One thing

 

From The Rectory

 

I wonder if you sometimes feel there’s just too much to do? And the to do list never seems to get any shorter – more things get added as quickly as you can cross things off. Perhaps you feel you have too much on your mind? You’re running from one thing to the next, pulled in multiple competing directions.

 

I have been reading a business book by Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Virgin Books / Ebury Publishing / Penguin Random House, 2014). McKeown describes two experiences that caused him to rethink how he was living. As a young man, he sat down with a blank sheet of paper and brainstormed for twenty minutes about what he might like to do with his life. He had filled the paper. But he noticed that nowhere did it say “Go to Law School.” Which he says was awkward, as he was currently pursing legal studies.

 

Second, he tells of an email which he received from his boss while his wife was pregnant. It said, “1-2pm on Friday would be really bad time to have this baby.” He sort of assumed it was a joke. But sure enough the baby was born on Friday. After being with his wife in the hospital, McKeown headed off to the supposedly crucial client meeting. His boss claimed the client admired him for being there at such a time, but McKeown wasn’t sure he did. And in fact nothing ever came of the meeting, even though McKeown had managed to upset his wife by going to it. McKeown concluded he’d got his priorities wrong. What seemed essential, really wasn’t.

 

In fact, McKeown points out that for 500 years the English word “priority” was only ever used in the singular. It meant the prior, the first, thing. But since 1900 we can speak of “priorities”. He describes working for a company which listed its ten top priorities. Of course, if we are trying to focus on ten first things, it is very hard to do any of them really well.

 

We would each do well, perhaps, to pause and ask what few things really matter to us the most.

 

Jesus was asked which was the most important commandment. He said it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”. And the second most important commandment was like the first: to “love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

 

But if we wanted to get it down to just one thing, Jesus in fact once said that only one thing was needful. It’s in a story about Martha and Mary, sisters who seem to have been very different characters. Jesus and his disciples were coming to their house. Martha was conscious there was so much to do! She was busy and distracted, anxious about many things, serving, working hard, getting things ready. While her sister bustled about, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him, in the classic position of a disciple (a learner or apprentice) attending to a Master-Teacher (a Rabbi). Jesus says only a “few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 

Whatever else we do, the one great essential thing is to take the time and space we need to listen to Jesus, to receive his words and to put them into practice. I don’t want to give you another thing for your already lengthy to do list, but loving Jesus and living as his disciple in friendship with him really is the most important thing which would transform everything else. Taking some time consciously most days, as it were, to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from him, to pray and read the Bible would be transformative. We may even find that a bit of peace and quiet, with casting our anxieties on to Jesus, knowing that he cares for us, might make us rather less stressed (see 1 Peter 5:6-7). We might see our way to crossing a few things off the to do list. And to facing our responsibilities knowing that Jesus only wants us to do what we can, not what we can’t. Let’s pray that we might not neglect the one essential needful thing for the sake of so many other good things (some of which we no doubt ought to do!).    

The Revd Marc Lloyd

Mark's Gospel - A very brief introduction

 I wanted to write less than a page of A4 for those who perhaps have little Christian background to help with reading or listening to Mark's Gospel:

A brief introduction to reading

Mark’s Gospel

 

Mark’s gospel is one of the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus. It is traditionally thought to be based on the eye-witness evidence of Jesus’ disciple, the Apostle Simon Peter.

 

Like the rest of the bible, Mark is divided up in to chapters and verses. For example, “Mark 4:1-20” means “chapter 4 verses 1 to 20”, Jesus’ parable of the Sower. These notes might help you as you read (or listen to) Mark’s gospel for yourself.  You can find it online at https://www.biblegateway.com/ You might try “The New International Version” translation (NIV).

 

The first line of the gospel gives us a kind of heading or headline to introduce the book. This is the best news in the world ever about a real man, Jesus (which means “God saves”), the Christ or Messiah (the anointed one), the long-promised Rescuer-King the Old Testament Scriptures had predicted, the Son of God.

 

As you read the gospel, you might think about three issues:

 

·       Jesus’ identity: who is he?

·       Jesus’ purpose: why did he come?

·       And our response to him: what does it mean to be disciple (learner / apprentice) or follower of Jesus?

 

Jesus announces the kingdom of God (1:15). Because Jesus, God’s appointed king, has come, the kingdom of God is present. He calls us to repent, to change our minds, to turn away from sin and turn to him and to believe the good news. Jesus wants us to put our trust in him and follow him.  

 

The first half of the gospel especially shows us Jesus’ unique authority as God the Son. He calls his disciples, drives out evil spirits and heals many (chapter 1). He does what only God can do: he forgives sins (2:1-12). As the Creator God, he can command the storm (4:35-end). 

 

8:27-38 is the central turning point of the gospel. Jesus asks his disciples who they believe he is, and explains that he must suffer and die, and what it means to follow him.

 

Notice how much of the gospel is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life (chapters 11-16), to his death and resurrection. Jesus came to die. Jesus’ death is necessary as part of God’s plan to save us. Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many (10:45). He dies in our place that we might be forgiven and live. He faces the holy anger of God against sin so that the way to God is open for all who trust in him (15:33-39). Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death.

Danny Kruger, Covenant

 

Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood and Nation

Danny Kruger

Forum / Swift Press, 2023 (ISBN: 9781800752115 hb, 149pp)

 

Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP with an Oxford DPhil in history, seeks to set out a social and political vision oriented towards The Good Life and virtuous living. He claims our culture seems to be searching for something. “We want a life that is both embodied and enchanted: rooted, tactile, sweaty, but also lit by sacred fire. We want a life of function (to be useful and fully used) and of place (to identify with a piece of land and the people of it), and for these things to be food for the body and food for the soul.” (p82)

 

We need to value not only care and fairness but recapture a sense of authority, loyalty and sanctity (p60). Kruger wants to restore and further what he calls “The Order” which is social and other people oriented with a network of relationships, obligations and commitments fostered by institutions. He contrasts this with “The Idea”, the gnostic sense that my own autonomy is all, that I should discover or define my identity according to what I feel to be my inner self, regardless of physical or external realities. Kruger thinks the word “woke” is rather trivial. “Cultural Marxism” is preferable: revolutionary tribes war over identity, self-interest and ideology rather than merely over the means of production. He prefers the term “transgressive” to describe those who in a spirit of grievance want to overthrow all that might restrain “the dominant individual will” (p39).

 

Kruger thinks “we are born to worship: this is our essence, as primary as our existence.” (p40) He contends that “the culture war… is a religious conflict about the right gods to worship.” (p25) “You are what you worship. Your identity is a reflection of your god, the thing you venerate, which gives life meaning and explains good and evil. A culture is the act of common worship, and so a community or a civilisation might best be defined in terms of the gods the people serve.” (p29) In our post-Christian age, “we worship ourselves… more particularly the individual person, and even more particularly the person within: ‘the real me.’” (p30)

 

Kruger argues not just for contracts but for the covenant of marriage as the basis for a flourishing society, and for a covenant of place and nation. He even claims that “all politics might be said to come down to the regulation of sex and death.” (p62). The family and household are central to him. “We cannot carry on as if the purpose of life is the restless quest. The alteration we need is the one that a single person, hitherto alone and self-focused, undergoes on falling in love, getting married and starting a family. We need to move from a one-bed flat to a family home.” The general economy should make “it as easy as possible to form and sustain a household.” (p87) Though some may not choose or fit this pattern, the generalisation is for the good of the wider community, not only the oikos but the par-oikos or parish which would support others too. He wants to see parents central to education and more local socially responsible decision making with everyone politically engaged.

 

Kruger takes in not only civil society, but our relationship to the natural environment. Paganisms tended to see humanity as subject to nature but we should see ourselves as stewards of creation, intended to have dominion rather than domination, cultivation rather than exploitation.

 

As well as Edmund Burke, Roger Scruton, Jonathan Haidt, Jonathan Sumption and others, Kruger cites Carl Trueman, Colin Gunton, John Milbank, Andrew Rumsey, Alasdair MacIntyre and Tom Holland’s Dominion. He is influenced by David Godhart’s work on “Somewhere”s and argues that too many people uproot to go to university and join a precariat.  

 

We are certainly given a big vision with bold brushstrokes here. I sometimes wondered how this might be achieved. But Kruger does have specific policy proposals for example around planning and Community Land Trusts, law, education, social care and welfare insurance. He wants to see work which is local and meaningful, likely focused around creativity or care. We should value more the support families can give to their own children and their elderly relatives rather than depending entirely on the nursery or the care home. This involves a taxation system that supports the household with more people able to manage on one wage or two part-time wages. Well paid local jobs and technology would allow more time for involvement in civil society and volunteering.

 

Whilst recognising that “there is little to boast of in many aspects of modern England, and much to learn from others” (p142), Kruger hopes for a sense of Englishness that can recapture something of her discordant heroic, gentle, progressive, conservative spirit in “the great project of defence and restoration that is needed.” (p144)

 

Music as sacramental

From the extraordinarily useful and interesting looking St Andrews Encylopedia of Theology (a new free online resource). This is from Jeremy Begbie on theology and music:

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/MusicintheWesternTheologicalTradition#section3.2

 Theological questions may well be asked about what kind of deity haunts Steiner’s allusive prose, for in this scenario God’s basic relation to humans appears to be essentially antagonistic, and God’s nature wholly undifferentiated, monadic (Horne 1995). Less stark in this respect, and relying more on the notion of music as a mediator of divine presence, are writers who speak of music in terms of sacrament or the sacramental. Albert Blackwell, for example, pulls from diverse sources (including Augustine, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Schleiermacher, Paul Tillich, and Simone Weil) to demonstrate music’s sacramental potential (Blackwell 1999). He understands ‘sacramental’ as applying to ‘any finite reality through which the divine is perceived to be disclosed and communicated, and through which our human response to the divine assumes some measure of shape, form, and structure’ (Blackwell 1999: 28; quoting McBrien 1980: 731, original emphasis). Blackwell delineates two broad traditions of sacramental encounter in Christianity as applied to music: the ‘Pythagorean’ and the ‘incarnational’ (Blackwell 1999: 37–48). According to the first (already explored above), ‘as mathematics expresses cosmic order, so music echoes cosmic harmony’ (Blackwell 1999: 43). Reflection on this can engender a sense of trust in in the world’s order which in turn can lead to ‘trust in the second Person of the Trinity’ (Blackwell 1999: 86), the world’s Logos. The ‘incarnational’ tradition privileges the sensed materiality of music: citing Schleiermacher among others, Blackwell links the immediacy of embodied musical perception to a primordial religious awareness of the ultimate givenness of our lives and the world, of being wholly dependent on and immersed in a limitless ground.

Reflections from Lamentations for Good Friday

 

Some of us have been using this Easter Devotional during Lent called Finding Mercy on the Way of Sorrows[1], which draws on the Old Testament book of Lamentations.

So as we consider the cross of Christ and Good Friday together today, I’m going to invite us to spend a little more time in Lamentations.

 

Perhaps this is the darkest book of the Bible, as its name suggests.

A number of writers have suggested that today’s church might need to recover the lost art of Biblical Christian Lament, which is perhaps something to think about.  

As we consider the book of Lamentations, we can see here something of sin and its consequences, and how to wrestle with them.

And we see something of why the cross was necessary, and what the Lord Jesus endured for us.

We see here something of what we are saved FROM.  

It may not be pleasant to live in Lamentations for a while, but it might help us to appreciate the deliverance of Easter Sunday all the more.

 

The book of Lamentations is set after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC.

 

The book is five chapters long.

We’ll read just the first three today.

 

Each of the first four chapters is an acrostic poem.

Each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and then this form breaks down in the final chapter.

Again and again, the book shows us an A to Z of sorrow and suffering – although not without hope[2].

 

Much is chaos, but our poet also tries to bring some order to it, to make some sense of it.

 

One of the controlling metaphors of the Bible is to think of the people of God as his bride, whom he loves.

And here the city of Jerusalem is pictured as a great queen who has become a widow and a slave.

 

The much-loved holy city of Jerusalem has been devastated by the Babylonians because of the people’s sin. 

 

Let’s read the first chapter:

 

1^st reading: Lamentations 1

 

Apparently random meaningless disasters are hard enough to bear.

But in this case, the poet of Lamentations is clear that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s doing.

The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins.

And the poet can see that the LORD is righteous in all this.

 

We’ve heard descriptions of the hights from which Jerusalem has fallen – what she was, what she has lost, what she has become.

She has gone into exile, and that can be a picture of the human predicament of alienation.

Think of Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden after their fall, excluded from its blessings, barred from the tree of life, driven away from the blessing of God’s presence.

Spiritually, our sins separate us from God.

Without Christ, we are in a kind of spiritual exile.  

And Jesus went into exile for us on the cross.

He was separated from the favour of God for us in our place that we might be brought home.

Jesus went into the far country, that we might have a place with God again.  

 

The church has traditionally read the book of Lamentations during Holy Week.

And we might see in Jerusalem’s suffering at the hand of God, a picture of the suffering of the Lord Jesus.

 

In particular, think again of v12:

 

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look around and see.

Is any suffering like my suffering that has been inflicted on me, that the LORD has brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?”

 

We might imagine those who passed by the cross, perhaps indifferent, perhaps scornful, mocking the Lord Jesus for the disaster which has come upon him.

Matthew tells us that some of the passers by hurled insults at Jesus and shook their heads. (Matthew 27:38-40).

Jesus’ story seems to end in ruin and his opponents deride him, rather as Jerusalem was mocked.

All the promises of God, all the hopes seem to lie in ruins.

  

Although many people were crucified, there was no suffering like the suffering of the Lord Jesus: the unique Son of God bore the sins of all who would put their trust in him.

There was truly no darker hour.

 

Charles Wesley’s hymn urges us:

 

All ye that pass by,

To Jesus draw nigh:

To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?

Your ransom and peace,

Your surety He is;

Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.[3]

 

This bleak and dark chapter is not without hope.

The poet still calls out to God for vindication and deliverance – and there’s hope in that.

“Look, O LORD, on my afflictions, for the enemy has triumphed.”

Rather than mere despair, there’s prayer.

The poet brings his anguish to God, which is an act of faith. 

 

The only place to flee from the wrath of God is to God.

 

The poet knows that his suffering is just and from God.

And yet he also cries out to God for salvation and for judgement on his enemies.

We may think of the Lord Jesus who entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

He knows that the cross is God’s will for him and he looks to his Father to bring him through it.

Amazingly, Jesus even prayed for his persecutors.

And in the midst of his suffering and death, he looked for the vindication that was to come beyond the grave.

His salvation is not so much from suffering but through suffering.

The cross will lead to the resurrection.

 

And although Lamentations doesn’t major on this, we know that later in the history of Israel there’ll be something of a return from exile, there’ll be a rebuilding of the city and an ongoing life for the people of God.

In fact, the Bible will end with a city coming down out of heaven from God, dressed and prepared like a bride.

God hasn’t given up on his people or his promises.  

The church, the people of God, the City of God, will be an innumerable multitude gathered from all the nations to live with God under his blessing.

That hope is the ultimate fulfilment of Lamentations and of the cross.  

 

* * *  

 

Chapters one and two of Lamentations both begin with the same question: “How…?”[4]

The focus in chapter one was mainly on “she”, on Jerusalem.

Now the focus is more particularly on “he”, on God[5].

 

Let’s read chapter two:

 

2^nd reading: Lamentations 2

 

Some of that chapter is quite terrible, isn’t it?

There is, I’m afraid, little extra to say by way of relief as yet in this chapter.

The Bible is very realistic about human sin and suffering.

It doesn’t peddle easy answers or quick fixes.

We are tempted to rush on, to look away, but the Bible encourages us to wait.

 

The LORD has become like an enemy to his own people.

Again and again the chapter speaks of God’s wrath, his righteous anger, against his own people.

In a way, God’s wrath shows that he cares.

He’s not indifferent to human actions or to injustice and wrong doing.

God treats us with full seriousness.

We often cry out for justice, and God hears that cry.  

 

Apathy and indifference would be the real opposite of love.

Wrath is an expression of love in the face of evil.

God cares.

 

And the cross will be God’s answer to all this:

To sin and wrath and suffering and injustice.

To enmity with God, to exile.

 

It is while we were Christ’s enemies that he dies for us.

We need to be reconciled to God.

But not only so:

God needs to be reconciled to us.

God in his holy anger stands opposed to us as sinners.

 

God is not just an indulgent grandfather to whom sin doesn’t matter.

Justice is done at the cross.

Evil has its full weight.

In Jesus God-himself reckons with the full force and price of sin.

 

And so that’s the wonder of the gospel:

That God in his love himself provides the means of reconciliation between us and him.

God’s holy wrath is spent on God himself in the person of his Son, in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

God appeases and satisfied and spends his own wrath on himself, that we might know his love.

The price is fully paid.

The way home is open.

Jesus draws us with his arms of love.

He stands ready to welcome us and to restore us as dearly loved children and heirs.

Will we come to him?

To his embrace?

To his welcome home?

Jesus would say to us, Come, it is finished, it’s all over, it’s dealt with.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t worry.

Come!

 

* * *

 

We’ve noticed already in chapters one and two of Lamentations that the point of view or voice of the speaker seems to shift.

Chapter one spoke mainly of “she”, Jerusalem, and chapter two of “he”, God.  

But now we hear someone speaking in the first person – as the “I” who suffers:

v1, “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his [God’s] wrath”.

Rather than the whole city, one suffering man now takes centre stage.

As I’ve suggested, we might see an echo or a picture – a type as theologians sometimes call it – of the suffering of Christ here.

Here is the cross foreshadowed in the book’s longest central chapter[6].

As one man stands at the centre of this book, so one man stands at the centre of the Scriptures.

So as we reflect on this chapter, let us, “Behold the man!”, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 19:5).

 

And you’ll be pleased to hear that some of the most hopeful parts of this book come in this chapter, including the only words from the book which most of us probably know, made famous by the hymn.

 

3^rd reading: Lamentations 3

 

Because of God’s great love for us we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

 

The cross shows us both the great love and the great righteousness of God. 

The cross is God’s just way of justifying the unjust.

Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

 

God is faithful to his people despite our unfaithfulness.

God keeps his covenant and fulfils his promises.

All of them are YES and AMEN in Jesus.

 

So the LORD is good to those who hope in him.

Jesus knew the salvation of God through death to resurrection.

 

Though the people of the Old Testament had to wait to see the fullness of this salvation, as we do, we know that the LORD has not cast us off for ever.

His love is unfailing.

His love wins.

 

So God says to us, “Do not fear.”

We can look to him with confidence because he has redeemed us. 

 

We won’t read chapters 4 and 5 today, but let me finish our reflections in Lamentations by referring to the very end of the book.

You might like to look at chapter 5, verse 19.

We know that the LORD reigns for ever.

His throne endures from generation to generation.

The Lord does not forget his people for ever.

Jesus was forsaken that we might be brought home.

In God’s mercy, we are not utterly rejected.

He is not angry beyond measure.

 

It was finished when the Messiah died.

The legal pain was exacted – measure for measure – the price fully paid.

 

So let us pray the final prayer of the book of Lamentations:

Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we might return.

V21 actually uses the same word “turn back” or “return” twice.  

So more literally, it’s “turn us to you, O LORD, and we turn back.”

Cause us to return to you, O LORD, and we shall return.

 

As we stand again at the foot of the cross, we know that God has turned towards us in love.

Let us pray that he would turn our hearts back to him and that we might live as his faithful hopeful people, even in the face of suffering.

---

[1] Robin Ham (10 Publishing, 2024)

[2] For more on the poetry and translation of Lamentations, see David Lee’s work at: http://servicemusic.org.uk/scripture/lamentations/

[3] Quoted by Ham, p23

[4] As does chapter 4.

[5] Ham, p32. Chapter 3 focuses on as “I”, a suffering man. See also p102. Chapter 4 focuses on “they”, the people of the city, and chapter 5 on “we”.

[6] The above draws on Ham, page 56f.

Maundy Thursday, The Passover and The Birthday of the Church

 

People sometimes talk about the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first Christians, as the birthday of the church.

I’ve always thought of that as a slightly dubious debatable claim.

Weren’t Jesus and his disciples and the group around them a kind of church before Pentecost?

And wasn’t there a sort of church, an organised people of God, in Old Testament times?

 

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden could be seen as the people of God, in God’s place, under his loving rule.

There’s a picture of the church, if you like.

 

Of course there are differences between the New Testament church and the Old Testament church, but the story of the people of God goes back to the very first page of the Bible.

As Christian believers, that whole story is ours and we’re to see ourselves as caught up in the big story of God’s dealings with humanity.

 

So what about the people of Israel?

When would you say all that got going?

With the call of Abraham?

With Jacob, who became known as Israel, and his sons and the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel?

 

God’s promises begin to work themselves out in the pages of Scripture but then, of course, because of famine, the people of Israel end up in Egypt.

The promise of a promised lands seems far off, and yet they are able to maintain their distinctive identity as a people.

 

You could call the events around the Exodus and the Passover the real establishment of Israel as a people, a nation.

They’re about to come out of their slavery in Egypt and gain their independence again.

The Law of Moses given to them at Sinai gives them a sort of constitution:

Their national life takes on a formal, regulated, recognisable political shape.

They are no longer slaves and are able to organise their own life.

The promises of God are taking shape.  

Do you see?

The Exodus marks a new development in the life of the people of God.  

 

And there are hints of that in our reading, perhaps.

The Passover and the Exodus are their founding events, which they are always to remember.

The Lord tells Moses that this month is to be for them the first month.

Time for them is re-set, as it was for the Western world with the birth of Christ.

 

Passover is a commemoration for them for generations to come, a celebration, a festival to the LORD, a lasting ordinance.

It’s to keep the memory of this event alive.

 

The Passover is God’s mighty saving work, his judgement on Egypt and her gods, and the deliverance of his people that forms and shapes them as people of God.

What God does creates them and gives them their identity.

This is their founding event, their story, how they came to be a distinctive people.

They’re always to remember this as their story, their salvation.

Perhaps we could even call it their birthday, or their re-birth day when they are, as it were, born again to serve God.

 

Many many years later of course there will be generations who never experienced life in slavery in Egypt, and yet every year they remember their deliverance at this meal.

They participate in the Passover as the celebration of their salvation.

 

And so it is for the Christian church today.

It is the events of Easter which form the church.

Though we weren’t eyewitnesses of the cross or the empty tomb, we are Christ’s people – the people of his death and resurrection.

Though Jesus never washed our feet, he has made us clean.

He loves us and serves us.

He died and rose for us.   

He feeds.

We participate in him.

We remember him, he remembers us.

We are bound together with Jesus and with all his people down through history.

This is our story, our meal, in which we all participate.

This meal forms us as we gather here at The Lord’s Table.

This meal makes us visible as the church in the world.   

 

Like the ancient people of Israel, we are a people on a journey.

We don’t have to eat this meal with our bags packed and our hiking boots on, but we are on the move, just as the people of Israel were.  

We are a people with a destiny – a destination – a calling.

A people on the move to heaven and the new creation with our Lord leading the way, gone before us.

The Lord’s Supper is bread for the journey to sustain us as a pilgrim people.

It is wine to celebrate God’s salvation and to anticipate the coming of his kingdom in all its fullness.

 

It’s a strange detail, perhaps, that the people of Israel have to set apart the Passover lamb for four days and take care of it.

It’s almost as if it becomes part of the family.  

They identify with it.

It will represent them and takes their place.

The lamb will die and they will live.

 

And Jesus is our Passover Lamb who came and lived with us and identified with us.

He bore the curse and wrath of God in our place that we might live.

God sees the blood of God the Son and passes over our sins.

 

Jesus is the perfect lamb without defect who takes our place as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

We all depend on him and share in him.

In this supper we plead the blood of Christ.

This meal is a memorial to God in which we ask God to look on the blood of Christ and forgive us.

Just as God would look on the rainbow and remember his covenant with Noah, so the Lord looks on this meal and remembers his covenant with us in the blood of Christ.  

 

So this meal tells again our story of rescue, deliverance and salvation.

Of freedom.

Of a new identity and purpose to worship the Lord as his special people set apart for him, saved by his blood, heading to the promised land, living distinctively for and with him in a sometimes-hostile world.

 

So, if we like, we could call the Exodus and the Passover a kind of birthday of the church.

Certainly we could call Easter the great founding event which includes us.

Easter is the central event of history which redefines everything and shapes our identity, purpose and destiny.

 

This Easter, may we rejoice afresh to be bound together as the people of God and to be included in this great drama of redemption and deliverance.

And let us live as the special people, holy to him in the world, pressing on to worship and serve him according to his word.

Let us live as those who have Jesus’ new commandment: to love one another as he has loved us.

Cal Newport and Slow Productivity for Pastors

 Cal Newport's ideas - especially from Slow Productivity - for Pastors

 

Here are some of productivity guru Cal Newport’s ideas as they might be applicable to pastors, together with some of my own reflections.

 

Dr Cal(vin) Newport writes mainly for knowledge works. He does sometimes mention pastors (Slow Productivity, p15) and he says he hears from them a lot. He is a computer science professor at Georgetown University.

 

Pastors are of course concerned with the knowledge of God. And they have the opportunity to implement some productivity ideas because they normally have a relatively high degree of autonomy about how they structure their efforts.

 

Perhaps one area that Newport doesn’t particularly address is the central importance of relationships for the pastor. Pastors are in the people business. They are not just about knowledge but about people knowing God. The pastor’s work is rather different from that of the guy who builds websites or writes financial reports. But nevertheless the pastor’s vocation is still work. It is essential for the pastor to know his people, to spend time with them. Some of this might be structured, but there may also be some intentional hanging about. Attending the coffee morning could be really productive work, even if its not like digging the road. Some people can be hard work, of course, and some of us may find exhausting things which other people might not think of as real work. We should seek to know ourselves and what we will find energising or draining and plan accordingly.  

 

Newport’s warnings against pseudo-productivity and the quick fix are well made. Pastors, who can be conscious of their low worldly status and lack of economic value, can feel the need to justify their existence by activity. The wise pastor might adopt the time-frame of a shepherd or a farmer who cultivates the seed of the Word looking, ultimately, for an eternal harvest and the growth given he knows not how by God while he sleeps.

 

Newport has written, podcasted and YouTubed about ‘The Deep Life’ in which meaningful work is aligned with our values, which of course ought to be of interest to pastors.

 

He has advocated Deep Work (2016 book) seeking focus in a distracted world. Deep Work is the specific activity of focusing for a session on something cognitively demanding without distraction (no switching / shifting to different activities / contexts). What could be more relevant to this than prayer and sermon preparation? Newport thinks it is best to have blocks of two or three hours without distraction. Turn off those notifications and avoid social media! He advocates ‘time block planning’ in the diary / calendar and trying to reduce the number of projects one is actively working on. Seeking to multi-task is normally a mistake.

 

Pastors can have so many demands on their time. They could do so many good things. What do they think of as their real core business which they are determined to make quality time for without distraction? When and how could you aim to do the more shallow and necessary tasks with the minimum effort? As Steve Jobs said: “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.” (Slow Productivity, p176 quoted from Jason Fell, ‘How Steve Jobs Saved Apple’ Entrepreneur, October 27, 2011.)

 

Maybe you could have habits and rituals around your deep work that help you: sermon prep on a Wednesday afternoon with a latte, or whatever! The location in which you study and pray could make a real difference.

 

Newport is also interested in Digital Minimalism (Penguin, 2019) and with the elimination of email (2021 book). Maybe pastors would do well to tame their relationship with technology. Perhaps email could be confined to a slot in the morning and a slot in the afternoon to provide more uninterrupted focused time with the Bible or with people?

 

Pastors often work six days a week with a number of evening commitments, so it behoves them to think carefully about work-life balance. Pastors of course want to serve. And feeling needed gives a boost. We can invest much of our sense of self in our calling but we need to remember that the position of Messiah is taken! No one wants a busy, exhausted, frazzled pastor and it is probably a mistake for us to think of ourselves as endlessly available 24x6, unless someone really is dying. Which often they are not. Many things can wait. Some things even sort themselves out without us doing anything, even though it seemed like an urgent crisis at the time.

 

Some of us often need to be reminded to slow down and listen to the Scriptures and our people better than we might naturally do.

 

In his latest book, Slow Productivity: The lost art of productivity without burnout (Penguin Business, 2024, 256pp), Newport suggests three sustainable principles:

(1) Do fewer things. Focus on the couple of core activities that really make a difference. Deliberately strategize to do what matters most, ignoring or eliminating what gets in the way as best you can. Limit missions, projects and daily goals. Try to work on one big thing each day.



(2) Work at a natural pace. Here Newport claims to draw on ideas from humanity’s hunter gatherer past. He advocates some periods of intensity but also some quieter periods, perhaps a quieter month – some element of seasonality. And some space carved out in the week. Maybe a harder Monday than Friday. Perhaps avoiding scheduling big stuff for Monday AM so that you can enjoy Sunday more. The goal is to avoid rushing our most important work, to give it the time and space it needs. Be deliberate about rest and refreshment after busy periods.



(3) Obsess over quality whilst avoiding a crippling perfectionism. The sermon could always be better and more fully prepared and rehearsed. We might do well to take some more time on it, but we also need to have confidence when it is ready – we mustn’t give infinite time or nothing will ever get done. The aim is progress not perfection (cf. 1 Timothy 4:15). Study to build craft and skill over time and keep growing. If we preach thoughtfully most weeks for maybe twenty or thirty years, we ought to be quite good at it by our eighties! Perhaps we need some feedback and help or different approaches if we feel we’re not making progress.



Newport also gives some particular suggestions for rules, habits and ploys towards implementing these principles, and much of the book draws lessons from those he sees as having exemplified some aspect of his philosophy (Isaac Newton, Jane Austin, contemporary musicians, authors and business people).

It seems to me it is worth the pastor thinking about these things.

 

Even if we aim to obsess over quality, we must also recognise there is lots of stuff we need to do which is not sermon preparation (or whatever core activity we particularly love or value). There is also truth in the principle of ‘The Godliness of Mediocrity’: if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. Or at least adequately. Good enough is good enough. Of course it could always be better. But if you decide to become a famous concert pianist, you are not likely to get much else done. You are not just a preacher but also a pastor and a leader – and, you know, family, friends etc.

 

There is a treadmill of weekly sermon and bible study preparation etc., but there is value in thinking of these things as longer projects over a more extended timescale. How can I plan and prepare for a sermon series rather than just getting ready for this Sunday? And how can I work in such a way that the preparation I do now will be most useful when I preach or teach this book again in ten years’ time?

 

Personally I think I would do well to sometimes take some time out to think about potential plans for two- or five-years’ times. How do I see the big picture of church life and our long term needs?

 

Maybe it is good for pastors to think about having a big slow project: a bible book or theologian they want to get to know really well. Or to be encouraged to keep up their biblical languages by giving them twenty minutes most days because of the long-term benefits. Much can be achieved by plodding.

 

Newport also has ideas on cultivating taste and creativity through a hobby not directly related to your work, in his case, cinema. Church and family life can be demanding, there’s lots to be said for ministers who know how to relax, play, have fun, have friends and ideally have some kind of hinterland. Perhaps some of us are driven beyond the call of God to see immediate results in terms of church finances or bums on pews and could do with lightening up and trusting God.

 

Newport refers to C. S. Lewis’ Inklings as a group of friends who provide criticism and encouragement. Some diocese encourage Reflective Practice circles for this sort of purpose. And many pastors will belong to prayer triplets or preaching groups. Where do we plan to get our constructive criticism or a bit of help and advice?

 

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I’ve made some other notes about some of Cal Newport’s (other) core ideas from YouTube videos here:

 https://marclloyd.blogspot.com/2024/03/some-of-cal-newports-ideas.html

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If you’re interested in these ideas, you may also enjoy Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Virgin Books, 2024, 288pp). See: https://marclloyd.blogspot.com/2024/02/essentialism-one-necessary-thing.html

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Here are some other resources, not all of which I've read or used:

Reagan Rose offers Christian perspectives on productivity here: https://redeemingproductivity.com/

He considers the Pastor and personal productivity in this You Tube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a39wztWlIs also an article for Focus on the Family which draws on Newport's Deep Work.  

He suggests: 

Keep a consistent bed time and morning routine. 

Pray and plan your day. 

Schedule the most important thing and get it done even if an emergency pushes out other stuff. Guard your time. 

Have a regular normal pattern of day off, sermon prep etc. even if sometimes there are emergencies. 

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Effective faith - a Christian website that seeks to help with effectiveness whilst warning against idolatrous / toxic approaches to 'productivity': https://effectivefaith.org/

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Matt Perman is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (Zondervan, 2014) and How to Get Unstuck: Breaking Free from Barriers to Your Productivity (Zondervan, 2018) 

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Tim Challies, Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity (2015)

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Matt Fuller, Time for Every Thing?: How to be busy without feeling burdened (The Good Book Company, 2015)

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Tim Chester, The Busy Christian's Guide to Busyness (IVP, 2012)