Becoming | 2 | Resist The Devil

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

In my last (written) post, Becoming | 1 | Submit To God, I started to describe the process of becoming the person we were uniquely created to be in Christ. The story of Gideon in Judges chapter 6 gives us a worked example of the first part of that process. The continuation of his story in Judges chapter 7 gives us a worked example of the second part of that process.

I believe that the devil is a real person, an angel created by God who has chosen to rebel against God and seeks to destroy his good creation; who leads a destructive rebellion that will ultimately be overwhelmed by God’s goodness. But I also take the instruction to ‘resist the devil’ as a call to resist evil, whether that evil is directly attributable to the devil or the consequence of the fault-line between relationship with God and rebellion against him that runs through each one of us. In other words, to resist those things that contribute to our coming undone, our falling apart, as opposed to our becoming our true selves.

In resisting the particular manifestation of evil that Gideon is called to face – the Midianite army – the first thing that he learns is that we do not resist in our own strength (7:1-3). Though we are called to resist, and passivity is not an option, both the possibility of resisting and the victory it results in are of God. Twenty-two thousand men who had not submitted their fear to God turn back. Others show they have not submitted their strength to God, by staying fight-alert when told to drink, and are sent home.

The next thing Gideon learns is that we resist the devil as part of a community, not alone (7:7). Although he has been created to be a ‘mighty warrior,’ this is not “God and me against the world!” A mighty warrior is not a gung-ho loner, but one who inspires others, who is supported by others.

The next thing we learn is that we resist the devil still afraid – but with that fear submitted to God (7:9-15). Gideon has already submitted his fear (6:36-40). And now God says, “If you are afraid, walk into the enemy camp”…and that is what Gideon does. God doesn’t say, “Now that you are no longer afraid, walk into the enemy camp.” Gideon does not say, “Thanks for the offer, God, but I’m no longer afraid so I don’t need to go down into the enemy camp.” Gideon is afraid, but because he has submitted his fear to God, he can act with bravery and courage. If you are not afraid, you can be neither brave nor courageous. Decorated soldiers will tell you that. The person who feels no fear is a reckless danger to self and allies. Likewise, the person whose fear overwhelms them is a danger to self and allies. Courage is fear overcome; and God’s perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

The next thing we learn is that there are times when resisting the devil requires of us that we use our initiative (7:17). Gideon says to his army, “Watch me…Follow my lead.” God hasn’t dictated a plan to him, but has chosen Gideon for the task, and will back his actions.

The next thing we learn is that there are times when resisting the devil simply requires of us that we stand firm, hold our ground (7:21). Not fleeing from the scene, running away from the circumstances. And that is increasingly possible as we learn the accumulative lessons of submitting to God and resisting the devil.

The final thing we learn is that there are times when resisting the devil requires of us that we fight with God; and times when it involves calling to others to join in where we have seen a particular breakthrough (7:23-25). When the devil flees from us, it is not just a personal matter, nor a trivial event. Others will enjoy the benefits of God’s victory in our lives, over the struggles we face: especially where they have played a part in securing the new freedom; and where they play an ongoing part in recalling the struggle and living out the consequences of our ongoing becoming our true selves…

So…

What circumstances do I face right now, that are threatening to overwhelm me?

What aspect of who I am today do I need to submit to God today?

Who is standing with me as I resist the devil? Who should I be asking to stand with me?

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Becoming | 1 | Submit To God

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Our highest calling in life, the thing that gives the most glory to God, is to become the person we were uniquely created to be in Christ. I do not make that claim out of an extreme individualism; but out of a profound sense that the created – all of creation – is designed to respond to the Creator, to flourish in response to his love towards us. By ‘in Christ’ I mean that our identity is not self-determined, but a gift to be embraced. It is, however, a contested gift: for, just as the Christ comes to bring life in its fullness, so the satan – the accuser – comes as a thief to steal our identity, to kill and destroy.

And so the process of becoming who we are created to be, a process that will take a lifetime and beyond, is encapsulated in the instruction to submit ourselves to God, and resist the devil. Such submission is neither servile nor esoteric, but the honest laying out of ourselves before God. Likewise, such resistance is practical not conceptual. The story of Gideon, recorded in Judges chapters 6 & 7, offers us a worked example.

The angel of the Lord appears to Gideon, and addresses him as ‘mighty warrior’ – which at first glance appears ironic, as Gideon is hiding in a hole in the ground, for fear of enemy raiding parties. But what we have here is Gideon’s identity in Christ being called out of his present experience. The angel of the Lord is not merely an angel, a messenger of God; but God’s visible form. In the New Testament, God is most commonly described in terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Old Testament parallel, and precursor, being God, the angel of the Lord, and the spirit of God. As a Trinitarian, I would suggest that it is the pre-incarnate Jesus, through whom creation was made, who stands before Gideon and names him ‘mighty warrior.’

But Gideon will have to respond, if he is to become his true self. And the first thing he does is submit to God his doubt (6:13): he has heard stories about how great God is, but, to be honest, the stories don’t match up with his experience. God does not take away Gideon’s doubt. But because Gideon is submitting his doubt to God, is holding it out before God, God is able to extend to Gideon the invitation to discover for himself God’s wonders in liberating his people (6:14).

The next thing Gideon submits to God is his own inadequacy (6:15). He is, it would appear, the least likely candidate for the task. God does not dispute Gideon’s inadequacy. But because Gideon is submitting his inadequacy to God, God is able to extend to Gideon the invitation to discover God’s more-than adequacy (6:16).

The next thing Gideon submits to God is his inexperience, his lack of confidence that it is God he is hearing. And he does this in the context of sacrificial worship (6:17-24). Gideon sacrifices resources, skill, time, and the product of these three things: in fact, he submits his experience, what he can do, as well as his inexperience in this action. Sacrificial worship is often the context for submitting something to God: making ourselves vulnerable is always costly, and worship involves a measure of trust beyond what we know of God as well as response to what we do know of God. [There is something in this that ties to my previous post on moving mountains.] Because Gideon is submitting his lack of confidence to God, God is able to extend to Gideon the invitation to experience that The Lord is Peace; that where God is, there is harmony as opposed to dissonance (6:23, 24).

The next thing Gideon submits to God, in response to God’s request, is his family history (6:25-32). Here he is moving from what we might describe as internal angst to relationships (that is, I don’t think anyone in the ancient world divided life like that; but we do). If the process of becoming is one of submitting to God and resisting the devil, Gideon’s family have come undone through practices of resisting God and submitting to the devil. In fact, in this they are typical of their people at that moment in time, which is why the people are collectively come undone, living in fear of their enemies. At some point, we need to face up to those ways in which our actions have resulted not in becoming ourselves but coming undone. At times this will involve recognising the ways in which the actions of others have contributed to this; but such recognition does not excuse us from taking responsibility to turn around the direction we are travelling in, or repent.

The final thing Gideon submits to God is his fear (6:36-40); fear which has already come to the surface in relation to his family, and even more so now he is about to come face-to-face with the enemy armies God has asked him to overcome. And submitting his fear is a process: he has to do it more than once, in more than one way. And, as with his doubts, as we shall see in chapter 7 God does not take away Gideon’s fear. But because he has submitted his fear to God, he will be able to be courageous. Gideon is on the way to becoming the mighty warrior he was created to be…

Next post, Becoming | 2 | Resist The Devil

Moving Mountains

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Jesus (Matthew 17:20)

We use ‘mountains’ as a metaphor for the difficulties we face in our lives, the things that we need to overcome or else they will overcome us. To those we think give up too easily, or exaggerate their problems, we say, “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill!”

But in the ancient world, mountains symbolised encounters with a deity. The Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus. The Jewish god gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai; passed by Elijah on a mountainside; made Mount Zion his home on earth. Those stories of Jesus set on mountains make an unspoken statement about him: God is present with and in this man. The teaching given on the side of a hill known as the Sermon on the Mount says, this is the new Moses, the new law-giver. Jesus is transfigured, in the presence of those experienced old mountaineers Moses and Elijah, and rookies Peter, James and John, on a mountain top.

And so when Jesus says if you have faith you can move a mountain from here to there, he is not primarily concerned with the obstacle his disciples are facing. His is not simply speaking about what you can do – in this case, drive out a demon. He is speaking about how you do it: the focus of faith is not the obstacle, but God. To move a mountain from here to there is to transfer our experience of meeting God in one context to another context. To move a mountain from here to there is to say, I have known God provide in the past, so I can trust for his provision now, and it is in that light that I will act.

To meet with God on a mountain-top experience requires effort on our part. It is exhilarating, but exhausting too. But to go from mountaintop experience to mountaintop experience alone is to miss the point. We need transferable faith. Transferable faith transforms the everyday stuff of life in the valley of the shadow of death.

Collect For Ash Wednesday

God's Promises

Today I came across crocuses for the first time this year, pushed up through the dead leaves of last year, unfurling their petals in the sunshine, delicate, intricate, amazing in their detail. They always remind me of God's promises, to transform the wilderness into a place of beauty. Today, their reminder was a timely and a welcome one. I've uploaded more photos to my flickr page.

Slumdog Millionaire | 3 | Themes

Slumdog Millionaire lends itself to a thematic reading, in part because it deals with so many, and in part because it does so in such a complex way: innocence and malice might collide, but there are no black-and-white delineations of Good and Evil here – as in life (less often in the movies) moral fault-lines run through every character, every social structure.

Childhood:
Told from a child’s perspective – a perspective that it equates with a native understanding of truth – this is a film about childhood. In this world, to be a child is to live like a free man even if you happen to live in a prison. It is to live, without any kind of power, as king of all you survey. Indeed, it is their very powerlessness that gives them freedom; for power corrupts and constrains all who grasp for it as they grow into adulthood. Disturbing though it is to be confronted with young children scavenging out an existence on the rubbish dump, it is no less disturbing to be confronted with their zest for life, their peals of laughter. Poverty holds up a mirror to affluence, and affluence is found to be equally oppressive (another theme that runs through the film; Jamal does not go on Millionaire for the money, but to be seen by Latika, in hope of rescuing her from that very oppression). In denying our children means to make their small contribution to the family oikonomia; in denying our children freedom to play unsupervised; in denying our children the room to risk (can you imagine children travelling on the roof of a train!); as an affluent society have we denied our children too much…childhood?

Adulthood:
With the exception of Jamal’s mother, who intervenes to save her boys first from the wrath of the policeman and then from the wrath of the rioters who kill her, and one or two passing characters, adults in this world are essentially malevolent. Children are seen primarily in economic terms, as competition to be removed or commodities to be exploited. Policemen and gangsters alike mistreat them. It is a disturbing world, but not an alien one. According to a recent report by the United Nations, and backed-up by an even more recent report by the Children’s Society, British children are the most unhappy in the Developed World: born as accidents, or fashion accessories; marginalised by parents pursuing their own lives; demonised by the press; moved on by the police…

Prejudice:
Prejudice lies at the very heart of this film, articulated most clearly in the opinion that someone from the slum could not possibly possess knowledge. The quizmaster – who himself has gone from rags to riches - presents this belief to the audience, and their response shows them to be complicit in it. The police move to torture in response to this belief, and so are shown to not only lack knowledge themselves, but also to be morally bankrupt – until Jamal fills in their knowledge-gap and restores their moral judgement. And in all this, a trap is set for the viewer. For the viewer has more education than the quizmaster and the police, and is subtly persuaded to view him- or herself as more upstanding. Like the child Jamal in the privy, the door is wedged shut, and the only way out is to embrace the humiliation of dropping down into the cess pit…

Inter-textuality:
The ‘millionaire’ questions not only introduce flashback episodes of Jamal’s life; they also introduce a series of inter-textual connections. Perhaps most important are two questions Jamal does not know the answer to: the second, for which he asks the audience, the text that ‘truth alone will triumph’ and the final question, for which he makes a guess, identifying the third musketeer. What difference does it make to how we understand the story that (without Jamal’s knowing) truth alone will triumph? What difference does it make to how we understand Salim, Jamal and Lakita to see them cast (even without their knowledge of the characters’ personalities) as Athos, Porthos and Aramis? And what difference do the texts woven into the construction of the viewers make, not only to how we interpret the film but also to how we respond to the themes it confronts us with?

Slumdog Millionaire | 2 | Characters

The film Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of two boys, Jamal and his older brother Salim, and a girl, Latika, growing up in Bombay/Mumbai. Most of the reviews I’ve read laud it as an overcoming of impossible odds, two star-cross’d lovers separated by circumstances and reunited by destiny. But I’m not sure how many odds are really overcome: this is not so much a story of triumphing over circumstances as finding ways to be alive in the middle of circumstances which cause others to merely exist. A story of different ways in which we might choose to make the most of injustice; and what happens when those different ways collide.

The central character is Jamal, who occupies a space in-between conventional hero and anti-hero (i.e. a main character in a narrative who lacks traditionally heroic characteristics) roles, overlapping both. He is at once both callow and streetwise. He has a child’s strong sense of right and wronged; his undiminished sense of wonder gets under the skin of the viewer. On various occasions, his life is saved by the more jaded actions of both Salim and Latika – though he is condemned to suffer the bitter consequences of their actions – but ultimately it is arguably Jamal who saves both Salim and Latika from themselves, who brings his fellow ‘musketeers’ to their senses through his determination, and very public humiliation. Add to this his unjustified torture, strung up, electrocuted, and here is one of cinemas sacrificial, penal-substitution atonement, saviours.

Jamal’s complexity questions our moral values. Is it wrong for a hungry child, who has no grown up he can trust to care for him, to steal food? Or to take advantage of India’s official tourism industry? Is it wrong to fail to report to corrupt police that your brother has murdered a man who buys children’s trust for a bottle of coke, only to mutilate them so that they can earn him more by begging, or send them into prostitution? Are our western sensibilities, even those still dressed-up as Judeo-Christian tradition in an increasingly post-Christian society, simply an expression of the luxury of being the Haves in the world?

Jamal’s older brother Salim is his foil, occupying a space in-between anti-hero and petty villain. Whereas wonder gets Jamal through the world more-or-less intact, Salim understands the world, knows that corrupt power is preferable to impotence. Are the differences between Salim and Jamal expressions of different character; or degree? The ways in which Salim looks out for himself are perhaps more extreme; but both boys look out for their own interests, with passion and drive; and both boys, in their own ways, also look out for the interests of those they feel a responsibility towards or affinity to. Perhaps these brothers are closer than they would recognise. In the end, having recognised his shortcomings before God, it is Salim who seeks redemption through doing what he can in order for Jamal and Lakita to be reunited.

Is it always wrong to kill somebody? Or is there a difference between a prohibition against murder, as a bulwark against social breakdown and in a society that is charged with caring for the widow, the orphan and the alien; and the taking of a life as natural justice, where natural justice is the only justice available?

Latika is Jamal’s muse. From the moment she first appears, standing out in the monsoon rain silently but persistently asking for shelter, she stands just outside of Jamal’s world, making his experience incomplete without her. The child Jamal extends care, protection, and in return for this simple but profound gift Latika will give herself for his life. On three different occasions, as a child, a young teenager and a young woman, she sacrifices herself, her own happiness with Jamal, and so doing secures his survival. Is her motive love, or fear; fear that her failure to run will jeopardise his escape, fear that things will go worse for her if she does not give in; or all of the above? In time, her choices mould her life: they win wealth, if not love; and who, from the slums of Mumbai, can live on love alone? For a time, love is too big a cost. Only Jamal’s determination, and Salim’s intervention, will eventually secure her release.

In the final analysis, all three characters need the other two. Knowing only the first two names, and without having read the book, they truly fulfil the musketeers’ motto, All for One, and One for All…

Slumdog Millionaire | 1 | Impressions

Slumdog Millionaire is the talk of the town this cinema award-ceremony season. In recent weeks, there has been a rash of facebook statuses singing its praises. And it is undoubtedly a film worth watching. But it is also a film worth reflecting on.

The first thing to say is this is a violent film: the foreground concentrated violence against individuals, and in particular men inflicting violence on women and children; and the background violence of having to live in extreme poverty. This is a film that does violence to the viewer, watching in a western society that is complicit in that poverty. Despite the uplifting life-affirming feel-good Bollywood end credits scene, to view Slumdog as escapist entertainment is, surely, to miss the point.

The next thing to say is this is a psychedelic film: dizzying heights, loud noise, bright colour, clever camera angles. This is a film that puts the viewer through a simulated parallel to the mental (though not the physical) torturing of the central character, Jamal, at the hands of a Mumbai policeman. It is challenging viewing.

The final introductory thing to say is this is a lovingly-made and beautiful film. This is a film that, for all its violence and disorientation, might just carry seeds of redemptive potential for lovingly-made and beautiful but tragically broken, oppressed and hurting people…

Purple | Advent | Lent

Red

A couple of designs for the Holy Spirit and/or Christian saints and martyrs.

Ordinary Time

A couple of 'Green' designs for Ordinary Time, which began yesterday.

Church Year

I'm playing around with designs to represent the seasons of the Church Calendar. The Calendar is a way of telling our story, reminding us who we are and are meant to be, enabling us to live out our own part in what has been described as faithful improvisation.

In the Calendar, seasons and days are represented by different colours:
Advent and Lent: Purple
Christmas, Epiphany and Eastertide: White
'Ordinary Time': Green
Pentecost, days associated with the Holy spirit and/or with martyrs: Red

Today I've been working on two 'White' designs:
the Pantocrator, representing the risen Lord Jesus, Ruler of All, for Eastertide;
and the Theotokos, or God-bearer, as Mary was in a particular sense and we are called to be, for Christmas and Epiphany.

What do you think?

Theotokos

Pantocrator

Covenant | Kingdom | Internals | Externals

Two threads intertwine through the biblical story like the two strands of DNA: a theology of covenant, and a theology of kingdom.

To speak of covenant is to speak a familial language. God comes to Abram, whose name means ‘great father,’ and makes a covenant – whereby each party is to be considered as the other, or, as the marriage contract expresses it, “All that I am I give to you; all that I have I share with you.” This covenant is made “with you and your children.” Abram has no children, as yet; but the consequence of the covenant is that they are to experience God as great father – while God’s identity as ‘father to nations’ is conferred upon Abram, expressed through a name-change to Abraham…

In the covenant, we experience God as our father, mother, husband; Jesus as our brother; and Holy Spirit as guarantor of our experiencing ourselves as children, friends, bride.

To speak of kingdom is to speak a language of exercising dominion. God has dominion of all creation, and delegated dominion over all the earth to human-kind. Human-kind was tricked into abdicating that exercising of dominion, in favour of God’s enemy. So God embraced humanity within his own being, and won for us a decisive liberation; and re-commissioned us with delegated power and authority to exercise dominion, joining him in destroying the works of the upstart principality of the enemy...

In the kingdom, we experience God as King; Jesus as anointed heir, and co-regent; and Holy Spirit as guarantor of our experiencing ourselves as anointed co-heirs, ambassadors, spiritual warriors.

Within the strand of covenant, the internal frontiers to be won are a pressing-on into greater knowledge of the nature of our identity; the external frontiers that flow out of that, won by a greater exercising of obedience.

Within the strand of kingdom, the internal frontiers to be won are a pressing-on into greater knowledge of the nature of our Jesus-derived authority; the external frontiers that flow out of that, won by a greater exercising of our Jesus-derived power.

Are You An Innie Or An Outie?

As I was wrestling with a written piece of personal reflection today, I was reminded of a consistent principle of God’s liberating coming-to-us that I was first taught several years ago.

God’s transforming presence is concerned with two spheres of our experience:
the internal (e.g. habitual thought-patterns)
and
the external (e.g. our circumstances)

Time and time again in God’s dealings with his people – Joseph, Moses, David, the people of Israel, the early church – we see that where breakthrough is needed in an external frontier, God first works to bring about breakthrough in an internal one. So, God does an internal work in the life of Moses, alone in the wilderness, in order that he can lead his people out of slavery in Egypt…and an internal work in the people in the wilderness, in order that he can lead them into the Promised Land. So, the early church grows as its members learn to share what God has given them among themselves equitably.

The principle is this: internal breakthrough proceeds, and results in, external breakthrough. Every time.

That is why we can pray: “…transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory…”

This principle even applies to Jesus, the one in and through whom a new covenant is written; the one in and through whom the kingdom comes in its fullest expression. Before his liberating mission can begin, Jesus must know that he is God’s beloved son; must experience a pioneering breakthrough in the frontier of identity (which takes place at his baptism), and a settling of that territory (which takes place in the wilderness, immediately following that event).

The converse is also true. When we fix our focus on external circumstances – whether they be ‘good,’ such as material provision, or ‘bad,’ such as illness or oppression – we lose internal ground that has previously been won. We trust in our own strength, forgetting that God provides; we despair in our own inability to overcome adversity.

This converse principle is: surrendering external ground God has won for us proceeds, and results in, a surrendering of internal ground won. Every time.

Whenever the people of Israel returned to God, they enjoyed the blessing of peace in the Land. Whenever they turned away from God, they experienced the curse of incursion, exile, occupation at the hands of other peoples. (And the testimony of the exilic prophets and of Jesus’ mission demonstrates that you can’t recover the internal frontier by attempting to recapture the external one.)

So where I am seeking God for external breakthroughs, I need to ask, what is the internal breakthrough that needs to be secured first?

And where I see external breakthroughs lost – those ways in which God’s love and power, made substance through faith, transform situations; that used to be characteristic of my experience of life but are rare now – I need to ask, at what cost? How much hard-won internal ground am I prepared to give away lightly?

Poverty | Riches

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

(Collect of the day during Epiphany, Common Worship)

Common Worship Daily Prayer is a wonderfully rich resource for spiritual formation, if we are willing to embrace the grace held out to us. This season of Epiphany (which happens to coincide with a season of global economic recession) I find myself gripped by these words, the daily collect, and in particular the line

transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace…

And as they grip me, demand my attention, pull me back when I would allow myself to be distracted by so many other things, I dare to believe that the Holy Spirit is at work, breathing life into them, into me through them…making these external words the internal prayer of my own heart, so as to delight in answering
the longing of an ungenerous spirit
to become
gracious.

The Measure Of A Leader

“A short time ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. One of the first changes is the White House's new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.”

This quote from the introduction to WhiteHouse.gov, a media-savvy (and I don’t mean that cynically) interface built on the three priorities of communication, transparency, and participation. It looks great, and the content is impressive too. And, as the policies of White House administrations have a bearing on all our lives, it’s one to put in the RSS feeder.

One of the interesting features of the site is a potted history of the forty-three men (Grover Cleveland was President numbers 22 and 24 – the only man to hold non-consecutive terms in office) who have served as President.

It strikes me afresh that you can learn a lot about the measure of a leader by what he, or she, has to say about another leader; especially if they have very different visions for the future and what it might take to build it.

And I am really impressed by the account of President George W Bush.

Some caveats:
I doubt that Barack Obama himself compiled these histories – but I’m confident that he had the editorial final say;
I’m sure he is too smart to be petty on his big day – and smart enough to know that, in taking on The Most Impossible Job In The World, you would be wise to go easy on the last guy to fail trying;
I also know that part of the role of these histories is to paint a picture of the office of President as one who serves selflessly and impartially, to the best of their ability and in their best understanding of what is the right course of action in any given situation, the people and their constitution. In other words, there is an element of myth-building here – but it is a bipartisan myth that will play a healing role from this National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, onward.

But, George W Bush ends his term deeply unpopular at home; and having made decisions that have, undeniably, significantly damaged America’s reputation throughout the rest of the world. It could not be easier to question his character, or his motives, or his ability. And yet the public record of this man by his successors is a generous testimony. It chooses to point to his strengths, not his weaknesses; his successes, not his failures; and paints the picture of a man of integrity, whose policies flowed from his beliefs.

And I am given cause to reflect on how I speak of others.

Lord Jesus Christ,
who confronts us with our need of forgiveness,
and the call to love both enemy and neighbour:
in your mercy,
forgive us those times our thoughts, words or actions would have character-assassinated Presidents Bush and Obama;
and forgive them their many and inevitable fallings-short of the Father’s will;
that together we may come to experience
his kingdom come in greater measure.
Amen.

This Is My Son

This is my son. Not the one I misplaced the other day. My other son, Noah.

Today is Noah’s sixth birthday. He took four friends from school and his sister bowling.

Right at the end, after his friends had gone and as we were gathering up coats and cake and his little brother, we caught him dancing. Not because anyone was watching. Just because he loves to dance.

I love it when Noah dances.

In Which My Son Goes Missing

Jo went away on a three-day retreat this week, leaving me in charge of the kids. On my own.

You need to know that I have the necessary character-traits to be an academic don (merely lacking the necessary ability and application).

On the first day, I had to collect Susannah and one of her friends from their after-school gymnastics club, which obviously entailed taking Noah and Elijah along with me.

When we got home again, I parked the pushchair under the carport, and came back out through the gate to let everyone in through the front door. As I was unlocking the door, my phone rang. The kids pushed past me and disappeared upstairs, as I juggled answering Jo with getting into the house. As she chatted away, telling me about her room and who was in the room next door (see – I do listen…sometimes) Noah crashed back down the stairs demanding drinks and an after school snack. Jo asked to talk with him; then I sorted out cups of squash and cupcakes in the kitchen, and shouted for the kids to come downstairs – I didn’t want them taking drinks upstairs. The girls were already lying on Susannah’s loft-bed, engrossed with her DS, so getting them to come downstairs wasn’t straightforward. Eventually they appeared.

The washing machine light was flashing on and off, so I emptied it out and went to hang the contents on the airer to dry. Elijah started shouting “Dah-dee! Dah-DEE!”

“Hang on – I’m just hanging out the washing!” I called back. He’d probably got stuck climbing the bookshelf: he can’t topple it, and it’s not that high.

“Dah-dee!” “Hang on!”

Job done, I set off upstairs to help him out: not in the boys’ room; not with the other three in susannah’s room; not in my room, the bathroom, the toilet. I go back downstairs. Not in the living room, the dining room (I checked, even though I’d just been in there hanging up clothes), the kitchen, the hall.

I go back upstairs. “Where’s Elijah?” “We don’t know.” “He’s not here.” “I think he’s downstairs.”

I do the circuit again, this time looking behind curtains, the sofa. He’s stopped calling: perhaps he’s playing a hiding game. No Elijah.

Back upstairs. “Where’s Elijah?” “We don’t know.” Unimpressed by the lack of cooperation I’m getting, I go round again a third time. (Because, obviously, a child who isn’t there will always appear if you look enough times…)

By now, I’m starting to get a little stressed-out. After all, at a similar age, while on holiday in Kentucky, Noah had let himself out through the front door of our hosts’ house, and headed off down the sidewalk early one morning. Our host happened to look out of his window, and thought to himself, “That little boy looks just like Noah…wait a minute - it is Noah!”

“Guys. I-need-to-find-Elijah!” and, deeply frustrated by their indifference,
“Thanks. For. Your. Help.” I call back over my shoulder…
“I think you didn’t bring him inside,” responds Noah. Now. Not the first time I asked. Now!

I run downstairs,
unlock the kitchen door,
and there,
strapped in his pushchair,
sat, all on his own in the cold and by-now dark,
tear-tracks down his cheeks,
is my boy.

When she got home, Susannah’s friend told her mum and dad all about it:
“…He even said thank you to us for helping to look for Elijah. But he didn’t mean it.”
Which is as beautifully funny a description of child-meets-sarcasm as you could care to find.

It goes without saying that I blame Jo, for distracting me at just the wrong moment. And that Susannah’s friend isn’t welcome anymore.

On the second day, I failed to notice that Elijah had removed his shoes when I collected him from his pre-school group at college…

Shoes (I say, shrugging my shoulders).I consider ‘shoes’ to be somewhat of a triumphant storming up the learning curve!

The Law Of The Few

Gladwell describes connectors, mavens and salesmen under the First of his Three Rules of Epidemics: The Law of the Few. That is, change is not brought about through the equally-weighted actions of a large number of people, but through the actions of a few highly unusual individuals within a much larger group.

And this is significant, if I am right in drawing a correlation between connectors, mavens and salesmen, and apostles, prophets and evangelists. Because as I read scripture and apply it to lived experience, I conclude that:

Jesus still distributes the people-as-gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to the local expressions of his body the church today;

He does not distribute these people-as-gifts equally, and there are fewer apostles, prophets and evangelists than there are pastors and teachers;

This rarity within the population is not a limiting factor to church growth (numerical, maturity): it is, when each is doing their part, the Jesus-given means for growth…

And this has implications such as:

Situations that look for all the world beyond hope are not condemned to remain beyond hope, but can change dramatically, suddenly;

There are probably apostles, prophets and evangelists in your local church community, waiting to be released…

…and it is even more likely that there are connectors, mavens and salesmen in your wider community, waiting to be redeemed – to offer themselves as a vassal to God (Psalm 68:18), and, in turn, be given by Jesus as a gift to his church (Ephesians 4:8) for the world…

Apostles | Prophets | Evangelists

Somewhere in the back of my head, I’m turning over the correlation between connectors, mavens and salesmen, and apostles, prophets and evangelists…

I’m not suggesting it is a simple 1:1 correlation (connectors = apostles; mavens = prophets; salesmen = evangelists); it’s more multi-directional than that. But there are correlations, nonetheless, I am convinced.

Apostles certainly tend to be masters of weak-tie relationships. Think of all those lists of names at the ends of St Paul’s letters: people he wants to send a greeting to; people who want to send a greeting to someone else via his letter…

Apostles form networks of relationships, in which they are influential nodes, in which a group of apostles working in a team together are influential hubs…

But apostles are also concerned with guarding the message, the idea, they carry, and that goes beyond the role of connector.

Prophetic ministry is concerned with looking for the new thing, the thing God is up to in and through and behind-the-scenes of society; and communicating what we discover with whoever will listen. That sounds like a maven. But, just as mavens lack the people-network of connectors, and require a connector if their discovery is to go viral, so prophets tend to lack the people-network of apostles…they need to work together.

I think there is a sense in which evangelists connect individuals with a community: but they probably aren’t connectors, according to Gladwell’s schema.

I think there is a sense in which evangelists connect individuals with good news: but they’re even less likely to be mavens, according to Gladwell’s schema.

But evangelists – just as apostles and prophets (and pastors and teachers) – do something ‘naturally’ (as well as needing to develop skills), and I wonder whether the thing they do naturally is be persuasive?

Connectors | Mavens | Salesmen

Gladwell identifies several factors that make all the difference in whether an idea goes viral – spreads like an epidemic – or not: small changes in the people involved; the (way the) message (is) communicated; and the context. Early on in the book, he writes about three rare kinds of people – connectors, mavens, and salesmen.

Most people have a certain circle of friends, usually people with whom we share a common activity (e.g. we are at college together). Beyond that, we have a certain number of acquaintances; but we tend to see acquaintances as superficial relationships. Connectors, on the other hand, genuinely love these ‘weak-tie’ relationships. They collect people, not primarily for what they might get out of it but because they love meeting people. The advantage of connecting with a connector is that they connect you to other people you wouldn’t otherwise come across, people outside of your own social network, people with experience or ideas different to the ones you already have or know.

This is the premise behind social networking. Genuine connectors may make up a small percentage of the population, but Facebook makes us all a little bit more widely connected, by maximising our weak-ties. There are certain groups of people with whom I have a high degree of experience, and friend, overlap – The Order of Mission, or St John’s Nottingham – but I connect several different worlds…and a genuine connector connects more worlds than I could imagine! (And if you also open flickr and twitter and delicious in your Flock ‘people’ sidebar…)

While connectors specialise in people, mavens specialise in collecting information. But not information for the sake of knowing more than anyone else: information for the love of passing it on. Mavens make it their business to find out what is going on, what is new, what is worthy of praising…and to let you know too.

So when a maven passes information to a connector, the word does not get out by addition but by explosion.

I keep a blog, and a few people, mostly people who know me quite well, drop by from time to time. But I’m not a maven – certainly not in relation to virtual communication – so my virtual presences are minimal: the blog, flickr, facebook. My friend Ben Askew is a maven, in this world (though he would probably use the word ‘geek’). And I’m not a connector (in fact, about a year ago I chose to pull out of deliberate actions that can be taken to connect a blog to more people; to take time out of the blogging game), so what I discover doesn’t take off. That’s no reason to stop looking out and passing on; I just need to be realistic about the impact.

Connectors and mavens can work hand-in-hand. They can also coincide in one person.

But even if a maven has got hold of useful information and passed it on to hundreds of people via a connector, there is no automatic reason why those people would act on that advice.

The third type of person Gladwell identifies is the salesman. While a maven will tell you stuff for the love of sharing information that might be beneficial to you, they tend not to be interested in persuading you to act on that information. Ben’s moved on from blogging to digital scrap-booking; I love the look of it, of how he’s using that, but I’m ‘virtually-cautious’ (and I suspect that most of the people who visit here are even more so); not only is it unlikely that I will take up scrap-booking, Ben is more interested that I check out his space than that I attempt to replicate it.

When people communicate, their body movements and vocal rhythms start to harmonise, in tiny, subtle ways. Salesmen have a natural ability to draw the other person to their rhythms, and the effect is powerfully persuasive. It isn’t about deliberate manipulation – though it can certainly be used that way. It is simply a gift that some people have – and it can be used constructively.

The Tipping Point

I am re-reading Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point: how little things can make a big difference’ at the moment. It is a fascinating book that explores why some ideas or trends take off and spread like wildfire, while others have hardly any impact at all…a book which itself took off and spread like wildfire…

And I’m asking, what does it take to see certain ideas, certain values, transform a community, a nation even? I’m asking, as someone who dares to hope in the kingdom of God breaking into a society that looks pretty bleak right now – a society where most of the indexes it uses to measure deprivation would appear to be on the increase at present. I’m asking as someone who believes that it is the Holy Spirit, hovering over chaos, who brings about change; who doesn’t believe that change will come if and when the church gets its strategy or techniques right…but at the same time, as someone who believes that God gives insight as we look at the world and ask him to make sense of what we see.

I’m re-reading ‘The Tipping Point,’ and I might post some of my reflections here over the next few days.

Epiphany | Community | Communitas

My friend Alan Hirsch writes regularly about the relationship between community and communitas:

Community is to do with the building of something sustainable. People gather, in order to answer, at the most basic level, questions such as ‘How can we best feed ourselves?’ and ‘How can we best deal with our waste products?’ [And churches need to ask the same questions, as I discuss here.]

But left to its own devices, in time the very structures a community puts in place to sustain itself will strangle the life of that community…

This is why community needs communitas. Communitas describes the experience of a group of people who go outside of the known world of their community, with its norms and structures, to face together the challenges thrown up by the world beyond the known world, and who return again (no guarantees) changed by their experience. Communitas could describe the experience of a group of people taken hostage by terrorists; or a group of adventurers on a quest to conquer Mount Everest or the South Pole…or a group of Magi on a two-year journey following a star, and a two-year journey home again. They may go by choice, or not; and they may go in order to prove themselves, or of necessity, to save the world they know (think the Fellowship of the Ring; or Alex and Marty in ‘Madagascar 2: The Crate Escape’).

But unless there is a community to return to – a community that will somehow be changed by the returning presence of those who have experienced communitas – then, in time, the very structures a communitas puts in place to sustain itself become hollow (think Pikelet’s adult mentors in Tim Winton’s ‘Breath’). This is why communitas needs community.

I’m interested to see that my friend Hamo is working again with a more ‘recognisable’ local church, after some years of pioneering on the edge. Some will say that he has sold out; others, wanting to be more charitable, that he gave it his best shot and it didn’t work out. I reckon both are wrong: that this new season demonstrates the relationship between communitas and community – that communitas does not exist for its own sake. I’d go so far as to say that Hamo would have sold out, or failed, if he didn’t do the working with communities (and indeed, he has always found ways to do so, as a pioneer).

Likewise, I’m interested to see that my virtual friend Steve Taylor is engaging with the whole issue of sustainability (or to put it another way, community needs communitas and communitas needs community) as we move into a new year.

I love all three of these wise men from the Southern hemisphere, and reckon that, though each would express it differently, they’re on a journey worth following through 2009…

Epiphany | Magi From The East