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…

Paying Attention

“There are times when I feel transparent – almost invisible. It is a fragile state in which I am diminishing. I have this feeling of being stretched so thin, of being insipid, diluted – a lite version of me. It is like speaking in a crowd and the conversation continues right through me – no one hearing. It is like being one of the weathered, nameless ones, appearing at my car window begging & when sated, blending right back into the shadowlands. Where did she go ?”

“The transparency of God… Abraham Heschel says that life passes on in close proximity to the sacred, “You are not alone, you live constantly in holy neighborhood: remember: ‘Love thy neighbor – God – as thyself.’” The accessibility of God, God drawing near – holiness moving in next door”.

“The discipline of transparency is positional. It implies sensitivity to place & openness to otherness in close proximity. It has that sense of vibrating in tune, of being immersed, enveloped and eventually becoming at ease and purposeful there. It is relationally significant yet non-threatening – reflective yet non-judgmental”.

“Transparency has that sense of being pores & permeable – of light passing through the thing uninterrupted. Relationally it risks greater vulnerability and exposure of self”.

“Transparency pragmatically embraces truth; not so much truth – universal & immutable but truth – local and dynamic. It is at ease with a reality that is pitted, asymmetrical & irregular. I think transparency is a choice – I choose to be present, I choose to be open, I choose to immerse myself & to allow myself to be penetrated & shaped by this place !”

“As for those others dwelling out on the margins – disempowered and vulnerable - the anonymity of transparency is a discipline of necessity & survival”.

I remember when I penned these words I had been living in South East Asia just a few short months. Almost daily I was being overloaded with exotic and unfamiliar experiences in my new home. As I looked about me I saw people who were marginal and poor using transparency as a survival strategy. I was fascinated by it.

At the same time I encountered the idea in the writing of Thorleif Boman. He was suggesting the idea of ‘transparency’ as a theological expression that more accurately captures the way God’s presence and activity is revealed in the world. I was also in the process of reflecting on Jacques Derrida’s usage of the Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac and the Tower of Babel as metaphors in his philosophical wonderings. Abraham struck me as a person who understood this idea of ‘transparency’ as he wandered about as an alien in the world.

I think it is time to revisit this practice of transparency ! I suspected it was a missional practice in South East Asia. It is time to see if it has currency back at home.

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.

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.

Edge of Chaos

In the last 100 years science has shifted from a more structured view of the universe to one filled with chaos. It seems the universe is constantly forming & unforming, generating & expending tremendous amounts of energy creating and destroying the stars. According to chaos theory the universe is filled with the almost infinite possibility of the next unpredictable moment.

Today, the biological sciences are hotly debating that nature is at it’s innovative best near the edge of chaos. When a natural system fails to position itself in this in-between place it becomes static, out of balance, unhealthy. Eventually it dies. However moving to the edge of chaos creates fluid movement – even upheaval – where both order and disorder are present. Nature itself is suggesting the edge of chaos is the sweet spot for productive change. It seems that chaos is woven into the very fabric of life and the universe.

The Scriptures are filled with a similar notion of the edge of chaos. Alan Hirsch says, “the theologically most fertile parts of the Scriptures are all, yes all, set in the context of the people of God facing significant danger & chaos…”.  Whether it is Abraham being called to leave home and journey to a new land or the harrowing experiences of the Exodus and the Exile, whether it is David’s adventures in becoming king or Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels or even just the book of Acts… none of these describe stable situations. They are dynamic, even life threatening and chaos is ever present. 

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.