TotD: Parables of the Kingdom

 It's been quite some time since I've written a blog post, 2018 I think was the last one. Honestly, I forgot how to do sign in to this, turns out it's easy and you can just click into it from the Google Chrome home pack... typical.

Anyway, as it's been some time I want to begin with a reminder of what my TotD (Thought of the Day) series is... It's not statements of fact, it's not statements of belief, it's thoughts, the current thing I'm thinking about a particular topic that I want to commit to writing to help me process it and share to see if anyone else is processing it at the same time.

With that said, welcome to this Thought of the Day.

I was recently listening to one of Chuck Smith's C3000 series on Matthew 13. This is a section of the Gospel of Matthew where a number of Jesus' parables are collected together, and Matthew 13 has some that are specifically about the Kingdom of God, or the Church. The reason I mention that I was listening to Chuck is that he has an interesting, and probably more accurate, interpretation of these parables than the traditional interpretation.

Let's look at the first of these parables.

The First Parable: The Mustard Seed.

He put another parable before them, saying,
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
- Matthew 13:31–32 ESV.

You've probably heard of this parable. You were probably taught it in Sunday School. And you probably have heard of it taught in a particular way. In this parable, we are told the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of a mustard seed that was planted. In the previous parable, the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9), we are told that the seed is the Word of God being planted. This is what grows in the hearts and minds of people. I. Howard writes that the parable "suggests the growth of the kingdom of God from tiny beginnings to worldwide size." That's how it's often interpreted, this little mustard seed, one of the tiniest of the seeds, becomes this huge plant  and the birds come and nest in it's branches. It's like a place of refuge the church is for the wildness and unpredictability of this world.

   

But is that what Jesus meant? One of the key rules about interpreting Scripture is that we use Scripture to interpret Scripture. When we come across symbolism and allegory and metaphor, to understand it we need to look to other parts of Scripture to help shed light on it.

    So, does this parable really celebrate the amazing growth of the Church in the world, providing a place of shelter and protection from the insanity of the worldliness of life?

   

It's been pointed out that a mustard seed grows into a bush, not a tree. Jesus, if He was referring to normal growth, could have used an example of an actual tree, which also starts as a small seed. The fact that a bush would grow into a tree is unusual, it's not meant to be. Birds didn't nest in a mustard bush. So, if the mustard bush grows too much, into a tree instead of a bush, and the Church on earth is like that... what does that mean? It means the Church has artificial growth. How much can we see that throughout the history of Christianity?

    When the Emperor Constantine became a Christian he conquered in the sign of the Cross of Christ and promised to Christianize Rome if he would win the throne. He won, and so he began a process of outlawing the traditional Roman Empire religions and making Christianity the only recognised Roman religion, the State Religion. This caused abnormal growth in the church. The mustard bush became a tree.

    This pattern continued into the Medieval period when Christendom was established and when the Roman Church established its authority and appointed Kings and Emperors. People had to be Christians or they would be killed. The mustard bush of the church became a tree.

    In the age of Exploration (or maybe Exploitation, Colonization), Europeans went off on a mission to explore, and Christianize, the world. They forced people to convert to Christianity or die. The mustard bush became a tree.

    In the twentieth century in the USA, the Moral Majority began exerting political influence. A huge movement of conservatives mobilised in order to defeat the sitting, Evangelical, president, Jimmy Carter, and have Ronald Reagan elected. Culture wars, propaganda, and fear mongering were utilised to unseat an Evangelical Christian from the highest office in the land by mobilising Evangelicals against him. The church grew abnormally as people engaged in these wars. The mustard bush became a tree.

    And, in the twenty-first century, Donald Trump did the same thing. The mustard bush became a tree once more.

We see this pattern of abnormal growth in the church throughout Christian history. Perhaps Jesus was warning us against the artificial growth of the church? But is there any supporting evidence for that theory? This is where using Scripture to interpret Scripture comes into this equation. There is another element, beyond the unusual growth of the mustard seed to a tree. The birds. How do we understand what Jesus meant by saying: "the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." What does Jesus mean by the birds?

Here, we turn back to the previous parable, the Parable of the Sower. In Matthew 13:3-4, Jesus says: "And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them" (Matthew 13:3–4 ESV). Then, when the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable, He gives them this explanation: "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path" (Matthew 13:19ESV). So, in the parable Jesus said the birds come and eat the seed when it falls along the path, and explaining this parable He told the disciples that the seed that is sown along the path means the evil one, the devil and his demons, come and snatch away the sown seed, the Word of God.

    In other words, in the parable right before this one, Jesus tells us the birds are the evil one coming, the demons coming, and then in this parable he says that the birds come and "make nests in its branches." What does this mean for the church? The church grows in abnormal ways, and the result isn't that people find refuge from the weirdness of the world in it, but the evil one and his demons come and make their home in it. I think this can have big implications for the way we see the place of the church in the world.

The Second Parable: The Leaven.

He told them another parable.

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

- Matthew 13:33 ESV

It would be mad to draw the above conclusions from one parable, so let's look at the next one, the parable of the leaven. Again, you will often hear this taught as just like if some yeast, some leaven, gets into some bread it will spread through the whole batch of dough and cause the whole bread to rise and grow, so too, the leaven that is the Word of God will permeate the Church and cause it to grow in power, influence, size, authority, importance, etc. in the world.

When you consider how leaven is used in the Bible it's hard to understand why we have come to think this is the best interpretation of that passage. Even just consider Passover, and Unleavened Bread. The Jewish people were to remove leaven from their homes in the run up to Passover, and all the bread made of it couldn't have yeast/leaven in it. Why was that?

    In Exodus 12 and 13, the Jewish people are told to remove anything leavened and anything that could leaven, from their homes and from the whole nation of Israel for the seven days around the Passover. To fail to do this would result in being cut off fro Israel. This is because the leaven was a picture of sin. In the same way that yeast gets into a bit of dough and causes the whole thing to rise, sin can infect a part of our lives and spreads to all of it.

    This idea is carried into the New Testament by both Jesus and Paul. In Matthew 16:6, Jesus warns the disciples to "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". At first, the disciples think Jesus is reprimanding them because they forgot to bring bread with them on their sailing across the Sea of Galilee. Matthew's recounting of this continues:

"But Jesus, aware of this, said, 

“O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive?

Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?

Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?

How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread?

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread,

but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

- Matthew 16:8–12 ESV

And Paul says:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

- 1 Corinthians 5:6–8 ESV

Leaven is never positive in the Bible. If Jesus meant the growth of the Church would be a phenomenal and good thing, He could have used a better illustration for this. He didn't, He used leaven. So, in other words, bad teaching and sin would infect the church and grow in it, until it could be totally spoiled by sin and bad teaching.

Implications for the Church Today:

The Church often sees itself as a refuge in the world, a place for birds to come and nest, a place of influence and importance. It sees history as being ideally on a trajectory of church growth in the world, and growing church influence in the world. Christians will celebrate things they see as victories, but lament the state of the world and say it's all going to hell in a hand basket when some previous law that regulated Christian morality for the general populace, is over turned.

    I think these parables highlight for us the flaw in this thinking. The way of Christ is not the way of power, political influence, or enforcing laws. It is the way of the sacrificial Lamb. And, seeing these parables using Scripture to interpret Scripture we see a totally different picture of the church. Not this stalwart guardian of morality, but a place where abnormal growth can occur, where Satan can hide, where bad teaching can spread, and where sin can permeate.

    The implications of these parables is not to call us to a us, we Christians, versus them, the unbelieving world, mentality. It's a call to humility, to self-reflection, to seeing the Church as it is, a flawed, broken place, susceptible to mistakes, sin, and inflicting itself on others instead of drawing people to Christ by sharing the Good news of His love and grace for us displayed in His death on the cross.

I believe if we had a better understanding of these parables, it would give us a better theology of the church, and orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. Or, in other words, right understanding would lead to right practice. Instead of thinking of it as us against the world, we would be more inclined to be reflective and realise we are not perfect either. It could help make the church more like a hospital for the broken, than a private club for the chosen.

Writing Prompts: Messenger

 Recently on Instagram I did a Q&A thing, and one of the questions that was asked was about my writing. I haven't written anything in a while. So I decided I would download a writing prompt book to my Kindle to help me get back into the flow of writing stories. This is the first of these prompts. Feel free to write your own version of this prompt and share it with me so I can read it too :)

Prompt:

Before the existence of post offices and telephone lines, letters and news of importance were entrusted to Messengers. Write a story about a Messenger who bears news of an enemy invasion and his desperate run to the nation's capital and King/Queen.

My Story: Orion's Belt.

It was a dark and cloudless night. Orion had been 'gifted', as the other guards put it, with night watch duty. They knew Orion hated the night watch, and it wasn't fair he had been assigned to it for an entire week, because he hadn't been present last Wednesday when this rotations assignments were being decided.

Orion sighed as he stared into the darkness beyond Cosaint, the giant wall that his nation had built to protect them. Night watch duty was the strangest of the jobs when you were assigned to the group at Cosaint. It was a weird mixture of quiet and peaceful, dull you might say, but the need to be on high alert at all times, looking past the wall into the forest beyond for any signs of light, listening intently, focusing outward and attempting to ignore the sounds behind, for any hint of movement. The environment around you, the darkness, the silence, they all attempted to lull you into a peaceful, relaxed, even sleepful state of being... but the job itself entailed eight hours of total alert attention. The dichotomy hurt Orion's head.

As usual, tonight was another peaceful night. Nothing was happening beyond the wall, and the cloudless night drew Orion's attention skyward as he stared at the stars, attempting to see the patterns, people, animals, that his mother had once adored.

Orion, as you might have guessed from his name, was named after a constellation. It had been his mother's favourite, and she hadn't made it through his birth. Orion himself was lucky that he had. He sighed again. The name Orion was as much a blessing as it was a burden. The link to the mother he never knew gave him comfort, but the reaction of his father to the name in the years since had caused nothing but pain. And then there were the taunts from those he served with. "Star Boy", they would taunt as they pretended to look for Astrology readings, something Orion knew nothing about.

Movement in the forest caught Orion's attention, he looked down and scanned the treeline, looking for any hint of light and listening intently. After about two minutes, but it felt to Orion like two lifetimes, he left out the breath he was holding in. It was nothing, maybe an animal or something. No one was out there.

Orion sat again, looking beyond the forest now and into the land of Otther, and, I guess, a little into the past as well. His nation, the nation of Uzz, had once been a group of smaller tribes, as recently as his grandfather's time. It was when his own parents were babes that the tribes of Uzz came together, uniting over what bonded them instead of warring over their differences. And largely, what bonded them, was the threat of foreign, overseas, larger armies coming in and plundering our wealth and our people. But not every tribe wanted to be part of Uzz. Some of the tribes on our island could not see past their differences with us and they opted to remain outside the nation of Uzz, we call them Otther now. There are pockets of them all over the island. But in treaties they defined their land and the nation of Uzz build walls like the very one Orion now sat, to keep them out and stop Uzz having to deal with raids from the Otthers when we had bigger problems lurking beyond the waves. Our tribal people were a raiding people ourselves, and the death of the practice has been slow in Otther. They occasionally attempt raids again; thus the need for Cosaint.

More movement brought Orion back to the present. But it was followed by a screech and a squeak and Orion noted the owl catching it's prey as it flew back into the trees.

"I hate night watch" he muttered to himself and he pulled his cloak tighter around himself to ward off the ever increasing cold as the night dragged on. Orion had another job among the company at Cosaint. He was the Messenger. He had taken back ownership of the star boy name in this way. The Orion in the night sky famously has a belt, Orion's belt. Orion also had a belt, and in it he put letters from the troops at the front line, the wall of Cosaint, to their loved ones back in the capital, and he also brought their letters and messages back to the wall. This meant Orion's belt was loved among his fellows. Even if they still asked him to read the star's for them on occasion, Orion's belt, which is what everyone called it, was their favourite thing in the world, because it brought news of home.

It was while Orion had last been on a run, delivering letters, that the assignments for this week had been divvied up. That's how he landed with night watch all week. So, as much as the other's loved Orion's belt and the news it brought them, they didn't care too much for Orion himself; who had to go straight from a run back from the capital and handing out letters at the wall, to night duty, no sleep for this star soldier.

The twinkling of the stars, and the silence of the night, drew Orion's eyes skyward again. He searched the sky for his namesake. Even though he knew Orion was up there, he was never any good at identifying the supposed patterns people had long ago laid down in the star maps. He lay back, studying the sky, trying to remember which part was Orion.

A sound ripped through the darkness, piercing through Orion's reverie. He opened his eyes swiftly and saw the sky above him. He bolted upright, hoping he had not fallen asleep. The sound echoed through the night again. It was a scream, and it was coming from beyond the wall. There was another sound, a large whoosh, followed by a partial scream and a thud. Orion's eyes were wide now. He was piecing together a likely scenario based on what he was hearing.

Cosaint was not the only defence Uzz had against an attack from Otther. In the surrounding woods they had placed traps, so that if anyone attempted to come upon the wall from an unmarked route, well Orion didn't want to think about what the person who screamed was going through over those traps. It sounded like someone, and the scream was definitely human, and male, had gotten caught in a trap. The other noises, those were less obvious, but Orion was certain the person trapped had been killed by those traveling with him in order to silence his screams. And they weren't far away. Orion scanned the forest in the direction the scream had come from, but he could see no light and no other movement.

He stood.

The scream and the other sounds were reason enough rouse more guards. He walked to a small rope that was positioned to his left and pulled. A bell rang, not loud enough to wake everyone in this fortress just behind Cosaint, but enough to wake the guards in their stations just below the walls.

As Orion looked behind him, watching as his colleagues emerged from their on duty house, he heard another sound from outside the wall. Turning, he saw a bright ball of fire heading directly for him. His heart raced and his eyes widened, he said a prayer to the Uzzian god of protection, after whom this wall was named, and knew this was the end of his life.

But he had miscalculated. The fireball was not headed for him, instead it soared over his head and smashed into the bell tower with a loud clang and an even louder crash. The sound jolted Orion and he ran along the wall, toward one of the staircases down into the fortress as the bell tower came crashing down where he had stood only moments before.

Orion looked over the wall again. He could now see a growing number of little flames at the tree line some two or three kilometres away from the wall. The Otthers had clearly given up on their sneak attack tactic that caused them to end the life of one of their own when they heard the bell ring out. Now it was an all out assault on the wall he was seeing preparations for. And he was the only guard on the wall, and he was also Orion, of Orion's belt, the guy who was meant to run at the first sign of trouble to alert the capital and mobilise the army to provide back up as swiftly as possible. Orion's duel duties contended in his mind. He reached the stairs down into the fortress and ran past them. He had to be a guard until there were more guards on this wall. Then he could be Orion's Belt again. He ran up to one of the turrets scattered along the length of Cosaint. He used his own torch to light the large cannon positioned there, always at the ready, just in case. He aimed it at the largest concentration of lights he could see, and fired.

The cannonball flew through the air and hit exactly where he wanted it to. A number of mini flames were now extinguished and a larger flame began to spread in its place. Orion was already on the move to the next cannon to repeat the process when a cannonball from the Otthers hit the wall. It shook, but Cosaint was built to withstand much more fire power than this, and hopefully more than the Otthers could muster. Orion fired his second shot. This time he hit closer to the edge of their group, there were still flames here, but a lesser concentration of them. Still, even one less enemy on the side of the Otthers was one less enemy for Uzz to be concerned about.

Orion heard another noise. He turned to see a number of the guardians of Cosaint running up the various staircases to come to the defence of the town. The captain nodded to Orion as he ran past him.

"Shoot for the stars Orion", he said, shaking Orion awake again. It was time, time for him to run.

He took the steps down two at a time, passing ascending comrades as he went. They patted him on the back and the shoulder and mumbled godspeed and other words of encouragement as he went.

Orion was exhausted, it was less than twenty-fours hours before he arrived back at Cosaint. Now he had to run back the way he had come, again.

The earth shook as Orion ran. Explosions sounded behind him. The full power of Cosaint was being unleashed on the Otthers, and they were fighting back with the same amount of ferocious determination. Orion couldn't stop to look. He had to keep running. Cosaint was surrounded on both sides by forest, but on this side there was a large, straight road. It led right through the woods.

Orion ran like he had never run before. But he was also aware of the exhaustion in every fibre of his being. He had no sleep. And he was tense over what had happened that day. Who wouldn't? He cleared the forest in what felt like the shortest amount of time he had ever run it, but also the longest as he muscles screamed. He thought of the old lady who lived in a small farm house on this side of the woods. Sometimes he would stop in to her with supplies and news of the nation. And in turn she would allow him some time to rest and some food. Her home cooked rabbit stew was one of the best he had ever tasted. He looked in the direction he knew her house was, only about a kilometre away. How he longed to go there now, to rest, to have some stew. But he knew he couldn't, and he knew that dear old woman would be asleep still. Dawn was creeping in, but had yet to make itself fully known.

No, Orion couldn't go to rest. He had a message, the most important message ever to find it's way 'into', figuratively speaking, there was no physical message, Orion's belt. He had to press on. He ran past the turn to the elderly woman's home, cursing himself with every step he took.

Not too far out of the woods, Orion came to his next obstacle, his next choice to take the easy road, this time literally. Left brought you to the capital, directly, but it was almost all uphill until you could see the capital from above. Then it was downhill until you ascended Capital Hill itself. But there was also a road to the right. It didn't go to the capital, but in about ten kilometres there was a fork, and turning left on that fork did bring you to the capital. This route went around the mountain, so much less climbing, so much easier to run it. However, this route added about fifteen kilometres to the journey. Even with the benefit of flat land, this would make the journey too long; especially at this crucial moment. So, left it was... That's the choice Orion needed to make. His muscles could take a break later. The capital was the goal. And he needed to get to it as fast as he could.

He started towards the left and the earth shook again. This time it was much more violent than previous. Two loud sounds were heard coming across the trees. The first was victory cries, and Orion allowed himself a moment to breathe a shy of relief. But then the second was heard, there was a second bell at Cosaint, further back from the wall, louder, deeper, crisper, than the one Orion had to ring earlier.

The wall has been breached, Orion realised on hearing the bell. He looked ahead of him, up the hill, all the fatigue that had been coursing through his body instantly gone, and he ran on.

TotD: "You Can't Trust Christians"

In the not too distant past, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with someone. The person was concerned about the board game Dungeons and Dragons, having heard that it was some form of evil, or somebody told them it was evil.
I asked if the person they heard that from was a Christian, and they said that it was.
I rolled my eyes and said "You can't trust Christians when they are talking about this sort of thing."

So, some time has gone by since that conversation, and it was really something I forgot about. Then, this morning, it popped back into my head, like Bosco popping out of his box. 

As per is my usual for these blogs I feel will be a little long, I have broken this into sections:
1. Apologising for When the Church Lies.
2. I can't Hear Your Gospel Truth, Example.
3. What about the Bible?
4. Practical Things to Help Our Honesty.

Apologising For When The Church Lies:
Have you ever felt the need to apologise for the lies of the Church?

It's an interesting situation to be in, isn't it? We claim to be people who know the Truth, we claim to be people who stand for the Truth, we claim to be people who preach the Truth. We confess that this is a statement that is true about us, or that we are working on making true with the help of the Holy Spirit: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, and who correctly handles the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

But sometimes we get a little taken in by things that aren't exactly true.

You might think that statement on a line by itself has little to do with that Bible verse, because the 'Word of Truth' is the Bible of course; but it does. If Christians are seen to be lying, or espousing a story, perspective, narrative, worldview, that isn't true externally to the Bible, why would someone believe us when we tell them anything else we believe to be true?

I Can't Hear Your Gospel Truth, Example:
Let me give you an example of this, since returning to Ireland I had the opportunity to work with a lovely guy from Northern Ireland (for those of you who don't know, Northern Ireland is a separate country from the Republic of Ireland, where I was born, grew up, and live. It is still controlled by the UK, by its own choice. Typically, Evangelical Christians in the North are from a Protestant background, and typically Protestant background people are Unionists [people pro the Union with the UK], so they are normally not as into Irish culture and identity as people from the North who have a Catholic background are, typically). So this guy came from the North, I am only assuming him to be from a Protestant background based on this exchange, and he was ministering in the Republic, spreading the Good News of Christ in Limerick.

In one conversation I had with him he mentioned a child of his being taught about the Irish famine, you can read the Wiki article about it here, and there is a growing number of people who agree with Historian Tim Pat Coogan that the Irish famine was actually an act of genocide by the British government, you can see an article about that perspective here.
This man told his child that he should relay to his teacher that there was no such thing as the Irish Famine, Irish people are simply stupid and merely forgot where they buried their potatoes.

If you are currently in Ireland, or if you are planning to come to Ireland, and you hold to that belief, or wish to propagate that belief, can you please do Jesus a favour and leave (or don't come as the case may be). How can someone in a country so hurt by the colonial powers ever hear the truth of the Gospel from the same mouth that downplays the greatest disaster in our history. If you read the article I linked above, the first sentence calls the Great Famine our Holocaust, that the cultural place it has in our psyche.

What About the Bible?
2 Corinthians 8:21 says, "For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord, but also in the eyes of man."

I believe our honesty as Christians comes into that verse. Now, I'm not saying you have to be a genocide theory proponent in regards to the Irish famine, in fact, I would think that holding that view ardently as a Christian can be similarly problematic as regards truth and honesty as holding the view that the Irish were too stupid not to starve themselves does.

But what I am saying is we need to take pains to do what is right, we need to take pains to make sure the things we are propagating are true things.

"Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with it's practices." (Colossians 3:9)
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body." (Ephesians 4:25)

That's our standard, that's what we are in our new lives in Christ, by His grace and in the power of His Spirit.

That gives us a certain responsibility too. We need to be pursuers of the truth. It has been famously said, "All truth is God's truth." That's very true, and if that is very true, which it is, it means that Christians should be the foremost in society at seeking out and propagating truth.

Practical Things to Help Our Honesty:
So, what things can we do as believers in Christ that would help us to be more honest, to be perceived as seekers of truth and not propagators of misinformation? I have a couple of suggestions. In today's climate you might already have, or you might on reading these, automatically jump to political debates, there is a place for that, it will come, but hold out for it, there's some other things to look at first.

1. Don't Believe Everything You Read:
I think Christians are some of the worst people for this. You often see many people sharing things on Social Media that are untrue. I have done it myself. We read an article on some Facebook page, often one purporting to be Christian itself, and it is shocking and unbelievable and so we share it. "Look what's happening in California!" "Look at what the Government are doing." And those sorts of comments we put on as we share it. (Again, I am aware I have done this). But, by the time we post the article (government microchipping us through fluoride in the water, for example), there has already been some fact checking website that has written about the issue, searching for the truth and explaining what really happened in the situation. But we, Christians, defenders of truth, have posted some misinformation as if it was the Gospel itself.

Some people love conspiracy theories, and are seekers of truth in the fact that they are really trying to seek the truth behind these theories. And that's great. But we need to be careful that when we present our theories, that we present them in a way that doesn't come across as if we are presenting truth. The integrity and believability of what we say as Christians needs to be looked after, in the grace of God, so we need to take a moment to check our story, or if we are aware it's a conspiracy theory, make that clear. Being honest about what we read and then post on social media will help us be believable when we claim Christ is our salvation.

2. Don't Believe Everything You See:
This is, of course, linked to the previous one. Video editing is amazing these days. If you see something that seems a little unbelievable, do some research, as before. If it is a known conspiracy theory, be upfront that it's something unproven but interesting when you speak about it. If you see someone in the public eye saying something outrageous, you might see an article, but you might even see a video of them saying it. Seek out the context. Find the full speech and see what they were saying. Often those sorts of clips are "This other group says, "REALLY OUTRAGEOUS THING", but I say, "SOMETHING QUITE SENSIBLE."" and the editor has taken the person saying "REALLY OUTRAGEOUS THING" and posted it.

It would be similar to taking Jesus' "you have heard it said... but I say to you" statements in the Gospel, but editing it to only have the "you have heard it said" part.
For example, in Matthew 5:31–32, Jesus says: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
So this would be like editing this to say:
"Whoever divorces his wife, let him write her a certificate of divorce." - Jesus Christ.
Technically, that's not incorrect. But it is very incorrect to represent Jesus' opinion on divorce as such. So when you see someone saying, or quoted as saying something outrageous, try and find the context before you share it in conversation or on social media. Being honest about what we see and then post on social media, or bring up in conversation, will help us be believable when we claim Jesus is the one way to God.

3. Don't Believe Everything You Hear:
Again, it's similar to the other two, but I want to highlight the specific example from the introduction, the conversation I had that got me thinking about this. As Christians we hear a lot about what is good to watch, listen to, take part in, play, etc.

As I'm sure you well know by now, I am a fan of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show itself did a lot to make me think about God and my faith and even in some ways to reinforce and confirm the greatness of the God I believe in. I did a blog on God in Buffy, which you can read here. At the same time as Buffy was helping, in a tiny way, to strengthen my faith, (it still has the best example of grace I've ever seen on TV, you can read about that here); a conservative Christian group in the United States were constantly trying to have it taken off the air. Almost every week that an episode of Buffy aired, the next day there would be news of this group complaining and wanting it gone. As a Christian who liked the show and benefitting from it that hurt me quite a bit and made me suspicious of Christians, something that evidently lives on to this day from the conversation in the opening section to this blog.

I know of people who had their Pokemon cards taken from them because Pokemon are real little demons, I've heard of people not allowed watch Harry Potter because the spells are all real, there are as many stories in this area of things as there are episodes of Judge Judy... I wonder how many that is... who knows, 23 seasons though.

As a parent you need to be careful of this. Even if a trusted person tells you they heard that a TV show, game, whatever, is of the devil, you shouldn't take it as face value.
The end result might be damage to your children's relationship with you, and even your children's relationship with God.
Far better to get involved in what your children are interested in. Watch it yourself, read it yourself, talk to them about why they like it, what they do with it, how it impacts them.

One of the things I really respect my parents for is that they allowed us to watch things after they watched them to see what they were like themselves. If we were interested in something they were interested in it too, at least to the extent that they watched it with us, or watched it to see what happened in it. Being honest about what we hear and then tell others, or use as a basis to make rules in our family, will help us be respected when we tell people it is by grace we have been saved.

4. Be a Berean:
The Bereans are people in the Bible, in the book of Acts. When Paul passes through their town he preaches the Gospel to them in their Synagogue. The Bible records, "Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11). We should be 110% like this when we hear something about the Bible, but it is good practice to be like this when we hear about these other things we have been looking at too.

I love the story of Lee Strobel. His wife became a believer, and he was weirded out by it, feeling as if she were cheating on him with Jesus. He is also a journalist. So he set out to disprove Jesus' existence. He was being a Berean. He visited many experts and at the end of his search was convinced of the truth of the Gospel and became a Christian. If you are in the US and haven't seen his story it's called The Case For Christ, and last time I was in the US it was on Netflix. Being like the Bereans means that people will know that our opinions and thoughts on things in the world are well researched and thought-out. This will mean they will have confidence that when we say Christ died and rose again on the third day that we have thought long and hard about this belief, and have some compelling reason to believe it (even if they don't agree).

5. Applaud Seekers of Truth:
Okay, so for this example I want to get a little political.
Back in 2016 when the FBI reopened the investigation into Secretary Hillary Clinton's use of emails while so worked in the State Department under President Obama I was furious with FBI Director James Comey. I have been a Hillary supporter since she stood against Obama in the primaries in 2008, and actually wrote a paper about her becoming President in 2000 (it was actually Bush, I was like 9 and the internet was less reliable in those days, she had become a New York Senator at the time).
Clinton has been found innocent (whether you believe that or not, until further evidence comes to light the FBI and other investigators have found her innocent and we believe in innocent until proven guilty, so let's stop with the 'Lock her up' for a bit).

But, I was wrong to be so annoyed. If it was true that Clinton had used emails nefariously, it would have implications for her as President, and so would have implications for the USA, which, admittedly, I'm not as invested in as I am in Ireland.

My Christian Republican friends will like that so far, but I think they know what's coming.

Robert Mueller is conducting an investigation into current President Donald J. Trump's campaign and presidency, searching for collusion with Russia. We know that the Don likes to call this investigation a witch hunt, and has done mad things like suggesting he would use his power to shut it down and end it.

Sadly, like I did with the Hillary email debacle, many Christians cry "witch hunt" right alongside the President.
You may believe it is a witch hunt. But I hope you can see by now that as Christians we are to be seekers, proclaimers and defenders of the truth. Proverbs 12:22 says, "The LORD detests lying lips, but He delights in people who are trustworthy."
Let's hope and pray that the President of the USA is trustworthy. But let's not cry witch hunt with him. Instead let's support investigations into Democrats and Republicans, into Hillary Clinton's email use, and Ivanka Trump's.

Obviously this one applies to more situations than the Clintons and the Trumps, but at time of writing it's a very contemporary issue that takes up a lot of news time.
Christians should be champions of investigations searching for truth, into political parties, scandals, the Church itself, everything. Luke 8:17 says, "For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light." That should be something we are interested in as Christians.

6. Give the Benefit of the Doubt:
Building on some of the things we have seen, heard, or read, I think another great, practical way to be honest is to give the benefit of the doubt when we bring it up in conversation or post on social media. Instead of stating things as fact, and instead of being negative, we can be a little more positive.

I was reading a book once, a book that someone say on my social media and contacted me. This person was well meaning and looking out for me in their intentions, but they hadn't read the book. I was of no set opinion on it, at least until I read it, but they had read a blog on a webpage they typically agree with slating the book and even calling the salvation of the author into question, because in their opinion his theology as expressed in the book was that bad.
This is a perfect situation where giving the benefit of the doubt could be used to help us as Christians be honest. You can warn and express that you have heard bad things about a book or an author, and that's helpful and appreciated by most people, but we need to do it honestly. There is doubt there, because you haven't read it yourself, just read about it. Coming at it in that way helps your credibility. Even reading it for yourself if your relationship with the Lord is in a place that that's a possibility and then commenting on it from your perspective would be great, but taking someone else's opinion and offering it as the truth can be harmful to your relationship with the other person and to witness to Jesus Christ. Giving the benefit of the doubt can help you show yourself to be reasonable, loving and a safe place for others to come and seek advice and help.

7. On Giving an Opinion:
The last of these seven practical ways to show honesty amongst ourselves as Christians and to others has come up already. This is to be intentional about giving our opinion. I'm a demon for this one. I like to think I'm right all the time, so everything I say or write is true. In reality, that's not the case. It's one of the reasons I have deliberately put TotD beside a lot of my blog posts. If you don't remember TotD stands for Thought of the Day. It's not a fact of the day, it's the thing I am thinking about a topic at that particular time. It could be wrong, I may change my mind after more research and looking into things, and following my own advice and being a Berean.

Make it clear when you are posting something, or speaking about something that you aren't 100% sure on. And, if you do talk about something as if it is gospel and later learn it isn't, you can always talk to that person again, let them know you've looked into it a little more and think you might have been hasty with your previous convictions. That's basically repenting, or giving the benefit of the doubt, and what a great witness it would be to someone that you can be humble and say when you are wrong. For me, personally, that's something I know I have to work on in my life.

Jesus:
As always, Jesus is our example and Jesus is our goal. Jesus never sinned. And since the Bible records lying as a sin, we can be sure that Jesus never lied.

As Christians we are on a journey to Christ-like-ness. In part, this will mean becoming more honest, as well as becoming more gracious. Of course, even as you have just read the examples above, they aren't things we can muster up inside ourselves. But Jesus can. The Holy Spirit living inside us can bring our attention to those things if we are relying on, and in communication with, Him. He can empower us to stop and think when we are passionate about a topic, He can direct us to sources of information that will help inform us, He can implant that desire to be Berean about our passions within us, He can remind us of the grace shown so freely to us so that we are inspired and enabled to show that grace to celebrities, TV show makers, game makers, politicians and our government, Christian authors, and one another. And, when we inevitably fail on this journey to being honest like Jesus, He can lift us up, dust us off, and walk with us again, as well as showing us the need to humble ourselves and admit our mistakes to Him, first and foremost, but also to those we talked to about whatever misinformation we believed, and seek truth in all things.

Awhile back I wrote a blog called "I Dream of a Church", you can check it out here. In it one of the lines is: "I have a dream of a Church where truth and honesty are the way of life." I want to strive for that, I hope you do too.

Beannachtaí.

Belief in God is a Fallacy Created by Your Inner Self (Response)

I’ve been reading a book: Homo-Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. It has been a grand source of food for thought and so here is one of the prompted thoughts. 

I’ll give you what Harari said first. 

“If I believe in God at all, it is my choice to believe. If my inner self tells me to believe in God — then I believe. I believe because I feel God’s presence, and my heart tells me He is there. But if I no longer feel God’s presence, and if my heart suddenly tells me thy there is no God — I will cease believing. Either way, the real source of authority is my own feelings. So even while saying that I believe in God, the truth is that I have a much stronger belief in my own inner voice.” (275)

So this is coming in a section that is talking about our thoughts and minds being the ultimate source of reality and meaning in our lives. And while I think Harari doesn’t have a handle on what Christians would say, think, believe or practice throughout a lot of his book I think this quote is full of things that Christians will say in order to back up their belief in God, “I feel God’s presence so that means He is real.”

Though we say things like that, I don’t think that it necessarily follows, as Harari believes, that the ultimate source of authority for Christians is actually our own thoughts, our own inner voice. 

When we talk about our relationship with God we are talking about something, an objective experience, that is often above and beyond what we can communicate in normal language. But just because we are bad at communicating what we are experiencing and what we know to be true, doesn’t mean that the objective experience isn’t real and just our inner selves (which Harari will later even argue doesn’t exist) determines our beliefs. 

There are often times in the lives of a Christian in which we do not feel God’s presence. There are times that, to gratify whatever desire we have in that moment, it would be easier to believe God isn’t real. Yet, we know, that He is real. The objective fact we build our lives on, despite our feeling and the desires of our inner selves, is that God is real. 

It’s a shallow thing to say that a person only believes in God because they choose to believe in God, as if we thought Him up ourselves (which is of course Harari’s argument). Instead, we react to what we experience externally to us, filtered through our experiences, for sure, but not created by our inner monologues. This doesn’t even take good theology into account. If we are talking about Arminian Christianity then sure; you could make an argument that people choose God, but it still wouldn’t be right. But good theology also includes the truth that God chooses us. We aren’t the sole agent in coming to God, though our choosing Him is important. God is actively involved in our salvation and in drawing us to Himself. So to say we choose God because of our inner selves explaining our experience as “god” doesn’t take into account the fact that God is active and at work, that the Holy Spirit is with us, and that God chooses us too. 

“I believe in God,” as C.S. Lewis once famously said (but he said Christianity) “as I believe the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

On Church Starting

I’ve been doing a thing lately where I write blog posts and then don’t post them. So here’s the first one. I’m finding it hard to title though. 

Hi...

So you probably know that in the past year I started a church...

I wanted to talk a little about why and what I see the church as and what I hope for this small and hopefully growing gathering group of people called “Calvary Limerick” or “Calvary Chapel Limerick” if you like. 

Some of you reading this will think “yeah, I know this guy from school (or when he was a kid) it makes total sense that he would run a church sometime.”

If that’s you, I put on a good show, and I’m sorry.

There’s others of you who will say “I know him from school (or when he was a teenager) and I thought he would have given up on this Christianity bull by now.” 

If that’s you, give me a chance to explain why I’ve gone so deep as to “organize religion”, not just meddle in it myself. 

So, to be quite frank and to just throw a thought out there that I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt to read the next couple of paragraphs after reading this next statement:

I hate the church.

What I mean by that is that I hate this system of falsities that we humans have created where we “do church” and what actually happens is we sit with some people in a room for a bit, maybe sing, listen to some guy talk (that guy is now me 😱), and feel generally a little awkward and a little unsure as to why we’re even there. Then, just to make it worse, there’s that guy... you know, the one who likes to tell you that the sad news you got during the week and asked for prayer about, because you’re trying with this church thing, is because of your sin and because God is punishing you. Or there’s the other person who actually knows your sin and starts telling you you can’t be a Christian because of your bad fruit. Or the other person who tells you that to be a good Christian you basically have to, well, do the exact opposite of everything you’re presently doing. Meanwhile, that trio aren’t so perfect themselves. 

That’s not where my hatred of the church stops. I hate it when God’s name is invoked to bolster the authority of the leadership, or the spirituality of the leadership, I hate it when we all wear masks that tell everyone we’re fine when really we want to scream, I hate it when I see kids being totally ignored when God said to know Him we need to have faith like a child. I hate to see the Bible used to bash people or enslave them and cause them more pain than they had before they heard that helpful Bible quote from that lovely church goer. 

So yeah, I hate the church when it’s being bad.

Some of my close friends and I have a word for that sort of church culture. We call it churchianity. It’s where you take something that seems Christian and make it into a system, sounds good because the Bible is quoted and God’s name invoked and we’re even told that the Holy Spirit showed me... but when you boil it down it’s about control and pain and the insecurity of church leaders. 

I was reading a book recently that said science and religion are not at odds with one another because ultimately they are both about control. They are both interested in controlling humanity to conform to a pattern, religion is one pattern and science (mixed with humanism really, like scientism as opposed to objective scientific fact) is another pattern. But both are about control. That makes me sick. I hate that. 

So, now, I want to make another statement:

I love the Church. 

By that I don’t mean the semi legal (as in the paperwork is in progress) organization called Calvary Limerick (or any other church I’ve visited or been part of). 

What I mean by the Church is the people. People who are flawed, hurting, broken, shit heads from time to time, lost. People who are like me. People who are made in God’s image, people who are on a journey through the pains of life trying to make sense of it, hopefully finding a Father who loves them in it, people who have value, worth, who are loved, who are important, people like me too. 

I didn’t start a church to add the name Calvary Limerick to the phone book (or the Calvary Chapel church locator, though I look forward to being on there someday). I didn’t start a church to hurt people, to make them feel like crap, to call them sinners and condemn them. I didn’t start a church so I can feel important coz I get to be Pastor Wavey and have a fun title (I’m actually pretty uncomfortable with being called pastor, or admitting I am one, I feel like it’s something God’s going to have to work on with me). I didn’t start a church because every other church out there is useless and I believe I’m the only one with all the answers and who can do church right. (A large part of me would love to just be in Calvary Cork still and satisfied with the things I was able to do and person I was able to be there).

So, why did I start a church?

Two words: grace and love. 

Churchianity is about the things we have been seeing above. 

Christianity, real, actual, Christianity is about grace and love.

They are easy things to forget. Rules are easier than relationship. Ticking boxes is easier than being part of each other’s lives through the good and bad, the Holy and sinful, times. 

Grace means that God did everything for you! There is nothing you can do that would make God love you less, there is nothing you can do that would make God love you more. Whoever you are, whatever situation you are in, He is especially fond of you. And not just that, He has given Himself to save you and you don’t need to do anything to add to that, you can’t. Notice what I said above, there’s nothing you can do to make God love you less, but also more. 

His love for you is perfect. His love for you moves mountains. His love for you moved heaven to action on an overwhelming, reckless plan of salvation. He never leaves you, even if you walk from Him. 

God’s Love makes relationship with Him possible. God’s grace makes it accessible. All we need is faith. Faith isn’t a work. It’s a state of being.

I started a church because I found grace and love, and specifically I started a Calvary Chapel because they are big on teaching and exemplifying grace and love, and because I want to see other people find that same grace and love. That’s what the Church is to me. A group of people overwhelmed by the grace and love of God and then noticing that the person beside them is also overwhelmed by the grace and love of God and bonding because of it, showing grace and love to one another because of it. 

“For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“See to it that no one misses the grace of God.” (Hebrews 12:15a)

I see the problems in the church. The abuse scandals, the baby killing, the laundries, the crusades, the hypocrisy, the hate, the weight placed on people, the standard that’s impossible to live up to, the rejection of people different from “us”, the tendency to elect people who will bring in “Christian values” even when they show little grace, love, or Christian values in their own lives, the rejection, the pain caused, the shame placed on people. I see it. I’ve been on the receiving end (and sadly the giving end too). I’ve walked away from church “completely” a number of times in my life.

I see people in their thousands and millions rejecting the church for what it has become. I get it, I’m right there with you. 

And it terrifies me. Because I run one now. And you can be sure that all (hopefully not all, I’m not planning any crusades or anything). But you can be sure that Calvary Limerick, as a community, will do some of those things I’ve been talking about rejecting. And, here’s the really scary part for me, you can be sure that I will do some of those things I’m rejecting. 

Because, sadly, (to use a phrase I used earlier) I can be a right shit head from time to time, I can forget love and forget grace. I can get into a mode where controlling the people in the church with dos and donts will seem more attractive than being in relationship with them and living life together with them. I will sin. I will make mistakes. I will hurt people.

And it terrifies me. 

As much as I want to be part of the solution. As much as I want to say to the person struggling with whatever sin, mistake, hurt, unforgiveness, battle, whatever it is, that God loves them, that I love them, and that there’s grace to carry them through this, I know that for some people I will be part of the problem. 

I want to see a church that’s Christian. Not a group of people bogged down in churchianity. I want to see God lifted high and worshipped for who He is by the people of Limerick. I want to talk about God’s love and God’s grace and how we are able to live, forgive, love and show grace in light of that love, grace and forgiveness shown to us. That’s why I started a church. 

Reader, you may be one of the people who has already experienced that bad side of me, the side that contributes to the problem, the side that doesn’t show the love and grace of God to you. I might be the reason, or one of the reasons (gotta be some bit nice to myself right?), you gave up on church, and with it gave up on God. 

I’m sorry! Let’s chat because I want to say that to your face. 

Reader, you might be a person who will come to, or is coming to Calvary Limerick, and you will experience that same unloving and ungracious side of my character. May I also apologize and may I beg you to be gracious and loving with me in those times and point to this post. I may need to reread it a few times in my life to remind myself/be reminded about what the goal is.

So, friend, I want Calvary Limerick to be a place of grace and love, but it has people in it, and like me they can forget love and grace sometimes. But if you’re willing to look to God, and to show grace, love and forgiveness to others because He has shown grace, love and forgiveness to you. I’d love to live this thing called life with you, to stand with you and walk with and be amazed by the love God has for you and for me together. To fail from time to time, but to help point one another back to that grace and love that amazed us both in the first place. That’s why I started a church. 

Sunday's Coming, Reflections on the Death of the 8th Amendment.

Today is Saturday the 26th of May,

It is a day of massive 'achievement' and 'advances' in women's health and rights in Ireland because the 8th Amendment to the constitution has been repealed, and with it, the only protection of the life of the unborn has been removed from our constitution.

It's apt that this has happened on a Saturday, with the vote on a Friday. I think we can still see the sovereignty of God at play.

Good Friday, as it is now known, was not good the day it happened. The Apostles were confused and feared for their lives, the women who followed Jesus were shocked and in mourning, and the leaders of the country celebrated the death of one who stood in the way of their political agendas.
There is a lot to compare here, but obviously that bad Friday was to become Good Friday because on that day Jesus died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin so that we could be right and in relationship with God again. It's hard to see yesterday as ever being called Good Friday from this vantage point, at this point in time. But I know God better than that.

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday has had various names, I'm going to call it Dark Saturday. On that day hope was gone, there was mourning, weeping, fear, confusion, devastation on the one side, and shouts of joy, celebration, victory, and success on the other side.
Today feels very like that day. It feels like a devastating blow was dealt to the land of saints and scholars yesterday and as we watched Christian Ireland die, we who follow Christ are left like those who followed Christ on that first Dark Saturday, all while the leaders of our country celebrate and shout for joy.

I think our Dark Saturday will be longer than the one in the first century, but it ends the same way. God is sovereign, God is in control, God is still on the throne. Sunday's coming!

We don't know how to deal with this new Ireland. It has been a long time since Christians in the West have had to live in societies more akin to the Roman Empire Jesus lived in than the Ireland our great grandparents lived in. But we have to learn.

That is, I think, where our attention as the Irish church needs to turn now. The church flourishes in places where it is not the norm. The death of Christian Ireland opens up new opportunities for the Christians of Ireland that we have to find and use and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us through new and, admittedly more difficult, terrain.

One of the heartening things I have heard many yes voters saying throughout this campaign as they tackled my no views on my Facebook and in private messages and conversations is that they want to see an Ireland in which there is no need for abortion, but they believe there is a present need for abortion.
That's something we can agree on.

Some people I spoke to voted yes, in fact many people voted yes, because they see the pain people are going through and want to help. That's a noble reason to vote. Of course, I believe that this vote will only cause more pain, when people begin to see abortion isn't the holy grail they were looking for, when this thing that has been held up as the answer to so much pain proves to be unable to live up to the hype it has been given.
Abortion has been raised high and it's going to fall from it's height.

As Christians we know that true hope, true comfort, and true healing from pain lies in Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world, the healer of nations, the prince of peace. It is Him that hurting people need.
I called today Dark Saturday, and I like that analogy. You know why? Light is so much more powerful in darkness.
While Leo and the government and Together for Yes celebrate the 'light' they have brought to Ireland, we know that the true light is found in Christ. Everything that man does to bring light to situations is like having a battery powered torch. The batteries are just going to run out. When they do, the people of Ireland need to be able to see a true light source, one they cannot notice right now because 67% or so of them are looking at the torch (and the other 33% are looking at the torch too).

So, how can the church shine brighter in this darkness?
We can be the church!
All we have to do to reflect the light of Christ is to let the light of Christ shine through us.

Practically what I think that means is not shouting about the result, not giving out, not calling it rigged, not saying Ireland is evil.
I don't think that's light.

Grace is light. We need to be an alternative lifestyle. That's how the church has always been effective and we have so many more opportunities to do that in Ireland today.
- We can get married instead of co-habit.
- We can stay celibate until marriage.
- We can not have abortions when we get pregnant.
- We can support children's charities and disability charities and adopt unwanted children.
- We can confess our sins when we do fall and not try to hide and cover things up.

As well as this we can show the love, grace, mercy and compassion of Jesus towards the people of Ireland. Ireland isn't evil, it's just lost. God doesn't hate the people of this country, He wants them to know Him.
Our reaction to today can create more darkness, or it can shine the light of God's grace into this country so that when the torches blink out, the light that is left is the true light, the light of God's grace for the people of this country.

I mourn for the lost little ones but I'm also really hopeful, because I know the God I serve, I know He is good, He is kind, He is loving, He is merciful, He is gracious, He is powerful, He is in control, and He is moving in ways we haven't seen Him move.

I also know He is just, and I am so thankful that the just punishment I deserve for my sin was laid on Christ and the justice of God was satisfied in Him and in what He did on the cross and I want to see that reality for more and more of my own people. That's why I came back to plant Calvary Limerick, my desire is to hear praises in the Irish language when we are in heaven and I believe that on this Dark Saturday we have the opportunity to shine brighter than we have before.

Grace is, as always, the way forward. And our God is the source of grace upon grace.
It's a Dark Saturday, but Sunday's coming!

~

The Last Jedi

So I saw The Last Jedi and this post is obviously going to be choc full of SPOILERS so don’t read until you’ve seen the movie.

As per usual I've divided these, check the bold!

Right so wasn’t that really surprising?

I feel like Rian just looked at all the theories and questions out there and if you imagine them as a chess board, he just threw that board and all the pieces away like Luke does with the lightsaber Rey gives him.

(I mean come on Luke, 2 years we’ve been waiting to see you take the thing and you toss it aside like garbage, hilarious moment but also not on).

I think the movie made it pretty obvious that the theme of the movie is failure, Yoda even says it (he, by the way, did not fail, what an epic scene!) So we should expect pretty much everyone to fail, which makes for annoying storytelling, but Rian successfully made a frustrating movie about failure, which I guess means it was successful?

Characters in the movie, key moments and how they fail?

So Luke for most of the movie is a depressed idiot who thinks because he had a moment of weakness that inadvertently created the thing he feared (Kylo Ren) that he should go die in Ireland... Luke was always a little pathetic for a series hero, but this one took it to whole new levels. So Luke for the first 2/3s disappointed me, it’s like he didn’t grow as a person in over 30 years at all. Luke failed Ben Solo, and fails Rey and Leia for most of the movie too.

Rey is fantastic in this movie. She is a little less perfect in this one, just a little, because she mistakenly believes Ben Solo is a good guy. She fails to convert him to the Light side of the force.

I don’t know if I believe Kylo that her parents are nobodies and sold her for food, I wouldn’t trust him. I think there is still scope for JJ to add another twist and shock us again with who they are. I do love the idea of her as a sort of chosen one that is born of the light as the darkness becomes too strong which was hinted at.

Snoke fails too. He fails to kill Rey or Luke, and he fails to notice Kylo turning on him, as well as failing to notice the lightsaber turning towards him.
Since seeing this one I am convinced Snoke is Palpatine’s master. If you remember back to episode 3, Sidious is telling Anakin about a Sith who learned to stop death and create life as they watch the bubble opera thing? His master was called Darth Plageius and Palpatine said he killed him... but how exactly do you kill someone who can cheat death? Also, Snoke’s disfigurement looks an awful lot like scares from a lightsaber blow to the head and force lightning (like Palpatine after his conflict with Mace Windu his face looks sort of melted and we know Sidious’ weapon of choice was force lightning.)

If you remember, as Snoke died he bragged about knowing exactly what Kylo was thinking. Either his arrogance at his own power (which is a lot and adds to my thought that he trained Sidious, the previous strongest dark side user we’ve seen) that arrogance blinded him to Kylo’s real intentions or it was his plan. If he is Darth Plageius then he can regenerate in time. So big woop. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in 9 and that we learn it was all part of a greater plan to cement Kylo’s dark side resolve which it seems to have achieved. I think we may learn that he spent the time from before episode 1, when Sidious “killed” him to the Force Awakens honing his power and becoming even stronger, moving beyond the Sith in the dark side, something beyond the power of ambition, hate and selfishness. 

I was very disappointed by the Finn and Rose storyline. Obviously, they both fail. Rose is a very loveable character but besides for igniting rebellion in the young broom floating boy’s heart in Dubrovnik (Canto Bight?) their story accomplished nothing and was pretty pointless. It’s like Rian needed something for Finn to do, found nothing and made up a crap side mission for him that if it were deleted from the movie would take nothing away. Even if it was cool to see the streets we walked down for Jon and Catherina's wedding on the big screen.

In that vein Captain Phasma was, again, disappointing. She has been on screen for all of 10 minutes across both movies yet she is shown as a main character all the time. Again, Rian couldn’t come up with anything for her. We were promised she would come into her own but her role was pretty much the exact same as the Force Awakens. Her absence would have taken nothing from the movie. 

Also, she was left on Star Killer base as it exploded, but survived and now she’s been left on Snoke’s SHIELD logo ship as it exploded but I bet she’ll survive. I hope she dies again in 9 it would be like how people lost an arm a lot in all the Old movies. She failed to kill Finn or Rose in this one, and maybe failed to die again too.

I also need to point out that no one lost an arm! Is it even Star Wars. Also, I currently don’t remember anyone saying “I have a bad feeling about this.” Tut tut Rian! [He says it is there, but I can't remember it, unless it is BB8 that says is to Poe at the start in beeps].

Poe is potentially the most interesting character in this one. He is rash and wants to know everything, he disobeys Leia’s orders and arrests her replacement (more on that below) Admiral Holdo(?) and almost gets everyone killed. Again, a whole lot of failure there.

The Resistance fails to not get blown up, a lot.... And though they blow up the Dreadnought (Fulminatrix, apparently), they lose so many. As Leia remarks, "many heroes, no leaders".

Leia fails to rally support to come to the aid of the Resistance, "use my personal codes," but nothing comes of it and then she loses hope.

Hux fails to win, again.

Kylo Ren fails at everything except tricking Rey and killing Snoke, his failure on Crate/Krait/Krate, the salt planet, as he takes over as Supreme Leader Emo Kid is astonishing, and we get this glimpse in Hux's eyes that he will attempt to overthrow Kylo (when he was out after Rey's lightsaber exploded Hux would have shot him had he not woken up).

The First Order fail to wipe out the Rebellion (which it is again now, it's no Resistance anymore, the First Order rules supreme, as the opening crawl informs us).

DJ fails to have morals.

Chewbacca fails to eat porgs or stop them taking over the Millennium Falcon.

C3PO fails to get his odds of surviving out without being told to shut up by Poe.

Above I said Yoda doesn't fail. The only other two characters that don't fail are R2D2, who successfully convinces Luke to come to Leia and the Resistance's aid by playing the old hologram of Leia saying "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope", one of the most moving scenes in the movie. The other is BB-8, who is just so badass in this movie. He shoots chips in a casino, steals a space craft and a walker. It was actually great.

Things I really Loved.
Poe was annoying most of the movie, but then at the end there is a great moment where he leads people to safety instead of a war they cannot win. Everyone looks to Leia and she looks behind here, a comical and perfect moment that allows us to see Poe becoming something of a General himself for 9.

When Luke comes! Like... Wow... He gives the dice from the Falcon to Leia and she mentions about changing her hair, that was great. Then he goes out and faces the First Order alone (something he told Rey he couldn't do, and it was ridiculous of her to expect him to). Then all these guns fire on him and after that he still stands so Ben faces him alone and he just ducks and dives until he has an Obi moment and allows Kylo to strike him down, but he isn't there, he is still in Ireland! Legend.

The kid that force pulls the broom to himself at the end and swings it like a lightsaber, showing the Rebel symbol on his ring! Perfect end!

Leia's use of the Force to bring herself back aboard the Raddus. It was very interesting, she is seconds from death and almost like instinct pulls herself back on board her ship.

The Raddus being named for Admiral Raddus from Rogue One, he was the one that looked like Admiral Ackbar.

Yoda, just all of it "Page turners they were not." I want a Yoda movie!

Porgs! They are cute and funny! I love when the one screams as Chewy does in the Falcon!

The boy with the broom!

The chase scene through Canto Bight, Dubrovnik.

How much Ireland was in it!

R2 and the hologram!

When Admiral Holdo goes to hyperdrive and crashes into Snoke's ship. The scenes there are like paintings they are so beautiful as the ship is being ripped apart and there is no sound. Those shots were just beautiful, destruction can look nice, who knew?

John Williams and the music, the use of well known Star Wars themes (Imperial March, The Emperors theme, the Force theme, Leia's theme, brother and sister theme from Return of the Jedi, Rey's theme, the March of the Resistance. It was a great soundtrack!

Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One, is the guy in the trench that is told that the planet is a salt flat by his colleague next to him. That was good!

The parts played by Carrie Fisher's dog, Gary (Canto Bight scene) and Carrie Fisher's daughter, Billie. Billie was in Force Awakens but you'd hardly notice. She had many scenes in this one and it was good to see her becoming less one dimensional and more of a character. I hope she is a leader in the Rebellion in episode 9. It's nice she went from a cameo in 7 to a role in 8.

Things I did not like:
How Admiral Ackbar dies and it's just like... whatever.

Finn and Rose's story and Finn and Rose kissing...

Poe's mutiny. The whole Poe as a wreckless and feckless idiot. I love his development and him stopping Finn from rushing to help Luke, and he notices Luke is giving them time to escape. But I don't like how we had to get there.

Phasma's lack of importance.

Luke goes and becomes one with the force after a Force projection Lightsaber battle with Kylo... I want to see him fight one more time.

The Rebellion is now the size of the Millennium Falcon.

Questions I still want answered:
Who is Snoke?
Who are Rey's parents really? Is Kylo lying?
What happens to Leia?
Can Poe use the Force? Is that why he is such a good pilot?
Where is Lando?
What is the extent of what a Force Ghost can do? Yoda destroyed things and hit Luke, can all ghosts do that? Just Yoda?
Can a Sith be a Force Ghost? Could Sidious or Maul return and physically interact with their environment in 9?
What does Kylo plan to happen next? Is this all part of Snoke's plan?
Is Rey now a Jedi? Will she train broom boy? Yoda says she already has all the knowledge the ancient Jedi texts contained, so...?
Are the Jedi still ending or are we back to the light-side, dark-side dynamic?
What happens with the hyper-space tracker? Can they track the Millennium Falcon? How do they survive?
What happens the Jedi Order now?
Is this a way to move past the past and have a new Jedi and Sith order? That isn't based on Eps 1-3?