Monday 12 September

Isaiah 29:1-30:18

He was the ‘LORD in Ariel’ but they kept on chip chip chipping away at Him until he just seemed ‘ORD in Ari’.  (Do you like that?? I’m feeling pretty immensely smug right now).  And isn’t that always our way?  We prefer our God to be ordinary.  Because the bulking truth of God is like a huge mountain that stands in our path.  He is the LORD.  He is the Holy One.  He claims absolute authority over us - and it is a bit of a pain.  I don’t like my daily activities to take me continually up and down the slopes of a mountain.  I don’t want to be stumbling and sweating my way around some immovable object.  So I blast a tunnel through this mountain.  I blast a tunnel through my image of God.  I say with Israel “Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions, leave this way, get off this path and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel”.  Often I convince myself that this is not what I am saying.  With my lips I claim that I am honouring God.  But my heart betrays my true voice.  My heart shows how I embrace and welcome the forgiveness of God but slap away the harder calls to obedience.  I love to sing and pray and be prayed for by others but tything, forgiving others, not gossiping, rebuking others and being rebuked myself - these are the calls that I like to ignore.  And I am not the only one.  A lot of the church today quote that “God is love” and misinterpret that to mean that he is their pliable, fawning buddy who just wants to see them happy.  But God is also a Consuming Fire and he will come with his terrible, swift sword to judge the living and the dead.  We don’t get to choose what God is like.  He was here first.  We don’t get to blast a tunnel through God to make him more palatable and more easy to deal with.  Taking dynamite to God is not a good move.  He is the LORD.  He is Holy One of Israel.  We are best advised to accept that and all the difficulties it brings.  Blessed are those who wait for him.

2 Corinthians 12:11-21

Paul reaches back over his shoulder, brushes his fingertips on his quiver and selects his final arrow.  He has been assaulting the posing, self-interested, fleshy manner of doing ministry... and he has nearly killed it off.  As he pulls back the bowstring he has whittled everything down to the simplest of choices.  Service or employment.  Employment is fine in many contexts but not as a mindset about ministry.  Employment is based on an exchange of services for goods - I do this and that for you and you give me something or other in return.  That is how the super-apostles saw their ministry.  But that is not the way of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t want bread and fish from the little boy; he wanted to use him to bless 5000.  Jesus didn’t want money from the rich young ruler; he wanted him to be freed from his superficial obsession.  Jesus didn’t want a boat trip from the fishermen; he wanted them to become fishers of men.  Jesus did not come to be employed by Israel but to serve it.  He did not come to build up a decent inheritance for himself but to give his life as a ransom.  And so the mark and mindset of ministry is service. It is finding people and really committing to them, to wedding ourselves to them.  It is saying that I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. It is a dangerous way to live.  People let you down.  People you have wedded yourself to can hurt you and embarrass you and humble you.  But it is the way of Jesus and it is the most dynamic way to live out our Christian call.  Paul let’s his arrow fly to kill off the ‘super-apostles’ way of living.  Will his arrow reach our own hearts?

Psalm 107:1-9

He does wonderful deeds for us.