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.

Imitatio Dei

Mission as the Imitatio Dei… it is the imprint of God expressed in the total life of a person. It infuses life so that every act, every word, every gesture lends weight and intention to the Misseo Dei.

This is the idea of the whole, the One… focused into the part and the part giving focus & completion to the whole. It is the same as Jesus’ notion of abiding where he says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. While that might seem possible in the Messiah, imagine a company of disciples being called to the Apostle Paul’s standard of being of the same mind ‘that was in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 2:5). The Imitatio Dei is beginning to sound like some kind of dreamed up, idealized utopia… except for the inescapable fact that Jesus gave such focused attention to discipleship.

Jesus gave over the largest part of his ministry time to the practices of intentional concrete imitation. This is how we are to be his witnesses in the world. This is how the Imitatio Dei becomes possible. Jesus wanted it to become a reflexive action.

The question I have is, ‘Do I dare to pray that the same mind that was in Jesus Christ would also be found in me ?’

Jesus’ yolk may be lighter but his words pierce bone and sinew… all the way down to the heart.  Can I bear to have the mind of Christ, “who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as the main thing. Instead he emptied himself, to the point of taking on the very image of a slave. Jesus was born in human likeness & embraced the frailty of his humanity with his arms wide open. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” ?

Jesus held this Imatatio Dei in exquisite tension within himself and as disciples we are similarly called into the same dissonance, always uneasy. We are like midwives, waiting patiently, expectantly, helping to birth a Kingdom that is long, long overdue. 

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…

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!

Not Cheap Grace

The Golden Rule underlines, it makes really clear that we are saved to serve. We aren’t saved to contemplate. We aren’t saved to perfect our sacred knowledge or even strum a harp. We aren’t even saved to bath serenely in the light of God’s glory…

The grace we are freely & generously given isn’t a cheap grace, it demands that we pay it on to others with equal mercy.

In Matthew 18, Jesus says life in his Kingdom is like a King who decides to chase up some outstanding debts with his workers. Now there is this one worker who comes before him who owes literally a king’s ransom in accumulated debts.

This worker is the main reason that the King has had to deal with the issue personally. And he is really annoyed. The worker no longer has any of the money, so the King quickly decides his fate. He says, “It is my judgement that you and your wife and your children, will be sold off, along with all your possessions into slavery. Let this be a warning of the consequences of making a fool of the King”.

And in that moment of judgement, the worker falls on his face and he pleads, “Have patience with me, my Lord and I will pay you everything”.

The King listens and the King softens. And out of pity for the worker, he releases the man and forgives him of the debt.

If that was unexpected, Jesus has an ironic twist to the story that’s explosive…

As the forgiven worker is leaving the King’s palace, he encounters another worker who owes him a day’s wages. Seizing the man by the throat, the forgiven worker demands, “Pay me what you owe me !”

The other worker falls on his face and he says, “Have patience with me and I will pay you everything”.

But the forgiven worker refuses and in his anger, throws the man into prison until he can pay the debt.  

Now as news spreads of what had happened, overwhelmed by the hypocrisy – some of the other workers go off and tell the King of all they have seen and heard.

The King is enraged. He summons the forgiven worker back into his presence. He says, “You wicked man. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Why didn’t you show the same mercy to that one who owed you money ?” And the King handed the man over to be punished and imprisoned until he had paid off his entire debt.

I find this parable confronting in the same way that the Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount tends to throw me off balance. Jesus is very clear here. If the Golden Rule doesn’t find a rich and deep expression in your living, then you won’t find your place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

That’s ouch !!! That’s a hard teaching to hear !!

Living Life BIG !

The Sermon on the Mount… I’ve been turning it over again and again and it has been tough reading. I’ve been trying to get a sense of why these words are so exacting.

Then I was reading a story in the newspaper last Saturday and things started to become a whole lot clearer.

In April 1979, under the cover of darkness, Samir Kuntar, along with three other men travelled by rubber dingy, from Lebanon – 5kms into Israeli territory. They came ashore onto the beach at the town of Narhariya. Keep in mind, Samir Kuntar was only 16 yrs old at the time.

It was close to midnight. At random the four – who were members of the Palestinian Liberation Front – chose an apartment block where a young Smadar Haran lived with her husband & two young children.

Amid gunfire & exploding grenades, Kuntar and his accomplices stormed the flat and seized Mrs Haran’s husband, Danny and their four year old daughter. Kuntar forced them down to the beach, where he shot Danny and threw his body into the ocean. The little girl – Einat was forced to watch her father’s die. Then with the butt of his rifle, Kuntar smashed little Einat’s head against a rock until she too was dead.

Back in their apartment, Smadar Haran was hiding in the attic, with a neighbour – cradling her 2 yr old daughter, Yael. Fearing her other daughter’s cries would alert the terrorists, she covered Yael’s mouth with her hand. She accidently suffocated her own child. By night’s end, Smadar Haran’s entire family was dead.

Overwhelmed by the immense tragedy, Smadar Haran faced two choices – to live or to die. Smadar chose life. She trained as a social worker, she remarried a psychologist and today has she two teenage girls.

For the past thirty years the terrorist Samir Kuntar has been a prisoner in an Israeli jail. This last week the Israeli cabinet decided to release Samir Kuntar in exchange for two Israeli soldiers who were taken prisoner two years ago in Lebanon & who are probably dead.

As much as Smadar Haran wanted to escape the ties that bound her to Samir Kuntar, she could not. Now there is an extraordinary twist to the story. The family of one of the abducted Israeli soldiers – Ehud Goldwasser – lives around the corner from her in Narhariya. The two families are close family friends and Smadar Haran even attended the abducted soldier’s wedding.

This last weekm the Israeli cabinet wanted to know how Smadar Haran would feel if Samir Kuntar was released from prison, in exchange for Ehud Goldwasser.

Smadar Haran took a while to answer…

Finally she said, “It’s so delicate and I can’t close my eyes to other people’s pain and I can’t close my heart… Sometimes the best interests might not be my interests, maybe.”

This last week she wrote to the Israeli cabinet freeing it’s members from any guilt they may feel, “Kuntar is not and never was my own private prisoner”.

 “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.”

The teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount seems so demanding because most of us live life within a fairly narrow bandwidth… comfortably, safely ! We are careful with our relationships, associating mostly with people like ourselves.

Yet when I look at the gut wrenching, shattering life experience of Smadar Haran, whose family is murdered and who in fear and terror, suffocates her only other child, a watered down, less demanding version of the Sermon on the Mount just doesn’t cut it.

Jesus says don’t let anger be your response to the world because anger distorts your judgement, anger gives way to bitterness and shuts us down emotionally, even to the ones we love. Jesus says don’t strike back in revenge but give and forgive those who wrong you because revenge hardens hearts and sets up cycles of violence that take on a life of their own. Jesus says love your enemies because love even allows a poor widow to powerfully protest and transcend institutional evil and the selfish, conflicted ways of men.  

The Sermon on the Mount. These words of Jesus are life, abundant, generous & open. They create the space for us to live life BIG, even when the storms of life come.

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.”