Leaving Kalubian

This week will be my last week visiting Kalubian. As I mentioned in an earlier post Pastor Glemar is doing a great job there and we have now handed over the work, so I am bowing out gracefully. Of all the different things I’ve been involved in during our time in the Philippines Kalubian has been closest to my heart. A poor fishing village miles from anywhere, I was invited to begin a church there and develop a servant ministry to the community. Almost every week I’ve visited, sometimes we have hard great celebrations, at others just a handful. But God has been faithful, and now we can start to see some of the fruit of our time here.

Some pictures.

Crucifixion can be bad for your health

Just had to blog this!

The BBC has a great headline on their website Filipinos ‘warned of health risks of crucifixions‘

Plus this warning from the health department:

They have urged them to get tetanus vaccinations before they flagellate themselves and are nailed to crosses, and to practise good hygiene.

These events are a regular occurence each year. The last 2 years each Good Friday has seen a paasion play and then real crucifixion take place at the Catholic church at the end of our street here in Guadalupe. It is a strange and for me a deeply uncomfortable experience to attend one of these things. In contrast to what you might expect there was something of a carnival atmosphere. Thousands of people turned out to watch, many wearing their most fashionable clothing. Lots of young people taking pictures on cell phones with one hand while enjoying candy floss held in the other. After the event (in our case lasting only a few minutes before the man was taken down to be rushed to hospital for a check up before he was apparently due to perform again elsewhere in the city in the evening), queues form to have photo’s taken with the bloody cross. Many raise their fingers in Churchill’s ‘V’ for victory sign. In among all this there are some who are visibly moved. I saw some nuns weeping, other lay people went to stand at the cross and pray.

Would I go again? no, once was enough:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Hebrews 9 v 25ff

The Church still bears the cross

I have been reminded again that for many Christians the sufferings of Christ are not just the subject of meditations during Holy week, but a present reality experienced in their midst. International Christian Concern recently released their annual report upon persecution which hi-lights the ‘10 worst persecutors of Christians based on news reports from the previous year’. The report is available from here.

Could you name the worse 10 countries?

One story had a particular resonance for me, it is the account of the torture and death of Mogos Solom Semere.

Mogos Solom Semere was 25 and about to get married to his fiancé in 2002 when he was apprehended by Eritrean officials for following Jesus Christ. Mogos was a committed Christian who had been imprisoned in 2001 for the “crime” of evangelism. Mogos was given a choice during his four and half years in prison. He would be released as soon as he signed a paper that declared his refusal to follow Jesus. Some of his friends chose to sign the paper and were released from prison. But for Mogos, the idea of renouncing his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was unacceptable.

When he caught cardiac pneumonia and suffered due to the consequences of his torture, he was again given the choice to get medical treatment, but only if he agreed to stop following Christ. Once again, Mogos’ answer was a resounding, “NO!” He finally passed away inside the prison cell on February 15, 2007, due to the combined effect of pneumonia and torture. Our brother remained faithful to the Lord until the end. Mogos’ life is best described in Hebrews 11: 35 which states, “…others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might rise again to a better life.”

The date Mogos died was February 15, my birthday.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place [1] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, [2] and God himself will be with them as their God. [3] 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

(Revelation 21:1-4)

More on life in Eritrea and the consequences of dissent from a BBC journalist here.

A gem from John Stott on learning from the Cross

I’ve been re-reading parts of ‘The Cross of Christ’ by John Stott in preparation for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It really is a classic, a book I come back to again and again and cannot recommend highly enough. Here are his reflections suffering service, the topic of today’s lectionary reading John 12 v 23ff:

The place of suffering in service and of passion in mission is hardly ever taught today. But the greatest single secret of evangelistic or missionary effectiveness is the willingness to suffer and die. It may be death to popularity, (by faithfully preaching the biblical gospel), or to pride (by the use of modest methods in reliance on the Holy Spirit), or to racial and national prejudice (by identification with another culture), or to material comfort (by adopting a simple lifestyle). But the servant must die if he is to be a light to the nations, and the seed must die if it is to multiply.

The Resurrection and Bovine Methane

Imagine you are the leader of a church of around a million and a half people. You are a nationally known (at least among the religious media), you have been interviewed in Newsweek, and widely profiled in the press. It is the last week of Lent. Naturally thoughts are beginning to turn towards Holy Week and Easter. You need to write and Easter message, to be distributed to your churches, and released to the public.

What would you say?

Would you go with the Bishop of Durham’s theme in 2007 and stress the meaning that Christ’s resurrection as a God’s declaration that sin has been judged and that forgiveness is possible and available to all:

in the earliest apostolic proclamation about Jesus of Nazareth his death and resurrection were directly linked to two promises, one about the future, and one about the present. These can be simply stated: the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead, and the resurrection demonstrates that he is the one in whose name forgiveness of sins can be had here and now.

‘God raised him up,’ said Peter to Cornelius, ‘and commanded us to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

Perhaps you would go with Pope Benedict and stress the meaning of the resurrection as a sign of hope for the future, a reminder that Jesus is alive and that death cannot contain him. A testimony to the fact Christ is not just Lord of the Church but Lord of History, and as such calls for our allegiance and submission to him; at the same time promising us His peace and renewing our hope in his good purposes:

Brothers and sisters in faith, who are listening to me from every part of the world! Christ is risen and he is alive among us. It is he who is the hope of a better future. As we say with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”, may we hear again in our hearts the beautiful yet demanding words of the Lord: “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him” (Jn 12:26). United to him and ready to offer our lives for our brothers (cf. 1 Jn 3:16), let us become apostles of peace, messengers of a joy that does not fear pain – the joy of the Resurrection.

Maybe you would disavow these time honoured yet well worn paths, and choose instead to break new ground on your own.

Perhaps you would talk about Bovine Methane, or to put it in layman’s terms – cow farts.

You wouldn’t?

I can’t say that I am surprised. But unfortunately this was the approach adopted by Prime Bishop Schori head of the Episcopal Church USA. Her Easter message can be found here. A short statement of just 6 paragraphs, it begins with an exhortation for us all to ask the question:

How can you enact the new life we know in Jesus the Christ? In other words, how can you be the sacrament, the outward and visible sign, of the grace that you know in the resurrected Christ? How can your living let others live more abundantly?

And then unpacks what that might look like, specifically with reference to bovine methane.

We are beginning to be aware of the ways in which our lack of concern for the rest of creation results in death and destruction for our neighbors. We cannot love our neighbors unless we care for the creation that supports all our earthly lives. We are not respecting the dignity of our fellow creatures if our sewage or garbage fouls their living space. When atmospheric warming, due in part to the methane output of the millions of cows we raise each year to produce hamburger, begins to slowly drown the island homes of our neighbors in the South Pacific, are we truly sharing good news?

The food we eat, the energy we use, the goods and foods we buy, the ways in which we travel, are all opportunities — choices and decisions — to be for others, both human and other. Our Christian commitment is for this — that we might live that more abundant life, and that we might do it in a way that is for the whole world.

Now. I’ve been to America several times. I have relatives there and I love it, and it cannot be denied that a lot of Hamburger is consumed there. I’ve no idea how many cows it takes to produce that ‘Hamburger’, and I’m sure that they do fart a lot (the cows, not the Americans… maybe the Americans too). But are they really responsible ‘in part’ (good escape clause there) for slowly drowning the island homes of those poor South Pacificans? And even if they were, what can be done about it? Eat less hamburgers for sure, but is that really what the Gospel message is to be distilled down to in 21st Century America? Is that the best application of the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection Bishop Schori could come up with after reflecting upon it during the season of lent?

Eat less burgers, so there are less cows producing ‘methane output’, and so in turn Global warming will be a little bit reduced.

Of course it is easy to have fun with another’s sermons.

But there is a serious question to be had here. I currently minister in the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, a church with strong ties to The Episcopal Church in America. And increasingly there is alarm here at the direction The Episcopal Church is taking. Aside from messages of dubious value Bishop Schori’s actions speak loudly. This last week has seen the removal from office of 2 bishops who oppose her and her theological drift. In a meeting whereby The Episcopal Church flouts it’s own Canons repeatedly the Bishops were deposed. Sadly, you might also say criminally, one is an 89 year old servant of the church who’s wife suffers from Alzheimer’s and is by all accounts deeply distressed by the turn of events. (Space precludes much more on this but a good summary is available here, and here, and a tribute to the Bishop Cox, the Bishop in question here).

Is this Bishop Schori’s understanding of the grace that you know in the resurrected Christ?

Cow Farts.

Moving On

At last I can reveal some news about our future plans.

Well sort of.

In one of my last posts I mentioned that I was heading back to the UK for a few weeks. What I didn’t mention was that the reason behind the visit was for some job interviews. CMS (our mission agency) work according to 3 year cycles. Typically you will stay in a post for 3 years, head back to the UK for 6 months, and then either return to the same country and carry on, move somewhere else overseas, or leave CMS service. Our 3 years come to a close in the middle of this year, and so we have been praying hard, talking with friends, church members and colleagues, and thinking about the future. For a variety of reasons we felt that the time was right for us to head back to the UK this year, and so I began to look for jobs, and we began to make arrangements for the work here to be handed over to Filipino nationals.

With some trepidation I headed back to the UK for interviews. Altogether I had 5 lined up at different churches around the country (although with 2 weeks to go before I flew only one was definitely confirmed). As it happened things went really well at the first church, and I was delighted to be offered the job of Priest in Charge (for the uninitiated that’s basically a vicar but not called that due to technicalities in the way the post is being appointed) of a church. I can’t say too much about it at the moment as the official announcements have to be made by the Diocese concerned, but the paperwork is done and we are beginning to make all the necessary arrangements to return to the UK. For my part, as soon as I visited the parish I was struck by the warmth and enthusiasm of the church members, the area the church is based in is thriving, and for us as a family it feels like a great fit.

In terms of the ministry in the Philippines, we are still fully engaged here. Pastor Glemar has done a sterling job in my absence at Kalubian. He has now taken over the leadership of the ministry there and is leading Bible studies and worship services. The church members no longer have to put up with my excruciating Cebuano and the need for an interpreter. When I visited this week, Glemar had finished his Bible study and was chatting to the villagers, it was great to hear them referring to him as ‘our pastor’. The social programs will also continue under his leadership, in time becoming integrated into the outreach and school sponsorship programs run by the Christian and Missionary Alliance of which he is a minister.

In Cebu it is not clear what the future holds for St Johns and St James. These are technically classed as missions of the Episcopal Church and so are under the supervision and direction of the Episcopal Church. There is some discussion between the diocese, the national office and the church council here as to the best way forward. Fr Labasan my co-worker in Talisay will soon be leaving also, and so one option is to replace both of us with a single Filipino priest, and combine the churches into a single parish, and that is actively being considered.

For us, this is a strange time, especially in this season of Lent. Death and Resurrection, endings and beginnings, goodbyes and new relationships – suddenly everything has a new significance and poignancy.

Do pray for us as we make the arrangements to return to the UK, to handover one ministry and take up another, to say goodbye to friends and fellow believers we have become close too, and prepare ourselves for new relationships and a new ministry in a city we have never lived in before. Though at least this time we will speak the language!