You've got to love a good cliché. World Cup punditry is an endless stream of games of two halves, which aren’t over till they're over. Our esteemed politicians accuse each other ad nauseam of the cardinal sin of being "out of touch" and a short but potent list of other favourites. Even from the well of creative inspiration that is romance, more often than not we draw the same phrases, perhaps beginning with the astute observation that roses are often red whilst on the contrary violets are primarily blue.
But the thing is, clichés often become clichés because they are true.
They are phrases worth repeating, telling us truth worth remembering.
Clearly some are manifestly incorrect (for example "I'm sure it will be fine" tends to ring a little hollow in the wake of serious pain and loss, and "What's for you won’t pass you by" doesn’t necessarily inoculate us from the effects of failing to take the opportunities providence offers) but many are quite profound.
"Christianity isn't religion, it's a relationship".
Now there's a cliché.
But, unlike the blind determination that "what's for us" will not be missed, this particular cliché is true. And, unlike romantic assertions about flowers and colours, it is a cliché which is very much worth remembering.
A friend of mine on Sunday was (amongst other things) speaking about this distinction, and the corrosive effects that religion can have on us and our attitudes to both self and other. As often happens to me, I was struck with the realisation that God had been reminding me of that for a while (I am not blessed with the most sensitive set of spiritual ears, and like sending texts through the intermittent reception at my childhood home, it usually takes a few attempts to get through!)
"Christianity isn't religion, it's a relationship".
This is a statement that I have always adhered to wholeheartedly, usually as a pithy rebuttal to those who assume that my faith boils down to the bending of my will to comply with a set of moral and ethical precepts.
Perhaps, I confess, I have even thought of the phrase as a neat rebuke to those whose Christianity is borne more out of habit than holiness, more tradition than truth, and more law than love.
But the good Lord has been gently (but disconcertingly firmly) suggesting that I might be wrong to point the finger elsewhere whilst remaining ignorant of my three fingers returning serve (to keep with clichés).
In particular, God has been causing me to ask where my allegiances, devotions and passions lie.
Is my life devoted to Jesus, or is my life devoted to acts of service, ministry and (inhale)…religion?
Is my identity rooted in my role as a leader, an influencer, a speaker, an encourager, a [insert ministry or gifting function]…. or is my identity rooted in loving and being loved by Jesus?
If Christianity is relationship; if my true passion is Jesus; if my core identity is being loved by and loving him… then certain things need to change. Patterns of thought. Tendencies towards get-the-job-done-Martha instead of sit-at-his-feet-Mary. And of course, by sitting at his feet more, the job will actually get done better and with far more fruitfulness as a result. As Luther knew, when he said he was too busy not to spend three hours daily in prayer and worship.
Our faith is not first and foremost about holiness and right-living, about church and community, about service and ministry and saving the world. It is, first and foremost, about a relationship with Jesus.
Like any friendship, the only way to deepen relationship is to invest in it. Time to get to know Jesus again.
A couple of months back I preached a sermon which came out of what God had spoken to me very powerfully and personally about my identity. The short version is that over the past 10 years, God told me that he had, like an apple, removed my core, broken me apart, and pieced me back together around a new identity: being unconditionally loved by God.
Given that prior conversation with the Almighty, I responded to this most recent heavenly tap on my earthly shoulder with an objection, along these lines:
"Gosh...I don't mean to be rude, Jesus, but haven't we dealt with that issue… I mean I did preach a sermon on it… I'm meant to have that one sorted now…"
Clear as day came heaven's answer (I could be wrong, but with a hint of a laugh):
"Stage Two"
Perhaps, for those as dim-witted as me, some lessons need repeating.
"Christianity isn't religion, it's a relationship".
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Evidence
I have many faults. Chief amongst them, probably, is an almost irresistible desire to correct people. I may try and blame my legal training. My wife may put it more down to a deep need to be the cleverest boy in the class. Knowing my weaknesses, I am torn between the desire to dive into debate and the inclination to shy away from getting in too deep. The decision over whether to weigh in is usually made on the basis that one must choose battles carefully.
One debate that I rarely shy away from is the debate over the veracity of faith. Partly it's because I believe it is the most important debate which it is possible to have. I believe it has massive consequences for the individual and the community, and I believe each one of us is charged with the responsibility to come to a conclusion on that matter and live our lives accordingly. On the other hand, it's also because I am so overwhelmingly convinced that I struggle not to get a bit irritated by the flippancy with which people dismiss it.
One comment I often hear goes something like: when the dust settles on all our philosophical musings, there is actually no evidence for the existence of God or the veracity of the Christian faith. That bothers me. Because it is a patently false statement.
Atheist friends, you are free to disbelieve the evidence or to reach different conclusions on the evidence (though I think it unwise to do so). What you cannot with intellectual integrity say is 'there is no evidence'. There is. And as a former prosecutor I have seen people convicted on less.
Many have written compellingly on the topic - for reference see for a start the works of Oxford Don John Lennox, US Journalist Lee Strobel (an easier, though as a result slightly shallower read), the life of world record-holding lawyer Lionel Luckhoo, Tim Keller's 'The Reason for God' or the gloriously engaging CS Lewis. Interestingly, a number of those authors were atheists who 'accidentally' converted after attempting to rationalise the evidence for God. As CS Lewis said of his own journey: "a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side".
I thought I'd add a further voice, in the hope that it persuades someone somewhere that there is a rational, intelligible basis for Christian faith. You may not be convinced by Christianity, but it is pure fallacy to go that step further and say that there is no basis on which any reasonable person could be.
In this brief note I can't consider all of the numerous evidential stones on which the case could be built. But, as a courtroom lawyer, the evidence that interests me most is that of witnesses.
As I write, it is Sunday and over 1 billion people worldwide are at church (I, for my sins, am in bed tapping on an iPad... read into that what you will!). In history many millions more are recorded. Many of these people testify to genuinely life changing experiences of direct interaction with a force or being they call God. Stories of healed bodies, defeated addictions, renewed minds, softened hearts, repaired marriages, inspired visions, guided steps and comforted souls. That is evidence. One could attempt to discredit each and every one of these pieces of evidence as placebo, coincidence, hallucination or just plain lies. Yet would it not be unwise to do so without first examining at least some of them?
What of the credibility of these witnesses? Well, many each year are killed for refusing to denounce what they have found to be true. I accept people will die for an idea that is false, or at least unworthy, if they are convinced enough - modern day terrorism teaches as much. But Christian martyrs aren't terrorists. They don't seek out death, and don't seek out the destruction of others. Rather, when persecution seeks them out, they accept it, refusing to concede that Jesus is the hope of the world. That kind of devotion to a story makes a story worth examining.
Fine, you say. All that proves is that some people die for what they believe. If they believe a lie, then they are to be pitied and not praised. After all, they believe what they believe because of what was written generations ago. (I would deny that this is the only reason for their faith, citing the examples of direct experience of a God as listed above. But for the sake of argument, I continue.)
We then need to consider the motives, the credibility and reliability of the original sources. The disciples. The men who wrote down the stories we read today. Histories. Those histories tell stories of miracles, of resurrection from the dead, and of a man in Palestine who claimed to be God, predicted his death and resurrection, and then came good on his prediction. They tell stories of a man, who whilst making these lofty claims about himself, spent his time serving the lowest in society, healing the broken, accepting the rejected and loving the hated. Someone a few weeks ago tried to pin me down to saying that the bible isn't evidence of its own truth. I'm afraid I had to disagree. In the gospels, you have four eyewitness testimonies passed down through the ages of what did and did not happen. You may attempt to discredit them by allegations of collusion or dishonesty. You may dispute their authorship and challenge their authenticity. Much has been written on those subjects. In my view they withstand scrutiny. We can debate that, and the evidence may not convince you, but that does not stop it being evidence.
I digress, however, because we were discussing the witnesses themselves. I was once in a cathedral in Bruges. Statues surrounded the interior, showing men holding various items. On closer inspection it was the disciples, each of them holding the method by which he was executed. These men were murdered for refusing to recant their eyewitness testimony as to the living, breathing, eating, talking body of the risen Christ. Men may die for a lie they believe to be true, we have certainly established that. But would a man die for something he knew to be a lie? I may not have been an eyewitness to the resurrection, but I know human nature. When it comes to vats of oil, saws, swords and crosses, I'll say whatever you want me to say. Unless. Unless I have seen something so remarkable, and experienced something so deeply transformative, that the prospect of death pales into insignificance. The disciples refused, in the face of unspeakable torture, the threat of death, and then death itself, to say he didn't rise. That makes them extremely compelling witnesses.
The circumstantial evidence surrounding the birth of the church is also telling. In Paul's writings he referred to the witnesses to the resurrection, 'many of whom are still alive'. He wrote to people who could, if they wished, go and challenge these so called witnesses and see if it was true. When the church started preaching 'He's alive' it would have been terribly easy for the authorities to quash this sect by wheeling out the body - 'No he ain't'. But they didn't. They couldn't. There was no body. They could have paid off one of the hundreds who claimed to have seen Jesus alive, and got him to expose the whole scam. They didn't. They couldn't. Why? A lack of will? It would have more than suited both Caesar and the Synagogue Leaders to squash this unholy rabble. But they couldn't.
History records that the church didn't burst into the scenes because of new ideas and great philosophy. It wasn't an advertising campaign, money, or war. It was that they preached that a man who was dead was now alive. They preached it with power - not the charismatic power of an orator (Paul was known to send people to sleep when he preached) but with the power of God (Paul, after said sleeping listener fell to his serious injury or death, prayed for him and he was healed!) and people were convinced.
It is terribly tempting to try and win an argument by belittling your opponent, setting up a straw man of a position and blowing it down. But what I have set out above is testimony. Witnesses, living and dead, of a moving, breathing, active God. You can tell a witness he is lying, but you can't tell him he doesn't exist. Even I didn't try that one in court.
There is more to this fascinating topic. The more philosophical arguments to be made from the universal experience of moral consciousness (we all have a moral law which we all have broken and therefore we all experience guilt), the natural presumption of God (deities are found in every single culture, tending to suggest that we are wired to relate to the supernatural, and built to assume that God (or a god) is there), or the universal human craving for affection (which Christianity explains by reference to a broken relationship that we look everywhere to fulfil). But I won't rehearse it all here.
The point I am making, which I hope is clear by now, is that there is evidence. You can disagree with the conclusions drawn, or take an opposite view on its reliability and credibility, but what you cannot do, is say 'there is no evidence'. That would be an intellectually unjustifiable position.
I suspect that those who say 'there is no evidence' are the very people who are terrified of what they might find were they to accept for a moment that there might be evidence to look into.
But when you open yourself up to the evidence, and consider Jesus for yourself, chances are over time you will begin to actually get to know him. When you reach that point, arguments like those presented above seem oddly superfluous.
Why argue for the existence of someone you know and relate to every day?
Isn't it obvious?
Aside from a brief spell when I was living alone in New Zealand I have never felt the need to prove the existence of my wife (some Kiwis may have suspected she was an inflatable figment of my imagination, a proposition I was keen to disprove). I place my relationship with Jesus in the same category.
Happily, for those of us who take the time to consider whether a case could be made for faith in Jesus, we find that not only is it true, but it is good news. Very good news. Real relationship. Hope in all things, joy in the darkest of places, peace amidst life's storms, access to wise counsel and miraculous intervention, and the certain assurance that you are loved for eternity beyond anything you had thought possible.
Not only have I found it to be true. I'm extremely glad it is.
One debate that I rarely shy away from is the debate over the veracity of faith. Partly it's because I believe it is the most important debate which it is possible to have. I believe it has massive consequences for the individual and the community, and I believe each one of us is charged with the responsibility to come to a conclusion on that matter and live our lives accordingly. On the other hand, it's also because I am so overwhelmingly convinced that I struggle not to get a bit irritated by the flippancy with which people dismiss it.
One comment I often hear goes something like: when the dust settles on all our philosophical musings, there is actually no evidence for the existence of God or the veracity of the Christian faith. That bothers me. Because it is a patently false statement.
Atheist friends, you are free to disbelieve the evidence or to reach different conclusions on the evidence (though I think it unwise to do so). What you cannot with intellectual integrity say is 'there is no evidence'. There is. And as a former prosecutor I have seen people convicted on less.
Many have written compellingly on the topic - for reference see for a start the works of Oxford Don John Lennox, US Journalist Lee Strobel (an easier, though as a result slightly shallower read), the life of world record-holding lawyer Lionel Luckhoo, Tim Keller's 'The Reason for God' or the gloriously engaging CS Lewis. Interestingly, a number of those authors were atheists who 'accidentally' converted after attempting to rationalise the evidence for God. As CS Lewis said of his own journey: "a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side".
I thought I'd add a further voice, in the hope that it persuades someone somewhere that there is a rational, intelligible basis for Christian faith. You may not be convinced by Christianity, but it is pure fallacy to go that step further and say that there is no basis on which any reasonable person could be.
In this brief note I can't consider all of the numerous evidential stones on which the case could be built. But, as a courtroom lawyer, the evidence that interests me most is that of witnesses.
As I write, it is Sunday and over 1 billion people worldwide are at church (I, for my sins, am in bed tapping on an iPad... read into that what you will!). In history many millions more are recorded. Many of these people testify to genuinely life changing experiences of direct interaction with a force or being they call God. Stories of healed bodies, defeated addictions, renewed minds, softened hearts, repaired marriages, inspired visions, guided steps and comforted souls. That is evidence. One could attempt to discredit each and every one of these pieces of evidence as placebo, coincidence, hallucination or just plain lies. Yet would it not be unwise to do so without first examining at least some of them?
What of the credibility of these witnesses? Well, many each year are killed for refusing to denounce what they have found to be true. I accept people will die for an idea that is false, or at least unworthy, if they are convinced enough - modern day terrorism teaches as much. But Christian martyrs aren't terrorists. They don't seek out death, and don't seek out the destruction of others. Rather, when persecution seeks them out, they accept it, refusing to concede that Jesus is the hope of the world. That kind of devotion to a story makes a story worth examining.
Fine, you say. All that proves is that some people die for what they believe. If they believe a lie, then they are to be pitied and not praised. After all, they believe what they believe because of what was written generations ago. (I would deny that this is the only reason for their faith, citing the examples of direct experience of a God as listed above. But for the sake of argument, I continue.)
We then need to consider the motives, the credibility and reliability of the original sources. The disciples. The men who wrote down the stories we read today. Histories. Those histories tell stories of miracles, of resurrection from the dead, and of a man in Palestine who claimed to be God, predicted his death and resurrection, and then came good on his prediction. They tell stories of a man, who whilst making these lofty claims about himself, spent his time serving the lowest in society, healing the broken, accepting the rejected and loving the hated. Someone a few weeks ago tried to pin me down to saying that the bible isn't evidence of its own truth. I'm afraid I had to disagree. In the gospels, you have four eyewitness testimonies passed down through the ages of what did and did not happen. You may attempt to discredit them by allegations of collusion or dishonesty. You may dispute their authorship and challenge their authenticity. Much has been written on those subjects. In my view they withstand scrutiny. We can debate that, and the evidence may not convince you, but that does not stop it being evidence.
I digress, however, because we were discussing the witnesses themselves. I was once in a cathedral in Bruges. Statues surrounded the interior, showing men holding various items. On closer inspection it was the disciples, each of them holding the method by which he was executed. These men were murdered for refusing to recant their eyewitness testimony as to the living, breathing, eating, talking body of the risen Christ. Men may die for a lie they believe to be true, we have certainly established that. But would a man die for something he knew to be a lie? I may not have been an eyewitness to the resurrection, but I know human nature. When it comes to vats of oil, saws, swords and crosses, I'll say whatever you want me to say. Unless. Unless I have seen something so remarkable, and experienced something so deeply transformative, that the prospect of death pales into insignificance. The disciples refused, in the face of unspeakable torture, the threat of death, and then death itself, to say he didn't rise. That makes them extremely compelling witnesses.
The circumstantial evidence surrounding the birth of the church is also telling. In Paul's writings he referred to the witnesses to the resurrection, 'many of whom are still alive'. He wrote to people who could, if they wished, go and challenge these so called witnesses and see if it was true. When the church started preaching 'He's alive' it would have been terribly easy for the authorities to quash this sect by wheeling out the body - 'No he ain't'. But they didn't. They couldn't. There was no body. They could have paid off one of the hundreds who claimed to have seen Jesus alive, and got him to expose the whole scam. They didn't. They couldn't. Why? A lack of will? It would have more than suited both Caesar and the Synagogue Leaders to squash this unholy rabble. But they couldn't.
History records that the church didn't burst into the scenes because of new ideas and great philosophy. It wasn't an advertising campaign, money, or war. It was that they preached that a man who was dead was now alive. They preached it with power - not the charismatic power of an orator (Paul was known to send people to sleep when he preached) but with the power of God (Paul, after said sleeping listener fell to his serious injury or death, prayed for him and he was healed!) and people were convinced.
It is terribly tempting to try and win an argument by belittling your opponent, setting up a straw man of a position and blowing it down. But what I have set out above is testimony. Witnesses, living and dead, of a moving, breathing, active God. You can tell a witness he is lying, but you can't tell him he doesn't exist. Even I didn't try that one in court.
There is more to this fascinating topic. The more philosophical arguments to be made from the universal experience of moral consciousness (we all have a moral law which we all have broken and therefore we all experience guilt), the natural presumption of God (deities are found in every single culture, tending to suggest that we are wired to relate to the supernatural, and built to assume that God (or a god) is there), or the universal human craving for affection (which Christianity explains by reference to a broken relationship that we look everywhere to fulfil). But I won't rehearse it all here.
The point I am making, which I hope is clear by now, is that there is evidence. You can disagree with the conclusions drawn, or take an opposite view on its reliability and credibility, but what you cannot do, is say 'there is no evidence'. That would be an intellectually unjustifiable position.
I suspect that those who say 'there is no evidence' are the very people who are terrified of what they might find were they to accept for a moment that there might be evidence to look into.
But when you open yourself up to the evidence, and consider Jesus for yourself, chances are over time you will begin to actually get to know him. When you reach that point, arguments like those presented above seem oddly superfluous.
Why argue for the existence of someone you know and relate to every day?
Isn't it obvious?
Aside from a brief spell when I was living alone in New Zealand I have never felt the need to prove the existence of my wife (some Kiwis may have suspected she was an inflatable figment of my imagination, a proposition I was keen to disprove). I place my relationship with Jesus in the same category.
Happily, for those of us who take the time to consider whether a case could be made for faith in Jesus, we find that not only is it true, but it is good news. Very good news. Real relationship. Hope in all things, joy in the darkest of places, peace amidst life's storms, access to wise counsel and miraculous intervention, and the certain assurance that you are loved for eternity beyond anything you had thought possible.
Not only have I found it to be true. I'm extremely glad it is.
Saturday, 12 April 2014
The Referendum
Not that it will come as a surprise to anyone with whom I've discussed the matter, but I'm almost certain to vote No in the referendum on Scottish independence. I have, as honestly as I can, tried to keep an open mind. I'm not one of those who says that Yes voters are by definition daft. Many people who I love and respect are heading towards a Yes - even my wife is making noises in that direction (though possibly just because she likes disagreeing with me). But personally, it's going to be a No.
For what it's worth - here's a quick list of reasons why.
1. The whole world is becoming more connected. It makes no sense to put up more barriers.
2. The burden of proof has to be on those who support the change. Nothing has proved the case to me.
3. The Scottish Parliament is immature. I don't trust most of its politicians to make reasoned decisions.
4. UK Parliament wouldn't have overridden centuries of legal development and abolished corroboration.
5. The Scottish Parliament has an inadequate legislative system with no supervisory chamber (Lords).
6. For those reasons and more, the Scottish Parliament doesn't effectively hold government to account.
7. Economies of scale - pooling resources will always get a better deal.
8. Following on from that, Scotland could not support the banking system on its own 2008-style.
9. Same goes for defence etc. Makes sense to do it together.
10. Scottish culture is distinct, but we fool ourselves to think it's somehow superior and is held back by UK.
11. We have a shared combination of culture with the UK - frankly, I don't want to leave that.
12. Change always brings increased uncertainty and instability - why do it if there is no clear benefit?
13. Our economies are inextricably linked. Clear risks to business re additional costs of regulation.
14. Scotland has produced politicians and statesmen who literally shaped the world by the UK platform.
15. It seems based on the idea 'I'm not sharing'. I don't think that's very nice. Let the English have some oil.
16. It's a bit arbitrary. Why not an independent Glasgow? The peoples republic of Byres Road?
17. On that note - most of new oil is Shetland's. They will vote No. Bit unfair to take their oil, then?
16. North East or Northern Isles - all the oil is running out. That's no solid basis to build an economy on.
17. There are problems - but why not try and fix the UK rather than leave it, and still have same issues?
18. 'Independence' misunderstands history. We were never conquered or colonised. Our King became theirs.
19. The Yes campaign respond to genuine questions with vitriolic personal abuse. That's not nice.
20. Scottish distinctives flourish in the UK - Law, Education, Culture. No need to change.
I love being Scottish. I love being a part of the UK. I don't see why we should change that. No reason has been given to me that actually makes sense to me. 'Scotland's Future' just sets out a whole lot of political policies that any party could decide to pursue or not. It doesn't give good reasons to change the constitutional make up of the state.
So let's stay together. But even if not, let's try and be nice to each other where we disagree?
For what it's worth - here's a quick list of reasons why.
1. The whole world is becoming more connected. It makes no sense to put up more barriers.
2. The burden of proof has to be on those who support the change. Nothing has proved the case to me.
3. The Scottish Parliament is immature. I don't trust most of its politicians to make reasoned decisions.
4. UK Parliament wouldn't have overridden centuries of legal development and abolished corroboration.
5. The Scottish Parliament has an inadequate legislative system with no supervisory chamber (Lords).
6. For those reasons and more, the Scottish Parliament doesn't effectively hold government to account.
7. Economies of scale - pooling resources will always get a better deal.
8. Following on from that, Scotland could not support the banking system on its own 2008-style.
9. Same goes for defence etc. Makes sense to do it together.
10. Scottish culture is distinct, but we fool ourselves to think it's somehow superior and is held back by UK.
11. We have a shared combination of culture with the UK - frankly, I don't want to leave that.
12. Change always brings increased uncertainty and instability - why do it if there is no clear benefit?
13. Our economies are inextricably linked. Clear risks to business re additional costs of regulation.
14. Scotland has produced politicians and statesmen who literally shaped the world by the UK platform.
15. It seems based on the idea 'I'm not sharing'. I don't think that's very nice. Let the English have some oil.
16. It's a bit arbitrary. Why not an independent Glasgow? The peoples republic of Byres Road?
17. On that note - most of new oil is Shetland's. They will vote No. Bit unfair to take their oil, then?
16. North East or Northern Isles - all the oil is running out. That's no solid basis to build an economy on.
17. There are problems - but why not try and fix the UK rather than leave it, and still have same issues?
18. 'Independence' misunderstands history. We were never conquered or colonised. Our King became theirs.
19. The Yes campaign respond to genuine questions with vitriolic personal abuse. That's not nice.
20. Scottish distinctives flourish in the UK - Law, Education, Culture. No need to change.
I love being Scottish. I love being a part of the UK. I don't see why we should change that. No reason has been given to me that actually makes sense to me. 'Scotland's Future' just sets out a whole lot of political policies that any party could decide to pursue or not. It doesn't give good reasons to change the constitutional make up of the state.
So let's stay together. But even if not, let's try and be nice to each other where we disagree?
Monday, 13 January 2014
Indispensability
I'm speaking on leadership this Sunday evening, and have gone back to some thoughts I jotted down about 6 months ago, about the house group my wife and I lead at the Vineyard.
Our group has grown in the last year, and in fact now multiplied into two. A striking feature of that growth, is that it has happened at a time when I was less present than I would have liked to be, due to other commitments. There I was, worried about how the group would fare without my guiding hand (!) and it turned out they got along just fine. Better than fine.
Which got me thinking about the idea of being dispensable. We all want to be needed, don't we? And God loves to use us in ways which allow our giftings to flourish. But when we're involved in God's work, his plans go well beyond the limits our self-importance tries to place on them
There is a place for pioneering leadership. A big place.
But there is a problem when the leader makes him or herself indispensable to the cause for which he or she fights.
Without pioneering, creative, bold leaders, nothing new happens. Until David chucks the stone at Goliath, a whole army stood immobilised. Until Moses proclaimed freedom for Israel, a whole nation sat enslaved.
God does wonderful things through pioneering leadership.
The pioneer falters, however, when he or she becomes indispensable for the long term. When there is no vision beyond the charisma of the leader.
Elijah raised up Elisha. Moses Joshua. Even Jesus raised up 12 men to 'do the stuff' he'd done, to use a favourite vineyard phrase. And the thing with Jesus was he taught his disciples to do it, and to teach others to do it. He charged the disciples to make disciples. To make disciple-making disciples.
He didn't tell them to go and get others to follow you. He said go and teach them to be like me, doing what I do.
Paul, to a certain group of believers, said 'follow my example as I follow Christ's'. In other words follow me.
Jesus, said we'd do the same things, and greater things than him. Follow me, then go beyond me. (Lest I blaspheme, this applies to Jesus in his ministry as a human on earth, rather than in his divine supremacy).
Pioneering leadership begins with 'follow me'. But it's goal should always be 'go beyond me'.
When pioneering leadership does the 'follow me' but stops short of saying 'go beyond me', it stagnates into pride. The indispensability of leader damages the cause.
So let me bring it home. I can, like all of us (I hope), suffer from that bizarre combination of over- and under- confidence, arrogance and insecurity that is so unique to our species. God has made me a leader (mysterious ways, right?). But if I am leading as I should, I should see people being raised up not just to learn from my dubious example, but to go further than me. To far exceed my giftings, to leap well beyond my small wisdom and to exponentially better any fruitfulness I may have had. And when I see that, it is a cause for joy rather than sorrow.
Sometimes, to raise up disciples, to inspire new leaders and to ensure long term fruitfulness, we need to set aside our pride, and get of the way.
Our group has grown in the last year, and in fact now multiplied into two. A striking feature of that growth, is that it has happened at a time when I was less present than I would have liked to be, due to other commitments. There I was, worried about how the group would fare without my guiding hand (!) and it turned out they got along just fine. Better than fine.
Which got me thinking about the idea of being dispensable. We all want to be needed, don't we? And God loves to use us in ways which allow our giftings to flourish. But when we're involved in God's work, his plans go well beyond the limits our self-importance tries to place on them
There is a place for pioneering leadership. A big place.
But there is a problem when the leader makes him or herself indispensable to the cause for which he or she fights.
Without pioneering, creative, bold leaders, nothing new happens. Until David chucks the stone at Goliath, a whole army stood immobilised. Until Moses proclaimed freedom for Israel, a whole nation sat enslaved.
God does wonderful things through pioneering leadership.
The pioneer falters, however, when he or she becomes indispensable for the long term. When there is no vision beyond the charisma of the leader.
Elijah raised up Elisha. Moses Joshua. Even Jesus raised up 12 men to 'do the stuff' he'd done, to use a favourite vineyard phrase. And the thing with Jesus was he taught his disciples to do it, and to teach others to do it. He charged the disciples to make disciples. To make disciple-making disciples.
He didn't tell them to go and get others to follow you. He said go and teach them to be like me, doing what I do.
Paul, to a certain group of believers, said 'follow my example as I follow Christ's'. In other words follow me.
Jesus, said we'd do the same things, and greater things than him. Follow me, then go beyond me. (Lest I blaspheme, this applies to Jesus in his ministry as a human on earth, rather than in his divine supremacy).
Pioneering leadership begins with 'follow me'. But it's goal should always be 'go beyond me'.
When pioneering leadership does the 'follow me' but stops short of saying 'go beyond me', it stagnates into pride. The indispensability of leader damages the cause.
So let me bring it home. I can, like all of us (I hope), suffer from that bizarre combination of over- and under- confidence, arrogance and insecurity that is so unique to our species. God has made me a leader (mysterious ways, right?). But if I am leading as I should, I should see people being raised up not just to learn from my dubious example, but to go further than me. To far exceed my giftings, to leap well beyond my small wisdom and to exponentially better any fruitfulness I may have had. And when I see that, it is a cause for joy rather than sorrow.
Sometimes, to raise up disciples, to inspire new leaders and to ensure long term fruitfulness, we need to set aside our pride, and get of the way.
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Class, Poverty and the Law
I'll warn you now. This series of loosely connected thoughts has no conclusion. Rather, this is all question and no answer. At least not yet.
Lately I've had an awful suspicion that the world is not really as I've always seen it. My life - my economic background, the stability of my upbringing and the variety and quality of my opportunities - isn't actually typical.
I know, I know. We've all heard that if you have a toaster and a sock you're in the top 0.1% of wealthiest people (or some only slightly less extreme stat). But still, you can't get away from the fact that you assume everyone has experienced life like you have. At least everyone from the same country as you.
I once assumed everyone had two parents who were married.
I assumed everyone had a loving, open, supportive family who encouraged them to express themselves and be emotionally healthy.
I assumed that everyone had a decent shot at doing well in school if they knuckled down.
I assumed that everyone could get a job if they really wanted one.
I assumed that anyone with a job could buy a house (because otherwise it wouldn't make sense, would it?).
I assumed that everyone who said they liked cricket was lying. Ok that one isn't so relevant. True though.
I assumed that everyone had financially stable parents who would help to bail them out if they couldn't quite get their career started.
I assumed that for those very very few unlucky ones who couldn't support themselves, and who didn't have family to support them, the state welfare system would take care of them generously - at least enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. Because in our society we don't let people go hungry, go cold or go homeless.
The result of all those assumptions is that I thought that if someone was poor - I mean really poor, unable to feed or clothe or house or heat themselves - it must be because they are somehow refusing to take the help offered. It must be because they don't want to live differently.
These subconscious preconceptions ran pretty deep in me - in fact I think I have only just realised how much they still informed my views and impressions.
Those are not true statements (cricket the exception). So many people grow up with abuse or it's passive cousin neglect. Hundreds of pupils in Scotland are going to school with no idea or example of what it means to be a working member of society. A huge number of those visiting the UKs food banks are people who have jobs, but the wage isn't enough to feed the family. Anecdotally, I am discovering that the benefits system, particularly in the last few years, uses any excuse to stop payments - even to those who are destitute. From my studies I know that a huge category of asylum seekers are not entitled to any kind of benefit payment. Is this the picture of a caring society that Lloyd George et al envisaged 70 - 100 years ago?
I've never been someone who is passionate about the poor. I mean I've bought my fair share of the 'Big Issue'. Right thing to do. Ease the old conscience. I'm a Christian, so of course I care. Just not any more than the bare minimum. My passions are elsewhere.
And that's ok - we're not all called to battle every single problem. I think God puts each of us here for a specific reason, so it makes sense that some are more passionate about certain things than others. But something has been stirring in me recently. I've been wondering why I'm a lawyer. Why the degree. Why the training. So that I can make money for a big firm? So that I can work for huge corporations and bolster their profits? Wow. That'll put a spring in my Monday morning step.
Maybe God made me a lawyer, so that I can seek justice.
The bible tells us to 'speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy'
Which is fine. Until you see people poor, destitute, needy and voiceless.
There is no conclusion to this blog. These thoughts are very much unconcluded.
But one thing I'm clear on. It's not right for me - or you (sorry) - to sit in a middle class bubble thinking everyone looks, thinks and lives like us. It's not right to go on our way to pursue careers, move to the suburbs and raise rich kids with no thought for those who just don't have those choices.
So what do we do?
Maybe I'll sell it all and be a monk. Nah I'd be rubbish. I talk too much for that.
Lately I've had an awful suspicion that the world is not really as I've always seen it. My life - my economic background, the stability of my upbringing and the variety and quality of my opportunities - isn't actually typical.
I know, I know. We've all heard that if you have a toaster and a sock you're in the top 0.1% of wealthiest people (or some only slightly less extreme stat). But still, you can't get away from the fact that you assume everyone has experienced life like you have. At least everyone from the same country as you.
I once assumed everyone had two parents who were married.
I assumed everyone had a loving, open, supportive family who encouraged them to express themselves and be emotionally healthy.
I assumed that everyone had a decent shot at doing well in school if they knuckled down.
I assumed that everyone could get a job if they really wanted one.
I assumed that anyone with a job could buy a house (because otherwise it wouldn't make sense, would it?).
I assumed that everyone who said they liked cricket was lying. Ok that one isn't so relevant. True though.
I assumed that everyone had financially stable parents who would help to bail them out if they couldn't quite get their career started.
I assumed that for those very very few unlucky ones who couldn't support themselves, and who didn't have family to support them, the state welfare system would take care of them generously - at least enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. Because in our society we don't let people go hungry, go cold or go homeless.
The result of all those assumptions is that I thought that if someone was poor - I mean really poor, unable to feed or clothe or house or heat themselves - it must be because they are somehow refusing to take the help offered. It must be because they don't want to live differently.
These subconscious preconceptions ran pretty deep in me - in fact I think I have only just realised how much they still informed my views and impressions.
Those are not true statements (cricket the exception). So many people grow up with abuse or it's passive cousin neglect. Hundreds of pupils in Scotland are going to school with no idea or example of what it means to be a working member of society. A huge number of those visiting the UKs food banks are people who have jobs, but the wage isn't enough to feed the family. Anecdotally, I am discovering that the benefits system, particularly in the last few years, uses any excuse to stop payments - even to those who are destitute. From my studies I know that a huge category of asylum seekers are not entitled to any kind of benefit payment. Is this the picture of a caring society that Lloyd George et al envisaged 70 - 100 years ago?
I've never been someone who is passionate about the poor. I mean I've bought my fair share of the 'Big Issue'. Right thing to do. Ease the old conscience. I'm a Christian, so of course I care. Just not any more than the bare minimum. My passions are elsewhere.
And that's ok - we're not all called to battle every single problem. I think God puts each of us here for a specific reason, so it makes sense that some are more passionate about certain things than others. But something has been stirring in me recently. I've been wondering why I'm a lawyer. Why the degree. Why the training. So that I can make money for a big firm? So that I can work for huge corporations and bolster their profits? Wow. That'll put a spring in my Monday morning step.
Maybe God made me a lawyer, so that I can seek justice.
The bible tells us to 'speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy'
Which is fine. Until you see people poor, destitute, needy and voiceless.
There is no conclusion to this blog. These thoughts are very much unconcluded.
But one thing I'm clear on. It's not right for me - or you (sorry) - to sit in a middle class bubble thinking everyone looks, thinks and lives like us. It's not right to go on our way to pursue careers, move to the suburbs and raise rich kids with no thought for those who just don't have those choices.
So what do we do?
Maybe I'll sell it all and be a monk. Nah I'd be rubbish. I talk too much for that.
Friday, 15 November 2013
The Slaughter of the Amalekites
One of the things I love about God is that he never seems to sugar coat the truth. If the Old Testament histories and narratives have one striking feature, it is how 'warts and all' they are in their revelations. In fact, this is one of the most interesting aspects historically of the Old Testament narratives. Those who write history usually omit their defeats, and yet the Old Testament is full of mess-ups, muck-ups and mistakes. The bible doesn't just tell us what we want to hear. Which I love. But at times it's a little tricky.
One of the most troubling passages of Old Testament history occurs in 1 Samuel 15, where God commands the destruction of an entire nation - specifically to include women and children. The story is part of Saul's downfall because he becomes conceited and obsessed with his own power and begins to flippantly disobey God. But when you pause and look from another angle, it's pretty hard to ignore what God asks him to do in this passage.
If we are honest, our immediate reaction to God's command in this passage is moral disgust. And yet, as Christians, we hold this passage alongside the rest of the bible as the word of God, the primary source of all of our knowledge and understanding of God, and arguably our sole source of understanding of his intervention in the story of Israel. So how do we get our heads round passages such as this one?
I am not a theologian or a biblical scholar (other than in the sense of every Christian being a scholar of God's word to some degree). I am just a Christian. That is by way of disclaimer should anything that follows offend or disgruntle the reader! But as someone who knows God, passages like this strike me as out of kilter with the character of the God who I have come to know. And so the following has been my thought process as I have tried to work this one through. If it helps you, great - if it doesn't, I refer you to my disclaimer above and accept no liability for your disagreeing with me...
First, a preliminary thought.
The very concept of morality is dependant on God. That doesn't, of course, mean that people who know God are more moral than those who don't - it is a statement of objective fact that there is no basis for the existence of moral thought without an external standard to which we are accountable - see an interesting debate here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=61XaBy8JYHA. Without a god-given moral conscience, we are eventually left with the answer 'it just is' when we are continually asked 'why' a certain thing is wrong.
What that means, logically, is that judging the morality of God is a nonsensical endeavour. It is like using a calculator to prove that the calculator itself is wrong. Every basis we have for judging morality comes from God. And so when we tell God he was wrong, we are telling him that he has contravened a moral code which is itself defined by what God does. We chase our tails. We are telling him he is acting in an ungodly manner, but if God acts, the act is godly. This sounds like semantical gymnastics, but the point I am making is that God is God. He does as he pleases, and we are simply unable to assess or judge the basis of his activity. It is beyond our capacity.
That said, the reason this story causes such concern is that the command by God to destroy the Amalekites appears inconsistent with what we know from the rest of scripture of the revealed character of God. In other words, we don't understand. We don't understand why a God who reveals himself as a God of love, slow to anger, and patient, would require the destruction of an entire people. And it has to be OK to not understand. We have to be comfortable, to an extent, with not understanding, because God is beyond our understanding. It's a tension we have to live with.
But irritating people like me need something more to chew on. What follows will by no means provide a full and satisfactory answer to that question. It is, after all, one of those things which we simply cannot fully grasp - his ways are higher than ours. But there are some factors which, for me, assist in scratching the surface just a little.
So here goes.
I'd suggest that the slaughter of the Amalekites was not what God wanted. Stay with me. I'm suggesting that from the fact that God required this awful thing to be done, it does not flow as a consequence that this act was the perfect will, desire and intention of god. All of this is post-fall, and has to be seen in that context. We always say 'well, in a perfect world, (X) wouldn't happen...' and the same applies here. In a perfect world, the Amalekites would not die. God created a perfect world. And we ruined it. From that point on, the story has been one of God redeeming, correcting, and changing things to bring us back into perfect relationship with him. And when things have gone wrong, it can take things that otherwise we would never do, to bring them right again. We would never send men running into a fire. But when something has gone wrong, and a house full of people is about to burn down, we do. Think of the cross. Would a father ever want to have his own son nailed to a cross? No. But God did, because the conditions of the perfect world no longer applied, and for a reason beyond our understanding that act was necessary.
So we know that there was some reason by which this act - which is not something God would ever want - became necessary. To stay with the example of the cross, we are given insight into why God sacrificed his son. We see the consequences of it. We rejoice in the mercy, grace and incredible sacrifice demonstrated by God to win our freedom, to defeat our sin and to bring us back into relationship with him. God has revealed to us, at least in part, why the cross had to happen. And so we can see this as an aspect of what god does: he turns evil into good. Things that can seem when looked at in a vacuum to be terrible things, when considered in the light of god's greater plan are seen to be as much a reflection of god's righteousness and love as anything else God has done.
We understand the cross in this way because we know the other side of the story. We know that Jesus was God and so the cross was in fact an act of self-sacrifice. We know that Jesus rose to life again, having been obedient to death, and so the cross was not the final word over the life of Christ. We know that the cross won for us eternal salvation, reconciliation to God, and the opportunity of living a life of genuine joy, purpose and fulfillment. We know these things, and so we worship God for the cross.
The problem with understanding the slaughter of the Amalekites is that we aren't told all of the other sides to the story. It isn't immediately clear what this act achieved or was intended to achieve. It isn't immediately clear to us what provision God made for his mercy and love to be made known to the Amalekites. We aren't told what eternal fate met the Amalekites. We don't know.
There are a number of potential aims or explanations for the slaughter of the Amalekites, and I make no comment on the persuasive power of any of them in justifying what happened in our minds. This is all, of course, in the context of having to come to a point of being OK with not fully understanding it. The list of explanations I've heard or read fall into two broad categories.
1. God commanded their destruction to save Israel (and by extension, his plan to show his light and love to the whole earth) from the people the Amalekites would become. The Amalekites, so say biblical historians, became an oppressive people who included an individual by the name of Haman. Haman would become an ancient Hitler figure, who came close to having the entire Jewish race eradicated. In the book of Esther his story is told. Had Saul obeyed God and destroyed the Amalekites, Haman would never have come to be. Into this category would also fall the argument that the slaughter of the Amalekites was intended to prevent the world at large being dragged further into sin and depravity by their example, given that they are thought to have been one of the most brutal societies around at that time.
2. This was simply divine judgement on the Amalekites. They had become an evil people, engaged in depravity rarely or never seen, including child sacrifice. They had been given 400 years to repent and change their ways as a people, but they had continued in a downward spiral. God simply called time on their disobedience. There is also an argument, supported by the passage itself, that this was divine judgement for a specific act of oppression in the recent past. The Amalekites had oppressed and opposed Israel as they settled into their land, because they were weak and an easy target. Years later, when God has prospered and strengthened Israel, they are repaid for their aggression. This was a demonstration, so the argument goes, of the fact that you cannot oppose God and win in the end.
All, or some combination of the above may be part of the answer to the question 'why would God do this?', or these factors may simply be human ideas which fall way short of what it was God had in mind. We just don't know.
Where does that leave us? How do we respond to this passage?
I would argue, the same way we are to respond to every calamitous thing that happens, every mass loss of life that we see. Our God is sovereign and could end suffering with a cosmic snap of his divine fingers if he so wished. He hasn't, so far. And, whilst there are some reasons suggested by well meaning humanity for why god might decide to allow these things, and there are some theological frameworks (usually going back to the fall as the game changer) which are put forward as a way of dealing with these problems, they still leave us with something short of an emotionally satisfying answer.
So what would God have us do? He would have us trust. Trust that he is good - all the time. Trust that his will is perfect. Know that he takes pleasure in no-ones destruction, that he wills no-ones demise. Trust that he brings goodness from badness, light from darkness. To know that he is in control - and when the world seems out of control, it will only go so far as he allows.
And if you are wrestling with the question of God's goodness, either when you read passages like 1 Samuel 15, or when you face awful tragedy in life, it is OK to ask. If Job and the Psalms teach us anything it is that it is OK to ask. To complain. To plead. It is OK to not understand. But what we can do is ask God to help us to trust that he knows what he is doing. We can ask God to show us what light he is bringing from the darkness.
And as I've walked that path with Jesus, I've found myself convinced that even though so many things in the world seem so wrong, and there are so many things I just don't - and may never - understand... He is very very good. He is faithful. He is just. He is kind. He is so patient. And he loves each and every one of us with a furious love.
One of the most troubling passages of Old Testament history occurs in 1 Samuel 15, where God commands the destruction of an entire nation - specifically to include women and children. The story is part of Saul's downfall because he becomes conceited and obsessed with his own power and begins to flippantly disobey God. But when you pause and look from another angle, it's pretty hard to ignore what God asks him to do in this passage.
If we are honest, our immediate reaction to God's command in this passage is moral disgust. And yet, as Christians, we hold this passage alongside the rest of the bible as the word of God, the primary source of all of our knowledge and understanding of God, and arguably our sole source of understanding of his intervention in the story of Israel. So how do we get our heads round passages such as this one?
I am not a theologian or a biblical scholar (other than in the sense of every Christian being a scholar of God's word to some degree). I am just a Christian. That is by way of disclaimer should anything that follows offend or disgruntle the reader! But as someone who knows God, passages like this strike me as out of kilter with the character of the God who I have come to know. And so the following has been my thought process as I have tried to work this one through. If it helps you, great - if it doesn't, I refer you to my disclaimer above and accept no liability for your disagreeing with me...
First, a preliminary thought.
The very concept of morality is dependant on God. That doesn't, of course, mean that people who know God are more moral than those who don't - it is a statement of objective fact that there is no basis for the existence of moral thought without an external standard to which we are accountable - see an interesting debate here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=61XaBy8JYHA. Without a god-given moral conscience, we are eventually left with the answer 'it just is' when we are continually asked 'why' a certain thing is wrong.
What that means, logically, is that judging the morality of God is a nonsensical endeavour. It is like using a calculator to prove that the calculator itself is wrong. Every basis we have for judging morality comes from God. And so when we tell God he was wrong, we are telling him that he has contravened a moral code which is itself defined by what God does. We chase our tails. We are telling him he is acting in an ungodly manner, but if God acts, the act is godly. This sounds like semantical gymnastics, but the point I am making is that God is God. He does as he pleases, and we are simply unable to assess or judge the basis of his activity. It is beyond our capacity.
That said, the reason this story causes such concern is that the command by God to destroy the Amalekites appears inconsistent with what we know from the rest of scripture of the revealed character of God. In other words, we don't understand. We don't understand why a God who reveals himself as a God of love, slow to anger, and patient, would require the destruction of an entire people. And it has to be OK to not understand. We have to be comfortable, to an extent, with not understanding, because God is beyond our understanding. It's a tension we have to live with.
But irritating people like me need something more to chew on. What follows will by no means provide a full and satisfactory answer to that question. It is, after all, one of those things which we simply cannot fully grasp - his ways are higher than ours. But there are some factors which, for me, assist in scratching the surface just a little.
So here goes.
I'd suggest that the slaughter of the Amalekites was not what God wanted. Stay with me. I'm suggesting that from the fact that God required this awful thing to be done, it does not flow as a consequence that this act was the perfect will, desire and intention of god. All of this is post-fall, and has to be seen in that context. We always say 'well, in a perfect world, (X) wouldn't happen...' and the same applies here. In a perfect world, the Amalekites would not die. God created a perfect world. And we ruined it. From that point on, the story has been one of God redeeming, correcting, and changing things to bring us back into perfect relationship with him. And when things have gone wrong, it can take things that otherwise we would never do, to bring them right again. We would never send men running into a fire. But when something has gone wrong, and a house full of people is about to burn down, we do. Think of the cross. Would a father ever want to have his own son nailed to a cross? No. But God did, because the conditions of the perfect world no longer applied, and for a reason beyond our understanding that act was necessary.
So we know that there was some reason by which this act - which is not something God would ever want - became necessary. To stay with the example of the cross, we are given insight into why God sacrificed his son. We see the consequences of it. We rejoice in the mercy, grace and incredible sacrifice demonstrated by God to win our freedom, to defeat our sin and to bring us back into relationship with him. God has revealed to us, at least in part, why the cross had to happen. And so we can see this as an aspect of what god does: he turns evil into good. Things that can seem when looked at in a vacuum to be terrible things, when considered in the light of god's greater plan are seen to be as much a reflection of god's righteousness and love as anything else God has done.
We understand the cross in this way because we know the other side of the story. We know that Jesus was God and so the cross was in fact an act of self-sacrifice. We know that Jesus rose to life again, having been obedient to death, and so the cross was not the final word over the life of Christ. We know that the cross won for us eternal salvation, reconciliation to God, and the opportunity of living a life of genuine joy, purpose and fulfillment. We know these things, and so we worship God for the cross.
The problem with understanding the slaughter of the Amalekites is that we aren't told all of the other sides to the story. It isn't immediately clear what this act achieved or was intended to achieve. It isn't immediately clear to us what provision God made for his mercy and love to be made known to the Amalekites. We aren't told what eternal fate met the Amalekites. We don't know.
There are a number of potential aims or explanations for the slaughter of the Amalekites, and I make no comment on the persuasive power of any of them in justifying what happened in our minds. This is all, of course, in the context of having to come to a point of being OK with not fully understanding it. The list of explanations I've heard or read fall into two broad categories.
1. God commanded their destruction to save Israel (and by extension, his plan to show his light and love to the whole earth) from the people the Amalekites would become. The Amalekites, so say biblical historians, became an oppressive people who included an individual by the name of Haman. Haman would become an ancient Hitler figure, who came close to having the entire Jewish race eradicated. In the book of Esther his story is told. Had Saul obeyed God and destroyed the Amalekites, Haman would never have come to be. Into this category would also fall the argument that the slaughter of the Amalekites was intended to prevent the world at large being dragged further into sin and depravity by their example, given that they are thought to have been one of the most brutal societies around at that time.
2. This was simply divine judgement on the Amalekites. They had become an evil people, engaged in depravity rarely or never seen, including child sacrifice. They had been given 400 years to repent and change their ways as a people, but they had continued in a downward spiral. God simply called time on their disobedience. There is also an argument, supported by the passage itself, that this was divine judgement for a specific act of oppression in the recent past. The Amalekites had oppressed and opposed Israel as they settled into their land, because they were weak and an easy target. Years later, when God has prospered and strengthened Israel, they are repaid for their aggression. This was a demonstration, so the argument goes, of the fact that you cannot oppose God and win in the end.
All, or some combination of the above may be part of the answer to the question 'why would God do this?', or these factors may simply be human ideas which fall way short of what it was God had in mind. We just don't know.
Where does that leave us? How do we respond to this passage?
I would argue, the same way we are to respond to every calamitous thing that happens, every mass loss of life that we see. Our God is sovereign and could end suffering with a cosmic snap of his divine fingers if he so wished. He hasn't, so far. And, whilst there are some reasons suggested by well meaning humanity for why god might decide to allow these things, and there are some theological frameworks (usually going back to the fall as the game changer) which are put forward as a way of dealing with these problems, they still leave us with something short of an emotionally satisfying answer.
So what would God have us do? He would have us trust. Trust that he is good - all the time. Trust that his will is perfect. Know that he takes pleasure in no-ones destruction, that he wills no-ones demise. Trust that he brings goodness from badness, light from darkness. To know that he is in control - and when the world seems out of control, it will only go so far as he allows.
And if you are wrestling with the question of God's goodness, either when you read passages like 1 Samuel 15, or when you face awful tragedy in life, it is OK to ask. If Job and the Psalms teach us anything it is that it is OK to ask. To complain. To plead. It is OK to not understand. But what we can do is ask God to help us to trust that he knows what he is doing. We can ask God to show us what light he is bringing from the darkness.
And as I've walked that path with Jesus, I've found myself convinced that even though so many things in the world seem so wrong, and there are so many things I just don't - and may never - understand... He is very very good. He is faithful. He is just. He is kind. He is so patient. And he loves each and every one of us with a furious love.
Monday, 11 November 2013
The Discipline of Joy
Lately I've found myself complaining of that sneakiest of ailments - 'a lack of joy'. Nothing big or dramatic - I watch the news and feel dreadful for complaining - just that old mundane Monday feeling. But as I was praying (or just complaining by another name) with my wife this morning, God surprised me. He kind of suggested that maybe my joy was my own responsibility. Bit of a spanner in the works of my morning moan, right?
But I guess he is right. (I know he always is.)
He reminded me that there are two similar concepts - which for ease of reference I will call happiness and joy. External things can make you happy - a good curry, a great movie or success at work. But we know that happiness is time-limited. It is also based on our immediate pleasure. Joy, on the other hand, is awakened within you - it is internal, not necessarily rooted in external circumstances. In fact joy, unlike happiness, can endure in the face of negative circumstances. And joy is a discipline. At least partly.
Joy is a discipline. Happiness is a feeling. Often they overlap, and we experience them simultaneously. Often the discipline of internal joy will lead to the experience of external happiness. Sometimes experiences of external happiness can be a part of the building up of joy internally. But they are distinct.
Joy is intrinsically connected to your understanding of the world around you. The level of joy that underpins your life is dependant on what you believe about life. If you are a fortuitous combination of molecules with no purpose but the perpetuation of your species, then what cause (or point) is there for joy? If you are religious and you believe in a deity who is a bully, a Scrooge who grudges all pleasure and piles on burdens at every turn, whose only emotion is disappointment and wrath, then you won't take much joy in life.
But if you believe certain other things about your life, your existence, and the nature of God, certain attitudes and logical responses to those beliefs manifest in a different way of looking at the world, which leads to joy. Joy might be experiential, but it comes from a discipline of remembering.
All the way through the Old Testament the message of God is to REMEMBER. Remember who God is. Remember what he did and therefore what he does. Remember how he provided, how he rescued, how he forgave. And so remember that God will provide, he will rescue, and he will forgive. My history teacher used to say that those who fail to study the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. I would say that those who forget God's goodness in the past are doomed to live a pretty depressing future!
If we operate in a lifestyle of remembrance, we will always have in mind who God is and what God does, and so we will never look at our circumstances as the world does, ever again. In that way, joy is one of the fruits of the spirit: something that flows organically from a life surrendered to God.
It doesn't mean an inability to experience suffering: a laughable refusal to recognise the facts of life. But it does mean a deeper joy that allows you to smile in the midst of sadness, to worship in the midst of grief, and to see light when all around is dark. As Nehemiah said 'The joy of The Lord is our strength'.
It's clear in the 'joy in suffering' passages that joy comes not from refusing to recognise the truth, but from a recognition of the whole truth. If Paul and James didn't experience it as suffering, would they have referred to it as suffering or trials or tribulations? Of course they experienced the pain of it! But they had joy because they knew God was still God, he was good, and he was at work in the midst of the pain.
If you are lacking joy, you have forgotten something about God. When I lack joy, it is probably because I have forgotten to remember. I have forgotten to remember all of the times that God has brought me through difficult times, changing me for the better in the process. How God has rescued me, sometimes gradually, sometimes dramatically, from stickier situations. In a more general sense, it is probably because I have forgotten just how ridiculously loved I am by God.
I live for a God who spared no sacrifice to rescue me, and has given me his word that he is with me always. I live for a God who fills my life with good things, if only I'll open my eyes and see them. A God who works all things together for my good, turning mourning to dancing, darkness to light, and tears to joy. God hides beauty and opportunity in every day, and he does nothing by mistake. That means that today is a day mapped out for me by a God who loves me.
And when I remember that, joy doesn't seem so difficult. Even on a Monday!
But I guess he is right. (I know he always is.)
He reminded me that there are two similar concepts - which for ease of reference I will call happiness and joy. External things can make you happy - a good curry, a great movie or success at work. But we know that happiness is time-limited. It is also based on our immediate pleasure. Joy, on the other hand, is awakened within you - it is internal, not necessarily rooted in external circumstances. In fact joy, unlike happiness, can endure in the face of negative circumstances. And joy is a discipline. At least partly.
Joy is a discipline. Happiness is a feeling. Often they overlap, and we experience them simultaneously. Often the discipline of internal joy will lead to the experience of external happiness. Sometimes experiences of external happiness can be a part of the building up of joy internally. But they are distinct.
Joy is intrinsically connected to your understanding of the world around you. The level of joy that underpins your life is dependant on what you believe about life. If you are a fortuitous combination of molecules with no purpose but the perpetuation of your species, then what cause (or point) is there for joy? If you are religious and you believe in a deity who is a bully, a Scrooge who grudges all pleasure and piles on burdens at every turn, whose only emotion is disappointment and wrath, then you won't take much joy in life.
But if you believe certain other things about your life, your existence, and the nature of God, certain attitudes and logical responses to those beliefs manifest in a different way of looking at the world, which leads to joy. Joy might be experiential, but it comes from a discipline of remembering.
All the way through the Old Testament the message of God is to REMEMBER. Remember who God is. Remember what he did and therefore what he does. Remember how he provided, how he rescued, how he forgave. And so remember that God will provide, he will rescue, and he will forgive. My history teacher used to say that those who fail to study the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. I would say that those who forget God's goodness in the past are doomed to live a pretty depressing future!
If we operate in a lifestyle of remembrance, we will always have in mind who God is and what God does, and so we will never look at our circumstances as the world does, ever again. In that way, joy is one of the fruits of the spirit: something that flows organically from a life surrendered to God.
It doesn't mean an inability to experience suffering: a laughable refusal to recognise the facts of life. But it does mean a deeper joy that allows you to smile in the midst of sadness, to worship in the midst of grief, and to see light when all around is dark. As Nehemiah said 'The joy of The Lord is our strength'.
It's clear in the 'joy in suffering' passages that joy comes not from refusing to recognise the truth, but from a recognition of the whole truth. If Paul and James didn't experience it as suffering, would they have referred to it as suffering or trials or tribulations? Of course they experienced the pain of it! But they had joy because they knew God was still God, he was good, and he was at work in the midst of the pain.
If you are lacking joy, you have forgotten something about God. When I lack joy, it is probably because I have forgotten to remember. I have forgotten to remember all of the times that God has brought me through difficult times, changing me for the better in the process. How God has rescued me, sometimes gradually, sometimes dramatically, from stickier situations. In a more general sense, it is probably because I have forgotten just how ridiculously loved I am by God.
I live for a God who spared no sacrifice to rescue me, and has given me his word that he is with me always. I live for a God who fills my life with good things, if only I'll open my eyes and see them. A God who works all things together for my good, turning mourning to dancing, darkness to light, and tears to joy. God hides beauty and opportunity in every day, and he does nothing by mistake. That means that today is a day mapped out for me by a God who loves me.
And when I remember that, joy doesn't seem so difficult. Even on a Monday!
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