How long is soon?

In school today, I showed pupils a video in which a Pentecostal teenager explains what Pentecostal believe. Within the list of beliefs she said, "We believe Jesus is soon coming". After the video a pupil put up her hand and asked,
"How long have they been waiting for Jesus to come?"
"About 2,000 years", I said.
"I don't think he's coming!", he replied.
Another pupil put up his hand, "What is 'soon'? Surely 'soon' can't be 2,000 years?"
Finally, a third pupil raised her hand, "How can people believe things that are just not true?"

I thought it was an interesting interchange. The pupils had clearly cottoned on to the absurdity of a belief that Jesus will come soon, when 2,000 years of history appears to prove otherwise. Yet, Paul certainly appears to have believed that Jesus was soon coming. (1 Thess. 4:17) The way we change this to mean that he could come at any time in the future, is altering what Paul believed. How would you respond to these pupils? How do you understand the 2nd Coming after 2,000 years of failing to materialise? What relevance does it have to our lives?

scandalous gospel of Jesus

Always the poor

(Click on image to see text)

I’ve always struggled with that bit in the gospels where Jesus says, “you always have the poor with you.” (Matthew 26:11) It seems so out of place with both Jesus and the story it comes in.

The story itself appears to make a lot of sense, apart from that bit. It starts with chief priests and elders of the law plotting the covert arrest of Jesus. Next, Jesus is placed in the house of Simon the Leper! The location is hardly inconsequential. Jesus is rehabilitating a leper, treating an outcast with human dignity by eating at his table. In a society where lepers were expelled from the city, to eat at his table is remarkably humanising.

Then, in startling contrast to the elders and chief priests, a woman shows real love and care for Jesus. She pours expensive perfume on Jesus’ head (quite odd if you ask me!) Somehow Jesus sees this as providing his body with a proper burial. (again, slightly odd) One of the reasons crucifixion was considered shameful was because the deceased were seldom buried. They were usually simply left for carrion or thrown on a rubbish tip. It was a point of enormous anxiety that Jesus’ body would be so shamefully treated. Whether or not the woman literally knew that Jesus was to be crucified, we can, at least, see in this gesture an attempt to give human dignity to a man who is about to be denied it. She gives Jesus the kind of dignity he was giving the leper and modelled throughout his life. He knew he could go to his grave knowing that at this juncture in his life he was cared for and his body, in a way, embalmed.

I also love the way Jesus (as usual) defends a woman (who would have experienced put downs from men on a regular basis) from the disciples’ criticisms. “Why are you bothering this woman?” he asks.

Yet, for all that is liberating and inspiring about all this, I’ve always thought Jesus’ words, “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me with you” appear to undo it all. They sound like an excuse for not prioritizing the needs of the poor in our giving and our politics. It seems to justify some kind of worship of Jesus, over against providing for the needy. It seems so out of step with the Jesus who came to “fill the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:53).
Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 15:11,
"There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in the land."
In Deuteronomy the on-going presence of the poor means that there must be on-going, structural relief for them. Jesus, though, appears to turn this upside down: the on-going presence of the poor means that the poor can be helped later – poverty will never be history, so don’t get too hung up on it.

But, here’s where I had an epiphany…It suddenly occurred to me: Who is the poor in this story? Isn’t Jesus the needy one - about to be made a victim of cruel crucifixion and potentially left to the mercy of the elements? Is not Jesus the one whose humanity is about to be denied him? Yet, the disciples show no concern. One of them, Judas, is about to betray him for money. When a gesture of appreciation and love is shown Jesus, all they do is shun it. What’s more, they talk about the poor in the abstract – no names are mentioned, no human face is put to them. “The poor?”, says Jesus, “who are they? You don’t even know any. Don’t talk to me about the abstract needy, especially when you have a real living one right in front of you, for whom you are showing no apparent concern.” In this story the woman saw Jesus as the one who was about to be dehumanised in front of the world by the torture of crucifixion and then left to an inhumane disposal, as though his body was no more than meat. The woman treated his body with dignity, but the men showed no such concern.

In many ways, this is a story about looking for the needy under our noses. In our globalised world, where we engage with the poor through a TV set or an Internet connection, its easy to forget the needy on our doorsteps. Us, Generation Xers, are in danger of such ‘global’, issues-based, but impersonal social action. There is definitely a place for it, but let’s not forget the poor on our doorsteps.

It’s also a story about being concerned with more than handouts, but being concerned about valuing people. It is a story about caring for the human. Isn’t this why we are taking action against the dehumanising of people at Guantanamo? Because Jesus taught us to treat people like human beings and with dignity?

I think the Guantanamo event will be great and I’m really looking forward to, but lets use it as an opportunity to think about how we are giving dignity to our partners and our children, our work colleagues and that homeless guy we walk past on the way to work.

(PS. Apologies if this is all really obvious to everyone and also, apologies for getting a bit preachy at the end!)

A Kick in the Testaments

Laughing is pretty hard when you’ve just been kicked in the testaments! – Or after someone put the boot into your prize assets! But, in time, (and it may take a while), you eventually begin to see the funny side! That is exactly what happens in Amazon’s reviews of the Holy Bible – people well and truly put the boot into a Christian’s prize asset, but though there are a few painful moments, in the recognition of a few fair points made, in the end, you’ve got to admit – some of their comments are quite funny. Here are a few of my favourites:

“There aren’t enough good fights”

“Three stars, because the paper was too thin”

“One of the most disjointed novels I’ve read in a long while”

“Almost preachy in tone”

“Who wrote this thing, Michael Moore?”

“Definitely not his best work”

“Obviously the infallbile KJV stands alone as a paragon of exactitude, percisION, undeniability, brevity, bombastictness and hysterectomy.”

“The first half is better. In fact, you can totally disregard the second part entirely. It was an unnecessary addition. The author accomplishes everything needed by the end of the first part.”

“For those of you who don’t know, this is God’s second novel after the Old Testament. It’s a marked improvement, in my opinion. He got rid of a lot of his previous angst and scorn, and has really begun to show some of the maturity present in his later works. He’s become a much more loving and kind God, and, noticeably, he doesn’t throw nearly as many tantrums as he did in the first book.”

“There were too many perspectives and the story didn’t really even have a cohesive plot. This is the most overrated book I’ve read since The Da Vinci Code!”

“’Revelation’ was pretty weird, sort of like watching “Fantasia” while doing mushrooms, only a lot scarier.”

“Some magic was great like the feeding of one hundred from only ten or eleven fish but apart from that nothing special. Read most but not all of it as after Noer, it was kind of boring. That guy lived for years!! Update: Finished. Good ending.”

Babygun

Clarion events who run 'the baby show' and 'the caravan show' just bought the DSEi Arms Fair!!!

I didn't know they already do other arms fairs as well.

Special Offer - Buy 2 teething rings and get a free electric cattle prod to torture those who disagree with you politics

Boycott everything they do and email their CEO here (sorry a bit directive i know!)

Oh and sorry for the pic as well. As a Dad I find it hard to describe how sick it makes me feel but it makes the point I think. In fact if I was a hacker then I would hack into the baby show website and poster it everywhere!

Church is for answers, not questions!

I have a confession to make. Secretly, deep down, in a very dark place, I am a fan of Desperate Housewives!! Now I’m out of the closet, I need to regain some dignity by making a few pious comments on this week’s episode.

Lynette, mother of five, who has survived cancer and a tornado, decides she wants to go to church. She watches her neighbours leave for church on a Sunday morning, and realises that she has a lot to be thankful for, as well as a lot of unanswered questions. So, for the first time in her life she goes to church. Unfortunately, when she gets there, she discovers that church is not a place for asking questions. Watch the clip of her visit to church here.

The punchline comes in the next scene, though, when her church-going friend, Bree, informs Lynette that she should not ask questions in church because, “church isn't a place for questions, it's a place for answers." Church, she explains, is a time to listen and eventually, if you have any questions, they will be answered by listening.

At this point, Schof rang me (much more stimulating than Desperate Housewives, of course), so I have no idea how it ended, but it really struck a chord with me because I’ve been going to church most of my life and for most of that time I’ve been desperate for the church to answer my questions, but it was never interested in them. It never seemed to be a group of people asking and investigating the divine, but a group intent on telling everyone their answers. (Is that too harsh?) I’m not trying to say that there is value in indecision. Constant prevaricating can certainly stop us putting our beliefs into practice. It seems quite reasonable that we land on some convictions that prompt action. But, these convictions are always held to with a light touch, aware that we are dealing with questions of God and life – questions that cannot be empirically tested. Isn’t that what faith is all about. It just seems to me that God, by his very nature is mysterious, beyond us, someone we enquire into, not one we essentially can ever have sewn up.

I’ve always felt a bit like Lynette – like a square peg in a round hole – like I’d completely got the wrong idea about what church was about - asking questions no one wanted broached, let alone answered. In fact, had I declared myself a non-Christian I think people would have given me more time, but a Christian is in. His journey has stopped and he now has the answers, not the questions.

Of course, I realise that it is highly threatening for some people that their faith is being questioned. I realise I’m not as sympathetic about this as maybe I should be – psychologically many do not have confidence (faith?) that their beliefs will still hold together after intense probing. Faith (that conviction about things we cannot be certain about) is replaced by certainty.

Anyway, this isn’t a moan. I am personally reconciled to what church is. This is more of a thanks to all you bloggers out there for providing me a context for the first time in my life where I can ask questions and get things wrong and retract things and no one is defensive that their faith is under threat.

Get Fair

Get Fair

watch out for press tomorrow

God on Trial

I was away and missed this - anyone see it and fancy doing a review post ?

You can still catch it here (which I will do when i get a spare 90mins!)

Who wants to live forever?

I personally think Freddie was right – who does want to live forever? I mean, it sounds pretty dull to go on and on and on. I’ve always liked that quote, “People dream of immortality who can’t decide what to do on a rainy day”. And all this disembodied stuff doesn’t appeal much either – I love the feel of the sun on my back and other physical pleasures (!!) And, to be honest, perfection is pretty unattractive too. How dull to have some pre-determined, ideal place, where human creativity and ingenuity are no longer required. To be honest, I quite like all the depth of human experience and emotion that comes from our falleness and uncertainty about the future.

But, I can accept it. I mean, it doesn’t appeal much, but I’m willing to allow for the fact that we somehow continue after death. But, what really bothers me, is the fact that it has somehow become the centrepiece of Christianity. We need to ensure (more than anything else) that we go to heaven and get others there too. And this preoccupation with heaven means that social action in the present is only relatively important. I know people say that they can have both – social action and evangelism – but my experience of the church is that one negates the other. With a very utilitarian logic – eternity is just simply longer and so more important.

With this in mind, we’ve been reading 1 John in church over the last few months, and I’m afraid I didn’t fall over with excitement when I read its apparent message: “And this is what he promised us – even eternal life.” (2:25)

…except that something hit me between the eyes as I was reading it that I know is pretty commonplace for many, but had hardly registered in my consciousness before: the Greek word for “eternal” doesn’t mean “eternal” at all. It is the Greek word, “aon”, from which we get the English word ‘eon’. It means age or era. Of course, we can imagine this age going on and on, but to translate it “eternal” is somewhat misleading. It isn’t a promise of continued existence after death, it is a promise of a new kind of life that has started in the present. This is what he has promised us – the life of the eon (the new age of God’s presence in the world). Or, as it is put elsewhere in 1 John, “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” (2:8)

So, maybe Freddie was right after all:

Forever is our today

Who waits forever anyway?

Incidentally, it also just so happens that 1 John is not that impressed by the whole disembodied thing either. One of its main objections is against those in the community who valued a disembodied, ‘other-worldly’ Christianity and so believed in a disembodied Jesus and couldn’t accept a sensual, physical one. Maybe, we are more out of step with I John than we think when we reduce the Christian message to a reward in the after life.

Of course, I know its not enough to simply get excited about a re-reading of the Bible, we need to start living the life right now (the embodied, joyful, liberating, holistic life) that God has promised us. There is, after all, nothing to wait for. But, I do also think salvaging the Bible from the hands of those who have made it irrelevant is pretty important too – especially if we care about the Bible and the Christian tradition we find ourselves in.

Goats + Air Crash Investigation + losing our Humanity

I was talking to my jumbo pilot brother in law the other day when he was asked about the recent Madrid plane crash that killed 153 people (mainly families off on hols) last month. His reply really struck me and we had a very brief chat about it. I can't remember the exact words he used but this is a summary of the gist of his unexpected response blurred in with my thoughts-

• Everybody always wants to know 'what happened' which is also saying 'who is to blame'
• This is very hard to say and often takes ages to work out and, whilst this is vital to prevent it happening again, its not the most important thing (this was a bit shocking coming from someone who spends his life 30,000ft up in one of these machines)
• Bry said -What about the people who died, their families and those badly injured and still in hospital - what about the real life human beings caught up in this awful tragic event.
• With the 24hr media cycle to maintain and the growing 'blame & claim' litigious culture explaining and blaming rob the people in the story of their humanity (as they become statistics and emotive/gore pics/porn?)

Does this explain/blame response, a classic scapegoating response (see other scapegoat labeled post here) help us to keep our own vulnerability, culpability and responsibility at bay. I mean does it help us rationalise it all so we -

• Are not to disturbed by what could be a very important, humbling and refocusing reminder of our own mortality and relative lack of control of the world around us
• Don't think for to long on how we might be in any way to blame for this or other 'regretable accidents' (Doesn't our wanton consumerism and the profit motive not drive short turn arounds, long lifetime aircraft, bare as possible bones maintenance etc (add in your own non aviation eg's Exxon Valdez, Bhopal?) Do we not all allow 'the system' to override our better judgement? Do we not all make more or less catastrophic balls ups of stuff on a regular basis? Also, doesn't a fear and blame culture make it harder to get to the truth in an investigation thats trying to make sure things are better next time. Openness and humility lead to learning and growth (repentance?) in processes and people.)
• Are conveniently unreflective on the suffering and needs of our fellow human beings and doing what we might be able to do for them or others facing similar suffering closer to home

Warning long pondering sentences ahead -
So...I am trying to work out what this says about what God did by being willing to be the scapegoat in Jesus, to be the victim, to be pointed out as the designer of the supposed problem tile on the space shuttle, the bad apple spoiling everything, the thrashed and publicly trashed. To show what... that this scapegoating thing is a massive self preserving diversionary tactic that doesn't work, that we reveal the stuff we should really be ashamed of in the act of scapegoating, that Gods love is bigger than our convenient guilt systems (in fact not just bigger than guilt but bigger than even death in the Resurrection) . That, like Bry says, the bottom line is the dignity, value, comfort and life of real people that matters. That God's love (victim and perpetrator embracing love), rather that the idea of God=Fear and Blame, is the door to learning and growth = repentance and then onwards and outwards to the best chance of dignity, value, comfort and abundant life for all.

Hmm... bit dense and rambly in places but thanks Bry and folks - any thoughts?

Hunks Rule

I was gutted to miss Jon Birch aka ASBO Jesus at Greenbelt and this is a beauty. There seems to be lots of chat on the blogosphere about 'women' / 'complementarianism' (women and men are 'equal' but different and have complementary roles - ie men in charge, women 'help'). I tried so hard then not to sound cynical, did I manage? Don't know what you think but it always seems worth having a bit of a think about something promoted by a group that just so happens to directly benefit from it. Now I know we are entering 'how we read the bible' territory here but hey this stuff either marks out Christianity from 'the world' or makes it sound not a little dark ages. I don't even know how much I want to open this one up. Whatever your reading of it all - blokes feel free to chip in to the authoritative debate, women don't worry your pretty little heads...

Greenbelt Highlights!

What were your greenbelt highlights?

Click on "comments" below or write a new post to let us know. Even if we don't know you, let us know what you enjoyed/inspired you about greenbelt this year.

I'm writing this before leaving for Greenbelt in the hope and expectation that there will be lots of good things at Greenbelt.

If you see this before you go, check out ASBO Jesus and CAP when you get there.

happy camping!

What would Monet have wanted?

Schof asked someone recently : If Monet was your art teacher, what would Monet have wanted you to do? They replied that Monet would have wanted them to produce their own piece of impressionist artwork.

I thought that was a great illustration. Surely he wouldn't have wanted groups of Monet admirers 100 years later, arguing about which were the really authentic examples of Monet's work and try to reproduce them time and time again. Surely, he wouldn't want them to reproduce copies of a garden in Giverney or a street in Paris. Surely, its about taking what was a hugely radical way of doing art and asking what it might mean for a Rochdale Council Estate or a Sheffield Steel works.

How bizarre, then, that 2000 years after Jesus people are all busy trying to reproduce authentic replicas of the church 2000 years ago and arguing over what was really authentic, instead of being genuinely creative and asking what it means to be a Jesus-follower in 21st Century Sheffield.

Guantanamo Images

I was thinking that it would be really good to have some visual images for our Guantanamo event in October and I came across these. Gwyneth Leech was commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross for an Episcopal parish in Connecticut. The ones above are amongst my favourites. They brilliantly draw in some of the political images of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. I think the presence of the woman in the crowd dressed in Muslim clothes is brilliant. I also think the association of Jesus' death with the victims of Guantanamo is great. I know this is nothng new. I think someone has already blogged about the way Jesus is presented as a Guantanamo inmate in Manchester's Passion. There's a quite good theology of guantanamo available here, which says, "if Jesus were caught living the vicious subversive Gospel today, he would not be on a wooden cross, since the wooden cross no longer symbolizes what it did then: the dishonouring and dehumanization of the individual in the presence of the entire city as a punishment. He would be wearing an orange jumper, living in a cage, dishonoured and dehumanized, in the presence of the entire world who behold all this on the TV screen."

About the one of Jesus naked, Leech writes, “The Roman stripped the condemned and crucified them naked as a way of humiliating them and utterly breaking their spirit. Here, I had dozens of images of modern prisoners stripped for the same reasons,” Leech said.“I decided to compose the 10th station with the man threatened by dogs, echoing Psalm 22, sung each Good Friday: ‘Deliver me from the mouth of the dog.’”

To see the rest of the stations of the cross, click here.

For me, I want Engage to a holistic thing that brings together the creative as well as the logical, the mysterious as well as the cerebral and blurs some of the lines of distinction between the religious and secular, the pietistic and the political. I'd love the event we have in October to draw together some of these things that are often kept disperate. Can we get prints of some of this stuff and leave it on tables for people to bounce off on the evening?

Feel free to bounce off it here on the blog.

More Guantanamo Images

More images for you to bounce off, make comments on etc.

Taking Action on Guantanamo!

In blogs and conversations with people over the last year, the resounding consensus seems to be that people want to do something about their faith. Its not enough for Engage to be a talking shop. There needs to action too.

Also, out of our blog conversations just such an action idea has emerged that we would love feedback on. We are thinking that it would be good to do an event (probably in October) about Guantanamo Bay. We might watch some of the film, "Road to Guantanamo". We might ask people to contribute artistically, with music and pictures about Guantanamo Bay. We want to book a neutral venue and we want the evening to be one where we are taking action. Spending some of the time writing to inmates or to governments or just being made aware of some of the things that we could be doing about Guantanamo. The ideas are deliberately left up in the air, because we really want others to contribute ideas and get involved in this. We'd love it to be open to anyone and everyone. Although it will come from a distinctively Christian perspective, we hope it would be accessible to all, but certainly not proselytising in any way. To be honest, we haven't decided on the level/nature of the Christian element. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

If you've missed some of the blogging about Guantanamo, I recommend you click here to catch up on what you've missed.

In the first week or two of September we hope to have a get together (down the pub) of all interested parties to talk/plan and enthuse about what we are doing. Please post a comment or e-mail to let us know if you are interested in coming along.

Also, please post a comment either to say - I'm interested, I've got an idea - here it is, have you thought of this etc etc. Even if we don't know you we would love to hear from you and involve you in what we're doing.

Ebor Lectures

Ebor lectures are on Wednesday evenings at 7pm at York Minster or York St. John University. The theme this year is "The Challenge of Climate Change: Eco-crisis, Sustainable Living and the Future of God's Planet.

Here are a few that appeal to me - fancy going?

Wed. 29th Oct: "Silence in heaven: Reading Climate Change through the Book of Revelation" by Timothy Gorringe (I've read a few of Gorringe's books and I like them).

Wed. 4th March: "Creation, Ecological Crisis and the Global Poor" by Elaine Storkey

25th March: Rowan Williams - lecture title to be confirmed.

22nd April: "Disturbing the Present" by John Sauven (director of Greenpeace)

6th May: "Consider the lilies of the field: How Luke's Gospel could save the planet" by Mary Grey

I'm sure the full list of lectures will be available on the website soon!