In gratitude for Billy Graham, a new BD course, SPATS and bats...

We were asked to take a bat-eyed view of the Bible this morning in Chapel. It was a wonderful Holy Communion service rich with Pacific music and insight; the communion bread served from freshly woven baskets and covered with banana leaves. 

The Gospel was this....

Mark 8.34-38. He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” 

....and our preacher, Associate Professor Rev Dr Upolu Lumā Vaai from the Methodist Church in Samoa, began by recalling growing up in the village with fruit bat colonies in the trees either side of the house, their comings and goings and squeakings like that of extended family. 

Bats take an upside down view of the world, we were reminded. For them, earth is sky and sky is earth. The followers of Jesus needed a certain 'bat-like' approach to life if they were ever to enter into the alternative world of the cross in which, paradoxically, life has to be relinquished in order to be gained. Members of the crowd and closer disciples were all given the challenge to take up their own crosses. Not to carry the cross that Jesus carries: that is his and help to bear that load will come from outside the inner circle. A disciple's cross will be risky, costly allegiance to Christ - a choice which, at that time, defiantly opposed empire. 

And what of today's empires in government, politics, institution, family and Church? We were encouraged to think on those things. A timely question anywhere in the world and a sharp one for issues of power and rule in Pacific life. Serious, cross-carrying disciples are likely to find themselves viewing a lot of things alternatively and needing to operate accordingly, if they want the powers to fall. Top down is bottom up for the bat. 

It would have been better to hear Dr Upolu preaching it really. Never have the video camera running when you need it...

Billy Graham has died. What an extraordinary ministry. I thank him and want to honour him in this post, first by reproducing some of his final words. You can click on the blue links to see more.

Billy Graham’s Final Column: How He Wanted to be Remembered
BILLY GRAHAM·FRIDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2018

Editor’s note: Before his death on February 21, 2018, Billy Graham approved the following response as his final ‘My Answer’ column.

Q: Mr. Graham, how would you like to be remembered?

I hope I will be remembered as someone who was faithful—faithful to God, faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and faithful to the calling God gave me not only as an evangelist, but as a husband, father and friend.

I’m sure I’ve failed in many ways, but I take comfort in Christ’s promise of forgiveness, and I take comfort also in God’s ability to take even our most imperfect efforts and use them for His glory.

By the time you read this, I will be in heaven, and as I write this I’m looking forward with great anticipation to the day when I will be in God’s presence forever. I’m convinced that heaven is far more glorious than anything we can possibly imagine right now, and I look forward not only to its wonder and peace, but also to the joy of being reunited with those who have gone there before me, especially my dear wife, Ruth. The Bible says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But I won’t be in heaven because I’ve preached to large crowds or because I’ve tried to live a good life. I’ll be in heaven for one reason: Many years ago I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to make our forgiveness possible and rose again from the dead to give us eternal life. 

Do you know you will go to heaven when you die? You can, by committing your life to Jesus Christ today.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Put your trust in Christ today.

There's a short section in my doctoral research 

https://ptc.academia.edu/RevDrValOgden/PhD-thesis

which recalls when the Revd Dr Colin Morris interviewed Billy Graham for a BBC 2 documentary in 1984. I re-read it after the news broke and share it below, hopefully  for your interest. It was made shortly after Colin had interviewed a variety of the powerful 'electronic preachers' of the day: the new breed of TV evangelists that were all over US media and possibly heading to the UK.  What comes across from Billy Graham in this exchange is a spirit of humility and ability for self-critique; a looking back which is able to see where emphases in his own preaching and theology had changed and own that without defensiveness or arrogance. I feel so glad to have reflected that briefly in the thesis so it's preserved. See for yourself.

6.3.7   Billy Graham

Not long after making God in a Box, Morris interviewed Dr Billy Graham in the days before his ‘Mission England’ rallies of 1984. [1] Together the two preachers cover extensive ground, including conversation about Graham’s latest book on the end times, Approaching Hoofbeats. [2] Morris reflects back to Graham some of the questions he posed and explored with the electronic evangelists and that comparative material merits brief consideration.

Graham receives no special treatment from Morris who quizzes him, as he did with others, about mass evangelism being less costly in terms of personal disclosure and response, lacking the eyeball to eyeball communication Jesus would have had with his followers. Graham has evidence through correspondence and conversation that even in a mass audience, individuals are able to connect with his message personally. But television is changing the rules, suggests Morris, and now it is images more than words that matter. Graham responds that ‘faith cometh by hearing’, a premise he never rejects, and that the Word of God has its own power to connect whether through word or image.

Morris then presents the comments made about Graham by the evangelists he had recently met. In the first place they were, without exception, deeply admiring and appreciative of him and his integrity above anyone else in the field. But in communicating with Christian conviction into the current times, they articulated concerns.

CM: They felt you had lost the initiative because you had now become ‘fuzzy’ on certain of the issues they think are very strong and sharp. They mentioned the Bible, they mentioned the whole business of nuclear deterrence, they mentioned abortion, they mentioned a number of things. Do you think that’s fair?

BG: Not quite…I don’t think I’ve become fuzzy… on the thing God has called me to do, and that’s to proclaim the Gospel. If I became fuzzy on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the fact that he died for our sins, that he rose again, that we must repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Saviour, then I would say that they are justified. Now some of these other issues in which there are all kinds and shades of views; for example on abortion, or on even the death penalty, some of these things that they take strong positions on, all of these things I have not taken strong positions on. I have taken a position – but not the type of position they would like to see me take. And I think that’s where they think I’m fuzzy, and in that sense, I never had the initiative in those areas. 

Morris asks Graham how he feels he has grown in faith, ‘because everybody does’. Where does he think his theology has changed? Graham is sure that the basic theology and message of the Gospel that he is preaching (as at 1984) has remained consistent and unchanged, but…

BG: …I have learned a great deal about discipleship. I have learned a great deal about what it costs to follow Christ. I no longer preach, what I probably did in my early days, what I would call, as Bonhoeffer did, ‘cheap grace’. Because there’s a cost to discipleship that must be declared by the evangelist. We must not tell people, ‘Receive Christ and all is well’, because you receive Christ and that’s the beginning, it’s being a Christian to me.

CM: Do you think that in mass evangelism there is a danger of magnifying the moment of decision and underestimating the cost of discipleship?

BG Yes! Yes I do. And I have tried to correct that in recent years in my own ministry and my own preaching. Whether I have corrected enough or not, I would not be able to say. But I do believe that in the early period, of my so called evangelism, that the cost of discipleship was not as strong as it should have been and as strong as it is today in my preaching.

As mass evangelist at gathered rallies and frequently a communicator to millions via the global broadcast mass media, Graham in 1984 brings a far more measured, nuanced, self-critical and certainly not fundamentalist approach to the communications task, in conversation with Morris.

---

[1] Colin Morris, I Know I’m Going to Heaven, interview with Billy Graham before the 1984 Mission England rallies, broadcast on BBC 2 in Holy Week 1984. [CMC 866].

[2] Billy Graham, Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 2^nd ed (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985).

Yet another BD course has hit the shelves at PTC Education by Extension and we're immensely grateful to global New Testament scholar and Methodist minister Revd Dr Caroline Wickens [picture right] for producing the material. Caroline has taught courses in Old and New Testament, Greek and Hebrew at the United Church of Zambia's Theological College and was Senior Lecturer and Head of Biblical Studies at St Paul’s United Theological College, Limuru, Kenya. At this large ecumenical college (now St Paul’s University), she taught BD courses in New Testament, Greek, women’s theologies and a range of courses exploring the interface between the Bible and contemporary culture. The course she's offered to PTCEE is An Introduction to the Study of Letters Attributed to St Paul and it's a great addition. 

The PTCEE Online option is gathering pace and all sorts of enquiries are coming in. Here's Nisha helping Keleni to drop her assignment in the right Moodle box!

Revd Rusiate Tuidrakulu, General Secretary of the South Pacific Association of Theological Schools, came by to have a look at developments and we were grateful for his kind encouragement. Vinaka, Talatala Rusi!

Dave Carpenter cartoons

Trinity Sunday already?

And so the Church calendar rolls around so quickly - extraordinary. Last week on Pentecost Sunday I went to the Methodist Church at Nanuku settlement again and benefitted from the preaching of tri-lingual Deaconess Ruth Prakash. Here's Rosie preparing quietly for worship - and thinking about whether God's call on her life might be as a Methodist Deaconess too.

Rev James Bhagwan

A video project has taken up a bit of time lately. I did interviews with nine ministers currently at PTC, each from a different part of the Pacific, who reflected on some critical life and faith issues. So grateful to them for giving of their time in the midst of essay pressures and exam deadlines. I'll find a way of sharing the video at some point, but for now it's being shown at the Methodists for World Mission Conference at Swanwick in the UK 29 -31 May. Grateful too for post-production facilities and expertise c/o Rev James Bhagwan, Secretary of the Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma's Communications and Overseas Missions Department, along with Maravu and Sakaria, the camermen. What a fun team to work with! 

Video making apart, the Extension Dept. has been engaged in the usual round of signing up students, printing and posting out course materials, keeping track of student progress, encouraging the 'backsliders', offering the Friday tutorial and one-to-one support, and trying to get ahead with the writing and editing of the BD courses. Big push on this for the next three weeks while the main College has its 3 week break between Semesters 1 and 2. 

Faculty colleague Rev Dr Donald Samuel and his wife Jayachristi have their daughter Kagiso with them on campus now and it was good to have them 'round at House 12 for some food and fellowship. Both Mum and daughter have signed up for theology courses with us and Kagiso is hoping to study a combination of medicine and theology, having already completed her BSc. Coming from a Church of South India background, they've previously served in mission appointments in Botswana and American Samoa. Increasingly Faculty friends bring a whole new set of windows on the world and that's excellent. Here are Christi, Donald and Kagiso with the remains of the rice and a benign tropical punch....

And it was my turn on the Chapel rota for Holy Communion as we looked ahead to Trinity Sunday. It's always so uplifting to preach and preside in the Chapel here with the beautiful, harmonious singing of the community and the scents and breezes of the campus floating through the open doors. (Though before I over romanticise the scene, we've had more than a gentle breeze floating through of late as it's our Winter and distinctly gusty!)

I don't often blog sermons, but will do so below for a change. Threefold blessings and bye for now!

John 3.1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus^* by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’^* Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.^* Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You^* must be born from above.”^* The wind^* blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Nicodemus in Three Persons

A sermon preached by Rev Val Ogden at the Pacific Theological College, anticipating Trinity Sunday 2015.

Our Roman Catholic friends are very sensible about Trinity Sunday. In their lectionary this year they read the Gospel of Matthew 28. 16-20. ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’. Easy! There’s the Trinity and we know what to do with it.’

Many Protestant Churches however, if they use the Revised Common Lectionary like here at PTC, will be having the Gospel of John chapter 3 1-17, in which we have to work much harder to find a Trinitarian formulation. True – God is there; we also have the Son, but alongside the Son of Man so it’s more complicated;  we get the Spirit, but it’s water and the Spirit or flesh and the Spirit in a kind of dualistic not a Trinitarian way; and at the end of the passage, the Trinity John gives us is much more like God, Son and World – no explicit mention of the Spirit. How sensible the Catholics are!

Well, we’re not going to use our reflection time this morning for a very cerebral, complicated exegesis of how we might construct the doctrine of the Trinity out of John 3. 1-17. Instead, we’re going to focus on a key character in the story - Nicodemus – and what I like to call the Nicodeman Trinity. All I mean by that is Nicodemus - who came by night seeking enlightenment - appears in John’s Gospel three times – a trinity of appearances: here in chapter 3, then in chapter 7 verses 50-52, and then in chapter 19 verse 39. It’s a good exercise for us to reconnect with Nicodemus these three times because every time we meet him: a Pharisee, a theologically educated religious leader, we meet him in person, as flesh and blood, very earthed, struggling with what it means for his life to have encountered this Jesus. We shouldn’t forget that at its best, the complex doctrine of the blessed Trinity is simply a tool to help us know God in three persons – not three unmanageable, abstract, philosophical concepts. God in three persons, whom we can relate to as well as revere.

So here’s the Nicodeman Trinity. Three times John’s Gospel mentions him

The Discoverer

First we meet him in chapter 3 as a discoverer. He is alone remember, and comes by night: it’s dangerous for him to meet Jesus and try to discover more about him. He respects this fellow Rabbi and sees the workings of God in him. So he searches him out and seeks to know more. John 3.2: Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God; for no-one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. Nicodemus the discoverer - wide eyed at the one who earlier in the Gospel changes water into wine, who causes havoc in the Temple. These miraculous and astonishing actions are signs of the Kingdom of God, right? But Jesus says. Nicodemus – very truly I tell you – no-one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above. The signs alone aren’t enough. There are many sermons to be preached on that phrase, ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’ but the point is, Nicodemus the discoverer – the searcher, the seeker - finds he has SO much more to learn than he ever realised, if he is in any way going to grasp what God’s Kingdom is all about. It’s about more than Israel for a start. This journey of discovery that Jesus has begun in him will require his theological development and his spiritual transformation. And recognising that, we can all stand side by side with Nicodemus can’t we? We all need to keep searching and seeking – to be on a never ending journey of discovery with God. And more will always be required of us – until the Kingdom comes.

The Defender

Secondly we meet Nicodemus as defender. A courageous defender. By the time we get to John 7.50. this Jesus has really been causing problems – theological and practical. Who is he and how do we interpret all these words and these signs – are they really the things of the Messiah and the coming Kingdom? Opposers of Jesus of course are sure they are not. Why? Because he’s a Galilean and so his birthplace and heritage immediately disqualify him. Always interesting isn’t it the people we dismiss and don’t listen to because of their place and their roots? We have Pacific examples of this. So in a meeting which John’s Gospel records took place with the temple police, the chief priests and his fellow Pharisees, Nicodemus is shown as a lone voice of defence. 7.51 ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ He didn’t make himself popular being the lone voice of defence mind you. He was ridiculed in fact. Are you from Galilee too? The second person of the Nicodeman Trinity – the courageous defender – speaks to us powerfully, I think. When might God call you or me to be the lone and unpopular voice in our defence of Jesus?

The Disciple

Discoverer, defender and thirdly we meet Nicodemus as disciple. The Jesus who had so challenged his theological development and urged his spiritual transformation has died and Nicodemus along with Joseph of Arimathea whom John calls ‘secret disciple’ – are paired together in chapter 19. And there is something of great magnitude here. The Gospel writer chooses to draw our attention to a small but significant detail.  When disciple Nicodemus (19.39) came to pay his respects, to do what was necessary before burial, he carried with him an enormous quantity of myrrh and aloes – the traditional substances of anointing – about one hundred pounds. In John chapter 12.2 – when Mary anointed Jesus with costly perfume – the Gospel speaks of one pound of nard - and Judas complained that was a waste of money. One hundred pounds: what does John’s Gospel want us to grasp because of that detail? Rudolf Bultmann’s commentary suggests that when Nicodemus the disciple brings this huge and costly devotion in spices, it speaks of a truth of immense quantity that has dawned upon him. Lesslie Newbigin suggests that Nicodemus’s costly devotion belongs to the world which is passing away. Yet it is at precisely this moment that the world waits to be 'born from above' through Resurrection and Pentecost. As Nicodemus the disciple attends his Lord’s burial with his costly devotion, he reflects, surely, on the many ways the person of Jesus has affected his person. And Nicodemus’s new birth – the one he was so confused about initially - is just around the corner. But it's the world which is going to be born again - not just him. 

So we have indeed looked at a Trinity. A minor trinity perhaps, inspired by our dear brother Nicodemus: discoverer, defender, disciple. 

May his persons speak to our persons. 

Amen.

Nicodemus and Jesus by night

Holy Week 2014

Sunny greetings from Spurgeon's College South London, in Holy Week 2014. I'll be blogging from time to time while continuing on a 'permission to study' year based here. The first submission of a PhD thesis on the inspiring mission and ministry of the Revd Dr Colin Morris has been done and its many words are being read by wise and learned people during this month so they can offer much needed feedback before final submission mid-May. Praise God for wise and learned people! I'm also going through the whole text minutely with a red pen, wincing and tutting, as you do. We strive for perfection but....

After final submission I'll start preparing for service as a Methodist Mission Partner again - read about World Church relationships here - but this time at Pacific Theological College  (PTC) in Suva, the capital of Fiji. My first appointment in ministry 1993-98 was with the wonderful United Church of Zambia, and I've since served in Circuit ministry at Wolverhampton and Dorking, and as tutor in global mission education at the Selly Oak Colleges, and then the Queen's Foundation in Birmingham. PTC has invited me to become Director of its Theological Education by Extension programme, so I look forward to learning much more about that and preparing as best I can.

But in the present moment, it's Holy Week with its pain, poignancy and all the anticipation of resurrection joy to come. The window shown here is from Spurgeon's College. I pass it on the staircase frequently and the College crest and motto never fail to inspire. 

Et teneo et teneor 

I both hold and am held.