September 2, 2010 - Posted by Editor - 0 Comments
15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (John 17: 15-18)
“In” and “of” are small two-letter prepositions, but the difference they make in John 17: 15-18 is quite phenomenal. If we fail to distinguish and discern between them, we fail to execute a balanced Christian lifestyle that is at once relevant to our times and yet entirely consecrated to God. The church has always struggled with this. Sacred and secular are words that have always challenged our perspective and actions … this dichotomy, much like the intractable Gordian Knot, will never be completely resolved without Alexander the Great’s pragmatic solution until the day Jesus comes again.
The fact is, we were meant to live out the puzzle. John 17: 15-19 gives us the context and premise of how we are to live our lives as the marturoi (witnesses) of Christ. Jesus affirms, in his high priestly prayer for his disciples, that they are “not of the world” for they are united with him and the Father. Certainly, Jesus and the Father are not of this world! The disciples had heard the message of Christ; they had embraced it; they had become different both in nature as in action by this very identification with Christ. Therefore, they were separated from the world. The affiliation and allegiance to Christ meant that they could no longer think or live as they had done before. No wonder Jesus prayed for his little flock’s protection. After he was gone, they would need all the help they could get! Just as the world rejected and hated him, he promised his disciples that it would reject and hate them too.
And yet …
Jesus did not ask the Father to “take them out of the world”. He simply prayed that they would be protected by the Father’s care, and that they should rest under the banner of his love. He would be Jehovah Nissi to them, and they would be his beloved.
No one knew the implications or impact of this prayer then, but the disciples would experience firsthand what it meant in the book of Acts. This motley crew turned the world upside down. In retrospect, we understand that Jesus prayed for their protection by God, and their sanctification by the Spirit, as they worked out their lives in the world, not out of it. He anticipated the time when they would be sanctified vessels, carrying the life and power of the Lord as they went about declaring the Good News. Jesus in John 17: 18 confirmed that they had a calling: “I have sent them into the world.”
We struggle with this calling as much as they did. The apostles walked the tightrope between what was consecrated and what was worldly; what was permissible and what was not; what was beneficial and what was not. Should the Gentiles eat with us, Peter? Should Titus be circumcised, Paul? Should women speak? Should they cover their heads …? These were the questions of their day as they worked out how to live “in” the world while not being “of” it. One step in the wrong direction would have seriously deflated and weakened their witness (“You’re no different from us”). One step out of line would have meant a Christianity that was hard, oppressive and out of time (“You’re weird, outdated fanatics”).
Today, that same tightrope confronts us. How much of the world’s culture should we allow? What is the cut-off point? Or is there one? Should we withdraw into a reclusive Christian community singing only overtly “Christian” songs (“Is secular music from hell?”), read only “Christian” books (“Is Harry Potter the devil?”), speak only “Christian” words (“Can we say ’damn’?”)? Or should we embrace the world, its music, its drama, its thoughts, its vibes, as if there were no difference between “us” and “them”? Exclusivity and inclusivity … how much is too much? How little is not enough?
The questions of context and culture have changed. But our premise has not. We are still called to remain in the world, for Christ has not prayed that the Father would take us out as yet. Why? He has sent us into the world as sanctified and sanctifying agents with a message for all who would hear. To withdraw reclusively would make the Christian faith a ghettoised religion … to unthinkingly embrace everything would make the Christian faith as effective as dead wood. Our lives stand somewhere in the balance between these extremes. It requires the genius of discernment and incisive critical thought of Christ’s mind in us to tell the difference and sustain the balance.
We veer from one extreme to the other in contemporary Christian spirituality. I suspect it is because we neither have the genius or spirit of discernment nor do we possess the incisive wisdom of the Lord’s Spirit. Our life is as lame as our words; our understanding as split as our thoughts.
Many of us may not remember this hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”. It made waves in Martin Luther’s day because he took what was a lewd and loud bar song and put the tune to Christian lyrics. The result was a magnificent hymn that became a staple (till recently) in Christian hymnbooks and services. Luther is popularly known to have said of this bold move of contextualisation: “Why should the devil have all the good music?”
What does contextualisation mean for us today? How the church progresses depends on how we puzzle out this matter in our heads and our lives. It is ours to puzzle out, unfortunately …
“As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17: 18).
August 27, 2010 - Posted by Editor - 0 Comments
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes invisible to those unfit for their positions or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” (Taken from Wikipedia)
14“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see .19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3: 14-22)
When Hans Christian Andersen wrote his short story, he meant it for satirical purposes. He aimed to hit at bourgeois vanity in his society. What was true in his day and society is true of us today. Particularly for Christians, religious faith seems to have devolved, in recent decades, to a kind of unwholesome spiritual scheme that focuses on material success and well-being. Being blessed by God materially is uppermost in our minds and desires as a key indicator of God’s pleasure and favour. We think of spiritual success in terms of huge physical proportions. XL is always preferable to M or S or XS.
Hans Christian Andersen (Public Domain)
We forget many other considerations in this bid to climb the spiritual ladder of success. The Revelation chapter on the worldly church at Laodicea is meant for such as us. John the Divine had probably had his fair share of worldly Christians and churches in his own day. Doubtless his gorge rose too at the sight of such an abuse and devaluation of the gospel of salvation into the gospel of health and wealth, of big and rich …
In Andersen’s tale, it took the simple common sense reasoning and innocence of a child to point out the obvious: “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” In contrast to the mincing courtiers and sycophants milling around the king, it was the unpretentious nature of the child that exposed the king’s vanity. It also put into clear perspective the hypocrisy and self-preservation of the simpering and fawning adults.
In John’s Revelation, it was the flaming eye of Christ that bore down on the Laodicean church in a stern rebuke: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (v. 17). There is none so blind as he who will not see. Laodicea was an extremely rich city in John’s day. It was well-known for its glossy black wool, a reputable medical school and a miraculous eye salve. It boasted of its own greatness and saw itself as self-sufficient and superior. Proud and confident of its riches, arrogant in its conception of itself, Laodicea thought itself a cut above.
But one thing that Laodicea did not have was an adequate water supply of its own. It imported water from the hot springs of neighbouring Hierapolis and the cool, clear streams of snow-capped Colosse. By the time the stone pipes or aqueducts delivered the water to Laodicea, however, it was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. The lukewarm water was also bitter and full of sediment. Whatever else the Laodiceans claimed to have, they did not have this one thing: pure and living water. This made all the difference. Like their city, the church was just as lacking. Their perspective was skewed because they did not possess the life that living water promised. They had become lukewarm, self-satisfied and complacent. Clogged up with the sediment of their worldly perspectives, they had come to smugly feel that they were an exemplar of spiritual success to everyone else.
The pretensions and blindness of the successful Laodiceans were castigated by an uncompromising Christ: “I am about to spit you out” (v. 16). Boasting a miracle eye salve was no guarantee of spiritual sightedness. Having much material wealth was not the condition of favour with God. It must have stung the Laodiceans to have their spiritual inadequacies flung at them by none other than the Lord they claimed to worship. Yet there was no other way around the problem. Their self-deception and insensitivity to the true state of their souls had to be stripped off. Otherwise, their spiritual state was so intolerable to a holy God that he had to spit them out. The translation “to spit” for the Greek word emew is not strong enough. It should be more rightly translated “to vomit”, because that is the strength of Christ’s revulsion to the Laodiceans’ tepid and nauseating “spirituality”. In other words, Christ was saying, “You make me so sick I want to throw up!”
The tragedy of the Laodicean church was not that it was miserable, poor, beggarly, naked or blind, but that it was insensitive to its perilous state. Christ’s counsel was repentance: ”… buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see ” (v. 18). Repentance or metanoia simply means a 180 degree turnaround, or a turning back. What the Laodiceans needed was a turning back to the way of life that had first been preached to them, a sloughing off of the corruption that had grown around them like sediment.
If they did, then Christ would fellowship with them (v. 20). They would again be called his friends and brothers, sharing with him both his sufferings and glory. The opportunity for metanoia is not comfortable. It entails a recognition of shameful things done. It brings change at the cost of … everything. But like the emperor whose moment of wisdom came only when he saw the obvious truth of his own nakedness, we would each do well to heed the warning of Christ in a seasonable hour: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (v. 22). The opportunity might never come round again.
August 23, 2010 - Posted by Editor - 0 Comments
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13: 1)
Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, once made this observation: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” He lived from 1667-1745, yet his times are little different from ours. In spite of centuries of so-called development, we still suffer from the same malaise of the soul: lovelessness. If that were not enough, then certainly, Paul’s stellar letter on love should convince. Written 2000 years ago, Paul began his treatise on love with a negative: “but have not love”. Apparently, lovelessness is a human and moral endemic that spans the centuries.
As it applies to the Body of Christ, there is no greater tragedy than the farce our quarrelling and divisiveness reveal of our community life. We are laughably divided and disunited. But is there a place for disagreement, even sharp words of contention among Christians? Naturally. Paul and Barnabas fell out so badly that they parted company (Acts 15: 36-41). But it is noteworthy that Paul acknowledged the later contribution of Mark (bone of contention) to the gospel years down the road (2 Timothy 4: 11; Colossians 4: 10-11). Needless to say, Paul observed the same principle and heart’s motive that he and the other apostles preached about, which was that love covered a multitude of sins and weaknesses (see 1 Peter 4: 7-8).
He enjoyed a measure of reconciliation with Barnabas eventually. He was compelled to give John Mark a second chance at ministry, knowing full well the extent of his own culpabilities and sins. In fact Mark, in time, became a trusted co-worker of Paul’s. The message his behaviour sent out was that there was nothing that love could not bridge. No level of dissension, no difference of opinion, no controversy, no issue was too great for the peace of Christ, that surpasses all understanding, to cross. Indeed He is our peace that has broken down every wall (Ephesians 2: 14). If we do not grasp this early, then in truth we must confess that our lives are not lived according to kingdom values … there is no further need for comment or justification. We live or die by this rule. We must stand or fall by it.
Giving way to one another, preferring the other to oneself … these are hallmarks of the Christian life: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13: 34-35). Deference is not humiliation. Neither is it defeat. It is in fact the true humility that Jesus exhorts us to exhibit. If my brother has an issue with me, I am obliged to make peace with him, to give an account of myself to him … in order that he be not injured in spirit or in mind. I cannot remain silent, if my silence will hurt him. If I disagree with my brother, I am obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt, while expressing my concern and discomfort to him. I must do all I can to gently bring him to a point of conviction. But I cannot raise my hand against him to his hurt.
Suffice it to say that few of us follow Christ in any of this, which is why we have written many books and articles and preached many sermons to justify the odious things we do in His Name … Anything, rather than the obvious thing. Therefore, Paul’s chapter on love must not convict us from the peripheries of our conscience, but strike us hard in our heart of hearts: “ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” In other words, I have nothing by which to commend myself, either to man or to God. I stand weightless in the scale of justice as well as the scale of love. I am much to be pitied, for in spite of loudly proclaiming that I have found the Christ, I have neither seen the truth of His forgiveness nor have I plumbed the depths of His unmeasured love.
