Daring to See God Now , livre ebook

SPCK - Nick Baines

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34 pages

English

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Description

Daring to See God Now is part of the highly popular series of open-minded York Courses for discussion groups and individual reflection, crammed with questions to stimulate thought and lively debate.
Mark's Gospel begins with Jesus 'proclaiming the Good news of God'. But, what is this 'good news', and who is it for? Taking Mark 1.14-15 as a starting point, this course raises important questions about change, repentance, and how we can become in ourselves living evidence of the good news. Examples are taken from the rest of Mark's Gospel as well as contemporary and historic Christians.

The five sessions focus on:

Session 1: The Good News of God

Session 2: The time is now

Session 3: God is present

Session 4: Change your mind

Session 5: Live it!

The course booklet is accompanied by a lively CD, featuring Anglican priest and Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Oxford, Keith Ward, the journalist and poet, Cathy Galvin, author and former Bishop of Llandaff, David Wilbourne, and former Methodist Vice-President, Rachel Lampard MBE.

This York Course is available in the following formats

Course Book (Paperback 9781909107236)

Course Book (eBook 9781909107793)

Audio Book of Interview to support Daring to See God Now York Course (CD 9781909107786)

Audio Book of Interview (Digital Download 9781909107779)

Transcript of interview to support Daring to See God Now York Course (Paperback 9781909107243)

Transcript of interview (eBook 9781909107809)

Book Pack (9781909107816 Featuring Paperback Course Book, Audio Book on CD and Paperback Transcript of Interview)

Large print (9781909107823)

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Christianity

Devotion

Devotional

Philosophie et théologie

Christian Living

Informations

Publié par	SPCK
Date de parution	01 août 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781909107793
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	8 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS COURSE
SUGGESTIONS FOR GROUP MEMBERS
1. PREPARATION It’ll help you enormously if you’re able to have your own personal copy of this booklet. Try to read each session before the meeting.
2. THE MARGIN BOXES Read the main text first and then come back to the margin boxes. Perhaps mark a couple of the quotes that you might like to discuss at the meeting.
3. USING A TRANSCRIPT The Transcript booklet is a complete record of the words as spoken on the course audio. It may help you to feel more on top of the material and give you greater confidence about joining in the discussion. Reading the transcript at leisure after the session may help you absorb the text.
SUGGESTIONS FOR GROUP LEADERS
We’re deliberately not prescriptive, and different leaders prefer to work in slightly different ways, but here are a few tried and trusted ideas …
1. THE ROOM Discourage people from sitting outside or behind the main circle – it’s good for all to feel equally involved.
2. HOSPITALITY Tea or coffee and biscuits on arrival and/or at the end of a meeting is always appreciated and encourages people to talk informally. (Even in Lent, hospitality is okay!)
3. THE START If group members don’t know each other well, some kind of ‘icebreaker’ might be helpful. For example, you might invite people to share something about themselves and/or about their faith. Be careful to place a time limit on this exercise!
4. PREPARING THE GROUP Explain that there are no right or wrong answers, and that among friends it is fine to say things that you are not sure about – to express half-formed ideas. If individuals choose to say nothing, that is all right too.
5. THE MATERIAL Encourage members to read each session before the meeting. It helps if each group member has their own personal copy of this booklet. There is no need to consider all the questions. A lively exchange of views is what matters, so be selective.
6. PREPARATION Decide beforehand whether to distribute (or ask people to bring) paper, pencils, hymn books etc. If you’re going to ask anyone to do anything e.g. lead prayers or read a Bible passage, try to give them advance notice so they can prepare.
7. TIMING Try to start on time and make sure you stick fairly closely to your stated finishing time.
8. USING THE AUDIO There is no ‘right’ way! Do whatever is best for you and your group. Some groups will play the 15-minute piece at the beginning of the session. Others play it at the end – or play 7/8 minutes at the beginning and the rest halfway through the meeting. The track markers on the course audio (and shown in the Transcript) will help you find easily any question put to the participants. Groups may like to choose a question to discuss straight after they have listened to a relevant track on the audio – but there are no hard and fast rules. You may wish to play the Closing Reflections (again) at the end.
9. USING THE TRANSCRIPT The Transcript is a complete record of the words as spoken on the course audio and includes track markers. You’ll find this invaluable as you prepare. Group members will undoubtedly benefit from having a copy, if they so wish.

DARING TO SEE GOD NOW
written by Bishop Nick Baines
SESSION 1 - The Good News of God
First, the bad news
When Jesus was growing up in Nazareth he had to come to terms with a terrible truth: his land was occupied by the brutal soldiers of the Roman Imperial Army. This meant obeying Roman commands, ordering their life and society according to Roman priorities and preferences, and having to trade in coinage inscribed with the head of the Emperor bearing the inscription: ‘Emperor and Son of God’ – a blasphemy. Their taxes supported the pagan invaders; their monotheistic religion was mocked. And the overlords could not understand why people would worship a God who had so evidently lost.
We often think our world has become a terrible place, with our TV news continually bombarding us with images and sounds of destruction. Yet, in one sense, our world has always been a brutal place – all that’s new is the particular challenge of a technologically-developed planet.
Jesus began his public ministry with no illusions about the real world in which he lived, no fantasies about a spirituality that would pretend the world was better than it was, and no romantic notion that he was about to be welcomed with open arms by the powerful of his day. Yet Mark’s Gospel (1.14-15) opens in a most remarkable way:
‘Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”’
Little by little the good news emerges
John the Baptist – the one who has been preparing the way for Jesus - has been arrested for saying the wrong things. He has been imprisoned, and there will only be one way out: execution. Empires tend not to embrace human rights.
So when Jesus begins a public ministry, which was jump-started by the arrest of his cousin John, he does so without any romantic fantasy that it will be popular with everyone. If the authorities had come for John the Baptist, they might well go after whoever else has the nerve to criticize the powers that be.
Jesus is a realist who sees the world as it is, and he grounds himself in it as it is. He neither romanticises it, nor runs away from it. As St John puts it in the Prologue to his Gospel: ‘ The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…’ (John 1.14.) Jesus was no stranger to complicated and messy worlds, in which might always seems to be right.
Hearing the good news
But when Jesus comes to his home region, what does it mean that he ‘proclaimed the good news of God’? The only thing that would be heard by the people of Galilee as ‘the good news of God’ would be: the Romans are going and we shall once again be free – free to worship in our way; free to run our own affairs; free to order our society; free from the daily blasphemies imposed on us by the Romans.
Mark in his Gospel invites us to ask what would have been heard as ‘the good news of God’ by the people of Galilee. Religious hopes would not have been enough; pious wishful thinking would have been embarrassing (and there had been plenty of examples of such); gestures of political revolution would have been pointless - there were ‘messiahs’ popping up all the time, challenging the military powers (and usually ending up in blood and misery).
It is also a question we should ask of ourselves before we go any further: what are we prepared to hear as good news - however unpalatable? Are we prepared to re-think what God’s good news for our own world might be, or do we just want a Jesus to suit our own convenience and bolster our status quo?
An ancient conundrum
This is not an original conundrum. Abram and Sarai, set to enjoy a comfy retirement, would hardly have thought the command to leave their home and travel to God-knows-where was particularly good news (Genesis 12.1). Moses clearly didn’t welcome God’s idea of liberation, particularly when it was voiced in a place of personal threat and haunted memory – he dearly wished God would rather choose a smooth talker to tell the king to let His oppressed people go free (Exodus 5.22-23). The Psalmists repeatedly countered praise of God with complaint about their personal lot – often involving suffering, persecution and mockery. Jeremiah saw all his poignant warnings ignored and then suffered the same fate as his people - exile from the homeland - despite his own personal faithfulness to God’s call. And things hardly turned out well for John the Baptist either – you can’t get a much fiercer censure than having your head cut off!
Discovering vocation in the confusion
Throughout the Bible God’s people seek to trust him, worship him and to give their life for him in a world that seems to deny his presence. When all the evidence of our eyes and our experience tells us that God is not there, is not king, is not powerful, is not ‘with us’, how do we keep going? Is faith merely blind wishful thinking? Is faith just a form of escape from the brutalities or routines of a less-than-comfortable world? When the Psalmist is being goaded by his oppressors to ‘sing the Lord’s song in a strange land’ (Psalms 137.3-4), how does he do so with any integrity, when obviously God has utterly deserted them? How dare we sing the Lord’s song in a strange and brutal world, when nature is red in tooth and claw?
If God really is the all-powerful creator, sustainer and lover of the entire cosmos, then why do his faithful people keep looking like losers? If God is God, shouldn’t he do something to sort the world out – to say nothing about his own people’s fate?
This good news of God certainly does not sound like good news to the faithful. Caught up in the wars, famines, floods and calamities of the world, we cry out for deliverance, for healing, for peace - but all we get is the insistent whisper of a God who perversely changes the definition of good news.
The key to the conundrum
Do we only recognise the presence of God when everything is going well for us? Do we only believe God to be among us – or on our side – when our prayers are answered in the way we wish them to be? Or is it possible that God is actually present even while ‘the Romans’ remain in charge – while the public blasphemies persist and while we find our lives cheapened and our freedoms stamped down?
The Bible’s key message is that we are called to be faithful to God in all the circumstances of life, and that we cannot expect to be exempted from all the challenges that being human entails. Christmas celebrates God coming among us as one of us: opting into the world as it actually is at any particular time and in any particular pla