Why I will go to church today.

Its Sunday morning. I am a stranger in a city distant from home and tired despite a night's sleep. Family activities are planned for the day and there are many things to do.

But it is Sunday and I shall go to church.

I have visited this church before. It is small, has no music and the preacher was faithful but struggling when last I visited. Its more a little company of God's people than a triumphant gathering of the heavenly assembly.

So why go? I have already read my Bible and prayed at home. Isn't that enough?

I will go because of Heb 10:25. Its part of me to meet with God's people and all the more important when other routines of my life are disrupted by travel. Its because my attendance may be an encouragement to those who attend ... that a stranger should bother to attend. Its a quiet witness to the unbelievers around me that I make church a priority today. And its an encouragement to me as prayers, songs, sermon and fellowship reinforce who I am and what I stand for.

In short, I go because Jesus has come and is coming again and my attending is a response to what he has done and an anticipation of what he will do.

Postscript (written after the service).
I'm glad I went. Its now my second time at Ville Emard L’église du Christ. Some people remembered me and engaged with me. The pastor is on holidays and an older Afro-American man preached from the passage quoted above about the importance of being in church and what we should do when there. It was a good word and I spoke with the preacher afterwards about the link to my personal text that morning and how his words were a good encouragement.

Space-time and the presence of God

Space and time are fundamental categories of humanity. We live in space-time locations and also think in them as mental categories.

IT enables a certain transcendence over space-time boundaries, but they persist as underlying realities. Its possible to wriggle around time zones for calls, but still frustrating to be at differing ends of the day and, of course, to be outside of the possibility of physical contact. Digital messages can be posted and received at times convenient to each.. That’s great but not as good as it could be.

All that presently strikes me as I am half a world away from loved ones for an extended period.

What a contrast then with access to God through Jesus and in prayerful fellowship. Space-time are irrelevant categories, for there is always and everywhere the same level of access to him. It’s a comforting thought for a traveller, but also a wondrous truth about God and our relationship with him.

Casting my vote (away)

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My country of  citizenship (Australia) has a national election on 7^th September. The election decides who will govern the country for following three years.

Australian elections are genuine contests and governments often change as a result. Present predictions are that government will change this time.

I am glad for the institutions of government in my country, for the comparative integrity of the election process, and for the vote I have. I have lived in a country with a far less developed democratic processes and this makes me appreciate those in my own place.

As a Christian of reformed theological outlook I believe that government is a blessing given by God, for which we are to be thankful and for which we should pray. I believe that no one constitutional arrangement ideally fits with Christian truth, but that almost all can be used by God, whether democracy or dictatorship. I also believe that Christian people are to engage with public life and its institutions as part of loving our neighbour and fulfilling our call to be salt and light.

I normally vote when elections are called. I try to do so as a thoughtful Christian and have voted for various parties over the years. I think that a ‘Christian vote’ is not just a case of voting for Christian candidates or voting for the party with Christian values on selected issues … rather it is a more complex process of weighting issues, comparing policies and leadership and asking what a Christian vote looks like in a post-Christian multicultural society. It’s complex rather than simple.

However, I will not vote in this year’s election.

But, first a side-issue. It is often said that Australia has compulsory voting. This is not quite so. What is compulsory is to register, attend a polling place (or make arrangements such as a postal vote), identify yourself to the official with the roll, take a ballot paper, not deface it, and return the paper to the ballot box. There is no compulsion to actually vote.

I will be overseas on polling day, so voting is more difficult, although not impossible. My reason for not voting lies deeper and is explained below.

Issues

Several issues appear on the election radar. The economy, education, disability policy, asylum seekers, environment and telecommunications are all trending as hot topics.

On some of these issues the two major parties can be differentiated (eg telecommunications). On others they have converged, whether from shared centre-right values or a shrewd tactic of neutralising potentially vote-losing views on matter not considered important.

The main alternate party to the two major ones is the Greens. I like their environmental activism and social compassion, but struggle with their aggressive endorsement of same-sex marriage and can never support their open-go on abortion. I especially like their humanitarianism towards asylum seekers. The Greens are economically naïve, but have a positive role as a party of balance to restrain a government of one of the other main parties.

So who to vote for? Christian conscience keeps me from the Greens on issues like abortion and same sex marriage. Of the two major parties, instinct pulls me marginally towards one party rather than the other. However, I abhor the race to the right in both these parties on asylum seekers. My weighting of this issue is so strong that I really could not vote for either.

Leaders

So what about leadership? One major party is led by a professed Roman Catholic who espouses traditional Catholic morality on some issues of interest to me. However, he appears to be an extremist I personality and I wonder if he has the nuance of views and actions to be a good leader in government. The other major party is led by a professed Anglican who shows a greater awareness of nuance, but who supports same sex marriage and whose personal style was a problem when he was previously Prime Minister. Both these leaders are hungry for power. That is no surprise in a party leader and is not necessarily a problem. However, both have displayed ruthlessness in that hunger, such that it seems to have become an idol for both.

Summary

So here is the problem that keeps me from voting. One some issues I could vote for any of the significant parties. On others, I have deal-breakers with each major party. I don’t have high confidence in each of the potential Prime Ministers, although I do prefer one to the other.

And so I choose not to vote. I will pray for the election to go smoothly, confident in the sovereignty of God, and I will pray for the new government to govern well. I will try to be a good citizen who cooperates with the government and obeys its laws. However, my Christian vote is too important a thing to be cast for policies and leaders that I cannot endorse. And so I will cast my vote away.

'The gates of hell shall not prevail' - a re-reading of in the light of Rev 12

As I write three Christian workers known to me are in trouble.

One has been removed from a faithful pastorate by unprincipled and worldly actions from within the church.

Another is threatened with removal from a cross-cultural ministry situation. This is not an intemperate street evangelist, but someone who quietly serves a community through a ministry of helps in the name of Jesus.

In the third case another cross-cultural worker sees a local friend suffer because of the friend's contact with Christian people and literature.

These three stories can be multiplied many times over. Persecution from without and difficulty from within are normal not exceptional.

At one level this should not surprise for the Lord warned that 'if they persecuted me they will persecuted you also'  (Jn 15:19-20) and Paul warned of wolves arising even from within God's church (Acts 20:29-30).

Yet Jesus also spoke of how he would build his church and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt 16:18-19).

How can the reality of persecution from within and without and Jesus' word about hell not prevailing be reconciled?

My daily Bible reading recently turned to Rev 12.  John writes the book against a background of terrible persecution and the book pulls no punches in describing the troubles of the earthly church. God seems to be absent and the mad and bad have been left in charge.

A key literary feature of Revelation is the way it switches between earthly and heavenly perspectives - if you like, the view from the control tower (heaven) is set against the view from the earthly ground. This is the same reality in different perspectives.

The heavenly scene gives a different view from the earthly. God rules in heaven. He also rules earthly events from heaven. It is his scrolls and trumpet blasts that act like stage directions for human history. The earthly church suffers because God is strong and because Satan has been defeated (Rev 12:7-11). Satan's desperate lunges against the earthly church are because he is evicted from heaven and knows that his time is short (Rev 12:12).

This is a dramatic re-framing of the church's struggles and suffering. When Satan is strong he does not need to trouble the church but can let leave it in complacent slumber. When he is week he attacks like a cornered beast.

The people known to me above, and others like them, will continue to suffer and evil will appear to gain the supper hand from time to time and place to place. The great encouragement is that evil can reach no further than God allows (Rev 13:7) and that its power is temporal and bounded. Christ has conquered in his cross and resurrection. He is building his church and hell shall not prevail against it.

The message?

1. Expect difficulty and persecution, but rejoice that it is a sign of God's triumph over evil in Jesus.
2. Give ourselves to faith and endurance (Rev 13:10b) knowing that God's day is at hand and that the battle is already his.
3. Persist in living and serving for the Lord, for that is our share in his sufferings and the means by which his kingdom is extended on earth and that of Satan rolled back.

The ‘inbetweenness’ of who we are.

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The ‘inbetweenness’ of who we are.

Got you there with ‘inbetweenness’? Terrible word isn’t it?

But is a useful way of thinking about who we are.

We usually identify ourselves by positive statements that act as labels within categories. Thus I am male, 62, Caucasian, an Australian citizen and resident, and who is a husband, father and grandfather. The categories here are gender, age, race, citizenship and family.

Those words give an outward picture that helps ‘place’ a person. (Of course, the order of those categories and the list of what categories are included / excluded is quite revealing of the person doing the classification.)

However, such categories often fail to capture our reality. A while back I read a comment that has stayed with me and which I find useful in self-understanding and in talking with others.

That’s the ‘inbetweenness’ bit.

As well as being described by what we are, we can be described by what we are in-between.

Consider a person born in one country, who has lived in two others during formative years and who studies in yet another country. A label of political citizenship or residence makes a true statement but fails to capture the cultural identity of that person. However, if we describe that person as in the space between circles of varying sizes representing each culture / country in their past and present, we gain a richer and fuller picture.

I have found that an affirmation of ‘inbetweenness’ in identity is personally useful as I think about myself. For example, I can bring my Australian heritage and 11.5 years in Singapore alongside one another. Likewise with my pastor-teacher; teacher-pastor ministry identities.

What are you in-between?

A further thought.

If a person is only in-between, then  that can be profoundly destabilising for they are defined purely by what they are not. Talk about ‘hollow man’. On the other hand, if someone has a strong inner core grounded in their being in God and under Christ, then their inbetweenness can be a strong strength. This is a global citizen: at home with and in God and therefore enabled to be at home anywhere in his creation.

Scholarship as worship

This post is written seated in a Bangkok chapel with a group of fellow-Christians.

Earlier this morning (8.30am) we sang, prayed, shared and heard the word of God. That was self-consciously an act of worship in the classic sense of an intentional gathering of God's people.

The same group of people is now seated in the same place.

What are we doing?

We are engaged in a scholarly pursuit. We students are presenting our doctoral research. Fellow students and academics are asking questions and giving critiques, affirmations, suggestions and encouragements.

That is a description of our actions. What is the nature of these actions?

Last night one of the academics remarked that if we are called by God to scholarly pursuits it is a kingdom vocation in Christ and part of our discipleship and disciple-making ministry. If it is not God's calling and a kingdom activity why are we doing it?

Worship is a presentation of my whole self to God as a living sacrifice, including renewal of the mind - motivated by the mercies of God in Christ (Rom 12:12).

So, if what we do at 11am is not an act of worship why are we doing it? If scholarship does not belong in the chapel where does it belong?

On reflection, chapel is a most appropriate place to be at 11am.

The things we notice on social media

Just noticing.

When people post personal update or quirky items on face book, or personal photos - our comments abound.

But when social media is used for serious causes, we rarely bother to comment.

Is this a comment on the essence of social media ... a place to chill out and idly pass the time in digital chat?

Or is it a comment on humanity - happy to be entertained and diverted for a moment, but, please God - spare me from having to face the confronting stuff that reminds me of a painful world out there?