Why it is I do what I do

I've only just realised how deficient my description of my work is :(. Usually I say something along the lines of "I want to help women make sense of the Bible so they know how to follow Jesus in their everyday lives". Which is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. I fail to say why I want to do this - which leaves my listeners free to pick their own explanation. And what worries me - perhaps especially in a Catholic context - is that they'll assume that it's to win God's favour. The very last thing I wish to convey :(.

So yesterday over lunch, I worked out just why I do what I do. I want to help women make sense of the Bible and follow Jesus in their everyday lives because...

• God commands it and he is to be feared;
• He is above all else and deserves to be honoured and glorified;
• He is loving and good and his ways bring life, joy and wholeness;
• He died for me, so how else could I respond but to obey and please him.

[Interestingly, I reckon that Catholics would be understanding of the first one, and perhaps the second and fourth (please let me know if this is right, any Catholic readers), whereas secular Australians would hate all four...]

So now I just have to come up with an explanation that captures some or all of these four! Here goes... I want to help women make sense of the Bible so they can obey and bring honour to the Almighty God with their lives (reasons one and two). Or, I want to help women make sense of the Bible so they can lead beautiful lives (reason three). Or, I want to help women make sense of the Bible so they can follow their Lord Jesus who died for them (reason four).

My natural inclination is to go for the last one because it speaks of the heart of our faith. But I also need to consider the Catholic/post-Catholic context I'm in. My way of understanding Catholicism (a sweeping generalisation) is this: God is distant and powerful, Jesus is dead, and Mary is close and powerful. I yearn for people to see that, in truth, it is the risen Lord Jesus who is mighty and intimately connnected with his children, and that, through him, the Father God has also come very near.

So how about I switch my explanation round a bit... I want to help women make sense of the Bible so that, with the help of the risen Lord Jesus, they can grow closer to God each day (hinting at reasons three and four). Google Translate tells me that in Spanish this is: Quiero ayudar a las mujeres a entender la Biblia para que, con la ayuda del Señor Jesús resucitado, pueden acercarse más a Dios cada día. Looks right to me (but please feel free to correct me, any Spanish-speaking readers). Now I just have to remember it!

Happy María

You know the postmodern idea that there's no truth and, even if there was, no way to access it? Well there's a subtlety and cunning to this philosophy that can be quite seductive. The best counter-argument I've heard comes from another place - good old common sense. And it goes like this - that's not how communication works.

We don't speak or write to another person - or, in more formal settings, an audience - expecting that they will take whatever they fancy from our words. We intend to convey something and we intend for it to be, more or less, understood by the other party. Certainly the success of this communication is made more difficult by distances of culture or time, but it's the same process.

This has come to mind again during my Spanish study. Sometimes there's no right or wrong grammatical form: the speaker just needs to decide what flavour they'd like to convey. So you choose "María está feliz" if you'd prefer to emphasise her current joy,  or "María es feliz" if you'd prefer to highlight her fundamentally happy nature (something that Google Translate doesn't understand). This is a fairly clear example, but there are times when the choice between the verbs "estar" and "ser" is a delicate matter (or so I imagine).

This sort of thing happens in every language, including the biblical ones, and with a bit of knowledge, we can work out what the authors wanted us to take away. Whether they were speaking true or recounting myth is a discussion for another day, but at least we can feel confident that we can understand each other.

Shoulder to shoulder

The people of Chile are perfectly capable. They don't need missionaries like me to come in and do everything for them. For historical and financial reasons, they need assistance in certain areas, but only so far and for so long. This means that I should always be working hard to do myself out of a job. And I'm told that as I seek to teach and exemplify God's Word, I need to be careful not to become an integral part of church life, or the result will be "dependence and a painful withdrawal".*

It's better to try to be a "facilitator or servant, who works parallel to the church", with involvement that is "temporary or sporadic in nature, deliberately not taking responsibility in the local church" and that endeavours to "create interdependence between the church and the Holy Spirit, under the authority of Scripture". This model means that "you always stay outside the developing structure of the church yet work with it".

The second model seems sound, but I can imagine that in practice there'll be a lot of grey. Maybe I should aim to be as involved as the most committed 'ordinary' church member (be on all the rosters, attend all events etc etc), but exercise caution when it comes to leadership roles. Obviously I want to exercise some sort of leadership or there's not much point me being here, but perhaps I should always make sure that the purpose of that leadership is to equip someone else (whatever that looks like), rather than just getting on and doing things myself. So I'm delighted that my pastor has asked me to team up with an older (Chilean) woman to run the women's ministry at our church. But that's for later - for now I'm just being a part of things, getting to know folks, and slowly picking up Spanish.


*Quotes taken from 'Pastoral & Apostolic', a paper that is part of the 'SIM Pacific and Andes Area: Chile: Orientation Journal'

Beautiful paradox

I stole this from someone's prayer letter. How good is it!

Pray that we will be people who approach God with the humility of a contrite sinner and the confidence of a beloved child.

El futuro de este blog

So I'm living in Chile now. Not 100% sure what this means for this blog. I have a dedicated 'Chile blog' which I think will be for news and brief(er) observations. This one will continue to have musings on life and ministry - only a lot of that is going to be specific to Chile as that's where I am. So it might end up sounding something like a travelogue. We'll see how it goes.