Sunday, April 30, 2017

When in Athens...

There is a curious phenomenon, a fake-news item, for sure, about a species of animal that takes 'following the crowd' to a new level.  According to an article by the ABC, the myth of 'lemming suicide' actually derives not from an actual scientific study, but from an original rodent master himself, Walt Disney.

Here is what the author writes:

The myth of mass lemming suicide began when the Walt Disney movie, Wild Wilderness, was released in 1958. It was filmed in Alberta, Canada, far from the sea and not a native home to lemmings. So the filmmakers imported lemmings, by buying them from Inuit children. The migration sequence was filmed by placing the lemmings on a spinning turntable that was covered with snow, and then shooting it from many different angles. The cliff-death-plunge sequence was done by herding the lemmings over a small cliff into a river. It's easy to understand why the filmmakers did this - wild animals are notoriously uncooperative, and a migration-of-doom followed by a cliff-of-death sequence is far more dramatic to show than the lemmings' self-implemented population-density management plan.

As the popularity of Disney grows, I guess so does his influence over all aspects of life...

But spiritually speaking, sometimes we can all adopt the lemming method of spirituality.  Far distanced from our past insistence on both scriptural literacy and integrity, our contemporary world simply follows head to tail with the one who seems most in tune with either theology or spirituality.  For instance, it would not be a surprise to most Christians to learn that in a Barna report in 2014:
...a majority of U.S. adults (81 percent) said they consider themselves highly, moderately or somewhat knowledgeable about the Bible. Yet less than half (43 percent) were able to name the first five books of the Bible. The statistics are similar to the previous 2013 report which also showed that only half knew that John the Baptist was not one of the 12 apostles.

In his own experience, one student, Berding recalled, did not know that Saul in the New Testament was different from King Saul in the Old Testament. Another student thought the Old Testament figure Joshua was the son of "a nun," unaware that "Nun" was actually the name of the father and not a member of a Catholic community of women.

In essence, instead of understanding the direction in which God's will is taking us by daily reading the Bible and adhering to practices long established so that, as Paul writes, "(people) would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." (Acts 17:27) 

In essence, we leap unconcerned off the non-scriptural precipice of selfishness and blame God for abandoning us when we lie crumpled in a heap in the abyss of our shattered dreams.

So it was with the people of Athens.  As a place concerned with the inner life, Paul encountered a group of people, some Jews and 'God-fearing Greeks' as well as the smartest idle men in the city who "lived there and spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." (Acts 17:21)

At least they were talking about new ideas, I guess.

But Paul was appalled by the proliferation of idolatry in the country, and if there was any one thing that God did not like it was idolatry.  (See the first two chapters of Zephaniah if you want to know how that's going to turn out.)  So, Paul engages with the people and their understanding of God and points to an altar where, presumably, sacrifices were being laid to 'an unknown god.'  They were trying to cover all the bases.  If I can just find a way to make sure that all the gods are appeased, I should have no problem being blessed by health, wealth and happiness in this life...


Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  In a contemporary world that almost completely disengages with anything spiritual, it is no wonder that the root of its discontent is that of idolatry - the endless quest to fill the spiritual with the physical.  Without any reflection whatsoever, we buy the newest, the brightest, the fanciest and most entertaining gadget that we hope can somehow appease the one we've set up as god:  Ourselves.

But Paul points out to the Athenian spiritual lemmings: "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, as if he needed anything.  Rather he gives everyone life and breath and everything else."  (Acts 17:24,25)


You who are jumping off the cliff into the abyss of materialism and egomania, beware that at the bottom, in the dark of that which you can't see, is the breaker of all dreams that God has for you.  And when your back is broken in the cliff of despair, you will have two options:

1.  You can blame God for 'leading' you over the edge.

2.  You can still cry out to the only one who can save you.  To God in Jesus Christ. 

To be sure we all have, myself included, longed for something more, something different, something that will bring out a greater sense of happiness.  Paul even says that God provides everything else, and the material is not a sin in and of itself, but when in its addictive state, it is just a 'chasing after the wind.'  (Ecclesiastes 2:10,11)

This altar to an unknown god which Paul addresses, he says is the God that they don't know - Jesus Christ and in him alone is the resurrection of the dead.  In him alone is the fulfilment of the scriptures.  In him alone is life and breath and everything else.

As Paul winds up his diatribe with the people of Athens, he says this: in the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.  (turn back to God)  For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.  He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

God's peace to you as you turn back to him this week.  God's peace as you encounter the one who gives not only life and breath, but new life and renewed breath.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

A Better Way?



I went to a football game last night.  My team, the Fremantle Dockers, took ineptitude to new and exciting levels and after the deflation of seeing my team lose so badly, surrounded by tens of thousands of rabid opposing fans, it was with great dejection I left the stadium.  Putting on a brave face and absorbing the almost pitying sounds of home fans as they noticed the colors of the team I was supporting, we walked with the throng along the street to the ranks of buses.

Just opposite the stadium, directly in the path of the flow of the river, a booth had been set up with a sign perched high in the air which proclaimed in bold and underlined letters: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!  REPENT! For the kingdom of God is at hand! 

Although I agreed with the sentiment, the man speaking, holding onto the booth like one grasping a downed branched in a flooded river, shouted to the jubilant spectators, "Jesus has come to save you.  All you need to do is have a personal relationship with him!  All you need to do is open your heart!  All you need to do is accept that you have sinned..."  One of the women walking behind me responded, "I'll get down on my knees before God if he will just give my team the championship."  I don't think that was the point of the man's argument.

A few other people heckled him on the way past and the irony was not lost on me.  As he presumably stood strong in the torrent secular culture flowing like an engorged river from the bastion of sporting entertainment, his voice rang hollow.  Make sure you have a relationship with God because I, myself, don't (and probably won't) have one with you.  Make sure you do the right things.  Make sure that your efforts and your energy all do...  When he said these words: "All you have to do..." I cringed because unknowingly, perhaps, he had stripped the gospel message of all its power and put it back into the hands of humanity.  If its up to me and about what I do, well I'll certainly get to it later when I really need a savior.

This kind of preaching doesn't work anymore.  Maybe it never worked - the doomsayers, the placard holding Pharisees who stand in the middle of what they believe to be the cesspool of secular culture pronouncing judgement against the happy crowd.  Instead of reaching out to people, engaging in their joys and sorrows, the man at the stadium overlooked what everyone human on the face of the planet needs...

Connection.

Yes, with God, certainly, but with people who are willing to walk alongside them and wait for the right opportunity to talk about God's grace as well as the law.  To pronounce judgement on the sin of the crowd without an opportunity to hear their names or their stories is inviting, almost begging for, irrelevance.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes it beautifully: "Do not try to make the Bible relevant... Do not defend God's word, but testify to it. Trust the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity."

In Christianity's attempt to bring relevance to the Bible, music, art, worship and all things 'churchy', all things which try to make Jesus 'cool', rather than trusting that the Word of God, Christ incarnate, and the written word, the cradle of Christ, we have actually done the opposite; we have made Christ irrelevant in modern society.  There is no room for a delicately flowing-robed Jesus, gently coiffed hair and neatly trimmed beard, who speaks about sin - because our culture accepts the fact that all activities are relative - and therefore irrelevant.

But there is room for the Son of Man who was given from heaven to be in relationship with all humanity, to hear their names and their stories, to heal and to preach repentance in a way that drew people to him and to salvation.

As Easter draws close and the purifying beauty of Lent rushes to an end at the cross of Christ, can we ponder once again how we speak of God?  How do we stand in a modern world which is flooded with distractions, to engage with a God on a long term basis - one fraught with difficulties and joys?  How can we avoid being crushed by the onslaught of negativity and mockery from a world that thinks it sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil?

How can we draw on the message of the cross of Christ to deliver wonder to a wonderful world which is wondering about a hesitant future?

We connect. 

In the next days - let's take a look at Paul's opportunity in Athens when he seems to be doing the same thing as the man outside the stadium.  Acts 17:16-34.  Walk with me.



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