Well I have been more than impressed with the change of government so far.
Well done Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for your most unorthodox more to open the first sitting of parliament for the year with an indigenous Australian welcome to country and traditional ceremony. Hats off not only for pulling a political stunt but for the unconventional move for doing something that has never been done in the history of Australian government. Also for the gesture of showing our indigenous brothers and sisters that they are important to us at all levels of society. Foolishness at it's best!
I like millions of others eagerly await the historical landmark 'Sorry' speech tomorrow morning and will blog (like thousands of other bloggers no doubt) my thoughts and reflections post speech.
Shalom,
Mark
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Why the journey?
Am I too young to say, ‘I’m not as young as I used to be’? Or maybe, ‘I’m not the person I used to be’.
On Wednesday I became reacquainted with my mountain bike. It’s been living in the shed, neatly stored away for some time now. For the last couple of months I’ve managed to neglect it with excuses like, ‘I’m too busy’, or ‘it’s too hot’. For lent this year I decided to re-connect with a discipline which has been valuable for me. I will pull out my bike, dust it off, abandon my car and ride daily to and from the places I need to be everyday.
Sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? I soon encountered a hitch in the journey that I wasn’t quiet prepared for. I live in a valley and my office is about 4 or 5km away at the top of the hill. I was about half way up this hill when I realized just how unfit I had become. I must admit I did glance down the hill a couple of times and wonder at the ease of turning around to go back and get the car. But I pushed on because I knew this journey was an intentional discipline that will not only get me back into shape and help the environment by taking one more car off the road, but it was a discipline about recreating space. This recreating space was about taking time for the journey and understanding a bit more about this journey that I take from the bottom of the valley to the top of the hill. This journey involves hard work, discipline and pain. However I know with the practice of the discipline the journey will get easier.
Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, was the first day of lent. Lent is about revisiting the disciplines that define us as the people of God. It may be about reconnecting with or revisiting the journey less traveled. We do this by taking on disciplines that help focus us on the journey towards the cross and the commitment to the kingdom of God. But is the fasting or the abstinence from certain things a bid to impress God or others? It seems that over the centuries of this practice it has become so. Even Isaiah recognizes such a thing in Isaiah 58. He says that if your disciplines don’t change you or redirect your journey then they are discovered for what they really are, a poor attempt to win favor with God.
However Isaiah responds on God’s behalf,
‘This is the kind of fasting I choose: cut the bonds of oppression, undo the yoke of injustice, set the oppressed free. Share your bread with the hungry, open your doors to the homeless. Give your coat to those who shiver, and don’t hide yourself from your own family.
Do this and light shall begin to dawn, and very quickly healing will be yours, my righteousness shall go ahead of you, and my glory shall follow your every step. Then you will call out for help, and I will answer. I will say to you, “Here I am, my child.”’
Lent isn’t just about a pious abstinence from the things of this world, it is a solid commitment to participate in changing it. May you commit to the journey of such things that melt the heart of God, and may your heart also be transformed as you participate in the journey God longs for us.
Shalom, Mark
On Wednesday I became reacquainted with my mountain bike. It’s been living in the shed, neatly stored away for some time now. For the last couple of months I’ve managed to neglect it with excuses like, ‘I’m too busy’, or ‘it’s too hot’. For lent this year I decided to re-connect with a discipline which has been valuable for me. I will pull out my bike, dust it off, abandon my car and ride daily to and from the places I need to be everyday.
Sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? I soon encountered a hitch in the journey that I wasn’t quiet prepared for. I live in a valley and my office is about 4 or 5km away at the top of the hill. I was about half way up this hill when I realized just how unfit I had become. I must admit I did glance down the hill a couple of times and wonder at the ease of turning around to go back and get the car. But I pushed on because I knew this journey was an intentional discipline that will not only get me back into shape and help the environment by taking one more car off the road, but it was a discipline about recreating space. This recreating space was about taking time for the journey and understanding a bit more about this journey that I take from the bottom of the valley to the top of the hill. This journey involves hard work, discipline and pain. However I know with the practice of the discipline the journey will get easier.
Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, was the first day of lent. Lent is about revisiting the disciplines that define us as the people of God. It may be about reconnecting with or revisiting the journey less traveled. We do this by taking on disciplines that help focus us on the journey towards the cross and the commitment to the kingdom of God. But is the fasting or the abstinence from certain things a bid to impress God or others? It seems that over the centuries of this practice it has become so. Even Isaiah recognizes such a thing in Isaiah 58. He says that if your disciplines don’t change you or redirect your journey then they are discovered for what they really are, a poor attempt to win favor with God.
However Isaiah responds on God’s behalf,
‘This is the kind of fasting I choose: cut the bonds of oppression, undo the yoke of injustice, set the oppressed free. Share your bread with the hungry, open your doors to the homeless. Give your coat to those who shiver, and don’t hide yourself from your own family.
Do this and light shall begin to dawn, and very quickly healing will be yours, my righteousness shall go ahead of you, and my glory shall follow your every step. Then you will call out for help, and I will answer. I will say to you, “Here I am, my child.”’
Lent isn’t just about a pious abstinence from the things of this world, it is a solid commitment to participate in changing it. May you commit to the journey of such things that melt the heart of God, and may your heart also be transformed as you participate in the journey God longs for us.
Shalom, Mark
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Check out my new column
Hi faithful readers of my blog. Just letting you all know that I am now writing a monthly column for an online Churches of Christ magazine called 'The Australian Christian'.
I have the honor of taking over an old column and renaming it. The old column is 'Christ and Today'. The new name is 'The foolish way'. The inference here in the re-invention of a column title is to say that the call to follow Jesus is foolishness. A careful read of the Gospels will certianly reveal as such and invite you on an exciting adventure. Such will be the nature of my monthly articles...I hope. So I won't say too much now, you're just going to have to check it out and have a read.
The first on my articles has just been published today and I have the article also posted on this blog so you get this one for free! It's titled the otherness of God.
So click on the link above, the AC online is a great read. Check the side bar for 'The foolish way' to find me. You can't read the whole thing unless you're a member so sign up and support our online mag.
Let me know what you think. Cheers Mark
I have the honor of taking over an old column and renaming it. The old column is 'Christ and Today'. The new name is 'The foolish way'. The inference here in the re-invention of a column title is to say that the call to follow Jesus is foolishness. A careful read of the Gospels will certianly reveal as such and invite you on an exciting adventure. Such will be the nature of my monthly articles...I hope. So I won't say too much now, you're just going to have to check it out and have a read.
The first on my articles has just been published today and I have the article also posted on this blog so you get this one for free! It's titled the otherness of God.
So click on the link above, the AC online is a great read. Check the side bar for 'The foolish way' to find me. You can't read the whole thing unless you're a member so sign up and support our online mag.
Let me know what you think. Cheers Mark
May we overcome indifference
Another year has kicked off to a flying start and today marks the first Sunday of the year that everything kicks back into full swing. We have all returned to our work, study and play routines, and we’ve all returned back to worship after a period where many of us have been away. Welcome back everyone!
Let us not be too comfortable in routines however but let us expect the Spirit of God to take us on an adventure. Let us expect new things to happen to us and around us as we continue to participate in the church of Christ. I’m not just taking about the denominational version of Churches of Christ we may lovingly dedicate our loyalties to, I’m talking about our participation in the broader movement of Christ.
I have enjoyed some of the conversations myself and other clergy in the area have been having about our outlook on 2008 and our participation together in the kingdom of God. There is an energy swirling as we prepare to also invite our congregations into the conversation with one another through post-Easter ecumenical studies. However it seems that not everyone is looking forward with the same enthusiasm. I was saddened to see an email land in my inbox last week that made my heart sink. It was from a clergy member in our network who began by encouraging me for my enthusiasm about ecumenical studies which lifted my spirits. The email then went on to read why their congregation probably won’t participate. Apparently the church already have small groups who are comfortable ‘sharing and having fellowship’ among themselves and are reluctant to give this up. They suggested that maybe they’ll grab their own copies of ‘ecumenical’ studies and do it among themselves (which defeats the purpose of what our SA council of churches are trying to achieve).
The spirit within me groans deeply and the inner voice once again reminds me that the church was never intended to be a group that existed for fellowship among ourselves, nor was it intended that we would separate out into communities (denominations) of like minded people for our own comfort for fear of someone having difference of theological opinion.
We only have everything to be gained from participation in dialogue with our friends from other Christian traditions. It must be a task at the front of the agenda of every Christian church that we go out of our way to embrace one another in guided conversations such as these. Our commitment to embracing one another in love is imperative for making meaning of the movement of Christ. Maybe then, that which gives us meaning may be known to the wider world through the language of unity, grace, hope and love. Hopefully by understanding one another we may learn something more about what it means to embrace the other. Then ‘fellowship’ with Christ wouldn’t be confined to the groups of people we know and are comfortable with but would be shared as it ought to be, with others.
Shalom
Mark
Let us not be too comfortable in routines however but let us expect the Spirit of God to take us on an adventure. Let us expect new things to happen to us and around us as we continue to participate in the church of Christ. I’m not just taking about the denominational version of Churches of Christ we may lovingly dedicate our loyalties to, I’m talking about our participation in the broader movement of Christ.
I have enjoyed some of the conversations myself and other clergy in the area have been having about our outlook on 2008 and our participation together in the kingdom of God. There is an energy swirling as we prepare to also invite our congregations into the conversation with one another through post-Easter ecumenical studies. However it seems that not everyone is looking forward with the same enthusiasm. I was saddened to see an email land in my inbox last week that made my heart sink. It was from a clergy member in our network who began by encouraging me for my enthusiasm about ecumenical studies which lifted my spirits. The email then went on to read why their congregation probably won’t participate. Apparently the church already have small groups who are comfortable ‘sharing and having fellowship’ among themselves and are reluctant to give this up. They suggested that maybe they’ll grab their own copies of ‘ecumenical’ studies and do it among themselves (which defeats the purpose of what our SA council of churches are trying to achieve).
The spirit within me groans deeply and the inner voice once again reminds me that the church was never intended to be a group that existed for fellowship among ourselves, nor was it intended that we would separate out into communities (denominations) of like minded people for our own comfort for fear of someone having difference of theological opinion.
We only have everything to be gained from participation in dialogue with our friends from other Christian traditions. It must be a task at the front of the agenda of every Christian church that we go out of our way to embrace one another in guided conversations such as these. Our commitment to embracing one another in love is imperative for making meaning of the movement of Christ. Maybe then, that which gives us meaning may be known to the wider world through the language of unity, grace, hope and love. Hopefully by understanding one another we may learn something more about what it means to embrace the other. Then ‘fellowship’ with Christ wouldn’t be confined to the groups of people we know and are comfortable with but would be shared as it ought to be, with others.
Shalom
Mark
The otherness of God
I became deeply intrigued with the TV program Lost, especially with the introduction of ‘the others’. The directors of Lost really do capture the true essence of human nature when the survivors who crash-landed on a mysterious island discover ‘the others', who existed on the island before them. The discovery of the others by the characters we as viewers have come to like and identify with is met with a classic reaction of fear and suspicion of what they do not understand. What’s more is they cannot see, manipulate or control the others, which frustrates our beloved survivors. It’s not until the series unfolds that we discover that the others have a story, too. So herein lies the question: can we cast aside our fears and suspicions long enough to actually hear and - maybe - understand the story of the other?I once heard of a Christian congratulating an atheist on being liberated of their atheism because they admitted that there is a possibility that God could exist outside their understanding. While many of us would like to applaud our Christian friend for pointing out the limitations of the human mind and experience, we mustn’t be too smug in our deliberations or ownership over the nature of God. Many who claim to have the inside word on who God is and how God chooses to reveal Godself often struggle to participate in the on going dialogue and discovery of who God is, who we are, and who we are in relationship with God and one another. I would dare to expand on that and say that God can exist beyond anyone’s understanding. In fact it is in that which we do not understand that we could discover something new and profound about the nature of God. God is most often revealed to us through that which we cannot explain, or outside our experience. Let us not forget the wisdom in the question, ‘Is it possible that God could exist outside your understanding?’
There is room to discover that God is much greater than the explanations, names and descriptions we give. In fact, all that we do not know or are yet to understand about the nature of God is found in otherness, that is, the other. While we are called to care for and seek justice for the other we have an ethical hesitation towards the other because of difference of opinion, doctrine or choice of lifestyle. The other may be that which we are afraid of or do not understand, it may be the conversation we’ve failed to have or the person we struggle to love. If we open our hearts and minds we discover that God is revealed in the other and we must acknowledge that God exists in relationship with us intimately but also in the distant other we are yet to discover. We do not contain all knowledge and understanding which makes our journey so enriching and new each day.
We discover the nature of God revealed in human form through Jesus, yet even that has its limits for us. It is through Jesus’ example that we are called to continue to discover justice, love, grace, compassion and mercy as we interact with the other. It is through this practice that we continue to discover and rediscover the nature of God and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom. The Spirit prompts and calls us on to continue the journey, discover ourselves and what God truly wants from us.
I believe Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is about so much more than we sometimes understand. God’s tick of approval on the life and ministry of Jesus must remind us of a life of faithfulness lived not only as an example to us all but hopefully as a beacon to help show us where our sin really lets us down and is the cause of our failure to also live such a life. We acknowledge that we need a savior but do we know what we really need salvation from? I believe that one of our greatest sins is displayed in the expulsion, exclusion and segregation of ‘the other’ because of our fear or lack of understanding.
Is it possible that we could learn something profound about the nature of God by embracing the other? May we always be embracing of otherness and may your life be enriched by the colourful tapestry of the nature of God.
Shalom Mark
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