Cnr High Street & President Boshoff Street, Bethlehem, Free State, South Africa
Sunday Service and Sunday School at 9:00am
Rev Cecil Rhodes 062 1230 640

Monday, May 25, 2015

The Trinity

Most of my life I have tried to understand the Trinity with my mind. Over the years I have read many explanations of the Trinity, and out of these I have formed an understanding of what I believe. In the last while, I would say the last 10 to 15 years, I have slowly begun to unlearn these understandings. ‘Unlearning’, I am coming to understand is a huge part of our spiritual growth! Now, instead of formulating my Trinitarian beliefs with my mind, I am learning to experience them with my heart. And a whole new world is opening up. I am experiencing (feeling) this Godhead bond of intimate love and unity in my life. And it is in a whole kind of way – in the way I think, and in the way I behave. It is like there is an influence that pervades me and shapes me, and is making me who I am. We can get carried away with this, and why not. It is like Paul’s description of love in Ephesians 3, where he writes that we should take in the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love, “Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! (The Message Version). This Trinitarian Godhead is very beautiful! Once entered into with our heart (our whole lives) we can begin to see the world in a completely new light. We are joined in this wonderful unexplainable bond of love with the Godhead – connected to all of God’s creation, the wind and the skies, the seas and the stars, all created beings, and with common humanity, beginning at home and spreading to whoever we meet. It is so all pervading it is almost scary. It is so life giving one almost wants to shy away from it to hold onto our tried and trusted ways of life. It is the Christmas and Easter messages all wrapped up in one, the gospel story powerfully told though different eyes. That we are a part of this Godhead, immersed in God and God’s love, us too one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in bonds of love that cannot be broken.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The good ol' days

Every generation tells stories of the good ol’ days, and I am told the older you get the further back those memories go. They say you can tell the age of the storyteller from the period of the stories! The truth is we all need some nostalgia. To reminisce with some longing and melancholy does us no harm. Our heritage has helped shaped and made us who we are (for the good and the bad), and we do well to keep the memories alive. However there are two attributes of the past we cannot avoid. The first is that if there is stuff that needs to be dealt with, then it must be dealt with, we can’t sweep it under the carpet and hope it will go away. Speaking of men’s spirituality, Stephen Biddulph in his book ‘Manhood’, says past unresolved issues between a father and a son are like a bad smell trapped in an attic – you have to open the attic door, let the smell out, and start putting something better in its place. The second, and it comes after the first, not in place of the first, is that in a real and true sense the ‘past’ does not exist anymore, it is simply not there. I remember not understanding why my grandfather never went back to visit his Yorkshire place of birth (he left as a young boy to emigrate with his parents to South Africa in 1895). Now I understand, the place that lived in his memory, no longer existed. I once took my wife, Yviette, on a tour of La Lucia and Umhlanga Rocks. I wanted to show her where I grew up. After discovering the little dirt road we used to take as a short cut through the sugarcane fields to play tennis at Mount Edgecombe was now a four lane freeway, and that the old brick double story house we lived in on the Umhlanga beachfront was now a five story Cabana, I declared the tour over. This was not where I grew up. That place does not exist anymore, except in my memory. The good ol’ days are gone. Life cannot be lived backwards. I wonder if this is not the lesson of Lot’s wife? “But Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). Yearning for a past that does not exist, and never will again, paralyses us! Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said, “You cannot pour new wine into used wineskins, because the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins" (Mark 2:22). Living in South Africa, and I guess it is the same everywhere, I used to hear it often in the Mississippi Delta, is a nostalgia for the good ol’ days. This runs deep. The truth is there are only two things we can do, other than nostalgically reminisce, and that is to deal with the stuff of the past that needs to be dealt with, and then to let it go. The past is no longer there and never will be. Rather than constant paralysis the only way is the way forward, to pour new wine into new wineskins, and to have the courage to embrace and grow that which is now before us.

Monday, May 11, 2015

The Third Mark of a Disciple

What a disciple does is actually true of all life, as these three idioms refer: 1. Actions speak louder than words. 2. Put your money where your mouth is. 3. Walk the talk. Like any good citizen of the world a follower of Jesus will busy himself or herself with life: The best example I can come up with to illustrate this is that of a devoted parent, whose lifetime of love is best expressed in actions rather than promises. You may recognize yourself? Probably also your parents! You give lifts to and from school, you make school sandwiches, you drop the kids off at the school tour bus at 4:00 am in the morning, you get up early on a Saturday to get them to private coaching lessons, which you watch and wait to take them home afterward, you drop the kids off at the birthday party returning at midnight to pick them up. Sound familiar. Discipleship begins at home! Follower of Jesus will in all likelihood also busy themselves in society and with social issues, things that go on that affect us all: You will serve on church projects and take leadership responsibilities, chair school governing bodies, help at soup kitchens, serve on nursery schools boards, charities, town councils, and neighbourhood watches, and so the list goes on. We need disciples here in the church, but the world out there needs disciples more than we the church do. Does that make sense to you? I believe there are two particulars distinctions that matter when it comes to what a disciple does, that significantly mark the disciple from anyone else: o Attention is especially given to the least noticeable tasks and people, and no reward or recognition is needed. The righteous will then answer him, "When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' The King will reply, "I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!' o The more sacrifice, and exposure to some kind of human pain and suffering, the more wise, compassionate and effective the disciple will become. It is said God is best encountered when we are out of our comfort zones, a little pushed and uncomfortable. A disciple does something with and in life! We are not in the stand watching the game, we are playing the game; we are not in the pews watching life go by, we are involved and immersed in this thing called life.

Monday, May 4, 2015

The Second Mark of a Disciple

The second mark of a Disciple is a Disciple is Devotional. Since we are followers of Jesus it makes sense to find out what devotions Jesus practiced, and do what he did. That is what a follower does. A follower does what the person he is following does. If Jesus loves his neighbour then so do I (one of the easier commands); if Jesus loves his enemy then so do I (one the harder commands). I found four devotional practices of Jesus. He may have had more, and I would think he did, but I could only find four. Of the four, three he practiced regularly, and the fourth he must have practiced by virtue of what he knew and said. He was devoted to Solitude – “Very early the next morning, long before daylight, Jesus got up and left the house. He went out of town to a lonely place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35) He was devoted to Prayer - One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." (Luke 11:1-4) He practiced regular worship at the Synagogue - Jesus went all over Galilee, teaching in the synagogues. (Matt 4:23) He knew the Scriptures inside out. Though we don’t see it recorded in the scriptures, before his ministry began he would have been trained as a Rabbi, (they called him Rabbi) and a Rabbi knew the Word by heart. Go deep my friends. Plant these roots deep in you. Follow him, do what he does… Read the scriptures, get to know them, open a map, know the context, and become a student of the bible. Keep on worshipping regularly, it will pay great dividends. Following Jesus is a long obedience in the same direction! Whilst Jesus went into wild and lonely places to pray, and so there has to be great method in this, I do not for a minute believe Jesus expects us all to hike off into the wilds to pray. He actually told us to do the complete contrary, ‘But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you’ (Matt 6:6). What he is saying is make a quiet time and place to pray. Be in private with God. Make the time. Lastly practice Solitude in a wild and lonely place. This one I think he meant! Go out into the wilderness (if you can) – your garden or a park will do, but go outside. The stars are perfect! And solitude is different to prayer. They are two different devotional practices Jesus used. Most of us can pray, but few of us can be alone with God in silence. All through the centuries the spiritual mothers and fathers have taught disciples of Jesus to be alone with God, silent with God. Cultivate the discipline, and don’t be afraid of what you feel and see in you when you stop to listen. We are safe in silence with God.