Zebra found

Jurgen made this video of our friend.

Finding Zebra

By now, most of you know that I regularly run with a zebra on the slopes of Devil's Peak. Jurgen and I have decided to befriend more of the zebra's kin with carrots. This morning we couldn't find the one that likes us and these ones weren't interested in our carrots. Maybe we didn't have enough carats.

Intelijent debate

I wish I has something intelijent to say about the future of the country but I didn't see this one coming: Zuma is president of the ANC.

Brandan is having a field day with cartoon material from the farce at Polokwane. I think this one says it all:

Number 9

I am a 9 on the enneagram. Google it, if you don't know what that is. Here is Garfield in classic 9 mode.

milestones

the previous post has a really bad unintended pun that has me laughing uncontrolably... i wonder if milestones are worse than kidney stones.

Poo

Funny how simple things make a parent's day...

Yesterday, after a busy and stressful day, I was gratified by Katie's passing another major milestone. While I was busy in the kitchen she made her way to the toilet, pulled off her pants and her nappy, got onto the toilet and did a poo - all by herself! I heard her in the bathroom and went through to find out what she was up to. When I saw her on the toilet, I assumed Yvette must have helped her, but Yvette was on the other side of the house. Katie did it all by herself - a most impressive little girl.

The world might be completely mad, but my daughter can poo. Life is good.

Sacredise

John van de Laar and I met a long time ago when I was beginning my spiritual search. He and his wife, Debbie, offered their home and wisdom at a time when I was asking some difficult questions about my future.

In my travels I drifted away from them and was reunited many years later. Now we are colleagues and each of us is working on the fringes of the church where the Spirit of God seems to blow most tempestuously – it’s an exciting place to be with a handful of intrepid sailors!

John has written an excellent book called “Food for the Road” and a CD of his compositions, both of which you can order from his new website. Have a look at the website while you’re at it. If you are anything like me, it’s easier to digest ideas in bite size chunks and you can subscribe to John’s regular newsletter from the site – it’s well worth it.

The Sacredise website and ezine offer resources and inspiration for worship and spirituality. If you need something to help you create a worship event or if you are looking for an interesting perspective on spirituality and issues of the day, I highly recommend John’s work.

I personally have admired John’s work because he integrates the art of worship and personal devotion with the critical thinking required of someone who takes the Gospel of Jesus seriously. That is not an easy task. I, like many, tend to be better at using the Gospel to reflect on the world around me, but not very creative when it comes to integrating that into worship or my own spirituality. Other’s seem very diligent and conscientious about creative worship and/or personal piety, but lack the edge when it comes to the interface at the church’s threshold. John is one of the few people whose example I look to help me find the balance.

Oh, and he’s a really good musician and worship leader. If you can get him to lead a worship seminar or take a service at your church, you’ll be blown away. I have enjoyed watching him weave some of the complex contradictions and cultural diversity of this continent into an exciting blend that grows one beyond the bounds of the conventional. That’s Gospel stuff anyway you look at it!

So check out Sacredise…

The Child I Was

Brenton Prigge wrote the following poem. It's an image that plays in my imagination a great deal of late. You can see some of Brenton's composition at http://www.newhymn.com/

The child I was
saw the whole wide world
an endless opportunity
for adventure and discovery
with friends who laughed and boasted...
and every bruise was a badge of pride.
Now my bruises are my shame
and I fear the laughter of friends.
I could do with less adventure
and easier discoveries.
Perhaps the child did not yet know truth...
or perhaps I have forgotten it.

Oliver or Lindiwe

OK, so Yvette is pregnant again. You'd think we'd learn our lesson. This time round, I'm a lot more aware of the consequences so I'm savouring life now and enjoying the 4 hours of solid sleep I still get a night, not to mention the 30mm of bedspace.

Baby is due in July next year and we're not sure of gender yet, so name suggestions would be helpful. I like Oliver for a boy and Lindiwe for a girl.

Katie is trying to get into Mommy's tummy, I guess to meet the new sibling. Gosh, poor girl, she's in for a rude awakening! For the moment, she' looking forward to Christmas and the arrival of Aunty Kathy and Bomy (actually Pomy, but she can't pronounce that properly...). We're all going to the Eastern Cape together for a family road trip.

Criminal Conjunction

Found this guy on the net a few months back when I googled my name. Hope he doesn't get hold of my ID number too...

Revealed

"In what way are we to take seriously the authority of Scripture? When read within the perspective of a Scripture that speaks everywhere of a God disclosing Godself through human experience, our stories become the medium of God’s very revelation."

- Luke Timothy Johnson

Damn - have to do something about that stash of porn.

Christ the King

Read Luke 23:32-38

My fiftieth year had come and gone
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded coffee shop,
An open book, and an empty cup
On the marble table top.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body for a moment blazed,
And twenty minutes, more or less,
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed, and could bless.

- Yeats

Have you ever had a moment of brightness like the one Yeats describes where you felt surrounded by peace and beauty? They are infrequent, precious moments. Perhaps it’s been a while… perhaps you long for another…

Jesus had a moment of Light on the mountain of his transfiguration. Just as for anyone who isn’t a movie character, Jesus’ moment was followed by descent to the mundane; work to be done. His moment was not a climax but an anti-climax. The climax of his story – the crescendo of his life – is his enthronement: his crucifixion.

Luke’s ironic portrayal of Christ is honoured in the lectionary by using this reading for Christ the King Sunday – the last Sunday of the year. Pilate, the ostensible but illegitimate ruler of Israel, presides over the treason trial of the legitimate King but cannot make the charge stick, giving way eventually to political expediency in order to get rid of the sticky problem Jesus presents.

Leonard Sweet points out the most acute irony: it is Pilate who preaches the first sermon of Christianity. He writes the notice displayed above Jesus’ crucified head: “The King of the Jews”. It is a sign that hangs in every sacred Christian space for thousands of years to come.

Christianity however has had an ambivalent relationship with that irony ever since. Many times Christians have tried to soften it or tailor it to their own expediency. In so doing the irony takes yet another twist as Christ the King is dethroned in a coup of the Christian heart!

I want to look at the challenge that the Christ the King presents to us as disciples as well as the coterminous temptation we sometimes choose to hear in each challenge.

Firstly, Christ is King of our lives. We speak of the goal of spiritual maturity as Christ enthroned in our hearts; ordering our lives’ priorities according to the values of the Kingdom. This relationship is one of forgiveness for personal sin and the redemption of our estranged relationship with God. In our story today we hear these themes as the criminal crucified with Christ asks to be with Jesus in paradise and Jesus grants him this grace.

The temptation here is to leave Jesus as the centre of our personal lives, restricting Jesus reign to personal morality and the “vertical” relationship between individuals and God.

Secondly, Christ is King of heaven. This is an idea we readily assent to for we affirm that Jesus is God. The transfiguration confirms this. In our story Pilate is unable to find a charge worth prosecuting against Jesus. Here was a man that was like any other of a long list of messiahs all claiming to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. None of them was a threat to the might of Rome. The Essenes were like that; they believed in a messiah who would one day come and usher in the end of the world so they hived off on their own to the dessert to await his coming. The Romans couldn’t have cared less.

The temptation here is like that which the Essenes succumbed to: regarding this world as insignificant compared to the coming Kingdom. This world becomes so insignificant that one eventually doesn’t do anything about changing it.

So we need to be reminded of the third realm of the Christ the King: Christ is King of this earth, here and now. Christ is more than King of our hearts, limited to the personal. Christ is more than King of an idealised world to come. Christ is King right now of this planet, despite evidence to the contrary.

Robert Bly, in his book Iron John, deals with similar themes in his exploration of masculinity in mythology and fairy tales. All three realms are important for developing a healthy imaginative spirituality: the sacred King, the inner King and the earthly King.

The sacred King is the idealisation of power decisively exercised for good – a force larger than us that demands and deserves our allegiance; the experience of transcendence that lifts us up to a glowing perspective beyond the limitations of our circumstances.

The earthly King is represented variously in the political heroes of our own time. For some generations this King is absent as no heroes are available. Given the succession battle in the ANC, one wonders what future generations of South African’s will have as role models of the earthly King…

Surely for Christians, the model of the earthly King is always available for here is one who encapsulates in person and imagination both the sacred and the earthly King in one person: Christ the King.

The inner King is our innate human desire, so alive and present when we are born yet diminished and stunted in adults. Babies are very clear about there own desires – they feel them acutely and express them immediately without inhibition. But the stunted and broken Kings of the adults in their world consume a much larger and more powerful space. Through deliberate and circumstantial neglect adults can frustrate the infant King which has no protection. Eventually the baby learns to ignore or suppress the King inside. But the King cannot be killed and comes back eventually in some distorted form or rallies a cry for help later in life.

It seems to me that the first step in the spiritual journey must be to take that infant King seriously. The season of the infant King’s birth is upon us; a time to reflect on the King within. Bly encourages people to start with small steps, small desires to simply listen to them, let them be without judgement.

When we are able to run our tongue over the rough and sharp edges of the teeth of our hunger we begin a journey that not only can heal us of our own juvenile wounds but also deepens our empathy for others and makes us less prone to judge others.

The birth of the infant / inner King invites us on a journey through which we may reach transcendence, a moment of light. The infant and sacred King contained in the person of Jesus calls us to relate our human desires and our most sacred values to the enrichment and betterment of this earth.

Married to the past

Read Luke 20:27-38

And check out what Sarah and Bill have to say about this passage before you read my stuff.


Little Suzie comes home one day and tells her mom about Snow White: how Prince Charming saved her from death with his kiss. “You know what happened then?” asked Suzie. “Yes,” replied her mom, “They lived happily ever after.”

“No,” said Suzie, “They got married.”

We think of marriage as this static institution – something we think all people should aspire to. Most societies see marriage as the foundation of their respective cultures. So important is this institution that many will defend its integrity with all their might accusing those who question it of being heretics, terrorists or even devils.

Yet it is interesting that marriage is by no means a static institution and, furthermore, Jesus himself joins the ranks of those who questioned his culture’s assumptions about marriage and family.

Looking at today’s passage we see just how much marriage has changed and just how much Jesus undermined its importance.

Looking at the enmity between Sadducees and Pharisees I am reminded of the divide between conservative and liberal Christians today. At the risk of being overly simple in drawing the parallels, it seems to me that much of what passes for popular Christianity today bears a great deal of resemblance to the Sadduceean emphases of Jesus’ time.

The Sadducees had a more limited view of scripture than their Pharisaic cousins. For them only the Pentateuch was scripture. The Pharisees enlarged their scripture by including the prophets and other bits and pieces. This allowed the Pharisees a great deal more freedom in innovation: particularly in making the Jewish faith accessible to the commoners by wresting control of the faith from the Temple elite and putting it firmly in the hands (or hearts in point of fact) of ordinary people.

The resurrection was one such innovation designed to help people deal with the apparent contradiction between what they might read in Proverbs and their own lives. Proverbs often counsels its readers that the wise and faithful will prosper when in fact most people experienced the very opposite - and still do. For the Pharisees, resurrection offered the hope that in the life to come, justice would be served.

The Sadducees, finding no justification for this belief in their Bible, attacked this Pharisaic innovation. Hence their clever question to Jesus. Jesus comes back at them on their terms, using the portion of the Bible they held in common (remember that Jesus was a Pharisee). He points out the conversation between God and Moses where God is referred to as the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” These are dead dudes, so the implication is that they must still be living in some sense.

Jesus is very naughty here. Instead of respecting the text, looking for its inherent meaning, trying to discern the intention of the author, he instead overlays it with his own meaning, reading into the text a meaning that surely was not part of the original author’s intention! At university this would have meant an F in an exegesis exam. But Jesus gets away with it because how can you argue with this logic… The Sadducees can’t very well assert that in fact Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are definitely dead and buried.

Furthermore, Jesus does not get caught in the logic trap of the Sadducee’s argument about resurrection. Instead he simply undermines the importance of marriage. This is revolutionary stuff. He suggests that marriage and consequently, family, are of no ultimate concern. Marriage was even more important in Jesus’ society than it is in western culture today so this suggestion must have sounded shocking even to Jesus’ fellow Pharisees.

Two things strike me as important arising out of this:
God speaks new meaning into new times, innovating the Gospel for each new age.
God sees each person as much more than merely their family heritage.

I have referred before to NT Wrights idea of the Bible being like a 4 act play in which the fourth act is being written in the present. While the first acts already written are important for background and formation of the plot and values of the play, it is the present act that is of greatest significance. So too with the Bible which can be said to be the basis upon which the current story of God’s Kindom unfolds but cannot be held as more important than the unfolding drama of God’s action in the present.

Like the Pharisees, and indeed Jesus, we are called to understand the scriptures in their context, but to innovate the values and message we find there for a new age so that the Gospel remains alive to new situations.

It is telling that the Sadduceean movement died shortly after the first century AD. The Pharisaic movement by contrast continues in both the modern Jewish and Christian faiths - both of which have proved highly adaptive to new times, despite those who have tried to hold them back.

Just as the faith is larger than its heritage, so too are the people who hold to it more significant than their heritage. While people then and now see themselves as a product of their family heritage, God sees us as much more. I can see my family as an excuse for my lack of imagination, my stunted ability. I can see my family as the reason for my existence, an investment in the future, my one basket holding all my eggs.

Or I can see myself as God sees me: a father, brother, friend and son to a thousand more people than can ever be my blood relations. I can see the scope of my family, the range of those who I care for and who care for me as far beyond the boundaries of my limitations. I can enlarge my horizons to the full breadth and length, height and depth of God’s love…

Back to Suzie and Snow White: perhaps the fundamental problem with marriage is that every age has tried to attach sexuality to its limited perspective on the truth. So a previous generation may have made marriage all about cementing family birthrights and political ties or of ensuring control over procreation. Our current age, with its infatuation with romantic individualism has attached marriage to the values of romantic comedy – with tragic consequences. Religiously our “family values” entrench the idea of the heterosexual, often patriarchal nuclear family. While this seems very attractive it ignores the fact that most families do not conform to these standards yet often function more healthfully than this ideal.

Jesus’ idea of marriage and family seems to have been more prosaic. Marriage and family were seen by Jesus and the early Christians as temporary states of being that would soon be terminated by death or the second coming of Jesus. So marriage had no ultimate significance as an institution through which society may be transformed or even preserved.

However, marriage could be seen as a good place to practice Kindom values. Paul calls women to submit to their husbands but calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church – i.e. mutual submission with the man (the dominant member) called to become a servant – sacrificing self for the beloved. Thus, the fundamental construct of procreative control in a patriarchal society becomes the principle means by which the early Christians practice their discipleship by inverting power relations!

Similarly the Christian view of family becomes radically expanded to include all God’s children, such that one cares for the stranger as if that person were one’s own brother or sister.

What might such a radical notion mean in a supposedly Christian dominated country like South Africa? Surely if the Christians took this seriously the state would not have to worry about the flood of orphans everyone predicts… Alas, the Sadducees may not be so extinct after all. I hear calls for “family values” and “back to the Bible” and all about the world slowly descends into hell for want of the care of the sleeping Body of Christ.

Let those who hear the Good News in new ways rise up and take their sisters and brothers in.

Ghosts and Saints

Ghosts and Saints

Can you remember a scary movie from your childhood? I remember watching Dracula and being so scared I couldn’t face the TV screen. I had to watch it in the reflection off the dark windowpane at the opposite end of the living room. Occasionally I would block my ears so I wouldn’t hear the terrible scary music.

When the movie was over I was all alone, my family having gone to bed before the movie. I crept through a dark house trying not to step on the creaky floorboards. When I got to my bedroom I remembered the boogie man under the bed and paused at the bedroom door, wondering if I could leap from there to my bed and get under the covers before the boogie man grabbed my leg. I took a few paces back and ran with all my might, launched off at the door, landed in the bed and swept under the covers.

As I lay there quivering I heard a voice – Yvette, my wife – saying: “What on earth is wrong with you, Greg!?”

Scary movies can still get me…

With more and more South Africans celebrating Halloween, and more and more South Africans complaining about Halloween not being a South African holiday I wondered what all the fuss was about and read up a little. Thanks to Jim Harnish I learnt something really interesting about Halloween…

Halloween used to be an ancient Celtic festival celebrating the god of death, Samhein. Celts would gather around fires all night scarring one another with all things ghostly and ghoulish.

When St. Patrick (or at least the legend of St Patrick!), the first missionary to the Celts in Ireland, arrived he took it upon himself to do what few missionaries have ever done as successfully as him: allow the Gospel to infect the culture of his new home. Instead of seeking to convert the Celts to Christianity by giving up their culture, he sought to find aspects of Celtic culture that already had elements of Christianity in them so as to celebrate Christ’s already present nature in their midst.

The Celtic cross, a cross with a circle drawn around the centre, had its pre-cursor in the design in the side bar of this blog where a tiny cross is visible at the very centre.

Where the Celts prayed to the sprits of trees and animals and the sea in order to placate them, St. Patrick encouraged the Celts to worship the creator of nature who needed no placating. The Celts retained a deep connection with nature and many of their prayers reflect a deep devotion to the God of nature.

Legend has it that St. Patrick repeatedly helped the Celts move from fear to celebration and this was certainly his contribution to the festival of Samhein. Christian Celts celebrated All Saints day on November 1, the day after Samhein’s Festival. Slowly but surely the festival of death was transformed into “Halloween” or “Hallowed Eve” – the eve of All Saints Day. From the fear of death to the celebration of the saints of old, St Patrick helped liberate people from the Ghosts of the past in order that they might celebrate the Saints in eternity.

I think of my own ghosts. I think of the ghosts I meet in the lives of those who come to me haunted by their past regrets, failures, shame and traumas. I think of the ghosts in my congregations: habits, prejudices that keep us stuck in old ways. What will it take to be free from these ghosts?

I am reminded of the idea of the “wounded healer”: that the very thing that imprisons us can become the gift we offer to the world. A woman abused as a child finds healing for her past and becomes in turn a healer for other abused people.

This requires a lot of soul searching, talking with a trusted counsellor or friend but we affirm that eventually it is possible to be free, and more than that, to offer our wounds as healing gifts to the world.

Think of someone who in your life has been a saint – someone who helped you understand your faith in a new and powerful way. Make no mistake, at some point they probably struggled to make sense of their own past, their own pain. They would have had to confront old ghosts. It is probably because of this struggle that they were able to be a saint for you.

Halloween and All Saints Day is a celebration of the power of transformation: that the very same ghosts of our past can make us saints. Go, confront and befriend those ghosts…

life stitches

young lovers seek perfection
old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together, and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches

from a poem written on a scrap of paper seen in the movie "how to make an american quilt"

Love's Recovery

Sitting with a friend today over one more cappuccino I was touched by the knowledge that what I experience in life is not new nor am I alone. I know this, but it is so often difficult to admit that I am like everyone else: prone to the same insecurities, the roller coaster of life, the tensions and potentials.

The last few years I have come to a place of peace in my pursuit of intellectual integrity while at the same time my soul has been increasingly disturbed by the seemingly vast dissonance between my life commitments (my loves) and my affection for everything other than these commitments. I find my energy rebelliously directed in every direction except that which I always thought I most desired. Paul talked about something to that effect didn’t he…?

In a word(s): mid-life crisis.

Principally I have felt this in my commitment to the church and Yvette (although I have also felt it in so many other lesser loves). While the church will mostly not notice – it will be here long after I am gone - I am pained by the effect my vacillation has had on Yvette, a most patient and loyal friend and lover. Other’s have noticed too and felt sadness; sometimes fear; a few have quietly - wisely - rejoiced…

I would have liked to avoid all this, but I see now that this storm is critical to my future health and vitality, not to mention all that it holds for those who might need the gift, which God would give through me.

The one thing I wish is that someone I respected would have admitted as much when I was younger, to take the scandal out of what I inevitably would face. So I put this on record here, at the risk of offence. The details are not for this space but know this: it is the storms that teach us, not fairer weather and what is more, the storm is not endless, nor is it hopelessly un-navigable… but it is unavoidable.

This storm consumes me. It is difficult sometimes to see beyond its blustering false hope and choking terror. And yet I hold the hands of those who travel with me and sometimes they hold my hand when I cannot hold theirs. I pray that I will discover a new way of being in love with all that I have given myself to - in love with this beautiful life I have.

Something new is emerging, something at once frightening and joyful. I would not have had this possibility had it not been for the people who love me and hold me even when I cannot or will not hold them.

I once listened to the melody of a song that fed my melancholy. I did not listen to its words, but today heard those words for the first time. In my storm, they have become the tenacious whisper of sunshine:

During the time of which I speak
It was hard to turn the other cheek
To the blows of insecurity
Feeding the cancer of my intellect
The blood of love soon neglected
Lay dying in the strength of its impurity
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
They’ve all gone and left each other
In search of fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love’s recovery

There I am in younger days, star gazing
Painting picture perfect maps
Of how my life and love would be
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love’s perfection
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one on the road to fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love’s recovery

Rain soaked and voice choked
Like silent screaming in a dream
I search for our absolute distinction
Not content to bow and bend
To the whims of culture that swoop like vultures
Eating us away, eating us away
Eating us away to our extinction

Oh how I wish I were a trinity
So if I lost a part of me
I’d still have two of the same to live
But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal
As specks of dust we’re universal
To let this love survive
Would be the greatest gift that we could give
Tell all the friends who think they’re so together
That these are ghosts and mirages
All these thoughts of fairer weather
Though it’s storming out I feel safe within the arms
Of loves discovery

Thank you Indigo Girl’s for your anthem in my soul-saving crisis.
Thank you friends for cappuccinos, books and humour.
Thank you wise elders for insight and acceptance.
Thank you church for my freedom.
Thank you Yvette for anchoring me in my discontent.

Indeed, with all of you in my life, I am as close to a trinity as any person can be. We are indeed universal dust.

Table Manners

Read Luke 14:1, 7-14

This story about Jesus’ encounter with the stringent table manners of his own culture reminds me of a story I heard once of a young, western man who travelled to a foreign country – I think it was somewhere in the east. He was to stay with a local family for some months and was at pains during his welcome meal with the family not to cause offence. His mother had taught him to finish whatever was set before him so that’s exactly what he did – neatly polishing off every morsel and leaving his plate empty save for his utensils. Having satisfied himself, he was dismayed as the mother of the household piled his plate high again with a helping equal to his first. Not knowing how to politely refuse this generosity, he found himself having to finish this plate as well, which he did. Having cleaned his plate once more – this time with great difficulty – he was again shocked to find the mother replenishing his plate with a fresh helping as generous as the first two! It turned out that in the culture of his host family anyone who emptied their plate was politely asking for more food!

Table manners are something we take for granted, until we are inserted into a culture where we do not know the rules. It is exhausting having to learn a new set of rules. It is an indication how much energy we spare ourselves being able to take certain things for granted because they are simply the done thing. But sometimes the rules need to be examined because they are also habituated means of manipulating and controlling people.

Stanley Hauerwas once commented that people do not have values – second hand cars have values – people have habits, attitudes and practices.

Much of what passes for civilised manners is in actual fact a very carefully worked out system of economics which helps us assess the value of a particular person to us.

It may be easier for us to see this in first century Palestine where the rules were stricter and strange to modern, individualistic cultures, but they functioned in the same way that our manners function today.

Jesus’ parable this week is another one of those parables often confused as being an indication of what the Kingdom of God is like, when in fact Jesus does not preface this parable with the words “The Kingdom of God is like…” If we take this to mean that what Jesus is reflecting on here is not the Kingdom but the world in which he lived, the parable takes on a more authentic meaning, especially in the light of his following teaching.

We need to understand firstly the importance of place at the table. Take for instance the Dead Sea sect that gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls. It seems they practiced something of an annual review of all members of the community. Based on one’s religious performance you would be graded and placed in a strict hierarchy within the community. The result of this was most keenly felt at group meals where people could see where you were sitting. A demotion would have been catastrophic.

For first century Palestinians the arrangement of people at a meal communicated their station in life but it also reinforced that station. In a highly communal society one’s station was a matter of life and death as it meant access to the stuff of life.

Jesus is reflecting common wisdom of his day based on the table manners of his culture. If you placed yourself at a lower station one could guarantee a very pleasant demonstration of one’s higher status when the host bumped you up a station or two. This is sensible economics - something all of us can understand: how to get what you want as cheaply as possible.

Jesus then makes an invitation to his followers, that when we have a meal we should invite those who cannot repay us in kind. He is inviting us to cultivate friendship’s not based on what may be gained from the relationship, but purely for gratuitous offering of ourselves.

What a shocking invitation.

At our wedding Yvette and I had a terribly difficult time sorting out the seating plan for the bridal table as we had to manage our respective familys’ varying political beliefs as well as troubled relationship history. We never got it completely right and anyway disaster struck long before the bridal table could ever be an issue. A significant family member pulled out of the wedding at the last minute taking many guests with him so that we were left with about 15 seats to fill and a day to find the guests to fill them.

On the day of our wedding, we’d made no progress but we let it go and tried to enjoy the day as best we could. A friend of ours, Lizeka, who was attending her first “white” wedding arrived at the reception with a taxi load of her friends from Khayelitsha. In Xhosa culture this is perfectly acceptable table manners for a wedding! There were just enough new arrivals to fill the vacant seats at the reception. Lizeka’s taxi of friends ended up making our reception the best party we’d ever had.

My wedding taught me to let go of some of the rules and expectations I have about how things ought to be. I learned a valuable lesson that day about the opportunities there are in venturing beyond my cultural assumptions.

If I am honest, much of what I count as friendship is really a carefully calculated transactional economics designed to further my own self-interest. How can I get the best for myself out this or that relationship? While friendships are almost always mutually beneficial, the fact remains that it is for my benefit that I entertain relationship at all.

It would be grotesquely immature to pretend that friendships are not fundamentally about self-interest. And this is not a bad thing. But I worry when I find that my choices seem to reflect very little else – very little grace.

I am particularly in danger of this in my closest relationships. It is much easier to keep a careful internal record of all the things I can reasonably expect Yvette to do for me, to get grumpy and self-righteous when these expectations are not met; than it is to love her for just being Yvette, to allow myself to be loved just because I am lovable. Jesus is inviting me to let go of the daily merry-go-round of working out who should be doing what and start loving graciously, abandoning myself to the simple joy of loving for love’s sake.

I am also in danger of becoming an economist in my relationships when I forget to cultivate friendships with those less fortunate than myself. John Wesley believed that the most important spiritual discipline was “visitation of the poor.” He believed that the orientation of the world was always loaded in the direction of the wealthy so that we all look to those who are richer than ourselves for wisdom and teaching. A Kingdom spirituality necessarily must turn this around – not so that those who are wealthy may give to the poor (though this may be a fortuitous outcome) but primarily because the wealthy have much to learn about God and life from the poor. Jesus is inviting me to seek wisdom and meaning amongst those whose lives are harder than my own, who benefit from less privileges and take less for granted.

Lesson from Bono

(Thanks to Steve L for sending this to me some time ago.)

"Harry Belafonte is one of my great heroes. He's an old-school leftist and holds on to certain principles like others hold on to their life. He told me this story about Bobby Kennedy, which changed my life indeed, pointed me in the direction I am going now politically. Harry remembered a meeting with Martin Luther King when the civil rights movement had hit a wall in the early sixties: [impersonating croaky voice of Belafonte ] "I tell you it was a depressing moment when Bobby Kennedy was made attorney general. It was a very bad day for the civil rights movement." And I said: "Why was that?" He said: "Oh, you see, you forget. Bobby Kennedy was Irish. Those Irish were real racists; they didn't like the black man. They were just one step above the black man on the social ladder, and they made us feel it. They were all the police, they were the people who broke our balls on a daily basis. Bobby at that time was famously not interested in the civil rights movement. We knew we were in deep trouble. We were crestfallen, in despair, talking to Martin, moaning and groaning about the turn of events, when Dr. King slammed his hand down and ordered us to stop the bitchin': "Enough of this;' he said. "Is there nobody here who's got something good to say about Bobby Kennedy?" We said: "Martin, that's what we're telling ya! There is no one. There is nothing good to say about him. The guy's an Irish Catholic conservative badass, he's bad news." To which Martin replied: "Well, then, let's call this meeting to a close. We will re-adjourn when somebody has found one thing redeeming to say about Bobby Kennedy, because that, my friends, is the door through which our movement will pass." So he stopped the meeting and he made them all go home. He wouldn't hear any more negativ­ity about Bobby Kennedy. He knew there must be something positive. And if it was there, somebody could find it.

Well, it turned out that Bobby was very close with his bishop. So they befriended the one man who could get through to Bobby's soul and turned him into their Trojan horse. They sort of ganged up on this bishop, the civil rights religious people, and got the bishop to speak to Bobby. Harry became emotional at the end of this tale: "When Bobby Kennedy lay dead on a Los Angeles pavement, there was no greater friend to the civil rights movement. There was no one we owed more of our progress to than that man;' which is what I always thought. I mean, Bobby Kennedy is still an inspiration to me. And whether he was exaggerating or not, that was a great lesson for me, because what Dr. King was saying was: Don't respond to caricature-the Left, the Right, the Progressives, the Reactionary. Don't take people on rumor. Find the light in them, because that will further your cause. And I've held on to that very tightly, that lesson. And so, don't think that I don't understand. I know what I'm up against. I just sometimes do not appear to."

From: Bono on Bono: Conversations with Michka Assayas p.86

IN SEARCH OF CONGO’S COLTAN

By Mvemba Phezo Dizolele

Bukavu is perched high above Lake Kivu, gently encroaching on the placid body of water between Rwanda and Congo. Once known as the pearl of Congo because of its beautiful climate and mountains, the Bukavu I found last summer barely resembles the famed city I heard about as a child.

In the past ten years, South Kivu province and its capital city of Bukavu have been known for two things: insecurity and coltan. I came for both. In anticipation of the country’s first multiparty elections in four decades, I wanted to understand the potential effect of insecurity on the elections and learn first-hand the role minerals such as coltan play in fueling insecurity.

Four times the size of France, and as big as the United States east of the Mississippi river, Congo holds 80 percent of the world’sreserves of coltan, a heat-resistant mineral ore widely used in cellular phones, laptop computers and video games. The ore derives its name from a contraction of columbium-tantalite, the scientific nomenclature.

Columbium-tantalite is so vital to the high tech industry that without it, wireless communication as we know it would not exist. Refined coltan yields tantalum, which is used primarily for the production of capacitors, critical for the control of the flow of current in miniature circuit boards. Tantalum is also used in the aviation and atomic energy industries.

Even though it has been exploited for years, this mineral did not come to prominence among the uninitiated until the “coltan rush” of the late 1990’s. At the beginning of 2000, a pound of unprocessed coltan cost between US$30 and US$40 on the international market. By the end of the year, the price had risen tenfold to US$400.

The advent of a new generation of mobile phones, the upsurge of tech products, and the popularity of video games such as Sony Playstation 2 increased demand for the ore to unprecedented levels and drove prices to new heights. Hoping to make money, thousands of Congolese men rushed to the mines.

Insecurity welcomes me as soon I exit Bukavu’s Kavumu airport. On the way to town, we pass a couple of United Nations peacekeepers’ camps – South Africans, Pakistanis and others. On the rest of the road, we see the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, known among the people as FARDC.

The FARDC does not inspire trust. Far from a typical army, it is a patchwork of various militias that fought each other not so long ago and still treat each other with suspicion. They idle at the market, smoke at the street corner or fight for public transportation with civilians. They are always armed, do not receive regular pay, and beg whenever they get a chance. Above all, they are hungry and mean. The FARDC seems to own the 35 kilometer-road to town.

The bad condition of the road mirrors the collapse of Congo’s infrastructure and reflects the failure of the State, which is unable to provide the minimum of public service. It takes over an hour to reach the center of town and I see no sign of coltan’s wealth. It is an old beat up city.

By the end of 2001, coltan overproduction and the subsequent decrease in demand drove prices down to their previous level. Adam Smith’s invisible hand did its job. A few international traders made a fortune and militia leaders stuffed their war chests and foreign bank accounts. Local miners, however, only had their dreams for trophy. Coltan perks had evaporated long before I arrived in town.

Bukavu mimics Congo’s problems. Like the country, South Kivu has unlimited potential, from its physical beauty to hydro-electrical capacity to human and natural resources. Yet, conflict, mismanagement and corruption prevent the region from benefiting from these riches.

“If you want to understand what has gone wrong in Congo,” says Thomas Nziratimana of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) and vice governor of South Kivu in charge of finance, economy and development, “You start with the way the country has been run so far. Despotic regimes cannot attract investors. They create tensions that do not make anyone feel safe to come and invest.”

Congo has had its share of dictatorships, war and civil unrest. From 1965 to 1997, the late Mobutu Sese Seko presided over a kleptocracy - a predatory regime that benefited a few members of the political elite, bankrupted the rich country and left its population in misery.

“In the past we have had a highly centralized system where everything went to Kinshasa, the capital, yet the provinces were very productive. This has continued today,” reflects Nziratimana. “Eighty-five percent of the income generated in South Kivu is sent to Kinshasa and nothing remains here, nothing.”

The kleptocratic culture did not end with Mobutu’s fall. In May 1997, Laurent-Désiré Kabila forced Mobutu into exile and became president.

A former pro-Lumumba guerilla fighter who had trained along side Che Guevara in the hills of eastern Congo in the 1960’s, Kabila launched his rebellion from South Kivu with the support of neighboring Rwanda and Uganda in 1996. Bukavu served as his rear base and suffered great damage in human and infrastructure terms during the fighting.

In the new Kabila regime power remained in the hands of a few cronies who amassed wealth for themselves à la Mobutu. A new millionaire class emerged overnight as Congo sank deeper into misery. In 1998, after Kabila fell out of grace with his backers in Uganda and Rwanda, these two countries invaded Congo in an attempt to overthrow him. A multinational war followed, with Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia intervening on Kabila’s side. Unable to unseat Kabila, Rwanda and Uganda chose to support a second rebellion in eastern Congo.

In 2001, following Laurent-Désiré’s assassination, his son Joseph assumed the presidency. The city did not recover from the suffering. Neither did the country.

The conflict partitioned the country. Supported by Uganda, Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo ruled over northern Congo, from east to west. Rwanda-backed RCD militiamen controlled eastern Congo for five years until a series of peace accords brought a transitional government in Kinshasa, which included leaders of various warring factions.

Rwandan occupation years also coincided with the coltan boom years. In fact, while neither Rwanda nor Uganda have gold, diamond or coltan deposits of significance, both countries have become important exporters of these minerals. A 2003 United Nations Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources accused both countries of prolonging the civil war so that they could illegally siphon off Congo's wealth with the help of Western corporations.

This second rebellion, which has claimed over 4.4 million lives, has made Congo’s conflict the deadliest in the world since World War II. Mineral exploitation was one of the driving forces behind the war and the proliferation of militias; some of these militiamen still operate in the region and control mining areas.

When I inquire of the people how to get to a coltan mine, I receive different versions of the same response. “It’s too dangerous out there,” they say. “There is too much insecurity. We advise you, ‘don’t go to the mines’.” For several days, I tried to arrange a trip to the mines and found nobody to take me.

My search eventually takes me to the city’s Ibanda neighborhood, to the backyard of a two-story house that someone converted into offices. Olive Depot is one of the largest coltan companies in town, but to my surprise, it is unimpressive.

Considering the publicity coltan has received recently in Western media, I expected a large processing center – an imposing edifice with complex machines and engineers barking orders to their foremen. Instead, I found the most rudimentary of processing systems, two dozen men working with their hands and playing with dirt like children. No one barked orders. They worked in silence, interrupted only by the sound of their own movements.

My attention turns to several men squatting down and playing with dirt – black dirt – in a medium-sized hangar. “That is coltan,” says my guide Alexis Mushaka, a metallurgical engineer.

“Are you joking?” I ask. That dirt in front of me could not be the highly-prized coltan, the bloody ore that fueled the conflict and the subject of several UN investigations. “No, I am serious,” Mushaka responds as he motions me to follow him to the hangar.

The men give us a quick look and return to their business. They are covered in dust, coltan. A couple of them sift through a large bowl of dirt and blow on the dust, which falls on their faces. It looks terrible. Most of them do not wear any mask. Neither do they wear any uniform. They also do not wear shoes, perhaps by choice. I do not ask. They work in silence and quietly listen to Mushaka explain the process to me.

“First, the négociant brings the coltan from the mine,” he says and points to a white sack of dark brown dirt on the floor. “He sells it here and then these fellows start the separation process.”

The process means the men in the hangar have to separate all impurities from the product itself. “Deep in that dirt is coltan or its sister products of cassiterite and wolframite,” Mushaka continues, “and they will have to find it.” The end product looks like crushed gravel.

He beckons me to the other side of the hangar where a man dressed in a tank top and shorts sits on the floor, working with two small piles of black dirt. “Look, he is holding a magnet in his hand,” Mushaka says. “He is separating iron from the rest. The bag of cassiterite comes with all kinds of other minerals. They need to get all of them out.”

When I ask the men what type of work contract they have, I learn that most of them have no contract. Every morning a large group of laborers lines up outside the compound’s gate and ask for work. Few are chosen and the rest are sent home. They make less than US$1 a day.

“If we did not have this job, we will have no work,” says one of them when I ask why they accept to work in these conditions.

The négociant’s situation is not much different. As the middleman, he is very much at the mercy of the depot. “They wait until their merchandise is processed before they are paid,” Mushaka explains when I ask how a négociant sells his load. “The tonnage they bring does not equate their pay. It shrinks quite a bit after the impurities are sorted out.”

The négociant who arrives while I visit the depot says most of the time he is in the red. When asked why he still deals coltan considering his losses, his response reflects what the average Congolese worker in any profession says. “If I did not do this, then what else?” he retorts. He makes US$1.59 per pound.

On the international market, coltan costs between US$8 and US$18 per pound. If anyone still makes any money with coltan, it’s the processing depot and the other dealers on the international market. The final product is exported via Kigali in Rwanda to the ports of Mombassa and Dar-es-Salaam where it is shipped overseas.

The coltan business underscores the failure of the State. Beyond a new mining code adopted by the transitional government, which imposes a high tax rate on businesses and investors, the government has not undertaken any serious initiative to formalize the coltan industry, as is the case with other resources such as copper, cobalt and zinc.

“There is an issue with taxes these days,” says Nzojusa Belembo, director at Olive. “During the RCD rebellion, there was an exportation monopoly through a local company called SOMINGL. Companies paid a fixed tax, regardless of the product price fluctuation. Everyone benefited.”

After a pause, Belembo continues. “It is simple. We have porous borders,” he says. “You can cross the river to Rwanda with coltan in your pocket. They offer better prices there. Our legislation encourages fraud.”

The visit at the Olive Depot did not prepare me for what I saw at the mines. Dug on the steep flank of a high mountain, Mushangi mines are located about 90 kilometers west of Bukavu. Driving as fast as we could on an arduous road, the trip took two hours.

The mines are 15 kilometers from the Nzibira area where several militias have operated, including the Interahamwe and the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda. The FARDC also has a post in the vicinity, which is not encouraging either. Insecurity required that we brought armed guards with us.

At Mushangi, a treacherous path leads to the mines where we find only a handful of adults. The mines are exploited by children of all ages, working in precarious conditions.

From sunrise to sunset, they toil in open pits with the most primitive tools and no protection from falling rocks and mudslides. They crawl through dark tunnels with no structural support.

In my travel across Congo, I have seen a great deal of suffering. Watching children crawl through those pits and tunnels tested my resolve. Ten-year old Bashizi tells me, “I do this hard work because my father is too old to support me.” He has been doing it for several months. “That is the only thing there is to do around here,” he says.

The children swarm around us, seeking attention and asking to be photographed. I snap several pictures as I speak with them and hear their stories. Through my lens, I see lost childhoods and broken dreams. Images from my own youth in a different Congo flash before my eyes when I push the button.

We ask 16-year old Baruti and his friends whether they understand where their coltan goes from Mushangi. “It goes to Bukavu,” they say. “Do you know coltan is highly prized in America and Europe? It is needed for computers, mobile phones and video games,” I follow. “No,” Baruti replies. Their world revolves around the open-pits where they spend seven days a week and make less than 20 cents a day.

One last question before we leave for Bukavu. It is three in the afternoon, and that is late to be out here. “Do you understand that the exploitation of coltan fuels the conflict in Congo?” I inquire. Baruti looks at me straight in the eye and answers, “If we knew that, we would no longer work here.”

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is an independent journalist and writer who traveled across Congo in the summer 2006 on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org/

Your Money or your life

Read Luke 12:13-21

A man is walking down a street in Woodstock when he is confronted by a mugger, “Your money or your life!” There is a long pause, nothing is said. Eventually the mugger says impatiently, “Well?” The man replies: “Don’t rush me, I’m thinking it over.”

Normally when Jesus addresses issues of economics (about every 7th verse on average in the Gospels) he highlights the social consequences of wealth. Greed is bad because it deprives most people in society of living an economically viable life. On this occasion Jesus speaks to the personal consequences of wealth. Consequently, we have the opportunity to examine the wealth trap at its source – deep within our hearts. Not only does wealth deprive the have-nots of meaningful life, it also deprives the haves – but for different reasons.

If you want to find water in some of the wilder spaces of southern Africa, the best method is to trick a baboon into betraying its secret water supply. First you arrange a container with a small hole in it attached in some way so that the container cannot be removed. In the container place some baboon-enticing delicacy. The hole must be big enough for the baboon to get its hand inside, but small enough so that once the baboon has gripped the delicacy in its fist, its fist will be too big to be extracted. Thus the baboon will be trapped as long as it holds on to the delicacy. One can then approach the baboon and feed it salt. As long as the baboon is not sufficiently frightened to let go of the delicacy in the trap, it will consume the salt and continue to clutch its prize. Eventually the baboon will be desperate with thirst and once freed will make straight for its water supply. Run fast, and you will have water…

Humans are closer to baboons than we like to think. While we would not be so easily trapped by the monkey trick, we none-the-less trap ourselves in innumerable ways by the things we refuse to let go of.

The accumulation of wealth is an addiction like any other. When someone asked of John D. Rockefeller, how much wealth does it take to satisfy a person, he replied, "Just a little bit more."

The usual Christian response is to encourage people to serve others, but this can be another form of addiction. As Bill Loader puts it:

“There is a deep human anxiety about being worthwhile which reaches to the heart of the self. Many products are designed to sedate that fear. It is nevertheless real. The Christian claim that true contentment comes only in service is probably spurious. It is simply not the case that people without Christ are all very unhappy and vice versa. It is also not the case that we are to make ourselves happy through service. That is secular justification by works and becomes a tyrant for us and those around us - and those whom we ‘serve’.”

To overcome the wealth trap, Loader suggests that, “Sometimes it has to be a kind of Christian defiance which says: only in life towards God, a life participating in God’s life is peace. That will be a peace that weeps, knows anguish, sometimes does not know and does not have answers, but keeps believing in the worth God wants us to have and wants us to give and live towards others.”

I was running recently with a young man considering his future. He was asking tough questions about his life and what he would do with his skills and resources. We were running on Devil’s peak, just below the blockhouse. We came to a point at which we could either go up to the blockhouse and enjoy the view across the Peninsula, or go down to the reserve and run with the zebra and wildebeest in the reserve. I turned to him and said, “So what will it be: significance (pointing to the blockhouse) or life (pointing to the zebra)?” On that day we chose significance, but we also chose life. It was an exhausting run!

Sometimes the choices we have are not so clear and often significance and life seem mutually exclusive.

We are often tempted to choose significance: what people (and we ourselves) expect of us, the dream we have of our own greatness or the hope that we can change the world. Seldom does significance bring life. Life on the other hand can seem mundane, boring or downright terrifying. To engage with our own fears, other people’s traumas, the ups and downs of life exacts a high cost. But life always brings significance – though seldom packaged the way we would have hoped for.

When the person in the crowd asked Jesus to settle the inheritance dispute with his brother, we should fully expect Jesus to do so. Firstly, as a Rabbi, this is what everyone reasonably expected him to do – to use the common law of his time and his own wisdom to settle what probably was not a terribly difficult case. Secondly, Luke portrays Jesus as a judge in other places in the story, so why not here?

Yet Jesus himself says, “Who made me a judge or arbiter of over you?”

Jesus refuses to judge even when a judgement is clear. Yet we judge one another and ourselves to the point of driving our souls to desperation. Would that we would learn to value ourselves as God values us, that we may let go of the falsehoods we have become addicted to and that drive our desperate accumulation of false security.

I want to stop being a monkey.

Thanks to Sarah, Bill and eSermons.

Family Values

Read Luke 9:57-62

If I were to ask how many people reading this blog come from “normal” families, I would not be surprised if very few said they did. I for one, have two dads and 5 moms. I would also not be surprised if, though all of us may express ambivalence about the health of our familial relationships, few of us would deny their importance in our lives.

So it is jarring to hear Jesus’ harsh words about family. “Let the dead bury the dead,” he says to the wannabe follower who first want to attend to his father’s funeral.

When his own family came to see him and he said, “My brothers and my mother are those who do the will of God.” he seems to have been irritated at their interruption of his ministry, almost as if he was telling them to get in the queue.

His most startling comment of course is this one: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Far from being the advocate of family values, Jesus is the very antithesis.

I am indebted to Sarah and S. Scott Bartchy for helping me understand Jesus words.

In first century Mediterranean cultures, patriarchy was the dominating paradigm. In fact, in Roman culture, fathers held the power of life and death over their children. While fathers seldom used it, it was none-the-less a right of a father to execute his child. Women and children were completely subservient to the father of the house.

Both sons and daughters were under their father’s control as long as their father lived. This included all one’s major life decisions, like work, marriage and so on. A father could even order his child to divorce his/her spouse.

This power of the fathers was central to Roman society and even the Emperor was called Father. Power was exercised through fathers. This patriarchal system was present in varying degrees and expressions throughout the Mediterranean.

Patriarchy is not just a system that oppresses women and in the ancient Roman world this was especially true. Domination was the means by which men advanced in society. They learnt to dominate in their homes and exercised the lessons learnt there in the broader society in which they operated. Men, while benefiting from the system, were also victims of it. Roman society, and most Mediterranean cultures of the time were highly stratified and hierarchical.

When the young man who wants to follow Jesus says he first needs to bury his father, he is not talking about an imminent funeral. Rather he is saying, first let me see to my duties as a son, for I will only be able to follow you when my father has died and I am no longer under his control.

Jesus words, therefore are not necessarily an attack on families as such, but rather an attack on patriarchy.

Read Mark 10:28-31

Notice that “fathers” are left out of the second list. Jesus’ ideal society will not have fathers. He calls us out of a society in which power is exercised unjustly through the system of patriarchy. The new society cannot therefore continue to have such a system.

Matthew 23:9 (NRSV): "Call no man father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven."

So, is Jesus anti-fathers? Surely not. He was a carpenter by the time he started his ministry and the only place he would have learnt this trade was from his own father as an apprentice. There must have at least some affection for his own dad. If Jesus had been anti-fathers, he would have had a hard time painting so convincing an image of God as Father if his own relationship with his father had been less than amicable.

In his prayer, the first two words describe the incredible intimacy he enjoyed with God, imagined as a paternal relationship: “Our Father…” (in Hebrew: “Daddy). But more than intimacy these words echo Jesus’ political attack on patriarchy. Our allegiance must be to one Father and no earthly system of domination exercised through fathers. Jesus opposed every form of injustice and was particularly careful about his relationships with women, such that he scandalized Jewish society.

What then is the appropriate relational attitude for Jesus followerstowards their own families?

Firstly, we recall that all people become our brothers and sisters by virtue of our common friendship and familial adoption into Jesus’ family. Every stranger is also family. And as much a family member as any blood relation.

Secondly, we are freed from duty in our relationships with family. We no longer have to relate to our family because society expects it of us. If our families are unhappy with the Jesus-choices we make, it is our allegiance to Jesus that comes first.

On the other hand, we are freed to love our family members. Jesus loves them and so we are called to love them. We are freed from duty, freed to genuinely love (rather than pretend). That means, that even those family members we do not get on with, we are called to love. We are called to love our enemies, even if they happen to be family members.

Far from giving us an excuse to dismiss our families as no longer important in the Kingdom, Jesus words remind us that our families become the place it is often the hardest to love as Jesus loves. For many of us, we would rather do the minimum, do our duty; do that which is expected of us. Jesus wants us to love generously, as much as he loves.

Family relationships surely must remain important in our discipleship, even if this importance is placed in a new, broader context of familial loyalty to all God's children.

God is more than two men and a bird

(I've yet to find an accurate, undisputed credit for the title of this blog entry - I think it was a Catholic)

A stranger once phoned and asked for an appointment to see me. She wanted to discuss a matter of some urgency. At the appointed time, she arrived and, after some small talk, she got down to business: “The Spirit has told me that you and I are to be married.”

I didn’t deal with that very well…

Unfortunately, passages like John 15:26 - 16:15 - the lectionary reading for this Sunday - lend themselves to this kind of interpretation. Read William Loader’s comments about this passage to learn a little of where John was coming from. William makes the point that verse 14 is already a fence around the apparently “carte blanche” spirit. Nothing inspired by the Spirit today should be inconsistent with what Jesus would have done.

So, instead of running away and leaving the hapless spirit-led woman in my office to the secretary, I should have taken her on a journey to discover Jesus’ principles on healthy relationship based on loving actions that take time and energy. Hopefully this would have seemed at odds with trying to start a marriage on a whim – even if it seemed to be God’s whim.

The question of how we deal with so-called spiritual messages from God raises the interesting Christian conundrum of the Trinity, the idea that Divinity is three people… um… but actually only one. God the Spirit offers to us that which belongs to Jesus (vs. 14) who in turn is speaking for God the Father…

This idea of the Trinity is not biblical, which is interesting when you consider that those who are often the strongest advocates of the idea are also those who espouse the supremacy of scripture… Scripture contains, at best, vague allusions to the idea. Really the idea belongs to church history as Christians struggled with worshipping Jesus and yet holding to the first and second Commandment to worship God alone. The debate was resolved (apparently) at the Council of Nicaea, which gave us the Nicaean Creed and the Doctrine of the Trinity.

As usual, Wikipedia is a good place to start for an overview of the subject of the Trinity. Suffice to say, the history of the Trinity has been nearly as bloody as the Crucifixion, which is to say, we’ve kinda lost the point, haven’t we?

Most people are content to leave the Trinity to academics in the mistaken belief that only theologians are qualified to think about such a complicated thing. This is mistaken mostly because academics, by their own admission (mostly), are often the worst theologians; anyone who engages with the idea of God and tries to insert God’s stuff into their daily lives is doing theology; such a person is a theologian.

The way we think about god affects the way we behave in the world. The Trinity offers us not a test for orthodoxy – “whose in and whose out” – but rather a spring-board from which to launch new adventures in spirituality and social transformation.

We need to begin with humility: "Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God!" said John Wesley

Whenever we attempt to understand something essentially incomprehensible, anything other than tentative pictures, is arrogant in the extreme. This is why it is so startling to see how the church has repeatedly divided over this idea throughout the centuries.

I want to share the one picture I have found most helpful in understanding the Trinity and use it to demonstrate how this idea can affect important transformation of my spirituality and the world in which I live.

Consider someone you know who might be sitting near you as you read this. Maybe it’s your mother or father, a sibling, a colleague. What else is that person to other people – husband, girlfriend, confidant, lover, playmate…? Every person is many things to different people.

My father does not cease to be somebody else’s wife just because he relates to me as father. I am at one and the same time a father, husband, brother, friend and a myriad of other things.

In the same way, God is many but one all the time. God is relationship and we who are created in God’s image are created for relationship.

Now an interesting consequence of this idea is that God is not limited by our imaginations. God can be mother as much as father, a sister as well as a brother, a teacher and a friend.

Perhaps your spirituality has become dry and lifeless and prayer has ceased to be meaningful. Is it possible your imagination has become stuck with a single picture of God, while the dynamic divine has moved on with the rest of your life? Perhaps it’s time to imagine God as mother, God as confidant, or even, dare I say… lover?

Our society doesn’t treat mothers fairly. Neither do our sisters, aunts, daughters or wives get much justice. How would relating to God as female change our own attitudes and indeed inspire us to change our society?

What does my discomfort with the idea of God as lover say about my sexuality? Do I really see my sexuality as something to be nurtured as a blessing from God? What is God’s sexuality? If God is both male and female, yet neither at the same time, who are we to exclude those whose gender is non-specific?

The Trinity has the potential to unlock whole new adventures in your journey with God. Perhaps it’s worth reading up about this rich tradition…

Pentecost

Wind is one of those brilliant metaphors for God that affords one hours of playful theological speculation.

I have always loved Table Mountain. As a teenager I particularly enjoyed climbing up to the Table face overlooking the city bowl when a strong, hot North-Easter was blowing. This is the wind that presages a cold front. If it approaches the face of the mountain at the right angle the city bowl funnels it directly up the face. The wind is therefore concentrated into a vertical blast. Standing a few metres away from the cliff edge there is no wind. As you approach the edge you can feel the wind being sucked off the top of the mountain by the vertical blast. You can lean out into the wind and be held up by it leaning our over the cliff. We would try to find a rock with the right shape and weight so that when it was lobbed over the cliff it would hover.

God’s power has always been clearly demonstrated in the awesome power of wind: that something so insubstantial as air can hold a rock.

I also think of God as having a sense of humour…

In the Cedarberg there is a starkly beautiful peak called Sneuberg which is cold year round, if not always iced over. At the base of the peak is a small, basic hut and nearby is a long drop (latrine). The door of the latrine faces away from the peak but there has for many years been a large gap in the panelling at the back. In the evenings a bitterly cold wind blows off the peak and down into the valley below so that when (generally after a little nightcap) you take your bedtime constitutional, carefully cocooned in winter down, all sleepiness is blown to smithereens and one soberly contemplates being alive, very alive. The constitutional may or may not happen…

Then there are those hot sticky February days in Cape Town when the tar becomes syrup and the cement is hot enough to cook on. One longs for the healing balm of the South Easter. When it comes, it starts as a slight lilt in the air, just enough to make one’s sweat begin to cool. When it gets up a good speed it blows all the pollution away, clearing the city and air.

Sometimes the street children exploit the strange way eddies form in the city around the tall buildings. When the strong Cape Doctor swirls across the cobbles of Green Market Square it provides enough propulsion to send the lighter kids skittering across the cobbles in card board boxes.

The story of Acts 2:1-29 often gets people talking about how weird it must have been to have tongues of fire dancing around the room and people speaking in languages they had never heard. This misses the point. Luke speaks metaphorically to communicate something more important than whether or not flames actually lit up people’s hairdos.

Pilgrims from all over the world - as it was then - came to Jerusalem expecting to meet God. No doubt some, if not many, were disillusioned by not finding God in the Temple. Certainly they were all surprised when they discovered God in ordinary people, especially this bunch of misfits: women speaking in public, peasants speaking like seers and these were the ones whose master was exterminated like a common criminal – yet here they are speaking to us as friends without fear.

Pentecost speaks to the desire for human unity just as the story of Babel does in the Hebrew Scriptures. The people of Babel had a common language and common purpose, yet they were ultimately scattered across the earth in confusion. Unity is not formed when people seek a common language or a common purpose. These are not ends in themselves but merely convenient instruments.

The people of Pentecost discovered something far more valuable. They shared their lives together, holding everything in common. They cared for one another making sure no one in their community struggled while others were privileged. We’re told, “awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (Acts 2:43-47).

Genuine unity is based on love, the kind of love the Pentecostal people discovered.

Jump!

Having a bad day? Click here.

Synod: Legalism and Grace

Last week the Cape of Good Hope District of my church, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, met in Synod for three days. This is a gathering of about 250 lay and clergy members from a region stretching from the Orange River to Cape Town and Knysna. It is one of 12 Districts of the MCSA, which has congregations throughout 6 countries in southern Africa.

At the beginning of every annual Synod there is a roll call, part of which comprises questions asked of all clergy in the District. Each minister must be able to say in good conscience that they believe and teach the church’s doctrine and observe and enforce the church’s discipline. Any member of Synod can raise an objection against a minister who they feel is not doing this.

19 clergy in our Synod registered qualified answers to the discipline questions. This qualification was based on the fact that many of us have blessed same-sex unions and intend to do so in the future. Recent pronouncements by various courts and members of the hierarchy have led us to believe that such blessings are in breach of the church’s discipline. We disagree. A statement to that effect was circulated to the Synod. There was some initial difficulty in terms of process as Bishop Andrew Hefkie, our District Bishop and chairperson of the Synod, appeared apprehensive. His opening comments about not fighting with each other – addressed to a gathering of ministers before Synod – made me feel like I was being told not to rock the boat. There was some confusion / debate about whether we should talk about it together as ministers before Synod but the decision was to keep it as part of Synod. In the end the questions passed without much fanfare, our qualifications were lodged and noted and I think it was good that the process remained dignified.

The only surprise was a resolution from Rev. Keith Vermeulen that those who had registered qualified answers should recuse themselves from the Synod. I thought this was an excellent idea as I hadn’t found a decent place to quietly watch the movies I’d prepared on my laptop for boring moments in Synod! Fortunately sanity prevailed and Bishop Andrew appointed a Pastoral Commission to meet with the individuals concerned to discuss a way forward.

That evening, after Synod had recessed, Bishop Andrew was interviewed by SABC. You can read the article on the web here. There was also something televised. It seems that this news got our Presiding Bishop - that is the highest office in the church in charge of all 12 Districts, what we call the “Connexion” – quite angry and the next morning Bishop Andrew was called out of Synod to a telephone call. When he returned he instructed the 19 ministers to leave the Synod.

It was a huge shock. Many of the 19 were active members of Synod due to facilitate processes or offer reports that day. The vice chairperson and secretary of Synod were also amongst our number. Synod was effectively crippled and limped on throughout the day. At least three groups of local church representatives walked out in solidarity with us, though most were convinced to return.

The Pastoral Commission met with us and through protracted negotiation, the decision was taken to register a formal dispute with the Presiding Bishop and our Connexional Executive and to seek mediation.

Bishop Andrew, who knew well before the time about our planned action, had sought advice from his fellow Bishops and had asked for a meeting of the Bishops to discuss it. He was left hanging. Though I thought he handled it well, allowing us our protest and setting up a process to deal with it, it seems he was instructed to act otherwise, telling us to leave – something he visibly felt uncomfortable with.

During the day, Bishop Andrew suspended Synod temporarily. While Synod was in recess he came to fetch us and brought us back in to the church sanctuary where all the Synod delegates were still sitting – now officially an informal gathering. We prayed together, holding hands in a big circle. It was very moving. People prayed for unity and courage. We then went to tea and after tea Synod was called to meet again.

Many of us were embraced by colleagues and friends who disagree with us theologically on the question of same-sex unions, but who, none-the-less, respect our freedom of conscience. The vast majority of the members of Synod would have opposed our theology but none-the-less disagreed with the way we had been handled. That day was very emotional and profoundly charged with grace.

After the Pastoral Commission informed Bishop Andrew of the agreement to seek mediation, he came to fetch us again. He led all 19 of us back into the now officially constituted Synod and reinstated us as members of Synod. As we filed in behind him we received a standing ovation. It was overwhelming. I don’t think any of us had a dry eye.

There was something of a backlash the following day however, when a motion was put to the Synod. This motion asked the Synod to allow for freedom of conscience with respect to the blessing of same-sex unions. We were also asking that this freedom of conscience give leave for those so inclined to become licensed by Home Affairs to conduct Civil Unions for same-sex couples. If this passed as a resolution, it would have gone on to Conference, our highest decision making body. The motion was defeated by a relatively close margin. I think it was 84 against and 65 for. When one compares this to motions defeated in previous Synods, one can see a definite shift over the years.

During the debate on this motion another motion was put to the Synod, which called for a referendum of MCSA members on the issue of same-sex unions. This was accepted by the Synod and now passes as a resolution to our Conference for decision there. Again, the margin of victory for this motion was narrow. Anyway, it is extremely unlikely that Conference will accept this resolution because there has never been a referendum on any issue in the history of the church primarily because it is not part of our practice to consult in this way.

So while the backlash was not unexpected, it was significant in its muted tone. I believe the church is slowly changing its mind on this issue and I think this Synod turned a corner last week.

Aluta Continua!

(You can read a follow up article in the Sunday Times here.)

Jesus meets a gay man

Love this. Click here.

Wash my feet every day, Lord

A teacher decided to start a band at her school and gathered together enthusiastic students. After much effort, investment and bonding, she succeeded in teaching a small group of eager learners how to play their various instruments and do so in unison. They decided to venture forth with a concert for the school and at an assembly the band gathered on the stage in front of the whole school, nervously fidgeting their instruments. As the teacher took the podium to conduct her pride and joy, she noticed their anxiety and leant forwards to whisper: “Remember, if you lose your place or feel too nervous, just pretend you are playing…” With that she raised her baton and silently mouthed, “One, two… three…” The first note sounded: silence.

The church is a bit like that. God calls and on the count of three, there is silence as we look to each other for a lead, for some hopeful sign of knowing what to do. The result is deafening silence.

This last week, the lectionary guided us to read the story of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet at the last supper. It’s a story we know so well it has lost some of its startling power. Jesus act was amazingly simple and powerfully meaningful – something only a fully alive person could have come up with. It shocked his disciples to the core, but, together with the breaking of bread and sharing of wine, went on to be a central symbolic theme in their lives and the lives of the church ever since.

Robert Herhold reminds us that this scene has been called the “sacrament that almost was”. Sadly it never made it even though it has all the ingredients one expects of such ecclesiological constructs. I am sure that this is because of its power. If you have ever participated in such a ceremony, it is far more disturbing than communion or baptism, especially if you are having your feet washed – no matter how much you’ve washed your feet before hand…

Robert imagines the theological battles that might have resulted if foot washing had become a sacrament: “It’s probably just as well that foot washing never became a sacrament. Church property committees would not take kindly to pans of dirty water on the new carpet in the chancel. If theologians had gone to work on the question, we would still be embroiled in endless debate as to whether the feet should be immersed or sprinkled. Liturgists would argue whether the right foot or the left foot should be immersed first. Others would speculate on the symbolism of baptizing heads or feet. It’s always easier to follow Jesus in our heads than it is to follow him with our feet on the Via Dolorosa.”

What is it about Jesus that made him so dynamic; so able to strike home such powerful messages in simple acts? And what a contrast to the apathy of the church! It is tempting to write-off Jesus’ abilities as Divine, especially if one belongs to those of a Trinitarian fundamentalistic bent. For me, Jesus was human and so I can’t but be amazed at his ability in contrast to my lack thereof.

I guess that most of the reason we struggle to act appropriately, effectively and authentically is because we lack the confidence to do so. As much as my self-esteem issues hold me back in so many of my pursuits, it is no different in church.

Surely Jesus has the same problem? We hallow his parents, but they were still human and must have left Jesus with a very human legacy of personal issues to wade through in adulthood. And the playground wounds we all have and live with? He must have had those too. And yet, every time he acts decisively, effectively, shockingly and transformingly.

Something in Jesus’ identity helped him overcome his self-esteem issues. As far as we can tell, his identity is crystallised in the story of his baptism. However we may regard the historical veracity of this story, the kernel of truth must surely be this: for Jesus, he knew in some deep way that he was beloved of God, that God was well pleased with him. I imagine that this was how he began each day of his life, building his identity on this single fact; allowing every act to flow from this singular reference point.

I think of the things I say to myself every day, especially the things I say at the beginning of the day, “Come on lazy-arse, if you don’t get going now, you’ll screw up again. Oh, and you forgot to brush your teeth silly! Do you really think you can handle this meeting today, if you can’t even remember where you left the keys?!”

And yet, I belong to the same baptism as Jesus. I belong to the same promise: I am beloved of God. God is well pleased with me.

What a profound arrogance: to believe that my opinions of myself are more important than God’s!

Jesus’ identity is framed by God. God is his beginning and end. He gets on with his life.

There is a beautiful theological word, “eschatology”, which is all about the study of the “end times”. As Christians we believe that time is linear. It had a beginning and will one day end. Jesus placed his identity firmly in the hands of this God who would bring history to a loving conclusion in God’s heart.

But eschatology should never be divorced from ethics – the struggle to determine what is right and wrong for today. Jesus moved from eschatological identity to engage every day with every day people, bringing his identity into conversation with a broken world.

Some time ago the Methodist Church of Southern Africa struggled with the question of legalising abortions. Our eschatology affirms the sanctity of all life, even unborn life and so the immediate response is always, the unborn are sacred and should not be killed. But as we bring this affirmation to bear on the streets we find that not only the unborn are at risk. Mothers, whose pregnancies cannot truly be called consensual or even desired, are threatened because of back-street abortions and the pressures of family and poverty. Our ethical struggle forced us to come down on the lesser of two evils: abortion is in some cases the best we can do in a terrible situation. We long for a world where such a desperate choice will not be necessary. Eschatology and ethics in conversation.

Such a conversation for me personally is only possible when I begin with my baptism: I am loved by God.

As Robert Herhold puts it: “An eschatology without ethics is futuristic and irrelevant. Ethics without an eschatology is desperate and futile. But joined together, they can produce the power to wash feet; to live fully today because God is in the present as well as in the tomorrow, and to work for the impossible because with God all things are finally possible.”

Gun Control - Australia

Many of you know that I am part of Gun Free South Africa. Here’s some news which explains a little about why I do this work:

Australian gun reform outcomes _ Geoff Harris

A December 2006 article in the international journal Injury Prevention examines the apparent effects of Australian gun law reforms, now ten years old. The study’s findings may be useful to those involved in the South African gun control debate.

Following the massacre of 35 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania in 1996, state and national governments initiated a programme to remove semi-automatic and pump actions guns from civilian possession. Some 650 000 such weapons were purchased from their owners at market prices, and was funded by a special levy on income tax. Perhaps another 50 000-60 000 non-prohibited guns were handed in without compensation. The main aim of the 1996-98 reforms, which included a much stricter licensing system for gun owners, was to reduce the incidence of ‘mass shootings’, which were defined as the gun killings of five or more people at one time.

The researchers were particularly interested in the effect of the reforms on mass shootings. They found that there were 13 mass shootings in the 18 years (1979-96) before the reforms and none in the following 10.5 years (1996-2006).

A second interest of the study was to examine firearm death rates per 100 000 people (made up of suicides and homicides) which had been declining during the 18 years prior to the legislation. The researchers investigated whether there were any changes following the reforms. One possibility was that the rates could increase as criminals took advantage of the fewer guns held by civilians for protective purposes. Another was that people would simply use another weapon in place of a gun. The study found that the rate of decline in firearm-related deaths (both homicides and suicides) at least doubled following the reforms.

Elementary statistical theory tells us to be cautious in attributing causality in cases like this. It could be that some other factors, apart from the reforms, have led to the non-occurrence of mass shootings and the accelerated decline in gun deaths following the reforms. It is, however, very difficult to think of such factors. The researchers comment that ‘the data swings shown are so obvious that if one were given the data … and were asked to guess the date of a major firearm intervention, it would be clear that it happened between 1996 and 1998.’

There will be plenty of scope to debate the relevance of these findings to South Africa but two concluding points can be made. The researchers report a massive change in Australian attitudes towards guns following the 1996 massacre and reforms. Such a change is yet to happen in South Africa and the government therefore needs to continue to push the public in socially-desirable directions. South African gun owners have no reason to feel particularly victimized in this respect. This is precisely the job of government which it carries out in areas ranging from environmental protection, the use of seat belts in vehicles and the practice of safe sex.

The government does need to be aware of the fear which motivates many South Africans to own guns. It is an enormous challenge to government to genuinely allay these fears, in which case the perceived need to own guns will
be reduced.

Geoff Harris, an Australian, has been Professor of Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal since 1999.

Iron John ride to Sedgefield

Click here to see photos of our recent trip to Sedgefield.

Dead Man Walking

I wonder what it is about Easter that changed Peter? He goes from being too terrified to leave a room he’s been holed up in for three days, to being able to declare before thousands that he is one of Jesus’ disciples, aware that such a declaration could bring instant death.

If I had heard that the South African authorities had executed some criminal for treason and then three days later he rose to life again, I would have dismissed such a story as the kind of rubbish you read in “The Voice” or “You” magazine.

If I happened to be friends with the dead-man-still-walking and he appeared in my room one night and said “Peace, brother,” I’d run for my life, or have myself checked into Falkenberg Psychiatric Maximum Security.

Peter, however, worships Jesus, or more precisely, Jesus’ ghost… Not the reaction of a sane man.

I don’t believe that the Resurrection appearance of Jesus changed Peter. Something else must have changed him from coward to Rock.

The only thing I can think of is that the story of the women must have changed him. Not actually the story itself, but because of who was telling him - and everyone else: women - forbidden to speak in public - were spreading the story, in the face of real personal danger – danger for speaking, let alone danger for representing a political traitor.

Suddenly, Peter has a dawning realization that Jesus isn’t just another itinerant prophet like Isaiah, or even the Messiah, whom he’d pinned his hopes on. Jesus was more than that. Peter begins to realize that when Jesus welcomed the children despite the disciples’ discomfort, he wasn’t merely displaying a particular affection, but rather communicating something fundamental about his Kingdom. Peter sees that the strange company Jesus kept wasn’t an aberration of his character, but something core to the character of Jesus’ God. Peter sees that the world has been inexorably set on a path to change, beginning with these women's freedom.

Suddenly Peter’s vista on the world opens up and he sees things very differently. Jesus is dead. And so is Peter. And he couldn’t be happier!

Jesus the itinerant prophet is dead, Jesus the messiah is dead. Peter the fearful fisherman is dead. The real Jesus belongs to a Kingdom no death can defeat and has invited Peter to be part of that Kingdom.

There is none so brave as those who know they are dead already. Peter marches out and preaches under the “Wanted: Dead or Alive!” posters. The face of Peter the fisherman on the poster resembles that of Peter the Preacher pointing to the poster, but they are different men.

Peter is dead. The Romans can kill him, the Sanhedrin can put him in jail, but it will mean nothing, Peter is dead already. The real Peter cannot die for he belongs to a dream of human freedom that no darkness can ever put out.

No wonder Jesus says to the disciples in the upper room: “Peace be with you.”

I long to know the peace of a dead man. To confront every knife and gun on the streets of Woodstock, knowing that it can only injure my body, destroy my flesh, but that I am dead already and my dream of a free world will never die.

But if I am dead already, why do I need life insurance?

...

Forgive me Lord, for I am frail and afraid. Visit me with Easter courage.