The Guardian

                        

Recently, I was watching ‘The Guardian’ – an American Coastguard movie starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.

I was reminded that to be plunged into an angry sea is to be immersed in life beyond my control – to be treading water in a world that doesn’t think a moment on my comfort or safety. To be effective in such a place is about self-care & preparation – a learning that leverages presence & possibility out of otherwise annihilating conditions. There is an intuition at work here, a determined purpose of fixed focus & particular choices. There will always be the other others but out here I attend to those in close proximity. Always my own safety is paramount – my health and effectiveness depend upon it.

An angry sea is a reminder of the fragility of life, of my nakedness – my exposure in the world. There is a destructive randomness & violence about this planet – a tremendous power that puts men in their place. For those who dare to dwell here – legends attach themselves like molluscs – accretions of men being more – intensifying their presence.

The world of technology, of structure on the edge of chaos allows men to get unnaturally close to raw nature. Yet to enter the angry sea, the fisher of men takes an old fashioned jump – a leap of faith beyond comfort & safety – the possibility of death increasing exponentially – extinction – irrelevance – a step beyond rationality, a dunking in the death zone.

Ours is a fragmented humanity, broken by circumstance, traumatized by incident, marked by particular choices. The chance of redemption is life for those past the point of no return. To save the ones you can and to let the others go is the choice of one who would be a Guardian.

Don’t Judge and You Yourself Will Not be Judged

Have you ever noticed, when we judge others too quickly or much worse, when we label people, we freeze people and we stop moving towards them ? Instead of remaining complex subjects, judging objectifies people into caricatures and cardboard cut outs. And when disciples of Jesus stop moving towards people – the Kingdom of God is diminished.

It’s interesting… the Scriptures say all kinds of things about
 judging. In one place Jesus says, “Don’t judge and you yourself will 
not be judged. Don’t condemn people & you in turn will not be
 condemned. Give generously and, ‘a good measure, pressed down, shaken 
together & running over…’ will be given to you in return. Forgive
 others and you will be forgiven”.

It’s like as though judgment & labeling people are so engrained in
 everything we do, that the only possible way to undo it is to do it’s 
opposite.

Jesus goes further. He says if someone hates you, love them – if they
 curse you – bless them. If someone abuses you, pray for them. If 
anyone hits you on one side of your face, offer them the other side as
 well. The list goes on & on until the picture that is formed is one of
 overwhelming openness & generosity & movement towards people.

Jesus says, ‘If you love only those who love you, how is that
 different – even evil men love those who love them’. Jesus says that 
in his Kingdom, the thing that defines his disciples is not how they 
respond to those who love them but how they respond to those who don’t
love them – to those who even despise them.

You know, I used to think that when Jesus said ‘Love your enemies’ he
was speaking in exaggerated language about extravagantly loving your
 neighbor. Yet now I think Jesus is just saying, “Don’t judge, don’t 
label, give & forgive generously – love your enemies !” It’s that
 straightforward !

That we use our judgment to make decisions for living is natural 
however when disciples of Jesus judge and label others, they freeze 
people, they stop moving towards people and the Kingdom of God is
diminished.

Betwixt and Between

I have a dilemma… The whole focus of discipleship is that we are profoundly changed by the experience, ‘…to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ’ (Eph 4:13). Yet when we allow ourselves to be inspired by visions of newness & possibility, when we journey out & dwell in the margins – sharing hospitality with the stranger, with the widow and the orphan, in a sense we become like strangers & widows & orphans when we return back home. A disciple’s home is now on the road – betwixt and between.

It’s like the character of the Wiseman in TS Eliot’s 1929 poem, ‘The Journey of the Magi’. After returning home from his long journey to see the Christ child, he says, “This birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like a death – our death. We returned to these kingdoms, our homes but no longer are we at ease here in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching at their gods. I should be glad of another death”.

Betwixt & between are never easy spaces to inhabit – seldom tidy. They are like London train stations – mostly chaotic, with people going everywhere and nowhere – never still, feeling edgy ! There is often an overwhelming sense of anxiety and restlessness and difficult labor – even pain. Yet betwixt & between are also places of tremendous excitement and energy, of experimentation & newness & reversals – where dreams are boldly dreamed & visions are nurtured. Mostly they are places of meeting & genuine community because people are participating & journeying together.

Disciples mature & the Kingdom of God is established in those places !

Oral Bible

It’s interesting… the larger part of the Scriptures is narrative. Most of the Bible began life as oral storytelling. The very DNA of the Scriptures are narrative units designed to be memorized. 

In Jesus’ day, Jewish boys between the age of 6 & 11 yrs, would go to their local Synagogue for school and the focus of their studies was the Torah. Apart from learning to read & write Hebrew, kids would memorize Genesis through to Deuteronomy by heart. Kids who showed particular aptitude would move on to memorize the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures then the next step was the oral traditions – the Mishnah – that included the rulings of particular rabbis down through the centuries. Beyond that, gifted students would become disciples of particular rabbis. So if the memorization of Scripture was the foundation of Judaic discipleship, I’m wondering why we don’t use narrative memorization in the same way for kids in our churches ? Particularly if we want our kids to grow into mature disciples of Jesus.

Kids learn & think initially in very concrete ways right up into their teens. The type of Bible teaching that seeks to draw out underlying principles for personal application is much more abstract & suitable for adults. My teaching experiences over the years have taught me that narratives stick much better than principles. Kids seem to get clever at reading truth into stories at a surprisingly young age.

New Tribes Mission pioneered the oral storytelling method as a way of introducing the Gospel to animistic tribal groups. They would begin with the Old Testament and over the course of six months, up to even a year, they would move through to Jesus & the Gospels. The idea was to imbed Jesus’ story in God’s much bigger story that we encounter in the broad sweep of the Scriptures. 

Similarly, when my wife & I were working in Africa, we worked among a people group who were mostly illiterate. That meant they were oral learners & as we discovered over time, truth imbedded in narrative is very important to learning and holding important information to these kinds of people. One of the questions I started asking myself was, “What if we gave people an oral Bible instead of a written one ? What narratives from Scripture would it need to be made up of to capture the broad sweep of the Scriptures & the kernel of the Gospel ?”

As the stories of Scripture become a rich part of our psyches, they flavour our imaginations, our actions and thinking a lot more than our traditional deductive styles of teaching. I wonder if that is why Jesus taught using parables.

He trusted people, with the help of the Spirit of God to come to truth & insight by themselves.