Soul Thoughts

Faith and relevance in the 21st century

Category: Jesus (Page 10 of 12)

A Life Uncommon

January 23, 2011 / / 0 Comments

‘Fill your lives with love and bravery and you will lead a life uncommon’ – ‘Life Uncommon’ – Jewel

The life Jesus lived was a life uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that no one has been able to lead a life like it before or since. It is a life which gives us the ultimate guide on how to live in a godly manner. And now we have the Spirit to give us power – the power to do what is right. That is why Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth (John 16:13).

When we live this life, a life lived in total devotion and commitment to Jesus, we too live a life uncommon. Romans 12:2 says to not be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. It is a life lived against the grain, a life of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and cultural norms.

Martin Luther King talked about this when he spoke of living the life of a transformed nonconformist in his magnificent Strength to Love. Most of us don’t live this life, preferring instead to live a life of maximum comfort. As we think of people like King, Gandhi and JFK – the latter having told his countrymen fifty years ago this week to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country – we remember that such people inspire us, but how many of us would actually go as far as to take that life seriously and actually live it?

When Jesus talked about coming to give us abundant life (John 10:10), he was not referring to simply enjoying the life we live here and now (although life certainly is to be enjoyed). He was talking about living a life of following Him, which starts by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The life uncommon that we then lead, the counter-cultural life, the life of swimming against the tide, is the only life worth living.

Christmas reflection 2010

December 12, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Singer Jackson Browne – who does not profess a Christian faith – laments the mad consumerism that overtakes us even more at Christmas than it normally does. In his song, The Rebel Jesus, Browne says the following:

Well we guard our world with locks and guns

And we guard our fine possessions

And once a year when Christmas comes

We give to our relations

And perhaps we give a little to the poor

If the generosity should seize us

But if any one of us should interfere

In the business of why there are poor

They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Jackson Browne sympathises with the treatment Jesus gets for raising awkward questions – the questions no one wants to hear, the issues that no one wants to face. Julian Assange would also sympathise with both Browne and Jesus right now. But most of us would rather have it easy. It is the troublemakers who raise these questions, and the easiest way to deal with our insecurity of not knowing how to handle them is to shut them up. We do it with our children too when they constantly pester us with that eternal question, “why?”

Jesus knew the same ridicule, from the beginning of his ministry when he was almost thrown off a cliff for his provocative comments to the religious leaders (Lk 4:29), through to his murder at the hands of the authorities. Even when he was unaware of it, Jesus knew criticism and rejection. With no room at the inn for his parents, the Son of God himself was forced to be born out the back of a pub amongst the smell and grime of farm animals.

Christmas is not a nice story. It has nothing to do with the nativity scenes we see on our Christmas cards or in most of the Christmas paraphernalia in Christian bookstores. Richard Rohr explains it well in the following piece from his Preparing for Christmas series:

Jesus identified his own message with what he called the coming of the “reign of God” or the “kingdom of God,” whereas we have often settled for the sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter, mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus.

This is what I am inviting you to this Advent. But be forewarned: the Word of God confronts, converts, and consoles us—in that order. The suffering, injustice and devastation on this planet are too great now to settle for any infantile gospel or any infantile Jesus. Actually, that has always been true.

What we call the Incarnation, God becoming a human being, becoming one of us, strikes directly at the heart of evil and corruption in the world. God becoming human looks evil in the eye and takes it on without flinching. As Bruce Cockburn sang it so brilliantly, it is God “kicking the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight”.

Christmas is a time of mixed emotions for many people. For some it is a wonderful time of creating happy memories with families, while for others it is a time when, as a pastor of mine says, the poor are poorer and the lonely are lonelier. Whatever it is for you this year, know that it is a time when the Creator of the Universe came running towards us with arms outstretched, as a helpless baby, vulnerable and defenceless. Know also that he lived a life of perfect love, and then died, once more with arms outstretched, to expose evil and to take our sin upon himself. But know especially that that wasn’t the end of the story. Defeated in the eyes of the world, he then defeated death itself when he rose from the grave, inaugurating the kingdom of God into history – a kingdom in which we are invited to work with him to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him on the journey.

When God Almighty walked the earth, he was known as the friend of sinners. The outcast and the poor flocked to him because he loved them as they were. People who feel like they are on the outside – people like Jackson Browne – are those he welcomes:

Now pardon me if I have seemed

To take the tone of judgement

For I’ve no wish to come between

This day and your enjoyment

In a life of hardship and of earthly toil

There’s a need for anything that frees us

So I bid you pleasure

And I bid you cheer

From a heathen and a pagan

On the side of the rebel Jesus

If you are one of these people sung about in The Rebel Jesus, or if you feel like you are on the outside, Christmas is for you.

May you have a blessed, wonderful, and meaningful Christmas. May you know his love more deeply, so you can live more meekly, and share more widely in the wonderful privilege of working with the King of Kings who became the Man of Sorrows, to bring the kingdom of love, justice and peace to this ailing planet. The Author of Life is the Giver of Life. As we give gifts to each other this Christmas, enjoy them and, as Richard Rohr would say, remember above all not the presents but the Presence!

Mary McKillop and the Australian soul

October 19, 2010 / / 1 Comment

The extraordinary media outpouring over the canonisation of Mary McKillop this week shows that there is still a deep yearning for something spiritual in the Australian psyche. 

Despite our insanely hedonistic and materialistic outlook on life in this culture, there is still something deep in the hearts of Australians that is searching for something more. Whatever we might think of the theology of having someone made a ‘saint’, the fact that it has created such an outpouring of interest is evidence that Australians are not satisfied with what we can simply see and touch. We have a longing for something more than what this life offers. There is a yearning deep in the heart of everyone – a God-shaped hole as it has been called in the past.

The irony of all of this though is shown in the fact that the marketers have been cashing in big-time on the whole show. You could buy anything from Mary McKillop t-shirts to jewelry to keyrings in the last couple of weeks. The Sunday Age even had a poster of her. As Midnight Oil sang many years ago, who can stand in the way when there’s a dollar to be made?

Another observation from the canonisation of Mary McKillop is that is refreshing to have a good news story come out of the Catholic Church. When there has been so much pain from the stories of child abuse to come out of the Church, the story of someone like Mary McKillop, who specifically stood up against the sexual abuse of children, is one to celebrate.

I also wonder if some of the appeal of the canonisation of Mary McKillop comes from the fact that there is something uniquely Australian about her standing up against authority. She was excommunicated for uncovering sexual abuse – she stood up for the underdog (including the poor), and she was a local. She was one of us, someone who we could all relate to.

The canonisation of Mary McKillop reveals much about the Australian soul. There is hope yet for Christian faith in this country. If only we could do a better job of showing Australians that Jesus would also have fit right in amongst Australian culture. He too was a rebel against authority, not just for the sake of being a rebel, but for standing up for the underdog and a fair go, to show that all are welcome in the Kingdom of God. We would do well to pray that the Australian soul will be awakened by the story of Mary McKillop.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy

September 2, 2010 / / 0 Comments

For a long time now I have been thinking of the tension in living Christianly between right belief and right action. I have been writing notes for an article over the last few years called ‘Christ or Creeds’. In the church I grew up in there was a heavy focus on believing the right things – as long as you believed that Jesus was God and that God raised him from the dead, you were a Christian. After all, that’s what it says in Romans 10:9.

As has been aid before though, we cannot ‘cherry-pick’ verses and passages and form them into doctrine on their own. The Bible needs to be read in terms of its meta-narrative, not in terms of systematic theology ie. taking themes from different passages throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Rowland Croucher makes the point that, of all the Christian creeds we have, none of them talk about love. None. They all talk about what we believe, but apparently we don’t believe in love and living that out. John Smith also pointed out many years ago that the Gospels state once that we need to be born again, but those same Gospels have Jesus saying no less than 87 times, “follow me”. Ours is an activist Gospel.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I believe in belief. I think it is highly important that we believe correctly about who Jesus is, for this informs our actions. But the evangelical church has placed too much emphasis on creeds and right belief instead of right action. And too often we have created a dualism – separating belief from action. Jesus would never have countenanced such a thing. For him there was no dualism. Relationship with God was living it out. After all, that’s what James says – faith without action is dead (James 2:26).

The Christian church (and that includes me) has for too long focused on being right rather than being loving. As I have done a bit lately, I’ll leave the last word to Richard Rohr:

Where has this obsession with believing correct dogmas and doctrines gotten us? Presently, the Roman church, and fundamentalists of all stripes, are right back into it. It creates great dramas on both sides. Maybe that is why God is humbling us at this time.  The obsession with being right and having the whole truth has not served the Gospel well at all, nor has it kept us humble and honest. 

If you go to the four Gospels and read what Jesus actually taught, you will see that He talks much more about the “How” (practices which we ourselves must do) rather than the “What” (which just allow us to argue and try to be verbally right).

From Emerging Christianity: the conference recordings

Voices for Justice – prophetic engagement with the powers

June 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

One of the workshops I attended on day 3 of VFJ 2010 was on prophetic engagement with politics and society. It was a panel discussion facilitated by Jeanette Matthews who is currently completing a PhD in Old Testament studies. The panel included Dave Andrews, Deborah Storie, and Phil Ireland. Jeanette opened the discussion by explaining that the prophets of the Old Testament were primarily spokespersons and not fortune tellers, which is pretty much the opposite of what I was told when I first became a Christian in my teens.

The prophets often performed strange symbolic acts. Ezekiel 4 is a good example of this. Generally, the prophets were into what you might call ‘shock and awe’, unlike the people in the wisdom books of the OT. The message that a prophet carries is a burden to them. But the point that really challenged me was that a prophet embraced the Word, that is, they lived out what they spoke. Some examples of prophetic actions from the OT are as follows:

  • Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 19)
  • Ezekiel (3:1-3, 4:1-3, 24:3-13)
  • Jeremiah (chapter 19)
  • Zechariah
  • Jeroboam and the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 11)
  • Isaiah (chapter 20)
  • Micah (1:8)

One of the questions Jeanette raised about this is about whether or not there is room for such prophetic action today. I have no doubt that there is, and as usual, Dave Andrews gave a wonderful example. He was once out in his home town of Brisbane when a young man had just smashed a window and vandalised a shop front. The owner came out, mad as a snake as you would expect, and demanded that the youth be dealt with severely. On hearing the fracas, others came out and also had a go at the youth. But then one man said, “I know what we should do. Why don’t we give him a hug?” What?!!! But the man persisted, and he went up and gave the youth a hug. Slowly and awkwardly, the others standing around also went up and gave him a hug. Eventually, after yet another hug, the youth dissolved into tears and blurted out in remorse about how he was so sorry and he just wanted to be noticed. It was a perfect example of prophetic action in practise. It was non-violent and saved potential further violence. It is highly likely that if the hug-fest hadn’t of happened, the youth would not have shown any remorse and would have continued his angry life of committing the same offences again. But this prophetic act of love (they weren’t condoning his vandalism remember) brought the youth to his metaphorical knees and caused a heart change that mere punishment never could. Dave then made the point that prophetic action needs to be colourful and creative, designed to engage people. Anger is to be a last resort. My first thought on hearing this was that Jesus expressed prophetic anger at times, particularly in turning over the tables in the temple. But Dave emphasised that this was one of Jesus’ last acts and it got him killed.

Following this, Phil Ireland mentioned that one of the most prophetic acts that anyone can engage in today is to participate in a church. And he emphasised the word ‘participate’. It is being active in a church, not being a pew-warmer. His point was that participating in a church community dismantles the individualist ethos so prevalent in our culture. He followed this up by saying that our primary prophetic actions need to be through the church. People in the church can also inspire each other. For instance, often it’s the little acts that nobody notices that can be the most prophetic, such as tending your garden, as it tears down the culture of consumerism and reconnects us with the earth. Dave added that the most effective acts are often the most unseen ones. The most important thing is to live the prophetic life.

One of the points that Dave made was that a distinguishing characteristic of the prophets was their sympathy with God. And in the example given by Jesus who was strong in relating to the powerful and gentle in relating to the powerless, the prophet is to do the same. Deb reiterated this in saying that prophets always treat people as human beings – as people with dignity, especially the people they are prophesying to. We need to remember what we are wanting to draw people to. Finally, Deb mentioned that we need to respect the non-Christian prophetic voice. God does not only work through Christians. God can and indeed does work through anyone he wishes.

One of the points that Deb Storie made was that not everyone is called to be prophetic, and similarly, sometimes to be prophetic is to make space for others to do the prophetic acts. Backing up Dave’s comment, she also emphasised that prophets see the world through the eyes of God. Another interesting point she mentioned was that often, people in the OT thought the prophets suffered from mental illness. It is pertinent to remember that Jesus’ own family thought the same of him. But we need to remember too, Deb reminded us, that if they do have a mental illness, then that is fine. Dave mentioned that Michael Leunig is a great example of this, as someone who has been public about his own struggles.

It is panel discussions like this that stay with me for a very long time. A colleague mentioned to me afterwards that it was dialogues like this that made her want to go back to the Bible. That of course can only be a good thing. We sing a song at our church sometimes which talks about being a prophet of hope. The term ‘prophet of doom’ has widespread use, so the term ‘prophet of hope’ sounds somewhat of an oxymoron. I think the prophets were both. They sounded warnings of judgment as well as the hope of what a future with God can be like. God help me to be a prophet of yours. Amen.

Out of the mouths of babes come the simple things

June 16, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Jesus said that we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. I went on a church camp last weekend and I was given this lesson a number of times by the little children who were there. Their sense of play and trust and sheer joy at what we ‘grown-ups’ call the simple things, was something to behold. As we were leaving, one little 4 year old girl looked around at us and said in all seriousness, “Drive safely”. It was beautiful.

Sometimes we just need to hear the simple things. Amidst all our talk about how faith relates to culture and how Jesus is relevant to a postmodern society, sometimes we just need to hear the words, “God loves you”. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, when once asked what the greatest observation he had made over his career was, simply quoted the words of the old children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. Sometimes that’s all we need to hear. And sometimes all we need is someone to be there and listen and empathise when the going gets tough for us, and then suddenly life becomes a little bit easier to deal with again. I thank God for the friends in my life, the ones who care, the ones who will call just to ask how I’m going.

In a dog-eat-dog world where we’re constantly given the message that what goes around comes around – the message of karma – Jesus offers a different way. He offers the way of grace, where we get what we don’t deserve and we don’t get what we do deserve. Among Jesus’ first words to the woman caught in adultery were “neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11); and when Peter was struck by the compassion and grace of Jesus after their amazing catch of fish, all he could think of was how this man could be so gracious to him who saw himself as such a sinner (Luke 5:1-11). But Jesus said ‘no, now you are going to catch people’.

We don’t need to get all our problems sorted out before we follow Jesus. He calls us to come on the journey just where we are. At what is commonly called the Great Commission, it says that some of them worshiped him but others doubted (Matthew 28:17). But he didn’t say to those who doubted, ‘sorry, go and get your life sorted out and then you will be qualified to go to all nations and make disciples’. No, he sent them all out anyway.

The good news of the Gospel is that you are loved. The Gospel is all about Jesus. He is the sunshine in the darkness. The more we walk with Jesus on the journey and receive his love for us, the more we find ourselves able to deal with the vagaries that life throws at us. We become more resilient and able to deal with life on life’s terms, rather than quietly demand that life treat us on our terms.

God teaches us to get up again when we fall. We are not condemned to stay down in the mud wallowing in our own self-pity. This is what repentance is all about. God’s call to repent is not a fear-based ‘change or else!’ demand that is placed upon us. It is a quiet wooing, much as a lover woos the beloved. It is a beckoning to come to where the grass is greener, to “come and see”, as the Lord told two disciples (John 1:39). Australian Christian teacher Fuzz Kitto, says that this is a ‘repenting to’ rather than a ‘repenting from’. It is seeing something better in Jesus than what we have been doing with our lives.

Jesus came for the lost, sick, world-weary people like you and me. ‘Just as I am’ – as the old hymn puts it – is the way we are to come to him. Just as I am, in all my doubt, all my shame, all my pain, and all my sense of unworthiness. We are not shoved out of the way; we are instead embraced, and though like Peter before us, we will probably at first be unable to cope with such love, yet he bids us come and follow and find the life that you have always been searching for.

The God who dies

March 27, 2010 /

‘Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued. Amazing love how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?’ – Charles Wesley, ‘And Can It Be?’, 1738

As we celebrate another Easter, I have been thinking about Jesus’ death on the cross and what it really means. The view I was always taught was that Jesus is the substitutional atonement for our sins and that he took our place and became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore God the Father turned his back on Jesus because he couldn’t look on sin. Jesus took the punishment we deserve. I have a problem with that last sentence. For a start, it is not biblical. Let me explain why.

Firstly, it goes against the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). This was God himself up on that cross. Later in the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews tells us that God will never leave us or forsake us, so it hardly follows that he would forsake his own son. This is a God who dies; this is indeed, as Juergen Moltmann has said, the crucified God. His death is the great sacrifice that God himself has made to reconcile the world to himself.

It is only God himself who could do this. This is what evokes such gratitude in me at Easter, that God himself comes down and says ‘I’ll take the hit for you’. What love! What grace for creatures as undeserving as us. This is not cosmic child abuse. This is God himself taking the abuse.

Greater love has no one than to lay down their life for their friends. And then, on the third day, he actually defeats this scourge of death and is raised from the dead. The job is done, it is over. It is indeed finished, as Jesus said on the cross. And in the resurrection we have him leading the way for the new creation, the renewal of the cosmos which he so loved (John 3:16), the coming together of heaven and earth. We look forward to the day when there will be no more tears and no more pain…and no more death. And it is all because of that first Easter 2,000 years ago.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:19-20).

Jesus said ‘I and the Father are one’ (Jn 10:30). In the mystery of the Trinity, we have a God who dies. God the Father didn’t turn his back on Jesus. God himself was on that cross, taking my sin and the sin of the whole world on his broken shoulders. Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?

Why was Jesus so secretive?

February 20, 2010 /

I’m currently studying the content and setting of the Gospels, and the first Gospel we’re looking at is Mark (mainly because it is widely acknowledged as being the earliest gospel).

One of the striking features in Mark’s Gospel is how often Jesus tells people not to spread the word of what he has done. Why does he do this? Isn’t ours a missionary faith? Weren’t the 12 told to go throughout all the world and make disciples? Indeed they were, but it was only after Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection that they were told to do this. And that is the whole point of what Mark is trying to get across. Listen to what Hurtado says:

One of [Mark’s] major points is that Jesus’ crucifixion was his key work and that all else—even the exorcisms, healings, and other miracles—was only an incomplete hint of Jesus’ true nature and meaning. This is why no one is allowed to acclaim Jesus openly as Son of God or Messiah, for any acclamation uninformed by the crucifixion is misleading and invalid. This is why, also, the people and the disciples are presented in Mark (much more than the other gospels) as bewildered and even stupid. In Mark’s view, no one could understand the true meaning of Jesus and his work until Jesus had actually completed it by his death as a ransom for others (10:45). Thus, there is a theologically profound reason for the emphasis on secrecy, mystery, and the dullness of crowds and disciples.

L. Hurtado, Mark (Hendrickson, 1989), p. 10

Jesus’ miracles (or mighty deeds) cannot be understood apart from the context of his suffering. His mighty deeds were not the main point of his ministry. There were many other wonder-workers in those days, and Jesus was emphasising that he was different, because the main point of his life was suffering and death, and then resurrection.

Jesus’ point was not that he was the Son of God because he worked these amazing deeds, but that he was the Son of God because of his suffering and death, and then his rising to life.

And that is where it relates to us. In a day when there is still much emphasis on the feel-good factor in worship, we need to hear the call of Jesus again through Mark – that “if anyone would follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”. Any worship of Jesus cannot be done apart from the context of his suffering. There is no resurrection without death.  Alan Cole says it well:

Part of the reason for Jesus’ reluctance to reveal his true identity was that he did not wish to be known as a mere wonder-worker. Perhaps this is a word of warning for us today, in the midst of times of spiritual renewal in which we all rejoice, for such times bring their own danger. Jesus saw his task rather as that of bringing the good news about God and his rule, and that is why he warned healed people not to tell of their healing. It also explains why he escaped the crowds when there was a danger of his mission becoming a mere ‘healing campaign’ and no more.

Alan Cole, ‘Mark’ in D. A. Carson et al, New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (IVP, 1994), p. 948

We live in a society where life is all about comfort and avoiding pain. But the way of Jesus is the way of the cross. Read Mark’s Gospel right through in one sitting and you will understand this. As Hurtado again says:

Mark was concerned to emphasise that the cross was not only the key work of Jesus but also the pattern of discipleship

                                                       L. Hurtado, Mark (Hendrickson, 1989), p. 11

The dumbing down of culture

February 5, 2010 /

I’ve been reading Colossians Remixed recently and I find I’m having to stop every page or two to make my own notes. This book has such profound things to say to our culture. Basically, this book looks at what Paul might say to our western culture if he were writing his letter to the Colossians today. One of the issues this great book discusses is how we are so captive to the consumerist culture we live in. Consider this quote, taken from Walter Brueggemann’s Interpretation and Obedience:

“The key pathology of our time…is the reduction of our imagination so that we are too numbed, satiated, and co-opted to do serious imaginative work.”

The authors of Colossians Remixed call this ‘disempowering us from dreaming that things might be otherwise’. Do you ever feel like you’re so busy that you don’t know what to do with all the choices you have? It’s sometimes called ‘choice anxiety’. Or as U2 put it some years ago, freedom looks like too many choices.

Our culture keeps us so busy, so wired, that we never stop to question our lives. As my Dad has said numerous times, “we’re living all wrong”, but we’re either too wound up in getting through each day to realise it, or it occasionally flickers like a dim light in the distance but then disappears again like a ship in the night. The fact is that we have fallen hook, line and sinker for the lie that more ‘stuff’ and being busier is what life is all about. And then we wake up one morning when we’re 65 and wonder where our life went.

I’ve said it before, but I find Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:26 to be some of the most timeless ever said – “what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your very self in the process?” (my paraphrase). Deep down most of us know there’s something wrong with the way we live, we know we’re not really happy with our lives, but we feel powerless to stop it or we are paralysed by indifference to it. As Brueggemann says, we are numbed, or satiated to the effect that we are sleep walking our way through life.

A life focused on self and being ‘comfortable in captivity’ (another quote from Colossians Remixed) is an anti-life. Unfortunately much of the middle-class church is just as captive to this cultural numbness as the rest of society. Keith Green, referring to the church in this way, said it was asleep in the light.

Some years ago, Tim Costello wondered if God was actively working against the church. I have wondered sometimes if Tim is right. Like a frog in boiling water, we don’t even know we’re dying.

Fortunately there is a better way, the way of the Jesus, the road less travelled, a life less ordinary, to use a few clichés. But a cliché is a cliché because it is true. Jesus offers, and actually comes through, on a peace that passes all understanding, a joy that transcends our circumstances, and a freedom to be the people we really want to be – giving to others without counting the cost and loving extravagantly because we are loved beyond measure.

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