Using the Smartphone                    Word on the Week                  29^th June 2019.

It could be said that to use the Smart Phone you need to have smart people!   But then again it depends on how adventuresome you are in opening all those pretty icons.   I expect for many of us we are content to use the ones we know and leave the remainder.

The problem for many is that the holder of your data will not leave you alone.   In fact, with the commanding position over the other platforms – the majority it actually owns – Facebook has you taped!    You never knew you were so popular.   So many friends!   How wonderful to open your smartphone and discover you have 98 friends, all wanting to contact you.     

Of course the reality is somewhat different!   This is the make-belief world created by algorithms working on data, 1. Yours 2. The people you know and 3. The people who know them!   Assuming all are users of Facebook.   Out of this pool you are encouraged to ‘wave’ or ‘like’ your way into facebook-land where people are born, marry but never die!

In this sanitised world, where only the best photos are shown, life is marvellous.   Apparently it all started when a couple of US college students invented a kind of dating agency.   It grew rapidly, leaving the college grounds and produced an income for its founders.   Now it has grown to global dimensions causing the major shareholder in an Irish newspaper, the Independent, to complain that Social Media were sucking the advertising revenue, which is the life-blood of newspapers, out of the system.

So who are the citizens of facebook-land?    They are easily recognisable.   Their heads are down and they are focussed on the smartphone in their hands.   They are largely oblivious to everything going on around them.    Others are wired for sound.   The cable which comes from their ears may be mic-wired which, when activated, gives the impression of speaking to themselves!

What has all this to do with developing Church life?   Since ‘everybody’ has a smartphone we have an efficient prayer circle with prayer requests transmitted via ‘WhatsApp’.    This is a closed group from the Church and operates efficiently dealing with requests on a real time basis.

Our text cards, which previously highlighted an appropriate Biblical text now show a bar-code!    This is thanks to Michael who showed me how use it to tap into a portion of scripture (thanks Google) on the internet.   Part of the usefulness of this venture is it gives the user access to the whole Bible, which is on line.   This presents a good reason for keeping switched on and head down!     The current bar-code offers a remedy for stress.   It’s found in St Matthew Chapter 6 verses 25 to 34.

We are in the season of Pride Parades.   The LGBT turn out in their millions whether it be in New York, Sao Paulo or London their upbeat colours brightening up the street-scape.   Our Dublin effort grows larger by the year but you really know things are changing when in Belfast the Pride Parade is the biggest in that land of parades!

What does the acronym LGBTQI+ stand for?   It’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex.   The plus sign covers a multitude of sins!    It can stretch to 16!   It’s a movement looking for a name.   The name must mean ‘being different’.

The LG part of the acronym has come of age with some of our foremost law firms and banks making major strides at creating inclusive cultures and publicly proclaim it.    No one need feel they are left out.    All human beings are equal irrespective of sexuality.   In fact, Ireland is something of a global leader in equality.     Our vote for marriage equality was the first country to do so.    We also have a Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, herself a lesbian, who has set up a LGBTI+ National Youth Strategy – another first for Ireland.

It is in the field of youth that the biggest increase in the BT is expected.   To really ensure cultural change, it’s wasting time focussing on the elderly and mature, the effort has to be directed towards youth.    It’s there that fluid gender and the absence of boundaries have the strongest appeal.   Add in the decoupling of parental control, which has been used in the UK, in the furtherance of trans-gender work.

There seem to be overtones here with Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.   In the book Huxley sees the future with child production taken out of the hands of would be parents and assigned to laboratories.   This was written in 1932!  

The rainbow has become the flag of the LGBT.    It has been hi-jacked from the Bible where it symbolises God’s promise, after the flood, that the earth will not be subject to another global flood.    Such a mighty symbol waving in the hands of the unaware!

Cultures, of course, are fluid themselves.    No matter how hard people try to effect permanent change they can only make a surface one.    Moses was up against it when he tried to change the culture of the Egyptians to let his people go.    Pharaoh introduced his magicians who turned their staffs into snakes.    The magic did not last long as Moses’s staff also turned into a snake and eat all the others.   Only God can effect permanent change! (Exodus Chapter 7 verse 12).   

Some may feel that the present changes go to the foundation of the old verities.   The Psalmist also asked this question, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”  Keep going and God will do his part (Chapter 11 verses 3/7).  

The Heart of the Matter                Word on the Week                     15^th June 2019.

The conversation in the Men’s Shed this week seemed to focus on the heart.   The various paraphernalia used to keep it going came under review.   These included stents, replacement valves and that long-time favourite, the pace-maker.

The introduction of stents had, it was decided, become a fine art.   The procedure had been reduced to a few hours in hospital with some being able to boast of very fast turn-a-round times.     Some maintained that it had been reduced to a simple plumbing operation but others, with a better grasp of anatomy, reckoned that they were getting their body parts mixed up!

Breaking news reported the company responsible for remotely monitoring the pacemakers was ceasing to operate.    This didn’t cause anyone to miss a beat as all users were perfectly able to go back to the old method of monitoring it themselves.

A good friend used to say when relating to the sins we all commit, “The heart of the matter is the matter of the human heart”!    It certainly brings out the central truth that sin comes from within us but leaves the misunderstanding that the organ of the heart is at fault.   Of course it is only a pump but one that is so central to our existence that it has a very descriptive place in our vocabulary.

Another, who did a lot of flying, called the heart “the control tower of the body”.  He saw it as governing our thoughts, emotions, desires and motivations in other words this is the way we are.    Well not quite – sin lives in there too!    Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.   All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (St Mark Chapter 7 verses 20 to 23).

As a result, our thoughts, emotions, desires and motivations are corrupted.    The heart becomes the worship centre of your life and you realise you are in the last days when you join others described as “lovers of themselves…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 to 5).

We need a new heart, not a surgical implant, but as in Ezekiel’s day.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness’s, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 25/28).    Look in faith to our redeemer God.

The Great Skua                     Word on the Week                          8^th June 2019.

While on a bird-watching expedition last Wednesday to Loop Head in Co Clare a solitary Great Skua flew past heading for Blasket Island.    It was undisturbed by the presence of another big bird which had landed at Doonbeg some 6 miles away and with whom it shares some characteristics.

It is the size of the Herring Gull but much stockier built.   The plumage is largely brown with rustier underparts and white feathers across the base of the primaries.   It is piratical in behaviour, chasing other birds until they disgorge their prey which it then catches often in mid-air.   It wouldn’t be the favourite bird of the colony!

The cliffs are terraced affording nesting sites for legions of Guillemots and Razorbills while below were the dried seaweed nests of Shags and Cormorants.   Kittiwakes screeched as they fussed around their whitewashed nests, occupying the same ledges as their forebears.   Fulmars, of the Albatross family, glide effortlessly in the onshore breeze, landing amid sustained chatter as they preside over their solitary egg.

In the distance a flock of Black Guillemots bobbed on the surface while some dived to bring up their lunch.   They were accompanied by a small school of Dolphin indicating the presence of a shoal of fish.    In the distance a line of Gannets (the fishermen called them a string of pearls) gleamed white in the sunlight as they headed for their nesting sites on the Skelligs to the South.

There is an order and a beauty in nature which not only creates but also sustains wild life.    Each specie has its allotted nesting site and its food supply in the sea nearby.    It would be easy to worship these places and become a ‘birdman’ one sold out on the creation but that would be to confuse the sign with what it signifies.    Creation is the sign.   It has a Creator.    Those who believe or have been radicalised at school into believing that life came from non-life (i.e. evolution), have difficulty in seeing past nature.    We see it as the signpost pointing to God.

All the glories of the physical world serve this one purpose – to remind us of and to point us to the glory of God (Exodus Chapter 20 verse 3).   The natural world is not the thing we are to live for.   How sad when a person looks for what cannot be found in what cannot deliver.   They look to the sign mistaking it for the substance.  

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!   For I am God, and there is no other.”   (Isaiah Chapter 45 verse 22)

The Psalmist discovered this (Chapter 73 verses 24/26): –

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.             

Getting into the Swing                    Word on the Week              1^st June 2019.

I invariably find it difficult to select a topic for the weekly blog.   It’s not the shortage of material that is the problem but the volume!   So much happens in a week and, believe it or not, the Bible always has a view which could be expressed.     In this case, an insignificant incident, given the oxygen of publicity, has seriously damage a political career.

Normally in this life what you loose on the swings you can regain on the roundabouts but, alas for Maria Bailey, the roundabout is not working.    In fact, Maria in her various media interviews this week, has fared badly on the swings also!    So who is this Maria?

Maria Bailey is an Irish Fine Gael politician for the Dún Laoghaire constituency who was appointed Chair of the Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government; a seat which she is in danger of losing.    It’s not the only chair where she has found it difficult to hold onto her seat.   Her best known was when she fell off a swing near a hotel bar when she was holding a bottle in each hand.    Her case against the hotel, which goes back to July 2017, claimed she couldn’t run after the accident.    However, within three weeks of the incident she won a 10 km race in the same time which she clocked up in the same race the previous year.   

Details from her claim to the Circuit Court (where the maximum award is €60,000) were published last week, causing significant embarrassment for her Government. The latter are on a crusade to drive down insurance personal injury claims in the run-up to elections.   

In order to get to the bottom of the matter the Taoiseach has called for a report.    This being the usual tactic by government when things become uncomfortable.   Her case against the hotel has now been withdrawn.

Perhaps the biggest swing in Scripture was in public opinion.     One day the Jerusalem crowd were hailing Jesus as the Messiah and spreading their cloaks before him, the next they were calling for his crucifixion (St Matthew chapter 21 verse 9).    The swing could not have been greater.     The fickleness of the mob, so easily influenced by the Chief Priests and the Elders and blinded by a blood lust for a crucifixion.     They even preferred the release of a notorious criminal and took the guilt of Christ’s upon themselves and their children (St Matthew Chapter 27 verses 22 to 26).

With the benefit of hindsight, we see through Joseph’s eyes, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis Chapter 50 verse 20).    And that salvation commenced at Pentecost has continued to draw people into the Kingdom to this day.

“What are you like”             Word on the Week                          25^th May 2019

The phrase can have either an exclamation or a question mark.   An exclamation at something you have done or a question of where you come from.    The Bible says: – Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens anover the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creep on the earth.”    So God created man in his own image, the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them (Genesis Chapter 1 verses 26/7).

It is plain that we come from God’s creation.   We were made in his image to be creative beings living in a love relationship to each other modelling the Trinity.  

Since the fall the image has been marred but in Jesus we see it as it should be.  “He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians Chapter 1 verse 15a).

When on earth Jesus told a story concerning images.   It arose out of a plan to trap him with a question.   No one likes to pay taxes so the Pharisees seized an opportunity to gain popularity over Jesus by asking him whether or not it was right to pay taxes to the Roman occupying powers?    If he answered in the affirmative, he was in trouble with his followers but if he answered negatively he was in trouble with the Roman authorities!

Jesus did neither but asked for the coin used in paying tax.   He then asked them whose image was on the coin.   It was Caesar’s.   “Therefore give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” was Jesus reply (St Matthew Chapter 22 verses 15/22).

The answer confounded his enemies who gave up their questioning.  

His followers may have thought more deeply into “give to God the things that are God’s”.   

To be human is to bear the image of God.   We are his by creation.   We come from God.   We bear the divine image.    The secular view with its evolutionary overtones parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan

“Darwinian man, though well behaved,

At best is only a monkey shaved”, –  sees us as animals.

We then begin to see the value system being skewed in favour of the fittest at the expense of the elderly, chronically sick or the baby in the womb.

It all depends on whether we are in God’s image and therefore of infinite value or go down the secular path with its diminished value system.

“What are you like!”   The Bible says we are sinners.   Not because we have sinned but that is our fallen nature (Romans chapter 5 verse 12).   But by God’s grace and the work of Jesus as our sin-bearer on the cross everyone who turns to Jesus believing that “He died in my place” will be saved.

Putting your faith in the risen Jesus brings you into the family of God where you can become a living image-bearer of our risen Saviour.

Thy Kingdom Come                         Word on the Week                   18^th May 2019.

It is the first time Jesus was asked by his followers to teach prayer so what he asked for should be of primary importance.    Like others they got it wrong.   They thought ‘kingdom equals territory’ – and much of our debate is slanted in that direction today.   Whether in Ireland or the UK the conflicts comes down to turf.  The notion that God owns the land is seldom heard.

The greater mistake however lies in the substitution of the personal pronoun ‘My’ for the original ‘Thy’!    It is ‘my kingdom’ that we want to come – and the quicker the better!    Selfishness has always afflicted humankind but this generation has raised it to new heights.    It is seen in the lack of consideration of the rights of the infant in the womb in favour of the mother in abortion.     

There is the deliberate confusion of our God-given identity in same-sex marriage and transgender experimentation.   Those who oppose these things are said to have a phobia.    There is a systematic move to dismantle Christian values and replace them with what Scripture prohibits (Romans Chapter 1 verses 18 to 32).

So what was Jesus speaking about when he used the word ‘kingdom’ (St Matthew Chapters 3 verse 2 and 4 verse 17)?   It is where king Jesus rules.   It could be as near you as in your heart, your family, your church, your workplace, your town and on and on into the glories of heaven (St Luke Chapter 17 verse 21 to 22 verse 16).     

Jesus the ruler, rules by the word; “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world…Thy word is truth” (St John Chapter 17 verses 14 and 17).    It is this truth that sanctifies us, sets us apart for the Lord ‘s business.

To pray that the Kingdom comes is, for the believer, a present possession.    The ‘not yet believer’ requires the born-again experience.   It involves repentance for past sins and the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith to enter the Kingdom (St John Chapter 3 verses 3 to 5).    This will come by a turning away from sin and a simple prayer of faith to Jesus.

Lastly there is future inheritance in the final coming of the Kingdom.   “I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation Chapter 12 verses 10 to 11).  

May “Thy Kingdom Come” soon.     

The Saviour died, and rose again

triumphant o’er the grave;

and pleads our cause at God’s right hand,

omnipotent to save.

This verse takes the reader through ‘dead man’s cross and live man’s tomb’ and onwards and upwards to Christ’s heavenly session and present redeeming work.

The first two lines, ‘The Saviour died, and rose again; triumphant o’er the grave’

are what St Paul’s declares to be of the utmost importance in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 verses 3 and 4: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

The second two lines, “and pleads our cause at God’s right hand, omnipotent to save,” deal with the Lord Jesus Christ’s present work at the right hand of the Majesty.   This is referred to in Psalm 110 verse 1, “The LORD says to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”   This is quoted by the writer to the Hebrews in Chapter 1 when the triumphant Christ, now seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (verse 3) has an authority which exceeds that of angels (Verse 13).

The fact of Christ being seated indicates that the work of redemption has been completed.  What continues is the filling out of salvation by the distribution of gifts to the people of God- “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)  And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is at the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians Chapter 4 verses 9 to 16).   i.e. a people who love!

Notice – there are no black holes in God’s economy!

It is many years since the peace loving Basking Shark came to mind but there in today’s newspaper the species gets two whole columns to itself.   What prompted the article was not their presence but their relative absence from our waters.

In the middle of the 20^th century they were to be seen off the Aberdeenshire coast.   At that time, I was involved in line fishing approx. 6 miles off-shore opposite a line of rock known as the Scars of Cruden.   During the summer holidays we could go fishing in a 24 foot half decked ‘Yole’ (a sailing boat converted to diesel with a twin cylinder engine).   My neighbour, the boat owner, his two sons and myself were the crew.

In those days, before purse netting, the fishing was good and inshore fishermen could make a living.   They operated out of small coastal villages, each with its harbour and small ‘fleet’ of boats.    The lines were 500 metres long and they had hooks at metre intervals.    These were usually baited with lugworm and set just before the turn of the tide.    The fish feed mainly during the half hour of slack water so lifting the line took place after this period of ‘tiding’. 

It was then when we had time to observe things that we would see the fin of a basking shark.   They were different from the porpoise whose fin described a cart wheel, the shark’s fin was a small triangle.   If there was a shoal, we would sustain some line damage – perhaps 6 consecutive hooks (presumably with their fish) would be missing.     The Basking Shark supposedly eat only plankton but I expect many things are scooped up by its wide mouth!

The most exciting times were when we were finished fishing and heading home.   We would occasionally be accompanied, for a short time, by a few of these fish.   They were not the 33 foot monsters that they get on the West coast but as they swam parallel to the boat, but 6 feet below us, they measured the length of the boat.   Fortunately, none were sufficiently curious to take a closer look!

This was our Leviathan.   Always representing a powerful monster that conquers man but can be handled by God.   “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?   Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?” (Job Chapter 41 verses 1 and 2).   “In that day the LORD with his fierce and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, he will slay the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah Chapter 27 verse 1).   

The only other power like it on earth is inside us.   And the only One who can handle it is the Lord –  Hear St Paul “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans Chapter 7 verses 21 to 24).

The March 29^th deadline for the UK leaving the EU has passed.   Eight separate votes were taken in the UK parliament this week, each motion exploring an alternative to the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal.   All failed.  Then the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was voted on for the third time and it also failed, by 58 votes.

No one can accuse the UK of not being democratic!  

The missed deadline has been moved to 12^th April with the consent of the EU. 

As previously the Irish Border presents an impossible problem for those Brexiteers wishing to leave the European Customs Union behind.   Remaining in the Customs Union would remove the need for a border but is a bridge Brexiteers will not cross.

One Brexiteer asked the question, “What is liberty for if not to govern ourselves?” 

It is a good question but approx. 44 years too late!   He did not appreciate his Prime Minister giving him the very limited choice of her deal or no deal!    Even the Prime Minister’s offer to resign after her deal is passed failed to carry any impact.

With her ‘Brexit means Brexit’ slogan she allowed leaving to be defined in the hardest possible terms. She activated article 50 (giving a time line of two years to exit date) without knowing what she wanted. She set down red lines that locked Westminster into a deal that her party opposed.  She did not show any flexibility in creating a cross party consensus in the British national interest.   Instead she hoped to ‘run down the clock’ using the pressure of a deadline to get her deal passed.

Of course the numbers were against her from the start.   Reliance on other parties to vote for you is always problematical and without them she did not have a majority.

Did you ever ask yourself why things seem to be stacked against you?   It’s not God’s redemptive plan that is in difficulty but life in this old broken world is designed to remind us that we are not in heaven yet.

Don’t expect things to go right.   Our frustrations are there for a purpose.  They call us back from relying on ourselves to dependency on the living God (Romans Chapter 8 verses 18/21).   Flowers wither, food spoils, things decay.   God lets pieces of his creation go against us so increasingly we are freed from asking earth to give us what only He can give (1 Peter Chapter 1 verses 3/9).

By God’s grace he ages our bodies also so that we may be weaned from the notion that this is our home.    This world will never function right until the Lord returns and in the meantime we are to “live out our time here as foreigners in reverent fear” … “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot “(1 Peter 1 verses 18/19).