A Baptist People

jedwardsA Baptist People is the monthly message of Jonathan Edwards, the General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.




Everyone's Welcome

Wednesday, 19 June 2013 17:24
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Jesus went to extraordinary lengths to show his love and care for every kind of person. He regularly shocked the respectable people around him by the way in which he gave time to prostitutes, tax-collectors, children and lepers. He wasn't merely friendly to them but actually spent time in their homes and chose to eat and drink with them. No wonder he got such a bad reputation with the respectable people!


The Church of Jesus Christ has the clear and straightforward responsibility of walking in Jesus' footsteps. Our task is to help people to meet Jesus and we will do that as we reflect his life and love. So the most crucial question of all is this – Are our churches truly welcoming every kind of person? This is so fundamental to our lives as followers of Jesus that we need to take the question with intense seriousness, and to spend time in our leaders' meeting and church meetings reflecting on it.


First of all we need to acknowledge that this is a hard path. It is in every respect easier to spend time with people who are like us, than to reach out to people who are completely different from us. It is a simple truth that birds of a feather flock together. But this is not the language of Jesus' Good News which seeks to embrace all, whatever their background or circumstances.


It is always healthy for a church to receive the honest reflections of visitors. And I do mean honest! We can easily be so polite to one another that we never hear the truth. But the fact is that many of our churches are very friendly communities for those who are a part of them ... but as cold as icebergs for those who haven't learnt the language or understood our ways. The smug satisfaction of some churches could be easily swept away by the loving (hopefully) comments of an outsider.


Steve Chalke's recent article "A Matter of Integrity" has highlighted the importance of churches welcoming homosexual people. This is a Gospel issue and it is important to have this conversation. However the range of views about homosexuality, even amongst Evangelicals, is so wide that this is not an easy conversation to have. However, my prime concern is that we make it consistently clear that as churches that follow in the path of Jesus we will always be extending love and care to everyone, whatever their sexual orientation.


It is undoubtedly the case that churches have generally been perceived to be homophobic. Homosexual people have not felt welcome. I am absolutely sure that that is not what Jesus would want, and it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to make sure that that is not the case. The Good News of Jesus is either Good News for everyone – or it is not Good News.


Jesus' welcome never implied that he was endorsing the views or life-style of those he met. Indeed everyone without exception was invited to go on a journey. For some it meant a clean break with their old life as in the case of Zacchaeus and Matthew. For others it meant facing up to searching questions about their life style as we see with the Rich Young Ruler. For everyone there was a journey of discipleship ahead.


Amidst the heat of debate about these issues I pray that we will not lose sight of our two crucial responsibilities – to welcome everyone, and to invite them all to journey with us in the footsteps of Jesus.

God bless this mess!

Wednesday, 19 June 2013 17:24
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A minister friend of mine was telling me a few days ago about her daughter who was reluctant to attend yet another Christmas service and who asked with a tired voice, "How many different ways are there to rehash the same old story?" The answer to the cynical question is that there are endless ways of telling the old, old story because it is the living word of God. Every time it is retold it sparkles with life. It contains new insights into ourselves, our world and the God who made us and, as we enter a New Year, we need to live closely to the lessons that the Christmas story has taught us.


This Christmas I was particularly struck by the catastrophic lack of planning in the story of Jesus' birth. On the face of it almost every detail could have been improved upon. Surely things would have gone much more smoothly if Joseph had been informed of Mary's miraculous pregnancy at the same time as she found out about it. And why couldn't God have organized the census at a different time? Was it really necessary to drag a heavily pregnant woman on a long and arduous journey to the other end of the country? And surely God, the Creator of the world, could have done something about the humiliating rule of the Romans and suspended it for a while. And I would have thought that with the smallest amount of forward planning a bed could have been found for the young mother and the Son of God. And so I could go on.


But that's the point. The Christmas story reveals to us a God who meets us in our muddle. He comes into the heart of this messy world and shows us how we can find life, life in all its fullness. As we enter a New Year we are surrounded by challenges and problems. There are many countries around the world that are tearing themselves apart. The agonizing images from Syria are a constant source of horror. And Northern Ireland, after a long period of calm, is once again producing sickeningly unwelcome headlines. Many families are struggling to make ends meet, and are fearful of the future. And we in our Baptist family are making a number of people redundant as we seek to balance our budget in this harsh climate.


It's a tough time, and much of what is happening is very messy and unpleasant. But the Christmas message has reminded us that that is precisely the world into which Jesus came ... and into which he still comes. This is the Good News which everyone needs to hear. Many people assume that they need to get their lives together before they can approach God. But that is the opposite of the truth. God comes to us as we offer him our mess and as we invite him to walk with us in the midst of it.


So let's not be discouraged by the mess in which we may find ourselves, but be encouraged by the knowledge that that's exactly where God wants to meet us. With a full heart we all need to pray, "God bless this mess." And as we do so we can be sure that that's exactly what he wants to do.

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