the world and the people I'll meet. I do believe in God as 'creator' but its a not a nuts and bolts belief in how the world was created. It's an understanding about relationships because that is the territory that religion claims for itself. Religion is about how we get on with God and each other rather than an explanation of how things started.

But I do believe that there is a creative force in the universe. I believe that there is a force that holds it together, a context in which everything else happens. I believe that through that creative energy we are connected with each other and with all creation and that we are at our best and most in tune with the people we are meant to be when we make that connection.

I can not prove that this is true but it is not based on whimsy, hear-say or passed on ideas. I experience this sense of connectedness in periods of quiet reflection. I read of it in the writings of spiritual teachers across religions noting the similarity of their beliefs as opposed to the differences in their religious practises. On a few occasions in my life; too few and longer ago than I care to think about, I have felt drawn up into this sense of the oneness of everything, feeling larger than my body, at once part of it and yet able to look down on it. I believe, from experience and practise, that I can tune in to the creative force of the universe. There is as the Quakers say, 'that of God in everyone'.

I am all too aware that this is  less than the whole story. Bad things happen in the world, natural disasters, man made catastrophes, loss, disappointment and personal tragedy - but there is nothing in Christ's message that says we will not suffer pain. The early history of the church is one of martyrdom and suffering and bad things still happen to good people. I see creation as an on-going process. God's Kingdom  is still being created. We are experiencing as Paul tells us its birth pangs but I believe with Paul that all works for good in the hearts of men who love God. I believe that despite everything, in some way that is beyond my understanding, things will work out for the best. I have no evidence that things will work out for the best but I place trust in the sense of unity and purpose I feel in the world and that in my interpretation is faith.

Faith is trust. We have faith in God in the same way as we have faith in a parent. We place our hand in theirs without knowing exactly where they are taking us but confident that, even if they can't protect us from everything that might happen they have our best wishes at heart.

This doesn't explain why as a Christian I place my faith in Christ because that is another post for another day.
I will just say here that, when I read the Gospels Christ leaps out to me as a real person with insights I find helpful and in tune with my experience of the world. He is a Down to Earth God who questions the exterior practice of religion without evidence of spiritual insight and seems to pose questions that are all too relevant today.

If I haven't got the theology right or sprinkled this with enough scriptural references it's because I'm trying to talk about a Down to Earth God in down to earth language.

My God's a down to earth God
A feet on the ground
Sweat on the brow God.

No up in the sky
Head in the clouds God
A proper down to earth God.

Way of a Pilgrim

I love the Russian spiritual classic, Way of the Pilgrim and adapted its opening words for my profile.

 “By the Grace of God I am a Christian , by my actions a great sinner, and by calling a homeless wanderer of the humblest birth who roams from place to place. My worldly goods are a knapsack with some dried bread in it on my back, and in my breast-pocket a Bible. And that is all.”

The book is the tale of a simple pilgrim who sets out to learn the prayer of the heart - also known as the Jesus prayer and how, through its practice, he can pray continuously.

I have dabbled with the Jesus prayer as a form of spiritual practice and turn to it often as a way to focus myself or when I am stuck in prayer but I am as much attracted to the prayer by its sentiments as by the spiritual practice.

I relate most closely to the first part of the pilgrim's statement. I can not as the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 thank God that I am not like other men. It is all too evident to those who know me that I am all too much like other men and that the appropriate prayer for me is indeed, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." 

 I am not a homeless wanderer of the simplest origins travelling from place to place with minimal possessions, dependent on the generosity of others. I carry a great deal of psychological and circumstantial baggage on my journey. 

There are several ways in which my journey will be different from the pilgrim's.

I am not a simple man in quest of wisdom I am a complicated man pulled in different directions by my internal contradictions and looking to be made whole. 

I will travel over the inter-net rather than hard miles. My failings and limitations will become self evident as we travel on and if there is any merit in the trail of words I leave behind me it will be through the grace of God rather than my own merit. There have been dead ends and false starts and the hardest part of the journey has been getting out of the front door. 

The pilgrim journeyed from wise counsellor to wise counsellor, fed and watered on the way by sympathetic and generous hosts. There are like minded souls on the internet but for the most part I will be travelling through alien territory where mention of Christ, or worse still his church will be met by indifference, ridicule and even hostility. The days of my youth when religion was regarded as a 'good thing' (providing of course it wasn't taken too seriously) are long gone. I've lost through my own fault most of the links into church that I once had and have become as such a traveller in a far country.

I believe in a God who loves us while we are still far off and who will bring me home but I still have some distance to travel. I am comforted to know that Christ too faced indifference and hostility and was even ridiculed as 'King of the Jews' but I am conscious too that it was those who did not profess a religion who he called to him and those who congratulated themselves for not being as other men that he was most critical of.

I believe in a God with dust on his feet and dirt beneath his fingernails a Down to Earth God for our messy world. My quest is to find voices crying out to God's people speaking to them in a language they will understand and relate to. 

"Pray for me a wretched sinner that the Lord in His infinite mercy will grant me a good journey."

I want to write about God for people who 'don't do God'; in plain simple language stripped of religious jargon. It's too easy to hide behind formula words and to be unclear, even in our own minds, what we really believe.

I find, when talking to 'non religious friends', that the God they disbelieve in is one I don't believe in either. If there is a God above the clouds manipulating events to his own ends then he's either not very good at what he does or distinctly lacking in compassion. The God I believe in is not like that.

A God who is easy to understand and grasp is hardly worth knowing. If God is not beyond our comprehension then what is? The God I believe in is beyond everything. He doesn't sit outside his creation, manipulating or remaining indifferent to it he embraces it in its entirety. He is infinite, the creative force behind an ever expanding universe.

But the same God who is infinite, beyond our comprehension, infuses every molecule of our being. He cares for every hair on our head and is more in tune with our true nature than we are. To be at one with him is to be in tune with our true nature and to become the people we were meant to be.

Psalm 139
1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I want to write about God in a simple down to earth way. The reason I want to do that is I believe in a 'down to earth' God. I expressed it in this poem:

My God's a down to earth God
A feet on the ground
Sweat on the brow God.

No up in the sky
Head in the clouds God
A proper down to earth God.

My God's a down to earth God
A smell of stable
Pricked by straw God.

No distant, aloof God
A dust on his feet
Tried out and tested God.

My God's a down to earth God
A real hands on
Making men whole God.

No unfriendly, life denying God
But a water to wine
Breaking bread God.

My God's a down to earth God
A nailed to a cross
Pierce him, he bleeds God.

Not dead and defeated
But a risen again
With us today, oh so alive God.

_________________
Have mercy on me, O God, in your great goodness; •
according to the abundance of your compassion
blot out my offences.