Be courageous

Jesus said to his disciples, shortly before he was betrayed: "You will have suffering in this world.  Be courageous!  I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

It is striking what he does not say.  It is not: "I have overcome the world, so you won't suffer."  In the context of John's Gospel, that could never be right.  Christ overcomes the world by his own suffering; his glory is revealed at the cross.  How, then, could there be no suffering in the world for Christ's followers?

The point is how we respond to the suffering that must be encountered in the world.  That suffering, I think, includes the temptation which the world throws at the follower of Jesus, and of course the dislocation that comes from not belonging any longer to the world.  The natural human reaction to being in a minority, to not belonging, is fear; that fear may be expressed as a defensive retreat from the world, or as an offensive assault on the world.  Fear can motivate both the closed Christian community that harks back to a (mythical) vanished golden age, and the zealot moral crusader (or even evangelist).  The world as enemy, to be fled from or perhaps attacked.

The world, then, as decidedly not overcome.

Christ has overcome the world.  "The world" in John's Gospel is not so much the created reality in which we live, but the social reality of humanity organised without reference to, or in rebellion against, God and his purposes.  It is the world of Psalm 2, and the desperate (and vain) attempt to throw off God's rule and the rule of his Christ.  It is the world we live in.  Sometimes the world disguises its godlessness (and can indeed put on a good show of religion); sometimes the world displays its true colours.  But always it is the world.

Christ has overcome the world.  This does not mean that the world is done away with.  Of course the world as sinful dominion is ended.  But far from being destroyed, the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of God and his Christ.  In his cross and resurrection, the Lord Jesus overcomes the world by establishing the world; he upturns the apparent reality of human existence in order to found human existence again on the basis of his righteousness.  He takes his throne.  The world, then, despite appearances is overcome, to its own great blessing.  The defeat of the world is the world's great victory.

When Christ calls us to courage in the face of suffering in this world, it is simply a call to faith.  This is the victory which has conquered the world: our faith.  Not that faith in and of itself has any power, but faith it is which sees the world as it really is, as overcome.  Faith sees the victory of Jesus, his glory in his suffering on the cross.  Faith sees the world as changed, even though the world itself does not know that it is changed.  Faith therefore enters in to the victory of the Lord.

Fear of the world runs through so much our Christian living.  The simple fear of what folks will think.  Fear for our children - to what depths of godlessness will they be exposed?  Fear of being tainted, fear of being tempted.  Fear, fear, fear.

Be courageous!  He has overcome the world.

A little bit less racist

A while back - say, 12 years ago - I would have been largely unmoved by the current atrocities being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.   I like to think that even then I would have felt some basic human sympathy for people who have lost loved ones, and some sense of the injustice involved in the deaths of innocent children.  But it wouldn't have been the gut-wrenching, horrible feeling that I have today.  It wouldn't have left me wondering how we can all go on.  And it wouldn't have led me to desire, and in so far as it lies with me demand, the end to the system that stands behind this cycle of violence.  I would have been bothered, but not that bothered.

And this is why.

I was on the side of law and order.  It is funny how easily this works - it's a matter of language and perceptions.  Israel has an army - nay, a 'Defence Force' - whilst the Palestinians have 'militants'.  Israel has uniforms and organisation and rules, whilst the Palestinians have, well, Hamas.  My perception was that one side in this conflict upheld order and the rule of law, whilst the other represented chaos.  (I wouldn't have put it quite like that at the time, but there it is).

I was swayed by Biblical reminiscence.  I had been taught the Old Testament far too well to fall for the theological train-wreck that is 'Christian' Zionism, but I think looking back I was influenced by the fact that Israel was - well, it was Israel.  Although I knew that this was hardly the Israel of Scripture, still the name has resonance - and with it all the place names, all the bits of Bible that float in the back of your mind and seem to connect with something you're hearing on the news...

I was afraid of Islam.  I 'knew', back then, that Islam was the enemy.  I didn't know, because I hadn't bothered to find out, that there was a substantial Christian community in Palestine.  I also didn't know, as far as I can recall, a single Muslim personally, or at least not closely.  There was just a sense of background fear.  Christians spread this fear easily, and I had picked it up without doing any analytical thinking about it.

And fundamentally, I liked people who were like me.  This is what it comes down to.  Israeli society looked familiar.  I found Palestinian culture, in the almost-nothing exposure which I had through the TV, to be not to my taste.  In other words, I was a racist.

I hope that since then I have become a little bit less racist.  I know that in this particular case, I have come to see that it is my job to speak for those who are oppressed.  I try to do it, in my limited way.  It is my job to be heart-broken for every human being who suffers.  It is my job to see in each group of people those for whom Christ died, and therefore those who are of infinite worth.  It is my job to stand against those who would use power to keep others down, and then would use fear to legitimise their actions.

In this instance, it is my job to be against Israel, not as a group of people but as a state and an organisation which thinks that its own security is worth bombing children for.  Not because I've become all left wing (really, really haven't), or because of a general anti-colonial stance (it's all nonsense), or because I think Islam is okay after all (it isn't).  Just because of humanity, and fundamentally because of Jesus.

Thanks to all those who helped me along the way.  Sorry for who I was.  God help me be better.

And God have mercy on all those who suffer today.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen

The Incarnation demands great seriousness of us. Of course it does. If God is there, and much more so if God was here, then everything matters. If we don’t feel that deeply, I wonder if we have understood what it means that God was one of us.

But there is a flipside, which I suspect gets underplayed because it appears to stand in conflict with that seriousness and to undermine all serious efforts to live the Christian life. That flipside is that the Incarnation really does demand great levity of us. Let me explain what I mean.

If Christmas is true, which is to say if God really became one of us, walked with us, talked with us, died for us, rose for us (for all of this is encompassed in Christmas, at least in nuce) – if this is true, then it means that God himself has taken up our cause as lost and fallen creatures. His own arm has wrought salvation for him. He has acted on our behalf, and that action is decisive. In Christ, God is good to us; in Christ, we are the recipients of mercy. It is done.

So, all those burdens and anxieties that we carry around are, strictly speaking, no longer ours to carry. How can we have any ultimate concerns if God is for us in this way, if he has taken up our cause in this way? Our apparently legitimate concerns and our obviously unfaithful fears are equally taken out of our hands. He bears them. He is for us.

The Christian is a serious person. He knows that his actions and decisions have significance, that they take place in a world that is full of meaning. But there is also a lightness to the Christian, because he knows that his actions and decisions do not have ultimate significance. He knows that although he must walk, he is ultimately carried. And so his seriousness, which may express itself in serious sorrow and serious joy – and certainly serious resolution and action – as the occasion demands, will sometimes give way to laughter that can’t be controlled and a smile that goes beyond the circumstances.

Let nothing you dismay.

The gospel versus -phobia

A brief break from chatter about revelation. This is a thought process, not a finished thought, hence the jumbled and possibly incomprehensible state of this post.

I'm thinking in particular of phenomena like xenophobia (racism) and homophobia. These seem to involve an unpleasant mix of fear and hatred, apparently without rational motivation. My guess is that these spring from the recognition that the other person is different from me, combined with the recognition (perhaps suppressed) that they are not all that different. I suspect it is hard to have this strength of feeling unless some proximity is felt - if the other were completely different, there would be a lot less threat implied by their existence. So this is all just one example of the complex relationship with "the other". The other is like me and yet unlike; unlike and yet disturbingly like.

The gospel seems to me to speak into this situation by affirming and bringing into the light the "likeness". By introducing us to "The Other" - God in Christ - the gospel makes it clear that the most fundamental thing about each of us is that we stand before someone utterly unlike us, our Creator. In that situation, we are all the same. Our differences do not register when measured against this absolute scale.

But this would not be sufficient by itself, I suspect, to overcome our fear of one another. Something more is needed, and that something more is the fact that God has become one of us - has entered into the sphere of particularity and difference. Jesus had a particular ethnicity, sexuality, gender. He was like and yet unlike. And yet his universal appeal, and universal love, serve in this sphere also to relativise our differences.

So the point is: there is no difference. All stand the same before God, in the sphere of absolute and relative "difference".

Connected thought: some will object to me lumping racism and homophobia together. I don't do that in the way that the secularist does; indeed, I reject the connection in the way that the secularist sees it. For me, homosexuality remains an ethical issue, because it is an ethical issue in the Scriptures. But even here, the difference is relativised. How can the Christian be homophobic when "such were some of you"? How can there be fear and hatred here when there is no difference except what God has made by graciously removing you from that sphere to this?

Another connected thought: the only absolute difference is one found outside the relationship between me and the other human beings. It is found in God, in Christ. Therefore it is not my business to prosecute this difference, but to entrust the management of it to him and in the meantime to love.

Fear

How much of my sinful behaviour is motivated primarily by fear?

I fear for my financial future - will I have enough? Consequently, I act in a stingy or dishonest fashion in the present, or perhaps I just live in a way that is sinfully conservative, venturing and risking nothing financially in order to secure my future. Fear leads to sin.

I fear for my acceptance with God - am I good enough? Consequently, I seek to build my own righteousness, work hard at being the best I can be, or perhaps I just steer clear of any contact with the world that might dirty me, and in so doing pass up the opportunity to be a witness. Fear leads to sin.

I fear for my relational abilities - can I really sustain a marriage? Consequently, I am tempted to retreat into fantasy and avoid reality, or perhaps I just fail to open up as much as I should. Fear leads to sin.

The most absurd fear I am aware of in myself (the foregoing are not necessarily autobiographical, but this is): I fear that the gospel doesn't have the power to stop me sinning, so I decline to deploy it when I am tempted, just in case I see it fail. Fear prevents me from fighting sin!

No wonder one recurrent message of Scripture is: Do not fear!