Right? Wrong? or neither?

“I have the right to do anything,” you say - but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” - but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others… So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God… 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, 31-32

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the person who doesn’t condemn himself by what he approves. Romans 14:23

Imagine, please, that you receive a wedding invitation from a long-standing friend called Dave. He is someone you have known and respected over many years. So naturally you are pleased to be invited; who wouldn’t want to be there on a friend’s very special day?

But as you read the invitation, you spot a problem: the person Dave is looking forward to marrying is called Mike. Ah!

Dave has always been open about being gay, and you have always been frank about your disagreement with this life-style. But he has never claimed to be a Christian, and you have therefore agreed to disagree, and have remained friends. You are aware of being honoured by the invitation, but your understanding of the Bible’s teaching – something he knows and respects - puts you in an awkward position. Very simply: should you accept the invitation?

If you decline, however graciously, you might seem to be snubbing a true friend; but you don’t feel comfortable about accepting and thereby seeming to condone something you sincerely feel is wrong.

So… what do you do?

I know some Christian friends who found themselves in pretty much this situation, facing pretty much this dilemma. I won’t tell you what they did – just that they found themselves in a quite agonising quandary, in spite of serious prayer. All I will say is that, whatever decision they made, I would have respected them.

There are times in life when we have to choose, not between right and wrong, but between two equally possible options: “grey areas”, they are sometimes called. As Christians we are called to be people of strong convictions, of course: there can be no budging on faith in Almighty God, or on the cardinal truths of the Gospel - Jesus crucified, risen again, and one day returning.

But there are situations, often very practical situations, when it simply isn’t quite so clear-cut; and in Paul’s first letter to the unruly and undisciplined Christians of Corinth, he tackles some of these head-on.

The Corinthian Christians take great delight in what might be called “Christian liberty” – the discovery that through simple faith in Jesus they are not bound by a big stack of petty rules and regulations, a long list of do’s and don’ts. No, loving, trusting and obeying Jesus is enough! – what a relief that offers from always feeling crushed by a failure to “measure up”!

The Corinthians even seem to have developed a little catch-phrase to sum it up: “All things are lawful”, or, as the NIV expands it a little: “I have the right to do anything”. Paul quotes it back at them, first in chapter 6 verse 12, and now again in chapter 10 verse 23.

In principle, Paul is in agreement – Yes, we are indeed set free in Christ. But in each case he adds a little slogan of his own, starting with that vital word “but”: “all things are lawful… but not everything is beneficial”. In other words, the fact that I am at liberty to do a particular thing doesn’t necessarily mean that I should do it. There are times to rein in your freedom rather than enjoy it.

Of course, the catch-phrase “All things are lawful”, even though Paul agrees with it, is not literally true anyway. Murder, for example, and adultery, are decidedly not lawful! One of the things that Paul is talking about in chapter 6 is sexual immorality – specifically, men having sex with prostitutes - and in this respect the very strictest laws apply.

But chapter 10 is very different; Paul is talking about matters of diet: should the Corinthian Christians worry that meat they buy in the open market might originally have been part of a sacrifice offered in a pagan temple? To which his answer is emphatic: No, of course not! Jesus has set us free from such quibbling questions!

The example I quoted at the beginning - should I attend the same-sex “marriage” of a friend? - is a modern-day example of this kind of dilemma. And there is no clear-cut, black-and-white answer: two equally committed Christians may arrive at different answers, and each should respect the other.

Behind the advice Paul is offering to the Corinthians is a fundamental principle: “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24). He has in mind that my exercise of my liberty in Christ is all very fine – but what if it has the effect of “stumbling” the faith of a less robust, perhaps less mature, Christian? Not so fine, suggests verse 32… (And anyway, we mustn’t dismiss the possibility that the Christian I disagree with could actually be right, and me wrong, can we? A little humility is no bad thing…)

We “strong”, liberated Christians can be thoughtlessly, even arrogantly, sure of ourselves, can’t we? But, as Paul asks in Romans 14:4, “Who are we to judge someone else’s servant?” Who indeed?

Oh God, you are a holy God who calls us too to be pure and holy. But in matters both great and trivial day by day we find ourselves called on to make difficult decisions. Please grant me the wisdom of your Holy Spirit, neither to compromise your holiness, nor to stumble my fellow-believers. Amen.

Words! Words! Words!

Jesus said, When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen… and do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard for their many words… Matthew 6:6-7

The novelist E M Forster (no friend of the church) wrote of “poor little talkative Christianity”. No doubt he had a point. We Christians (not least ministers and preachers like me) can be guilty of “going on a bit”, and in Forster’s time (he lived from 1879 to 1970) that was even more the case: a sermon lasting merely an hour might well be considered short.

I think Jesus would have had some sympathy with Forster. Teaching about prayer (Matthew 6) he told his followers not to copy the “pagans” who (as the NIV puts it), “babble”. N T Wright translates verse 7: “When you pray, don’t pile up a jumbled heap of words. That’s what the Gentiles do”.

Perhaps Jesus had in mind the kind of incident we read about in 1 Kings 18, where the prophet Elijah and the false prophets of Baal confronted one another on Mount Carmel. Which of them could succeed in getting their God to ignite a sacrifice on the altar? The prophets of Baal “called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. ‘Baal, answer us!’ they shouted”. They “danced around the altar” and went on to “slash themselves with swords and spears”, and all to no avail. That’s easy for us to read; but when we stop and think about it, we realise that it was, well, quite some prayer meeting!

Jesus wants none of such grandstanding: “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen” (Matthew 6:6). Anything that smacks of display suggests a desire to be noticed and admired by others, and is to be avoided by Jesus’ followers.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that all our praying should be done in solitude, that there is no place at all for public prayer in a service of worship, or of corporate prayer in a small group – to think that would be to interpret Jesus’ words in an overly literal way. But it does mean that as Christians we should be concerned to maintain standards of dignity and respect; perhaps Paul captures it best in rebuking the unruly Christians of Corinth: “Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Corinthians 14:40). (And if that sounds a bit old-fashioned, well, so be it.)

Nor does it mean that there are never times and places for lengthy prayer. Jesus himself fasted and prayed for 40 days at the start of his ministry, and on occasion went out to a lonely place, presumably because he wanted a lengthy, uninterrupted time to himself.

And for us there may be occasions when we pray (and possibly also fast; why not, if that’s how the Spirit moves us?) for extended periods. But if - like me as a young Christian many years ago - you get into the subconscious habit of feeling you must rack up so many minutes of prayer every day, and, even worse, that God might be cross if you fail to do so - if you get into that frame of mind, well, it’s a habit that seriously needs to be broken!

Do we ever pause to notice how vanishingly small (not to mention how unemotional) the Lord’s Prayer is? And that is his gift to the church! Let there be long and even agonized prayers, by all means, as long as they are sincere and from the heart; but in the routine circumstances of life there is a simple ordinariness about prayer which we should value and treasure; it can even be refreshing.

I have sometimes wondered what we would have seen if we had happened upon Jesus one day on one of his solitary prayer walks. Would he have been on his knees? Hands-together-eyes-closed? Eyes lifted to heaven? Would his voice be raised? Would he simply be sitting somewhere, to all appearances just alone with his thoughts? We don’t know, of course, because we aren’t told – which alone suggests that there are no rules.

But what we can be sure of is that when a man or woman is alone with their God, that is sacred ground indeed, and woe betide anyone who sees fit to criticize or find fault with their manner of praying.

And likewise in public worship. Should it be “liturgical”, with set prayers read from a book? Why not? Better that, truly meant, than the long, rambling, shapeless prayers to which some of us perhaps have become addicted. Should it be more “charismatic”, more “extempore” or “ad lib”? Again, why not? - as long as it is truly from the heart, and not just wearisome repetition pretending to be the leading of the Spirit.

The only “rule”, I would suggest, when it comes to any form of public prayer, is that, however brief, it should always be an event, a holy moment: a moment when the congregation is aware of being drawn into the presence of God – none of this “Let’s just have a quick prayer” stuff, please, as a kind of filler!

There is, of course, so much more one could say on the basic and mysterious topic of prayer. But, going back to E M Forster… we live in a world awash with words: books, magazines, papers, radio, television, online, social media, and so on.

Whatever else you do, Christian, don’t add unnecessarily to them!

Thank you, Father, for the brief, simple prayer Jesus gave his disciples, and for the wonderful variety in the example he set for them. Please help me, by your Holy Spirit, that my prayer-life may be a refreshment to me and a blessing to others, and never just a wearisome, dutiful burden. Amen.

Moods (2)

As the deer pants for streams of water,

    so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

 

Psalm 42:1-5

 

Last time we looked at Psalm 42, the psalm of someone who is in a very low mood, and I pointed out that such experiences are a normal part of life. Much depends on our circumstances – our health, our personal ups and downs, disappointments and encouragements, our family situation, even something as ordinary as the weather on any given day. A lot also depends on our natural temperament – some people are naturally bright and positive, others naturally tend towards gloominess. God understands this, and loves us just the same. What matters is how we handle our moods. As the saying goes, that’s life.

 

I also pointed out that the psalmist seems determined to avoid the sin of self-pity. Yes, he does feel abandoned by God, and has a faith robust enough, like Job, to take God to task for this; but he takes himself to task too: “Why, my soul, are you downcast…?” May God give us the faith always to steer well clear of “Poor me!” mode! There are times for giving ourselves a good talking to.

 

But there are other things which I didn’t have room for. Here are three, which I’ll put in the form of personal resolves…

 

First, let’s be determined to root out any possible sin.

 

I said that low moods are normal, and not necessarily a sign of sin. But that word “necessarily” is important; low moods may be a sign of sin. Every Christian is tempted by the devil, and there are times we fall to the temptation, and if/when that happens, let’s not imagine that we are going to carry on feeling bright and sunny - unless, sadly, we have developed hard hearts.

 

The word “sin” doesn’t cover just the gross failures reflected in, say, the ten commandments – no, times we give in to hidden selfishness, or pride, or lust, or greed, or spite, or anger, or jealousy are just as offensive to our holy God. And it’s a cast-iron rule of the Christian life that you can’t be both a disobedient Christian and a happy one at the same time: the two things cancel each other out. So we need to take ourselves in hand.

 

In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul tells his readers to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith”. That’s not something to do in a morbid, “I’m nothing but a worm”, frame of mind, but simply seeking light from God on anything in our lives that displeases him (and being genuinely willing to change, of course, if he does just that!). It’s no accident that Christians of an earlier generation used to warn about the danger of “backsliding”: how easy it is to drift! Is it time for a session of honest self-examination?

 

Jesus tells us to “be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48); let’s take that seriously.

 

Second, let’s not be afraid to seek help.

 

I said last time that where low moods become fixed they may also become clinical, and outside help may be needed. If there is a trusted Christian therapist available, that’s good; but we should not dismiss the value of secular professional expertise, either in terms of medication or of “talking cures”.

 

But let’s not forget that we also have (I hope!) the gift of wise and loving Christian friends who we can talk to and who we can ask to pray for us. They may have been through similar mood-swings themselves, and if they have been Christians for many years they will have gathered stores of wisdom through experience and observation from which we can benefit.

 

Prayer is key. It’s easy to slip into cynicism: “What difference will that make?” This is very natural, because we rarely see quick or obvious answers to prayer; but the plain fact is that God tells us to pray, and to do so persistently. The only alternative to praying is… well, not praying - and who, reading the Bible, can contemplate such an alternative! True, there may be times we find praying for ourselves pretty well impossible; but that’s all the more reason to recruit the support of others. Isn’t that what friends are for? A problem shared is a problem halved, says worldly wisdom – and that’s even more true for the family of God.

 

This leads to…

Third, let’s learn patience.

Reading the Bible, we are often struck by the way God’s time scheme differs from ours. He is a God who is always looking to the future. We naturally want things to happen… now, and having to wait can be frustrating, and seem to make no sense. (Just browse through the psalms as a whole and notice the repeated cry, How long, O Lord, how long…?)

But, as a great old hymn says, God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year… It is often through the delays that we learn the most important lessons, to mature and equip us for the unknown future. God doesn’t play games with us for fun; anything he allows to happen to us is for a purpose we can trust.

I have recently been reading through the story of Joseph, Jacob’s son, in Genesis. If ever anybody might be entitled to be overwhelmed by low moods, it would surely be him. But the wonderful climax to his story is even more overwhelming, and fully bears out the words of that hymn. Joseph, having suffered terribly, and having been brought low from his youthful arrogance, is able to assure his guilty, ashamed brothers that “God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20).

So it will be for all who maintain their trust in God. The same Jesus who died in agony and ignominy rose again in glory.

And so, one day, will we.

Father, I often feel so feeble and helpless as I am tossed up and down by the unpredictability of my moods. Please help me to cling hard to you in faith and obedience, making use of the kindness of my Christian brothers and sisters, until I come to that day when I can look back and see how it all fitted together. Amen.

Moods

As the deer pants for streams of water,

    so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

 

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

 

Psalm 42:1-5

 

Would you describe yourself as a moody person? Up one day, down the next?

 

Whoever wrote Psalm 42 might well have done so. Twice in this psalm (and then once more in the next) he puts to himself the same question: Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

 

There’s nothing at all unusual about low moods in the psalms (or any other parts of the Bible, come to that), but very often the writer links them with either a strong personal sense of sin and guilt (eg Psalm 51), or with grief after news of a defeat or other setback for Israel as a nation (eg Psalm 44).

 

But Psalm 42 is rather different. There seems to be no specific reason why he feels the way he does: he’s just thoroughly down – and can’t quite put his finger on why. He has the faith to call God “my Rock”, but still feels forgotten by him (verse 9). It reminds me of a powerful line in a poem by Shakespeare when he is in a similar frame of mind: “with what I most enjoy contented least” (Sonnet 29). I imagine that even those of us who reckon to be pretty positive and cheerful by temperament know that feeling, when even our greatest pleasures somehow seem flat and stale.

 

(Some people, of course, suffer with clinical depression, which is far more than just feeling low and may well need professional help. Could that be the psalmist’s situation? Yes or no, such people need all the love, support and prayer we can offer them – and not just to be told to “snap out of it” or “pull yourself together”.)

 

Various things are worth bearing in mind.

 

First, low moods are normal.

 

As I’m writing, it’s the tail-end of March, and I got up this morning just as it was starting to get light. Light enough to see that it was raining hard; and I involuntarily groaned under my breath, “Oh, not again!” (It’s no accident that we sometimes speak of being “under the weather”, is it?) It didn’t help when a little later I picked up the paper and read about the large quantities of sewage being pumped into Britain’s rivers; or saw the word “crisis” applied yet again to the National Health Service; or saw news of the horrors happening in Gaza, or Ukraine, or Myanmar, or Sudan, or wherever; or saw predictions about “schools at breaking point”; or when, having turned to prayer, I called to mind the many people in my life who are grappling with long-term illness.

 

These things are raw realities – and they can’t be cheerily fobbed off with, “Well, at least it’s a good thing that God’s in control!” Try telling that to the parents who can’t feed their children, or the person struggling with terminal sickness. Somebody wrote a book a few years ago called “It’s OK not to be OK”. I don’t know if they were a Christian, but whether they were or not, that’s a basic truth we all sometimes need to get hold of. Is it a truth for you today?

 

Second, that truth doesn’t justify self-pity.

 

We need to notice that the psalmist, however wretched he feels, hasn’t given up on God; indeed, he tells us that “my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”. Job-like, he dares to question God; but he makes no secret of the fact that he feels abandoned by him. Downcast he may be, but he’s obviously making a brave attempt to “hang on in there”, as we say. And the psalm ends on an optimistic note: “Put your hope in God”, he says to himself, “for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God”. He is keeping self-pity at bay.

 

My wife has recently been reading through Lamentations – a book that doesn’t exactly promise a bundle of laughs. She was struck by the final verses, where the writer questions God: “Why do you always forget us…” That struck us as possibly crossing the line into self-pity - it’s the word “always” that does it, isn’t it? Do you remember, when you were a child, pouting and sulking and demanding to know “Why is it always me that gets told off?”

 

I’m probably doing the writer of Lamentations an injustice. Who am I to say? But perhaps it can serve to remind us that while doubt and questioning are not necessarily sins, self-pity – the “It’s not fair!” reaction, the “Poor me!” reaction – is, and we should struggle not to  give into it.

 

Faith can be hard, as the Bible demonstrates from beginning to end; but God is a demanding as well as a loving God, and he always looks for faith that refuses to die (and delights when he finds it – see Matthew 8:10).

 

There is of course a lot more that might be said; perhaps we’ll come back to it next time. But I’m sure the best final word is gloriously simple: Let’s always remember, God has sent to this world a Saviour who cried out in agony on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That, of course, is far more than a mere “mood”.

 

But, nonetheless, there is our God. Take comfort from that!.

 

Father, please help me to remember Jesus on the cross – and then raised on the third day – at all times, especially when my mood is low and heavy and I feel like the psalmist. Amen.

They crucified him

They crucified him. Mark 15:24

Next Friday is Good Friday. If ever there was a day for us as Christians to gather with our fellow-believers, this surely is it.

People instinctively come together at a time of grief, even if the person who has died did so peacefully and in hearty old age. How much more then when the death is especially tragic or unexpected. There is comfort in such a coming together, though words are hard to find and seem to achieve little or nothing. We all make a point of attending a friend’s funeral if at all possible, don’t we? It seems unthinkable not to make the effort to be there.

When Judas Iscariot and the soldiers arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark tells us that “everyone deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:50). By “everyone” he means the disciples, for who else was there with him in the Garden?

But before we judge their desertion too harshly – have we never reacted to a frightening situation in sheer, blind panic? – it’s only right to recognise that they do seem to have straggled back once the shock had sunk in a little. We know from John 19:25-27 that “the beloved disciple” was right there “near the cross of Jesus”, along, of course, with a group of women including Jesus’ mother; and I like to think that the rest of the male disciples were around somewhere not far off, even if in rather  skulking mode.

We weren’t around on that terrible yet wonderful day; we didn’t have the option of being with Jesus when he died. But probably most of us do have a choice about next Friday, and the words come to mind of the American Folk Hymn: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”. Not, of course, that we are mourning a dead person! But we do gather to remember his suffering – suffering endured purely for us and in our place.

Some of the best hymns and songs in the history of the church were written for Good Friday. They still speak powerfully, in spite of archaic language.

I love O sacred head, sore wounded, thought to have been written around 1100. It climaxes in a prayer anticipating death… Be near me when I’m dying,/ O show thy cross to me,/ And, for my succour flying,/ Come, Lord, and set me free!/ These eyes, new faith receiving,/ From Jesus shall not move;/ For he who dies believing,/ Dies safely through thy love. Thanks be to God for that! The cross of Jesus gives us solid hope.

And here is It is a thing most wonderful, written by W W How, who lived from 1823 to 1897… It is most wonderful to know/ His love for me so free and sure:/ But ‘tis more wonderful to see/ My love for him so faint and poor… (Which of us can’t say Amen to that!) And then this humble prayer: And yet I want to love thee, Lord:/ O light the flame within my heart,/ And I will love thee more and more,/ Until I see thee as thou art. (And which of us can’t echo that prayer?)

What about When I survey the wondrous cross, by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)?... Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,/ Save in the death of Christ my God; / All the vain things that charm me most, / I sacrifice them to his blood/…   Were the whole realm of nature mine,/ That were an offering far too small,/ Love so amazing, so divine,/ Demands my soul, my life, my all.

There are some fine new(er) songs as well, of course. Thank God for hymn-writers like Graham Kendrick, who wrote in 1983… The price is paid,/ Come let us enter in/ To all that Jesus died/ To make our own. / For every sin/ More than enough he gave,/ And bought our freedom / From each guilty stain./ The price is paid, / Alleluia!

And here is Matt Redman, who is prepared to look the reality of our own deaths right in the face as he reflects on Jesus’ death… And on that day when my strength is failing,/ The end draws near and my time has come,/ Still my soul will sing in praise unending,/ Ten thousand years and then for evermore. / Bless the Lord, O my soul! Again, hope, given in the midst of what often seems a hopeless world.

I’m not writing this blog with the aim of “guilting” anyone into being in worship on Good Friday. No; if we are there it should be because it’s in our hearts to be there. But, as I suggested at the beginning, if by any chance we have of late drifted away a bit from church (perhaps never really got back after covid?), could there be a better day on which to renew the habit? And what better occasion to sing some of these wonderful words? The price is paid! Come, let us enter in!

The crucified and risen Jesus waits to meet us.

Lord Jesus Christ, I have known the story of your suffering, death and resurrection for so long that it has almost become stale and lost much of its wonder for me. Please refresh my faith. Please give me the determination and conviction to be among your people in worship and praise over this Easter weekend, on Good Friday if at all possible, as well as on Easter Sunday. Amen.

Justified by faith? (2)

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14

Last time we thought about “justification by faith”, and how it has become crystalized into a “doctrine” which might be called the motto-definition of the Protestant Reformation: If you feel the need to be right with God (as we all should, for we are all sinners) then simply put your trust in what Jesus did on the cross, and abandon any attempt to put yourself right by your own efforts. God in his mercy will forgive and save.

I mentioned that the idea of “justification”, which is gone into in detail by the Apostle Paul (Romans 3:28 being a key summary) is used hardly at all in the Gospels by Jesus himself. It is in essence a term from the legal world, pretty much the equivalent of “acquittal”, “getting the verdict” or, if we might invent an ugly word, being “righteoused” by God.

But there is one outstanding exception to this generalisation: Luke 18:14, the final verse of a wonderful little story Jesus told to demonstrate what it means to be “justified” by God. It’s about two men, a very religious Pharisee and a broken, humble tax-collector, who go into the temple to pray – and how it was the second one, the one who didn’t try to “righteous” himself, who went home with the peace of mind that comes of knowing that you are forgiven. There, in story form, is the “doctrine” of justification by faith.

Jesus loved telling stories (I wonder, by the way, why we who preach seem often reluctant to follow his example!). Some of those stories, like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, are well known even outside Christian circles, for they glow with life-changing meaning. But they don’t come any simpler or more powerful than this one.

What is it that makes it so special? I would suggest…

First, it’s beautifully short (less than 150 words in the NIV Bible, roughly half that in the Greek). Yet in those few words Jesus conjures up the whole atmosphere and culture of those far off days by showing us these two people: and, I think, implicitly inviting us to find our place in their drama. It’s massively heartening to the humble, and, hopefully, massively challenging to the proud. Where am I – where are you? – in this story? The problem, often, with “doctrine” is that it can seem very wordy and hard to grasp; thanks be to God for Jesus’ little story!

Second, it’s beautifully simple.

The self-righteous man is not short of words; he presents God with a comprehensive list of all the nasty things he isn’t – a robber, an evildoer, an adulterer, and certainly not “like this tax collector” (can you see him looking scornfully down his lordly nose?) – and then he reminds God (though I suspect that God already knew, don’t you?) of a few of his plus-points: look, I fast twice a week! look, I even tithe my income! Aren’t I good!

The tax-collector, on the other hand, clearly knows his own true self. He belongs to a profession (probably employed, and paid, by the hated Romans) not renowned for their honesty. No doubt he has other moral and spiritual blemishes we aren’t told about. But what matters is that he is aware of his sinfulness: “God, have mercy upon me, a sinner” is all the prayer he can muster.

But… the wonder is that it is all the prayer he needs to muster! And so, says Jesus, he was the one who “went home justified…”, at peace with the one true and holy God. The gospel of Jesus is, then, essentially simplicity itself. It isn’t, first and foremost, a “doctrine” to be studied and puzzled over; it’s a wonderful truth that you discover, live, experience, and enjoy, a gift of God’s grace to be received with childlike faith.

Do you know what it is to “go home justified”?

There is a third feature of this story which is worth commenting on. Does it raise hopes that people who have never heard the gospel may be saved?

The tax-collector, obviously, didn’t believe in Jesus, because he had never heard of him. How could he? – he is, after all, only a fictitious character! and in historical reality, the cross hadn’t yet happened anyway. Yet he “went home justified”; his cry for mercy was enough.

Could the same thing be true of people throughout history who for various reasons have never had the opportunity to put faith explicitly in Jesus? From our human perspective it seems troubling to think of people – sinful people, certainly - condemned for failing to believe in a Saviour of whom they have never heard… as if God is a doctor who says to a sick patient, “I have a medicine which could cure you, but I am not going to tell you what it is, or give it to you”.

These are deep waters to swim in, and we have to be tentative! Our understanding of the mind of God is limited, to put it mildly. But I freely confess that I, for one, would be delighted if it turns out to be so!

Lord, have mercy!

Father, thank you for loving us so much that you sent your Son to save us. Help me, in return, to live a life of gratitude and glad obedience! Amen.

Justified by faith?

We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 3:28

If somebody were to ask you “Are you justified by faith?” how would you reply? I hope – with a resounding Yes!

Justification by faith is a great phrase. Indeed, it is right at the heart of Paul’s understanding of the gospel of Christ (Jesus himself rarely spoke in those terms). It means, in essence, being declared “in the right” by God himself, in spite of being, like every other human being, a sinner.

But how can anyone be both “in the right” and at the same time a sinner? Isn’t that a contradiction? The answer Paul gives is: because Jesus has taken our sins upon himself, and in doing so has paid the price which was rightly ours to pay. Even though we still sin we can anticipate that verdict “justified” (that is, “declared righteous”) on the final day of judgment when we stand before God.

The doctrine of justification by faith is particularly associated with the name of Martin Luther, the monk who kick-started the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. He felt that the church of his time laid too much emphasis on “works” that we human beings must do in order to be right with God. And, putting it simply, he found that however hard he tried to measure up, he just couldn’t do it (and, make no mistake, he tried hard!). His discovery (or perhaps I should say, his re-discovery) of Paul’s understanding changed both his own life and the history of the world.

The result is that the church today consists, broadly speaking, of three basic streams: Roman Catholic, Protestant (I imagine most people reading this blog fall within this block), and what is usually called Eastern Orthodox. As Christians we endlessly debate differences of understanding and emphasis – sometimes, throughout history, to the extent of killing one another, imagining that in so doing we are fighting the battles of God himself. The more you think about that, the more shockingly sad it seems.

Christian history makes plain the tendency of God’s people to form themselves into what we might call “tribes”, even within that threefold division. These might be according to denominations – Baptist, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Salvation Army, you name it, plus the multitude of newer groupings that have emerged in more recent years.

Many of us try to play down such tribal loyalties, because we recognise that there is no such grouping which has it all right, no group which is doctrinally perfect. But it isn’t easy! In my own case, coming as I did from a non-church family, it “just so happened” (not really, of course) that God met with me as a teenager in the context of a Baptist church, and that’s where I’ve been ever since, aware of the imperfections of that tradition but grateful too for the many blessings received and therefore unashamed to have an affectionate and respectful sense of loyalty.

Within the grouping which is sometimes referred to as “evangelical”, various catch-phrases – one might even call them slogans (possibly even battle-cries!) – have emerged as a form of self-identity. In America, for example, there are those who routinely refer to themselves as “born again” Christians (but can there be any other sort!). Other buzz-words attached to “Christian” might be “practicing” or “church-going” or “sincere” or “Bible-believing” or “Spirit-filled” (but, again, shouldn’t such motto-words apply to any and every Christian!).

What has all this to do with justification by faith, where we started? I think it demonstrates how a concern for doctrinal correctness, certainly important in itself, can slowly harden into a means of tribal self-identification and even, putting it bluntly, into downright arrogance (as in, “We, of course, are the only true Christians in this neighbourhood, because we resolutely refuse to see works as being of any deep significance”).

But one moment… When Paul sat down to write to the Church in Rome, and especially Romans 3, he didn’t think of himself as writing what we now call “doctrine”: he just wanted to explain to the Roman Christians how he understood the good news of the gospel, and “justified by faith”, and all it implied, seemed an appropriate and accurate summary.

Dare I put it like this: correct doctrine is vital – yet it can also be a curse when in effect it becomes a new form of law. We need to use our imaginations to grasp what it must have been like for the first pagan unbelievers to hear the good news of Jesus. Trusting in him won’t have been presented as a condition to be met, almost a box to be ticked, even a threat to be warned about: “If you want to be put right with God, you’d better start believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the sooner the better!”

No. It will have been presented as exactly what the word “gospel” means – “good news”: “You want to know how to be put right with God? That’s wonderful! Just trust in what Jesus did on the cross!” And that isn’t a condition to be dutifully met but an invitation to be joyfully accepted.

Let’s always remember: we are justified by faith; we are not justified by believing in justification by faith. Can you spot the difference?

Father, thank you that you sent Jesus not in order to put another layer of law upon us, but to stretch out your hands of love to all sinful men and women with the good news of Jesus crucified for our sins and raised for out salvation. Save me, Lord, from ever misrepresenting such joyful, liberating  good news. Amen.