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Both And.

I often get asked to speak on the matter of “social justice”. For the last few years, I have eschewed the invitations. I ask if I can instead talk about “the Kingdom of God” or “the Kingdom teachings of Jesus”. Using the phrase “social justice” immediatley creates or reinforces dichotmies in people’s thinking along the great fault line of social justice OR evangelism.

I try to draw people’s attention to the whole of the story, appreciating all of the elements and dimensions of the story. It’s hit and miss some times. For some people and groups, so much of their identity and reason for existing is deeply rooted in mutilation of the story that either identifies with the evangelism/evangelical camp of the social justice camp.

I have tried for the last two years to figure out how to communicate in the various contexts in ways that helps us see that these aspects don’t make sense alone but need and indeed belong to each other. It has been something on my heart for quite some time.

So how excited was I when I read the daily reflection from Radical Grace today! I want to share it with you here:

COMPASSIONATE ACTION

Moses is the historical character at the heart of the experience of any “exodus” and the spirituality that goes with that experience (Exodus 3:1-15 ). This is the primal historical template and pattern given us at the beginning of the Bible. This is what God is forever doing.

A murderer on the run, Moses has a “burning bush” experience out in the wild. It has nothing to do with formalized religion. It’s a nature experience and also follows an experience of human failure, which first religious moments often are. The voice he hears from the bush immediately tells him to confront the Pharaoh and tell him to let his slaves go!

So first you have the religious experience, symbolized by the burning bush—and that God experience immediately has social, economic, and political implications! That is what liberation theology is saying—“contemplation” and action, spirituality and the social order, religion and politics are forever connected and can not and must not be separated. This creative tension is the story line of much of the rest of the Bible.

Posted 8 months ago

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Tags: Culture, Discipleship, Evangelism, Pop Culture, Social Justice, Theology,

Pater Noster - Part 5, “Hallowed be your name”.

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Matt 6:9-13

Pater Noster, Latin for “Our Father”.

“He must become greater, I must become less.” - John the Baptist, John 3:30

Worship. One of the best ways to get Christians fighting is to lock them in a room and get them to argue about what worship is and how it should be done.

In our church, we have people who have come from different points on the “worship” compass. The way in which we hold the creative tension around the issue of “worship” is by thinking of it in terms of “perspective”. Essentially, the effect of worship is that of “restoring perspective”. We can become overwhelmed by our own situation, circumstances and indeed our own sense of self importance.

God too is subject to our distortion and mutilation. God easily becomes our tool to be co-opted in our cause, modified to become a passive compliant huggy teddy bear attending to our damaged self esteem, or the towering angry figure who is utilised in order that we work out our angry, violent and hateful purposes, whether it be from individual relationships or scaling right up to causes involving large people groups or indeed other races and religions.

John the Baptist finds himself in an awkward position. He understands that his role is to herald the messiah. He is the messenger. To what degree he is conscious of the fact that he will usher in the messiah during his lifetime is unclear. So he finds himself essentially competing with Jesus. This “competition” ultimately results in his disciples defecting his cause and enlisting in the work and ministry of Jesus. John asks some of his closest coworkers to examine Jesus, asking them to determine whether or not Jesus is in fact the messiah for which John is waiting. John’s investigative committee return with the news that in effect, rates the work of Jesus as being more significant and more effective that that of the Baptiser.

In a world filled with men and women with broken ego’s, working out their needs for significance, acceptance and love in all sorts of destructive ways, John’s response is nothing short of breathtaking. “He must become greater, I must become less.”

In the midst of a profoundly difficult time in his life (remember, John is imprisoned and soon after this incident is beheaded by Herod’s servants for challenging Herod’s abuse of religious and political power) John manages a profound sense of perspective.

At the heart of his query is that of purpose.

John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, 19 he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’”

At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Luke 7:18-23

Jesus’ ministry and teaching are the response to John’s inquiry.

“These are the things that Jesus does and is.”

“I must become less so that he may become great.”

As I contemplated the many different ways in which one can understand the line in the Pater Noster “Hallowed be your name”, I think that this is the best definition possible.

Holiness is often understood in Christian contexts as “the act or process of being set apart”. It is then further understood in terms of contamination, ie: being set apart and therefore not in contact with things that can potentially taint the “special” thing that has been set apart. It was a concept that never quite cut the mustard for me.

I distinctly remember sitting in a class being lectured by my then missiology professor. “Holiness is being set apart to do something. If you’re understanding of being set apart is that you simply remain separate from the things of this world, you are not holy, you are simply useless.”

The critical aspects of holiness are not the things you say no to in order to be separate, it is the things that you can now say yes to because you have room in your life to prioritise other things.

The penny dropped.

I have never been the same since.

In second line in the Pater Noster is a statement affirming the Holiness of the name of God. Consequently it is an affirmation of who He is (a name in many cultures being viewed as a description of the nature of the person named). It is an affirmation of the activity and purpose of God. “He is who he is because he does what he does.”

It is vital to understand this because in the very next line of the Lord’s prayer, we are about to make some outrageous pledges to participating in this very same activity.

When Jesus instructs his disciples to “Hallow the name of God”, it is an invitation to remember who God is. We remember by reflecting upon what it is that he does. If we engage in this kind of process, it has the powerful potential to alter and restore a sense of perspective in us individually and communally.

The hallowing of the name of God also should take the wind out of our self important sails, or for those of us who beat ourselves up for not being good enough, restore some sense of hope and perspective.

Ultimately the hallowing of God’s name invites us onto the threshold of what is about to occur next in the Lord’s prayer.

Posted 8 months ago

Tags: Culture, Pater Noster, Prayer, Spirituality, Theology,

Thinking about a response to Indigenous Issues

This was something that was shared with me by a member of our church. She got it from the blog of a friend (who also happens to be the pastor of her previous church). I thought it was worth crossposting.

I was reading the ‘Quakers Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia’ and was struck with their preamble. It is everything which I would want to say…

Quakers in Australia acknowledge that we live and worship on the lands of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples, country which gives them physical and spiritual identity and is filled with the spiritpresence of their ancestors.

We acknowledge:

the sovereignty of Australia’s First Peoples over the land we inhabit;

that the land was taken from them at devastating cost, with no just resolution;

that this trauma is ongoing and diminishes us all;

that our testimonies call us to be in right relationship with all peoples, the land and ourenvironment.

Therefore we seek in our daily lives:

to educate ourselves about the true history and present reality of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples, and uphold their right to self-determination;

to acknowledge within ourselves, and bring into the light, that which contributes to the debilitatingeffects of racism, insensitivity, lack of awareness and misrepresentation;

to work towards justice and peace, and healing for us all.

Posted 9 months ago

Tags: Culture, Discipleship, Indigenous Australians, Politics, Theology,

Pater Noster - Part 4

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Matt 6:9-13 Pater Noster, Latin for “Our Father”.

For Christians, there seems to be much confusion around the afterlife. This confusion is evident, and even compounded by the Matthean account of the Lords prayer. “Our father in heaven… may your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven”.

So, God who lives/comes from “heaven”, do some stuff on earth, like it is in “heaven”? If heaven is where God is from, and where he is going to take us back to, why bother with doing anything here on earth? What’s the point? This is where Matthew’s religious bias comes into play.

The Pater Noster, or the Lords Prayer, is found exclusively in the Gospel of Matthew. Unlike the authors of the three other Gospels (Mark, Luke and John) the author of Matthew comes from a part of the Hebraic tradition that took the third commandment (you shall not take the Lords name in vain) very seriously to the point where they would not use the word Yahweh in spoken or written form, such was their reverence for the holy name. Therefore, in the other three gospels, you will find commonly repeated phrases like:

“the kingdom of God”, or
the “reign/rule of God” or
similar references to the kingdom and its king.

By contrast, Matthew substitutes the word Yahweh (or God as it is translated into in English translations) with the word “heaven”. So in Matthew, you find phrases like “the kingdom of heaven” instead of “the kingdom of God”.

So armed with that little piece of background, I often wonder what the Lords prayer would look like were it recorded by one of the more irreverent Gospel writers?

If Matthew was as irreverent as the other three gospel writers, or indeed, if the Lords Prayer was compiled by say Mark, what would it look like? I suspect it might look a little like this:

Our father, who is the architect and renovator of everything we see and that we don’t,
…
May creation begin to resemble what it ultimately will look like when you finally return, to rule and reign.

May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on this earth, as things ought and will be when you are ultimately and finally inaugurated as the king.

Suddenly, things are not so “far off” or “far away” anymore. Nor are things as confused as we tend to be. The place in which we stand has been created by the King, and is in the process of being redeemed or renovated. Jesus invites us to pray that rather than the renovation being delayed to some future time, the work occur right now, as the words leave our lips.

This potentially (and scandalously) changes many things for the person praying the prayer:

“Our” - The one we address is the one to whom everyone belongs.
“Father” - Not some unknowable, disinterested, disconnected omnipotent creator, but a tender, loving, gracious and giving father.
“Who is the king of this kingdom”.

I trust that as you have followed this series of posts, your hearts and minds are starting to swell with the implications and possibilities.

As you pray this prayer in your workplace, imagine what the organisation/company/business would look like were Jesus actually crowned the king right now? What would be the aims and objective of the organisation? How would they go about those objectives? How would they steward the resources of the organisation?
If you are at home today praying this prayer, what would your home, your street, your neighborhood look like were Jesus enthroned as the king right now? What would people be doing? How would they be interacting?

These are really only the beginnings of so many other questions that could, and should be asked. I would love to hear the sorts of questions that you come up with as you consider the opening line of the Lord’s prayer in your own context.