Plagiarism: Mutability

"A woman can't visualize too well because she has too many possibilities. She can be anything. Anything can happen to her. But it's out of her hands. It all depends on this man who's going to find her."

- V.S. Naipaul, Guerrillas

I think this is true of most women, even after marriage. And it's not necessarily a bad thing - we were made to be helpers afterall. I wonder if men long for a helper (as women long to help), or if 'gaining one' is more of a bonus? Of course the situation is difficult if women remain single a while - or if women are so caught up in helping that they forget their own identity. I think the trick is to trust your own worth and usefulness as an individual - and to get on with helping the people who are around you.

An Easter Romance

Romance softens our hearts. Women love to be given flowers and to be tenderly kissed. More than anything, we love to be loved. There is nothing more romantic than this. But sometimes the love we receive is a half-measure, and sometimes we don’t know we are loved.

This is how we know what romance is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. The Easter cross with its dead man hanging, bruised and bloody, is the most romantic thing in all the world - because he did it for us.

If we were absolutely lovely, beautiful and admired women, then its romance might be less remarkable – “for a good [wo]man someone might possibly dare to die” (Romans 5:7). But only one man cared enough to die for women who hated him, who did their own thing even when they knew it hurt him. Such was God’s romance that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

We are more ugly than we have ever guessed, and more cherished than we could ever dream. That man was whipped and mocked for us. He hung on that cross and it was for us that he cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He did it for us: to make us holy, to cleanse us and present us radiant, “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 4:27). “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3:16).

Sorry

On February 13th the Australian Prime Minister said sorry to Aboriginal people. It happened a week before I started attending a church in Redfern, where many Aboriginal people live, and I know they were all deeply appreciative.

I started thinking about people who are never told ‘sorry’. Must their lives be on hold, without resolution, with ongoing bitterness or despair?

The answer to this question requires faith and trust. The first part of the answer is that even if people are never sorry or never tell you so, they are accountable to God, and he does not overlook a single wrong. When the Lord Jesus died, he bore God’s wrath for each evil deed done on this earth. So the second part of the answer then, is that through Jesus, God offers your enemies mercy. They can say sorry to God and he will accept Jesus’ punishment in their place. But if they do not, justice will still be served. So this leads to the third part of the answer – our role is to show the same mercy we have been shown. To forgive as we have been forgiven.

It is some comfort to know that judgment is assured. But is there no more hope and comfort for this life? Jesus has risen, he has given us his Spirit and called us to follow him – surely the world can be transformed. But there is actually little hope for this life, for as long as people are cruel and careless, the world can never be very good. Suffering and heartache will always be the norm in this world. This does not mean, of course, that we should turn a blind eye, just that there will never be heaven on this earth. And yet, the fourth and final part of the answer is that there is hope, a hope so good that it eclipses all the pain of this world. “[O]ur present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18, italics mine). “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) The hope of heaven is a hope that will not disappoint. We will be with God and he with us, and we will be glad to sing him praise all our days.

When this life is ugly, we are to trust in God’s justice, to show mercy, to be kind and to work towards justice and to wait patiently and eagerly for the new heaven and earth. It is simple, it is hard and it is good.

Plagiarism: Christian Hedonism

Though I love John Piper, I haven't read The book til I dipped into a bit today. He quotes C.S Lewis talking about the modern virtue of 'Unselfishness', a negative term where once was 'Love'. Lewis goes on to say:

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."1

We should find our pleasure and joy in the Lord, and so finding, we should praise Him. Or, more correctly, we will praise Him, for that's what people do when they love a person. "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."2

1 C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1965), 1-2 from J. Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 20
2 C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), 94-5 from ibid, 22

Today I got up then I ate breakfast and checked the letterbox and then I walked into town and

Just thought I'd say that I finished my church apprenticeship today. Tomorrow might feel a little odd as I feel like I've always worked for Crossroads. It really has been a remarkable, wonderful experience and the fact that it's been very hard at times has somehow added to it, not taken away - maybe because it's taught me lots or because that God has kept me and looked after me through it all. I've loved the thinking, praying, reading, 'peopling', leading way I spend my days. I've loved not having to dress up for work and go to an office and be there from 9 to 5 and account for my time. I've loved working from home and being autonomous. Once I sorted out how rest and fun and friends and errands and chores fitted in, I've loved plunging in head-first and having it be my whole life. And I've loved working under my pastor, whose integrity, care, wisdom and insight I highly respect. And I've loved my church, which is open to wierdness and to correction, where everyone is striving to love one another more.

Next I'm heading to Sydney and Bible college. Not to be a priestess or a nun, but to be better equipped to continue on with the sort of work I've been doing, but probably overseas. I'm not that excited about it, but it's my prayer that the knowledge won't be dry, but will be great truths about God that will broaden and humble my mind and soften my heart. And I pray that Sydney will be my second home - a vibrant, multicoloured one to complement my gentle, welcoming, Eden-like first home.

I used to be distrustful of where in Romans it says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (8:28). But all I've experienced during this apprenticeship has taught me to start to trust that it is true. I haven't always liked his means, but maybe that's what it took to have me keep on turning to him. He has given me perseverance, the ability to bear up, strength, comfort, blessings and a growing understanding and appreciation of how I am loved and free and with hope. There are things better and richer and holier than the things I can touch. And so, I'm glad to keep on humbly serving him. Amen and amen.

The Horror of Mercy

Sometimes mercy seems an absurd and horrifying thing.

Christians do not have the luxury of looking at the world and pretending all's well. We must see the evil in us, the evil prompting our nasty words and selfish deeds. We must face the fact that sometimes people and situations are rank. Jesus asks us to look that rankness in the face and to believe that he was punished for it and that justice has been fully served. That is why he asks us to be merciful.

Still mercy can feel absurd – utterly inappropriate, a madman's conjuring. It can seem horrifying – as wrongs appear to be overlooked and accomodated. The prospect of showing mercy can be enough to bring us to despair.

It is okay to despair. Righteous men do sometimes despair and when they do, they cry out to God. A righteous man remembers his God is a sovereign God who loves to answer his children's prayers. Our God is a God who will help us bear up, who will teach us how great is the mercy and love we have been shown, and how wholly sin has been understood and how fully it has been punished. He will teach us that there is no thing that can take us away, nothing that can separate us from his love.

I pray that he will give you his mercy, that thing so holy that it at first appears horrifying and absurd. When mercy stems from a heart that is grateful, generous and warm even in the midst of hurt, it is in truth a thing amazing and lovely.

Absurdity at Christmas

Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby. It's a little reminisent of the Buddist rejoicing when a small boy is found to be the reincarnation of a lama. Both occasions seem silly and naïve – grown men and women idolising helpless, purposeless children.

Reincarnation seems particularly silly – a ridiculous theory conjured up by people terrified that it might all end at death. But I'd suggest that the Christian belief is far sillier and far more implausible. Christians celebrate the birth of the baby boy, Jesus, not because we believe he is the reincarnation of another man, but because we believe he is God. Christians actually believe that the LORD God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent God came to earth as a human. This is why Christians look at Jesus as a newborn and join the righteous Simeon in declaring, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

It sounds too absurd and outrageous to believe, and yet many do. We believe because as this baby became a little boy, a teenager and a man, he did no wrong. We believe because he triumphed over death and his opponents could not produce his body. We believe because these things have been written about by those who were there.

And we rejoice that this newborn baby was God because he came to earth to fix up our shit – for the sake of his Holy Name and because he loved us. He made himself nothing and became obedient to death, that we might live. When we behold this ordinary, new baby we can scarce understand that he is God, but we can begin to grasp God's hatred of evil and his love for his people.