baggage

There’s lots of half-truths and myths and wishful thinking that we bandy around at church. We’re all as guilty as each other, which is kind of comforting to know. Unless you believe you have the whole and complete and unblemished truth of course, in which case it might be disconcerting.

One of the half-truths came to mind when I was doing my regular Saturday parkrun. I saw this sign. It spoke volumes. 

non-secure baggage here

When we come to Jesus we can give him our baggage and he can redeem it. All that stuff that has us back and holds us down. Guilt, bad habits, too much cheese. Cumbered with a load of care? Come to Jesus. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Half-truth. Theologically it works. Practically, it’s a work in progress. The trouble is when we give Jesus our baggage usually we are giving it via the church, which is when the “non-secure” part of the photo springs to mind.

This isn’t to say we don’t give it at all in case it goes wrong. At the parkrun we leave our baggage together in one place because there safety in a shared risk, and when someone is likely to be keeping an eye on it. Though of course we don’t leave our valuables in view, and if you’re like me you keep anything really valuable strapped to your arm (there’s another illustration there about leadership and vulnerability…).

So yes, we do place our burdens on Jesus, we allow him to nail it to the cross and deal with it… but we also live in the knowledge that it’s a work in progress, that when we do this we take risks, risks involve trust and though God won’t us down it might sometimes feel like it. And people probably will.

So, baggage. Non-secure, left at your own risk.  The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the half-truth.

why i still believe we can change the world

I was talking to someone yesterday about changing the world. Changing the world is something that  I believe we are called to do; or at least, it is a consequence of doing what we are called to do. Which is to follow Jesus.

When we follow Jesus, the world changes. Not all at once. Because the world isn’t a big mass of ‘all at once’, but is made of up people in families and communities. So, as we change, so our world changes. Like a virus, but a good one.

Is it still called a virus if it’s good? 

The conversation began about being angry. My friend was angry about the situations adults can create for kids. Grrrr. It is enough to make you angry. But what do you do with that anger? Suppress it, ignore it, release it on the running track? Or do you allow your anger to show you your passion; and do you turn your passion into action.

If homelessness makes you angry, you’ve found you passion for the poor. If the treatment of people with mental health problem makes you angry, you’ve found your passion for the marginalised. If football makes you angry you need to get out more.

And so on. 

But what’s the point? I can’t change the world. I am just me. Better to live my life, to be calm, to keep quiet. And if necessary, channel the anger into my running. Or my music. Or whatever. 

But who does that benefit? Just me. Not the world. In this conversation I realised that I still believe we can change the world. Which is not a doe-eyed optimism that if we all stand in front of Bambi we’ll save her. But that being the change we want to see in the world (Ghandi said that, I wish it was Jesus) is a theological imperative. That means we absolutely have to. Because if God cares for me and wants to turn my life around then he cares for everyone. We are not meant to be saved and gather dust like an old piece of furniture. 

If we follow Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to grow fruit in us then we cannot be blind to the world around us. We cannot give more than God has already given. We cannot sit on our laurels (what are they?) and complain it’s too big a problem. 

And I don’t believe this is a specialist branch of the Jesus movement called ‘activist Christianity’ which can be opted out of, any more than repentance or grace or being slightly fed up with Church can be opted out of. 

So I do believe that we can change the world. Not on our own. The ‘we’ very much begins with God, revealed in Jesus and present by the Spirit. Present in us, whom he called his body. Of course it is a stupid idea and of course I don’t REALLY believe that me, I, Kevin Lewis, can change the world. On my own. But together we can. One starfish at a time.

Do I always feel it? No. Do I always want to be a part of it? No. Is it frustrating? Yes. Do I see changes? Yes.

Sometimes.

Mostly importantly, is it true? Yes.  

the jesus rant

Somehow in his public image  Jesus is often reduced to a weak, feeble meek-and-mild do-gooder. Somehow when we talk about him as a friend he can lose his edge, his bite.  Jesus was not weak, and Jesus was not an easy friend. He wasn’t then, and he isn’t now. 

Where ever he went he would so something embarrassing. Talk to the wrong people. Do the wrong thing. Worst of all he offended and offended and offended the Jewish authorities. In Matthew 23 we read one of the worst. If Jesus rounded on someone like this  when you were with him, where would you put yourself. Hypocrites, blind guides, greedy, self-important, blocking the kingdom from those who seek it. White-washed tombs full of the bones of the dead? For Jews for whom the dead were seriously unclean, this was seriously bad form.

So why did he do it? Is this carte blanche for us to be rude and offensive to those we don’t like?  No. Sorry.

Jesus did it because there was nothing that wound up and offended Jesus more than when people made faith into a formula. Changed people’s motivation from love to do this and you will be in. Follow these rules. God’s grace is not enough. We had better make sure.

What Jesus wants is our hearts. And that doesn’t mean just our feelings and emotions. It means all that we do and all that we are. There’s no cameo roles or bit-part characters within us. He wants our motivation for our actions to be love – loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. If our motivation becomes anything other than love, then we place ourselves at the mercy of his rant. 

So we do not read this rant to laugh at the hapless Pharisees getting a rollicking. Again. We read this to see if he could say these things of us. Of me. We read this so that we can learn what it is that Jesus was all about. So that we can learn how to be friends with this awkward and cantankerous and generous and loving and demanding friend. For he is a good friend. But never an easy one. 

economical with prayer

I believe in an interventionist God. Which means that I believe God interferes with the natural order of things every now and then. But in a unique and often misunderstood way.

Superheroes are interventionist. They drop in, tackle the bad guys and leave. Doctor Who is interventionist. He flies around messing with worlds and saving humanity and leaving. Mercenaries are interventionist. They will intervene wherever depending on the contract.

Image from ASBO Jesus

God is different. Because his intervention is relational. From Abraham to present day and most obviously in the person of Jesus, God prefers to be embedded, involved, entangled. Incarnate. So swooping in from the Bat Cave or the Tardis or wherever, intervening to knock a train back onto the rails or catch a falling piano before it crushes a child is not really his scene.

Though he breaks his own rules. So he does do that. Which makes him complicated.

Today I saw a headline stating the EU was “praying for a miracle”. This is the God many people would like God to be. Mostly silent and undemanding, but available to rescue us when we truly cock things up. The ultimate super-sub you hope you don’t need but keep on the bench just in case.

Will God provide a miracle to rescue the world economy? Will Greece suddenly discover on Monday morning they have enough money to cover their debts? Would that be a worthwhile intervention from God? After all, the poor who’s jobs and savings are most at risk will benefit.

Or maybe God has already intervened. When he gave us minds to think and hearts to feel. When he gave us consciences and ethics and the ability to think in community. That so many of us have chosen to ignore that and gamble our money or spend money we don’t have – personal or sovereign – and get into unmanageable debt does not put any obligation on God to “sort it out”. Does it?

I believe in an interventionist God. But not one that works to formulas or demands or contracts. One that is already intervening because he is here, embedded and incarnate. He lives in us who call ourselves church, and if we are his body we need to be doing what he would do. Putting ourselves in dangerous positions challenging the ruling elite, giving up our own wealth and time for people we don’t know who are being beaten up by the system we are a part of, loving God and our neighbour more than we love our own families and our security.

God has heard our very economical prayer. But he won’t sign a short-term contract. He’s in it for life. Are we?

a gentle clearing of the throat

prayer is so often like a careful excuse me
bravely ignoring the ‘do not disturb’ sign
but only to quietly slip a note under the door…

or it’s like a gentle clearing of the throat
to draw attention
without causing tension
or making a scene

shout.pray.listen

prayer feels like it ought to involve
more SHOUTING
some shoving and
some flouting of the rules
some yelling because we should be telling it like it is
not quietly murmuring
but loudly stirring
earnestly yearning for God to hear
to act
to reach from his pedestal
to change all that is cruel and heartless and human
inhuman
inhumane

because his name means God with us
because prayers mean God help us
our cry is say something to us

yet in this moment of tension
aggression
shouting and pleading
we pause…

and in faith are conceding, of course,
to hear
we must listen.

….

this is an edited version of a poem that first featured in rants in your pants