Unless You Become Like Children

Becoming like a child… Recently, I had the opportunity to sit and listen to my wife explain to my 4 year old son – Dawson – about the mysteries of communion…

With children everything is so literal… When Dawson started eating the wafer, he turns to my wife and says, “This doesn’t taste like Jesus’ body !” And Elizabeth quietly explains, “No… it’s not meant to taste like Jesus body… it helps us to remember him.” To which Dawson replies, “I can’t remember Jesus’ body because I don’t know what he looks like !” Elizabeth starts becoming more directive, “Look up at the Cross and imagine Jesus on the Cross”. So Dawson looks up at the Cross for a bit and then he turns to my wife and says, “I’m just going to remember him as a circle !”

A little while later the little cups of juice were given out and I see my wife take a breath. Before Dawson drinks he is asking, “Is this going to taste like blood ?” To which Elizabeth replies, “No, it will taste like juice”. “What kind of juice ?” asks Dawson. Elizabeth answers patiently, “Grape juice !” And Dawson says, “No, I want apple juice.”

‘Unless you change and become like children you can never enter the Kingdom of heaven…’ 

Life Stories

I can remember as a boy, standing next to my grandfather in church and being a little embarrassed because his voice would boom out louder than anyone else’s when we sang hymns. And when we prayed, he would turn around and kneel on one knee facing the pew and fill the silence all around with ‘amen’s’ and ‘hallelujah’s’. At the time I used to think his behaviour was a bit odd because no one else did what he did. Now as a man, I love the memory of it because I know my Grandfather loved his Lord.    

As a boy I also used to love hearing stories from both of my grandfathers. One Grandfather, my Little Grandpa… would tell me stories about being a Salvation Army officer in the days before most people had cars…

One day he was riding down the street in his horse and sulky, when suddenly heard a voice say, “Stop and visit that house across the street !” Now my Grandfather looked about for the voice and saw no one. Then my grandfather looked across the street and didn’t recognize the house, so he went to move the horse on again.

Again he heard the voice say, “Go to that house across the street”. Little Grandpa said it was then that he realised, it was the Holy Spirit who was speaking to him… so he went. And sure enough there was a widowed woman and her family who were in great need. And my Grandfather was able to help that family. My Little Grandpa said the Holy Spirit often used to prompt him to do such things.

Then I also had a Big Grandpa. Now Big Grandpa used to tell me stories about being an Salvation Army Officer during the Great Depression. One the things that made me laugh & laugh was him describing how he used to have to use strips of old War Crys as toilet paper. Then he would get serious. He would say, “In those days we used to have to pay all the church bills before I could draw my pay. Often there wasn’t enough money, and sometimes we would run out of food”. And I would say, “What did you do Grandpa?” And he would say, “We prayed and God provided the food we needed”.

Sometimes a lady from the church would come to the door and say, “I was just doing some baking and I thought of your family”. Or, another would come and say, “I was down at the butcher and I thought I should buy another leg of lamb”. Occasionally whole boxes of groceries would appear – anonymously – on the back doorstep. My Big Grandpa would always finish with, “God is always faithful !”

As an adult I find these stories from my grandparents becoming more & more important to me. I find these stories are wonderfully centering. They say, ‘this where you have come from & this is who you are’. Sometimes they even say, “This is what you must do !”

It’s interesting… as my relationship with the Scriptures develops there is also now a number of passages & stories that resonate strongly within me. And from time to time I like to check in with them to see how I am doing. They are stories that anchor me, stories that say, “God is always faithful” & this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Outwards & downwards…

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me

The good news of the Kingdom is that God wants us to participate with him… God didn’t just send Jesus to save us as individuals. God’s plan is much, much bigger. Jesus stood up and read from the scroll of Isaiah in the Synagogue in Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”  (Luke 4:16-30) because that’s God’s model for redeeming creation.

Jesus says, “You know all those things you have been longing for in a Messiah ? Today, those things you have hoped for begin with me. God’s reign isn’t just still coming, it’s here right now. And I want you to follow me, so by an effort together we can begin repairing a hurting world. We can participate with God in putting it all… back… together”. 

That’s the way that God is choosing to work in our world. It’s mostly anonymously and invisible and below the radar. You see when our actions on behalf of justice and mercy resonate in tune with the purposes of God, they become so much more. They ripple out in all directions. 

Stay The Course Joseph !

This last week I’ve been reading again the account of Jesus’ birth in Matthew’s Gospel. Talk about living life in circles… This is my 41^st Christmas and I know this story like the back of my hand. It’s all there…

There’s the angel appearing to Joseph saying, “Stay the course Joseph. Mary is pregnant and you are not the father but hang in there. This child is special. This baby is destined for great things.”

Then there’s the wisemen, the Magi who arrive in Jerusalem from the East. They’ve come expecting to find a kingdom in the middle of a party. And they come asking, “So are we too late ? Where is this baby who has been born King of the Jews ? We saw his star rising in the East. We want to meet him and we… have… presents !”

And then there’s the startled King Herod. He’s hosting no party. All he seems to want to give the wisemen is his suspicion and his forty questions. And then Herod sends the wisemen on their way with murderous intent. He’s says, “Look, you keep following your star. When you find this royal child, you let me know. I have something special I want to give him !”

And the wisemen… well they just keep following their star & searching, till they find the baby Jesus. He is certainly not living in a palace but the wisemen are certainly not disappointed. Scripture says they are overwhelmed with joy.

Yet despite their joy, despite their celebrating… the many threads of this story begin to unravel. Herod is filled with murderous intent. He is anxiously waiting for news of the location of the child. The wiseman are warned via a dream. They do not return to their country via Herod’s palace. And when Herod finds this out he unleashes his murderous rage.

One night soon after, Joseph is woken up from restful slumber by another angel. The angel says, “Wake up and run Joseph. Take Mary and the baby and go far away from this place. Go to Egypt. Herod is coming to kill the baby. Run Joseph, run away now!”

I said before, I know all these aspects of the story like the back of my hand.

However, the part of the story that rings the most true with my experience of the world is also the most terrible. It’s Herod’s slaughter of the infants. In response to the arrival of the wisemen, Herod is threatened at the most fundamental level. In fear & fury he unleashes infanticide on all the toddlers and babies 2 years and under in and around the town of Bethlehem. It’s a monstrous act of political expediency.   

Can you imagine it ? Can you imagine the impact, the pain of this action rippling through a community, through an entire district ? Can you picture the mass of mothers weeping inconsolable in their grief, over their lost children ? All that hope, all that potential wiped out in one callous and capricious act. It’s breath taking in its sheer horror. 

And the wonder of it, is that Jesus, the helpless & unknowing infant survives. God intervenes and Scripture gives us the image of this one who is born King of Jews fleeing with his parents. They run like refugees and their only protection is the cover of darkness.

For a time this fragile royal family become aliens and strangers in the land of Egypt. But the world turns. Scripture says Herod dies but Joseph is still afraid to return to his own country. Again Joseph is woken from peaceful slumber. And the angel says, “Get up and go Joseph. It is time to return home. Take the child and his mother and go back to Israel!”

So Joseph gets up and again he goes. And when Joseph finally arrives back home, I get a sense he continues living anonymously and below the radar in Nazareth. Even at this point, you can still see the consequences of Herod’s actions… rippling out in all directions, affecting Joseph’s choices long after Herod is dead. Jesus, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the King of the Jews, becomes Jesus the son of Joseph, a carpenter living in a rural Jewish backwater.  

“Kill Me, I Am Going To Kill You !”

During the week one of those tragic news stories we here about all too often came close to home…

Just over a week ago now I heard the tragic story of Tyler Cassidy. Tyler was the knife-wielding boy of just 15 who was shot dead by police near a skateboard ramp in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Evidently, Tyler had just stolen two knives from K Mart, when he was confronted by the police. He was confused and agitated and ranting. And four policemen were trying to calm him down. Then the situation deteriorated. Tyler started yelling… “Kill me, I’m going to kill you”… And then 3 of the 4 policemen decided the only way to contain this rather short & weedy 15 yr old, was by firing 10 bullets into him.

Tyler died alone, gasping for his last breathes… His life flowing out of him through the bullet wounds in his chest.

And we are left dumbfounded and shaking our heads… “How is such a thing possible ? How can this happen in our so called sophisticated & civilized society ?”

I said before that during the week this story came close to home. My church supports Scott & Cathrine Girvan who have been working for many years now with GiA in Africa. Tyler Cassidy was Scott and Kathryn’s nephew.

Catherine emailed us during the week… “Please remember us in your prayers. Late Thursday afternoon, Scott’s 15 year old nephew was shot and killed by police in Victoria. As you can imagine his sister and mother are overcome with grief at this time…” Then the email finishes off, “Pray for Scott as he tries to find a way to fly back to Melbourne…” And I say pray for Catherine as she and her 2 girls wait disturbed and anxious and questioning in Africa…

It’s at times like this that you realise how the consequences of our decisions & of our actions ripple out in all directions, long after they are done.

It reminds me of what God says to Cain after he murders his brother Abel. He says, “What have you done ? Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.” It’s like he is saying the violent actions of men continue screaming out to God – long after they are finished.

And don’t you get tired of the violence upon violence, the screams and the left over cries of pain ?

For Unto Us a Child Is Born

Living life in increasing circles…

Truly, one of the great joys of life is now seeing my own children get excited about Christmas. It wasn’t always like this… I remember my daughter Zoe’s first Christmas. She was 6 months old and we propped her up under the tree with presents all around and a cute Santa hat on her head. Zoe’s delight that year wasn’t the presents, it was ripping up all the Christmas paper.

The next year Zoe was 18 months old and I remember taking her to see Santa for the very first time at Harrods in London. She was terrified of this BIG red man with masses of white hair… so much so that I had to sit next to Santa and Zoe sat on my wife’s lap next to me.  She did not want to talk to Santa, so Santa talked to me instead.

By Zoe’s 3^rd Christmas she got the broad strokes concept of what was happening. Thankfully she didn’t get up any earlier but I remember Zoe was now definitely interested in opening every present under the tree.

This year on her 8^th Christmas, Zoe directed her 2 brothers through the delicate process of decorating the Christmas tree. She typed out her own gift list for Santa on the computer. With a little encouragement from her Nanna, Zoe even gave some of her own pocket money towards the Christmas hampers.

You know it takes kids a while to get Christmas but once they do Christmas sparkles with the purity of their sheer delight…

The other evening my son Ethan was decorating the Christmas tree, and he turned to me and said, “Christmas makes me feel so happy Dad !” And I sat there wide-eyed and I gulped. I couldn’t begin telling him how much hearing those words filled me with overwhelming joy.

Earlier this week I watched my kids pack twenty hampers for the shutin members of our church community.  I didn’t have to ask them… they begged me to help. They did it enthusiastically, totally naturally. And in the middle of it all little Dawson looks up at me with a big, big smile and a twinkle in his eye. And he tells in a look, “Of course we get the idea of these hampers Dad… we are doing this to help all the poor people.”

This is my 41^st Christmas and Christmas just keeps becoming deeper and richer. When I was a child, Christmas was filled with the magic and wonder of childhood. Now as an adult Christmas has been transformed. There is still magic and wonder but it is the magic and wonder of a father delighting in his children delighting in Christmas. You see when we live life in circles, the familiarity of those persistent repetitious rhythms makes life a sacred gift… a high calling.

Surely the Lord Is In This Place and I Did Not Know It

I remember vividly those first moments I spent holding each of my children after they were born. My wife gave birth to all three of our kids by caesarean, so there was always about an hour after my wife had been stitched up and was in recovery, where I would be waiting & holding our new little bub. On each occasion, it was a time of being overwhelmed by the experience.

And I would mostly be unable to speak. I would teeter on the brink of laughter and of crying. And every time I looked up at any of my family on the other side of the glass – I was told – I was simply beaming from the experience of holding such a perfect & serene little one.

Do you think in those moments I was trying to rationally work out what was happening to me  ? – No ! I was simply & profoundly overwhelmed with the wonder of this first and long awaited meeting with this captivating little one.

When I reflect back, there was definitely something vulnerable & unguarded about me in those moments. In my humility, I opened myself up to something mostly beyond words, the experience of which I can only describe as pure & sacred.

Suddenly, the idea of Almighty God poured out into the package of the Babe born in Bethlehem becomes comprehensible and totally accessible. 

It reminds me of that episode in Genesis where Jacob is out in the desert. He has just been sent away by his father Isaac – for stealing the birthright of his older brother Esau. It is night and he falls asleep on the hard ground using a stone as his pillow.

And Jacob has this amazing dream. You can imagine the vividness of this dream because Jacob is tossing and turning – using a stone as his pillow. In this dream, Jacob sees a ladder reaching from the ground all the way up to heaven with angels ascending and descending. And the Lord God stands beside Jacob and says,

“I shall make the number of your offspring like the very dust of the earth… know that I am with you and will keep you where ever you go… for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you…” Then Jacob wakes up from his sleep – feeling overwhelmed and afraid. He says, “Surely the LORD is in this place and I did not know it… how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”

When we allow ourselves to be pierced and disarmed by the babe of Bethlehem – awe and wonder are our first and most appropriate response. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven…

A Virgin Shall Conceive a Son and They Shall Name Him Emmanuel

Jurgen Moltmann says when we celebrate Christmas, at its heart we are celebrating something almost unimaginable, “the Creator of heaven and earth, whom even the heaven of heavens cannot contain, becomes so humble and small that in this child Jesus, he is beside us and lives among us”.

Matthew’s gospel says, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel which means, ‘God with us’”. Yet what manner of child is this, in whom is expressed all the majesty and glory of God himself ? I don’t just stumble at the thought of that, I literally stagger at the possibility. 

Don’t worry about putting God into a box. When you consider the Creator and Sustainer of the universe freely packaged into a tiny, helpless frame of a baby – then God literally bursts out of the box of convention & cliché. And the unimaginable happens. Suddenly the God ‘whom even the heaven of heavens’ cannot contain is up close and personal.

Like Christmas wrapping after the presents are opened – there is nothing neat and tidy about it. I have my struggles with the logic of Incarnation as it is. Process it just for a moment – holy God and finite hormone driven, male humanity – packaged together in the God-man Jesus. The divine and human natures are united. At best this is holy irony – at worst it’s madness.

It leaves me feeling off balance & uneasy – almost overwhelmed at times with unknowing – like as though all I thought I knew has been erased back to ground zero. And what does that sound like ? 

In Old Testament language we would call this being humbled in the presence of God. And you know what ? I don’t think rationalism or logical argument quite cuts it in these places.

In moments and events touched by the finger of God, a more appropriate response is wonder, awe and radical amazement. Abraham Herschel says, “…wonder is the pre-requisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.” You see, when we use reason, we are trying to explain & adapt the world to our concepts. However, when we experience wonder – we make a significant shift. We begin seeking to adapt our minds to the world as it is. Herschel says, “Under the running sea of all our theories & scientific explanations, lies the original abyss of radical amazement”.

From the Stump of Jesse, From the Line of King David

Sometimes I think we live in a world of broken promises, a world of good beginnings and either bad or incomplete endings… It is a world where so often the people who lead us, disappoint us. They let us down.

Martin Buber says when you look at the Scriptures, “the history of the kings of Israel is the history of the failure of the one who is anointed to realise the promise of his calling. The rise of [the idea of a messiah] – is the hope of the coming of an anointed king who realizes the promise of his anointing”.

You know the prophet Isaiah lived during the reigns of 4 kings of Judah… King Uzziah, King Jotham, King Ahaz and King Hezekiah. They were all descendents from the stump of Jesse, from the line of David.

Now Scripture records problems with 3 of the 4 kings. While 3 of them did what was “right in the sight of the Lord”, they still mostly behaved and pursued the trappings of the kings of the lands all around them. Instead of placing their faith in the help of the Living God of Israel, more often they relied on their own success. They put their faith in political intrigue and timely alliances and their own ability to make war.

Take King Uzziah for instance… Under Uzziah, the Kingdom of Judah reaches the height of its power. Uzziah develops the economic resources of the country as well as its military might. He conquers the Philistines and the Arabians and he receives tribute from the Ammonites. Scripture says he was strong and prosperous because “… he did what was right in the sight of the Lord”.

Yet Uzziah’s success & strength became his weakness. Scripture says, “he grew proud… to his destruction”. Uzziah attempts to enter the Temple to burn incense on the Alter, a privilege reserved for the priesthood only. Azariah, the chief priest pleads with him, “It is not for you Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out from this place, for you have done wrong… it will bring you no honour from the Lord God”. 

Uzziah becomes angry and as his anger grows leprosy breaks out on his forehead. And Scripture says, “King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord”. 

And when things got really tough, when the Kingdom of Judah began paying tribute to the Kingdom of Assyria, King Ahaz from the stump of Jesse, from the royal line of David – even turned his back on the Lord. He desecrated the Temple & called on the help of other gods.

All of these events occurred during the lifetime of Isaiah. And as a prophet it was his duty to call people back to God. It was his calling to describe the visions he was given of God’s alternative reality. And while these visions filled Isaiah with hope, they also made him unpopular with the kings he served.

Isaiah 11:1-10 is a messianic vision of a peaceful kingdom. It is an alternate vision of a king of the stump of Jesse overwhelmed by the Spirit of God, who is both human and holy. This king is so singled minded in his zeal for God, that he realizes the promise of his anointing… he establishes the Kingdom of God… a kingdom of righteousness and justice and mercy. 

The Heartbeat of the Universe

‘What is God doing among us ?’

I spoke in church on this topic yesterday. I thought it would be a great opportunity to look at the many changes the church has negotiated over the last twelve months or so. I thought it would be the perfect occasion to dream forwards, painting a picture of what I thought this church could become. But then I read the question… 

You know, it is easy to be apart of a faith community that declares Jesus is Lord, who worships and prays to God Sunday by Sunday, who are even effective in reaching out into their community. It is much more difficult to be apart of a community who are aware of what God is doing among them.  

It struck me in a way that left me feeling uneasy… I can become so busy personally doing ‘good’ for God – that I can so easily miss out on what God is doing.

I was chatting recently with a wise grey haired friend of mine who pastors a Baptist Church in Sydney. He said something during our conversation that stuck with me. He said, “All we ever have to truly concern ourselves with as a church is what God is doing among us and getting into sync with that… participating with God in that”.  

That sounds straight forward enough, even like common sense. Yet when you really think about it, when you reflect and ponder on it for a while… the practical implications are huge. This is about a community developing an exquisite sensitivity to the Spirit of God, so that God’s purposes and the intentions of the community are one. It’s about finding a way to resonate together, to vibrate in tune…

So the million dollar is, ‘What is God doing among us ?’ ‘Are we aware and sensitive and participating with God in that ?’ It’s like standing on the edge of a yawning abyss and trying to work out how the next few moments might pan out if you take a few steps forward. There is fear… there is anxiety… there is halting hesitation. 

Yes We Can

On Wednesday afternoon this week, I walked in from a day of being out & about. I turned on the TV and began watching the closing stages of the US presidential election. Seeing Barack Obama, listening to him speak and the crowd’s reaction was electric. I felt that tingling sensation of particularly significant moments in life. 

And I thought to myself, ‘Why am I responding this way ? This is an American election!’ (I live in Australia). Then I realised, this man inspires me…  He inspires me in a way the John Howards and the Kevin Rudds of this world don’t.

Now I don’t know if Obama can deliver on what he says he will do. Time will tell. Politically he is a lot less experienced than either John Howard or Kevin Rudd but the invitation of his victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago – was clear. It was to participate with him, to journey forward together. His message was despite the challenges, despite all the difficulties ahead, as Americans united together, our creed will be, ‘Yes we can !’

It’s interesting… the Jesus I read about in the Gospels also inspires me. As a follower of Jesus I don’t want someone on my side who necessarily has all the answers, who says, ‘Follow me because I know what to do’. I’m not sure I even want a hero – someone of amazing courage & strength to save the day!  When life gets tough, I want someone who stands right by me in solidarity, who listens to me and accepts the imperfect reality of who I mostly am.  

When I read the Gospels Jesus is like that… Sure, he is anointed by God and there is a thunderous voice from heaven saying, “This my son with who I am pleased… listen to him”. However what makes him a credible witness and so popular among the people is his accessibility. Jesus listens to people, he eats with social outcasts… his stories & his words inspire, offering hope and acceptance and healing.

The Jesus I encounter in Scripture is mostly weak and vulnerable. When they punch him he buckles over in pain, when they beat him he bleeds, when he looks out over Jerusalem… he cries out of a breaking heart… overflowing with compassion. 

Jesus’ invitation to people is no secret formula. It is no hidden way to a prosperous life. Jesus’ invitation is to follow him, to participate with him so that together following God in all his ways becomes a journey filled with possibility and hope. Our creed is, ‘Together, empowered by the Holy Spirit… yes we can participate with Him in repairing the brokenness of a hurting world’.

This is the Jesus who inspires me… the Jesus I want to follow. 

Of Five Blind Men and an Elephant

 

blind_men_and_an_elephant

One day five blind men, who knew nothing about elephants, went to examine one to find out what kind of a thing it was. Reaching out randomly, each began touching & feeling it in a different spot. One man reached out and felt the vastness of its side, while another grabbed onto its ear. The third blind man stretched his arms around a leg, while another was feeling along the cool smoothness of a tusk. The fifth blind man became fascinated and entwined in the trunk.  

When blind men were all satisfied that they now knew the true nature of the beast, they all sat back down to discuss it.

“We now know that the elephant is like a wall,” said the first blind man. “The evidence for it is conclusive.”

Then ear toucher corrected him saying, “I believe you are mistaken, sir, the elephant is more like a large fan.”

“You are both wrong,” said the third blind man who felt a leg, “the creature is obviously like a tree.”

“A tree?”, questioned the tusk feeler. “How can you mistaken a spear for a tree ?”

“What?” exclaimed the fifth blind man who had felt the trunk. “A spear maybe long and round, but everyone knows it can’t move by itself. Couldn’t you feel the sinuous muscles of this creature ? It’s definitely a type of snake! Even a blind man could see that!”.

The argument grew more & more heated, until it erupted into a violent scuffle. The five blind men were punching off into the air as much as they were hitting into one another. All the while they were still arguing their particular points of view.

I really like the story of the five blind men and the elephant. I like what it says about the nature of truth… what it says about the enormity, the complexity of the reality we experience… moment by moment. I like what the story says about the nature of people – of men particularly.

How is it that people become so convinced about their own point of view ? How can they become so blind & stuck and hold onto their partially formed ideas to the exclusion of all others ? 

I like what the 13^th century Persian poet Rumi says about this story. He says, “The sensual eye is just like the palm of a hand. The palm does not have the means of covering the whole beast.”

I have been a Christian for twenty-plus years now and I have a similar sense about being a follower of Jesus. I agree with the Apostle Paul, living in the presence of an unseen God is like seeing through the glass dimly.

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.

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.

Dark Heart of Africa

“So Abram went down to Egypt [in Africa] to live there as an alien…”

The dark heart of Africa…  I remember being in a rural African village & watching a colleague, newly arrived from Australia, playing a game of bawo. Despite the excitement, I became aware I was staring at the feet of a young boy, sitting close by me. It must have been the contrast of the white soles against his richly tanned skin that got my attention. I found myself questioning, “What kind of place is this, that a young boy’s feet can look like those of an old man – cracked and eroded ?”

Suddenly my concentration was broken & I was looking up into the eyes of some children staring back at me. Instead of being a spectator, I was now the focus of many deep brown eyes looking my way. Each face seemed to be asking the same question, “Who are you ? What are you doing here ?”

I wish I could say that was the only time I felt like an alien in a strange land…

Cover Yourself With the Dust of Your Rabbi

In the ancient world, a disciple who accepted the call to follow a rabbi, entered into the inner circle of that master, sharing life in all of its intimacies – warts and all. The aim of being a disciple was the application, the translation of all the long learning & memorization of the Hebrew Scriptures into real life lived under the watchful eye of the Rabbi.

A disciple would follow his rabbi everywhere. One of the sages of Mishnah, Yose ben Yoezer, used to say, “Cover yourself with the dust of [your rabbi’s] feet, and
 drink in [his] words with gusto.”

The idea of being covered in the dust of your rabbi came from something that was a common sight in 1st century Palestine.

I like how Rob Bell describes this… He says a rabbi would be walking down a dusty local street and right behind him would be his students doing their best to keep up with him, as he went about from place to place teaching his yoke. By the end of the day, the disciples would have the dust from whatever their rabbi had been walking in literally caked all over them.  

Covering yourself in the dust of your rabbi… this is what devotion means when you are a disciple of Jesus.

Wonderfully Held

I am a fragile vessel and the world pours through me, unrelenting sometimes – with such a force, I become pitted, cracked & worn down, so everything comes gushing out in the broken places.

The wonder of it all is that I do not break… I do not break because I am wonderfully held!

Perfection = Mercy

The Sermon on the Mount has many demanding teachings. Perhaps the most confronting for me is Jesus’ injunction at the end of his teaching on loving enemies. He says, “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect”. It’s interesting when you look at what Jesus says in his similar teaching in Luke’s gospel, instead of using the word perfect, Jesus says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful”.

Perfection in Matthew equals mercy in Luke’s gospel. Being perfect just like our Father in heaven means being merciful.

So this is love expressed as mercy, generosity, openness, sensitivity & forgiveness… As disciples of Jesus, this our way of being in the world that impacts everything that we do.

Majestic, Potent, Personal

The Golden Rule again. This is Jesus take on it. He says, “In everything, do for others what you would have them do for you; for this sums up the Law of Moses & the teaching of the Prophets.”

So the idea here is that the whole of the majesty and potency of Scripture, is condensed into just one teaching.

It makes you sit up and take notice doesn’t it ?

This is the result of all the long history of God’s dealings with his people. A holy and sacred revelation. And the condensed down version translates into a simple, concrete way of regarding others that infuses and flavours our whole way of living.  

Last week I mentioned feeling the stretch of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. My uneasiness was mostly from the realisation of the gap that exists between the way I live my life & the bold expression of living that Jesus’ teachings open up for us.

This week however, when I look at Jesus’ teachings through lens of the Golden Rule, I notice something very different. The greater stretch of Jesus teachings is the way they refocus our sensitivity, our priorities, our openness, indeed our energy & resources away from ourselves and over towards others in everything that we do.

Why The Golden Rule is Golden

My grandfather sometimes used to get into fights with other boys on the way home from school. When I was young he used to tell me, the fights were always round the issue of him being Salvation Army and them being Catholic. The irony is that as an adult his sister Grace married a Catholic. My mother, whenever she speaks of her Aunty Grace always remembers her husband in those terms. I am sure she has mentioned his name but the stronger memory for me is Aunty Grace and her Catholic husband. 

I have a sense that you have only to scratch the surface of any one of us, & there is some kind of prejudice shaping our decisions. It’s natural ! It helps us to give order to the world. Prejudice gives us an efficient way of setting boundaries, of filtering experience – of keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe. Yet the effect of prejudice is that it always keeps the people we are stereotyping at arms’ length – typecasting them into caricatures and cardboard cutouts instead of living, breathing people like you and me – complex and conflicted.

I’ve been reading the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel this past week again, focusing particularly on the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Mt7:12). This verse has it’s foundation in the much older book of Leviticus that says, “But the stranger that lives among you shall be like one born among you, and you will love them as you love yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev19:34).  So the sense of Jesus teaching here is an openness to others, that breaks down prejudice, creating space to encounter all people as image bearers of God himself.  

Over the years I have met too many evangelicals who are willing to right off a major part of the Church because Catholics don’t profess to be saved or born again like they are.

During the week I was reading a piece in the paper by a young catholic professional, Rachel Patterson.  After all the media hype surrounding the Pope’s visit and World Youth Day, I found it a refreshing read. Let me share some of the highlights…

“At the core of catholic faith is the belief that Christ is God and God is love. As followers of Christ we are called to love God and one another. As such, for Christians, life is not a meaningless experience but a beautiful, sometimes difficult thing to which there is a purpose other than mere self-satisfaction”.

“At the heart of Catholic moral teaching is an understanding of freedom that contrasts sharply with popular notions of choice. For most people, freedom is simply the ability to do what they want. For the Catholic Church, freedom is the is the ability to do good. It is easy to do what we want. It isn’t always easy to do what is right. And when we choose to do right by another, especially when it isn’t our inclination or in our interests to do so, we exercise our capacity for love. In other words, love isn’t just some gooey emotion we feel for our parents, children or significant other… ”.

“Some people… question why the church persists in having so many rules –especially when it comes to sex… [Why] does it ask us to keep sex within marriage [?]… Not because the church is scared of human sexuality. Sex is understood as something created by God and, therefore, a… good and beautiful thing. It can, however be misused and when it is we can hurt people and ourselves. Far from being oppressive, church teaching on sex is meant to be liberating”.

“It can be lonely leading a life that is counter to the prevailing moral norms. For many of the young adult making the trip to Sydney for World Youth Day, it is one of the few times in their lives that they will be surrounded by other young Catholics in a decidedly Christian atmosphere. To them I say, enjoy. Your faith is a gift and you do not need to apologize for it or isolate it from the rest of your life”.

“But the stranger that lives among you shall be like one born among you, and you will love them as you love yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”.

Allowing the stranger to draw near… This is why the Golden Rule is golden.

Arms Wide Open

The Sermon on the Mount. These words of Jesus are life… life lived abundantly, generously, with arms wide open. They create the space for us to live life BIG, to embrace today – even when the storms of life come. These words are demanding because every stroke and letter is absolutely brimming with the merciful, compassionate and grace-filled way that God deals with people. These teachings of Jesus are what it means to live life naked and exposed in the very presence of God himself.

That’s why everyone who hears these words of Jesus and who acts on them are like the wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rains came down and the floods came up. The winds blew and beat on the house but it did not fall because it was founded on a firm foundation. I like what Rob Bell says about storms. He says it’s not like the storms might come. Storms come. The difference between a wise and a foolish man is in their ability to weather the storm. 

The Rock From Which You Are Hewn

God’s story woven into lives of ordinary men…

There’s an interesting word of encouragement that the prophet Isaiah gives the Jews when they are in Exile, when they were poised between the choice of assimilation and despair. It says,

‘Listen to me you that pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him and I blessed him and made him many’. 

I like what Walter Brueggemann says about theses verses. He says that Isaiah is saying if you want to seek God, look to the oldest, most embarrassing beginning we ever had. He says firstly, remember Abraham. On the one hand, he is the strange, impressive father of the faith who leaves his home at God’s command & goes out on a long journey. On the other hand, Abraham is also a pitiful figure – often helplessness and filled with fear.  Two times he gives his wife Sarah away to other men to save his own skin. Despite God’s promise of a child with Sarah, he sleeps with Sarah’s servant Hagar, to get an heir.

Often Abraham appears so confused, so unsure, so barely faithful.

And when you are done reflecting on Abraham, remember Sarah your mother. Sarah is the beautiful woman who other men desire. She is also the mother of Isaac, the promise carrier. However, when you remember Sarah, remember her oldness, remember her barrenness, remember her mocking laughter in the face of God when He promises her a son.

Yet when you remember Sarah, remember that this old and pitiful woman now laughs a new laugh – an Easter laugh. God uses her very barrenness to create newness. Sarah is the example for all barren people, who have within them no gift of life, no capacity for faith – yet God does something new and unexpected in the face of all the evidence.

What impresses me about this foundational story of Scripture, is what it says about the way God’s story is unfolding among us. Abraham and Sarah are people we can identify with because they are fragile and tentative, often moving forward with fear & hesitation. These are people just like us.

You know, God’s story often isn’t in the grand epics of history, the stories told by the winners. When I read the large sweep of Scripture, it seems to me that God’s story is mostly unfolding quietly, below the radar, twisting and turning – always with the very real possibility of failure. Yet when we remember this story of faith, remember that it is told and retold through the same fragile stories of other biblical characters. Remember the scheming of a timid Jacob, the stuttering of a reluctant Moses, the paranoid actions of a bipolar Saul, the treachery of a wife stealing David, the depressed and suicidal Elijah…

The very wonder of God’s story is that he achieves his purposes in the world through broken ordinary people, just like us.

Bruggemann says we remember these stories because they model faith and they invite faith.

We remember these stories because when these fragile people centered their stories in God’s story, they lived life BIG – filled with purpose, newness and imagination.

He Who Saves One Life, Saves the World Entire

Living life naked and exposed in the presence of God himself. I think this is what Jesus has in mind in his teaching of the Sermon on the Mount… why it is so demanding. We are not merely talking about Jesus giving new order to the parameters of Jewish religious life or even temple worship, but the Spirit of God being granted access and transforming all areas of life. Anything that has God in such close proximity is deeper, wider and higher than ordinary living.

You see when we dwell in close proximity to the Scriptures, when we turn them over again and again, when look back over their writing down through the ages – something becomes very clear. God has priorities. God desires some things more than he desires others…   

Like the time Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector. Jesus is sitting eating a meal openly with a number of tax collectors and other social outcasts. Some Pharisees are walking by and they ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with those kinds of people ?” And Jesus, hearing what they are saying, turns to them and replies, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’”. 

Jesus says this because as a good Jew who had memorised the Torah, word for word – Jesus knows God’s priorities. God desires mercy more than he desires sacrifice. God desires compassion more than he desires contemplation. God desires our hearts more than he desires our intellectual ascent.

Why ? Because the goal of life isn’t purity and holiness – that’s a by-product. The goal of life is an intensity of living, a fullness of life, concretely focused into habits of action that help to repair the brokenness of a hurting world. It’s like the Jewish Talmud says, “He who saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Really Turning the Other Cheek

“You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment’. But I say to you that if you are angry with your brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…”.

“You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye…’. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…”.

 “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”.

 

I really feel the stretch of Jesus’ teaching in these passages from the Sermon on the Mount. When I reflect on how my own life measures up to the Sermon on the Mount, I have a sense of missing the mark, of failing daily. In my darker moments I would be sorely tempted to just… give up !

Now, I also balance this with the tension of experiencing God’s grace, of my sense of assurance that the blood of Jesus covers my sin, that before the throne of God I am already declared pure, holy, acceptable, with a righteousness that is not my own. The freedom of it allows me to enter boldly into the presence of God Himself.

While the grace of God releases me from the overwhelming sense of guilt that comes from working hard for salvation, I also wrestle with the tension of scriptures like Mt 5:20, that says, “unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven…”. What about John 14:12 where Jesus says, “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these…”. 

Words like these create tension, they create discomfort and uneasiness within us about the teachings of Jesus. I wonder if the anxiety & dissonance is Jesus’ intention, indeed God’s intention for Scripture in general ?  You see I think God can work with us in those places. He wants access to all areas of our lives. I think these are the teachable moments, the places where Jesus teachings can be translated into meaningful action that flavours our total response to living. 

Rather like a wise man who builds his house upon the rock….

 

Turn It Over & Turn It Over Again

There’s an ancient Jewish proverb from the Talmud I have grown rather fond of. It goes like this, “Turn it over and turn it over again, for everything is contained in the Scriptures. Regard it, grow old in it and never abandon it, for there is no greater virtue.”

During the week I have been reading through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. I have been turning it over again and again, I feel have been regarding it to the point where it has grown rather old. Thankfully, I didn’t abandon it.

For me the Sermon on the Mount has been personally demanding reading. It has made me feel contrite & reflective about the quality of my discipleship; even the integrity of my walking with God.

You can’t read very far into the Sermon on the Mount without starting to feel the weight of God’s glory, the light of his holiness pouring into all the nooks and crannies of our mixed intentions… even filling the yawning gap that exists between our words and our actions.

Like John Calvin before me, I notice that these series of teachings read more like a dense compilation of many teaching sessions, rather than one singular occasion. There doesn’t seem to be that logical, sequential development of an argument that one would expect from a master teacher, delivering his message.

Instead each topic appears like its own particular teaching, concentrated & hard-hitting – complete in and of itself. 

Oh My God !

I remember my wife being away at a conference and being busy preparing dinner in the kitchen. I was focused and safely immersed in the mundane activities of domestic bliss, when all of a sudden I could hear a high-pitched cry from the garage.  I thought nothing of it because my two boys playing, regularly involves rather loud high-pitched yelps of both pleasure & pain. The problem was that 15 seconds later the noise of it was still there and it was becoming more earnest by the second. It made me come out running, muttering under my breath.

I opened the side door of the garage and the scene unfolded before me. Both boys were crying but my older one was lying on the ground thrashing about grabbing at his neck. At first I thought he was fitting or that he was choking on something but then I was reminded of his high pitched screaming. I rushed to his side and tried to move him and found the situation even more sinister.

Both of my sons had become entangled in a deadly web of almost invisible nylon kite string. Now keep in mind one is six and the other is only four. The older one had the string dangerously wrapped a number of times around his neck. The string was also wrapped tightly around the younger one’s arms and torso and every time he moved in panic, trying to help his brother, the string would pull tighter, cutting into his older brother’s neck.

In those desperate moments my vision narrowed and I felt myself rushing to the precipice of unspeakable horror. My heart was beating out of my chest and I felt sluggish in my thinking.  It took me what seemed forever to break those deadly cords.

When I had finally freed both my boys, I held them tightly, speaking to them quietly, reassuring them with tears streaming down all our faces…

I was very fortunate that day, life isn’t always so forgiving !

You know, it is in those moments, when we are immersed in overwhelmingly difficult circumstances, beyond our control – that Jesus’ cry from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me ?” seem most accessible & resonate deeply within me. 

You know life wasn’t supposed to be this way. In a more just world, a life lived well is supposed to bring blessing & the favour of God. It is the ones who deliberately pursue their selfish & evil ways that are supposed to suffer and to perish.

Yet as the writer of Ecclesiastes observes the world is rather more topsy-turvy. There are, “righteous people who perish in their righteousness and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.” 

These last words of Jesus resonate within me for all the times I have been pushed around and broken by a capricious and self-centered world. A world where God sometimes seems distant, even disinterested. 

Jesus Yolk

Jesus didn’t leave much behind. It occurred to me the other day, he didn’t bequeath any property or buildings, any wife or offspring, Jesus didn’t write anything down, he didn’t leave behind any revolutionary guerrilla army, he didn’t leave behind a new religion or liturgy.

Remember Jesus said, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill it. Truly I tell you, not one stroke or letter will pass from the law until it is all accomplished”.

What Jesus left behind was his yolk… his interpretation of the Scriptures and a rather disturbing life lived in the light of those interpretations.  It was a life lived in contrast and challenge, dissenting against the status quo and the prevailing power structures of the day.  It was a life lived swimming up stream against the status quo.

Instead of an Adventist Jesus walking along all serene and white and surrounded by smiling children and adults and wild and tame animals, think of a Jesus filled with righteous anger overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple causing disruption and chaos in all directions.

Let’s face it, if you were a reputable lending institution, would you approve a home loan for such a person ? As disciples we are called to take up our Cross and follow this Jesus – not just to believe. If we are truly Jesus disciples then why have so many of us been granted home loans ?

The only tangible thing Jesus left behind were his band of disciples and his final instructions, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… teaching them everything I commanded you”.

If all Jesus left behind his yolk, his disciples and his instruction to make more disciples, then why do we hold on so tightly to our property, to our buildings & particular ways of doing things; whether we sing particular songs in particular ways, how many times we come to church, the particular ways we dress ? Why do we hold so tightly onto these things when Jesus modelled living life in the face of a deep and passionate embrace of the Scriptures, a life in the intimate presence of the Father, in actual connection to a circle of disciples ? My question is why don’t we grab more tightly onto these things ?

Jesus reaches down from the Cross, he grabs hold of us and he says, ‘Come and die’ ! The challenge of that is which Jesus do I believe in ?

Is it gentle Jesus meek and mild, who I adore and contemplate or is it the grubby, human peasant Jesus -  with the roughened hands of a carpenter in the Gospels who calls me out to follow ?

I believe in the Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but instead emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born on human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross”.

I pray for the courage to travel where he leads and to do so just as lightly ! 

The Friend I Sleep With

I have a friend who I sleep with who is the mother warrior, with the strong spirit of Africa beating within her. She is the stone woman, fertile yet unshakable. To be enfolded in her arms is to be enfolded into a soft and cooling place – safe & truly nurtured.

I have a friend who I sleep with who is like the sun in morning – arisen and bright. She is like the sun in the evening too – hibernating, spent and wrapped in velvet darkness. To be beheld by her big compassionate eyes is to glimpse the vast capacity of her overflowing heart.

I have a friend I sleep with whose beautiful form has been etched and truly formed by the experiences of living. To be massaged by her fingers is to ‘BE’ in the presence of exquisite pleasure – content & blessed. To be caressed and loved by her is to be transported and to die a little.

I have a friend that I sleep with who I love mostly unworthily – yet I am drawn to her like a moth to the fire. I am fascinated and drawn in to the dance. Truly I am refined in her presence.

Like Old Men Dreaming and Young Men Seeing Visions

This is what happens when mission comes home…

In Acts 2, the Disciples are all gathered waiting expectantly. They are sitting in an upper room where they were staying in Jerusalem. Jesus has just ascended into heaven and the Scriptures say the Disciples were occupying themselves by constantly devoting themselves to prayer.

Suddenly, the room is filled with a sound like the rush of a violent wind. Then tongues of fire appear among the Disciples. Scripture says they are filled with the Holy Spirit & they begin speaking in a great variety of languages. This experience is so overwhelming, that it draws the Disciples out onto the street below. They are speaking in this incredible diversity of languages and they are quickly surrounded by a large & curious crowd. Now the crowd is confused because people from all over the Roman Empire are understanding what is being said by these Jewish disciples in their own native tongues.

Then Peter gets up and he addresses the crowd. He says, “You may suppose that what you are witnessing here is a group of people who have been drinking too much. Let me assure you, my companions are not drunk… It is only 9am in the morning. No, this is what the prophet Joel spoke of in the Scriptures when he said, “In the last days… God will pour out his Spirit and your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams… and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved”.  

Scripture goes on to record that when Peter finished speaking, that the number of people in Jerusalem, who ‘welcomed’ his message and were baptised that day, numbered 3000 people.

This is mission vision. This is what happens when mission comes home. This is the Spirit of God drawing near and holy bedlam breaking out. This is messiness & diversity, it is a tremendous energy expressed as movement outwards. This is the Spirit of God being present and His people responding with an amazing clarity of purpose.

You know mission often takes a while to find its rhythm. However, once it begins to truly sing, it spreads like a wildfire. 

Go And Learn What This Means

Sometimes blogging intensifies the chances of people missing each other. At times it seems to lack the intimacy of two friends who through an effort together can clarify confusion or continue speaking about an issue until they vibrate in tune.

 

Recently I asked the question, “What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?” Out of the hit and miss world of the internet I got back this comment… “A church that is first and foremost mission-oriented is a church of works. Works are both wonderful and needed in the world but they must be God working through us rather than us doing what make us feel good…” Now keep in mind I titled my post, ‘I Desire Mercy Not Sacrifice’… This is a direct quote from Matthew 9:13, where Jesus is being criticized by his rabbinic peers for eating with the wrong kinds of people. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees of a verse from Hosea that is saying that true knowledge of God translates into merciful actions on behalf of undeserving others rather than pious temple sacrifices.

 

I make no apology for saying it is time to refocus the church around the organizing principle of mission when the church is losing ground in this country. I’d have no trouble gathering around the organizing principle of worship if 80%, 70% even 60% of people in our communities declared the Lordship of Jesus. The problem is the truth that on any given Sunday there is less than 10% of people who do that.

 

Jesus says to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice…” because fundamentally discipleship means being a sent one. The Kingdom of God propels people out into a hurting world to engage with those who don’t yet know Jesus, to stand in solidarity with them where they are, to serve them compassionately, mercifully. Amazing grace is the knowledge of God expressed as compassionate action among undeserving men. John 20:21 sums up this idea, “As the Father sent me, so I send you…”.  

“Doing what makes us feel good”… for me this kind of activity is costly, mostly sacrificial… going against the flow. When I think back to my experiences of mission in Africa and South East Asia sometimes they were oh so sweet, often they were just plain hard. Yet the stretch of those experiences made me more God dependent, more sensitive to what the Spirit of God was doing.  

I pray for the refocusing of the church around the organizing principle of mission because the organizing principle of worship isn’t releasing the Kingdom of God and holy bedlam into our communities.

 

“Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24) The prophet Amos spoke these words because his vision of Yahweh was the vision of the missionary God – the mystery of a never-ending surging, fighting movement.

The Undecidable Ghost or Derrida Revisited

I have been thinking about life out on the margins. For a while now, I have been particularly interested recently in what lies beyond the boundary of the margin – chaos. It strikes me that Jesus walking on the water in the storm is Jesus at ease in a field of chaos. Jesus deliberately takes his disciples into that place. There Jesus is neither terrified or diminished. We usually talk about the Jesus who calms the storm – what about Jesus creating the storm ?

When Jesus is walking out on the water and the disciples see him they think he is ‘a ghost’. Jacques Derrida says there is something interesting about ghosts – he calls them ‘an undecidable’. The figure of a ghost seems to be neither present or absent or it is both present & absent at the same time. There is a tension – a dissonance in this in-between place that breaks open the meaning of things. 

Life has many such tensions. The story of Jesus – the ghost – walking on the water is one. Our faith is based on the rock-solid idea that Jesus is the God-man ! Think about that tension – the church fathers argued about how that was possible for nearly three centuries. As Derrida says there is an uneasy tension in those kinds of paradoxes and for me that isn’t rock solid – that is dynamic & fluid – expanding and intensifying then contracting again – forming and un-forming – like Galadriel when she is offered the ring by Frodo in the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’. 

When I think about Jesus as the Rock, it makes me think about perspective. For example, from a distance a large company like Walmart appears rock solid – institutional, a solid pillar of free market retailing. Yet I wonder if the daily experience of Walmart up close is more asymmetrical & dynamic – a lot less certain. Jesus called Peter ‘the Rock’ and he was all over the place.

When the disciples respond in terror to Jesus walking on water and in fear to the storm – Jesus’ movement is toward them and His words restore peace – easing their discomfort. Jesus is rock solid & consistent in his expression of the pathos of God – God’s compassion & care ! Yet peace on the waters comes at the expense of stepping away from the experience of Jesus in his Glory !

GK Chesterton in his book ‘Orthodoxy’ says, “… the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”

Give me a Jesus who is rock solid but also give me an elastic Jesus who expands and intensifies to become a volcano in full vent !

 

Day After Day Pours Forth Speech

The lite touch of God’s glory in the world is like the unexpected arrival of rain. Suddenly, leaves are dipping involuntarily in asymmetrical acknowledgement of its presence – a persistent shower giving lustre to the world & heightening awareness. 
 
The Psalmist says that, “day after day pours forth speech and night after night declares knowledge… of the glory of God – yet there is no speech nor are there words…” While the lite touch of God’s glory is ever present, the sense of its arrival is always subtle. It builds in degrees, inhabiting the peripheral of vision or the graduated silences out on the edges of constant noise. 
 
That our vision and hearing are dim to its arrival is witness to our routines of busyness and distraction.  
 
That the activity of God’s glory in the world shapes our daily situation is beyond question. Glory lends intention to secret acts of mercy and kindness. Glory intensifies hope and endurance when the real is all too abrasive & unfriendly, Glory makes forgiveness the unthinkable possibility that dances in the midst of a hurting relationship At its most compelling the Glory of God ignites a passion for justice that burns & is vigilant, restless & creative.
 
When the dipping dance of the leaves ceases, the enduring effect of rained out rain is that cleansing wetness that soaks into every crack & crevice – absorbed into pores of everything it touches. 
 
Drips hanging like jewels are the multitude of mundane moments touched by the finger of God.

Sharper Than Any Two Edged Sword

Getting your head around the Cross is difficult. The Cross is really rather awkward in the sense of being clumsy & inelegant. Think about the metaphors we reach for to describe it. Think about the old hymn… “At the Cross, at the Cross – where I first saw the light & the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day…” What about the words from a more recent song, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound; amazing love, now flowing down. From hands and feet that were nailed to the tree… His grace flows down and covers me”.

Part of the awkwardness of the Cross, is the holy paradox… the place of God-forsakenness is also the place where God is profoundly present. The Cross describes the execution of a particular man but it also describes the possibility of the crucified God, the very pain of God…

The paradox of the Cross is dissonance & tension – even anxiety itself, like being on the knife edge of uncertainty. Remaining here means the knife cutting deeper, ‘…piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow… able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12).  Imagine a deadend place of such brutality and physical violence also being the place of safety, of confessional intimacy and so… much… more…

The awkwardness of the Cross is that it is not just some kind of splendid vision that we observe, we behold and we adore. Instead, the Cross is the beginning of a journey right now - that will eventually take us to an unbounded place, to a place that even death cannot hold us back from participating in. A place where we will see God face-to-face.

The irony of the Cross is that its very awkwardness, its enigmatic character speaks most plainly about the lengths God is prepared go in his pursuit of people.

Remember the Sabbath… Keep It Holy

The Sabbath… Abraham Heschel calls it ‘God’s architecture in time’. The Sabbath creates the regular rhythm of a space in-between. This is the context where local, individual moments touch eternity. This is truth local & asymmetrical brought into proximity with truth unchanging & persistent. The habit of regularly entering into that space is the discipline of perspective. It a journey towards difference and holy otherness where the revealed and the mysterious are held in tension. Derrida says, “there is a duty to translate and not to translate, to understand, to enter into relation with another but at the same time preserve the otherness of the other”.

It’s interesting… truth local, pitted and asymmetrical is often overwhelmed by a seemingly wanton, unpredictable vortex of violence and dislocation. It is that sometimes intensified aspect of chaos where there is a mischief and a vandalism in its milder forms and terror & death at its most determined. 

Tragedy is potential dissipated, opportunity lost, beauty erased in a vacuum untouched by meaning.

The result of truth tinged with violence, overwhelmed with chaos is theodicy. The affective response to the harshness of local truth is, “Where is God ?” or the cry of Psalm 22, “I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it has melted within my breast… my God, my God, why have you forsaken me ?”

The Sabbath reminds us that not all truth is local. For the sensitive ones who create the space, it is the possibility of continuing revelation. It is the reminder of the close proximity of God’s glorious presence in the fabric of time. The Glory of God lightly touches the world and for those who engage in the holy habit of attending, of offering hospitality to the presence of God, this translates truth local & unrelenting into glorious possibility & a future punctuated with hope.

Every instant is an act of creation. There is a pilgrim journey, a constant and continuous movement that is made possible by the Sabbath – a journey towards otherness and difference away from our man made structures. Those who take this journey find day after day they are sustained, inspired and led by a God who is undiminished by truth local, pitted and unpredictable. This is the God whose glory is most easily perceived in the chaos.  

What If Mission Came Home

Last Sunday evening I attended the commissioning of some friends who are preparing to serve in overseas mission. It was inspiring to here them speak with passion and honesty about their desire & intention to serve God in South East Asia. Their challenge came as a question, “How could we simply kick back into home renovation and career building when there are so many people who have yet to hear about Jesus right on our doorstep ?”

Over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on the question, “What happens when mission comes home?”  I have been seeking to challenge the idea that mission doesn’t just belong with the 1% of christians who leave their homes and travel to other lands where the Gospel isn’t. Mission and mission practices belong right here at home as well. Mission could be the organizing principle around which we re-orientate the whole church. Supporting missionaries in other cultures could be but one expression of our total mission vision.

I was reading back through the covenant that my wife & I made with our home church before we left for South East Asia in 2005. In that covenant we said the following,

“We identify the centrality of the missional task within our own lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. We reaffirm our desire to follow God where he leads and to be His witnesses & disciplers in those places. Through the Holy Spirit’s enabling we will seek to creatively evoke and to nurture the Gospel as a powerful & vital alternative to the dominant culture in which we will live. We renew our commitment to open our lives to otherness & difference so that we may authentically connect & participate in the lives of others”.

As a consequence of this statement we committed ourselves to a number of concrete practices. Firstly we committed ourselves to weakness that deliberately sort the role of a learner & a lifestyle of simplicity. Next we committed to listening & sensitivity that sort discernment from the Spirit of God, fluency in language learning & nonjudgmental insight into the cultural practices of the people with whom we will work. We committed ourselves to hospitality that sort to create nurturing & safe spaces where storytelling, discipling & worshipping communities could thrive. Next we committed to advocacy biased on behalf of poor and marginalised people that sort their participation in processes of reversal, empowerment, transformation, healing & reconciliation – so they could experience the presence of the Kingdom of God among them. Finally we committed ourselves to excellence in our professional roles.

As I read back through this list of concrete missional practices I find myself asking the question, “If we were prepared to commit ourselves to these things over there then why can’t we commit ourselves to those same practices back here in Australia ?”

I Desire Mercy Not Sacrifice

Mission as an organising principle… I was listening to Michael Frost talk about this in the last couple of days. He was saying he has a fear of mission becoming a style thing, of it being domesticated when it should be dangerous and costly and totally reorientating. His is a vision of mission as a never-ending, surging fighting movement.  It’s interesting… Jesus says to some rabbis who are critical of his eating with social outcasts, “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy not sacrifice”. What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?

When mission is the organising principal discipleship is key. The goal is one of maturing to the point of knowing what to do to personally grow and doing it. Disciples are even deliberately pursuing accountable relationships with people further along in the journey.

This is the vision of a church who breaks out of its building and seeps into the cracks and crevices of it’s surrounding community. It is always listening, sometimes participating in the conversations of the community, even starting some of those conversations. In mostly quiet, unassuming ways, whenever it encounters pain and violence and oppression, it offers solidarity and hope and healing.

It is the vision of a church whose edges are permeable, where sensitivity & awareness reaches out from its very middle, to the ends of the earth. 

It is the vision of a church that is deliberately creating spaces for people and experiences beyond itself, allowing them to get close. This affects disciples in costly ways – including the use of their time and financial resources, even relationships. It is a church that engages in ministry enterprises and experiments that are provisional, home grown and have every possibility of failure.

What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?

The Problem Of Air Gaps

I remember sitting listening to Charles Kraft in a week long intensive one time. He was intense, he was captivating, even better than his books. I remember him saying that meanings don’t exist within words or within  cultures or even within symbols & objects – meanings exist within people. Every saying is an act of translation – a struggle to get something that dwells within ourselves out and over the void towards another. Every act of understanding is a receiving, a decoding… a translation. The wonder of communication is that it even happens at all. It is a miracle.

I remember hearing lots of words that week but those words stuck. I must have been ready for them.

Holy Bedlam

Luke 4 describes Jesus spending time in the desert, out in a place where people and civilisation were absent.

Out in the desert under the blazing sun, Jesus is distilled & concentrated so that all that’s left is a focused and very determined Son of God who finds the heart of what his mission will be.

Scriptures says that Jesus returns from the desert filled with the Spirit of God, and the very next Sabbath he stands up in his hometown Synagogue and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

What is Jesus saying here ?

Jesus is boldly declaring what is called the Great Reversal. Essentially Jesus is saying that the Spirit of Almighty God is leading him to engage in concrete actions that will fundamentally reverse the status quo.

In other parts of the Gospels this movement to reverse the vast litany of injustice in the world is called the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God refers to a future time when all peoples will be united in all their diversity in a kingdom of justice and righteousness and mercy. There will be peace and equal prosperity and even harmony among men and women. Essentially the Kingdom of God is a future time when the reign of God will be universally recognized and established among people.

The message of Jesus was that this future is has made its beginning. It is breaking into the world right now in the person of Jesus.

What impresses me about Jesus is that he walks out from the Synagogue, through the middle of a murderous crowd & does exactly what he says he will do. And as he wanders about teaching his gentle message of freedom and justice and reconciliation, while he is healing people and working miracles – Jesus attracts a vast following of people from all walks of life. At the same time Jesus deeply offends other people… people of power and influence, people whose position is best maintained by keeping things exactly as they are.

Now the outcome of Jesus pursuing his mission was that the religious establishment conspired to killed him. And the outcome of that conspiracy ended with Jesus being killed off on the Cross.

What makes this Great Reversal so potent is that 3 days later Jesus began appearing again to his closest followers.

And you know what, Jesus’ message didn’t change after he was resurrected. Instead of saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…”, Jesus tells his followers, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon you because he has anointed you to bring good news to the poor. He has sent you to proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

“Go on, go and share this teaching with all people. Go make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”.

By the time the Apostle Paul begins writing to the early Christian communities, this broad sweep of Jesus’ teaching has been distilled and concentrated again into a potent confession that propels would be disciples on their way. It says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord & believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.”

Here we have it… People who follow after Jesus, people who say Jesus is the main thing are people who deeply, truly, profoundly believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. As a result they begin to re-orientating their lives around the teachings of Jesus. They become participators in the Great Reversal. They seek to embody God’s justice and mercy and goodness. They group their lives together and they become God’s alternative community and the Risen Jesus is their ‘living middle’.

When people associate their lives together, when this Risen Jesus becomes the living middle, then it is possible for community to arise among them and the Kingdom of God spreads like a wildfire !

Moving Towards Others

At its core, mission is all about moving away from the familiar, the safe & the predictable. It is about resisting the strong drive to remain where we are. Mission expresses itself concretely as moving towards people and places that are different. Effective mission always involves taking on the role of a learner. It requires acquiring new ways of speaking and doing, so one can thrive in that other place. The aim is to interact & communicate meaningfully with the people we are moving towards, out of the very fabric of everyday life – for the sake of the Gospel. Within this dynamic of moving away from ourselves & towards others, the Kingdom of God spreads like wildfire.

On the two occasions where I have been immersed in living in another culture – I have to admit to it not being an easy place to choose to stay. In both of those places I have been mostly weak and awkward, often overwhelmed and stammering, sometimes even exhausted by the experience.

You might think that in such a place, one’s sense of identity could be in danger of being scattered or even lost. Yet I have found the opposite to be true. Immersing myself and embracing other people and their cultures, has put me profoundly in touch with the person God has shaped me to be. How much more difficult it is to become conscious of your shape and your purpose in the world, when you remain at home.

It is this persistence, this movement towards the not-yet-known stranger that shapes us & concentrates our presence in the world as disciples of Jesus. Think of it like God’s calling of Abraham. He says, “Go from your country… and your Father’s house to the land that I will show you… I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing… In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  

So Abraham goes. He begins a journey and most of the time he is so barely faithful. God promises he will make a nation out of Abraham’s decedents but his son isn’t even born until Abraham is a very… old… man. Yet from such a fragile beginning, a story that twists & turns with every possibility of failure, becomes the revelation of God himself – the gospel that is good news for all the families of the earth.   

Breaking Open the Circle

I remember back in November, 2006. It was the evening of the first night of Idul Fitri – an all night of muslim prayer marking the end of the fasting month. I was standing on the roof of my house – immersed in the anonymity of the night. Here & there the mere suggestion of shapes & surfaces marked my particular place in the world but my hearing was telling me otherwise. I was immersed in a uniquely bounded moment of a tremendous speech act, a multitudinous calling of the name of Allah from mosques in all directions. From the front, now behind, to the side, the other side… came an unbroken multi-vocal charge of different utterances converging, rising to crescendo then falling again… a creative gaggle of voices congregating around the speaking of the name of God.

However, there is another kind of speech act. It is the unending calling forth of my name by God. It’s like God’s calling of Abram. He says, “Go from your country… and your Father’s house to the land that I will show you… I will bless you…  so that you will be a blessing.”  

Such a calling is a creative utterance. It is a never-ending self-involving unbounded moment. It calls us out from the anonymity of the night & into a world of light and encounter with particular other people. It calls us to become familiar with the sounds of their voices, engaging in their specific situation, immersing ourselves in their unique stories.


To be involved in a conversation with strangers, begins in speaking words with little meaning. The sounds are mostly harsh and unfamiliar. It is hard to remain in that place, like the smoke of burning leaves barbing my eyes or the pungent smell of rotting garbage taunting my nostrils. To remain in the creative gaggle of a continuing conversation with unfamiliar people, day after day, in situation after different situation, etches out a new space of shared meaning. Me and them eventually becomes us – a shared story. This is mission and it applies as much up close as it does far away.

I am shaped & held by the words and the stories of particular other people. That’s why God says, “Go from your country…”. The stretch of it, the leaving of myself behind, builds & intensifies my presence in the world & my relation to the One who calls me forth.

Living Middle…

Martin Buber says when people associate their lives together, when they gather around a living middle then community can arise mong them.

If we stubbornly chose to live our lives in close proximity to other people that means there will be times when they see us weak and vulnerable, times when they experience flashes, even prolonged periods of our darker shadow side, the side we like to hide.  As night follows day, there will be times when we mess up and make mistakes.

Life lived in the presence of others, if it is to be life that is lived truly will be glorious sometimes, yet often it will be inglorious even tedious. Sometimes it will be energising & synergistic, often it will be painful – even self-defeating. Sometimes there will be intense joy yet at other times there will be boredom- even sadness.

Yet here’s the thing. When a group of people make Jesus their rabbi, when Jesus becomes the living middle, then all that chaotic mix and clash of egos and different hard-edges opinions begins to become plastic and malleable and refined in the fires of love. What makes community possible is that they fail and they fail and they fail… The value of that failure is that they are failing forwards and they are doing it together.

And when people who associate their lives together don’t fail, they are magnificent in the quality of community that arises among them.  Together what they can achieve is just so much more ! They participate in the Great Reversal and they change the world. They are truly God’s alternative community who are establishing God’s Kingdom on Earth.

Pure Oxygen

Recently, a friend of mine asked the question, “If you were going to use a passage from Scripture to describe the kind of community you think God would like us to be, what passage would you choose?”

I had to think for a bit but the longer I did, the more I liked the Exodus image of being a pilgrim people in the wilderness. Lawrence Kushner says the wilderness is a place that demands being open to the flow of life around you. It’s a place “that demands being honest with yourself, without regard to the cost in personal anxiety… a place that demands being present with all yourself… possessions cannot surround you… preconceptions cannot protect you… guilt can no longer place you safely in the past”.

There is a sense of weakness and vulnerability, of depending upon God alone that goes with this image. It’s an idea of community that says if we don’t work this out together we are going to die here. This basic survival orientation focuses attention outwards, demanding openness to newness & difference. It is a picture of a community of people who are working out their relationship with God ‘on the way’.

Mars Hill is a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan – who have chosen to locate their story in the deep channel of the Exodus story. This grand narrative of Scripture lends movement, intention & focus to their community. It is the idea of having a deep story that they can keep checking in with to make sure their unfolding communal story is located in a place where God alone is the living center.

Kushner says of dwelling in the wilderness, “That such a way of being would be like breathing pure oxygen.” That we would long to breathe air of such intensity & purity in the Church. Amen, amen & amen again. 

Deep Channel

The Cross of Jesus underlines, it says very plainly in the brokenness of the body of Jesus, that there is no place of god-forsakenness, that there is no place where God doesn’t suffer with us, no place where He isn’t profoundly present. 

God takes the selfish and sinful actions of men and women and their debilitating effects on others very seriously. The reason is whenever compassion & sensitivity to the Spirit of God are extinguished by human selfishness, wherever justice and mercy drown in the deep arrogance of people, the Kingdom of God is diminished. The death of Jesus on the cross reveals the overwhelming violence of men but it also speaks of the One Man, the Son of Man, the Messiah Jesus, enduring suffering and death. As a result he saves the cheerleader, he saves the world. 

The good news is that while the evil & selfish ways of too many people often overwhelm the Kingdom of God, they never extinguish it. At the point of god-forsakenness, God is most wonderfully present. All it takes is for one righteousness man who is willing to follow God where he leads and this action of the one unleashes the redeeming action for the many.

Think of Noah, think of Abraham, think of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Elijah, Nehemiah, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah and then think of Jesus. This is one deep channel of men and women in the Scriptures being sensitive, responsive and obedient to the Spirit of God. Each time God uses them, they unleash the flood gates of his Kingdom into the world. And the result is always… exponentially… so much more. 

Psalm 22: a subtext to “My God, my God why have you forsaken me ?”

When fear threatens to push us over the verge, when we are overwhelmed by weakness – sometimes we engage in self-talk. Self-talk may seem like the first sign of madness but actually it is profoundly life affirming – a response of hope. This is what we see as the pattern in Psalm 22.  Imagine Jesus on the cross crying out in pain, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me ?”

And then a voice comes back to him reassuring, “Yet you oh God, are holy… in you our ancestors trusted; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and they were saved.”

Picture Jesus being mocked and spat upon, his clothes being squabbled over as though he is already dead.  And out of the darkness a voice gently whispers, “Commit your cause to the Lord… let him rescue the one in whom he delights…”

Now imagine Jesus overwhelmed with fatigue, hardly able to breath. His tongue is sticking to the inside of his mouth, like a dried up piece of pottery.

And these words come back forthrightly, defiantly like a soothing balm, “But you oh Lord, come quickly to my aide. Deliver my soul… save my life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion”.

Now remember Jesus was a good Jew. From the age of fifteen onwards he would have been able to recite all the words of the Torah by heart. Imagine a chorus of voices proclaiming the mighty anthem, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and return to the Lord: and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.”

The words of Psalm 22 take us into the interior world of Jesus. Most importantly, they fill his cry of dereliction and abandonment, with the intimate presence of the Father.

Judas Kiss…

“…And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle…” (Acts 1:18)

Ernest Hemingway says, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” What an amazing statement. What an ennobling and heroic observation of the persistence of the human spirit. And yet I have a question  for Mr Hemingway ? He speaks of the many but what about the others ? What about the others who die despairing and broken ? Broken at the broken places… What about all those who fall headlong – bursting open in the middle so that all their bowels come gushing out ?

Judas the disciple of Jesus was one of those. Why is the silence surrounding him so deafening ?  It make me wonder…

Judas must have had great potential. He was chosen from among many, to be an apostle no less. He must have been trusted and methodical because he was the keeper of the common purse. Judas must have been a consistent man, steadfast and unbending.  Why ? Because Jesus fully knew his dark & terrible purpose.

Judas the apostle. Judas the visionary, Judas the impatient man of action. Judas – the man who kissed life passionately with his mouth wide open.  Judas who kissed my Lord and betrayed into the hands of his enemies.

I want to ask… Why Judas ? Why ?

What was it that drove you to despair & quiet desperation ? What blocked all your sense of a bright future and left you curled up in the corner in fear ? Judas, what caused you to fall headlong – bursting open in the middle so that all your bowels came gushing out ?

I had a friend called Matt. He was a quiet and thoughtful man of great potential. He was a deep thinker, strong and unbending when he set his mind to it. On March 10, 1998, Matt died in his car – he took his own life in quiet desperation, silently despairing  - bursting open in the middle and all alone ! He was only twenty years old.

And I am still left wondering… Why Matthew, why ? I still miss him !

Baraka…

I remember some of the conversations I used to have with colleagues when I lived overseas. Sometimes they would speak long & passionately about their desire for seeing the Gospel spread like wildfire among Muslim peoples. These were people with Big vision who were focused on engaging in activities that would release church planting movements. Often the image that would be evoked in my mind was of the good news being some kind of unstoppable tsunami. I am uncomfortable with that image.

Rick Love says he doesn’t like the term ‘mission’ because too often it misrepresents the peaceable way of Jesus. He suggests that rather than conquering the world for Jesus, the presence of the gospel among a community of people is one of blessing and transformation. He says the pattern of God’s intention for people is imprinted in God’s first conversation with Abraham, “Leave your country, your people & your father’s household & go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation & I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those you bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people’s on earth will be blessed through you “ (Gen 12:1-3). In the New Testament the Apostle Paul makes the direct connection between Abraham, blessing & the gospel, “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you” (Gal 3:8).

The presence of the gospel among people is like a little yeast in the dough. It is subversive & revolutionary bringing fundamental change but its arrival is often subtle & below the radar… mostly birthed in weakness. It is also like a radiating tiger balm bringing healing and reconciliation, justice and generosity …deeply satisfying and purposeful living.

The presence of the gospel is creative and industrious movement among communities of people responding to the blessing of the Kingdom of God.

 Rick Love says, “So no more talk of conquering… those who follow Jesus are commissioned to bless”.

Out on West St…

Moving against the flow…

I have a confession to make… I was out driving on West St the other morning, when all of a sudden I was breaking 3 fairly major driving rules… Firstly, thou shalt not drive on the other side road… Secondly, thou shalt not turn without using thy indicator and thirdly, thou shalt not stop in path of oncoming traffic…

You see, the reason for my erratic driving behaviour was a toddler – no more than 3 years old – running toward me on the opposite side of the road with no parent in sight.

Instinctively, without hesitation – I was in the middle of committing some fairly major traffic offences in my attempt to shield the child from the oncoming traffic. And then the mother appeared, she was racing from her SUV parked in a nearby driveway, she was literally running out of her high heel shoes, shouting out in her attempt to stop her young son…

Ok let’s freeze the action for a moment… I would like you to think this was a simple ‘hero helps fair damsel in distress’ story but unfortunately life is never quite so neat.

No, eventually the parent who comes running towards me is not a woman running out of her high heels but instead he is an Islander man – with no shoes, his hair in dreads.

As I go to get out of my vehicle – that’s stopped like a patrol car on the wrong side of the road – I call after him, “Can I help you ?” and he answers “No, it’s Ok !” and within seconds he has scooped up his son into his arms and they are off the road.

I am not the hero of this story and as I began driving on the right side of the road again I heard a short sharp smack and a little boy crying…

Sometimes we have no choice but to go against the flow… 

Actual Attachment…

I don’t think the quality of our attachment to Jesus today is merely metaphorical. Discipleship still translates into actual attachment.

It is our intentional connectedness to an actual circle or community of other disciples who are focused on Jesus. As we open ourselves up & share the very fabric of our lives together, these people become the concrete face of Jesus – they are Jesus within, between and among us.

Our actual concrete connection to Jesus also translates into the intimate connectedness we have with Scripture and the solidarity & help we offer to the stranger, the alien and even our enemies. 

Adhesion…

It was generally customary for a disciple in Jesus’ day to study under the same Rabbi for years. They would develop a deep bond – a relationship of great love and respect. Adin Steinsaltz says that the relationship between a rabbi and his disciple was generally held in ancient times to be more important than that between a father and his son.

The Mishnah even says,“When one is searching for the lost property both of his father and of his rabbi, his rabbi’s loss comes before his father. His father brought him into the life of this world, however his rabbi, who taught him the way of wisdom – of the Torah, has brought him into the life of the world to come”.

So against this background Jesus’ rather startling words in Luke’s gospel begin to make sense… “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

Jesus is making it crystal clear that the attachment between a rabbi and his disciples comes first.