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You know what? Religiosity really winds me up - I mean REALLY gets up my nose. If I hear someone say ‘we've always done it this way', or ‘well, you've got to be wise and not disturb the peace', or ‘look at the way they dress - you wouldn't have done that in my day' ... I go mad on the inside. And when someone says the above in a snooty or proud manner - I go even more insane!

Why can't people realise that we are to be theologically conservative but culturally liberal? How come people forget that Jesus hung out with really ‘sinful' people? Why do reformed people always end up playing the religious right wing Pharisee? Why?

For years I have read Luke 15 and seen how Jesus slams those dirty old Pharisees and champions the cause of the morally struggling underdog. To me that chapter (and especially the parable of the prodigal son) has always been about God loving and welcoming the prodigal (moral failure) and rebuking and dismissing the older brother (religious nut who lives in the 1950's and equates Lloyd-Jones with scripture).

But I have been wrong ... very wrong.

In fact, I have misunderstood Jesus teaching.

You see, Jesus goes out to the prodigal and welcomes him back. Yes.

But in verse 28 we read that he went out to the older brother and pleaded with him too.

Jesus loves the Pharisee with an equally redemptive love. If I'm honest I've never thought there was forgiveness for the religious Pharisee. But now I've seen verse 28 I realise that the cross was even powerful enough to forgive the religious right Pharisee.

Sorry guys.

I'm not one to over-spiritualise things so I'm surprised at myself for calling anything a spiritual attack! Whether it was definitely a spiritual attack, I'm not entirely sure, it certainly seems that way. But important lessons were learnt along the way. Here's what happened last week, though I don't keep a diary because I'm not a teenage girl so some details may have been forgotten! But to put you in the picture I was preaching on Sunday 24th June.

Monday 18th June
I had a great weekend. I wasn't preaching so was being blessed as a normal member of the congregation. I did lead a seminar group on Sunday and had a good Youth Event on the Saturday. Today was spent mostly designing the new website for proGnosis so was back into a creative mood!

Tuesday 19th June
This morning something set me emotionally off balance in the morning (I don't want to go into details) but this is when I think it started. I was going to shadow my Pastor in a primary school at midday and doing this I felt unable to coherently communicate with anyone. This wasn't too much of an issue as all I had to do was walk some kids round the playground to simulate them being exiled. Any reading I tried doing afterwards wasn't settling, I didn't feel my usual self and didn't feel that my head could get itself around anything.

Wednesday 20th June
Although I tried to get some work done on the sermon for Sunday, I just can't get my head round anything. I still don't feel like my usual self. This afternoon we had our staff meeting in which I felt incapable of contributing significantly to the discussion and my prayer felt like a waffled incoherent mess of words! I left feeling downhearted and low in self-esteem. I was feeling very much incapable of any kind of ministry and felt that I needed to pack it all in and get a 'normal' job. I didn't get any further with my sermon today so still nothing written let alone a structure or clear sense of direction.

Thursday 21st June
Having nothing prepared for my sermon, I really needed to get something written, this morning was no help though. I still felt completely incapable of writing anything, I couldn't get my head around anything even though it's not the most complicated passage in the Bible (Colossians 1:1-14) and I couldn't get into any flow. I felt lethargic and head-jammed. Around 4:15pm, after having given up several times and watching Countdown, I realised that actually I was trying to overcome this and get on with the work I was doing in my own strength. I hadn't really prayed and was simply relying on my exegetical skills and knowledge and that wasn't getting me anywhere. So I read the passage and prayed hard. I spent some good time in prayer, praying for the congregation, praying for myself, praying over the themes of the passage, and as soon as I finished, the cloud of whatever was stopping me had gone, my head was clear, I felt re-energised and I was able to get on with it. By Thursday evening, I was on the last couple of subpoints for the sermon!

Friday 22nd June
Today I finished the sermon and read it through. I'm still feeling great and clear-headed.

Monday 25th June
Yesterday seemed to go fairly well in the evening when I was preaching on Colossians. (In the morning I felt like it was the worst preach I'd ever done but I think that's just because I always feel bad in the morning and I was assured that it hadn't gone as bad as I felt!) There was even some discussion amongst the hearers after the service about the application points so it struck a chord with at least some of them.

This week was a practical reminder of two things: that I can't do anything of my own accord unless God enables me and in a ministerial position we can particularly expect to have these attacks and it's that reliance on God that gets us through these times. But then we need to rely on God even when we're not undergoing spiritual attack; we need to rely on God in all circumstances and not just when I'm preaching and when it's going badly.

As our church has been working its way through Mark's gospel, I recently preached on chapter 8, the hugely significant passage where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, immediately followed by Jesus' revelation that his earthly destiny lies at the cross.

Something that is startling about this passage is the way that the disciples' entire worldview is smashed into a million pieces in the course of one sentence. As the hope and glory of their Lord being exalted as King over all unbelievers, kings and foreigners begins to drift to the shame of their Lord being exalted as mock-king upon a cross, all they can do is clutch at straw. Indeed doesn't Peter's vain cry of rebuke against Jesus reveal his attempts to grasp this desired future, as the sand simply slips out of his clutches?

What really strikes me about this passage is not the way the perceived fortunes of those 12 men are shattered, nor even the way in which the disciples rail against the Lord's words. Rather, what is most dramatic is the manner in which Jesus is emphatically declaring, 'this is my destiny on earth, and if you follow me, then it's yours too'. Surely we all understand that being a Christian was never going to be easy, but Jesus is here calling those disciples and crowds to a kind of pride-less and self-less obedience to God will.

Doubtless we would all agree that Christianity is not merely about everlasting glory, as the disciples had imagine, but is there not something in us that would clutch at it, thus rebuking Jesus' call to selflessness and obedience. Matthew's account of this passage reveals that “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed”. If he must go to Jerusalem, then so must they, if they were truly following Jesus, then they were in possession of a shared destiny. Of course, not all of the disciples would suffer a cruel death as did the Lord, none would have to endure the anger of God and the pain of undeserved retribution. But each of those men, with the exception of Judas, would follow Jesus' path to Jerusalem, and that would be a path they walked for their whole lives; the path to the heavenly Jerusalem, not looking to pride, possessions or glory, but simply to the one that walked that path before them.

If we follow him, then we share a destiny with Jesus; a walk to Jerusalem; a mocking crowd; a cross to carry. If we follow the Lord then there is no other option, no lighter path, no easier road. He calls us to come after him and surely coming after him is at the heart of Christ-likeness.

It's been a little while since I've been able to write a blog. I may not have dropped to the infrequency of Jon or Tom, but my initial burst from the bloggingblocks has slowed to a hobble over recent weeks, at this point a quick recap over one of Sam's entries might give you an insight into why. Life in the Church game can be busy, hours can be long, and those 'just one more hour' add up. I thank God for Jenny who occasionally functions as a type of time management conscience.

The reason for the hiatus then was a burst of mega tiredness, and as stupid as this is going to sound, it's something that I've honestly never felt before. From Monday through to Thursday it felt like my legs were cement, and I couldn't wait for bed to come round. It was a million miles away from anything near the christian workers' gold medal (sic.) 'burnout' , but it was a stark reminder that I have only one body, and it's one that I must use in a godly and wise way. Forty years of ministry with bed wanting legs that feel like cement does not sound like fun.

Anyway, now for the confessional.

This week, I made a BIG mistake, and learnt yet another lesson. I shall explain it with the aid of a map.

Part of my job is preaching away. That means that for one Sunday every month, I preach at another church. Sometimes this is local, sometimes not so much. This is part of the reason that I dislike anything north of Brecon in Wales . It's not that the people are not nice, or that it's smelly or anything like that - it's just that so much of Wales is so difficult to get to. The fact that the simplest way to travel to North Wales is via Spaghetti Junction should prove my point. This incidentally, is why I think that there's such a divide between gogs and us posh southerners. It's not that we're that different to each other, we just can't be bothered to visit.

This coming Sunday though, I was lucky. In my diary in fat read pen was 'Ebeneser, Charles Street x2'. It really isn't too long a journey, as you can see from the map below.

Nothing to worry about there then. According to Google Maps, that's a journey of 1.4 Miles.

All was well. Until I got a phonecall at 7:20 last night.

"Lewis Roderick, Mr. Thomas here - I believe you know my son..."

This was true, though at the time, it meant nothing to me. I didn't know who Mr. Thomas was, or know which one of my friends was his son.

"Er, yes..." says I.

"Good good. Matthew says that you know him through Iwan..."

Ah, yeah! This is Matt Thomas' dad.

"...Looking forward to seeing you this Sunday. Half past ten start."

- By this point I'm sorted. I know who the guy is. Matt Thomas' dad must be the guy who books the speakers for Ebeneser.

"Yes, I'm looking forward to..." - I go cold.

Matt Thomas isn't from Cardiff . How is his dad booking the speakers for Ebeneser? Matt's from Dolgellau or somewhere.

"Mr. Thomas, where is the Church building?"

"Not far from the station really..."

"Which one, exactly?" Please say Queen Street, please say Queen Street...

"Um, the one in the middle of Penrhyndeudraeth. The only station is the town - not that big a place. It's not Cardiff you know!"

He wasn't kidding. Check it out on the map. This is a double booking of gargantuan proportions. A 280 mile round trip.

I praise God for a lesson learnt with time to fix a problem. I praise God for forgiving Elders who are willing to drop everything and help me out by preaching when they didn’t know they were going to. I praise God for an understanding church in Cardiff that said they’d ‘still like me to come in the future’. I praise you Father that you have, and will continue in the future to use doughnuts like me to make Christ known through the foolishness of preaching.

Apparantly it was Calvin who first instructed others to "Study to be Simple", but that's what I was instructed by the principle of WEST last term. It's obvious, if we want others to understand us then we need to communicate things in ways they will understand. Some people are simple so we need to communicate in simple ways.

I'm not completely stupid, I've got a few GCSEs (including English) and a few A-Levels as well as a BA (Hons), and I regularly score highly on the word and number games on countdown and sometimes get the conundrum. Whenever I play Scrabble with my Nana and Grandad (who both play every day), it's usually a close match! Word-plays are even one of my favourite means of comical expression! So why do I often come across words and phrases in Christian books which confuse me? Here are three examples I've come across within the last week:

"Colossians has quite a number of hapax legomena..."
(p.518 in 'An Introduction to the New Testament' by D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo)

According to wikipedia.org, "A hapax legomenon (pl. hapax legomena) is a word which occurs only once in the written record of a language, in the works of an author, or in a single text." It may have taken more words but instead of using hapax legomena, surely the authors could have said, "Colossians has quite a number of words that are used here alone in Paul's writings." Then I would have understood!

"...but the freedom assigned to an (ostensible) amanuensis must in this case be limited..."
(p.520 in the same book as the previous one (ibid!))

Ostensible is bad enough but not uncommon, according to dictionary.com, meaning "Outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended" and amanuensis meaning "A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another." Again, they could have said this using other words.

"...spreading the good news was its raison d'être."
(p.70 in "The First Fifty Years: The History of the Evangelical Movement of Wales 1948-98" by Noel Gibbard)

I recognised it as a French word but beyond that, wikipedia.com told me that "Raison d'être is a phrase borrowed from French and its primary meaning is the claimed reason for the existence of something or someone or the purpose of something or someone." Instead of using French in an English language book about a Welsh movement, the author could have said, "spreading the good news was it's main reason for existing" or something like that!

I saw a repeated episode of The Wonder Years the other day which addressed this issue. Wayne Arnold (Kevin's older brother) is taking his final exams at school. He's not the brightest bulb in the lightbox and is struggling with his revision for his vocabulary exam. One particular word he is struggling with is the word "phlegmatic" which means calm. He says something like, "Why can't people just use the word calm. Phlegmatic reminds me of mucus, it just doesn't sound like calm". And he's right, if people can use the word calm, then why use the word phlegmatic?

And it's more important when our aim is to communicate the gospel. So when preaching we shouldn't use language where it's only benefit over more simple words is that it makes us look clever. And when writing books or blogs, we should remember that not everyone who reads them will have a PhD, nor will they be educated in Latin. So it's time to stop using high-level vocabulary and words from foreign languages*. The only real reason for using such words and phrases is to make the author come across as educated or clever. Screw that, I'm gonna study to be simple!

*with the exception of Greek words where it is taken from the text of the Bible in commentaries and such that need to explain the meaning of Greek words.

Ever noticed how Jesus doesn't have a shrine? To me that seems a little unfair.

A quick white water google for 'christian shrines' sent me here to this site, which lists about 200 'Christian' shrines in Britain alone! The world is littered with countless shrines to the virgin Mary be they elaborate Altar types in magnificent cathedrals or more humble 'yard shrines' in people homes. The Baha'i faith has two well known shrines (according to wikipedia) which are the resting places of the twin manifestations of the Bahá'í Faith, the Báb and Baha'ullah. Muslims have differing opinions on the validity of shrines but again, if you ask the right people (Shiah), they have literally hundreds of them scattered across the middle east. Shrines are also common amongst Buddhists and Shinto's.

You'll also find shrines to commemorate soldiers lost in wars. There are shrines for all the major wars (and some minor ones too) of the twentieth century in countries all over the world.

So, where is Jesus' shrine? Isn't it a little unfair that the head of the biggest religion in the world doesn't have his own shrine?

There is of course something that links all the shrines in the world. Regardless of religious or national allegiance they all bare one thing in common. They are for dead people. For someone to have a shrine to them they have to be dead. And here we come to the answer to the original question. Jesus isn't dead. Ergo Eco warrior sum, he doesn't need nor get a shrine.

As Christians we celebrate (and always have) the fact that Jesus is alive. Part of this celebration is NOT setting up a shrine to him. What's reasonable about faith is that in the months and years after Jesus resurrection none of his bereaved followers fancied enshrining his tomb...because he wasn't dead. JESUS IS RISEN!!!