“Biblically, there are some good counter-arguments I could make to critics of worship songs, especially that they are repetitive and not cerebrally challenging. Take, for example, Psalm 136. It says “His love endures forever” 26 times. But also, I think, we need to be aware of the culture we operate in. Repetition, like it or not, is a big part of so many of the most relevant musical expressions of our times – especially among young people. So you can’t ignore it.”
Rowan Williams suggests that the primary revelation of God’s nature in the Bible is not his power or majesty, or even his love, but his faithfulness. And that this revelation poses the question: will we, who experience God’s eternal faithfulness, keep faith with the communities in which we live?
Will we keep faith with our communities, even when those communities do not keep faith with themselves? For God is faithful in relation to us – because he cannot break faith with himself - even when we are not faithful in relation to him - or, to who we are in him (2 Timothy 2:13).
For me, one of the acid tests of being defined by faithfulness facing the Church today is whether or not we choose to put our children into schools that other people are trying to get their children out of...
Recently I’ve been reflecting on five forms of capital - spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial – and how they might be applied in my life. I wrote about that here, here, and here. Reflecting on mission in AMDs (Areas of Multiple Deprivation), I observe that there are five correlating forms of poverty: spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial.
This is significant, because the problems facing AMDs are complex, and addressing any of them in isolation is unlikely to have sustainable impact. On the other hand, we who have been invested in by God - who is looking for a return on his investment - need to look to invest all five forms of capital in order to address all five forms of poverty. But different church traditions have tended to place an over-emphasis on particular forms, while undervaluing the importance of others within the gospel.
So here are some initial reflections:
Spiritual poverty: If we are created to be in relationship with God – drawn into as close relationship as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit enjoy – then spiritual poverty underlies all other forms of poverty, because spiritual capital funds all other forms of capital. That is, all good gifts flow from our heavenly Father. But society has disconnected the gifts from the Giver, as the church has tended to disconnect spiritual capital from the other forms (focusing on spiritual capital, disconnected from the other forms; or on the other forms, disconnected from spiritual capital).
One of the things that I observe, watching culture, is that people have an almost total ignorance of the story of the Bible, but have an astute awareness of preaching. Which makes me wonder what the hell we have been preaching about?
The gospel, for the church, for the wider community, must involve a rediscovery of the stories that reveal to us the spiritual capital we have been given, and how to invest it for spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial return.
Relational poverty: Relational poverty is on the increase in every part of our society. Inability or unwillingness to commit to long-term relationships (sexual partners, children, friends, employer/employee, or any other relationship) is evident among those of low and high income – though the things people put ahead of relationships may differ. But those of higher income have greater capacity to attempt to insulate themselves from the effects of relational poverty, for example by the growing dependence on paying strangers to raise our children for us. Trust, in wider society, is at a record low; suspicion of others – fear of youths, fear of paedophiles, fear of people of other ethnicity – at a record high. People in their 40s and 50s remember a childhood (i.e. not that long ago) where doors were left unlocked, and local shops provided not just commodities but social cohesion – or, ‘community glue’ – to neighbourhoods (supermarkets provide commodities, perhaps more efficiently, but cannot provide social cohesion: the catchment is too large and too loosely-tied for retailers to know customers – the same loss of community glue can be observed with larger churches that draw people from a wide area).
In my view, the nuclear family is as dysfunctional as the atomic family. The gospel must include rebuilding the extended family – that is, not only multi-generational but having a wider understanding of family than just our relatives, by blood or marriage, and including an economic dimension. Missional effectiveness must be measured in terms of the church playing a role in rebuilding local community, not in terms of people ‘coming to church.’
Physical poverty: There tends to be a higher degree of visible addiction in AMDs, though in fact addiction of various forms is an increasing problem across our society, as we attempt to sate certain appetites and suppress others, without recognition of spiritual poverty. There certainly tends to be a higher degree of malnutrition, tied to intellectual poverty in regard to healthy eating, and the preparation of healthy food. Recent studies suggest a link between bottle-fed babies and childhood obesity. And smoking remains most prevalent among the poorest members of our society.
The gospel must include concern for the physical body: both modelling healthy lifestyles (long-term, prevention is better than cure); and caring for those who are reaping the consequences of endemic physical poverty.
Intellectual poverty: Intellectual poverty has a very obvious impact on both financial and physical poverty. But better education is not, in itself, an adequate answer to poverty, in particular spiritual and relational poverty: if it were, then the middle and upper classes would be less dysfunctional than the working classes, whereas they are just as dysfunctional, but in different ways. Nonetheless, investment in intellectual capital is an essential part of addressing poverty. Within AMDs we need to recognise that the failure of an overly-academic school education to equip people in practical skills (relational, physical), combined with a lack of sustained - sometimes, any - job-creation investment to connect to (financial), has resulted in a deeply-ingrained negative attitude towards learning.
The gospel must include nurturing the mind, and fostering an environment where learning is valued – not idolised, as the middle classes has done, but valued. After all, the call of the gospel is a call to be lifelong learners, or disciples.
Financial poverty: Clearly, financial poverty is most prevalent among the poor, because though the rich have lived increasingly beyond their means they also enjoy the power to offload their debts on others. While recession hurts everyone, it will hurt those most responsible for recession the least.
Addressing financial poverty is part of the gospel, and it must include partnership and redistribution of resources. However, this must not be done in such a way that creates dependency, and the resentment that follows dependency, by failing to involve ownership.
I am blessed to belong to a local church that takes addressing financial and physical poverty, in particular, very seriously (through debt advice/management; a credit union; support in developing various basic life skills; support for those wrestling with addictive issues; mental and physical health support). I wonder to what extent the five forms of capital/poverty are connected to each other in our missional engagement with the community, and how we might create more connections...
What’s on your mind? That is the first question. That is the first question that is asked of us when we log into facebook. A daily (or perhaps more frequent) prompt.
What’s on your mind? That is the first question, the question that takes its place before all other questions. Jesus comes over the horizon and declares, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come very close. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
You see, the thing that is of utmost importance to Jesus is what is on our mind. To repent means to change ones’ mind; and to believe means to act consistently with our mind.
Our mind is where we process the information that comes to us through our senses – what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell; through our emotions – what we feel; through our past experiences and acquired knowledge – what we have learnt. Our mind makes sense of the information available to us, and then we act according to what our mind has decided is the best course of action. That is why when we can’t make up our mind we are paralysed: we don’t know what to do and end up doing nothing.
What Jesus is saying is there is an earthly perspective on life, and a heavenly one. They see things very differently – they have access to different information - and as a result cause us to act in very different ways. And from this moment, the heavenly perspective has come so close that it is available to you. So in the light of this new information, your mind can arrive at a different conclusion, and you can act in a different way.
In the Gospels, we see Jesus regularly asking the question, what’s on your mind? Sometimes he teases what is on someone’s mind out of them. So, Jesus has been teaching a large crowd of people, who have followed him out to a remote place, for a long time, and asks his disciples, “How are we going to feed all these?” What’s on your mind? Aren’t you thinking to yourself that very question? Doesn’t your mind tell you that we couldn’t afford to buy enough bread even if there was anywhere near enough by to do so? Haven’t you decided, on the basis of that conclusion, that the best course of action would be to send them home, hopefully soon enough that people don’t faint from hunger before they get back there?
Jesus sees the situation from a different perspective; has arrived at a different conclusion in his mind; and therefore will pursue a different course of action. But he wants to take his disciples on the process that changes their mind too. Jesus gathers what food there is – enough for one person – and multiplies the resources to feed more than 5,000 (perhaps closer to double that), with twelve baskets left over.
Again and again, Jesus sees things from a different perspective, arrives at a different conclusion in his mind, and acts differently to everyone else. Where the mourners are wailing at the death of a young girl, he claims that she is only sleeping before raising her from the dead. From an earthly perspective, death has the final word. From a heavenly perspective, it doesn’t.
Where did Jesus live? I don’t mean, what part of the world did he live in, but, under what roof did he live? Where would you go if invited to spend the day with Jesus at home?
It is a question we tend not to ask. Once, Jesus tested the sincerity of someone who professed the desire to follow him by saying that foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man – one of his favourite self-descriptions – had no place to lay his head. We tend to take that verse out of context, and think of Jesus as being someone who didn’t have a home. Certainly, we are familiar with stories of Jesus as guest in other peoples’ homes. And certainly, as he moved around from place to place he stayed wherever he was made welcome. But perhaps we think of Jesus as neither having nor needing a home.
But if we think about it, he obviously lived somewhere. We know he was born in Bethlehem, and can be fairly confident that he lived there – and not in a stable or cave – until around the age of two, the cut-off limit for Herod’s massacre of the infants. We know that Joseph took Mary and Jesus down to Egypt for some time, and though we aren’t told in the Gospels it is most probable that they found a home among the Jewish diaspora in Alexandria, the Jewish community that migrated there during the Hellenistic invasion of Judea. After the death of Herod, Joseph brought his family back from Egypt; but, discovering that Bethlehem might still not be safe, kept heading north to Nazareth in Galilee, where Joseph and Mary had lived before Jesus’ birth. Again, there would have been a home. We can confidently assume that Jesus was apprenticed to Joseph as a builder, more than likely working together on the new town of Seppharis. And at some point, still working as a builder and possibly the head of the family following Joseph’s death, we find Jesus based in Capernaum, on Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), hometown of Simon and Andrew, James and John.
Given how important a home is to our wellbeing; given that Jesus was a house builder; and given that on the night he was betrayed he told his disciples that he was going to his Father’s house to add rooms for them; isn’t it odd that we assume Jesus neither had nor needed a home?
Largely obscured by translation into English (by translators who assumed that Jesus was homeless) Mark’s Gospel strongly suggests that Jesus owned a home in Capernaum, and that, for the first part of his ministry at least, it was the base of his ministry. [Thanks to my former lecturer Elizabeth Fisher for these insights.]
Mark chapter 2 begins, ‘A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home...’ Come home. Not, was staying there (i.e. in the town) or had returned to someone else’s home (we have already seen him visit the home of Simon and Andrew). Home. That is an emotive word. Jesus’ home, in Capernaum. Jesus’ home, where so many people gathered that four friends carrying their paralytic friend could not get in. Jesus’ home they climbed onto the flat roof of and dismantled the structure so they could lower their friend into the house from above...Don’t worry: Jesus was a builder; he rebuilt it.
The very next scene, Jesus is entertaining Levi. English translations make Levi the host (‘While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house’); but the Greek simply says ‘While Jesus was having dinner with Levi in the house...’ Whose house? Jesus’ house? Well, isn’t that where we last saw him?
And again, in chapter 3, we find Jesus having entered ‘a house,’ or, ‘the house’ – a house in which we expect Jesus and his disciples to eat, but they can’t because so many others have turned up hearing Jesus was in, was at home. A house where his family – his mother and brothers and sisters – feel they have a right to have a say in what goes on there. Jesus’ house. The house where his family lived.
And this house is full. Full of people who want to hear what Jesus has to say, because his words are life-giving. Full of people hoping to be healed, or delivered from demonisation. Full of the kind of people ‘good people’ would never welcome into their home, there as Jesus’ guests. And full, even, of people who want to hear what Jesus has to say, or do, because they are looking for a reason to condemn him, to discredit him: these, too, are as welcome as everyone else.
And a house so full the people who live there feel they can no longer be at home in their own home, because they see it as a retreat from ministry and not a base for ministry.
