righteousness or self-righteousness

Danny Nalliah, Australia's poster child for all things right-wing and his group 'catch the fire ministries' held a prayer vigil on Mount Ainslie this past weekend to pray for Australia to be 'Saved' from all its heathenness and sin (apparently the bushfires and stuff are linked to our sinfulness). The prayer vigil was met by a group of protesters from various groups, gay rights activists, pro-choice, strippers, prostitutes, etc (you know the kind of people that extreme right-wingers see as the spawn of Satan, sinners and tax collectors).

Danny's prayer group was a direct result of signs of satanic rituals being held on the mountain, which was interpreted (possibly quite correctly) as a direct spiritual attack on Australian Politics. I have come from a quite right-wing upbringing, and whilst there are those who would probably see me as very left wing today, there are still things that I hold onto from my upbringing, and spiritual warfare is one of those things... I don't see demons behind everything, a la 'this present darkness' , but I cannot deny that there is some sort of otherworldly battle going on... some may call me naive, but that's OK, I'm comfortable with that.

What does bug me about this right-wing approach to the state of the world, is that it pins all the responsibility on evil spirits or on their human spawn (the anti-Danny protesters etc). In their view, our responsibility as good Christians is to live righteous lives and pray - then God will hear our voice and revival will come. They feel that through doing this and being vocal in the public arena they are doing their bit, they are being honorable to God. As I write this all I can think of is the pharisees that Jesus had to deal with... They too at a time when their nation was being oppressed (not by spiritual forces but Roman ones), saw that they needed to live more 'righteous' lives, to separate themselves and pray, calling all those around them to live a similar life, so that God would hear them and liberation (or in our language revival) would come.

This motivation in and of itself seems honorable, being righteous can never be a bad thing... but us being fallible human beings with big egos we often slip into self-righteousness. This clearly is the position that the pharisees were in. This is what Jesus battled, whilst at the same time hanging out and loving the sinners and tax collectors, those that that the pharisees saw as hell spawn.

Who did Jesus warn were in danger of the fires of hell??? - the pharisees or the sinners and tax collectors???

If you don't know the answer to this question I suggest you read the gospels - Jesus only every really referenced hell when he was talking about those who thought they were safe, but evidently were not - the self-righteous ones, the pharisees.

Interestingly the word righteousness and the word justice are synonymous in both the Old and New Testament. So really a person cannot truly be righteous unless he is fighting for justice, and who is it from a biblical perspective who needs justice? - the poor and oppressed, the marginalised... those that Jesus hung out with and loved, the sinners and tax collectors. Righteousness is not about being set apart and untouched by the world, it is about bringing our faith, our love and our support into a broken and hurting world, and in doing this, we will be truly set apart, because we are the only ones that are there caring for the unloved, risking our comfort, our time and our lives for the sake of others, the lost, the rejected, sinners, prostitutes, disabled, refugees, etc. etc... just like Jesus did (remember WWJD?).

I worry that we as Christians have done the same thing as the Pharisees, we see ourselves as righteous and set apart because we don't hang out with the sinners and tax collectors, but we are happy to condemn them (and possibly even demonise them if the situation suits). We sit in our churches and Christian schools and clubs and home groups and think we are saved and righteous. Outside the sinners and tax collectors continue to live their 'heathen' lives, and we pray, pray that the Lord would send revival and that the sinners would become saved and Australia would be won for Christ... but revival hasn't come. Contrary to Yonggi Cho's assertion, I don't think that prayer is the key to revival.

As I have stated before, Jesus had a different response, he saw the condition of the sinners and tax collectors and did not condemn them but rather lived with them, loved them and through them established his Kingdom. Interestingly if you look at true revivals in history (I'm not talking about the more unusual and dubious revivals of current times) they began amongst the sinners and tax collectors of their day... they began amongst the outcasts of society, those that were marginalised. They began as Christians stepped down from their ivory towers and began to live amongst, and minister to these people.

If we truly want to see Australia Changed for the Lord, then we can't sit back and pray for change, the whole time being self-righteous, waving our fingers in disapproval at the tax collectors and sinners. We need to get our hand's dirty, live amongst, show love to, and help those at the margins. Our faith is meant to be one of love not condemnation, I think we have forgotten that along the way somehow.

Forgive me Father - for I wear Nike

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15)

In the world, but not of it… This phrase has been one that has haunted me throughout my life (especially my adolescence). I can still remember the preaching from the pulpit, or the lectures from my Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders. To be in the world but not of it, meant that you had to live up to a strict code of moral behaviours… No drinking, no swearing, no drugs, no rock music, no discos, no D&D, no Harry Potter, no Sex, no late nights, no parties…etc…etc. These sort of behaviours were supposed to make us some sort of beacon of hope in the darkness of the morally corrupt world, and the sinners were to be attracted to the light of Christ in you. Or at least those that were ready to see the errors of their ways would be attracted… clearly none of my friends were ready, they all thought I was a loon. As a result, more often than not I would fall back into the world to be with my friends and therefore stuff up any sort of witness that I could have had.

I think somehow, we have missed the point here, Jesus taught that the world would HATE us, not simply think that we were weak or out of date. DON’T GET ME WRONG, I think that many of these sort of ‘rules for Christian living’ are valid and should be practiced by Christians (but clearly as you can see from my above list I also think that often these rules can be manipulated for the sake of control rather than Christian character). But there seems to be some real problems if these ‘rules’ are presented as the way we stand separate from the world.

Firstly, the ‘rules’ are extremely judgemental, If you follow them you are good, if you don’t your bad. If you follow them you are ‘in’ (‘in’ the club, and therefore out of the world), if you don’t your ‘out’ (‘out’ of the word and therefore in the world). If you follow them you can feel very proud of yourself and self righteous (oh, wait… that’s a sin too isn’t it??), if you stuff up and break a rule you are condemned either by your peers/leaders or by your own self talk. In fact, as I write this I notice how close this attitude would seem to be to the actions of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned…

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former”. (Mat 23:23)

Secondly it all seems a bit cheap to me, a bit surface. It seems to be one of those Christian double standards, we are called to live a morally upright life, by following the highly visible and external ‘rules’, but we are not called to address the issues in our life that have to do with mercilessness and injustice. For the most part we are so busy living up to the rules and being a good witness that we have missed how the way we are living our lives is hurting others. We are the rich man, and Lazarus is at our gate. What is worse is that our sin is not simply ignoring Lazarus, it is being part of a system that is harming him!

These sorts of parables and Jesus words quoted above were what made the leaders of His day hate Him. It was this that caused Him to die on the cross. If we limit the purpose of Jesus’ time on earth to simply the atonement, we miss a lot of what he was about… yes he died for our sins, but the reason he hung on the cross is because he spoke out and lived a life that condemned the powers that be… his very life was pointing the finger at the evils of the system.

Think about it… He broke the Sabbath laws to heal a crippled, essentially worthless man. He became unclean when a menstruating woman touched him and he did not condemn her, but rather spoke with her and validated her in the sight of the crowd. He prevented the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, she sinned, and this was her due punishment, yet he stopped it happening. He upturned tables in the temple. Jesus lived a life that was in opposition to the system, and the system hated Him for it.

Anyway… All that to say, maybe it would be more effective to ask if we are in the System but not of the System … if we truly stand up against the system and live an alternative and Godly life following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, then the system will not simply think we are old fashioned or a bit wacky, it will truly hate us… and whether we like it or not, that is what Jesus has called us to!

Peter

PS. I know I have not really addressed the title of this blog post – unless you read between the lines a bit… I’ll get onto that confession another day

Journey towards the poor...

I was recently asked what it was that started my journey in ministering to the poor and marginalised. As I thought about it my mind initially went to my introduction to UNOH, visiting and volunteering at Foodbank during my RDO every second Tuesday, or reading some fantastic books by Ash Barker, or even attending the Surrender conference and hearing Jackie Pullinger or Tony Campolo speak. But as I thought about it more, I realised that the Lord had introduced me to the need for ministry to the poor much earlier than I had originally thought.
It was many year earlier as I was just beginning to be introduced to the concept of Missions that I had the opportunity to visit a church plant in Sri Lanka. My home church at the time was a kind of parent church to the church in Sri Lanka, and was a major financial supporter of the church. I was asked to go and visit the church on an annual basis to touch base with them, check them out and let them know they were supported (I guess morally more than financially).

There are many things that today bother me about this scenario, and there were many things that were being done by both the Parent and Daughter church that I would struggle with today. But regardless of the fact that the Church in Sri Lanka relied on outside support to function and that the relationship was fairly imperialistic, the church was essentially reaching out to the poorest people in the city of Kandy, and the reality was that the structure of the church (with two paid full-time pastors) could not have functioned without outside support as the congregation barely had enough money to feed themselves let alone support any sort of church structure. The church was trying to model itself after the classic mega-church model of Australia and trying to emulate our worship, preaching styles and trappings. They were being influenced by the teachings of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland by video that some well meaning but direly misguided supporter was posting out to them on a monthly basis.

When I visited I was expected to preach every Sunday as the VIP western Pastor, and although I preach predominantly on how much this church had to offer the wider church and how they should not try to emulate the west but recognise their own forms of worship as pleasing to the Lord, I was obligated to hold an altar call and pray for each and every member of the congregation and see them ‘slain in the Spirit’. But besides the heavily colonial dynamic of the Sunday service it was on the day to day of church life that the true church amongst the poor could be seen.

It was in the nightly bible studies and prayer meetings that various members of the congregation came together to share a meal and simply fellowship, it was at these times that worship was casual and much more culturally relevant, and prayer and study were dialogical and passionate. The congregation were committed to visiting each other on a regular basis and helping each other out when things were difficult. As I reflect back on the church I realise how much they emulated the Church seen in Acts 4. The real inspiration to me was one of the paid pastors who lived on a bare minimum despite being given a very generous income from our church. The rest of his money was given to those in the church who were really struggling, the widows and the lame and he spent all his time visiting congregation members and being a real hands-on support to anyone who needed it.

Unfortunately my involvement with that church was cut short due to the other full time pastor being sent to study in Australia and having his head filled with grand visions of mega-churches, his decision was to no longer come under the cover of our church but to look for support from another bigger, more impressive Aussie mega church who said they would support them for six months after which time they would have to be self supporting. This concept at face value sounds great, however the reality of it was that when they asked how they could support themselves the suggestion was that they should stop trying to attract the poor in the community but should rather aim their church towards the middle class of Kandy. Needless to say the dream of a shiny rich mega church won out in the end for this pastor and they decided to follow that course.

I have not heard from that church since that time, I have no idea if they are still operating. I often think about the generous pastor and what he is doing with his life at the moment. Although I have a lot of sadness about the future of this congregation, I thank God for the experience of this church and the chance to see how a real church amongst the poor can function. This experience was truly foundational to my current vocation even if at the time I did not realise it… But then I guess most of our formation is done on a subconscious level through experiences like this.

I'm Back.... No Really I Mean This Time!!

IT has been almost a year since I last blogged, It has been a tough time for me with a lot of soul searching on top of all the other stuff I do, But I am dedicated to continue Blogging again...

I have found it is an essential outlet for me... I guess it is the same thing as journaling for some, but this is more electronicy as well as more publicy...

So anyway here goes!!

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 4

Materialism. - Matthew 6:19-24
The first half of Matthew six was a call for individuals not to use their religiosity to dominate those around them, in this section, Jesus is identifying another way that people can dominate others, and that is through the acquisition of wealth and material possessions. The dominating effects of storing up treasures are seen in a brutal reality in our own global context today;

The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. (Kazandjian, 2006: NP)

The western world’s hording of wealth has relegated the other 90% of the world to the status of slaves, forced to do backbreaking labor for little or no pay. The Kingdom community is called to stand against this injustice, sharing its wealth with those in need, both inside and outside the community and through doing this breaking their own slavery to mammon and storing up for themselves riches in heaven.

Don’t Worry – Anti-Materialism – Matthew 6:25-34
Worry is indicative of one’s dependence on mammon rather than God. “But how will we survive?” is the question that instantly pops to the mind when considering being free with material possessions, Jesus’ answer is both spiritual and practical. The spiritual aspect is one of trust, if they do what the Lord has required of them he will look after their needs (Mt 6:33). The practical aspect is that within the context of the Kingdom Community none will be in need as the wealth and possessions of the group are shared around, just like it was with the early church (Acts 2:44-47). This concept is a real source of liberation for the poor as their needs are met, however it is a real area of trust for the rich as they learn to let go of the security of their wealth and learn to rely on the security that God through the Kingdom Community has to offer.

The Shelter of the Community – Matthew 7:24-27
The final section of Jesus’ sermon is a parable about two men, one who builds his house on the rock of Jesus teaching and another who builds his house of the sand of his own desires and understandings. This parable is a beautifully poetic conclusion to Jesus’ teaching, and a great reflection of his heart for the poor. A house is a symbol of security, particularly for the poor, who often may not have a place of their own. Jesus’ parable shows that if a person holds to his teachings (remembering that it is all set within the context of the Kingdom Community) that they will have the security they need. The house is figurative, but it represents the care of the community in looking after the needs of the poor, which in many ways makes it literal, as the protection that the community offers is as good as (and will always include) a physical house for that person to reside in.

The foolish man however is the man who tries to build his own Kingdom without the support of the Kingdom Community. Because this person puts his own resources into the house it costs him a lot more than the shared resources of the community, however when the opposition comes this foolish, independent man is left crushed under the rubble of his own desires.

Conclusion.
Studying the Sermon on the Mount gives us an amazing insight into how the Lord wants to see his Kingdom operate. It is an in-depth guide to living as a Kingdom Community, in opposition to the values, systems and powers of the Status Quo. Probably the most remarkable aspect of this guide to the Kingdom however, is the importance that it puts on the care for and inclusion of the poor and marginalised both within its community and outside. Such a teaching truly is foolishness to the wise and attests to the compassion and majesty of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

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Kazandjian A. (2006) Pioneering Study Shows Richest Two Percent Own Half World Wealth. In United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research. Press Release: (http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-2006/) (18th March 2008)

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 3

Subversive Weakness. – Matthew 5:33-48
Jesus, after dealing with the need for being true to your word, turns his attention to how to deal with those who use their positions of power to oppress the poor. Jesus uses three scenarios to highlight the need for passive resistance towards the community’s oppressors; they are the concept of turning the other cheek, giving your cloak as well as your tunic, and going the extra mile. These scenarios present two obvious courses of action, to fight back or to passively accept the abuse of power. Jesus however is suggesting a third course of action. Walter Wink suggests that turning the other cheek is a way to level the playing field against those who are oppressing you;

… [Jesus] is saying to them, “Refuse to accept this kind of treatment anymore. If they backhand you, turn the other cheek.” By turning the cheek, the servant makes it impossible for the master to use the backhand again: his nose is in the way. …The left cheek now offers a perfect target for a blow with the right fist; but only equals fought with fists …and the last thing the master wishes to do is establish the underling’s equality. This act of defiance renders the master incapable of asserting his dominance in the relationship. (Wink, 1998: 102)

This popular interpretation however ignores the text that follows. If we look at this example in conjunction with the other two examples (walking the extra mile and giving your cloak) and the dialogue about loving your neighbour, it is clear that these passages are not about establishing equality. Rather, in going further than demanded, these examples seem to highlight the oppressive actions of one’s enemies, bringing shame upon their actions and bringing the cultural values that would allow such behaviour into question. The values of the Kingdom do not espouse power or equality, but rather a subversive use of the weak and powerless to shame the structures of the status quo (1 Cor 1:18-31).

Actors for World Domination – Matthew 6:1-18
The first half of chapter six deals with three different religious practices; giving to the needy, prayer and fasting. In all three examples, the disciples are told not to be like the hypocrites, a term Jesus uses to describe the Pharisees. The term hypocrite actually originates from the Greek theatre, where the ‘hypokrites’ (ύπόκριτής) was an actor who played a part and often wore a mask. The references that Jesus gave, though probably somewhat hyperbolic, capture this metaphor beautifully, as the hypocrites seem to do these things only “to be honoured by men” (Carson, 1978: 57). The major problem with the hypocritical nature of these acts however, is not that they are an ego boost for the Pharisees. The sinister reality is that they used these acts to build up their standing within society.

Jesus was warning against this sort of ladder climbing within the Kingdom Community, those who had the finances to give alms, or the theological knowledge to pray impressive prayers, or the self control to fast should not use those ‘powers’ to build themselves up over the others in the community (the poor, the uneducated or the struggling addict). Such actions and motivations are about domination and stand in direct opposition to the values of the Kingdom Community.

Transformative Prayer – Matthew 6:9-13
Amongst all this talk of hypocrites is a passage often referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, though a more accurate name for in might be the Community’s prayer. For many this passage is purely a guideline for what we should pray for (that Jesus would return and establish his kingdom, that our needs would be met, that our sins would be forgiven, and that God would protect us from stumbling), but it is much more than that, it is a recognition that the light of the Kingdom is breaking through into a corrupt system;

…Every clause [of the Lord’s Prayer] resonates with Jesus’ announcement that God’s kingdom is breaking into the story of Israel and the world, opening up God’s long-promised new world and summoning people to share it. If this context is marginalized… the prayer loses its peculiar force and falls back into a generalized petition for things to improve, albeit still admittedly to God’s glory. (Wright,2001: NP)

Verse ten then is a call on the Lord to continue the transformative work in the world through the community, it is a refusal to see the present corruption as normal, but to see the will of God as the goal. Verse eleven is a call for the Lord to supply us with our daily bread, this is a call to have our needs met, but also a call to not become greedy or want more than we need.

Verse twelve is a recognition of the need to keep short accounts as the disciples live in community together (Mt 5:21-26). Verse thirteen calls for us not to be lead into temptation. This verse is a call for the disciples not to fall back into the rut of living a life that embraces the status quo, another temptation may be a tendency to look at the troubles around and fret that the darkness is winning.

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Carson, D. A. (1978) The Sermon on the Mount. An Evangelical exposition of Matthew 5-7. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Wink, W. (1998) The powers that be. New York: Doubleday Publishing.
Wright, N. T. (2001) The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer. In ntwrightpage.com.( http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Christian_Prayer.htm) (17th March 2008)

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 2

The Beatitudes – a Kingdom Community. – Matthew 5:3-12
In studying the Sermon on the Mount, it is essential that we keep in mind that this passage is describing the way that a community within the Kingdom of Heaven should behave (herein referred to as a Kingdom Community as it is not the Kingdom of Heaven in its entirety, nor is it yet the church as the church was not established until after Christ’s assertion). Many suggest that the sermon is a guide for Christian ethics (Lloyd-Jones, ND: 33), but this is to set an impossible task before the individual believer. The result of this is the spiritualising of the passage and the reduction of it into a general guide to live by. The regrettably clichéd “…do to others what you would have them do to you...” (NIV, Mt 7:12) is a prime example of this, where the whole sermon is reduced to one line that mothers can tell their children to stop them arguing with their siblings.

But if the Sermon is seen as the framework of the Kingdom, then the impossible becomes possible. Within this understanding then, the beatitudes are seen as a description of who will be part of this new Kingdom Community. The first four beatitudes listed represent the poor who will be drawn into the community, the outcast of the society. It is within this setting that these outcasts will begin to find the promised blessings;

…these four beatitudes describe not personal qualities but oppressive situations of distress or bad fortune, which are honoured or esteemed because God’s reign reverses them. This reversal is under way in Jesus’ ministry but is not yet complete. The First four beatitudes critique the political, economic, social, religious and personal distress that results from the powerful elite who enrich their own position at the expense of the rest. (Carter, 2003: 131).

If we hold to this view, then the poor in spirit are literally the poor, rather than some spiritualised form of humble Christian. Carter suggest that the “spirit” in this passage refers to the spirit of the poor that has been crushed by economic injustice (2003: 131); likewise, those who mourn are those who have suffered at the hand of the corrupt and evil; The Meek are those who have no voice in society and so have no choice but to stand by passively as their situations are exploited; And finally, Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Bosch argues (1991: 71-73), are those who yearn for justice but do not receive it.

The use of the present tense “is” in the first and last beatitudes suggests that indeed the kingdom of heaven is not limited to an eschatological understanding, but rather, the kingdom is to reverse these sufferings both now and more fully in the future. This brings the beatitudes and indeed the entire Sermon on the Mount into a present reality rather than a spiritual set of moralities that we are to live by in order to attain entrance into heaven.

The final four beatitudes in a similar way represent those that are fighting for the rights of the poor within society. Therefore, those in the Kingdom Community should display mercy to all, especially the poor; their actions should show that they are pure in heart, not having any deceitfulness or malice; the peacemakers stand in direct contrast to the occupying forces of the day who forced their “peace” upon the people; persecution is a direct result of standing up against the dominant and oppressive kingdom of this age.

Societal Transformation – Matthew 5:13-16
The next section of the sermon talks about salt and light. Salt is a preserving agent as well as a flavour enhancer, light breaks through the darkness. Both elements are seen as agents of change within culture. The salt preserves the world from going off as well as supplying flavour, whilst the light breaks through the darkness of an oppressive system. These elements highlight the dialectic between the kingdom of heaven and the present age, but they operate on two different levels;

So Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence on the secular community, a negative influence by arresting its decay and a positive influence by bringing light into its darkness. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth, beauty and goodness. (Stott, 1978: 64-65)

The salt is the Kingdom Community’s ability to arrest the suffering and evil that is happening in the world. With this in mind, the eschatological excitement that many in today’s church display over the decay of this present age as a supposed sign of the imminent return of Christ actually stand in stark contrast to Jesus’ teaching here. It is not Jesus’ will that the world get worse and more people suffer due to greed, it is the Kingdom Communities role to arrest the decay of this age.The light then, is the missional reality of the Kingdom Community. When the world sees what this community is doing it will be drawn to it as a moth to a flame. For the marginalised of the world it will mean good news, however it will also bring with it persecution from the powers that control the status quo. This is why Christ teaches against hiding the light under a bowl (Mt 5:15). Hiding would keep the community safe from persecution (Mt 5:11-12), but keeping the blessing to themselves would mean that those in need of the ministry of the community would never receive it

Respecting Women - Matthew 5:27- 32
In talking about how the values of the Kingdom community fulfil and take seriously the law and the prophets, Jesus sneaks in an important lesson about one of the marginalised groups in society, women. Many see Jesus’ teaching on lust, adultery and divorce, as nothing more than dealing with sexual immorality and the sanctity of marriage (see for example Boice, 1972:134-141). However a deeper look into the passages will show that there is more to Jesus’ teachings;

While women are mentioned merely as an example, the example is significant because it involves a cultural criticism of the status of women. When the Gospel presents Jesus' discussion of divorce and adultery, the dignity of women (and perhaps even their rights) is clearly implied. Jesus says that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery in his heart. Clearly the entire discussion of the collected sayings is geared toward the relation of action and faith. But, at the same time, it undeniably insists that women are not to be regarded as objects to be discarded at will. (Kopas, 1990: 15)

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Boice, J. M. (1972) The Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Bosch, D. J(1991) Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Carter, W. (2003) Matthew and the margins. A socio-political and religious reading. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Kopas, J. (1990) Jesus and Women in Matthew. in Theology Today. 1990, University of Scranton. ( http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1990/v47-1-article2.htm#Kopas) (17th March 2008)

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (N.D.) Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Stott, J. R. W. (1978) The Bible speaks today. The Sermon on the Mount. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 1

This is an excerpt of an essay I wrote for bible college, it really changed the way I looked at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount when I wrote it, changing my view of it being a set of moral or spiritual rules to be followed by believers into a radical call to an alternative form of community.

Anyway here is part one...

sorry about the formal format of it all, but as I said it was an essay and I had to follow certain conventions...

Introduction.
The Sermon on the Mount is an amazing collection of teachings that demonstrate how Jesus expects his followers to live, it is however more than just a collection of moral codes by which we as individuals are called to live. It is the assertion of this essay, that the Sermon on the Mount is a call to live in a radical form of community. This call to community reflects Jesus’ heart for the poor in excitingly profound ways, and it is this aspect of Jesus’ teachings that this essay will focus on.

Defining Poor.
Before looking at Christ’s heart for the poor, it is important to define what is meant by the word “poor”. Ronald J. Sider argues that the predominant definition of the poor within the bible is “those who are economically impoverished due to calamity or exploitation” (1997: 42). This would include the widow and orphan (Jas 1:27), the ill such as a leper, the lame or blind (Lev 18:14), as well as the homeless or alien (Lev 18:33). However, it would seem that Jesus definition was wider and included many of the marginalised within society; His concern for women is clearly evident (Jn 4:5-42,Mt 9:20-22,Lk 7:11-15, 10:38-42), as well as his care for those who are ostracised by society like the tax collectors (Lk 19:1-10) and prostitutes (Mt:26:6-13).

A definition of the poor then, goes beyond a simple recognition of economic hardship. “The poor” refer to those who have been marginalised by society, whether that is due to financial impoverishment, physical or mental afflictions, social standing or gender.

Christ’s Heart.
Christ’s heart for the poor is an aspect of God’s character that is woven throughout the bible. It is a concept that is written into the very foundation and law of the people of Israel (see Lev 19:13-15, 19: 33, 25:8-55, Deut 24:19-22 etc.), yet time and time again, the people ignored the poor amongst them. In response, the Lord sent his prophets to address the people’s blindness. Through the prophets, God taught that the people’s religious observances were nothing but hollow ritual if they did not contain a response to the poor (see Is 58, Amos 4:1-5, Jer 22:16-17 etc.). It is in this tradition that Christ heart beats;

Jesus shares table fellowship with outcast public “sinners and tax collectors. His statements about the “poor” betray an obvious sympathy for the defenceless and place Jesus thoroughly within the prophetic tradition, which sided with the oppressed against the exploiters… These provocative associations of Jesus are not incidental to his ministry. The extension of compassion, loyalty, and friendship across well-defined boundaries of exclusion was a parable in action, a way of vividly communicating Jesus’ understanding of God and the quality of his rule. (Senior and Stuhlmueller, 1995: 147)

On the Mount. – Matthew 5:1--2
Stereotypically, when we think of the Sermon on the Mount, we think of Jesus standing on a small hill, orating on ethical living to the milling crowd around him. However, in verse one of chapter five we see that although there was a crowd around him, Jesus sat down on the mountainside and his disciples gathered around him. Sitting is not the posture one takes in addressing a large crowd. His position was rather that of a teacher addressing his disciples (France, 1985: 107). Although the crowd did listen in (see Mt 7:28), the “sermon” was predominantly addressed to his disciples, a band of people who had given up their own standing in society to follow this radical teacher named Jesus.

Jesus’ instructions on the mount were a call for those who had completely dedicated themselves to his teachings to seek the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth (Mt 6:10). This Kingdom was to stand in direct contrast to that of their age. By abandoning their livelihoods (Mk 1:14-20), the disciples had lowered their social status to that of the poor. Jesus’ teachings call for his followers to throw their lot in with the poor even further, joining with them in becoming an integral community that cares for one another and stands up against oppressive structures that will try to destroy them.

[The Disciples] have… left the people to join him. He has called each individual one. They have given up everything in response to his call… They have only him. Yes, and with him they have nothing in the world, nothing at all, but everything, everything with God. So far, he has found only a small community, but it is a great community he is looking for, when he looks at the people. (Bonhoeffer, 2001: 101)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonhoeffer, D. (2001) Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4. Discipleship. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
France, R. T. (1985) Tyndale New Testament commentaries – Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Senior, D. and Stuhlmueller, C. (1995) The Biblical foundation for mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Sider, R.J. (1997) Rich Christians in an age of hunger. (5th ed.). U.S.A: W Publishing Group.

I'm Ba-ack!!!

No apologies this time, if anyone is still ever even looking at this thing, I'm impressed, it has been a long time since I last updated, but I'm back and wanting to simply share some info, thoughts, stories etc...

Anyway, in a little while I'll be starting by posting bits of an assignment I wrote for college... I'm hoping for some feedback if anyone is out there as my study opened up some interesting ideas and thoughts around the sermon on the mount....

stay tuned....

What is eaten in one week around the world...

someone other than me deserves credit for this one, but who made it I do not know, sorry...


Italy: The Manzo family of SicilyFood expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11


Germany: The Melander family of BargteheideFood expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina Food expenditure for one week $341.98


Mexico: The Casales family of CuernavacaFood expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09


Egypt: The Ahmed family of CairoFood expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53


Ecuador: The Ayme family of TingoFood expenditure for one week: $31.55


Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey VillageFood e xpenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03


Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23


Makes you think, doesn't it?

Healing

Today I was talking with some friends about the issue of miraculous healing, and it has made me think about the issue a fair bit…
I have Cerebral Palsy, it is a disability that I was born with, and it affects the right side of my body. Throughout my childhood, this disability has resulted in me being ostracised from many of my peers; it meant that none of them wanted to play sports with me, many of them were repelled by a fear of the unknown, most thought it uncool to hang out with someone like me and some even went so far as to beat me up on a regular basis. These were the joys of having a disability in the era that I grew up in… Australian society was just coming to terms with having people with disabilities share the same space as them rather than being locked away, and I had parents who (thankfully) had the view that a disability was not something to stop a person being a productive member of society and so forced me into mainstream school and life.
The treatment that I received from my peers caused me to become very resentful and introverted, and out of these feelings of hurt and isolation the only thing I dreamt about was healing from my affliction. I went forward at church to every healing session that came along…
I believe that I have received healing, at least for the most part… I would say that this healing is about 90% complete, and I see it as a combination of the miraculous and hard work on behalf of myself and my mother who forced me to do hour upon hour of physio.
But complete healing to this day has not come, so I still “suffer” from cerebral palsy.
If you have ever done the faith healer circuit, then you would be aware of what sort of impact not being healed has on a person, from being told that you don’t have enough faith to be healed (and therefore by implication are not a real Christian), to being told that you have to receive the truth of your healing before the actual healing will occur (ie fool yourself into believing you have been healed)… That sort of thing can really screw with your mind and threaten your belief in God.
All of this comes out of some sort of misguided belief that as Christians we should all be perfect, that we should not be afflicted with physical disabilities, or health issues; just as we are spiritually transformed, so too should we be physically transformed, but I really don’t see that teaching present in the bible, sure there could be things misconstrued as God wanting us to be perfect (note here perfect is NOT a synonym for whole ), and yes there is a big focus on healing in the bible, but let’s have a bit of a look at that…
Firstly, Jesus, on his time here in the flesh did not heal every disabled person that he met… the pool of Bethesda is a prime example of this, so is his return to Galilee. However having said that we also know that not every healing He did is recorded in the bible either, there are many passages that said he healed many, even that he ‘healed all their sick.’ Having said that, if we do look at the healings that are present in the bible, I think that we can see that there is more going on in these occurrences than simply healing someone’s affliction. When Jesus (and indeed the Apostles) healed someone he did so to illustrate a point or to teach someone (often that person receiving the healing, but not always) a lesson.
You want an example? OK, how about Jesus going to heal Jairus’ Daughter, the crowd were excited, Jairus was powerful and important, imagine what this healing will do for the cause… But then a sick and outcast woman pushes through the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak and get healing. At this point Jesus could have just continued to press on, the woman had received her healing and Jairus was waiting for Him, but he stopped, affirmed the woman welcomed her into the Kingdom and taught everyone there that the poor and marginalised are just as important (if not more) in His Kingdom as the rich and powerful. To illustrate the point Jairus’ Daughter died while Jesus was delayed. Of course we know that Jesus raised her and everything was fine with her, but the focus of this passage is not the Jesus could raise the little girl from the dead, the focus is what Jesus did for the woman and at the same time taught the crowd.
If we hold to a theology of suffering (read James 1:1ff), which says that God uses the suffering in our lives to teach us and mould us, then we have to see that Physical Afflictions are in the same category, God wants us to learn from these things, and in many cases he will not remove this issue because it is a testament to his power (1 Cor 1:26-31). If a person can be accepting of his or her affliction, and continue to be a vessel of God, used by Him in powerful ways then that person receives wholeness within the economy of the Kingdom, perfection is not needed.
The bible says that if we have enough FAITH that we can pray for healing and we will receive it (James 5:15). FAITH is nothing more or less than a complete trust in God, a knowing of his will and ways. So if we have Faith then we will supposedly know what is appropriate to pray for and when. We need to look at what is whole or perfect within the context of the Kingdom, and the more we get to understanding the Kingdom, the more we realise that it’s logic and values are opposite or upside-down to the values and logic of the world.
It could almost be argued that Jesus wants you to be physically whole as much as he wants you to have that BMW… If you think that he wants you to be rich, then you have missed the point.

belated update - yet again...

Ahhh, after all my resolve to get disciplined in preparation for my study next year it has yet again been over a month since my last blog entry.... I guess though it does say that I have been busy and have more important things on my plate.

Well, things have been going exceedingly well for us over the past month or so we have thrown ourselves in amongst the Muslim Burmese community here in Springvale intensely, and are enjoying the fruit of our hard work. We have really been accepted as part of their community, being invited to various family dinners, parties and religious celebrations and we have been able to return the favour too. The biggest highlight for us was Christmas day, where we ended up spending the day in the local park with over 150 Burmese friends, we were able to give out Christmas presents to all the children who were there as well as break open 2 massive Christmas pinatas, play tug of war, have running races and of course eat plenty of food (it was an interesting mix of traditional Christmas food, traditional Burmese food and the good old Aussie BBQ).

After the lunch in the park was finished our celebrations continued as many people came to visit us until about 10pm. And after that day, more relationships have been established and those that were already there have grown. In some ways it was with hesitation that we headed out on our two weeks holiday to Naomi's parents in the central coast (NSW), this time of year has afforded us so many amazing opportunities. But we were able to enjoy ourselves and when we returned the community was still here and they welcomed us back with open hands!


I will write again soon i promise, right now i need to go and cook some dinner...


peter

Re-thinking Christmas

Naomi & I have been trying for a number of years now to do something different within our Christmas celebrations within our extended families. Last year, we purchased all our gifts from a fairtrade shop for our families with a budget of $5 per person, our families rolled their eye's and said that they would expect nothing less from us, but I suspect that they appreciated the sentiment none the less.

We also limited gifts for our children and ourselves at one gift each worth no more than $20... surprisingly they did not seem to mind at all, however with all the extra gifts they got along the way from others I think the intent of that was somehow lost...

It is difficult to make a stand about consumerism at christmas time, when those around you earnestly want to show their love for you through buying gifts, and certainly, we would not want to take that option away from them...

The problem is how to show our love to them without looking like a tightass (excuse the french), there have to be creative ways out there, we have tried to make gifts for our loved ones with varying degrees of success over the years, but even they can often get quite pricey as we buy the supplies we need to make the gifts and as a result our aim of a consumerism free christmas was lost...

If you have any ideas for us this year, please let us know as I personally am running out of ideas.

Anyway, here are a few thoughts on consumerism and christmas...


This is a website dedicated to a "buy-nothing-christmas". Well worth checking out.

And here are some thoughts by one of my favourite writers and revolutionaries shane claibourne

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up.

I recently received a link from a friend of a godtube (Christian youtube rip off – I guess it’s more sanctified or something!) clip of a young African American woman reciting a Hip Hop style poem about peoples misconception of who is the real Jesus… the general thrust of the poem was that Jesus has become too easy to follow or too safe.

The reason that my friend sent me this clip was because he felt that my Jesus has become too safe too (or probably too pc). Now we are not talking about a buddy kind of Jesus like in a recent post by a myspace friend of mine who suggests amongst other things that HIS “Jesus” would have smoked the occasional pot… You come cross that kind of Jesus very often, the Jesus made in your own image kind of thing… He allows us to be more comfortable with ourselves rather than calling us to surrender and transformation.

My friend has always struggled with my view of Jesus. And the latest bent that he is on is one of exegesis… if we study the work properly and understand the context that Jesus was ministering in then we can get an accurate view of the real Jesus… now my friend has not done any of this work himself but has been relying on the work of important biblical scholars who have apparently arrived at the truth. He cannot accept that other respected biblical scholars have done the same thing and come up with very different images of Jesus. Even exegesis when push comes to shove revolves around opinion… especially when that exegesis begins to be applied (I think that’s call hermeneutic from memory).

The problem is that we all come to Jesus with preconceived ideas, sometimes those ideas are challenged and depending on how strongly those ideas are challenged our idea’s about him may change or we may defend our position all the more… and this could be viewed as either integrity, weakness, stubbornness, maturity, immaturity or compromise (again depending on your preconceived idea of who Jesus is). It is easy to see Jesus as a buddy, there is little challenge in this and little area for growth… we can say “I just follow the teachings of Jesus” and remove the sting from any opposing arguments. Unfortunatly we ignore the teachings of Jesus that tell us to take up our cross and surrender our lives. It is also very easy to have a legalistic Jesus, with him we can build firm guidelines of who is in and who is out, we can judge others (especially those who have the all permissive buddy Jesus), say we are following the teachings of Jesus, and feel very sanctified in the process… The problem with this view is that we end up with many enemies and the one teaching of Jesus that we can’t seem to understand is “Love your enemies”.

The problem is that we have a Jesus who likes to party like the buddy Jesus suggests, he hung out with tax collectors and sinners (to the chagrin of the legalists). But those who chose to follow him were called to a life of submission, transformation, pain, and hardship (sorry buddy Jesus). The true Jesus must lie somewhere in between or better yet as Brian McLaren likes to suggest somewhere ABOVE those two views, and finding Him there is no easy task. We have to remember that He hung out with the sinners and prostitutes and was accepted and loved by them, but that he never compromised his own values (the values of God himself as set out in the OT). Whether we like it or not, for this to happen we have to accept that He did not stand in judgement of these people, separating himself from them. In fact – the only people that Jesus does loose it at are the religious types, the legalists, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers OF THE LAW (the very law that he lived by like no other man has). We also have to accept that just about all of his disciples (depending on what tradition you come from) were martyred for their beliefs, as were many of the other followers of Jesus. The reason for this is that they were a challenge to the rule of the day they were bringing a teaching and way of life that was in opposition to that of Cesar and the Jewish leaders, they did not hole themselves up in a religious compound keeping themselves sanctified as the Essenes did – if this was the case they would have dwindled into obscurity (as the Essenes did) and Cesar would not have cared. Rather, they lived out their lives; they partied with the sinners and looked after their poor (not only their own!!). They stood by what they believed but were still accessible to those who they were called to share the gospel with. They loved their enemies and took up their cross and their numbers were added to DAILY!

It has been a long time...

It has been a very long time since I have blogged, and the truth of the matter is that although I have been busy I have simply not wanted to blog. I have been worn out by it all, maintaining it and other websites, blogger, myspace etc… it is all a great waste of time, or so I thought until I realised how much I missed doing it all, I use my blogs as a journal, they are cathartic for me. I can’t say that everything I write here is correct or truth or that I won’t want to take my words back in a year’s time but I need to get this stuff out, I need to put it out there, I hope and pray for feedback, both positive and negative, these comments make me think, make me ponder and I hope make me grow. I do not even know if anyone is interested in what I write. Is anyone interested in what I value?... but that is the beauty of the blog, I guess it does not matter.

I am looking to continue my study next year, I will be working towards my masters after taking a short detour in a Grad Dip. In order to do this, and continue with the work I am doing here in Springvale, I will need to become disciplined, as a result I plan to use my blog as a training ground of this discipline, at least until I begin my studies (hopefully I’ll continue after this, even if it is less frequent). Not only will it train me to schedule my time, it will train me to write more and to think more – at least I hope it will!

Over the time that I have been away from my blog I have had many thoughts that would have been good to get down, so hopefully I can get these down before I forget them… anyway, I will see you all again really soon..

Peter

God's Timing

What an amazingly busy time we have had since we have moved in here to Springvale. We were a bit worried at first, most of the Burmese that we work with are Muslim, and we moved in right at the start of Ramadan, this meant that our homework club grounded to a halt almost instantly. From what I understand, you do as little as you can get away with during Ramadan, as exerting yourself of course makes the fasting a lot more difficult (particularly if you can’t even drink water!). This also meant that there was not many of our usual local Burmese walking around the street, as they were mostly keeping indoors and quiet.

However, God’s timing in all of this seems to be perfect. Just when we were accepting that we had a quiet month ahead of us, the protests in Burma broke out, the protests and ensuing military crackdown, have left the Burmese refugees here with mixed feelings. On the up side, it has been nearly 20 years since there have been any large scale protests in Burma, and these protests were being lead by the Buddhist monks, a unique and amazing situation. The Buddhist monks are the one organization that was not able to be bought out by the junta, and indeed the junta itself recognizes itself as Buddhist, so when they were facing off the protesting monks, they were facing off their spiritual leaders. The other thing that was exciting about this situation is that the world was sitting up and taking notice. 19 years ago it was not until after the fact that the world found out that 3,000 peaceful protesters were slaughtered by the junta on the 8th of August. This time around, modern technology made it impossible to go by un-noticed. Thanks to the internet and cameras in mobile phones, an army of lay-journalists were able to blog the excitement and horrors of the protests for a week or so before the junta could effectively shut them down.

The negative side of this for our local Burmese community is of course that they are stuck here in Australia worrying about loved ones left in Burma, and in many cases reliving the memories of what they went through 19 years ago (many of the families are missing fathers or elder brothers because they were lost during this time.)

During this time we have been able to stand with our Burmese friends, visiting many of them, letting them know that we share in their misery (as much as we can being non-Burmese), supporting them wherever possible. We have also been able to stand with them in protest marches and rallies and through setting up a project team with some of the community leaders here in Springvale, the project team is dedicated to three aims of raising awareness of the Burmese plight, raising funds to help support families that have lost their main bread winner through death or imprisonment, and those political activists in Burma who are fighting foor their countries freedom (click here to learn more). We also aim to get involved in some political actin here, calling on our government to do all it can to put pressure on the Burmese Junta, and calling local companies that are involved in trade in Burma to cease their activities.

All of this activity has been very time consuming and exhausting, though exciting. However it has definitely galvanised our friendship and trust within the community here, so much so that this weekend, as our Burmese Muslim friends celebrated the end of Ramadan, we were invited to more of these celebrations than we could possibly attend. It was an honour to attend these celebrations, and a great time to meet up with many of the community who until now have been standing on the fringes. This time for them was probably very similar to our own Christmas or new years celebrations, where heaps of friends and family get together, eat copious amounts of food, laugh, play, and generally celebrate life.

Burma Update - the real death toll?

Hi everyone, I recieved the following article in an e-mail from a friend, it came from the "Daily Mail" in the UKbut it had some good info and gives a good indication that the death toll is not as low as the official figures are showing (even if the numbers in this report are exagerated)... but then it would be hard to believe that the numbers were as low as they were showing us in any case...

Burma: Thousands dead in the massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

Last updated at 01:24am on 1st October 2007

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.
The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: 'Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.'
Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.
Hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle
Reports from other exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply ' disappeared' as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.
Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.
There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.
Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.
There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.
In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted yesterday.
A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.
Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. 'The Burma revolt is over,' she added.
'The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.
'Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear.'
Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.
'There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets,' she added. 'Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.
'People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned.'
The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned. At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.
The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: 'I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.
'They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.'
With his teenage son, he made his escape from Rangoon, leaving behind his wife and two other sons.
He had no fears for their safety because his brother is a powerful general who, he believes, will defend the family.
Mr Win's defection will raise a faint hope among tens of thousands of Burmese who have fled to villages along the Thai border.
They will feel others in the army may follow him and turn on their ageing leaders, Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye.

Fasting for Burma

What an amazing and shocking week it has been for the people of Burma... if you have been living under a rock, since about the 19th, Burmese Buddhist Monks have been rising up in protest marches in the main cities of Burma, from what the news reports have been saying there have been up to 30,000 monks and nuns protesting and many other Burmese Civilians, numbers have apparently been over the 100,000 mark, this has been phenomenal for the nation and the cause on a global scale with all the media attention it has been getting...

However in the past 24ish hours the Military Junta has finally said enough is enough, they have enforced dusk till dawn curfews in an attempt to stem the protests, they have been bashing, imprisoning and in some cases killing these peaceful protesters. Rumor has it that the countries democratically elected leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken from her home where she has been under house arrest by the junta and been put back into prison.

This news has of course hit the Burmese refugees here in Springvale very hard, as a result, and to show that we are serious about our concerns for the plight of the Burmese, we have chosen to go on a fast and pray for the nation. Unlike the fasts mentioned by Jesus in the bible, we are not keeping this fast a secret, whilst the purpose of this fast is to come to the Lord in prayer, it is also to make a point and to take a stand... So I ask that you stand with us in prayer if not in fasting (also you can SIGN THIS PETITION).
My main prayers for this time will be...

• that this bloodshed will mark the end of the Junta's rule
• that no more lives will be lost
• that the world will stand up, take notice and say ENOUGH!
• for peace of mind for refugees in other countries separated from loved-ones.

I am in Despair...

Hi everyone...

I am feeling a bit down at the moment, I have been going through a hard time with someone I considered as a really close friend at the moment, this friend of mine has decided to start attacking my beliefs and what I do and that sort of thing always hurts. When I joined UNOH we got a fair bit of this sort of thing from other friends, but this guy stood by us. Now my friend has caught onto a new type of teaching, one that stand opposed to what I do in many ways, one that is more focused on personal righteousness than living out the Gospel, I'm sure you know this type of thing... whilst both things are needed there is an unhealthy tendency to swing towards one or the other rather than keeping them both in tension...

Anyway, I take these things really badly and this has put me out a fair bit, it reminded me of something i wrote about 4 months ago when I was also going through a rough stage because of something that was affecting Naomi pretty badly... it was a cathartic exercise that I was going to keep to myself, but Naomi saw it and thought it was good so I thought maybe I would share it with you...

I am in despair…
When I see the condition of this world,
I am in despair…
When I see the Condition of this Church,
I am in despair…
When I see good people fall,
I am in despair…
When I see good people hurt,
I am in despair…
When I see the tear in my wife’s eye,
I am in despair…
When it seems Evil is winning over good,
I am in despair…
That the church sees the answer as offence rather than love,
I am in despair…
When His Kingdom seems to be slipping away,
I am in despair…
When I feel that my hands are tied,
I am in despair…
That the church keeps crucifying him day after day,
I am in despair…
That I keep crucifying Him also,
I am in despair…
At the darkness that is in me,
I am in despair…
That there is no clear way ahead,
I am in despair…
That introspection makes me feels selfish,

But I stand…
On the truth that He will never leave us,
But I stand…
On the truth that He will never forsake us,
But I stand…
Because the light has not died,
But I stand…
Because the hope has not died,
But I stand…
Because He is my life,
But I stand…
Because I am not alone,
But I stand…
Because I am loved,
But I stand…
Because I am called.

Springvale update

Well, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks, it's not long now until we are back online at home and so will be able to write more regular updates, but to fill you in on what has happened over the last few weeks..

A few weeks ago we had an amazing working bee at our new home, we had approximately 20 volunteers come through from Swanson Street Church of Christ to help clean up, and they did an amazing job. The clean up was so effective that we were able to bring forward our moving date, which happened on the 5th and we had a small but dedicated team and we had all our furniture, boxes and junk moved in by the early afternoon. Since then, we have been working hard at getting settled in as well as cleaning up our old place (which was also done with a working bee of amazing UNOH workers and locals - thanks guys!), and getting familiar with our new neighbourhood.

The welcome we have received from the local UNOH workers and members of "Open Hands" church has been amazing - I think in the time that we have been moved in we have had dinner at our house once or maybe twice!

Springvale itself is a much different place to Noble Park, even though they are neighbouring suburbs Springvale is a much larger suburb and as many of you would know, very Asian in flavour, the town centre has the real hustle and bustle of an Asian city, and you could almost think that you were walking down a street in Bangkok... if you had a really vivid imagination.

Drugs, and everything that comes with them seem to be a much larger problem here, there are definite signs of drug use, we have already found a number of syringes in and around our front yard, there are discarded "chroming bags" along the sides of the alleyway behind our house, and probably the most disturbing of all for us was finding someone shooting up in our front yard. The main reason that this person was shooting up there was because we had an easily accessible source of fresh water in our driveway, and it is not uncommon to come home and find that the tap had been used. The scary thing about this encounter was the realisation of any fresh paraphernalia being left behind... fortunately this individual took his syringe with him, however there was a fair amount of blood left on one of the boxes that he was sitting on.

I was struck once again with the opposing forces of fear for my family and trusting in the Lord, I think that this is a struggle that all Christian parents go through... some respond to this fear by trying to pull their children out of any danger or negative influence... we have tried another response, a response that unfortunately means that we need to face this battle between fear and trust sometimes on a daily basis... I probably need to reflect of this topic a bit more at a later date... but having said this I did change the tap head in our front yard over to one of those ones with the removable handle, so hopefully this will reduce the really in-your-face encounters that we have.

It has been great to be so close to many of the Burmese that we have been getting to know, I have been privileged to be able to play some volley ball with some of them, and have had regular visits from one of our closer and more out going friends... As we get more settled in, the week to come will hopefully be more intentional with our visiting our Burmese friends and making new contacts, as well as familiarising ourselves with the exciting town centre and all its sights, sounds and smells.